Making the leap from the virtual racing world to the real world is not an easy task. But some drivers, like William Byron, who just won the Daytona 500 this year and competed for the NASCAR Cup Series championship, have made it happen. 

Marietta, Georgia’s Donovan Strauss is hoping he’s the next driver to be talked about as a sim racing success story, and he’s hoping he can get that narrative started at next week’s South Carolina 400 at Florence Motor Speedway.

More than 50 drivers, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., have filed an entry for what is quickly becoming one of the biggest races in the Late Model Stock Car world. Which means that having a good showing in that race, let alone winning it, would certainly put Strauss’ name on the map.

“A lot of these people, they’ve been racing for a decade or more,” said Strauss. “I’ve been racing for five years. The amount of things we’ve accomplished in the last five years to get to where I am is truly remarkable. I hope I can share my story on a big platform one day.”

At 14 years old, Strauss got started in motorsports the way a lot of kids do these days, on the computer through iRacing. Since then he’s made it all the way up to the highest levels of NASCAR sim racing, the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, where Strauss was a driver for Williams eSports, the same Williams that competes in Formula 1. Strauss has been at this level for the last few years.

After having success in the sim, Strauss told his mother that he believed he could have similar success on actual pavement behind the wheel of an actual race car. So, in 2020, Strauss started racing Bandoleros at Cordele Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, and Charlotte Motor Speedway, finishing second in national points that first year.

“Honestly, my mom has always been in my corner. She’s always been my biggest believer. I told my mom that I put a plan together and I said, ‘This is what we can go do and this is what we can accomplish,’ and I’ve had my mom’s support every step of the way.”

One year later and Strauss was behind the wheel of a Legends car, which he ran and won in a lot over the next few years. Strauss won track championships at three different Georgia tracks, and won the INEX Pro National Championship in 2023 before deciding that 2024 was the time to move into a full-bodied stock car.

Strauss got paired up with Kendall Sellers and AK Performance at the start of this year. They’ve mostly focused on racing weekly at Florence, the home of next week’s South Carolina 400. They scored a win together back in August, and had a very respectable showing in his CARS Tour debut at Florence as well. Strauss started and finished 16th on the lead lap in a deeply talented 29-car field. Strauss was also crowned the South Carolina state Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series.

“When I was looking at what I wanted to do this year, I knew I wanted to race in the Late Model Stock world,” said Strauss, who has recently moved up to Mooresville, North Carolina to further pursue a career as a race car driver. “I gave (Kendall) a call one day and he was all for bringing me on. I’m so thankful for that, honestly, because Kendall has made me a better person and a better man. I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else, to be honest.”

Now, Strauss says the goal is to go out and try to win the South Carolina 400 and beat 51 of the LMSC world’s best drivers and teams and put his name on the map the way Brenden “Butterbean” Queen and Kade Brown have done the last two years.

“I want to go win. I think it’s the biggest race of the year, if you ask me,” Strauss said. “But if I can’t win, I want to have a solid weekend and finish strong and build some confidence going into next year. I have some bigger plans for next year, so if I can just come out of that weekend holding my head high that, ‘Okay we ran well and we finished well,’ I just want to come out of that weekend and build something.”

Race fans can watch Donovan Strauss compete in the South Carolina 400 live on FloRacing on November 23 at Florence Motor Speedway by subscribing here.