Jess Dane and Romy Mayer are to play a key part in Triple Eight Race Engineering’s wildcard programme during this year’s Great Race.
Both women worked on the Supercheap Auto-backed Bathurst 1000 wildcard last year but are set to take a step up in 2022.
Mayer will graduate from her previous role as data engineer to race engineer on the #888 Holden ZB Commodore while Dane will be team manager having deputised last year.
Expat German Mayer has long been part of the Triple Eight fold, having previously led the team’s efforts in the Dunlop Super2 Series and more recently Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia Powered by AWS.
Although a familiar face to the Repco Supercars Championship as Jamie Whincup’s former data engineer, this year’s Repco Bathurst 1000 wildcard effort will be Mayer’s first event as a race engineer.
Dane, meanwhile, will be on double duties. Earlier this year, she took on the team manager role of the squad’s two-car Super2 Series programme.
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Speaking with Speedcafe.com, Whincup said Mayer was the logical choice to work alongside seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes and championship debutant Declan Fraser.
“She’s done plenty in main game,” said Whincup.
“She was my data engineer for years. She’s doing GT World Challenge Asia this year. She’s got the most experience out of anyone in our crew outside of our main engineers.
“I think that’s a good result.”
“It’s great for women in motorsport. I’m not trying to have diversity, if you want to call it that, I get the best people for the job.
“The best people for the job at Jess and Romy. It’s a great story that they’ve made it happen and got those two big roles.”
Whincup will have to juggle duties over the course of the October 6-9 weekend, balancing his driving commitments with Broc Feeney alongside his responsibilities as team principal.
The seven-time champion said team manager Mark Dutton will do the heavy lifting, though Whincup will chip in where needed.
“There’ll be dual roles for me,” said Whincup.
“Remember, I’m non-performance at the race meetings. Really, the race meeting has to be run by the crew.
“Dutto runs the main series, and Jess will be the team manager of the wildcard entry. Those guys will do their normal thing.
“I’ll do what I usually do at a race meeting and make sure all three cars have got absolutely everything they need.
“The team managers when they need me will come and get my direction on where we should go at the time. Some weekends they never speak to me, other weekends it’s all going on and would like some direction with the decisions.
“I’ll still do that but then of course I’ll be spending the majority of my time being the driver.”
Triple Eight Race Engineering recently took the covers off its test livery for the Bathurst 1000 and revealed its driver pairing, Lowndes and Fraser.
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