Who runs the world—girls! Women are trailblazers anywhere they go, and so are they in NASCAR. NASCAR has seen very few but some of the best women racers ever, and now we even have a race engineer sparking conversations in the pits. Sydney Prince is the only female race engineer on a pit box for this weekend’s race in Kansas and has shown tremendous promise. Joey Cohen, the VP of race operations for Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy Motor Club, even thinks she could be the one leading the team someday.
Prince graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2022 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and shared her experience and background before leaving campus to begin her career in motorsports. Currently, she is the only woman on the No. 84 NASCAR Cup Series race team with Jimmie Johnson.
Sydney Prince is breaking into a male-dominated NASCAR world
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At just 24 years old, Sydney Prince is breaking stereotypes and shooting ahead in this very men-dominated world. She was the only female engineer in the pit box among the 40 teams when Johnson raced at Texas and Dover. But that’s not all. During Sunday’s Cup race at Kansas Speedway, she is going to continue her streak and be the only female engineer in the pit box.
Sydney Prince is taking long strides toward a very promising career, and, according to Joey Cohen, the VP of race operations for Legacy MC, she has a long way to go. He said, “I fully intend for her to be on one of the main cars, the 42, the 43 in the future….that’s her path. Ten years from now we might be even talking about her leading a team. I think she is very capable and is on the right path.”
Winning such high appreciation from veterans shows her hold over the monstrous job at hand. Race engineers are indispensable to the sport now, and their duties cannot be overstated. We may not see it, but behind the wheel, there is a lot of action taking place.
The many hats Sydney Prince wears to work
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As an engineer sitting on the pit box, Prince has many hats to wear. She needs to analyze data for the team and alert her crew chief and lead engineer about any key observations. She is also a part of the Legacy Motor Club’s vehicle performance group and spends quality work time there.
Racing in stimulators is the perk of modern-day racing, and Prince gathers data before Heim steps into the stimulator. This way, he can use the data and explore further optimization needs. But that’s not all. Right from radio communications to monitoring fuel mileage to scrutinizing pictures to check for car body damage, Prince has a lot on her plate.
Today, the racing world cannot run smoothly without the effort and work that goes behind the scenes by engineers. Even Joey Cohen attested to the role they play. He said, “We don’t do any activity, even in the shop, without an engineer. Whether that’s a quality control process when parts come into the building… The margins are so small that every body panel that comes in has to be scanned, has to be measured. An engineer has to do that. When we go to assemble cars now, when they attach a clip to the center section, an engineer has to be involved.”
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Sydney Prince’s first race with her as an engineer might not have gone according to her plan, but she is still optimistic. After Johnson finished 28th, she remarked to NBC Sports, “It’s kind of like you made it a moment.”
We can only say–way to go, girl! Moreover, there is no doubt that a bright future awaits this young engineer from Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy MC. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
