Kevin
Donovan
Local Legend series
Car #: 82
Car: 2013 Scion FR-S
Class: DST
SCCA Member Since: 2013
Recognition: 2025 Al Holbert Memorial Winner
What class do you compete in, and why?
DST - Street touring seems to be the sweet spot of cost, drivability on the street, and modifications that make the car really fun for autocross. DST (or STX when I joined it) seems to have great competition both locally and nationally, and it's not only fun to compete against other drivers, but having fast people around will usually make you get faster too (or rage quit)
What got you into motorsports? Any experience before autocross?
I bought a Miata! I had spent a year restoring an old British motorcycle to find I didn't have the same passion for riding them as I did for cars. So I sold the motorcycle (which made my wife very happy) and decided I wanted to buy a Miata and see why people loved them so much. So I purchased a 1999 Miata (which my wife called a chick car and made fun of me for) and remembered always seeing cars with numbers on them driving down street road in Warminster and decided I should find out what they're up to! I had never done any organized motorsport before, watched some videos online, signed up for a Philly event at Wells Fargo center and told myself "I'll just try one event!" and haven't stopped going since!
Tell us about your car.
I was volunteering at one of our novices schools and at lunch break some instructors started taking fun runs and someone offered their FR-S for me to try out. I believe it was in street class, but I really thought the car was a great platform. For years after that watched people competing in them, great classes, great results, always kept them in mind. I saw one of them locally parked on a street covered in dust with rusty brakes and kept driving by and noticed it never moved. Found it was listed for sale with a spun rod bearing so picked it up as a project to rebuild the motor and build for street touring. I did all the work on the car myself with a ton of guidance from local rake wizard Ken Houseal. My favorite mod has to be the Karcepts sway bar. So well made, SO EASY to adjust.
Best moment on track?
My light bulb moment was co-driving the STS CRX with Eric Simmons after I had just purchased it from him. Now I had videos of him and I driving the same car on the same course and I spent hours watching them frame by frame to figure out why he was faster than me and realized he had the car rotating around the cones while I just kinda drove up to them and tried to turn. As far as accomplishment, I feel like this season overall is my biggest. I think I've come a long way from the start of the season, and had the most consistent season so far since I've been doing this.
Congratulations on winning the Holbert Memorial! What was your strategy going into each day?
Big milestone for me. Cemented the feeling of improvement and consistency this year. Not only to look at the names on that trophy and see the other great drivers I'll be on there with, but to think of some of the amazing talent who ISN'T on there that I just assumed would be. Day one I didn't even think about the Holbert, just drove and ended up in second 1.5 tenths behind Aaron Shoe. Day two I tried to stay calm and have the same approach, which went right out the window with a terrible first run. The trend of hitting cones continued for the first three runs and I had to try and settle myself and then realized, I'm so busy trying to be 1.5 tenths faster than Aaron, but he's having a worse day than me! My DST classmate Jon Caserta was leading the Holbert, but I had a 4 tenths advantage from day one vs Jon. Math isn't my strong suit, but I figured out the time I'd need to run to beat Jon and just told myself, drive slower and don't hit anything! I'm not very good at sandbagging and almost blew it, but drove clean without being TOO slow to secure the Holbert. then of course all the pressure was off, so I was able to go out and do a fast clean run right after.
Why Philly SCCA?
I think we sometimes forget how spoiled we are, not only in the Philly region but the whole area with NNJR, NEPA, & DC and the amount of talent not only behind the wheel, but with course designers as well! We're all feeding off each other and pushing each other to be better drivers, event organizers, course designers, and once in a while even better human beings! Biggest shout out to our fearless leader Matt Meyer, he's probably doing 80 jobs that no one wants to do!
Advice for newcomers?
Be open to trying things! If it's your course walk, your strategy for attacking a course, car setup, whatever, try different things. Everyone learns in different ways, don't be so stuck in one place that you can't find a better way. Oh and turn the motion smoothing off on your cameras!!!