ROMY Mayer has further entrenched herself as a star of the future in Supercars engineering circles after masterminding the best wildcard result in Bathurst 1000 history.
While Stacey Youlden (née Manning) was a data engineer for Paul Morris Motorsport two decades ago, it’s believed that Mayer last weekend became the first woman to race engineer a car at the Bathurst 1000.
She led the charge on the #888 Supercheap Auto ZB Commodore driven by Craig Lowndes and Declan Fraser to eighth place.
“Romy is inspiring in her own right in so many ways, so for her to be the first female Bathurst 1000 engineer, it’s credit to everything that she has achieved so far in this sport,” Triple Eight co-owner and #888 deputy team manager Jess Dane told V8 Sleuth.
“Not only in this sport, but she also brought herself over from Germany off her own back to a country she didn’t know with nobody that she knew here at all.
“She’s so brave and inspiring so I’m so proud of her for ticking off this achievement.
“Over the weekend and in the lead-up to the event, she did a fantastic job.
“It’s not easy for anyone, for your first race engineering gig in Supercars to be a Bathurst 1000.
“Of course she has experience race engineering in GTs, that’s where her background is in Germany, she worked for Mercedes and HWA, but coming to Australia and although she has worked in Supercars for a long time now, it’s fantastic to see her take this step and show that she’s an engineering force to be reckoned with.”
Triple Eight currently has no vacancies on its full-time Red Bull cars, for which Andrew Edwards (#97) and Martin Short (#88) are race engineers.
Mayer too is not yet in a position to take on such a role on a permanent basis, as she juggles parental duties.
But she has proved beyond doubt she is ready when the time comes.
“You never know whether somebody is going to leave tomorrow or get hit by a bus tomorrow, so at Triple Eight we have always been conscious of making sure that we have the next people being trained up,” said Dane.
“We’re always developing future talent so that if the worst-case scenario happens, there’s always somebody who is ready to step into those shoes and Romy has certainly proved that she is the next best person to be a Supercars race engineer.
“Hopefully she’s not going anywhere, I’m pretty sure she’s Triple Eight for life, but she’s definitely proved that she can take on that responsibility if she is ever required to.”
Dane reported the whole crew was ecstatic with eighth place and praised rookie Fraser, who is continuing to build a case to be considered for a full-time 2023 Repco Supercars Championship seat.
“Declan had one job to do over the weekend and that was to keep the car straight in his first ever Bathurst 1000 and he couldn’t have done a better job,” she said.
“There were certainly areas to improve on but that’s totally normal for a driver of his age and experience but he definitely proved to everyone who was watching that he deserves to be on the grid.
“And if that isn’t enough, anyone at Triple Eight would give him a glowing reference for a main game seat next year because the hard work, the dedication, the work ethic that he has, he has just gone above and beyond in every way possible in this whole project.”
Fraser leads the Dunlop Super2 Series by 75 points with just the Adelaide finale to come.
