Tanya Human: From events manager to Zwartkops Raceway CEO

Running a race circuit is not a job for the faint of heart. Running a race circuit successfully – especially in current times – is almost impossible. The Zwartkops Raceway near Pretoria is a successful race circuit.

It is rightfully known as the birthplace and home of South Africa’s Inland Historic and Regional motorsport. Earlier this month, the venue hosted its 20^th annual Passion for Speed extravaganza with a total of 296 competitors, making it the biggest single race meeting in South African history.

Making that happen required the type of organization associated with the running of the Olympic Games or a medium-sized civil war. Taking overall responsibility for the event would require somebody with balls of steel, right? Wrong.

What Zwartkops Chief Executive Officer Tanya Human DOES have is an intricate knowledge of local motorsport, an unwavering belief in the circuit’s core values, a stubborn resolve to do things correctly, and a brilliant team of motorsport experts. Tanya’s association with motorsport began relatively late in her life.

“As a child I did not know that motorsport existed – I followed rugby, like everybody else I knew,” she says.

After matriculating from the Centurion High School in 2002 Tanya went to work for an events and marketing company. At age 23, the firm appointed her as Events Coordinator for the AMG Driving Academy, which, to this day, operates at the Zwartkops Raceway.

“The first race car I ever saw was at Zwartkops, and I first attended a race meeting at the venue’s sixth Passion for Speed in 2007. It was love at first sight – this colourful, noisy, varied, slightly crazy activity, pursued by utterly dedicated, highly skilful, slightly insane people. I knew I wanted to spend my life in that world,” Tanya says.

She became a regular motorsport spectator while still working at the AMG Academy. At the end of 2014, double South African rally navigators’ champion Elvene Vonk vacated the position as Zwartkops’ Events Manager, and Tanya was offered the job.

She happily accepted, became Events Director in 2019, and was appointed as CEO on 1 June this year. The job entails massive responsibilities, the first of which is to keep the venue financially sound.

“No race circuit in this country could survive on the income from motorsport – if an event breaks even, we are happy,” Tanya says.

Making money for the circuit are Driving Academies for AMG Mercedes and Volkswagen, a skid pan, a karting circuit, an off road driving facility and a corporate karting track. Zwartkops also hires out garages to circuit competitors who do not wish to keep their race cars at home. That is part of the venue’s dedication to the welfare of privateer competitors.

“When Covid-19 stopped local motorsport in its tracks last year, privateers picked up the pieces when we got the green light to resume racing. Motorsport survived, not due to the motor industry or large corporations, but enthusiasts with limited means who choose to spend their spare money on this cruel crazy, beautiful thing,” Tanya says.

“Zwartkops was born due to a passion for the Adrenaline Game, and plays a large role in keeping local motorsport affordable, accessible and practical. Keeping that heritage alive is my main task – luckily I have an incredibly able and dedicated team of people around me, all motorsport nuts,” she concludes.

Tanya’s two sons from a previous marriage, Clayton (12) and Dylan (10) both race motorcycles in the Gauteng Xcross Country Club events. he and her life partner, race car tuner and driver Lee Thompson, have an eight-months old son, Leo.

Leo already gets to spend a lot of time in the Universal Motorsport workshop, run by Lee on the Zwartkops Raceway premises. “He will become a race car driver, no doubt,” Tanya says. “He went to his first motorsport event at the age of five months, and is absolutely used to the sound of racing engines by now.”