Under-The-Radar, Megan Ryder Has Proven Integral to No. 98 Herta Hyundai Form in 2025
By David Phillips
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. –Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian has certainly enjoyed its fair share of success in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge. Since first entering the series in partnership with Hyundai, BHA Hyundais have captured 29 Touring Car (TCR) wins and swept the driver, team and manufacturer TCR titles in four consecutive seasons from 2020 through 2023. They have an additional driver title in 2019 and an additional manufacturer title in 2024.
An “under-the-radar” story developing this year of another new name added to the litany of Herta and Hyundai success is Megan Ryder, lead engineer on the No. 98 Hyundai Elantra N TCR piloted by Harry Gottsacker and Mason Filippi, winners of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio.
This was not the No. 98 Hyundai’s first victory of the 2025 campaign, but it was the first on the road after a post-race penalty sent the sister No. 33 car to the rear of the field at Sebring. There was no such blemish at Mid-Ohio; Gottsacker and Filippi beat teammates Preston Brown and Denis Dupont in the No. 76 Herta Hyundai by 0.668 of a second.
“Personally, I don’t count Sebring as a win,” Ryder said. “The points may show it, but it’s way more satisfying to get across the finish line first. It was much more rewarding, especially after a four-hour race when it was a tough battle the whole way through. But that relief at the end was like ‘O.K., we really did it.’”
The win at Mid-Ohio allowed Ryder, Gottsacker, Filippi and the rest of the No. 98 crew to close within 10 points of Brown, Dupont and the No. 76 for the top spot of the TCR championship points standings heading to Watkins Glen International and the LP Building Solutions 120.
However, the No. 98 team attacked Watkins Glen with a slightly different lineup – with Filippi racing at the Nürburgring 24 in a Hyundai Motorsport TCR entry – as Gottsacker’s longtime friend and former BHA driver Parker Chase filled in. The revised lineup finished third, and moved the No. 98 car into the points lead leaving Watkins Glen. For good measure, the Filippi/Michael Lewis/Bryson Morris/Robert Wickens Hyundai TCR car finished second in its class at the Nürburgring.
“We’re just going to roll that momentum and keep going forward with the car we have,” Ryder said.
All in all, not too bad for someone who, far from aspiring to a career in auto racing, wanted nothing to do with the sport in her youth.
“Both my parents used to work for Roush Engineering through the evolution of Roush Fenway Racing,” Ryder said. “I saw how busy they were all the time and was like ‘Wow! No thank you.’”
But that was before she was lured into the sport by her affinity for mathematics and engineering … and the Hyundai Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Scholarship which, in cooperation with BHA, provides female students with opportunities to learn about careers in motorsports.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do in college,” Ryder recalled. “I knew I liked math, so I just said, ‘I’ll start with engineering. Take me wherever it takes me.’
“I got admitted into the mechanical engineering program at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (now IU Indianapolis and Purdue University Indianapolis). It was the classes that could be applied to the real world that I really found interesting: vehicle dynamics, data analysis, race engineering. I just wanted to learn more, so I joined the motorsports program, took all those classes and my curiosity just took over.
“I needed a job to support myself. Chris Finch (now BHA’s technical director) really pushed me to take a job as an intern with BHA. ‘Just try it,’ he said. ‘It’s an internship. If you don’t like it, finish out the season and move on.’
“Well, it turns out I loved it; loved the racetrack; loved the engineering challenge. And a switch went off in my brain saying, ‘This is where you belong.’”
Ryder joined BHA as a system engineer intern in 2021, downloading data and reviewing engine vitals, and advanced up the proverbial ladder, thanks in equal parts to her rapidly developing expertise and the fact that BHA kept affording her opportunities. She became lead engineer on the No. 77 BHA Hyundai last year with Taylor Hagler and Morris and moved over to the No. 98 car this year.
In the process, she has worked with virtually the entire cast of BHA drivers over the past five seasons.
“Every year is a learning experience,” she said. “You see different driver abilities, strengths and weaknesses. The thing I love about IMSA sports car racing is you have to have multiple drivers and setting-up the car for multiple drivers is challenging.”
As well as honing her technical skills, working with an ever-changing driver line-up has contributed to what one might call “the other” side of race car engineering: the psychologist (although some might say psychiatrist).
“Starting as a systems engineer gave me a really good baseline,” Ryder said. “I’m still communicating with our systems engineers. They come to me asking me questions – I’m still asking them questions and learning from them. There’s definitely some psychology involved! It’s working well with your team, meshing and communicating with each other. We all have bad days when we have to lift each other up. We all have great days when we can celebrate with our teammates.”
Keeping the race cars competitive is an ongoing dance year-to-year with largely incremental or evolutionary developments allowed. Race engineers also remain adeptly on their toes to account for any regulatory tweaks. Ryder wouldn’t have it any other way.
“When the BoP (Balance of Performance) changes you just have to go out and see how it affects the car,” she said. “It’s like any other changing race condition. It keeps the competition even, but it’s also a challenge. That’s what racing is: a challenge. You just react to those changes and make the car fast again.”
That challenge has contributed to a 180-degree turn in Ryder’s outlook on following her parents’ career choice.
“My ultimate goal is Le Mans and sports cars,” she said. “My dad (Jim) was an engineer at one of the Le Mans races, so I look at him as one of my biggest role models. Just hearing the stories from those days and from my mom (Nancy) as well … our last name is attached to some sort of reputation, and I’d like to exceed that. It’s very interesting to me; those GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) cars (in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship), all of them are just so cool; the high level of engineering and mechanics that go into all of them.”
But before she gets to Le Mans, Ryder has more immediate goals, not least of which is encouraging and supporting more young women to follow her into motorsports.
“I love to see this movement growing,” she said. “Even in just the past five years that I’ve been in racing, I’ve seen such growth in the paddock from PR people to engineers to mechanics. There are so many more female mechanics on the grid. That is wonderful to see. I love to see them kicking butt. Succeeding.
“BHA and Hyundai have been so supportive of the diversity and STEM growth. That’s one of our initiatives with interns; we’ve got such a great group of interns come through even when I was an intern to now. We had Josefine (Eskildsen) who is now with the Acura GTP car. That growth and opportunity is wonderful to see. We’ve got Gabby (Kuebler) on our team now. She’s new to racing, but she’s picking it up right away.
“Just to hear and see that is great. Knowing that getting that early exposure is what gets you interested.”
And on the path to success.