“Well, Data is not the only specialty I do,” says Milwaukee Region’s Donna Thielke, 2025 SCCA Worker of the Year Presented by Mazda award recipient for Data Acquisition. “When Glen [started] racing, because I'm his crew, I got interested in F&C. And I still do F&C periodically – on a three-day weekend, I try and do one day. I also do Tech.”

Glen Thielke, Donna’s husband, was a 2017 SCCA Worker of the Year. Instrumental in the development of SCCA’s Data specialty, he received the John McGill Award in 2019. A former snowmobile racer (“He made money doing that!” Donna says), Glen now races Formula 600, returning to action this season following a serious cancer tussle.

As for Data, Donna’s contribution to that unique specialty is a departure from the norm.

“I do not do analysis,” she explains. “That’s Glen’s responsibility. What I do … well, I refer to it as ‘care for those in the specialty.’ Our Region recruits a lot of interns – we try and get some youth into the SCCA through our intern program. We have a lot of college students, and I make certain they don't get in trouble while they're under our care at night.

“I do have a fun story on that, but I won't share it,” she adds with a laugh.

Donna’s interaction with younger volunteers is not confined to her Data station. Following the lead of the Region’s Tiff Bingheim – another who works hard at engaging newcomers – Donna tries to partner with someone new on weekends when she’s working a corner.

“I want to make certain [new people] have a good time. I have my own radios, and I bring an extra to the corner with me so they can listen in if they want to. That gives them a little better perspective on what's going on.”

Other things she does to hang on to future volunteers? “Number one, I bribe 'em with cookies” she says. “I ask what kind of cookies they like and I make them. So that's a small bribe.

“But another more important thing is listening – understanding what their interest is and seeing how I can give them a better exposure. We get a lot of engineers, and you know, they want to look at the cars. The big teams know that when I bring a group into their big tent, I'm coming to show them around, give them a quick look-see. We've got some very helpful big teams who, if they don’t have any job openings, may know someone and can refer them.

“And I always go back to the big teams later and thank them profusely for letting us come in and taking time to talk to the young people. It's a two-way street: Sometimes they get good new people. And they always get cookies, too.

“Data is usually housed near Tech,” she continues, “so when the cars are impounded, I have the new guys go take the data boxes off the cars so that they can see inside. It’s just giving them a different perspective. We're not disclosing anything that's confidential on the tear down; just giving them access to view it.”

Glen stays in touch with his old snowmobile racing buddies who now have kids of their own who are racing.

“We get those kids occasionally,” Donna adds. “They all live way up north, but when they come to school down here, we work on 'em to get involved with the SCCA.”

The Thielkes have no children of their own, but they stay in close contact with two of Glen’s nieces.

“They're 20 and 21, and we’re very proud of them. They've been to the track with us several times, but now that they're out in the working world and far away, we need to work on them to go to the tracks nearby.”

Art and Engineering

Given her volunteer work in Data and Tech, one would expect Donna to have a degree in engineering, but, she says, her technical background has come only through marriage and family. “My father, my brother, and my husband are all engineers,” she explains.

She’s always liked racing, she admits, watching it on TV with her mom (“My mom, not my dad!”), but she was a ballet dancer growing up.

“My mother put me into that 'cause she saw how interested I was in male-dominant activities. Ballet is real competitive – particularly the companies. It’s extremely competitive, and I was attracted to that.”

She also loves skating and skiing, and met her future husband on a ski trip out west.

“We got to speaking, and he said, ‘You know, I do this Club Racing thing’. And he showed me some pictures. And I went, ‘Oh, that's so interesting!’ So that's how [my involvement] began.”

The Thielkes now live in Rubicon, WI, just over an hour away from Road America and 90 minutes from Blackhawk Farms. As well as crewing for Glen, Donna has also competed since joining SCCA in 1985.

“I traveled a lot with my job, so I'd rent a car from someone and race at whatever was the local track. Wherever I went, I tried to see if I could drive a track I hadn't been on. I did whatever I could to race, you know. It was expensive to rent, but what the heck.”

Donna seems almost embarrassed talking about her SCCA Worker of the Year award.

“To be honest with you, my first thought was they mustn't have had anybody else in the world to pick,” she says. “I mean, I see what some of the people around me do. When I got it, I started asking questions and the people said, ‘Oh, I got that eight years ago,’ or, ‘I got that 10 years ago.’ And I didn’t know, because they don't always wear the jacket SCCA gives you – it's hot, you know. It's summer!

“I’ve worked with some people in Tech,” she goes on, “who are from out east and they're called the Men in Black. They all wear the same black tops. And they are fabulous. These guys are just super, and when I got the award, I just felt that I didn't deserve it. That's all.”

Like her husband, Donna is a stand-out in a somewhat exclusive SCCA Road Racing specialty.

“One, maybe two, maybe five people work Data on big weekends,” she explains. “Those are the key people. We bring in students from schools like MSOE [the Milwaukee School of Engineering] to help. But there’s only [a few] key people who are there all the time. It's a small, small specialty.”

In Donna Thielke’s world, small makes a big impact – her dedication to recruiting and mentoring reaches far beyond those amazing cookies.

Want to get involved at the track just like Donna? Here's how to get trackside at SCCA events.

Photo of Donna Thielke receiving the 2025 SCCA Worker of the Year award at the National Championship Runoffs by Jon Krolewicz