Imogen Radburn thought finding women to staff her new racing team might be the hard part. It didn’t turn out that way.
After setting up her all-female motorsport team last year, the 20-year-old South Coast driver received 70 applications for two work experience positions from around Australia.
“I realised there are so many girls out there that want to be in motorsport, not just as drivers, but every other role,” Radburn said to ABC News.
“It’s about getting people to allow them and open those doors.”
Radburn, who lives in Nowra on the New South Wales south coast, leads what she says is Australia’s only all-female motorsport team. Apart from her father and her partner, the team is made up entirely of women, including her engineer, mechanic, operations manager and truck driver.
The team is competing in the Mustang Cup, a national series in which all drivers race a Ford Mustang Dark Horse bought or leased from the company.
Radburn is the only female driver in the series, a position she said is familiar.
After racing go-karts as a teenager and then pursuing Formula 4 in Europe last year, she has almost always competed against men.
“I grew up dancing and there were no boys, but now it’s the opposite,” she said.
“I like proving my point and I love when I beat the boys.”
Radburn has had support from Motorsport Australia’s Girls on Track program, which gives practical experience to girls and young women aged eight to 22.
Motorsport Australia development manager Charlie Barlow said Radburn had made an impact on and off the track.
“Imogen has done incredible things not just as a competitor, but as a woman in motorsport,” Barlow said.
“She embodies the same ethos as what we do … that if you’ve opened a door, you ensure other women can come through with you.”
Radburn’s mechanic, Natasha Smith, was the first woman in the world to win the Technician Champion award at Toyota’s National Skills competition in 2019. The 28-year-old has since become one of the country’s most respected mechanics.
Smith said having more women in the industry was helping create opportunities for others.
“Because there are so many of us females now starting to get our foot in, we’re able to bring others in with us,” she said.
“So it’s the dominant ones at the forefront forging the path for the next generation to come through.”
She said Radburn had built a team with strong backing and experience.
“Imogen has the support of very high people in their specialised categories and that’s why this is different to someone that’s just slapped a team together, she’s got the best of the best in the industry,” Smith said.
Smith said she hoped the team would be seen as a positive example in a male-dominated sport.
“It’s incredible and I’m ecstatic she chose me to run the mechanical side of things,” she said.
“The entire team has put together something that’s pretty special and hopefully everyone outside of that team will be able to see the benefits of having strong people lead a strong driver through this.
“Us females have to do twice as much [as men] to get in and get to where we’re at for the same amount of credit as someone else.”
Radburn said she decided to start her own team because she was “sick of paying massive bills” to compete.
She used her own contacts to fill key roles and secure sponsorship. The team recently converted an old B-double truck so one trailer can carry her race car while the other provides accommodation.
“There’s no such thing as being paid for every race … we wanted to make it work for the next 10 years,” she said.
Her first Mustang Cup race ended early after mechanical problems stopped her after four of 22 laps at Phillip Island on March 29.
The team is now preparing for the second of six rounds at The Bend in South Australia.
“There’s a huge market for the team I’m building, but it will be seriously hard to compete with the top teams in Australia,” Radburn said.
“There are eight Supercar drivers in the field so it will be really tricky, but we’re looking forward to it.”
