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Transcript

Tim Schenken · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  Only a handful of Australians have stood on the podium in Formula One, and while names like Webber, Ricciardo, Alan Jones and the late Sir Jack Brabham are some of the first to come to mind, there is another, and his racing resume is impressive.
• 0:42
  Nowadays, Tim Schenken works on the other side of the pit wall as race director in supercars and clerk of the course at the Australian Grand Prix.
• 0:52
  But it all began for this motorsport hall of famer by sneaking his parents' car out of the garage.
• 0:58
  Well, that's right.
• 0:59
  You want the whole story?
• 1:00
  Yeah.
• 1:01
  Was it a Simca Aronde, a little French car?
• 1:03
  It was a Simca Aronde.
• 1:04
  I imagine many of the listeners have never heard of a Simca Aronde.
• 1:08
  Anyhow, Google it and you'll see what it is.
• 1:11
  A little four-door, two-door, what are we talking, 1.2 litre?
• 1:14
  What was it?
• 1:14
  Probably 1.2 litre four-door French car.
• 1:19
  But I'd been interested in motor racing for a while.
• 1:23
  I got my licence.
• 1:25
  I told my mother I was going to go to a barbecue somewhere, and I went off to Calder with it.
• 1:29
  I was a member of a car club.
• 1:31
  I think it was the Mini 850 car club.
• 1:34
  And they had some sprints at Calder, just a quarter-mile sprints on the straight.
• 1:39
  where you could enter.
• 1:40
  I didn't have a competition license, I had a road license, obviously.
• 1:44
  And I did those sprints in the morning.
• 1:46
  In the afternoon, they were having circuit racing.
• 1:48
  And I stayed on watching a few friends running.
• 1:53
  And just no one was really checking if you had licenses or who was in the car.
• 1:58
  So I pulled up on the grid.
• 1:59
  I had a helmet, of course, from the sprints, pulled up in the marshalling area.
• 2:04
  waved out on the circuit and I ran some laps.
• 2:09
  And I thought that was pretty cool.
• 2:11
  And then later on I saw I had my name on a grid sheet.
• 2:15
  So I thought, well, I might as well line up and have a race.
• 2:18
  So I did my first race.
• 2:19
  I did a couple of races.
• 2:21
  I think I won a cup.
• 2:22
  which I took home and hid at home, all without a licence.
• 2:27
  But don't tell CAMS because they don't have a statute of limitations.
• 2:30
  I'll be in trouble.
• 2:31
  We'll keep that between us and anyone who may be listening.
• 2:34
  So did Mum and Dad know you were doing this?
• 2:36
  Or was it a case of, you know, quickly polish the car, hide it back in the garage and no-one will be the wiser?
• 2:42
  No, they never knew.
• 2:42
  I think my mother suspected it because I was doing a hill climb many years later and they were there.
• 2:49
  and the commentator made some mention of me doing some racing in a Simca.
• 2:54
  But anyhow, no, I got away with it.
• 2:56
  You've been racing or you've had a love of racing since before you were a teenager.
• 3:00
  Where does that stem from?
• 3:02
  Was it just a childhood passion for magazines and things like that?
• 3:05
  Was it the influence of family?
• 3:07
  Where did it come from?
• 3:08
  Well, it came at school.
• 3:10
  I was born in Sydney and we moved to Melbourne when I was about 12.
• 3:15
  And I was at school, at Campbell Grammar School.
• 3:18
  And there was a boy there whose father did some hill climbing.
• 3:22
  And he lived not far away.
• 3:23
  And I went around to his house over a weekend.
• 3:26
  And there was this little race car there with a motorcycle engine or hill climb car.
• 3:31
  And something caught my imagination.
• 3:33
  And from that time on, all I wanted to be was a motor racing driver.
• 3:38
  How did it go from being obsession to occupation for you?
• 3:43
  And what was the point where you thought, yeah, I could absolutely make a crack at this.
• 3:47
  It wouldn't just be a weekend hobby.
• 3:49
  It was pretty much straight away.
• 3:51
  I...
• 3:53
  was madly interested in in well i was i was going to hill climbs with this chap leon bernardieu was his name in fact uh i must have been 13 i built a go-kart i saw an article in an american magazine called popular mechanics i think it was called and uh and it might have been the first go-kart in australia
• 4:14
  and I built that up.
• 4:15
  I got a 125 two-stroke engine from a local motorcycle wrecker and built this thing up, and we used to go out in those days, places like North Balwyn and Warrandyte and wherever, Doncaster were all...
• 4:29
  They were just starting to be developed.
• 4:31
  Housing's going in there.
• 4:32
  They put the roads in first, and they used to run this thing up and down around there.
• 4:36
  But I very quickly latched on to...
• 4:40
  to motor racing, to the international scene for whatever reason.
• 4:44
  I used to read all the British magazines from front cover to back cover.
• 4:50
  My hero was Stirling Moss, it still is today.
• 4:53
  Now some people would say, why not Jack Brabham?
• 4:55
  Well, Jack hadn't quite got on the scene then, and being English magazines, it was full of Stirling Moss.
• 5:02
  And I was a passionate to go motor racing to be a professional driver.
• 5:06
  And I couldn't see how school was going to help me.
• 5:09
  They certainly didn't tell you about driving or anything to do with motor racing at school.
• 5:14
  What were the learnings from the go-kart and whatever happened to it?
• 5:17
  Do you know?
• 5:18
  I've got no idea where that would be now.
• 5:22
  Well, from there I went on and I bought an Austin A30, not the Peter Brock car, it must have been about the same time, but my car had an Austin Healey 1000cc Sprite engine in and I started hill climbing that.
• 5:42
  And then I bought a Lotus 18 and it was when I was racing the Lotus 18, so by that stage I was in my 20s, that I raced at Warwick Farm and after the race David Mackay came up and asked what I was...
• 5:59
  what I was thinking or what I was going to do, just asking some questions.
• 6:02
  And I said, I want to be a Grand Prix driver.
• 6:04
  And he said, well, you need to go overseas.
• 6:07
  So at the age of 22, I got onto a boat here in Port Melbourne and sailed off one-way ticket to England.
• 6:14
  How were you funding this mission and what was the grand plan or was it literally just let's roll the dicey?
• 6:22
  Well, the grand plan was to be a Grand Prix driver.
• 6:24
  Yeah.
• 6:25
  to be a world champion.
• 6:28
  So I just took it a day at a time.
• 6:31
  I'd saved up money.
• 6:32
  I had the Lotus 18.
• 6:33
  I borrowed some money from my father against the Lotus 18, the sale of that.
• 6:41
  Someone gave me the tickets.
• 6:42
  It might have been my parents gave me the ticket for the passage.
• 6:47
  And I arrived in London in the middle of winter, in the very early 1966.
• 6:53
  Went to Earl's Court of course, in those days it was called Kangaroo Valley, where all the Australians went.
• 6:59
  And I got a job with a company called The Checkered Flag, which in those days was running the works assisted Brabham Formula Junior Team, or Formula 3 team as it was.
• 7:10
  And it just sort of progressed from there.
• 7:12
  I bought a Lotus 22 and modified it and started racing in that.
• 7:17
  How hands-on were you in that period?
• 7:19
  Obviously, you're trying to make ends meet in many respects, so you have to be.
• 7:22
  Did you enjoy that side of things from the car preparation and things like that?
• 7:27
  Yes.
• 7:27
  I mean, it was the same in Australia.
• 7:29
  I prepared my own Lotus 18.
• 7:31
  I had a friend who used to come to the races.
• 7:33
  He came to England with me as well, but I bought this Lotus 22.
• 7:39
  I was lucky because I used to go through the parts bin, the rubbish bin at the chequered flag and get the old rose joints and bits and pieces and whatever and tidy them all up and put them onto this...
• 7:53
  Lotus 22.
• 7:55
  But I just lived for motor racing.
• 7:56
  And, you know, I had a one bedroom apartment.
• 7:59
  Four of us were living there, mattresses on the floor.
• 8:03
  But I mean, that was only to sleep because the rest of the time was full on motor racing.
• 8:08
  Lots of racing in that late 60s period for you from winning the Formula Ford title in 1968 and the British Formula Three championship that same year.
• 8:18
  Was that something you did at the same race meetings?
• 8:20
  How busy were you with all that stuff?
• 8:21
  Well, that was an incredible year, 68.
• 8:23
  In 1968, I did 68 race meetings and I won 48 races.
• 8:28
  Now, you must wonder how that happens.
• 8:30
  Well, I was doing Formula Ford and Formula 3.
• 8:34
  The race meetings were one-day race meetings.
• 8:36
  You could race on Saturday at Silverstone and Sunday at Brian's Hatch.
• 8:42
  doing Formula Ford and Formula 3.
• 8:44
  Sometimes there were two heats and a final.
• 8:47
  So it was just, it was in the car the whole time.
• 8:50
  It was like sitting here now talking to you.
• 8:52
  It was just natural for me to sit in a race car.
• 8:56
  You won the Formula Ford title in a Merlin, if that serves me, if memory serves.
• 9:00
  And that was the first Merlin that they'd built.
• 9:03
  What was that car like?
• 9:04
  We're talking open wheeler, little 1600cc Ford engine.
• 9:07
  What was it like?
• 9:09
  Well, it was a forerunner to Formula Ford as to what you see today.
• 9:13
  I mean, when I say that, you can't compare the two types of car, of course, because a modern or current Formula Ford car is quite a progressive car, of course, all inboard suspension and whatever else.
• 9:24
  But no, it was, I guess, a Formula 3 car with a 1600 Cortina engine.
• 9:34
  But that was provided by Merlins.
• 9:37
  They also introduced me to an engine builder.
• 9:39
  He provided the engine.
• 9:41
  And I was actually that year, I was living off my earnings.
• 9:44
  I was driving the Formula 3 car.
• 9:46
  I was driving off my winning, should I say.
• 9:48
  The Formula 3 car I was driving was a Chevron.
• 9:52
  It was owned by Sports Motors Manchester, a company that was selling sports cars there.
• 9:57
  It was a Lotus dealership as well.
• 9:59
  and I had a percentage of the prize money that that car earned and I could live as being a professional driver.
• 10:05
  Quite amazing.
• 10:07
  Very amazing.
• 10:07
  It's still quite a young age.
• 10:10
  The difference in the cars, I mean the Formula 3 car clearly had more power.
• 10:14
  Racing drivers like getting behind the wheel of anything normally and certainly if it's got more power or aero support they're quite keen.
• 10:22
  How different was it to the Formula Ford and was there an adjustment process in all of that?
• 10:26
  It wasn't really, you know, the power was much the same.
• 10:28
  The difference of Formula Ford car, because it's a modified road engine, it's like a road car, so it doesn't rev very high.
• 10:37
  The Formula 3 car, on the other hand, was 1,000cc and they rev to 10,000rpm, so they had very little torque.
• 10:44
  and you had a four-speed gearbox, and you had to have the gear ratios right for that particular car.
• 10:51
  It was very different.
• 10:53
  The other thing about the Formula Ford car, it ran on road tyres.
• 10:56
  Formula 3 car ran on racing tyres.
• 10:59
  But it was through that that I got my introduction to Brabham's.
• 11:02
  And the following year in 1969, I drove the factory Formula 3 Brabham.
• 11:08
  I say the factory Formula 3 Brabham.
• 11:10
  It's what they call a works-assisted car.
• 11:12
  They loaned the car to Rodney Bloor, Sports Motors Manchester.
• 11:17
  And he ran the car.
• 11:18
  He had the engines, a mechanic, and we traipsed around Europe in a Ford Zodiac with the back seats out, a spare engine in there, a nose cone, gear ratios, a few wishbones and bits and pieces, a pair set of wheels, wet weather tyres, and an open trailer on the back with a Formula 3 car.
• 11:37
  But at the same time, you had Ronnie Peterson and Emerson Fittipaldi doing the same thing.
• 11:44
  That was motor racing in those days.
• 11:46
  We'll talk more about those legends and your time with them in a moment.
• 11:51
  I want to talk about the fact that you read and dreamt of going to England, and now here you are and you're driving on some of the famous racetracks that that place is known for, from Brands Hatch to Silverstone and so on.
• 12:02
  How did that make you feel?
• 12:05
  Well, you know, it didn't overhaul me at all.
• 12:10
  I mean, I was a professional racing driver, and there are the places you went to.
• 12:17
  I suppose the great thing about doing Formula 3 in Europe in 1969 were a lot of the races were with the European Formula 3 Championship where you had Grand Prix drivers running cars and some of the Grand Prix owners also running Formula 2 teams and also supporting some Grands Prix as well.
• 12:37
  So that was the excitement of it all.
• 12:40
  When did that lead into your first foray into Formula One?
• 12:44
  I mean, the CV says that you made it to Formula One.
• 12:47
  There's a podium there as well, and you raced there from 70 to 74.
• 12:51
  But what was the entree?
• 12:52
  What was the first sort of phone call or introduction to someone where, okay, this is going to lead to an opportunity here?
• 12:59
  Yeah.
• 13:00
  Well, at the end of 69, I then progressed to the European Formula 3, sorry, Formula 2 championship, again with Sports Motors Manchester.
• 13:13
  That was a lot more competitive.
• 13:14
  In those days, you had Grand Prix drivers also competing in that.
• 13:19
  Although I didn't have a, I had reliability issues, but I had some good results and I could run towards the front.
• 13:27
  And then during the year, there was that terrible accident of Piers Courage, who was killed at Zanvoort, driving Frank Williams' Di Tommaso car.
• 13:38
  Formula One car.
• 13:40
  And I sort of knew of Frank.
• 13:43
  I knew Frank, I guess, just to say hello.
• 13:45
  But I took a deep breath after that and went to see him and to ask if he'd consider me driving after Piers.
• 13:55
  And he said yes.
• 13:56
  So that was the start of it.
• 13:59
  And I have to tell you, that was a deep breath to have to go and make an approach like that.
• 14:04
  But as I say, he agreed.
• 14:06
  And I think I did the last...
• 14:08
  four or five Grands Prix in 1970.
• 14:11
  I don't think I finished anything.
• 14:12
  The car broke every time, but that was the way it was.
• 14:15
  It was, to come back to your point about the dangers, that Formula One, its safety record now is super impressive.
• 14:22
  There's always a constant navel gaze and constant way to improve the sport.
• 14:27
  It was enormously dangerous back then.
• 14:28
  Were you ever, you know, how aware of that were you?
• 14:31
  Did you just compartmentalise that and park it out of your mind?
• 14:34
  What did you do?
• 14:35
  Well, I suppose I might have been a bit naive or you believed in yourself.
• 14:40
  I don't really know what the answer is.
• 14:42
  It was horrendous because there were some terrible tragedies and you lost a driver at a race meeting.
• 14:50
  You might have gone to a funeral or there might have been a lot of publicity about it in the newspapers because at that time the newspapers were only interested in Formula One and crashes and fatalities.
• 15:02
  But then you'd be at another race meeting the following weekend, and it was as if nothing had happened.
• 15:07
  So I think it was just a belief it wouldn't happen to you.
• 15:11
  And in this, in sort of my situation, I think a lot of sportsmen are the same.
• 15:16
  You're so passionate about something, you don't see the downside.
• 15:20
  You don't see that.
• 15:21
  And certainly in motor racing, I didn't see the tragedy.
• 15:24
  The flip side, of course, is that the chance to drive a Formula One car is, I would imagine, just this intoxicating thing.
• 15:33
  What did it feel like to drive?
• 15:35
  What are your memories of those first experiences in Formula One?
• 15:39
  I suppose the first experiences were, it seemed very odd to me because I used to stand behind the fence, look over the fence at places like Sandown and watch the Tasman series and there was Stewart and Brabham and Holm and McLaren and Sertes and these people racing there and then some years later I was on the grid with them.
• 16:03
  So that was sort of an odd sort of feeling,
• 16:08
  In a way, you very quickly weren't intimidated by it, maybe initially a bit, but then once you got racing, it was just another race car, another driver you were trying to beat.
• 16:18
  From the Formula One side of things, there's some great old pictures of you with very suave-looking Tim Schenken with sideburns, with the likes of Graham Hill, with Ronnie Peterson, who you mentioned before.
• 16:30
  It was an incredible era for the sport and some legendary names that came through.
• 16:34
  It must have been amazing to be a part of.
• 16:37
  Yes, it is, but, well, it was, should I say.
• 16:40
  And I look back at that now, to be honest, and it's almost as if it was another life.
• 16:46
  Really?
• 16:47
  It's hard to believe.
• 16:48
  You know, I was up there doing Formula One so many years ago, but...
• 16:54
  You were never very close to the drivers because, of course, they were the enemy.
• 16:59
  I don't know another word for it because they were the people you were passionate about beating.
• 17:03
  So I never, apart from Ronnie Peterson, I didn't really know.
• 17:08
  You didn't really have a close relationship with any of the other drivers.
• 17:12
  You just kept your distance.
• 17:13
  The record shows a podium there over 34 starts in the game, but it probably didn't yield you, it's fair to say, the kind of success that you'd enjoyed in the Formula just beneath it.
• 17:25
  Timing's a big thing in Formula 1.
• 17:26
  It really depends on the car that you get in.
• 17:28
  I mean, it's not a question of your ability.
• 17:30
  It's also about the wheels beneath you, isn't it?
• 17:33
  Yeah, that's true.
• 17:34
  And I mean, I had that year with Brabham's end of the year.
• 17:41
  Ron Turanac told me that he'd sold the company to Bernie Eccleston.
• 17:46
  I sort of knew Bernie a little bit.
• 17:49
  He would have been looking after Joachim Rint and I think giving his advice to Emerson Fittipaldi.
• 17:54
  But Ron actually said, well, I'm not sure how this chap's going to run the business.
• 17:59
  Maybe you should look somewhere else.
• 18:01
  So I went off to Surtees and...
• 18:04
  He could say that was an error.
• 18:06
  Perhaps I should have said with Eccleston, he certainly knew how to run a race team.
• 18:11
  And it didn't work out with Sirties.
• 18:13
  I mean, I had great relationship problems with John Sirties, as many of the drivers who drove for him did.
• 18:22
  uh when i look back now look i'm here today so and you spoke about the tragedies and whatever and i look at a grid uh in one of the races i've driven in the 70s now look who's around today i mean it's um it's quite a moment when you do that because so few of them are around today
• 18:39
  You mentioned Ron Turanac there a moment ago, legendary Australian engineer in many respects with Sir Jack Brabham and working with him.
• 18:46
  You also got to work with a very young Ron Dennis, didn't you, with what was Rondell Racing back then before he went on and became a very significant figure in the sport with McLaren and very successful in the sport as a team owner.
• 18:59
  Well, that's right.
• 18:59
  I met Ron and his partner, Neil Trundle.
• 19:04
  That's how Rondell was formed.
• 19:05
  The name Rondell was formed.
• 19:08
  Because they were mechanics for Jack's team.
• 19:10
  So when I was doing Formula 3 and Formula 2, I was down at the factory.
• 19:14
  So I knew those two lads.
• 19:16
  But in 70, must have been 71, Ron had bigger plans.
• 19:23
  And he had found someone who'd be prepared to back him.
• 19:29
  I think Ron Torenak lent him a couple of cars just without the engine for the year to go and campaign the European Formula 2 championship.
• 19:40
  So with Graham Hill, who also agreed to drive with Ron, we went and started with Ron then.
• 19:49
  And I think your next question is going to be, did you see where Ron was going?
• 19:53
  Well, sort of now when I look back,
• 19:55
  I did because Ron's cars were beautifully prepared.
• 19:58
  His truck was always very clean.
• 20:03
  People, you know, he had a dream and a presentation was part of that.
• 20:09
  And if you're going to find sponsors, you've obviously got to have...
• 20:14
  the presentation is so important and some people sort of they called him team dream or they called him team briefcase he was one of the first uh formula one or first team managers or team owners should i say not necessarily formula one with a briefcase so uh they were perhaps a bit unkind to him but uh you know they were great times actually great times this is greg rust and you're listening to rusty's garage more with tim shenkin in a moment
• 20:44
  In this series, I speak to some of the most passionate riders, drivers, designers and collectors I know.
• 20:50
  It mightn't look like it, but at times, mad Mike Wadette is actually looking for perfection when he drifts his fire-breathing rotary-powered Mazdas.
• 21:00
  And this global superstar seems to catch the uncatchable slide.
• 21:05
  It's really about just making that car an extension of your body.
• 21:08
  And then once you've got that, it's like you can almost just place the car and throw it as hard as you can, and you find the absolute extremes.
• 21:18
  And as a driver, I think what's the scariest part is the technology.
• 21:22
  It's progressing faster than the drivers.
• 21:24
  Like, it's seriously scary to drive these cars these days.
• 21:28
  We're drifting as much as it looks like that we want the cars to be slippery so we can slide around the track.
• 21:33
  We're actually trying to get as much grip as possible.
• 21:37
  Listen to the full episode with Mad Mike here on Rusty's Garage.
• 21:46
  Apex, when you look through a corner, the apex is where you come closest to the inner part of that corner.
• 21:52
  This is an important thing to identify and work with if you want to improve your cornering efficiency, or just not crash.
• 21:58
  I want to touch on your sports car career now.
• 22:01
  It was wonderful to see Ferrari embrace you, I think, as part of their 70th anniversary celebrations.
• 22:06
  You had a great chapter in your career with them, sports car racing.
• 22:10
  How did that, I mean, you always seemed to, drivers back then seemed to do so much racing, whether it was open wheelers or sports cars, whatever it may have been.
• 22:18
  But how did the entree into sports car racing come about?
• 22:21
  Well, that started 1971 at Monza.
• 22:26
  And during, I was driving for Babins, it was the Grand Prix, and a girl came up to, a woman came up to me and said that I should come to the Ferrari track after practice to meet their team manager, Peter Shetty, talk about sports car racing the following year with Ferrari.
• 22:44
  There had already been an announcement Ferrari was going to enter some cars.
• 22:48
  I think it was the World Championship of Makes, I think the championship was called then.
• 22:53
  And to be honest, I thought it was someone having a lend of me, so I ignored that.
• 22:57
  And then later, after the next practice, the woman came, that would have been the following day, came up.
• 23:05
  And again, I said, oh, yeah, when I've got time, I'll pop down.
• 23:08
  So and then eventually she came again and said, look, Mr. Schenken, if you don't come with me now, there won't be an opportunity for you to drive for Ferrari.
• 23:18
  And I thought, oh, maybe I should just follow her.
• 23:20
  So I still had my overalls on and I followed.
• 23:23
  I sort of kept a few steps behind her.
• 23:26
  just down to the Ferrari transporter, or truck as it was in those days, and thinking, oh, at any moment, someone's going to say, hey, you idiot, Shenkin.
• 23:37
  But we got all the way to the truck, into the truck, Peter Shetty there, he was in a hell of a state because Enzo Ferrari had come up the night before to meet me.
• 23:45
  They'd had to stay overnight.
• 23:47
  You brushed Enzo Ferrari?
• 23:49
  Well, I didn't know I'd brushed him off until that moment.
• 23:54
  and so still with my overalls on they took me immediately to a village just near Monza and into the dining room there in the back corner was Enzo Ferrari so with an interpreter I did my deal there so they probably thought I was super cool but frankly I thought I was being tricked.
• 24:13
  What was he like I mean he's just a remarkable figure in the history of anything
• 24:23
  Well, I didn't really work with him because apart from signing a contract and then later on when we were racing, we'd do a test session with the sports cars, maybe at Monza he would turn up or the following year Firano opened and he would always come there if the cars were running there, have lunch with him as well at the factory in Maranello.
• 24:48
  But I didn't
• 24:50
  The thing about Enzo was that you could tell he was a special person.
• 24:55
  There was something about him.
• 24:56
  It was the same with Ayette and Senna.
• 24:58
  They're sort of special people.
• 25:00
  You can't put your finger on it, but when you're talking to them, you know you're with someone who's different from everyone else.
• 25:06
  A kind of aura, I guess you could say.
• 25:08
  Yes, yes.
• 25:09
  So you enjoyed success in endurance races with them from the 1000k race in Buenos Aires, also at the Nürburgring.
• 25:19
  Why did it work so well for you?
• 25:20
  Was it cars?
• 25:21
  Was it the combo of people?
• 25:22
  I mean, that's a pretty special chapter.
• 25:25
  Well, first of all, the first year I was driving with Ronnie Peterson, and Ronnie Peterson was the quickest thing in motor racing in those days.
• 25:34
  They used to say about Ronnie, he only had two speeds, either flat out or at home in the garage.
• 25:40
  So that was a great driving with Ronnie.
• 25:42
  But Ronnie was such a natural driver, he didn't have any set-up skills.
• 25:48
  So quite often he'd run the car first.
• 25:50
  I'd got in and drive the car and I had trouble driving the thing quickly and adjust the car, got the car right.
• 25:56
  When that first happened, I thought, my God, he's going to be blitzing me in times.
• 26:00
  He never actually went any faster.
• 26:03
  It just made the car easier to drive and it took less out on the car and the tyres and the brakes and whatever else.
• 26:09
  But, I mean, they were great times.
• 26:14
  And we had some pretty formidable teammates.
• 26:16
  Had Ix and Andretti and Redmond there as well.
• 26:21
  They had the token Italian driver, Turo Mazzario.
• 26:25
  But they were, you know, they were pretty formidable.
• 26:28
  And we had the best cars in 72.
• 26:29
  Was it 72?
• 26:30
  Yes, 72.
• 26:34
  In 73 it was a different story.
• 26:37
  Ferrari pulled back a bit on their sports car program to concentrate on Formula One.
• 26:41
  My teammate was Carlos Reutemann.
• 26:44
  And I got on well with Carlos, so we're the same size like Ronnie.
• 26:47
  We like the car set up the same.
• 26:51
  But the competition was the Matra team who came with a monocoque chassis and because Matra was involved in the aircraft industry, the aerodynamics of the car were properly designed, refined, and they were a much better car.
• 27:08
  So we weren't king of the kids.
• 27:11
  in King of the Mountain in 73.
• 27:14
  Describe for us the 72 car, because we're talking open top sports car.
• 27:22
  What kind of engine, how much horsepower, what was it like to steer?
• 27:26
  Well, they had the flat 12, 3-litre Formula One engine, detuned slightly because they were 1,000-kilometre racers.
• 27:32
  I guess it had 450 brake horsepower.
• 27:34
  It was a tube chassis, short wheelbase, so they were quite difficult to drive through fast corners.
• 27:43
  The following year, they had better aerodynamics than a longer...
• 27:46
  a longer wheelbase but uh so it was your typical sports car of the time a lovely gearbox in the Ferrari very different from the Hewland gearbox was heavy and clunky the Ferrari gearbox you could just change with your two fingers it was a lovely gearbox you had an opportunity if I'm right here to buy one at some stage why didn't you do you regret that and tell us about that story
• 28:13
  Well, yes, at the end of 72, it must have been, Enzo Ferrari offered the drivers you could buy one of those cars, and he offered them for £12,500, which today is about $25,000.
• 28:30
  And you'd say today, well, Tim, why didn't you buy them all?
• 28:35
  Well, £12,500 was a lot of money, and just to sort of put it into context,
• 28:41
  I had a house in Maidenhead, which was a nice area just outside London, which I bought for £7,000.
• 28:50
  And I had a mortgage on it to pay it off.
• 28:55
  So when you look today at the value of that house, and maybe the Ferrari would be worth a fair bit more, but that sort of puts it in context.
• 29:03
  You could buy a house standing on its own, three bedrooms, for £7,000.
• 29:10
  or a Ferrari race car, which was no good to me because, well, you know, what was I going on?
• 29:16
  People paid me to drive their cars.
• 29:18
  I didn't think ahead of what the value of this could be.
• 29:21
  I don't think anybody did in those days for nearly double the amount.
• 29:26
  Crazy.
• 29:26
  Was it 312B?
• 29:28
  Which car was it?
• 29:29
  Well, I think they call it 312 PB because there's a bit of confusion because they also refer to the Formula One car of the time as a 312B.
• 29:37
  So I think they put PB in front of it.
• 29:39
  Prototype Boxster.
• 29:40
  Boxster's the type of engine.
• 29:42
  Some great circuits you got to drive at during your career.
• 29:46
  People listening will be very interested in Nürburgring or Nordschleife.
• 29:50
  I mean, it's still looked upon as this daunting, yet, you know, it's a must-see, a must-do place if you can.
• 29:58
  What was it like to drive some of those cars in that period around that place?
• 30:02
  Well, you know, I quite enjoyed the Nürburgring.
• 30:05
  I don't know why a lot of people talk about it as being the green hell and this, that and the other.
• 30:09
  But for some reason, it just seemed to suit my style.
• 30:13
  But I started first at Nürburgring in 1969, it must have been, driving for Ford Germany in a 72-hour touring car race.
• 30:25
  with three drivers on the north and south circuit so the total lap distance was 30 kilometers that's incredible could you could you ever properly familiarize this i know that's a long race so maybe you could but did you ever feel like you've absolutely mastered that
• 30:41
  Well, you never quite master the Nürburgring.
• 30:43
  It's funny because when you race against, if you're racing against another driver, you find that in some parts you're sort of, you're better than he is, and other bits he's better than you are.
• 30:56
  But I've always sort of had a knack of learning roads, learning tracks, so...
• 31:01
  We didn't finish the 72-hour race, but once I'd practised and started the race, I was there a couple of years ago and I could drive around.
• 31:14
  I knew which way the corners went, so over Blind Crest and whatever.
• 31:20
  Not that I was driving the same speed as in a race car, but you just remember these things.
• 31:26
  One of the things that is on your CV as well is that for a time you built race cars, didn't you?
• 31:30
  Tell us a little bit about that foray and the learnings from it and things like that.
• 31:35
  Well, in 76, I got married and I was out of Formula One.
• 31:39
  I was doing a German GT championship and some world sports car championship races.
• 31:46
  And I could see I wasn't going to get back into Formula One.
• 31:48
  And that's all I wanted to do.
• 31:50
  Formula One is such a status above everything else you do.
• 31:55
  Maybe today WEC is pretty close to it.
• 31:58
  And once I could see I couldn't get back into Formula One, I'd lost that opportunity.
• 32:03
  It wasn't quite the same for me.
• 32:05
  So in 76, I was looking at stopping and someone had come to me with an idea to build Formula Ford cars.
• 32:14
  I went to show a New Zealand chap I was quite friendly with, Howard and Gandhi also had done some Formula One racing and showed him the proposal and he had it for the night and came back the following day and said, actually I looked at that, he was a bit of a businessman, had some experience in it,
• 32:32
  in running his own company.
• 32:36
  And the following morning he came back and said, you know, I've looked at that and that's all quite, it looks like that could happen.
• 32:43
  But rather than you going with this other chap, why don't you and I do this?
• 32:46
  So that's where we started and we bought
• 32:51
  The plans and parts and bits and pieces from a company that had gone broke, it was called Motor Racing Enterprises, MRE, I think it was.
• 33:01
  They'd had a Formula 3 project on the way, and they'd built a few chassis and bodywork and whatever else.
• 33:08
  So we bought that, and we started a company.
• 33:10
  We called it Tiger, T-I from Tim and G-A from Ganley.
• 33:15
  Most people say Tiger.
• 33:16
  We used to say Tiger.
• 33:17
  Tiger.
• 33:18
  And so we started building Formula Ford cars and our name sort of sold the cars initially because people knew us and off we were in running.
• 33:29
  And I left the company in 1982 and we'd built something like 450 cars.
• 33:35
  Amazing.
• 33:36
  What ultimately brought you back to Australia?
• 33:37
  Was it the decision just for family?
• 33:40
  What ultimately brought you back home?
• 33:42
  Well, in the late 70s, I was married.
• 33:47
  We had a son and we had twin daughters.
• 33:50
  And, you know, I think the English weather was starting to get to me.
• 33:54
  And I wanted to come back to Australia.
• 33:56
  And I started writing letters to people here, but nothing was really coming this way for me.
• 34:03
  And I had an offer to go and run a sports car team with John Fitzpatrick or for John Fitzpatrick out of San Diego.
• 34:11
  So I went over there, the whole family went over there.
• 34:15
  These were the days where you could live there and you didn't need a green card and things were pretty lax.
• 34:22
  And so I spent two years there and at the point John, right at the end of, it must have been 83, John was going to come back to England and compete in the World Sports Car Championship.
• 34:34
  He'd bought a 956 Porsche.
• 34:39
  So I was at two minds quite what to do.
• 34:42
  I still wanted to go to Australia.
• 34:43
  I'd still been in contact with people in Australia.
• 34:45
  And then out of the blue, Cams rang me and contacted me and asked me to fly out and interview for a job.
• 34:54
  So...
• 34:56
  You've been with them ever since, haven't you?
• 34:57
  The Confederation of Australian Motorsport.
• 34:59
  Well, you're right, and that's what I say.
• 35:00
  It's a different life now.
• 35:02
  So I moved over the other side of the fence and became involved in the administration of motorsport in Australia.
• 35:08
  And I was lucky because I arrived in 84.
• 35:14
  The Light Car Club had a world...
• 35:18
  Yeah, Group C it was called, I think, World Sports Car Race at Sandown.
• 35:25
  The Grand Prix came to Adelaide in 1985.
• 35:29
  Shell backed the Australian Touring Car Championship around the same time.
• 35:34
  The FIA introduced the role of race director.
• 35:38
  So it all sort of morphed into me becoming the race director for the Australian Touring Car Championship.
• 35:44
  And you've had a stellar career there.
• 35:46
  And I think if, you know, you talked about Formula One coming to Adelaide in the 80s there, you've been clerk of the course at all of them.
• 35:52
  Yes.
• 35:52
  Since you've worked on the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix.
• 35:55
  I mean, this whole administrative aspect of your career really took off.
• 35:59
  Why do you, I mean, you've got a great resume.
• 36:00
  We've covered that.
• 36:01
  But why do you think it went so well on the administrative side?
• 36:04
  And what do you enjoy about it so much?
• 36:06
  Well, I'm still passionate about motor racing.
• 36:08
  I love motor racing, and that's my whole life.
• 36:11
  I've asked my family about that, and they've been very good, and I've always had all the support to do this.
• 36:20
  But it's just a passion for the sport.
• 36:22
  And the great thing is, or the thing to me, is you never really get on top of it.
• 36:27
  Things are changing.
• 36:27
  Cars are developing.
• 36:29
  cars getting faster the styles of driving are changing it's not more competitive now the regulations are evolving the whole time so it's always a challenge you can't sit back there and think oh I've done all of this and this is easy my good buddy Neil Crompton often uses the that saying poacher turned gamekeeper you're showing no signs of slowing down is you know is it something that you want to continue for a long while to come what's the plan there
• 36:56
  I wouldn't know what else to do.
• 36:57
  I can't imagine not being involved, to be honest.
• 37:01
  Is there, among all of the cars you've driven, is there a favourite that's got a kind of special place in your heart and why?
• 37:09
  No, there isn't really.
• 37:10
  I mean, it sounds...
• 37:12
  bit odd to say they're really the tools of the trade so and that was one of the reasons I didn't buy that Ferrari so you enjoy the cars you won in but to be honest when you look at the cars today it's hard to imagine the ones I raced they were state of the art at the time which they were.
• 37:33
  Is there a resto project currently in the Schenken garage at home and if not why not?
• 37:39
  There isn't, I've never really thought of it, I haven't got the time to do it.
• 37:42
  I'm probably busier now than I was when I was the peak of my racing career.
• 37:47
  As you know I'm involved with the FIA, I'm doing track inspections for the FIA, I'm president of the circuits commission so there are meetings there to attend.
• 37:56
  So I'm busier than ever.
• 38:01
  I wouldn't mind driving a car that I used to watch, the old Ferraris, Maserati 250F, early rear-engined Coopers.
• 38:10
  Not race them, but I wouldn't mind having a run in one.
• 38:13
  But otherwise, no, I've got no ambition and no money to buy them.
• 38:18
  I should have bought them when they were being sold, when they were a couple of years out of date and people were replacing the Climax engines with Holden engines.
• 38:27
  If you had that little lotto wind tucked away and if your lovely wife said, yes, okay, off you go, what would you buy and what would you put in the garage?
• 38:35
  What would I buy?
• 38:37
  Could be anything, road car, you know.
• 38:38
  Yeah, I probably, you know what, I've always quite liked the Lotus Cortina and I figure that would be a nice little car to run.
• 38:48
  It's obviously a saloon car, so it's not going to hurt you if it turns over.
• 38:53
  What sort of specification are we talking in your mind, perhaps even a colour?
• 38:57
  Well, you'd have to have white with the green stripe on it, Jimmy Clark-style car.
• 39:02
  Twin cam Cosworth Ford engine, didn't it, 1600cc.
• 39:06
  So you would have it the way it was raced at the time.
• 39:16
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 39:21
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 39:24
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 39:34
  Listener.