The Triple Eight squad is hitting Queensland Raceway tomorrow, but it’s not to get a sneaky practice run in ahead of next week’s Ipswich SuperSprint. Promise!
Our spare car that usually runs in the Super2 Series in the trusted hands of Paul Dumbrell will be tearing around “the Paperclip”, but don’t expect to see the usual familiar Red Bull Holden Racing Team faces behind the wheel. Bossman Roland “RD” Dane is handing the keys over to three of the sport’s up-and-coming talents.
Three Super2 drivers, Kurt Kostecki, Will Brown and Nathan Morcom, have been given a rare opportunity to take part in Triple Eight’s driver evaluation day. The car won’t be totally foreign to them though as all three currently campaign chassis built by us in the development series in the Kostecki Brothers Racing and Eggleston Motorsport teams.
Having always kept a close eye on talent development across a broad range of motorsport categories, RD is excited to get three guys in the car, all of whom could be Supercars title contenders in years to come, with Triple Eight’s resources behind them for the day.
“We breed some exceptional driving talent here in Australia and at Triple Eight we have the capacity to help nurture this,” he said. “For me personally, I thoroughly enjoy watching the development of these young guys.
“If they have the talent and drive to go beyond Supercars and head over to Europe, then I would certainly encourage that, but it’s also exciting for the future of the team here. We’ve got the three best drivers in the Supercars field in Jamie, Craig and Shane, but we should always be thinking about investing in the future.”
Kurt, Will and Nathan aren’t the only ones getting the chance to show their skills around QR. Car 88’s Data Engineer, Romy Mayer, will be taking her place at the prat perch to play Race Engineer for the day.
Having joined us almost two years ago when the sun and surf of Australia’s east coast lured her away from her home country of Germany, Romy has proved to be an asset to the squad and is relishing the opportunity to take the reins and gain some valuable experience.
“Developing the talent and skills of our team personnel is just as important as looking after up-and-coming drivers,” continued RD. “They’re the future as well.
“We like to mold our staff to the ‘Triple Eight way’ and instill that same work ethic and drive to win in all of them. Often we’re lucky to keep extremely talented team members across all departments for many years, but other times we see them take what they’ve learnt here and go overseas, which is fantastic to see. We’ve had JJ (Jeromy Moore, former Triple Eight Race Engineer and Chief Designer) engineer a Le Mans-winning car, several mechanics join programs in Europe like WRC, et cetera, and it’s brilliant to see them flourish in other forms of motorsport doing what they love.
“Romy has been with us for a couple of years now and has proved herself to be a valuable member of the team. She had experience in DTM and GT3 in Europe before joining Triple Eight, but it’s been great to see her develop her skills in Supercars and I’m sure she’ll continue to grow into a fine race engineer.”
