Kelsey Pinkowski: The RIT graduate making a name for herself in Japan
- MARCO ALBERTINI
- 15 hours ago
- 11 min read
Kelsey Pinkowski has been part of the Kyojo Cup grid for the past two seasons, in which she’s made quiet but brilliant progress both on and off track, as well as finding herself at home in a completely new environment. With three rounds left on the Kyojo Cup calendar, the Rochester native is eager to end her sophomore season in the series on a high.
In KCMG’s four-car lineup for this year’s Kyojo Cup season, established veterans Miki Onaga and Rami Sasaki share the garage with Joanne Ciconte and Kelsey Pinkowski.
While the first three began their racing careers during their youth and rose through the ranks, 22-year-old Pinkowski started much later than her teammates and in her second full-time season in Kyojo Cup, she is steadily bridging the gap to the front round after round.
Born and raised in Rochester, NY, Pinkowski’s first encounter with racing was when she was 10 years old and began racing indoor karts at her local mall. However, her interest in racing didn’t spark much, as she attended the mall “on and off” and didn’t think of it becoming a hobby or anything to be a professional in.
That changed seven years later, when she decided to enroll in Bertil Roos Racing School in Florida after being inspired by some of her long-time friends, who also began to get into racing. After completing the beginner and advanced courses, under the guidance of former Olympian and British F1 driver Divina Galica, Pinkowski began to fall in love with racing and began carving out her career in single-seaters.
“Around high school about when I was 17-18 years old, I got back into it and I really wanted to get back into it because my friends started getting into it around the same time,” Pinkowski explains. “A couple of them have been fans of it since middle school but I got into it when I was offered a chance to go to a school out in Sebring, Florida. Bertil Roos [Racing School] is where I started out and I started late in high school, which was a little late to the game compared to a lot of people, because I know a lot of people start when they're around four and five.
“I had that 14-year gap between [me and] everyone else so I'm learning a lot of things as I go, but I eventually ended up going to that racing school and completing both the beginner and advanced course that they offered. I ended up also obtaining my SCCA license through them, and ever since then I just fell in love with how I felt in the car, just being in it and I was driving manual for the first time as well during that time. It was cool to see how that was implied instead of the normal paddle shifts, so I think that's what also really helped me jump to where I am now. I really wanted to continue as I was moving into college at that time and since then I've just had a huge passion for it.”
Once she obtained her SCCA racing licence, Pinkowski competed in the Bertil Roos Racing School Winter Series in 2021, in which she placed third in the overall standings as the highest-placed rookie.
After a season driving Bertil Roos’ Formula R/T-2000, Pinkowski moved over to the Lucas Oil School of Racing to get to grips with a car with a similar philosophy to Formula Ford’s, which also gave her an opportunity to get used to paddle shifters. Competing in the Winter and main series in 2022, Pinkowski finished 10th and 11th in points respectively, during which she got in contact with WEC LMGTE Am podium scorer Nic Jonsson, who later became her coach.
Under the Swede’s guidance, Pinkowski began testing Formula 4 machinery with Crosslink Motorsports across the following two years in Texas to further work on her driving. While undertaking her extensive testing program in 2024, Pinkowski finished second at the Hilliard U.S. Vintage Grand Prix in a Mini Cooper and won the Formula SAE Michigan Competition as a part of RIT’s (Rochester Institute of Technology) Formula Student team.
In early 2025, Pinkowski finished seventh in the SCCA Polar Prix Majors in an F4 car, before partaking in the SCCA Cabin Fever Regional in a Mazda MX-5 at Sebring, in which she performed well at her first time at the Floridian venue. Following those two appearances, Pinkowski was given the green light by the people around her to partake in a full campaign with Crosslink Motorsports in the newly-rebranded Ligier Junior Formula Championship.
“When I started at Lucas Oil, I got connected with an engineer who actually had contact with my current coach at the time,” Pinkowski said. “He had connections through a team also out in the south down in Texas, so that's when I started working with Crosslink. It was just building on that skill set with them for a couple years to really understand the feel of the car and how it is able to go through the track.
“Then eventually I did a separate SCCA license or licensed event which was the I think F4 open wheel out in Crescent, Texas. I did that with them and then I also did a MX5 Miata Cup race as well, both early last year when I first started my competition. Then they gave me the green light, they were like ‘Now that we know how you perform at these race weekends, so we want you to start competing in a series’. At the time they were competing with their junior F4 car, so that's basically the first series I started with. [At the beginning it was] just learning the motion, the weekends and just getting that knowledge of what a Friday looks like, what a Saturday, Sunday look like and understanding that environment and making that change.”
Shortly before her campaign in the Ligier Junior Formula Championship, Pinkowski was awarded the Gorsline Scholarship, which was previously won by names such as Katherine Legge, Danica Patrick and Josef Newgarden among other notable names. As part of the Rochester-based scholarship for rising stars in motorsport, the then-RIT student was awarded a two-day advanced course at the Skip Barber Racing School.
Winning the scholarship was a huge step in Pinkowski’s career, as well as one for which she had worked for years to get there, as the founder of the program, John Gorsline, gave her the connections and the motivation to begin attending Bertil Roos’ Racing School in 2021.
“The gentleman who runs the whole program, John Gorsline, was the one who connected us with Bertil Roos in the first place,” Pinkowski said. “He was really the one who pushed me to go with it all, and then I gave him updates about what I was doing after Bertil Roos, going on to Lucas Oil and that's when he mentioned about the scholarship. He said ‘If you keep doing what you're doing, working hard and continue building up what you have now, then maybe something will happen in the future’.
“Come 2025, I ended up being one of the finalists and winners of the Gorsline scholarship, which I'm very thankful for. With that I have been working on my career, continuing what I've started before and why I want to continue doing that, not only for myself, but hopefully to have a big name in my career. It really helped me push my career more and start building up my website, my social media in my day-to-day life and on top of that all managing college and everything else.”
In her only season in the Ligier Junior Formula Championship, Pinkowski competed in the first three rounds, in which she took a best result of eighth at Road America. That ultimately turned out not to be her main campaign in 2025, as another opportunity presented itself during the sprint, in the form of a season in Japan’s all-female Kyojo Cup with KCMG.
The opportunity to race on the other side of the world came through Jonsson, who had connections to Paul Ip, KCMG’s team founder and owner. Following a long talk between the two parties, Pinkowski was called by the Swede on an ordinary Wednesday to pitch her about the idea of racing in the series and gave her a week to think about the opportunity.
After talking with her family about the chance of racing in Japan, Pinkowski called Jonsson back two days later to take up the opportunity, but working out a schedule to race in both series became rather chaotic, as she was still attending college in New York. As a result, Pinkowski contacted her teachers to try and set up a new schedule for her studies, which she was able to get thanks to them being cooperative.
“I remember it was some random Wednesday and he calls me and he's like ‘I have an idea for you and it might be a little crazy considering college and the other series you're already doing’, and then he just gave me the rundown of Kyojo Cup and what it is,” Pinkowski recalls. “I remember him giving me a week to think about it, but after talking with my dad and my family it ended up being only 48 hours later until I made the executive decision."
"For me I think it was just one of those things where it was just too big of an opportunity not to let down, and even college considered I was freaking out about it, so I had to send an email out all to the Dean and everyone behind the scenes, even my professors. I was like ‘Hey this is going to sound really crazy, but here's what I have going on, is there any way we're able to manage around it?’ and here's my coach's contact if you need it’. Luckily they're so cooperative with me about it ended up working out as best as it possibly could, so I'm very grateful for that.
“What was a random Wednesday ended up changing my entire career, so I think those certain situations can definitely leave you in an uncomfortable area. But at the end of the day if it's something that's going to push you forward or make you change, then take it. I was getting really good at my craft, I was feeling more confident and despite being fairly new to the overall sport, I felt there was something in me that just told me to just go do it."
“I told my coach ‘let's do it, everyone's giving me the green light, let's rock with it’, so he ended up coming with me on the first couple trips down just to help coach me and direct me and make sure I'm on time for my meetings and everything. At the end of the day, everything worked out and I’m very thankful for everyone who's helped me manage all that, despite it being a lot. I look forward to hopefully continuing with Kyojo, it's more manageable now that I've graduated college.”
Moving to Japan was ‘one hell of a challenge’ for Pinkowski, as she had to deal with a big language and cultural barrier at first and had to be guided by Jonsson during her first trip, before having to navigate Japan on her own for the next few trips and learning new things on the fly.
While she graduated from RIT in Global Business Management, Pinkowski began to immerse herself in the Japanese language and culture to bridge the barrier between her and the environment around her. As well as that, Pinkowski began getting used to the 13-hour flights from the U.S. to Japan, which took a few trips to fully adjust to the drastic shift in time zones.
“America is definitely 100% different from Japan,” Pinkowski said. “I mean not only language, but culture wise and just overall aspect of it, so when I went down for the first time it was with my dad and my coach. My coach helped a lot, because he's been to Japan before, so he kind of knew his way around, but a lot of it's just been learning on the fly and learning from different people."
"We'd have translators who help a lot, but eventually it was just learning on my own. The first couple trips were a little difficult, especially with the time change because it's a 13 hour time change, so their nights are our day and vice versa, a lot of it was just adjusting to that and I will admit that we got tired quickly the first couple trips."
“It's been so different as well because the culture there is entirely different and it's another level of respect and on top of that make sure you're greeting them. I try to talk in their language, but it's very hard to have a very basic conversation, right now it's in development. I've started myself on Rosetta Stone with it just so I can learn more than basic phrases, so hopefully I can continue learning from everyone else. Otherwise it's been a long journey despite only being two years and I've definitely gone a level where I am still learning a bunch of things about it”
Pinkowski’s first year in Kyojo Cup was a big learning experience. After a rather difficult start to the season, in which she had difficulties extracting the most out of the car, Pinkowski took a season-best result of 14th in the third Sprint race of the season ahead of series veteran Ayumu Nagai. As the season drew to a close, Pinkowski had heavily bridged the gap between her and the front, but her improvements were heavily overshadowed by a double retirement in the finale due to things out of her control.
Returning for this year, the American picked up where she left off by improving pace-wise in qualifying and the races to open up the season with a 16th-place finish. Last time out in July, Pinkowski had a career-best starting position of 15th, but her weekend proved to not be a straight-forward one. In the sprint, she salvaged an 19th-place finish after a spin on the opening lap, but showed her strength in the Final to climb up to 15th and finish ahead of last year’s promising rookie Sitarvee Limnantharak.
Looking back on her one and a half years in the series, Pinkowski sees them in a positive light, feeling like she’s improved massively as a driver both on and off track, as well as handling the pressure from the amount of eyes on her during Super Formula-supported rounds.
“Last year for me a lot of it was learning, not only just traveling to Japan itself, but also understanding their race weekends,” added Pinkowski. “They followed a different schedule than the other series I was doing in America, so it was just learning where to be at what time, learning specs about the car, basic ground level stuff. It was a lot of learning about my team and what they do to make the car better, the data that they use, learning just pretty much everything about a race weekend over there. I was used to a couple hundred, maybe 200 fans [on most weekends] and then Super Formula comes around and you've got 15,000 eyes on you and I had to learn how to manage the pressure of everyone else watching."
“I've gotten a lot better with handling the pressure and when things get intense, just learning to take a step back, calm down and get ready for what's about to happen. This year, I feel like I've gotten a pretty solid idea of what to do on the track, learning how to overtake, how to go faster in corners, where the track is hot, where it's cold, where more technical applications can be applied when driving versus outside of the car. Right now I'm still learning how to perfect my race craft, having the simulator helps a lot for me to understand the track more and how much I can push the car, but I'm going to continue working on that so I can get to the top in the next couple of years.”
Looking into the future, Pinkowski is hoping to continue in Kyojo Cup, but has recently gotten in contact with people for opportunities in F4 championships in Europe and Asia, but remains unsure on what her plans for next year are set to be. For now, the New Yorker will focus on the remaining three rounds of Kyojo Cup, in which she will aim to place herself closer to the front and prove what she’s capable of against the series’ accomplished veterans.
