Latest / Rusty's Garage / Roberto Moreno - Part 1

Transcript

Roberto Moreno - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:12
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  For this episode, I'm in the GT Members Lounge at the Hampton Down Circuit, south of Auckland, not all that far from Hamilton in New Zealand.
• 0:36
  Occasionally, you'll hear a car on track for the Summer Series here, what they now call the Next Gen NZ Championship.
• 0:43
  Last week, we were in Topor.
• 0:45
  It was the historic Grand Prix, and they had all sorts of legends in cars, including my guest today.
• 0:51
  Roberto Moreno was affectionately known as the super sub.
• 0:55
  Through sheer hard work and completely against the odds, he made it to the podium in Formula One, won races in IndyCar, and was often called upon by respected engineers and team managers to drive and develop cars for them.
• 1:10
  Throughout this chat, he reels off
• 1:13
  Name after name.
• 1:15
  Significant people in the sport that he forged close ties with that would be there in pivotal moments for him to keep his career going and ensure his longevity.
• 1:25
  He drove for a number of minnow teams, often qualifying or pre-qualifying when on paper...
• 1:32
  There was no chance.
• 1:34
  His CV mightn't have F1 World Championships or IndyCar titles, but there are other crowns that leave you in no doubt of his talent and his thirst and fascination for the technical side.
• 1:47
  That really shines through too.
• 1:49
  Roberto was involved in the testing and implementation of some very innovative things, most notably with Ferrari on its semi-automatic gearbox in the late 80s, which was a game changer.
• 2:02
  Now, the Brazilian loves a chat.
• 2:04
  That's a warning off the top here.
• 2:06
  And some of the yarns are long form.
• 2:07
  But you'll find yourself captivated by what he has to say and the way that he shares them.
• 2:13
  There are connections for him to New Zealand here and Australia too, with wins in the prestigious New Zealand Grand Prix and several in the Australian Grand Prix in the Calder Park days in the years before the first Adelaide Formula One round.
• 2:28
  That's how we start this conversation, reminiscing about his time down under.
• 2:33
  The record books show Alan Jones retired with a transmission problem in 1981, but Roberto recalls things a little differently.
• 2:41
  That's his take on it.
• 2:43
  Worth remembering that Alan is in our library, and so is Roberto's good friend and manager, Greg Peewee Siddle.
• 2:50
  I hope you enjoy this chat with Roberto Moreno as much as I did.
• 2:54
  It's a new year.
• 2:55
  We're kickstarting 2025 with a three-part feature app, something we don't often do because I know that many of you, our loyal Garage listeners, just love the long-form conversations.
• 3:09
  This is a story of someone who never gave up.
• 3:15
  Roberto Moreno, welcome to New Zealand.
• 3:18
  I actually should start this by saying welcome back.
• 3:21
  How long has it been since you've been here?
• 3:22
  It was the late 80s, wasn't it?
• 3:24
  And you've loved being back in this country.
• 3:26
  Yeah, I came to race in the late 80s, so 82 actually.
• 3:31
  I started Formula Atlantics in 81 at the end of the year.
• 3:38
  My great friend from Australia who helped me in England throughout my career, was...
• 3:44
  put together a race for Nelson Piquet to race the Australian Grand Prix at the end of 81.
• 3:54
  When Bob Jane wanted to try to get the Grand Prix there, what he did is he set up Grand Prixs with Atlantic cars, and he invited the world champions.
• 4:04
  So Alan Jones was there.
• 4:06
  He had won the last race in Vegas in Formula One.
• 4:09
  Nelson had won the championship.
• 4:12
  Those two guys were there.
• 4:14
  And Pee Wee squeezed a backup car for me.
• 4:19
  Yeah.
• 4:19
  So he convinced Ron Toronight to put a car for me.
• 4:23
  And...
• 4:26
  I was my first Atlantic race.
• 4:32
  I was able to set the car up quite well.
• 4:36
  And while Nelson was able to get qualifying tires,
• 4:41
  I wasn't allowed them.
• 4:43
  Okay.
• 4:45
  Only Nelson was able to have those qualifiers from Avon because Pee Wee convinced Avon to build a new tire for Nelson, the world champion, and also a qualifying tire.
• 4:57
  So we came with a brand new set of tires that nobody knew.
• 5:03
  Alan Jones had all kinds of other tires like Goodyear's, Dunlop's.
• 5:07
  He had all of them except Avon's.
• 5:10
  But he was able to get avantages for the races, for the race itself.
• 5:16
  So I end up winning the Grand Prix.
• 5:19
  Nelson came second.
• 5:21
  Alan, I believe he didn't want to finish second.
• 5:25
  So I believe seven laps before the end, he stopped the car.
• 5:29
  And if you listen to his interview, why he stopped the car, it gives some doubts what really happened.
• 5:36
  And at the end, his mechanics went there, started the car up and drove back to the pit.
• 5:41
  So I think he just...
• 5:44
  Didn't want to finish second in the Australian Grand Prix after winning the Las Vegas Grand Prix in Formula One.
• 5:52
  There's so much you have just opened the door on here that I want to get stuck into.
• 5:57
  So firstly, Greg Siddle, Pee Wee, has been on my podcast.
• 6:01
  He's a great man who's, I mean, from time with Larry Perkins all through Europe, working with you, working with Nelson.
• 6:10
  How did you guys first cross paths?
• 6:12
  How did that happen?
• 6:13
  Well, Nelson and I, we got together in Brasilia.
• 6:20
  My father moved to Brasilia, which is the capital of Brazil.
• 6:24
  Actually, the capital was in Rio and moved to Brasilia, a brown-new city.
• 6:30
  Brasilia itself was built for half a million people.
• 6:34
  At the time we were there, we were only 70,000, more or less.
• 6:39
  All the roads were built.
• 6:41
  For this great big city with no people.
• 6:45
  So we could do anything we want on the roads, especially because the people that were living there were sons of ministers, house of commons, the military,
• 7:01
  Only the high-end people of Brazil was living in Brazil at that time.
• 7:05
  So the police would not do anything wrong to the kids of those famous people.
• 7:11
  So if you had a motorbike, you would have a lot of fun, clearly, wouldn't you?
• 7:14
  Exactly.
• 7:15
  So I convinced my father that he took me away from Rio, the beach, to buy me a motorcycle.
• 7:22
  And he bought me what is called a Yamaha Mini Enduro.
• 7:26
  Uh-huh.
• 7:27
  In this shop in Brasilia, they used to sell bikes, go-karts, and tune road cars.
• 7:35
  Was the only shop.
• 7:36
  The shop name was Cumber.
• 7:39
  Was owned by Alex Ribeiro and three more friends who actually got the Formula One at one point.
• 7:45
  Yeah.
• 7:48
  I bought this bike there and I was only 12.
• 7:53
  And I used to put it apart because I love to put the bike apart.
• 7:59
  But sometimes I couldn't put it back together.
• 8:01
  So I used to go to the shop, ask the mechanic who was seven years older than me, how to do this.
• 8:07
  And he would very carefully teach me.
• 8:11
  And he had a lot of patience.
• 8:13
  And the more he saw my interest for the mechanic side of things, the more he was willing to help me.
• 8:20
  So every so often I would go back to him and ask for things.
• 8:24
  And then after school, my school was in the mornings, I started to go to this shop.
• 8:31
  which the name was Kamba, and hang around with those people.
• 8:36
  And why I was getting the mechanic to teach me more about motorbikes, because I love motorbikes more than cars,
• 8:50
  He started to give me more jobs of his own so he could move to the car side.
• 8:57
  Okay, so each day he gave me more jobs and I started to do all his work on the motorcycle side.
• 9:06
  And we became good friends.
• 9:09
  And he teached me everything I knew about mechanics at that time.
• 9:13
  And that guy was Nelson Piquet.
• 9:15
  Unbelievable.
• 9:15
  So you became really good friends, you guys.
• 9:18
  I mean, to this day, like a brother, I think you've described him.
• 9:20
  Yes.
• 9:21
  On more than one occasion.
• 9:23
  Before I come to Nelson...
• 9:25
  What intrigues me about what you just talked about in relation to spending that time at the shop and the learning and things is you developed a very good reputation for being able to set up cars, to develop things and so on.
• 9:40
  Is the foundations of all of that from your time here in the work, did that help inspire that love in you, that ability?
• 9:49
  Yeah.
• 9:50
  See, this shop.
• 9:51
  If you imagine four friends, they're all 17 years old, 18.
• 9:56
  I was the youngest one of them all.
• 9:58
  They got together because they love racing.
• 10:03
  And they developed this shop that was to tune cars and then started to sell go-karts and motorbikes.
• 10:09
  And the more they got to be known, the more things they found to sell in the shop.
• 10:15
  In that shop, anybody with an idea would be welcome.
• 10:21
  So it's one of those places that NASA would love to have some people coming from.
• 10:28
  So, and I started to develop the motorcycle side.
• 10:34
  Nelson eventually decided to go Super V racing in Brazil, and he bought two go-karts to practice two months before he had to go to Sao Paulo and start his racing season.
• 10:51
  He didn't have anybody to go with him, so he took me.
• 10:54
  Fantastic.
• 10:55
  And he said, well, give it a go.
• 10:57
  See how you like the go-kart.
• 10:59
  And I loved it.
• 11:01
  And Nelson said, you know, you're not too bad.
• 11:03
  I think you can do really well.
• 11:06
  So I convinced my father to buy the go-kart.
• 11:10
  Which he said to me, look, I can only buy it.
• 11:13
  I cannot support you racing.
• 11:15
  I said, no problem.
• 11:16
  I will work at Cumber as fixing motorcycles.
• 11:21
  And I'll have enough money to go racing.
• 11:24
  So we did that.
• 11:26
  And straight away, Nelson won the first race in his class.
• 11:32
  And I won in my class.
• 11:34
  And everything started from there.
• 11:37
  And he'd teach me how to do engines in karting.
• 11:40
  So I started to fix other people's go-kart engines during the week.
• 11:47
  And I would fix my one on the weekend with the money that they paid me for.
• 11:52
  What were you two like?
• 11:54
  Were you cheeky?
• 11:55
  Why did you become such good mates?
• 11:58
  Well, Nelson, I think he liked to see how curious I was and how dedicated I was.
• 12:08
  And he just helped me.
• 12:09
  Nelson, we were not very close friends.
• 12:14
  It was like a brotherhood more than anything.
• 12:17
  So he would tell me off most of the time.
• 12:21
  I wouldn't leave him alone.
• 12:23
  But we developed something quite good.
• 12:26
  I always look what he does, and I try to do a little bit better if I could.
• 12:31
  Awesome.
• 12:32
  You would get to know...
• 12:34
  Peewee, Greg Siddle, at what point?
• 12:37
  By the time you got to England and you're with Van Diemen, Ralph Fuhrman, where did you go?
• 12:42
  It was quite early.
• 12:43
  It was in Brasilia.
• 12:45
  Ah, okay.
• 12:45
  Because I started to race karts.
• 12:48
  Yeah.
• 12:49
  And I also went to race super Vs.
• 12:51
  So I did four years of karting.
• 12:55
  And in 70s, I started in 74.
• 12:59
  In 76, I was the first guy from Brasilia to win a national championship.
• 13:06
  Awesome.
• 13:08
  And a month later, I went racing motorcycles in the streets in Brasilia, and I broke my ankle.
• 13:17
  And it took me a year going to the hostel every day to fix it.
• 13:22
  So I and then I a year later I went back into carts and I was trying to race cars in Brazil because now I have my license.
• 13:34
  I'm 18 years old.
• 13:35
  I'm actually 19.
• 13:36
  I was because I had to spend an extra year fixing my leg.
• 13:43
  Nelson happens to arrive in Brasilia at the end of the year.
• 13:49
  And he had won everything that was to win in Formula 3 in England in 78.
• 13:56
  So he comes for Christmas in Brasilia and he says to me, Roberto, you're not going to race in Brazil.
• 14:05
  I said, no, I'm trying to do this and this.
• 14:08
  No, no, forget it.
• 14:10
  I already looked everything.
• 14:12
  Racing in England.
• 14:15
  It's cheaper than racing in Brazil for some reason, but you race three or four times more races with the same money that you would race eight races in Brazil.
• 14:29
  So forget about Brazil, you're gonna go to England and race Formula Fours.
• 14:34
  I say, hang on, Nelson.
• 14:39
  How can I race in England if I don't even speak English?
• 14:44
  And he looked at me in a cheeky way and said, well, do you need to speak to drive?
• 14:48
  I said, no.
• 14:50
  I said, well, okay.
• 14:53
  And then I said, well, I don't know anybody in England.
• 14:58
  How can I make things happen there?
• 15:01
  Don't worry.
• 15:02
  This guy that worked for me this year, Pee Wee,
• 15:07
  You're going to meet him because he's going to spend Christmas and New Year with us.
• 15:12
  I already talked to him.
• 15:14
  He's going to help you to buy your road car, to buy your race car, to buy your race engine.
• 15:21
  And he's not going to charge you anything because he made a lot of money with me this year.
• 15:27
  And he's just going to help you.
• 15:29
  But you're going to have to work on your own car.
• 15:32
  I said, well, that's not a problem.
• 15:34
  I'm a good mechanic.
• 15:36
  PUE is just going to make the entries, buy the cars, sell the cars.
• 15:40
  If you have a problem, he will step in.
• 15:43
  But you're going to have to do it yourself.
• 15:45
  I said, no problem.
• 15:47
  I said, yeah, Nelson, but how...
• 15:51
  What am I going to find money to go racing?
• 15:55
  I said, well, one of my old sponsors, he doesn't want to go to Formula One with me.
• 16:01
  I'm going to convince him to help you.
• 16:03
  Fantastic.
• 16:03
  I said, well, great.
• 16:04
  Great.
• 16:06
  Eventually the help that he meant I thought it was gonna be a full help But it was like a third of the money I needed to raise Formula Force in England So we we got a bunch of other friends like five different friends in Brasilia.
• 16:21
  They all chipped another thousand dollars each and $8,000 came from this sponsor 10th another 5,000 from five other friends and I got $13,000
• 16:35
  to go to England.
• 16:37
  Oh, no real.
• 16:37
  He would need $25,000 to do 25 races, 25 tests with Van Diemen, the best team.
• 16:47
  Plus money to live.
• 16:49
  I had 13,000.
• 16:50
  I did 22 races, 22 tests.
• 16:58
  With $13,000.
• 16:59
  Crazy.
• 17:00
  Yes.
• 17:01
  And I had to sleep in the car.
• 17:03
  I had to have PeeWee help me for free.
• 17:06
  PeeWee found some local sponsors for me from British BP.
• 17:13
  And a guy that used to have a shop at the back of the Routt factory where PeeWee worked with Ron Tornak.
• 17:21
  Tornak, yeah.
• 17:22
  called Formica, Weybridge.
• 17:26
  So he got him to sponsor me a little bit, and we had to sell our car and everything at the end of the year to pay some of the other bills.
• 17:35
  But we made 22 races, 22 tests, and that was PUE, that if it wasn't him, I wouldn't be able to do everything I did.
• 17:46
  Then I ask a last question for Nelson before deciding to do this.
• 17:49
  Yeah.
• 17:50
  I say, Nelson, I only race cars in Brazil.
• 17:54
  I tried to do two races in cars, and I never made past the first lap.
• 17:59
  Something happened with the car, and it broke down.
• 18:05
  What about if I'm not good at this?
• 18:07
  I've only done karting.
• 18:09
  What about if I go to England and I'm not good?
• 18:12
  I've seen you drive, I've seen your dedication, you are good.
• 18:16
  What do you do in kart?
• 18:17
  You can do in Formula One and succeed.
• 18:20
  See, yeah, but let's say I don't like the food, I don't like the weather, I get homesick.
• 18:27
  I'm homesick.
• 18:29
  That took him a couple of minutes to answer.
• 18:32
  And then he said, oh, you know what?
• 18:34
  If you don't get going well there for some strange reason, you went to England, you've learned a second language, but with the time that you're going to spend there because you're going to be forced to learn another language, you're going to come back home with a second language to work in anything you want, and somebody would have paid that bill.
• 18:57
  I say, great, let's do it.
• 18:59
  And that's how I made the decision.
• 19:05
  Listening to Nelson to go to EmRace in England.
• 19:08
  The start of a great adventure for you.
• 19:10
  Indeed it was.
• 19:12
  When you left, and I don't want to make you upset when we talk about this, but your lovely mother said something to you, didn't she?
• 19:21
  And it became your motivation.
• 19:24
  Inspiration, yes.
• 19:26
  You see, my mother said to me, look, I'm going to leave your room the way you left.
• 19:31
  Not going to change.
• 19:31
  Nobody's going to sleep on it.
• 19:33
  If things don't work out, you come back and you have a place to live.
• 19:42
  Every time I had a hard time, I used to think, well, if I go back home...
• 19:50
  And my mother sees me as a failure, although she's supporting me to be back home and all that.
• 19:57
  In my eyes, I would be a failure to her.
• 20:00
  And that was my inspiration through the bad times to get over and fix things.
• 20:07
  I have to make her proud.
• 20:08
  I have to make her proud.
• 20:09
  Yes, indeed.
• 20:10
  And that always touches me even to this date.
• 20:14
  So in that period, Pee Wee's an immensely loyal guy.
• 20:19
  What he says, he's true to his word, I've always found.
• 20:22
  If he's going to commit to doing something for you and you're loyal to him, he's absolutely loyal to you.
• 20:29
  So you stitch that together, you go to England…
• 20:33
  And at this period here, you talk about it very fondly, Roberto, don't you?
• 20:38
  I mean, Formula Ford, I mean, you'd go on to make Formula One and to race an IndyCar and have success in those and so on.
• 20:45
  But you loved that Formula Ford chapter, didn't you?
• 20:48
  Oh, indeed, because Formula Ford was my first one.
• 20:52
  Pee-wee gave me this electric fan heater.
• 20:56
  All right.
• 20:59
  And I bought like 300 yards of wire.
• 21:01
  You put it in the car?
• 21:03
  Did you put it in the car?
• 21:04
  Put it in the car, and I would plug into the bathrooms in the racetracks, you know?
• 21:10
  And that's how I slept in England, because it was so cold.
• 21:14
  Once it was warm, I could sleep anywhere, no problem.
• 21:18
  So I did that, and each time I slept in the car, I saved 10 pounds of a hotel room.
• 21:25
  And a tyre for the Formula Ford car would cost £10.
• 21:31
  So four nights out of a hotel, I would buy a set of tyres for my car.
• 21:36
  And in those days, a set of tyres would last four or five races.
• 21:40
  The stats for you in a Formula Ford were very impressive, right?
• 21:45
  Why do you think it clicked so well for you?
• 21:48
  And you have immense respect, I think, for Ralph Fuhrman and Van Diemen.
• 21:51
  Right.
• 21:52
  Initially, because I didn't have money to have my own shop, Pee Wee went to Ron Toranac and convinced him to let me use an old shed that had old parts across the road from the route factory.
• 22:10
  It was a good thing because Rome was proud of me.
• 22:13
  He used to keep an eye on me.
• 22:17
  And he used to very often at night come and talk to me and give me some ideas.
• 22:22
  Nice, nice.
• 22:23
  He would let me see the development of the RT3 and RT4s.
• 22:29
  And I became part of the Rout family at that young age.
• 22:34
  So what made a big change for me was one day Nelson was living about half an hour away from the factory, from the Rout factory.
• 22:46
  And one Sunday I was there, he showed up.
• 22:49
  I said, what are you doing here?
• 22:50
  He had a nice Mercedes.
• 22:51
  I said, what are you doing?
• 22:55
  I said, I just came to say hi.
• 22:57
  I said, oh.
• 22:58
  And then he asked me, what's the next race?
• 23:01
  I said, oh, the next race is Silverstone Club Circuit.
• 23:05
  Oh, really?
• 23:07
  Wow.
• 23:08
  Over there, I remember I made my car so fast on the straight line because Silverstone Club, there are three straights and three corners.
• 23:19
  It's a triangle.
• 23:22
  And I was very careful in the corners, but I made my car so fast on the straight, nobody could catch me.
• 23:30
  I said, how did you do that?
• 23:31
  So I machined the inside of the wheels about an inch and a half or an inch, an inch and a quarter each side.
• 23:39
  So my car was, the track was narrow.
• 23:44
  By almost three inches, two and a half inches.
• 23:50
  And I put the car on the weight limit.
• 23:54
  And I lowered everything that I could on that car so it would be fast on the straight.
• 24:00
  So my helmet was actually almost above the road bar.
• 24:04
  I said, oh, really?
• 24:05
  Okay.
• 24:06
  So he went home and I continued there.
• 24:09
  So I come to work the next day on Monday.
• 24:13
  And I called Nelson and said, can you find me some lightweight nuts from the Formula One factory so I can change the nuts on my car and make it lighter?
• 24:28
  Because they helicopter nuts, much lighter.
• 24:31
  We didn't use those in those days, only Formula One.
• 24:36
  So he brought me a bag of all kinds of nuts, very lightweight.
• 24:41
  So I changed all the nuts on the cars and I actually, the screws, because the nuts are very small.
• 24:49
  And I saved, maybe a couple of kilos of just bolts.
• 24:55
  My car was overweight by, I don't know, 16 pounds, something like that, crazy.
• 25:01
  So,
• 25:03
  I put a motorbike battery in the car, which was only good to run the car, but it wasn't good to start the car.
• 25:10
  That saved me another couple of pounds.
• 25:17
  I checked the car and I was eight pounds overweight.
• 25:21
  And this car was designed by Pat Siemens at the time.
• 25:26
  Pat was starting his career.
• 25:29
  A young Pat Siemens.
• 25:30
  Yes, he used to smoke a lot, but he was young.
• 25:35
  So I look at that nice bodywork that Pat Siemens designed all the way past the engine to the back of the car.
• 25:43
  And I said, there's a lot of wasted weight in the back of the car there.
• 25:49
  Because Ron Turanac, if you look at the Formula 3 cars, he never really used engine covers.
• 25:56
  Because the engines were very narrow to the chassis.
• 26:00
  So I thought, well, if he doesn't need engine covers, why do I need one?
• 26:06
  So I got a Huxo and a Huxo, the engine cover, and bodywork behind the anti-row bar, all the way to the back.
• 26:17
  And I made a nice, I rounded the edges so it would look nice.
• 26:25
  But the car changed the look.
• 26:27
  It was such an ugly car.
• 26:30
  And I went to the... One of the mechanics had a Ford Cortina at the route factory.
• 26:38
  And I asked him, because he had some wheels that looked off-centered.
• 26:43
  So I said, can I try those wheels in my car to see if they're off-centered?
• 26:47
  He said, no way, you're not touching my wheels.
• 26:50
  So one day he went to lunch...
• 26:54
  And I took his wheels, put on my car quickly, measured.
• 26:58
  It was about two and a half inches narrow.
• 27:01
  And I put it back on his car and I knew what wheels I needed to get.
• 27:07
  So I asked Peewee.
• 27:08
  And to talk to Peewee in those days, I had to call Nelson's wife.
• 27:14
  No mobiles.
• 27:15
  No mobiles.
• 27:15
  No mobiles from the route factory or from the house I was living because I was living in a bed and breakfast room.
• 27:24
  And she would translate to Pee-wee.
• 27:28
  Pee-wee would translate back to her.
• 27:30
  She would tell me what he said.
• 27:32
  So Pee-wee.
• 27:34
  told me where a scrapyard was, I went there and I've chosen four wheels of Cortina cars that were looking like the ones of that car that I tried in the Formula Ford car.
• 27:50
  So I bought four wheels, I cleaned them, I paint them, and the car looked so ugly.
• 27:58
  You would not imagine, okay?
• 28:00
  But it was on the weight limit and it was narrow.
• 28:05
  And I went to Silverstone.
• 28:07
  And in Formula 4 those days, you had between six to eight competitive championships throughout England.
• 28:21
  One or two times a year, there was only one race where everybody used to go to that race.
• 28:27
  So you get all the best drivers from all the championships racing one main race.
• 28:34
  And that was the next race in Silverstone Club.
• 28:38
  All the factory teams were there.
• 28:41
  And Pee Wee, what he did, because I arrived in England in May, was too late to start a full championship.
• 28:50
  He decided to enter me in different championships so I would learn the racetracks or the race circuits throughout England for the following seasons.
• 29:02
  When the first practice came, I didn't do too bad to learn the circuit.
• 29:08
  When qualifying happens, I happen to put it on pole.
• 29:12
  And I put on pole in front of all the best drivers in England in Formula 4 in these days.
• 29:22
  I went in the race.
• 29:24
  I happened to win the race in front of...
• 29:27
  The Van Diemen drivers and we had a good fight throughout the race.
• 29:32
  He tried to do me a brake test three laps to the end I got I got out of it and then I gave him a brake test Before the end and I won the race so I learned quick and They took my car away Everything proved to be legal
• 29:50
  I got a phone call from Ralph Furman on Tuesday through Pee Wee saying I could drive a Van Diemen car anytime I want from that day on.
• 30:01
  And he was very, very impressed with what I'd done because he thought I was illegal.
• 30:08
  But it all proven to be legal, and he was really impressed.
• 30:12
  I said, Rolf, I don't want to change cars now because I need to sell my car at the end of the year to pay for bills.
• 30:21
  Plus, if I start driving a different car now, I have to get used to it in mid-season.
• 30:26
  So I'd rather continue with my car, but I want to race for you next year.
• 30:31
  And that's how we did the deal.
• 30:32
  Fantastic.
• 30:33
  We sealed the deal then.
• 30:43
  If you go right back to the early days of Rusty's Garage in 2018, you'll find a brilliant episode with former F1 driver Tim Schenken, who was summoned to a meeting to talk about racing sports cars for the great Enzo Ferrari.
• 30:58
  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.
• 31:07
  So with an interpreter, I did my deal there.
• 31:12
  When Tim retired from driving, he went on to work for what became Motorsport Australia for decades, contributing significantly.
• 31:20
  The 70s and 80s were a great era for an emerging Roberto Moreno too.
• 31:26
  Ron Turanac, most Australians that follow motor racing will know him, the legendary things that he did with the late Sir Jack Brabham and so on.
• 31:35
  What was it like being around Ron Turanac?
• 31:38
  What was he like as a person back then?
• 31:40
  Rome was a very dedicated man to work.
• 31:47
  It was no if and buts with him.
• 31:50
  It's yes or no.
• 31:53
  Black or white.
• 31:54
  There was no gray with him.
• 31:57
  So I learned very early.
• 31:59
  How to deal with people like that?
• 32:02
  That was good for me.
• 32:03
  It was a good lesson.
• 32:04
  And I couldn't step wrong at the factory ever.
• 32:08
  Because he would be on top of us.
• 32:11
  And he was on top of everybody.
• 32:13
  Ron would have his eyes in everybody throughout the whole day, in everything at the route factory, and his race team.
• 32:22
  He was racing Formula 2s at the time.
• 32:24
  So...
• 32:29
  I see this very dedicated man fully to racing.
• 32:34
  And he would work.
• 32:37
  It would get dark at five, everybody would go away.
• 32:40
  And Ron would still be in his office drawing bits for his new cars always.
• 32:47
  And he was always inventing new brackets and changing things on the things he already built.
• 32:55
  We used to call him the bracket man, because he would change something and make some brackets for it.
• 33:05
  Another thing that took my attention is a lot of Japanese people used to come to the route factory at night and have these long meetings with Rome.
• 33:19
  eventually I've learned they were the the Bridgestone people and the Honda people because his association with Honda and Kawamoto who became the president of home later is the meetings were
• 33:38
  when Honda wanted to go to Formula One, Rome helped them to direct Honda to Williams.
• 33:48
  Wow.
• 33:49
  And if you look, Rome Toranac's Formula Two car in 84, it's a ground effect car.
• 33:58
  It was pretty much a copy of the Williams Formula One car.
• 34:03
  Amazing.
• 34:04
  So you have proven to Ralph Thurman that the door is open there for you.
• 34:10
  You go and do some terrific things with him.
• 34:14
  In your mind then, are you fully, I'm going to Formula One?
• 34:19
  No.
• 34:19
  Where are you at this point?
• 34:20
  Never thought about Formula One.
• 34:22
  Really?
• 34:22
  Yes.
• 34:23
  I was just happy being a mechanic and going racing.
• 34:30
  I had no intention to go to Formula One.
• 34:33
  I just wanted to do well what I was doing then.
• 34:38
  And Nelson told me, Roberto, so my success, the success in my mind was what Nelson set up in my mind earlier.
• 34:48
  He said, if you do well, a factory team will,
• 34:53
  will hire you, you will need no more money to go racing.
• 34:59
  So, concentrate in being a technical guy, fast, and the factory will take you.
• 35:07
  And that's what I've done in that first year.
• 35:10
  Your career, when you look at it, has a number of those moments where, you know, you might do it tough and you have this immense determination to, you know, that's why you weren't afraid to sleep in cars and things like that.
• 35:32
  That kind of...
• 35:35
  It does sum you up in some respects, and it gave you that immense determination.
• 35:39
  For young kids that are listening to this, Roberto, I think what I'm trying to say is that motor racing nowadays is a game that requires a lot of money.
• 35:48
  But you proved that on pure love and lots of hard work, you can do it, can't you?
• 35:56
  There were different days, but it's still possible today.
• 36:00
  Look at Lewis Hamilton.
• 36:02
  But in those days, Ralph Thurman from Van Diemen, if he won the championship, he would sell at least 120 cars the following year around the world.
• 36:15
  So he would invest in a factory team just so he could win the championship.
• 36:24
  My teammate was paying for most of the bills because he was a young guy, also from Brazil.
• 36:30
  And he was paying a good amount.
• 36:32
  And he was covering a lot of the bills for both cars somehow.
• 36:36
  But Ralph was so determined.
• 36:40
  Ralph was so, how can I say...
• 36:44
  The easiest way to put is the person who throughout my career Loved the most Formula Ford cars.
• 36:56
  Yes ever.
• 36:57
  It's Ralph Furman.
• 36:58
  He just loves developing a car.
• 37:00
  He just loves to To invent something new to make sure you beat the competition He was a real racer.
• 37:12
  Mm-hmm
• 37:14
  We used to test almost at least three times a week, sometimes in the summer from eight to eight, a full day.
• 37:28
  And whenever I had to go and take or bring parts for the factory, and I would arrive near five o'clock, he would say to me, call me half an hour before you are near the factory, which was across the street from Snatterton Circuit.
• 37:49
  He would hire Snatterton Circuit from five, which was closed, until dark.
• 37:57
  And I would test.
• 37:58
  And he would say to me, okay, call me half an hour before.
• 38:01
  Don't go to the factory.
• 38:02
  Go straight to the racetrack.
• 38:04
  Your race car will be ready to go.
• 38:06
  Somebody will pick up the van and bring it to the factory.
• 38:09
  And you're going to continue driving.
• 38:11
  Sometimes I used to change while I was driving to the Snetzerton before I get there.
• 38:17
  And I would be already on my race suits.
• 38:19
  And I would change while I was driving the van.
• 38:23
  So that's how enthusiastic Ralph was.
• 38:29
  He was a maniac about perfection developing.
• 38:35
  And if I give him an idea, he would follow that until it was proven that it was better or worse.
• 38:45
  One day we were testing this floor.
• 38:48
  I was so good at snatterton because I did so many laps there.
• 38:53
  Then I used to do five laps, stop, change something, do five laps, I'll do exactly the same laps or better depending on what the change or even worse if the change was worse.
• 39:05
  So this day I played a joke with Ralph.
• 39:10
  I did five laps.
• 39:11
  He changed the bottom of the engine.
• 39:15
  We had two rods from the chassis to the gearbox underneath of the engine.
• 39:19
  He put an aluminum honeycomb underneath to replace the rods and hoping that was going to be better.
• 39:31
  So I drove the car and when it was time to test the aluminum plate, I went...
• 39:38
  a tenth and a half faster.
• 39:42
  And Ralph was so happy, oh, I knew this was gonna work.
• 39:45
  And I come in the pits and I say, Ralph, it's the same.
• 39:50
  And then he starts smoking, because he gets upset.
• 39:52
  What are you talking about?
• 39:53
  I say, it's the same.
• 39:56
  No, you just went quicker.
• 39:57
  I say, Ralph, there's a reason that I went quicker.
• 40:00
  It's not the car.
• 40:02
  No.
• 40:04
  I say, okay, put it back, and I'll go just as quick.
• 40:09
  So he quickly got mad and got a change and sent me out.
• 40:13
  And I went just as quick.
• 40:15
  I said, okay, you little son of a gun, tell me what you've done.
• 40:22
  I said, well, Ralph, go to turn one.
• 40:26
  There's a cone there that the school puts in there.
• 40:32
  On my last lap of the first run, I moved that cone about a foot in.
• 40:38
  And when I came on the next run, I was quicker because I was short-cutting the racetrack a little bit.
• 40:46
  So he jumped on the car.
• 40:48
  He went there.
• 40:49
  He moved that thing.
• 40:50
  Okay, now you go back out again.
• 40:51
  And I went a 10 slower.
• 40:55
  From that day on, he started to trust everything I said.
• 40:58
  I love the fact that you are a student, if you will, on the mechanical side and the engineering side, if you like.
• 41:07
  But at this point, are you also...
• 41:09
  I mean, you were here this weekend at Hampton Downs.
• 41:11
  You were with us last week in Topor.
• 41:12
  You have been lending your experience to young racers here in the CTFROC series with Kiwi Motorsport and so on.
• 41:19
  Are you becoming a student of the art of race driving at this point?
• 41:24
  Because you're now in Formula Ford.
• 41:25
  You're winning races.
• 41:26
  You're having success with Ralph and so on.
• 41:28
  Does it become a thing for you where, like, I really am enjoying this and the art of race driving?
• 41:36
  Indeed, and if I just go back and I remember all the things I've done and I came up with, I was really good at that thing.
• 41:48
  And Ralph one day says to me, four years later, I think, I don't know how many years later, but I was already much further into my career.
• 41:57
  And I went to visit Ralph at one of the races in England.
• 42:03
  And he brought me, said, Roberto,
• 42:06
  Found a kid after so many years that he's like you It's it was Paulo carcassi, okay?
• 42:13
  He was racing for our firm and then this guy is the first one that is dedicated as you are and Knows a lot about the cars and
• 42:24
  And he introduced me to him.
• 42:25
  So I think he was very proud what the work I'd done for him.
• 42:30
  And when the Formula Ford, just before the Formula Ford Festival come, I got a phone call from Dave Minister and said, Roberto, I think I found an agent that has a little bit of edge like Ralph wants.
• 42:47
  Oh really?
• 42:48
  Can we try?
• 42:49
  So yeah, it's on its way.
• 42:52
  I said what have you done say well, I got your spare engine and I had here under the bench our old block that had a hole in it that blew up of Rod one time and it threw I made a hole on the side of the block the block and That ain't that block.
• 43:17
  We know was a little better the most
• 43:21
  So we put a patch in it.
• 43:23
  We machine it, we've made four holes, we put a patch to cover it.
• 43:31
  We put all the parts from your spare engine in that block and the engine has one and a half horsepower more.
• 43:40
  Which is lots in Formula Ford, isn't it?
• 43:42
  That's important.
• 43:43
  Which is normally what
• 43:46
  Builders do they always have one next engine that has a better block or if all the parts are better and I find you had an engine has a bit of an edge like Ralph wanted
• 44:01
  And we won the Formula Ford Festival easily.
• 44:05
  Tommy Byrne was just as quick, but he missed the boat a little bit on the hits and things.
• 44:12
  And I got an edge on him, and I won the Formula Ford Festival, which was called the World Cup that year, the Malbert World Cup.
• 44:24
  in a very spectacular way, breaking the lap record every time I went out, and quite impressively, which led me into Peter Collins been watching me, and suggested that Colleen Chapman sign me as a test driver like Manson was before.
• 44:48
  At Lotus.
• 44:51
  So winning that race so...
• 44:56
  Convincingly.
• 44:56
  Convincingly opened that door for me.
• 45:01
  And my next step, I had no money to do.
• 45:04
  So having money to survive in Europe was key for me to find my next drive the following year.
• 45:14
  Yeah.
• 45:15
  And also, throughout that year in 80...
• 45:21
  Ralph wanted to build a different car, which was the RF-81.
• 45:26
  It had to be different, but it took us a long time to make the RF-81 quicker than the 80.
• 45:37
  It took a lot of effort.
• 45:39
  Eventually, we made it.
• 45:42
  And that car, with the patch special engine, became Senna's car the following year.
• 45:48
  Wow.
• 45:49
  Wow.
• 45:50
  So...
• 45:52
  It was a great season to race for Ralph Fuhrman and the Van Diemen family.
• 46:00
  Angie, his wife, was so dedicated as well.
• 46:06
  I've learned so much in Formula Fords from Ralph.
• 46:10
  And the passion, the dedication, the development.
• 46:14
  It was all there, every day, every week.
• 46:17
  And I used to, there was a coffee shop down the street that today is a big hotel, Ed's Cafe.
• 46:30
  that for me to have lunch there, I convinced the owner to let me wash up to have lunch free.
• 46:39
  So I used to test the car in the morning, stop for lunch, have lunch, wash it up, and go back to test in the afternoon.
• 46:49
  Unbelievable.
• 46:50
  So all this happened in my first two years.
• 47:02
  Those hard yards, that hunger, such a cornerstone of the career of Roberto Moreno.
• 47:08
  That is the end of part one of my feature episode with the former F1 and IndyCar driver.
• 47:13
  But he is just warming up.
• 47:15
  Can you tell?
• 47:16
  And there is plenty of twists and turns to come on his way to Formula One.
• 47:20
  an IndyCar.
• 47:21
  Don't miss that, whatever you do.
• 47:23
  When you're ready, jump back to the library and fire up parts two and then three as his story of sacrifice and looking at almost insurmountable challenges as Opportunities continues here on Rusty's Garage.