Chelsea's journey from Redback Racing member to Team Leader

"I really care about keeping Redback alive and preserving what makes it special, so future students can have the same opportunities."

Published on the 14 May 2026

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Redback Racing 2026 Team Leader Chelsea Tran

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Belatedly joining Redback... and immediately thriving

Some people know what they want to do early on in their life, whether it's working with animals or channelling spiritual teachings into academia. For Chelsea Tran, a fifth-year Computer Science turned Mechanical Engineering student and 2026 Redback Racing Team Leader, there was the briefest of thoughts about being in the motorsport industry during high school, only to realise that may not be what she wanted to do upon joining UNSW.

But as with most career-related decisions during those formative university days, things are never set in stone and she realised during her third year of study that perhaps motorsport could be a potential pathway after all.

"I was realising that I'm gaining all this knowledge [in my engineering degree], doing all these tests and exams. But I wasn't confident in applying those things," explains Chelsea. "That's why I sought out a more hands-on experience on campus, to consolidate that learning into real-world [applications]."

"I [remembered] Redback Racing from high school, so I looked into them [again], I just applied and here I am."

Upon joining Redback Racing as a member of the Suspension and Brakes team, Chelsea quickly broadened her scope of work beyond working on getting the car to stop properly.

After going through the initiation phase before being assigned to brake-related projects, she soon become involved with the logistics side of things.

"I thought Suspension looked interesting. It seemed like it involved a lot of dynamic problems that I hadn’t encountered in uni work before.

"I liked the complexity of it, so I thought, 'Okay, sure,' even though I didn’t really know what that meant yet."

"I worked in Brakes for the second half of [my first] year. Most of the design work was already done by then, so I was doing a lot of manufacturing, test plans and maintenance work on the car," recalls the Redback Team Leader. "At the same time, I also joined the Cost team in my first year. Cost is a competition-specific event where you basically have to cost every part of the car. It’s more logistics-focused, and the aim is to create the cheapest possible car."

Cheapest car means it's a battle of efficiency rather than whoever can spend the most. Chelsea says it's a great approach to promoting ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking instead of simply throwing money at the issue, which Redback can't exactly do. "The cheapest car wins the Cost event, so it encourages teams to think seriously about efficiency and manufacturing decisions in a very real-world engineering sense."

From growing and learning with the team to leading it

Somewhat unexpectedly, it was Chelsea's excellence with the Cost team that saw her progress up the ranks faster than a qualifying lap around Monza.

"I joined the Cost team as a new member, and there were about four or five of us," she explains. "After [the] competition, the Cost Lead at the time approached me and said, 'You’ve shown really good initiative in Cost, and you seem to understand what it means. Would you like to be Cost Lead next year?'"

Surprise was perhaps an understatement upon receiving the offer, but Chelsea didn't hesitate to say yes as it was "a good opportunity to learn new skills, especially people management."

"I’d only been on the team for about nine or 10 months, so I was really surprised.

"I felt very honoured that they trusted me with that responsibility [of Cost Lead] because Cost is worth a lot of points at competition, and it’s also something that can be hard to get engineers excited about."

Cost Lead was an exciting new challenge, but improving her engineering design skills remained the name of the (metaphorical) game, so Chelsea stayed on with the Brakes team for her second year. This was quite the challenge in terms of time management and workload, but she remembers it as an incredibly rewarding experience.

Last year [in 2025], I designed new brake discs, which was a huge challenge because we hadn’t redesigned them in a couple of years," says Chelsea. "At the same time, I was also running the Cost team. So last year was pretty hectic, doing design work while managing around 10 to 30 people."

Leading a team for the first time meant soaking up all that all-important people management experience, all while scratching that engineering design itch. Unbeknownst to her at the time, holding roles in both the Cost and Brakes team meant quickly accruing important knowledge of Redback Racing as a holistic racing team.

"Cost includes members from every other department. Every department has to contribute costing information, so you oversee all of them," she explains. "It was great because I learned a lot about the rest of the car. As a mechanical engineer, I naturally understood the mechanical systems best, but through Cost I also learned about the electrical side and how everything integrates together."

At end of 2025, it was time to vote on the next executive team and Chelsea wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do. There were thoughts of a more hands-on design role or swapping over to the Batteries team for some extra practical experience (and to get some good foundation work for her thesis). But after chatting with the team's previous Team Lead, Hayley, about a potential Treasurer role, the Team Lead role came up instead. The more Chelsea thought about it, the more it made sense.

"I already had a broad view across the technical branch, and I’d spent a lot of time talking to different departments and hearing what people thought about the team and how it operated," says Chelsea. "I care a lot about Redback because I know how valuable it’s been for my engineering career and development. That made me realise Team Lead could be a way for me to contribute to that."

After some encouragement from friends in other departments within the team, Chelsea took the plunge and got voted in as Redback Racing Team Lead for 2026.

Leading Redback Racing with passion

2026 is Chelsea's final year at UNSW and therefore final year with Redback Racing. As such, there's some pressure — both external and from herself — to lead the team to success. With all the responsibilities Chelsea has as Team Lead, one wonders whether she even has the time to feel any pressure.

But over the course of two separate conversations, there wasn't any doubt she would do a great job as she has a clear sense of what to do and what's best for the team. In terms of what the Team Lead does, well, the short answer is a bit of everything.

"I was very unsure of myself — honestly, I still am sometimes — but [my friends] helped me realise that caring deeply about the team is one of the most important qualities for the role."

"A lot of it is logistics and operations. We organise vehicles, track bookings, transport, relationships with the School of Mechanical Engineering and access to makerspaces," explains Chelsea. "We also communicate where Redback is at as a team, what the next month looks like and run weekly safety meetings. I also work closely with the Treasurer on operations like lab management and driver fitness programs."

Digging into her role deeper, she says, "I spend a lot of time focused on team dynamics and member wellbeing as well, making sure people feel fulfilled, making sure the right people are in the right roles and making sure departments are properly supported. I also work with Peli in the Women's Working Group to align Redback’s direction with broader goals there, too."

Sounds like a full-time job. Chelsea laughs and agrees, "Teams is always on, email is always on. At the end of the day, a lot of the role is just making sure people have what they need to do their best work."

Even as a Redback Racing veteran at this point, there are still things that surprise her, especially when it comes to the complexity of team dynamics where there are over 150 people involved.

"Everyone here is an individual with different goals, motivations, experiences and capacities," says Chelsea. "Trying to bring all of those people together under one common mission can be really difficult."

When pointing out the unique dynamic in that the team is all comprised of volunteers, she agrees but also notes that passion is the main driver: "It’s especially strange because we’re all university students doing this voluntarily. Nobody’s getting paid, so there’s no monetary incentive. The motivation is purely passion — people do this because they genuinely love it."

Taking all that racing team knowledge into the real world

The next step for Chelsea is what she's going to do after graduating from UNSW. As it so happens, her time with Redback Racing has already opened several doors to her within the world of engineering thanks to all the skills and professional development she's gained.

"I’m currently working at an aviation startup, and honestly, I don’t think I would’ve gotten that role without Redback," she admits. "The graduate and internship market is really tough right now, so I was very lucky to have the practical experience and skills Redback gave me."

She adds: "Once I started working, I realised how much of what I’d learned through Redback directly translated into industry. I understood how teams operate, how projects are run and how technical collaboration works."

"I could even bring things I’d learned from Redback into my workplace, and vice versa [...] That’s been really reassuring because it shows that the skills Redback teaches are genuinely relevant in industry."

When asked what kind of legacy and impact she wants to leave behind at Redback Racing for future iterations of the team to come, Chelsea takes a rare moment to think before telling us, "I think there’s still another level of harmony and cohesion we haven’t fully achieved yet."

Explaining further: "There can sometimes feel like there’s a gap between business and technical members, Redback and industry, or even between different technical departments themselves. I want to help bridge those gaps."

Beyond making sure the team operates as smoothly as their car's aerodynamics, the other important ethos Chelsea wants to impart is the importance of the Redback experience rather than just winning.

"Competition performance absolutely matters [but] the biggest value I personally gained from Redback came from the experience itself, not from whether we placed second or first," she explains. "I want members to feel that their time here is worthwhile even if we don’t win competition."

But what about winning in her final year with the team?

Chelsea laughs: "Absolutely. Winning is always the goal."