Hampton Downs, Taupo Motorsport Park, Highlands welcome first female pro driver

Hampton Downs, Highlands and Taupo International Motorsport Parks chief executive Josie Spillane (left) and Rianna O'Meara-Hunt. Photo / Highlands Motorsport Park

Hampton Downs, Highlands and Taupo Motorsport parks welcome GT4 race car driver Rianna O’Meara-Hunt, 21, from the Wellington area, as their first female pro driver.

O’Meara-Hunt will be driving in the line-up of hot lap drivers and driving instructors for the three Tony Quinn-owned motor racing circuits when she’s not racing in the United States.

O’Meara-Hunt has won multiple kart racing championships and only recently switched to GT4 car racing after she won the Heart of Racing driver academy.

Chief executive of Hampton Downs, Highlands and Taupo Motorsport Parks Josie Spillane says the group was delighted to welcome Rianna to the team.

“She’s incredibly talented, a hard worker and really passionate with the special x-factor we are always looking for in our team,” Spillane says.

“I’ve no doubt Rianna is creating an inspirational pathway for our young drivers in New Zealand and will deliver memorable, edge-of-your-seat experiences for our guests the length of New Zealand.”

O’Meara-Hunt says she hopes that being in the Pro driver line-up encourages more women to take part in the circuits’ racing experiences.

“Maybe some women will see another doing it and it’ll give them the confidence to do it. I had a female customer today for hot laps and she really enjoyed it, and it was cool to be in the car with another female because it doesn’t happen too often,” O’Meara-Hunt says.

She just made her pro drive debut for the team at Highlands, near Cromwell in the South Island, where she gets behind the wheel of their Ferrari hot lap car, the Highlands Taxi and offers instruction from the passenger seat in the U Drive Ford Mustang muscle car or the Radical sports car.

“In the U Drive cars I’m kind of helping them go faster and push beyond what they think they can do.”

Apart from her new position, she is still actively racing having just been selected as part of an all-female race team in an international shoot-out competition, the 2023 SRO GT4 championship, in America. Her teammate in the competition is American Hannah Grisham, 23.

O’Meara-Hunt will head to NOLA Motorsports Park in Arizona in a fortnight for the second round of the SRO GT4 championship, where the pair is looking for a better round than the previous one where they were forced to retire after Grisham was crashed into on the opening lap.