Mayer reflects on historic Bathurst wildcard

Triple Eight engineer Romy Mayer was “pretty amazed” to record a historic result in last weekend’s Repco Bathurst 1000.

Mayer made her long-awaited Repco Supercars championship race engineering debut in the Great Race, leading Triple Eight’s Bathurst wildcard entry.

Seven-time Bathurst winner Craig Lowndes and rookie Declan Fraser shared the #888 Supercheap Auto Commodore, racing from 16th to eighth.

It marked the best-ever result by a wildcard entry in the Great Race.

Lowndes and Fraser were managed by Roland Dane and engineered by Mayer.

It came in Mayer’s first event as a chief race engineer, having formerly been Jamie Whincup’s data engineer before switching to lead Triple Eight’s Super2 and GT World Challenge Asia programmes.

"It was a very busy weekend," Mayer told Supercars.com.

"For me, it's the first time I am engineering a Supercar at Bathurst, so there was a lot to take on and to prepare beforehand.

"We didn't have too much time beforehand because we had the last test day on the Wednesday before, then we had two days to turn the car around, get it into the truck, and we just came back from Japan.

"It's been a very busy couple of weeks, and the whole weekend, came around very fast.

"I had lots of things in my head to make sure it went well, but then we had the wet and dry conditions.

"It was always changing, and it was never clear if it was going to be a wet or dry session, so you needed to have both setups ready.

"It was full on, but in the end, the result is pretty amazing, and everyone is very happy about it."

Triple Eight first tasted historic success with a Bathurst wildcard entry in 2013, when international stars Andy Priaulx and Mattias Ekstrom raced an XBOX Holden to 10th.

Nine years later, Lowndes and Fraser went two better, but the weekend began with high drama for the three-time champion.

Lowndes suffered a dramatic off in wet practice, seeing the #888 Commodore bulldozing through a wall of water after going wide heading into pit lane.

“He was supposed to come into the pits," Mayer said.

“Usually, I call the driver to come into the pits on Conrod, and because our garage is one of the first in pit lane, they're in there within four seconds.

“Then I saw on the telemetry that it wasn’t a normal trace.

Lowndes celebrated his 300th round at Mount Panorama

"I looked out in the lane and didn't see him, so I asked on the radio, where are you?

"Then, after a moment Craig said, 'Oh, I went past.'"

"It was only when I saw the replay saw that I realised what had happened.

"Luckily nothing broke, but there was obviously a lot of water in the car.

"We were lucky he didn't hit anything, and nothing got damaged.

"The conditions were wild in some sessions with the rain and so much water on the track."

Sunday’s dramatic Great Race, won by Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander, featured eight bp Ultimate Safety Cars.

Bathurst debutant Fraser impressed with his performance in tricky conditions, leading the field to go green early on.

It came after Lowndes avoided carnage in the opening lap and dragged the car from 16th to ninth by lap 5.

Performing double duties at Mount Panorama, Mayer said the Dunlop Super2 Series leader grew in confidence across the weekend.

"Declan’s first stint was very strong," she said.

"He was out there with many of the main drivers, and he was on the same lap time or just within one or two tenths.

"That was pretty amazing.

"Then he was leading the race with the Safety Car out and did a perfect Safety Car restart.

"That was very special for him, especially because he had double duties with the Super2 the whole weekend.

"His mind must have been everywhere. You could see at the beginning of the weekend, I felt he was a bit pressured.

"Then he had a really good session in the wet the P5, when he was in the top four.

"If the red flag didn’t come out, his lap would be P1.

"I think that gave him some confidence going into the race and did an amazing job there."

German-born Mayer has long been part of Triple Eight; her first event with the team was the 2015 Bathurst 1000.

This year she is enjoying working on the GT World Challenge Asia programme, with Nick Foster and Prince Jefri Ibrahim winning the season-opening race at Sepang in May.

The championship leaders recorded a second victory in July at Japan’s Fuji International Speedway.

Returning from the fifth round at Okayama International Circuit just two weeks ahead of the Great Race, Mayer was able to lean on her Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour experience.

"The Bathurst weekend, even for an experienced Supercars engineer, is always very intense because there's so much to think about," she said.

"You have two race drivers, which I'm used to because with the GT’s there is always the co-driver, a man driver, and a Pro AM driver.

"For Bathurst, there are so many sets of tyres needed, you need to manage all the plans throughout the weekend.

"There is a mandatory rotor and pad change as well.

"There is a lot more to manage and think of compared to a normal sprint weekend.

"It was very intense, also because we had to have wet tyres ready as well.

"I enjoyed it a lot, and it went pretty smoothly.

"We had a really good crew, and the team worked well together, considering we have never worked together in this constellation before.

"I've worked with Ty the number one mechanic for four years on car #88 when Jamie was driving, he was the number one mechanic there.

"We knew each other very well and a lot of the team I knew from before.

"But still, it's a one-off weekend where we all work together compared to a team that has been working together the whole season and then leading up to the big race.

"It went very well, especially now reflecting on it."

The 2022 Supercars season will continue at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 on October 28-30.

Tickets for the event are on sale now.