More-Experienced Strauss Eager For CARS Tour Debut

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Nineteen-year-old Donovan Strauss has undergone a lot of growth, both personally and professionally, over the span of the past eight months.

Fresh off a birthday, as well as a recent sponsor addition in Liberty in a Can, Strauss will put himself to the test during the Aug. 30 zMAX CARS Late Model Stock Tour event at his now-home track, Florence (S.C.) Motor Speedway.

The Cook Out 225 at the three-eighths-mile paved oval will mark Strauss’ CARS Tour debut, the next step in his progression from #SimToReality as he transitions from solely competing in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series toward a potential climb into the NASCAR national series ladder system.

After growing up in Marietta, Ga., Strauss moved to Mooresville, N.C. – known as Race City U.S.A. – ahead of this season in pursuit of his goal of becoming a professional motorsports driver.

Now armed with nearly a full year of late model stock car experience, Strauss hopes a big-picture mindset – realizing what the end goal is – will lead him to long-term success and knows his touring series debut is the first major step down that path.

“The whole season, I’ve tried to focus on one race, one moment at a time,” Strauss told Motorsports Hotspot in an exclusive interview. “My career to this point, from Bandoleros to Legend cars and now late models, I feel like has been about making sure I learn what I need to learn at each level and don’t rush myself too quickly from one spot to the next.

“Kendall [Sellers, Strauss’ late model team owner] and I talked about that at the very beginning, that he wanted me to learn how to be successful before we made any big moves, so I didn’t get in over my head,” he added. “We feel like now is the right time to take this next step and challenge me with the level of competition that a deep field like the CARS Tour provides, and I’m eager to see what I can do against some of the best in the country.”

Strauss has raced at Florence all season long, pursuing the track championship and ranking third in points through 14 races. He’s earned 11 top-five and 13 top-10 finishes, with his lone result outside the top 10 being a 21st-place finish in his very first race of the season – Florence’s February Icebreaker.

That’s led to an average finish of 4.9 and more than 800 laps turned entering his first CARS Tour appearance, a modicum of experience Strauss believes will allow him to compete at a high level despite the event featuring the stiffest field he’s raced against to date.

“I feel like having the amount of experience I’ve had [at Florence] this year is going to pay off a ton,” he noted. “You’ll [likely] have Matt Cox there, and I think Cody Kelley’s going to be there, but that’s about it besides us as far as local drivers. So, I think that the laps I have will be pretty vital because I already know the exact feel that I’m looking for out of the car compared to the guys who don’t race there every week.

“It’ll be a little different with the new ST-2 [compound] tire, because we haven’t been on that weekly, but I still know what I need from the car and hope that can carry me throughout that weekend.”

Also carrying Strauss into the CARS Tour’s lone stop at Florence this season is a wave of momentum, considering he picked up his first late model stock car victory during the track’s most recent Twin-40 program on Aug. 17.

Strauss drove from seventh to the victory in the second leg of the doubleheader, taking the lead with nine laps left after passing longtime stock-car veteran Ryan Glenski.

It was a moment that Strauss had been eagerly awaiting, after feeling he’d had cars capable of visiting victory lane several times throughout the summer.

“We qualified on the pole for the first twin – which was actually my first pole of the year – but I got out-experienced by Matt [Cox] on the start and felt like I gave that one away a bit,” Strauss recalled. “We finished third and ended up starting seventh for the second race with the way the invert worked out.

“If you’d asked me before the race if that was the one I was going to win, I’d have said there was no chance, especially because of how gutted I was at losing the first one. Got from seventh to fifth on the initial green, and then Doug [Barnes Jr.] spun out in front of me underneath third … and all of a sudden I’m lining up fourth for a restart with 20 to go,” he continued. “At that point I started to feel like, ‘OK, maybe we actually have a shot at this thing.

“But to get past [AK Performance teammate] Casey Kelley after he spun his tires and be going for the lead into [turn] one just like that, then it was all right in front of me, and I just dug deep and got after it.”

Given how many bumps in the road and close calls Strauss had endured throughout the summer months, he tipped that finally securing a trophy was that much more rewarding.

“The amount of work we’ve put in this whole year and to do it from seventh, you have to pass a good amount of people to do that, and I felt like it shows the race craft I’ve been trying so hard to learn,” he explained. “It’s been such a long grind of a year, this late model stock car stuff, but you just have to keep believing even when you don’t think anybody else believes in you. And as long as you can believe in yourself, then really nothing [negative] matters.

“A lot of people went into this year, I feel like, and questioned what I was going to do and questioned my abilities, and I’ve seen the noise and heard the noise, believe me. As a driver, you just have to shut that out and believe in yourself. And here we are now.”

The timing of Strauss’ victory and the boost it provides his team is “massive,” he noted, and the teenager feels it only helps his chances at “surprising people” even with his lack of experience at a touring level.

“The win couldn’t have come at a better moment. You want to ride that momentum going into a big race like the CARS Tour. But [succeeding during the weekend] is just going to be about executing the little details, and that’s all we’ve worked on all year,” said Strauss. “When we put everything together, I don’t feel like many people can beat us [at Florence], and that starts with me.

“I feel like if we do what we’re capable of all weekend long that there’s no reason why we can’t contend in that race, especially if we qualify toward the front.”

Strauss tipped that he doesn’t have any more CARS Tour starts planned this season, at least at the moment, but that a strong performance at Florence could open that door before the end of the year.

His goal, which would mark a continuation in his overall progression, is a full CARS Tour season next year – though neither he nor AK Performance are ready to commit to that until Strauss feels ready to do so.

At this moment, he’s going back to his season-long mindset – one race at a time – and preparing himself for the spotlight to truly hit for the first time.

“I feel like it’s not being talked about enough, how strong and how consistent of a season we’re having, but this is when it comes into focus and people start taking notice,” Strauss said. “When you’re a local trying to defend home turf, it draws some attention, but we’re going to try and block that out and just focus on what we can control.

“If we do that, I think this team is capable of accomplishing some great things, I really do.”

Coverage of the zMAX CARS Tour Cook Out 225 at Florence (S.C.) Motor Speedway is slated for Friday night, Aug. 30, streaming live on FloRacing.

About Donovan Strauss

Though Donovan Strauss has only been racing competitively in real life for the past four years, he honed his skills on iRacing as a youngster in Marietta, Ga., building his notebook in hopes of pursuing his dreams of racing professionally in NASCAR.

Strauss finished second in INEX Bandolero national points during his rookie season, then spent three years in Legend cars dominating the Georgia circuit and surrounding areas. He earned multiple track championships during that span, including titles at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway, Lanier Raceway in Braselton, Ga., and Cordele (Ga.) Motor Speedway, as well as the 2023 INEX Pro National Championship.

Along with his real-life racing duties, Strauss also competes at the highest level of simulated motorsports, as a third-year driver in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series – the only online racing division officially sanctioned by NASCAR [the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing].

Strauss earned his first Coca-Cola Series victory in October of 2023 at the virtual Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway and is seeking his first playoff appearance this season, driving for Williams eSports, the gaming arm of famed Formula One team Williams Ltd.

Off the track, Strauss stays active with a consistent training regimen, a love of music, and his fandom of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, the city from which he is originally from.

For more information on Donovan Strauss, as well as partnership inquiries, visit his website at https://www.donovanstraussracing.com/ or send an email to [email protected].

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