The 2024 SCCA® Solo® Rookie of the Year Mitchell Welker is yet another SCCA “Overnight-Sensation-Years-In-The-Making” story for the history books, the young driver showing up seemingly out of nowhere to claim the E Street title at the 2024 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championships last September – his success, however, came as little surprise to those who knew him.

While being an unfamiliar name on the Lincoln entry list, the 24-year-old Welker is quite well known on his home turf – like in his hometown of Cottage Grove, MN (a St. Paul suburb) with SCCA’s Land O’Lakes Region as well as the Minnesota Autosports Club. In all, he’s been a force in Solo for four years, including his winning a local E Street Championship last summer.

For some childhood years in Georgia, the Minnesota-born Welker has lived most of his life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, though his day job keeps him out on the road: "I kind of work all over,” he explains. "I'm a traveling vehicle photographer, so whatever dealers I get assigned to by the company, I commute to every day and shoot their cars for them."

At the 2024 Solo Nationals, Welker clinched his ES victory on a staggeringly impressive final run, a feat made all the more incredible considering the competition and the fact it was his first visit to Lincoln.

It was that win that earned him the 2024 SCCA Solo Rookie of the Year honors.

All Credit

Humbly, though, Welker is quick to credit the tough competition he’s experienced locally. “I guess I’d start by crediting my time in the Minnesota Autosports Club,” he says. “It’s really competitive at the top. And also I've had a great co-driver [Jake Rogers] who owns the car and came with me to Nationals.”

Rogers, from Hayfield, MN, also trophied in E Street at the Solo Nationals, finishing 11th in the Yokohama-tire-shod 1999 Mazda Miata that he owns and shares with Welker.

“[Jake and I] have really been tussling with each other back and forth for several years locally,” Welker explains, “and it's really helped both of us get a lot better – a lot more technical and particular with how we drive. We have SoloStorm [software], but just use its speed trace feature and talk to each other after every run about what we're doing, how we're making up time here and there."

Welker also credits sim racing “starting in 2017 or 2018. I credit all that with my fast start in real cars,” he adds.

An airplane as well as auto enthusiast, Welker is a regular at AirVenture, the huge annual late-July gathering of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) clan in Oshkosh, WI. Thus, for him the size of the Solo Nationals crowd rolling into Lincoln for the first time was no big deal.

“Driving into the [Solo National Championships] paddock for the first time, I felt a vibe very similar to Oshkosh – like AirVenture for cars, really, where everybody's driven their own car in. Everybody's got something unique and there's always something going on – all the different Regions making food, having parties, putting on their own things, giant setups.

"I really wish I could have spent more time there,” Welker goes on. "I didn't have all the time off from work that I wanted. And we had early bedtimes to make sure we could stay focused, so I didn't get to take too much advantage of the late-night gatherings.”

The focus on staying sharp definitely paid off.

Solo Big Time in Minnesota

“Solo is really a popular thing in Minnesota,” Welker says. "We’ve got a really strong membership in our club, and there are a couple of other ones dotted around Minnesota and Wisconsin that our members will go and drive in, and their members come and drive ours. I don't know how many of the others support the Solo Nationals, but MAC had about 30 drivers there.

"I have to give a big credit to everybody that came down and cheered me on,” Welker says. “We were all cheering each other on, of course. Ryan Thompson, our club president, has been pushing me to go to Nationals since I won our local Rookie of the Year award in 2020. That earns you a free entry paid by the club to Nationals, but I was in school at the time and could never figure out the time to go.

“Finally, Ryan was like, ‘You're going! We're making sure you're going!’ A whole crew came down, convoyed down with us, and supported me and Jake. It was great. We had a whole crew scraping marbles off the tires after every run, spraying 'em down and making sure we were all set to go.

"That support is so invaluable. I'm really, really thankful for everybody."

Welker first Solo’d with the local club in winter 2020, with previous competition experience only in sim racing prior to his autocross debut.

Car racing was never on the radar. His high school goal was to be a professional pilot – "I was all gung-ho on the aviation side” – and after graduating, he was accepted into the professional flight program at nearby Minnesota State.

But after a year and a half, he steered off that path.

"I really like flying on my own when I have the time and money to do so,” he says. “But, professionally? I couldn't hack it. Luckily, I’ve had the chance to go up with some friends who own airplanes, and I hope that as I get my career path more settled, I can go flying more on my own."

Road Racing…Maybe

In addition to autocross, Welker has given road racing a go.

“I raced at [Brainerd International Raceway] a couple of summers ago, but missed out last year because the car was rented to other drivers,” he explains. “But, yeah, I’m hoping to be back and rent another car sometime this year at BIR.

"As far as Solo … guess I’m just going to bask in the success I've had locally,” he says with a laugh. "I kind of want to drive some different cars, and maybe see if I can still, you know, crack the top 10 and earn a jacket – we give jackets to our top 10 drivers at the end of the year. There are at least 10 people in this club that would let me drive their car at an event. I think it'd be fun to challenge myself a little bit in that way.

“And I do plan on going back to the Solo Nationals – that is in the plan."

Welker says that, for now, his racing ambitions are confined to those infrequent BIR events in Spec Miata.

"I have ambitions, sure,” he says. "But the reality is that I’m in no state for affording them. Spec Miata is a really great class, but owning my own car, having the space to put it, getting a truck and trailer and all the tools and ancillary stuff – it makes no sense right now for me not to be just arriving and driving.

“Down the road? I would like to run my own car; that would be something really great to do. But for now, arrive-and-drive is the way I have to go."

Welker has the skills, proven in both the frozen Minnesota asphalt and Nebraska concrete – and those horizons are expanding.

Bank on it.

Photo by Andy Shultz