Bob Kaminsky:
Bob began his racing career in typical fashion, wanting to emulate Speed Racer after growing up watching the show for years as a kid. So in 1987, he drove in his first racing school with the Sports Car Club of America at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Amidst his full time job, running a heating and air conditioning business in the Southside of Chicago. After quickly proving he no longer needed to attend racing schools, he was granted his full competition license and took up competing in the Spec Racer Renault Series. Slow, 4 speed, boxy cars that had fields up to 40 cars in every race, he learned his craft. He spent 4 years doing as many races as his heating and air business would allow, setting himself up to make the jump to Formula Mazda. Formula Mazda racecars were the real deal. Open wheeled, downforce with front and rear wings, 5 speed dog ring gear box, big slick tires, it was a real racecar. At the time anyway. In order to fund this endeavor he would start his own team, Kaminsky Racing. Over his career he would run and operate 4 cars, all while getting married, starting a family, and taking care of his day job, the Heating and Air business. However, none of these would hold him back from amassing 42 national wins and a championship in 1997, earning himself an Indy Lights test.
After an incredible showing, being the fastest at the test, Bob would try to raise the sufficient funding to run in the Indy 500, but would fall short. In 2004, Bob made the first downpayment on the new Star Mazda Pro car to dabble once again with professional racing. Running a couple of races per year he would ultimately step away from “full time” racing in 2007. It wasn’t until 2009 that he decided to hop back into a racecar. He would do so at the Autobahn Grand Prix in the newly rebranded Pro Mazda category. Out of a field of 23 Bob would finish 13th in his comeback, with no prior practice to the race weekend, going up against world class talent. He would run the same event at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, IL the following year in 2010 and better his finishing position to 11th. After being told by the race team to let his teammate by who was fighting for the season long championship. Once again doing so with no prior practice and being out of the racecar since the 2009 event.
After that his racing would take another hiatus until he decided to jump back into the Pro Mazda category in 2015 when the series visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He would compete in one more event at the Mid Ohio Sports Car course that year. He would race in that series on and off for the next 3 seasons, stopping at the conclusion of the 2017 season, when Pro Mazda was discontinuing the racecar that Bob had bought back in 2004. He would make his last dash in the professional ranks in 2020, racing alongside Colin in the Indy Pro 2000 series, the rebranded Pro Mazda series with the new racecar. His only claim to fame in this comeback attempt was that Colin was forced to pass him for position once, when Colin spun off in the rain earlier in the race. Besides this Bob continues to race at the amateur level in Spec Racer Fords. Right where it all began for him in the SCCA.
Colin Kaminsky:
Colin’s racing career began in a unique fashion compared to that of his competitors. Growing up playing baseball, football, hockey, and everything in between, Colin never participated in the traditional go kart racing series’ that most young aspiring racecar drivers do. In fact, it was never an idea for Colin to take up racing like his father at all. But one day when Colin was 15 years old, Bob had the idea to take a couple of his old Formula Mazda race cars out to the local track for Colin to try out. For fun. The fun quickly turned into something serious as Colin started to develop a real talent for driving. Of course not before he completed his first lap ever that day staying in 1st gear the entire time, unwilling to upshift because he didn’t know how.
From there the family decided to put Colin into one of the best proven training grounds for aspiring racecar drivers who have no go karting experience, Spec Racer Fords in the SCCA. 2015 would mark the beginning of Colins racing career, and it would start out at the most competitive race of the entire year at the June Sprints at Road America in Wisconsin. Qualified 15th out of 50 cars at 16 years old, Colin would make it two corners before getting caught up in a 12 car melee, ending his first competitive race before it even truly started. The bad luck would end there though, and Colin would compete in the rest of the season, earning top 5’s as he went along.
In 2016 he would again compete in the Spec Racer Ford series, earning podiums and fast laps. By the end of the year he tested a USF2000 car for the first time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, getting his first taste of a real race car in the world of professional open-wheel racing.
In 2017 he would embark on a partial season in the USF2000 category with John Cummiskey Racing. Earning his best finish of the season of 8th place at Road America. He also continued to drive in the Spec Racer Ford series, earning his first career win at Gingerman Raceway. It would have been two wins in a row, both Saturday and Sunday, if he hadn’t run out of gas while being 12 seconds in the lead on Sunday’s race. A mathematical mistake that Colin is willing to admit was his own fault. In the national championship race in the Spec Racer Ford series Colin took 5th place after starting 9th in a field of 103 entries.
2018 Colin competed full time in the USF2000 series with DeForce Racing. Sniffing the podium, Colins best result would again come at Road America, this time with a 4th place finish, tucked up behind the gearbox of third place. He would ultimately finish 10th in the championship standings. 2019 became a huge breakthrough for Colins professional career. Moving up to one of the top teams in the USF2000 series, Pabst Racing out of Wisconsin, Colin made a serious push for a championship. Accumulating pole positions and plenty of podiums, some of which occurred at Road America, naturally. Colin finished the season tied for third in the championship.
In 2020 Colin moved up to the Indy Pro 2000 series, where he and his fathers professional careers would cross paths for one season, racing alongside each other at Pabst Racing. Taking 1 pole position and 3 podiums, Colin learned a lot and made strides in the faster and higher downforce Indy Pro racecar.
For two more seasons Colin would race in the Indy Pro 2000 series with Pabst Racing amassing more podium trophies. However, budget woes prevented Colin from competing full time in the series, limiting him to just 7 races in 2021 and 10 races in 2022.
In 2023 Colin made the jump up to the INDY NXT By Firestone Series, formerly known as Indy Lights. Here, future IndyCar stars battle it out on track in race cars that are capable of doing over 200 miles per hour. Competing in just 8 races with Abel Motorsports, once again due to budget implications, Colin would earn his best result of 6th place in just his second race at Barber Motorsports Park. One of the highlights from the shortened rookie season was a 2nd place qualifying effort at none other than Colin’s new best track, Road America.
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