Ukrainian Rally Championship Pushkar was born in
Kishineu,
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic – in present-day
Moldova – and began competing at the beginning of 2009 with his childhood friend
Ivan Mishyn as a co-driver. Their first car was the all-wheel-drive two-liter turbo
Subaru Impreza earlier belonging to
Igor Chapovskyi. During that year Pushkar started 11 times in different rallying competitions – and only not finishing once, at the Bukovina rally, due to technical problems. Pushkar changed car to a
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX and employed Ukrainian rally champion
Oleksandr Saliuk, Jr. as a coach. In May 2010, Pushkar won his first race, the
Shapovalov Rally Cup, and finished inside the top ten fastest Ukrainian drivers at the end of the season. During the two next seasons, Pushkar was among the leaders of the Ukrainian rally championship, finishing the several rallies on the podium. In 2011, he reached the top five of the Ukrainian Rally Championship overall standings for the first time, and became the first and only winner of the Cup of Friendship, organized by the
Ukrainian, Russian and
Belarusian Automobile Federations. The 2013 season was the most successful for Pushkar, now involved in the Ukrainian rally title battle. Winning the
Chumatskyi Shlyakh rally and placing third in the
Mariupol rally made him one of the season favorites. An accident during the
Galicia rally weakened his standings. The overall title was decided at the
Ivano-Frankivsk Trembita rally, but although Pushkar won that race, he did not take the title, coming second to his fellow
Odessa Rally Team driver
Youriy Kochmar.
Intercontinental Rally Challenge After 2010, Pushkar increased his number of international starts. He participated in the Latvian and Estonian championships, and in 2012 he took part in the
Intercontinental Rally Challenge. He won his first international race, the Romanian
Rally Sibiu and finished the season in sixth place in IRC Production. He began to work closely with the Lithuanian ProRacing Team.
European Rally Championship In 2013 Vitaliy Pushkar participated in European Rally Championship for the first time, which had been amalgamated with the IRC in late 2012. He placed fifth in the Production Cup at the
2013 Rally Liepāja-Ventspils; but, after the several accidents and technical retirements he stopped the participating in ERC that year. He returned to the ERC in
2014. He started the season with an accident at the
Jänner Rally, but finished second at the
Rally Liepāja–Ventspils and won the
Acropolis Rally. At the end of the season, Pushkar safely finished at the Rallye du Valais and
Tour de Corse, and after scoring 167 points became the European Rally Champion among the Production Car drivers. == International results ==