Maisie Place is kicking motorsport goals in a career she thought would never be possible | Only Sports And Health

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In the driver’s seat of her silver RX8 motor car, helmet on, engine revving on the grid, any onlooker wouldn’t know if Maisie Place was a man or a woman.

When the flag drops, her car, nicknamed “Frankie”, zips around the racetrack doorhandle-to-doorhandle with the rest of the cars, usually all driven by men.

This Easter long weekend, Ms Place will become the first woman to lead a garage at the Bathurst 6 Hour endurance race.

It’s something the 23-year-old thought might never happen as a young girl captivated by motorsports. 

A young girl sitting in the driver's seat of a race car.

A young Maisie Place behind the wheel of a race car in what would start a life-long obsession.(Supplied: Maisie Place)

Ms Place honed her driving skills as a youngster on her parents’ property near Moruya, on the NSW south coast.

“The rule was always: you fix the cars yourself, then you can drive them as much as you want,” she says.

“We spent our childhood destroying cars in a paddock and then fixing them ourselves.”

A young woman looks into a car's engine with the bonnet up.

Ms Place fell in love with motorsports growing up.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

She’d attend race days at Moruya speedway, where the fast, loud laps had an almost hypnotic effect.

She says the speedway was where she first thought “I want to do that”.

“But I didn’t think girls could get into it, really. I never saw girl racers or mechanics, so I thought, ‘Ah, it’s not something I can do.'”

Motor sport driver Maisie Place in her race suit in her garage in Moruya. 

Ms Place is the only female driver in the RX8 Cup, and has just completed her 100th start.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

From mechanic to driver

Frankie — short for Frankenstein because the car is a mash-up of parts from many different vehicles — is one of several cars she’s built herself in the motor mechanic garage she now operates near Moruya.

Her hands are manicured with grit and engine oil.

“Every single day revolves around cars,” she says.

A woman's hands covered in black grease and engine oil.

Hands caked in engine oil and grease is part of a normal work day for Ms Place.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

Ms Place joined the Australian Motor Racing Series RX8 Cup — a series exclusively between RX8 model cars —as an 18-year-old with “absolutely no race experience”, expecting to find resistance because of her gender.

Instead, she was judged by her driving ability.

Ms Place is the only female driver in the cup and has completed 100 race starts.

A young woman looks in the wheel arch of a race car.

Ms Place has built around 10 different cars, and says all it takes is a “some basic mechanical knowledge”.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

She is the series ambassador, won the 2022 Coral Taylor Award, which recognises an outstanding woman in motorsport, and now leads a four-car team in the series.

She races one car, and leases three to other drivers in the Cup — doing the mechanical work on all four cars between races.

A man puts racing stripes on the bonnet of a car.

Brien Place wanted his children to pursue their dreams and not see anything as a limitation.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

Her father, Brien Place, helps prepare the cars for big race days, but what he loves most is watching his daughter on the track.

“She’s living my dream really. Doing everything I wanted to do when I was her age,” he says.

“She’s very, very respected on the grid. She holds her own.”

A man stands in a mechanical garage.

Ric Shaw says Ms Place is renowned for her sportsmanship and can often be found changing competitors’ gearboxes or helping with their cars.(ABC News: Adam Griffiths)

Taking on Bathurst

RX8 Cup founder Ric Shaw says having Ms Place run the garage at the Bathurst 6 Hour over the Easter long weekend with Frankie being driven by New Zealand racers is “massive”.

“For a 23-year-old woman to own and run her own race team at Bathurst, and it’s a national event, is just unheard of,” he says.

A woman fixes a car with mechanical tools in the foreground.

Mr Shaw says Ms Place is a talented motor mechanic — a profession he says not many women are drawn to.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

When she joined the RX8 Cup, Mr Shaw described her as coming “into the scene like a bomb exploding because she’s quite an individual.”

“She’s a jack of all trades,” he says.

It led to the establishment of a ladies’ class race.

Mr Shaw took Ms Place with him to work on his car when he raced the Nürburgring 24-hour race in Germany — considered one of the toughest motorsport tracks in the world.

“When I realised the aptitude Maisie has in motorsport as a mechanic and just solving problems, I thought ‘She has to come’,” he says.

Two women talking a selfie with a mobile phone.

Maisie Place taking a selfie with a fan in her Moruya garage.(ABC South East NSW: James Tugwell)

Proving girls can drive

Three years ago, Ms Place was asked in an interview what her future dreams were.

“I wanted to be a team owner, go to the Nürburgring and I wanted to own my own workshop,” she says.

“By the time I turned 23, I’d done all that. Everything from here on is a bonus.

“Having these girls say ‘I’ve been watching you race for years. You’re such an inspiration.’ It doesn’t feel real.

“Coming from thinking I could never do it, to now achieving so much more than I ever thought I would, it’s incredible.”

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