Evergreen Speedway has been holding races since 1954. In those six
decades, families have passed down a love of racing at NASCAR’s only
sanctioned track in Washington from generation to generation.
Tyler Tanner knows all about that.
Tanner’s maternal grandfather raced at the Monroe, Washington, facility, a 0.375 and 0.646-mile semi-banked oval asphalt track located in the Evergreen State Fairgrounds, as did his mom and her brothers. Tanner’s dad also raced there.
“They met there at that track and I’ve been going there my entire life,” Tanner said.
Tanner’s mom had already stopped racing by the time he was born, but his dad continued at Evergreen until Tanner was about 6.
Tanner began racing himself around that time, while also giving basketball, baseball and soccer a try. None of those other sports stuck like racing, however.
“I wasn’t very good at other sports. Whatever else I played, I just wasn’t very good at any of them,” he said. “Obviously being that my parents both raced it was introduced to me when I was pretty little, and I just didn’t enjoy much else as much as I did racing.”
Tyler Tanner Motorsports | Facebook | Twitter
The focus turned to solely racing for Tanner when he was about 8. He traveled across the country racing quarter-midgets before eventually turning to Late Models. Tanner also ran in 14 races in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series from 2011-2015.
Just about everything he knows about the sport Tanner said he learned
from his family. Being a third-generation driver, he said having that
background has helped him progress in the sport and build relationships
with others in it.
His parents owned a company that manufactured parts for the racing industry. From the cars to maneuvering on the track to the business side, all aspects of racing are in his family’s blood.
“I think most of everything I’ve learned has been from being surrounded by it my entire life,” he said. “Not just the racing aspect of it, but preparation in the shop and all that type of stuff… when I came home from school I was around the business side of racing and going to races every weekend. I always worked on my own equipment. So just all aspects of it.”
This year will be Tanner’s sixth season at Evergreen, where he’s the defending Super Late Model champion. Part of what brought him back to his family’s track was the improvements made by Doug and Traci Hobbs, who took over the lease at Evergreen in 2011. Prior to the Hobbs, Tanner said the racetrack wasn’t high on his list of places to compete, but ever since the change in leadership it’s become a completely different track.
“Around the same time we started racing there Doug and Traci Hobbs took over the lease and completely turned the place around,” he said. “And they got a bunch of big events going there and built the series back up and everything, so that’s when we started going and racing there again.”
Evergreen Speedway | Facebook | Twitter
Tanner has a full-time job outside of racing, but he has made it a priority to make all the races at Evergreen this season.
“Just seeing the growth again. Since they took it over it continued to grow: the competition, the fan base and everything about Evergreen Speedway. It’s nice,” he said. “It’s been fun to be involved in it and be a part of it. Being a racer you don’t want to go to a race where there’s no competition or no fan base or anything like that. You want to race the best people you can, and I think that’s what draws so many of us to Evergreen.”
Evergreen Speedway will open it’s season on Saturday with Super Late Models, street stocks, mini stocks, hornets, stingers and V8 extremes. Heat races begin at 4:20 p.m.
Evergreen Speedway schedule
It looks to be another tough summer at Evergreen, which is exactly
what Tanner is hoping for. If his family hadn’t been the ones to help
him fall in love with racing, the competition would have.
“I don’t know what it was about it that drew me to (racing) more than anything else. I just liked being able to go to different racetracks all the time. It was a challenge,” he said. “The higher you progress it just continually becomes more and more of a challenge. I’ve always enjoyed that about it.”
Read more Short Track Scene:
