He may not be a driver or engineer – or indeed have much to do with the cars at all – but Peter Jamieson is one of the team’s most familiar faces. If you’ve ever taken a tour around the Triple Eight garage, PJ will most likely have been the main man.
He swears it’s not all smiles, shouting over engines and blagging freebies for the team. Well frankly, we weren’t convinced, so we decided it was time to unearth exactly what PJ does all day. And of course we’re not going to miss an opportunity to dig up some team gossip!
Q: The punters might know you as Official Pit Tour Guide, but surely there’s more to your role than that?
A: My official title is Commercial Operations, which is a fancy name for asking people for lots and lots of money. And when not asking, I’m trying to stop our pesky engineers buying expensive shiny bits to go in the cars.
Q: Bloody engineers! How did you end up working with this bunch anyway?
A: I was doing the same thing at the AFL team Geelong Cats before. Roland rang me up asking if I knew what the Ford marketing budget was and did I want an office overlooking the beach? Clearly we were both lying during the interview!
Q: If RD hadn’t conned… ahem, recruited you sorry into V8 Supercars, what would you be doing?
A: Architecture. But because I was asleep during spelling, I ended up doing accounting at school.
Q: Have you got any tips for someone looking to work within motor sport in your line of work?
A: Forget looking for work if you’re bashful and shy. People have got a lot craftier in holding onto their money, especially really rich ones! And I was once told that the best way to make a small fortune in this sport was to start with a very large one.
Q: Now for the gossip! Tell us one thing about the Triple Eight team we don’t know?
A: We don’t fly Qantas – something about a romance going sour with a hostess and the boss… I’ll leave it at that, I like my job!
Q: Tell us one thing about Roland or Adrian they don’t want us to know?
A: ATB hates wearing hats, any sort of hat. And to be honest, we are quite lucky, as him wearing a cap is only a sight that his mum would appreciate.
Q: What’s your most embarrassing moment as part of the team?
A: Travelling to and from work on my scooter seems to get all sorts of unwarranted attention and derision. I don’t know why… Perhaps wearing my helmet backwards was not that clever either.
Q: What’s your funniest team memory?
A: Our resident Frenchman Ludo used to rollerblade to keep fit. At Winton a few years ago, he decided to put on his all-over black skins, bike helmet with miner’s headlight and used ski poles for balance. All we heard was clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp… BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG CRASSSHHHH! Turns out he misjudged the step and fell two flights of stairs to the bottom. We believe he may have been attacked by a kangaroo when he finally got onto the road, but that’s another story…
Q: We’re giving you a Red Bull Racing Australia job swap magic wand – who would you choose and why?
A: To be honest, I think we need to replace Super Mario our Chef with our finance team, as he always seems to have plenty of food left over after feeding us all. I can’t say the same for Nuri and Julia!
Q: What’s your dream job? And what’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
A: Doing what I’m doing now, but with RD smiling after his first coffee of the day. And doing what I’m doing before RD has had his coffee. He’s not going to read this right?
Just kidding! My dream job would be to travel host global “garage tours” of not just motorsport, but other international sporting events. Worst job was spending six summer weeks in an industrial rubbish tip, burying out of date Mars Bars. Unfortunately the flies enjoyed the smell as much as I did.
