Instructor. Engineer. Software built in the paddock, for the people who live there.
In 1991 I drove past a deserted mall parking lot and did a double take. Cars were dancing through a sea of orange cones, tires howling, engines echoing off the empty storefronts. I pulled over to watch, and in a way I never left. That was my first look at autocross, and it hooked me for good.
I spent about 10 years in autocross, and for 8 of them I was also an instructor. It turned out I loved the moment a new driver figured something out almost as much as driving myself. Meanwhile, track days were taking off. I made the jump, and two years into my track day journey I was back in the right seat, instructing again. The rest is history.
For 4 years I worked as a "Sherpa" for an arrive-and-drive exotic car experience. Guests picked from a lineup of Ferraris and Lamborghinis, then either took the wheel themselves with me coaching beside them, or strapped into the passenger seat and let me show them what the car could do. Some came to check off a bucket list item, some were nervous before they buckled in, and most climbed out grinning. By the end I'd logged more than 500 hours behind the wheel of a Ferrari F430, on autocross courses and on track.
Motorsport has taken me to all 50 states, and I've driven in events in many of them. I've driven 17 tracks across the US, then crossed the Atlantic to take on the Nürburgring and Spa, two of the most legendary circuits in the world. Along the way I've owned cars of every flavor, from a 1990 Miata to a C5 Z06 and two generations of Radicals.
Since 2024 I've been the Chief Driving Instructor at Just Track It, helping new drivers find the same spark I found in that parking lot more than 30 years ago.
Off the track, my career followed the signal. I started installing car stereos in the late '80s, followed the industry into cellular in the '90s, and owned my own wireless franchise by the middle of that decade. Then I went inside at Verizon, where I spent 22 years and retired as a Principal Engineer.
It hasn't all been rainbows and puppy dogs. San Francisco's Lombard Street, the famously crooked one, has a speed limit of 5 mph, and I still managed to roll a vehicle on it. In my defense, it was a little three-wheeled tourist rental with a moped engine. But it went over, so it counts. Ask me about it at the track.
The obsession may have started a little before 1991.
Paddock life.
Where the #90 began.
Autocross and track.
500+ hours as a Sherpa.
Two generations and counting.
After that many years in the paddock, I've seen the same problems at almost every event: schedule changes nobody hears about, drivers missing their sessions, and organizers juggling radios, paper, and group texts.
Decades of building wireless networks taught me how to get the right message to the right phone at the right time. I started Redline Techniques to put that experience to work for the paddock, with software built by someone who has stood on the grid.
My goal is simple: leave my thumbprint on the hobby that has given me so much.
From the first briefing to the last checkered flag, Track Session Minder makes track days safer and smoother, with one app connecting organizers, instructors, and drivers.
The first of more to come.
None of this would be possible without my wife, Erin. Her help and support have carried me through every early morning at the track, every late night at the keyboard, and every crazy idea along the way, including this one.
Kevin and Erin at Spa-Francorchamps.
Running a club, building something for the paddock, or just want the Lombard Street story? Drop me a line.
tracksessionminder@gmail.com
