How Kelly Collins got his big break while waiting for a hot dog

Longtime GM factory driver Kelly Collins tells Paul Tracy the wild story about how he went from a kid on a motocross bike to off-road to racing school instructor to the podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Collins' unlikely journey to the top of racing featured brushes with Juan Pablo Montoya and Bryan Herta, but maybe not the way you’re imagining...

Collins would go on to spend four seasons driving to numerous race wins for Corvette and a famous runner-up finish with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jr. as co-drivers in the GTS class at the 2000 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

“Well, I started out in off-road racing, in southern Nevada,” he explains. “My dad got me a dirt bike. And I was showing it off to a friend in my garage one time and started it up, and it took off across the, the room and slammed into the garage door, and my mom took it away. 

“My first experience with racing was what they called enduro and desert and, and hare and hound racing, where you race across the desert, and some of the enduro stuff is timed events where you have to make it You can't get there too quickly, you can't get there too late, and you make points and you get score for that. So, it's kind of like rally racing or stages. Then I got into motocross and my dad and I built an off-road car and went racing with that. We did OK, but the the equipment that we were racing against was far superior. 

“And then Drino Miller, the first guy to win the Baja 1000 solo, told me, ‘If you want to become a race car driver, you can't do anything in this off-road stuff. You gotta go to a racing school, and if they tell you you're good, then you gotta get sponsorship and proceed from there.’

“So, Skip Barber was coming to the West Coast and they were looking to try out instructors, and I said, ‘I wanna try out.’ And so down in San Diego Stadium, I tried out in BMWs and was driving sideways and all that kind of stuff. And at the same time I was trying to race cars, like every instructor does at Skip Barber. But long story short, I was with Skip Barber for roughly 15 years. I was a lead instructor for 11. I was a test driver for their racing school, or their race series for 11 years. 

“So, I was in race cars more than anybody – you know, the same cars, but belts, you know, anywhere from 30 to 40 cars a day, clicking off laps, making adjustments, learning the craft of setting up a car, what's too fast, handling, all that kind of stuff."

"Bryan Herta was a student of mine. Juan Pablo Montoya was a student of mine at, at Sears Point – I wasn't the lead instructor then but it was a guy named Vic Elford, a very famous race car driver, and he said at the end of that school, 'This guy is the best I've ever seen behind a wheel."

So, I'm still working at Skip and I'm starting to make some money driving race cars, and a friend of mine wants to go racing. So I'm racing a BMW, now I'm in the fastest class cars when I'm at Daytona, and we raced on the Friday, and I changed my flight to watch the beginning of the 24-hour 'cause I'd never seen it. And I'm 2 people away from a hot dog and a beer in the beer line. My race gear's in my car in the infield. And Jay Cochran comes up to me and he goes, "Hey, can you take my ride in this POC Porsche because I'm gonna go drive the Oldsmobile at Pratt & Miller?" And I'm like, 'What?' The race has already started and I was just gonna grab a beer and go to the airport. But I go, 'Sure, but I don't even have a license.' And he goes up to (IMSA President) Mark Raffoff who says, 'Yep, we know Kel.' And, uh, next thing I know I, I've never even driven a Porsche in my life, a street car or nothing. And I'm, I'm all sitting on the high banks doing 170, 180 in this Porsche with no power steering. And I was turning really fast lap times and I ended up doing 11 hours of the whole race!"