TARGA Official Spotlight: Pam von Stieglitz
This International Women’s Day, and every day, we recognise and celebrate the female drivers, navigators, support crew, volunteers and officials who consistently break the bias and contribute to our success, both on and off the road.
We are committed to providing support and ongoing opportunities for females in the Australian motorsports industry.
One very familiar face in the TARGA family is that of our Chief Competitor Relations Officer, Pam von Stieglitz.
Pam’s first TARGA experience was more than two decades ago as a stage director for the 1999 TARGA Tasmania event. Since her first event, she has become an integral member of the TARGA team, as a stage official, deputy area coordinator and now in her role as the competition liaison – a familiar face that all TARGA competitors know they can come to for any questions, concerns, support, or for a good chat and celebration after a TARGA event.
We recently caught up with Pam to reflect on some of her fond TARGA memories, and to share her love of motorsport.
What was your very first TARGA event like & how did you get involved?
It was exciting and rewarding being appointed Stage Director back in 1999 for such an iconic Tasmanian event. I was impressed with the quality of training and documentation provided, although there were a few butterflies while waiting at the start for the first cars to arrive. I recall feeling a huge sense of relief and achievement once the road was re-opened and I was hooked!
What is your fondest memory of TARGA?
In the year 2000 I was promoted to Deputy Area Coordinator to assist Pontus with the running of the Millenium Course in the North of Tas – a 6 day course with a total of 54 stages. We were directly responsible to recruit and train over 400 Officials for the 21 stages being run in our area. It was a relief to successfully deliver this huge undertaking. You can imagine we didn’t spend many weekends at home that year!
Probably one of the reasons Pontus became my husband!!
Moving from the Road Activities to the CRO team was an opportunity to meet and liaise more with competitors. In the days of manual timing and one very wet day when we were overnighting in Burnie – it was clear to the results team that there was a significant error in quite a few of the competitor times. After several hours of the results brains not being able to identify the error, at 1am the Results Manager encouraged us to go and get some sleep in the hope that competitor queries about their times the next morning would provide a lead as to where in the field the error commenced and finished. Not one competitor queried their times including those that were negatively impacted and there were up to 50 cars impacted. Those were the days!!
What is a TARGA moment or story you’ll never forget?
Being inducted into the TARGA Hall of Fame
Are there any significant people who have played an important role in your TARGA experiences?
Tom Snooks was Clerk of Course when I joined the TARGA team in 1999 as Stage Commander for the Launceston Stage and when I was promoted to Deputy Area Coordinator I was fortunate to work closely with him. He was a great communicator and leader. Taught me so much – at every TARGA event since I have relied on the knowledge he imparted.
What was your first car like?
A yellow Holden Gemini SL Coupe
You have two empty spots in your dream garage; name one classic car and one modern car that you’d park there.
Classic: BMW M3 E46 GTR V8 – I enjoy the story that connects this car to the fight between BMW and Porsche
Modern: E46 BMW M3 – I love a good road trip and even better in the best M3 of them all
If you could have a dinner party and invite any two guests, who would you invite?
Christian Horner and Toto Wolf