Caitlin Wood is one of Australia’s brightest young GT racing stars. Caitlin began racing karts at the age of 7 following in the footsteps of her older brother. By age 9 this went from being just a hobby to something a little more serious.
Caitlin in the pits at the Bathurst 12 hour event
Caitlin’s older brother also drove a Formula Ford and there was a Formula Ford car in their back shed in a million pieces. When Caitlin was 15 she said to her dad “so when can I drive this one?” To make sure she was serious about it, her dad agreed she could drive it only if she helped fix the car up over her Christmas holidays.
“Done deal” said Caitlin and in 2013 Caitlin ran in the Australian Formula Ford Championship in a team run by her family. She continued to race in Formula Ford in 2014 for Synergy Motorsport Team for one and a half years. And in 2015 Caitlin was the first female to compete in the Australian F4 Championship with Dream Motorsport.
At aged 19 Caitlin received a call from Reiter Engineering and moved to Germany by herself to compete in a KTM X-BOW GT4. Caitlin won the inaugural Reiter Young Stars Championship, which was run within five rounds of the European GT4 Championship.
Caitlin was then promoted into the Blancpain GT Series in 2017 with Reiter Engineering driving a Lamborghini Gallardo. Her highlight of the year was a third place finish on debut in the Silver Cup category at the Blancpain Sprint Cup, Misano, Italy.
It was “mind-blowing” for Caitlin to drive the Lamborghini Gallardo with the Reiter Engineering team in the Blancpain GT Series. Caitlin said even though it was “tough mentally, physically and emotionally”, working with Reiter Engineering has made her a better driver and more controlled.
Caitlin also raced in the 24 Hours of Dubai at the beginning of 2017 in a KTM X-BOW GT4 with an all women driver line up including Marylin Niederhauser, Naomi Schiff, and Anna Rathe. Unfortunately her teammate had an incident during the race that put them out of contention, but Caitlin set the second quickest lap time of the race in the GT4 category.
The #48 KTM X-BOW GT4 run by the M-Motorsport Team
I caught up with Caitlin on the Friday of the 2018 Bathurst 12 hour race weekend after she had completed her first couple of flying laps around the amazing Mt Panorama circuit in the #48 KTM X-BOW GT4 run by the M-Motorsport Team.
Caitlin believes that “patience and the ability to think about things a little bit more than men” are the attributes that women possess to make them good endurance car drivers, even though she admits she is one of the most impatient people around.
The #48 car going through The Esses as morning broke over Mt Panorama
Before the Bathurst 12 hour event Caitlin wrote in a blog post “competing at Bathurst has always been a dream and goal of mine so to be able to tick it off is awesome”. But unfortunately for Caitlin she never got to turn a racing lap around Mt Panorama after one of her team mates had an accident after only a bit over an hour’s racing. I felt guttered for Caitlin because she was so excited about her first ever race around the legendary Bathurst circuit.
In a blog post a couple of days after the Bathurst 12 hour Caitlin wrote that after the accident her “…automatic reaction was to head out the back and straight into the trailer to make sure the media couldn’t see me cry. I couldn’t be seen on T.V as the ‘typical’ girl who cries, “I’m stronger than that” I would tell myself”.
Caitlin admits on reflection that she didn’t need to hide her emotions or reactions because “they’re natural” considering all the effort that the team and drivers put into a race weekend. Caitlin added “I am now more determined than ever to show my full potential, they all say bad things come in 3’s so bring on the rest of 2018 – it can only go up from here!”
Caitlin is currently in the United Kingdom working with the MTECH Racing and has the ambitious goal of driving at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 2020, but admits it may not happen by then, but it will happen eventually. After meeting Caitlin and chatting to her I can say that I don’t doubt she will achieve this goal as well. As Caitlin so rightly puts it “hard work doesn’t have a gender”, so regardless of being male or female you need to work hard for your success and Caitlin is certainly doing that!
The #48 KTM X-Bow during Practice on Friday
You can follow Caitlin Wood Racing on Facebook and Instagram for more reports on her journey towards the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Photographs by Driven Women Magazine.