In Reach: A story about Race Car Driver Emily Duggan
August 2019
Reading length 5 - 8 mins
The roar of an engine starting up interrupts the whistling wind on an otherwise quite Saturday in Sydney’s north-west suburb of Dural.
A Blue Mazda 626 drives into a garage hidden behind amass of industrial buildings. It’s been modified from the sleek exterior of the paint, and silver rims to what’s under the car’s bonnet.
Emily steps out from the car, dressed in a black work polo, and torn jeans. Her hair is tied back, and there’s grease on her pants and runners, but those go unnoticed as she slams the door shut.
“I never really drive this car, it’s actually for sale,” she says.
Emily Duggan is one of the hardest working racing car drivers in Australia. She drives her car to the race, unloads it herself, races it, packs it up herself, and does it all over again. It is sheer dedication for someone who has only been racing for 5 years. I join her this morning as she works on some of her cars. A few hours from now she will work an evening shift at a supermarket, so her time is scarce.
“Do you want to see some of the supercars?” Emily gives a smile, one that seems to surface whenever she speaks.
I nod, eager for the rare opportunity.
Next door, Emily’s engineer greets me as we approach the garage. His handshake is firm, a true testament to years of hard work. He raises his arm to welcome us into their world. A miasma of oil, smoke and steel fills the air. Above us are two Holden supercars hoists. Parked at the far end of the garage is an orange disassembled Porsche. Racks of tyres are arranged against the wall like books in a library, and tools are scattered everywhere. For any car nut, this is paradise.
Emily brushes her hand on the Holden closest to us, “This one’s called Beauty.”
It’s polished black with a considerable amount of work being done on it.
“And this one is called Geraldine,” Emily says as she holds a button down and the white Holden begins to lower onto the ground.
Amongst the decals covering the car, one particular sticker, plastered right at the rear window, stands out: “Duggan”
Even though Emily has a team behind her, she is both the driver and team manager. This is no easy feat as she splits her time between being a full-time race car driver, speaking with potential sponsors for the racing team, and still working two jobs to pursue her passion.
“How did you enter the world of driving?” I begin.
Emily lifts a steel frame shaped like cow horns and begins screwing it onto the front of the Commodore. “Interestingly enough, I was born in the back of a speeding ambulance on the M1 in Brisbane. I’ve always thought I was born to go fast,” Emily says, with a cheeky grin. “But the earliest memory I have of actually driving a car was when I was 14. I took my parent’s car to my friend’s house. It wasn’t far, but it was like a light was flicked on deep within me.”
“Growing up, were you into anything else other than driving?”
“Not particularly. I was an average kid, but there was just something fascinating about cars. I wasn’t very good academically, and I never really finished reading any books, but I remember that I read my learner’s driving book so much that I memorised everything.” Emily picks up a spanner and begins tightening a nut. “Everyone couldn’t wait to turn 18 to drink, I couldn’t wait to turn 16 to drive.”
“Were there any moments retrospectively that you think led you to being a race car driver?”
Emily pauses and wipes sweat off her forehead with her forearm. “Thinking back… I remember my friends complimenting me that they felt safe when I drove them around. Actually, it was in one of those drives that I realised I had an innate skill in driving. I remember one of my friends asked why I always accelerated out of the apex of a corner. Back then I didn’t know why, so I just replied that it felt right. Little did I know that it’s what I have to understand to be a good driver.”
Car racing, in Australia, has grown to be one of the major sports enjoyed by many. To watch it on television is one thing, but to actually race comes with a whole range of challenges. This was where the fork in the road would begin for Emily.
“I always thought I’d love to race cars one day, but I didn’t know how to get into it. Through that time the voice in me never stopped shouting that I could do it. That led me to I began to look up ways on how to become a race car driver,” Emily says.
“What did you have to do to get to your first race?” I ask.
“Two things kept coming up. You had to have started very young (experience) and you needed sponsorships (money). Two things I didn’t have. So it wasn’t easy to begin with. The first thing I did was save for a car as I kept working. After that, it was finding what series I could race in, just in terms of being able to afford to be in it. The Hyundai Excel series seemed to be the most ideal. So I bought a Hyundai Excel, a car trailer, and pretty much everything that I needed to be able to race. Then, it was finding the sponsors.” Emily stops and asks Robbo for a different sized spanner. She then splays herself on the concrete floor and reaches underneath the bumper canards.
“Finding sponsors was difficult. A lot of people said no. A lot.” Emily gives a slight chuckle at the thought. “But I thought, someone will say yes eventually, I just have to keep asking. It took about 300 cold calls. I’m so thankful for Surelince and Penrite Oil for giving me such an opportunity to represent them.”
“What other challenges did you face?”
“Image. Being one of the few female drivers in Australian car racing, there’s always a stigma of belonging. I’ll tell you an example: there has been an occasion when I got offered a full sponsorship. Everything was provided for me as a driver but the catch was that I also be a promo girl. I had to say no to that. I work hard to ensure that women aren’t limited to getting opportunities just for their looks.”
Emily rises from the ground, and wipes the dirt from her hands. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the girl things but those things won’t help me win a race. I need to know at which angle to approach a corner, or the tendencies of the other drivers I’m racing against. When I’m on the track, I want it to be about racing not looks.”
“When you began driving race cars, how difficult was the adjustment?”
“I skipped a lot of things, and went straight into cars, which was the Hyundai Excel series. I’ve always felt comfortable in the driver’s seat, but I missed 10 years of experience. All the racers I was competing against had at least 10 years of experience over me.”
“What were the things you did to get that experience?”
“During that 1st year, I tried to get as much seat time as possible. I’d test drive my car so much that I burned through my annual leave from every job that I got.” Emily shrugs. “But I wanted to fast track things. The old saying of pedal to the metal was how I was approaching the beginning of my driving career. I didn’t want to take a step back.”
In Emily’s short span in racing she has recorded multiple podium finishes, and clocked the fastest lap in last year’s challenge Bathurst. Along the way she has also amassed a reputation of being dedicated to her craft by volunteering at other racing events she is not participating in.
Finding a passion is not easy to begin with, let alone pursuing it wholeheartedly. The concept of risk clouds our judgement, most times, and becomes one of the deterrent for us to fully devote our efforts in seeing our dreams come to fruition. Whether we decide out of probability, or decide out of necessity, a purpose is always in reach. If there is no purpose, we can just make one up. Moving forward has always been at the core of the human experience.
Emily invites me to examine one of the super car’s interior. She points out that it’s never how people imagine it to be: there’s only one seat encased with a roll cage, and everything is stripped down apart from the driver’s seat, the steering wheel, and the gear shift. “See the gear stick?” Emily points at it. “It has no H-pattern, so you just go up and down the gears. No unnecessary movements are wasted.”
“You received a scholarship to the Paul Morris Academy early this year. What does that mean for you?” I ask.
“It’s an honour to be given an opportunity to be taught by such a legendary driver. I aspire to be at Paul Morris’s level one day, simple as that. But having his name behind me really raises my status in the racing world. Especially because I don’t come from a racing background, it really shows that I’m supposed to be here.”
“What have you learnt so far, and has it translated onto your most recent races?”
“One of the most important things he’s taught me is car control. He would put us through these rigorous ‘shootouts’ where we would be given a random starting position, and we have to get our fastest lap. It’s a brutal but efficient way of training. You get placed in a mentality of not making any mistakes. So far, my results under his guidance haven’t shown just yet, but I’m working on that.”
“In what particular manner?”
“Right now, I worry about other things too much. My concentration is split between being a driver, and being the team manager. Because my budget is so small, it’s constantly in the back of my mind. I know that I need to concentrate on just driving. And that’s what I haven’t learnt just yet.”
Emily stops me, and ushers me outside where her Toyota 86 is sitting above a trailer. Its pearl white exterior is scratched, and battered. A section of the bumper is separated and is held together only by cable ties. The sight reminds me of a boxer who has just finished a well-fought bout. She begins peeling the decals off the Toyota.
“We do this after every race. Assess the damage, fix it, put the decals on, race it, and then do it all over again.”
“Is there anything you’d like to be doing other than racing?”
“I’ve always believed I could be good at many things. I have a knack for editing videos, and it’s fun when I do it, but I don’t want to do that for a living. All I’ve ever wanted to do was race cars. To be honest, when I was growing up, I started realising that anything I did didn’t really matter much to anyone else. That made me think that if I’m not impacting anyone in my life, I can do whatever I want, which makes pursuing racing somewhat more liberating. I do it because I love it.”
“What’s next for you?”
“I would love to get more sponsorships and just focus on winning races. But right now, I just want to keep getting better. Not just as a race car driver, but as a person, as a speaker, and in my two other jobs.
Emily smiles at the thought, shakes her head, and returns to peeling the decals off the Toyota.
To find more of Emily, visit her website here or follow her on instagram @emilyduggan1
Written by: S.I. Finlayson
Editor: Annie Tonkin
Photos by: Sydney Morales and the illusive Crew. For more of their work follow them @illusivecrew_
With special thanks to: Emily Duggan