TWO-THIRDS of the current Supercars race engineering field are now winners, following the latest addition to the club.
That was Tony Woodward, who by guiding Andre Heimgartner’s triumph on home soil last month at Taupō chalked up career victory number one of his own.
Woodward is in his 10th season at BJR, which in more recent years has included race engineering Heimgartner, Todd Hazelwood and Tim Slade during the back end of the latter’s tenure at Albury.
He also becomes the 16th different Supercars winner among the current 24 race engineers in the field.
Jack Bell (Grove Racing/Matt Payne) and Jack Bellotti (Matt Stone Racing/Nick Percat) are other recent additions to the club.
They join Triple Eight’s Andrew Edwards and Martin Short, Grove’s Alistair McVean, Erebus Motorsport’s George Commins and Tom Moore, Dick Johnson Racing’s Richard Harris, Team 18’s Richard Hollway, MSR’s Paul Forgie, Tickford Racing’s Sam Potter and Chris Stuckey, BJR’s Phil Keed and Julian Stannard, and Mirko De Rosa of PremiAir Racing.
There’s plenty more race-winning pedigree scattered around the paddock in roles besides main game engineer, from Walkinshaw Andretti United veteran Rob Starr to Blanchard Racing Team recruit Matt Saunders.
Other active race engineers knocking on the door of victory lane include Sam Scaffidi, Perry Kapper and Som Sharma, who through Chaz Mostert, Anton De Pasquale and Mark Winterbottom respectively have collected podiums in 2024.
Kapper, it should be noted, was previously in an overarching chief engineer position including during DJR Team Penske’s 2018-20 championship three-peat. He only returned to race engineering this year as part of a reshuffle whereby De Pasquale’s former right-hand man Ludo Lacroix headed to PremiAir.
