I WILL always remember Jeff Mattner first and foremost by the nickname I first heard bestowed on him when I started working in motorsport, at least professionally, in 2004.

“Go and find Bernie and see what he wants to do,”  

“Bernie?” I replied to then Team BRM boss and old Mattner mate-slash-sparring partner Bronte Rundle.

Turned out that ‘Bernie’ was the most appropriate nickname possibly for someone who had many of the same impressive abilities to do deals and exert influence as the former boss of Formula 1.

Jeff Mattner passed away, aged 90, on Friday night and I have little doubt that he was undoubtedly still at his raconteuring best.

Jeff was a dealmaker, a tough taskmaster – bloody tough at times – but a man with more stories that most have ever forgotten and a man who loved the sport and loved doing what he thought could make it better.

Jeff was best known for his position as Motorsport Manager at the South Australian Motorsport Board, steering the foundation of first the Australian Grand Prix and then the Adelaide 500.

He was omnipresent in the role, his touch and impact spread across the precinct and across the sport.

Walk through the paddock at Sydney Motorsport Park? There he was. Bathurst? Jeff would probably be there. Any one of many Asian circuits? Absolutely. Jeff loved Asia and it was something of a second home for the man originally from just up the street from where I live now.

Jeff’s role at the ‘500 was classic Mattner – on paper he wasn’t the boss, technically he answered to the board and the CEO – but everyone knew he pretty much steered the ship his way anyway.

Jeff sits in the big three of the R. Craill Motorsport foundation story.

I first met him in late 2004 when I started working with Team BRM’s F3 team. The category manager of the championship at the time, Mattner was one of the group of F3 protagonists that successfully partitioned CAMS – now Motorsport Australia – that the prestigious Gold Star should be awarded to the Formula 3 champion. It was the high point of his many years advocating for wings and slicks racing in Australia and it was there where our paths first crossed.

When the championship needed first a caller and then a PR guy in 2005 I stuck my head up above the parapet and once Jeff had reality-checked my financial aspirations, he was on board and so was I.

I don’t know if it was the fact that we were both from the Barossa or the fact I was just a young bloke having a crack, but Jeff and I always got on well.  

I don’t think earning Jeff’s respect was easy, but I am proud that I did.

He and the late Terry Little, who was running the fledgling Australian GT Championship at the time, were then responsible for getting me into the TV hot seat at Speedweek that year. His vote of support with the and the organisers of the then-AMRS, including Rod Dale, was key in me getting the nod to be on TV for the first time.

While Jeff scaled back his F3 commitments and the category evolved, we remained in touch.

Every random meeting in a paddock at an event or even out and about in South Australia, would come with a comment on what I was doing and if I’m honest most times a critique on what I could do better.

It was never dealt harshly; just in his forthright style as a means of continuing to support my own career that he had helped launch.

To me Jeff always seemed old but he also seemed indestructible, there never seemed a time when he wouldn’t be around and the fact he was still in the paddock offering his viewpoints right up to the point where his body said enough, is absolutely how I want to go.

Jeff loved a glass of Red, loved his family and his mates in and out of the sport. He loved Macau and he loved stories of the notable people he had met or especially influenced along the way.

Good god he had some ripping stories.

Jeff was successful and in the later years, post-Covid, would appear at The Bend in his Ferrari California, top down, having driven up from town boasting of speeds that only he could get away with.

No doubt had he been pulled over not only would he have avoided a ticket, but the officer would be left in little doubt about what he or she needed to change in their life to improve before he disappeared up the road once again.

Jeff’s imprint on the sport is left not only at Adelaide’s Street circuit but in the people he helped along the way, be it with tough conversations or support behind the scenes, it’s a long list.

My last chat with Jeff was at The Bend late last year. He was noticeably frailer than the last time we had spoken, but the chat was no different to the ones we had way back when in the F3 days.

After catching up, I pressed him on a matter I’d brought up before – my desire to get his story in the sport on record for surely, there were tales from the early days of the Grand Prix and the ‘500 that he’d never told that deserved to see the light of day.

It would have made an incredible podcast or, more likely a book of epic storytelling the sport has yet to see.

“Richard, you’ll never be able to publish the stories until I’m long dead,” he said, before adding with a characteristic gleam in his eye, “Plus it’s probably better for a lot of people I take them with me..”

We never did get to have that chat and published or not, I wish we had.

Motorsport, South Australian in particular, is better for having our ‘Bernie’ be part of it for as long as he was. And so am I.