Jamie Rowe’s family-driven racing passion

Jamie Rowe has endured a challenging season to date in the Formula Ford Stars Series, but there was a change of fortune at Queensland Raceway spurring on a passion for the sport ingrained by his family since his formative years.

Experiencing a dramatic rollover at Sydney Motorsport Park, Rowe responded in emphatic fashion by appearing on the podium twice across the four races at the 2 Days of Thunder meeting in June.

“I was pretty happy with that,” said Rowe.

“A big effort by the team and to finally get on the board just shows that we can do it. It gives me a bunch of confidence heading to Mallala.

“We had a tough end to Sydney, not finishing on the Saturday and left there pretty down. It had been a big couple of weeks by the time we got back to the workshop and to finish the last round at Queensland Raceway with the car in one piece is a nice feeling.”

Rowe is able to draw on the vast motorsport experience of his father in addition to his uncle, long-time Super2 team boss Terry Wyhoon.

A former competitor in NASCAR, AUSCAR, Super2 and V8 Touring Cars, Wyhoon owns Image Racing, which continues to help many of the rising stars in Australian motorsport reach the top level.

Rowe has been around the team due to his father’s involvement and hopes to be driving for his uncle one day.

“Terry has definitely played a part in my career,” Rowe reflected.

“When I was little, my dad used to be a mechanic in Terry’s team when he used to race doing the fuel. There’s pictures of me in the V8 when I was a kid even though I didn’t drive anything for a while after that.

“I’ve always been around it since birth, so Terry’s had a huge part in my passion for racing.”

Through this connection, Supercars enduro driver Jordan Boys acts as mentor, engineer and mechanic to aid in Rowe’s development.

“It’s been great to work with Jordan Boys,” he said.

“We’ve been working together for a couple of years now as he does all the data and is the mechanic as well. He brings a lot of experience and is great to have as part of my team.”

Mallala returns to the national motorsport scene on September 26-28 when the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series hosts its penultimate round at the South Australian venue. For Rowe, it might be a steep learning curve…

“To be honest I had never heard of Mallala before, so I’ll have to do some research.”