Billy Hoskinson\u2019s parents brought him home from the hospital as a baby in a \u201970 Nova, and he\u2019s been infatuated with fast cars ever since. From filming \u2013 and competing in \u2013 central Ohio\u2019s most notorious street races to promoting his own races at the track and making a name for himself as a driver in the no-prep world, Hoskinson, 28, has turned a childhood fascination into something much more than he could\u2019ve imagined.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #197, the 30 Under 30 Issue, in November\/December 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n Hoskinson\u2019s earliest memories of racing include riding around Pacemakers Dragway Park in Mount Vernon, Ohio, with his mother, listening to hear his father\u2019s name announced over the PA system every time he won a round. Billy started driving a Jr. Dragster when he was nine, which prepared him to step into the same car he grew up watching his father race. He had some success in the local bracket racing scene with it, but\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0and street racing in general started pulling Hoskinson in a different direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hoskinson launched a YouTube channel where he\u2019d post coverage from big street races in the Columbus area. Inspired by 1320Video\u2019s coverage of street racing further West, Hoskinson felt he could shine a light on his local scene. \u201cIt was never really supposed to be about me,\u201d Hoskinson says. \u201cThen I started running out of content because things slowed down in the winter, so I started filming myself working on my projects in the shop. It kind of took off from there.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Hoskinson\u2019s projects was the \u201988 Chevy S10 he built with his dad, who bought it for Billy when he was 15. He drove it to high school before they put nitrous on it. Hoskinson and the S10 became notorious around town, and he got a call one cold November evening with a callout from\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0star \u201cDaddy Dave\u201d Comstock, who was racing in Dayton. Hoskinson loaded his truck in the freezing rain and headed South to face Comstock. \u201cHe beat me by a couple car lengths, but it was just really influential because I was just out of high school at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n The video of that race was one of the first to appear on Hoskinson\u2019s YouTube channel, Street Racing Channel, which now boasts nearly 400,000 subscribers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Between the channel and his success in street races, Hoskinson\u2019s notoriety began to stretch beyond the street racing community. He was firmly on local law enforcement\u2019s radar, and when the law finally caught up to him, the judge offered to reduce his charges if he would start promoting races at the track in an attempt to get racers off the street. Hoskinson took the deal and started putting on a series of races at three different tracks in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n Event promotion eventually became too time-consuming and Hoskinson switched his attention back to his own racing program, focusing on no-prep races and backside races \u2013 anywhere with little traction and big money. His proudest accomplishment in that style of racing came recently when Street Car Takeover held a race on pit lane at Nashville Superspeedway. With $30,000 on the line, Hoskinson defeated heavy hitter Ryan Mitchell in the final round, which went viral online.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to beat him for 10 years,\u201d Hoskinson says. \u201cHe\u2019s beat me probably six times now consecutively, and I\u2019ve been racing him since I was 20 years old. That was a huge accomplishment for me. And then I went through the finish line with all four wheels off the ground. It was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoskinson is also raising a future racer of his own, as his two-year-old son, Wyatt, loves cars and runs around the house making engine noises while he plays with his Hot Wheel cars. Hoskinson is already looking forward to the day he brings home a Jr. Dragster for his little boy, but until then, he\u2019s going to keep chasing win lights himself while continuing to make an impact on his corner of the drag racing world.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would really like to take the channel to the next level, and I\u2019d like to start hosting events again at some point,\u201d says Hoskinson, who thanked his parents and younger brother Tommy, as well as his friends and supporters. \u201cI would like to do one or two events a year, just make them really big and try to give back to the community that helped me get where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n The post DI 30 Under 30 2025: Billy Hoskinson<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Billy Hoskinson\u2019s parents brought him home from the hospital as a baby in a \u201970 Nova, and he\u2019s been infatuated with fast cars ever since. From filming \u2013 and competing in \u2013 central Ohio\u2019s most notorious street races to promoting his own races at the track and making a name for himself as a driver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}