Latest / Rusty's Garage / Neal Bates - Part 3

Transcript

Neal Bates - Part 3 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:21
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part three of my podcast with Australian Motorsport Hall of Famer Neil Bates.
• 0:28
  If you've landed here before checking out stages one and two, parts one and two, make sure you head back to the library and have a listen to those.
• 0:36
  There's a story about a test with Peter Brock that you are unlikely to have ever heard before.
• 0:42
  How the organisers of an event early in his career seated him well down the field and thought there was no way that this wild child driver from Canberra could possibly be challenging the established stars of the day for the outright win.
• 0:58
  The co-driving partnership with Coral Taylor, one of the longest in the history of the sport.
• 1:04
  The stern words of wisdom from motorcycle hero Michael Dowson.
• 1:08
  The call-ups from Team Toyota Europe.
• 1:10
  And his rivalry that was an equally close friendship with the late Possum Bourne.
• 1:16
  We begin part three by continuing to talk about his time in supercars when endurance drives fitted around the rally program.
• 1:29
  Was there a drive there that perhaps didn't happen?
• 1:34
  Was there a phone call to go and do something?
• 1:35
  You know, it might have even been a co-drive that you would perhaps like to have done that didn't perhaps eventuate?
• 1:42
  Look, what I probably made a few wrong decisions there.
• 1:47
  At the time, I drove with Paul Wheel initially, and Paul was very young, and then I got the opportunity to go to Seton.
• 1:56
  So I...
• 1:58
  I thought that was a great thing and then, you know, I have a look at that and the whole wheel team lifted, had a really good car and, you know, I'd said no to Keys, which Keys didn't like, people don't, you know.
• 2:13
  People like Keys don't like, no.
• 2:17
  So then we went there that year and I was in the Seton car and they probably lacked a little bit of pace that year and the wheel car went incredibly well.
• 2:26
  So I looked at that and thought, shit, I probably should have stayed in the wheel car.
• 2:29
  And Greg Crick took that drive and he was...
• 2:33
  But, yeah, no, not really.
• 2:35
  I...
• 2:39
  Did a couple of years with Seaton's, did a couple of years with Double O Motorsport, driving with Rodney Forbes.
• 2:47
  That's right.
• 2:49
  And then the last one we did was, yeah, in Tony Noski's car, in XS car.
• 2:54
  Mega.
• 2:55
  So I think I finished in the top 10 a few times and, yeah, enjoyed it.
• 3:00
  And it was an amazing experience and, yeah, something to look back on.
• 3:04
  pretty cool that that a rally driver just as colin bond had done you know from the that crossover sense was coming and playing in in uh in supercars we see shane van gisberg and now dabbling in in some rallying what are your observations of him as a as a rally driver from the supercar side of things yeah it goes back to what we spoke about an hour ago whatever it was uh you know you talk about um
• 3:28
  Car control.
• 3:29
  Shane has incredible car control.
• 3:31
  He has a huge interest in rallying.
• 3:34
  He grew up in a rally family.
• 3:35
  He loves it.
• 3:36
  He loves it and he was always going to be good at it.
• 3:38
  And probably the highlight for me in supercars wasn't actually in a race, but I actually...
• 3:45
  I did a test with 00 Motorsport at Winton and it was Lowndes, Crompton, Rodney Forbes and myself.
• 3:52
  And we were at the end of day one and I was the fastest out of everyone.
• 3:56
  So in front of Lowndes and Crompton.
• 3:58
  And I remember Crompton saying to me, just be...
• 4:02
  Don't get too carried away because these things are so finicky.
• 4:05
  You know, you come back tomorrow because it was the first time they'd let me do my own set-up.
• 4:10
  Gotcha.
• 4:11
  So here I am at the end of the day.
• 4:13
  I've gone faster than Craig Lowndes and Neil Crompton, so I'm thinking I'm an absolute genius.
• 4:18
  And Crompton said to me that night, just be careful because they're so finicky and, you know, what was right?
• 4:24
  And I go, nah, I'm thinking...
• 4:27
  We're on to something here.
• 4:28
  I'm on to something and I'm a genius.
• 4:30
  And I went back the next morning.
• 4:31
  I was about a second and a half off the base or something.
• 4:34
  How can this be?
• 4:36
  But it was pretty cool at the end of the day to be, you know, we did green tyre runs and here's some rally driver that's, you know, a co-driver that comes along and was fastest at the end of the day.
• 4:46
  So that was a...
• 4:48
  A pretty cool thing.
• 4:48
  Pretty cool thing.
• 4:49
  I'll get to the boys in a moment.
• 4:50
  Have they got a little thing in the back of their minds that they might like to do about this one day, either of them?
• 4:55
  Yeah, yeah.
• 4:55
  Both of them have interest in circuit racing for sure, and that's probably stemmed through me.
• 5:02
  Yeah, both of them drive very well on tarmac as well as gravel, and when they go and do tarmac super specials or you look at South Australia last year, I think at the end of the first night, which was around –
• 5:19
  In South Australia Oh I've got a mental blank now Anyway keep going Yeah they were so far ahead of everyone else By the end of that night That the rally was almost over to a degree So it
• 5:34
  For sure, they've got skills on tarmac and they've done some 86 rounds.
• 5:39
  I think it's still taking them a bit of getting used to of all these other people around them smashing into them.
• 5:48
  Can we talk about a little story?
• 5:51
  You might like going back over this, but...
• 5:55
  The Corolla, I think the Corolla WRC car you had sold.
• 5:59
  You took it to Perth.
• 6:01
  Was it for the WRC round?
• 6:02
  Yeah, WRC round.
• 6:02
  You took it to the WRC round.
• 6:04
  And I think the intent was you might run it a little bit and then sort of park it so it was safe for the sale.
• 6:10
  Yep.
• 6:10
  But Coral convinced you, no, no, no, come on, one final time, let's go.
• 6:14
  What happened?
• 6:14
  What happened?
• 6:17
  Rally, sorry, we had the World Rally car sold, so it was 2001.
• 6:23
  And you've got to remember, you know, we're talking, you know, a team that doesn't have huge budgets, the style of that car was $440,000.
• 6:30
  And important for the next phase of whatever you're doing.
• 6:32
  So important for the next phase of whatever we're doing.
• 6:35
  So, you know, a team in the Czech Republic,
• 6:39
  was coming over, they'd paid a deposit, they were taking the car straight after the rally.
• 6:44
  So they'd sent someone over who we knew from, who'd worked at Toyota Team Europe and he was the person to look over the car and tell them, yeah, it's a good car and you should definitely buy it and all that.
• 6:59
  So we'd had the discussion beforehand that we, you know,
• 7:05
  It was pretty risky in, you know...
• 7:10
  and maybe we should have a mysterious electrical problem or whatever.
• 7:14
  So we do day one.
• 7:15
  There's other cars over there, privateers who'd driven for Toyota Team Europe and all that sort of stuff.
• 7:26
  And all of a sudden, after day one, we're leading all those people.
• 7:31
  So we were the first privateer in front of Possum, in front of all the other European privateers, all that sort of stuff.
• 7:37
  So we're doing incredibly well.
• 7:39
  And then, you know, I said, I'm really nervous about this.
• 7:44
  We should just tomorrow morning on the way to the first stage have a fuel pump failure or whatever.
• 7:49
  But Coral and, you know, Daryl was in total agreeance with me.
• 7:53
  Daryl Bush.
• 7:54
  Daryl Bush.
• 7:55
  So then we're, you know, Coral talked us around that night and said, you know, we're doing so well.
• 8:03
  So then we're in the second stage that morning.
• 8:08
  And we come to a corner that was, Coral has called to me a right five, which is a really vast corner, but it was a right three.
• 8:19
  We go off the outside of the corner.
• 8:22
  at warp speed roll several times, and I'd just get out of the car.
• 8:28
  We were so lucky.
• 8:30
  It was that it had been logged on the outside and it was all ploughed.
• 8:34
  So we rolled a few times and that, but it didn't do a lot of damage to the car.
• 8:38
  But I was convinced Coral to call the right five, which is a really fast corner.
• 8:43
  And I said, you called that wrong.
• 8:44
  Like you, so she was, you know,
• 8:48
  beside herself.
• 8:49
  Yeah.
• 8:50
  So that was one of the few times where she actually walked off and left me tour because I think my mood wasn't that pleasant to be around.
• 8:59
  Okay.
• 9:00
  And then we got back that night with the car and they got the in-car camera out.
• 9:08
  Back then they were recorders, weren't they?
• 9:09
  Yeah, they were recorders.
• 9:10
  And I think Scott Young came over and they've played the –
• 9:14
  Played the recorder and choral called right three.
• 9:17
  And I just misheard it.
• 9:18
  Oh, God.
• 9:19
  You know, maybe I wasn't concentrating properly.
• 9:24
  You know, I did after that.
• 9:27
  I go, you know, I...
• 9:29
  thought I was struggling with hearing a bit and whatever and I went and got my ears flushed out and all of a sudden the world became a much noisier place.
• 9:36
  Oh, wow.
• 9:36
  But, yeah, so that was...
• 9:39
  But the most amazing part about that, we were so fortunate, didn't do any structural damage to the car.
• 9:44
  We had...
• 9:46
  most of the panels to put back on it and that and they still took the car for the same money fantastic so uh yeah a bit of a heart racing moment i'll bet while you were jumping all that i'll bet you brought up scott young there a moment ago david white an old boss from channel 10 and scott would often pair up in a in a second car that you would run at uh at target you would you would be competing with coral and often they would be in a maybe a production spec lexus or something or other and you would
• 10:11
  You would run that for them.
• 10:11
  And one particular year, I don't know if you remember, but Graham Brown, Mort, who used to work with Peter Brock and, you know, legendary figure in the...
• 10:19
  Which Mort was at that day in 1986 with a Brock Commodore.
• 10:22
  Was he?
• 10:22
  When you were at Calder.
• 10:23
  Fantastic, fantastic.
• 10:24
  Well, he is drafted in by them or you or whatever to be the kind of mechanic on the run, you know, when you're splitting resources and at different ends of the queue and what have you at Targa.
• 10:37
  So I'm Johnny on the spot turning up to do a bit of reporting and I see them there on the side of the road.
• 10:41
  I think we're going into Hobart.
• 10:43
  And David says, it's got a little bit of a vibration.
• 10:47
  He was a little bit unnerved by it.
• 10:49
  Not massively, but just, you know, he was conscious of it.
• 10:53
  So Maud looks at me and he winks and he gets a hammer and he gets underneath the Lexus and he just sort of banged the floor.
• 11:00
  He can do one damn thing to it.
• 11:02
  And then he slid out from underneath the car and he goes, I fixed it.
• 11:05
  And he looks at me and he goes, don't you say a word.
• 11:11
  And off David and Scott went.
• 11:12
  They were great years, weren't they, when you were, you know.
• 11:14
  And that's become, in the way that you've done that, where I'm leading here is that you do a bit of customer spec things here.
• 11:21
  Now, in addition to your own Yaris program, you've either assisted people with the purchase of a car that you've had and you've helped with the maintenance and running of it and so on, haven't you?
• 11:30
  Yeah, we do some customer work over the years.
• 11:33
  You know, you have a look.
• 11:34
  Last year we ran Richie Dalton in the Australian Rally Championship.
• 11:39
  And Lewis won that championship, Harry was second, Richie Dalton was third.
• 11:43
  Amazing.
• 11:43
  So as a team it was obviously a very, very good result and for Richie it was an incredibly good result to be on the podium in the championship.
• 11:52
  It was something that he dreamt about.
• 11:55
  So, yeah, we have run various cars over the years for various people and, look, I've also tried a lot over the years.
• 12:05
  I sort of, I suppose, see myself as a bit of a...
• 12:10
  Yeah, I've been involved in the Australian Rally Championship for a very long time.
• 12:13
  You know, like just recently, you know, we went to Tasmania and a young guy in Tassie, Bodie Reading, did incredibly well there.
• 12:20
  So at the end of the rally, I said to him, look, if you want to do Perth, I'll take your car over for nothing for you.
• 12:25
  So you can do it.
• 12:27
  You know, in 21, the year Nathan Quinn won the championship, we carted his car around for him for the whole year for nothing.
• 12:34
  You know, you look at Taylor Gill, who's gone overseas at the moment.
• 12:38
  I...
• 12:39
  I've done some media training with him, good young kid.
• 12:41
  Yeah, before he went, I took him out and we gave him a drive of the Yaris because it's going to be very similar cars to what he's driving over there.
• 12:52
  So I just thought it was a good opportunity, you know, because I know that when I went over there, I'd never driven a left-hand drive car, never driven a car like that.
• 13:00
  So I look at my own experiences and, you know, if I can help him,
• 13:04
  understand the car, understand what he's doing, give him a leg up before he gets there, it's going to help.
• 13:12
  When Troy Dow was at his loss with his leukaemia, I was talking to him in hospital and I said,
• 13:21
  Just get yourself better, Troy, and at the end of the year, you can come and have a test in the Yaris.
• 13:25
  Fantastic.
• 13:25
  So we took the Yaris over to Mount Gambier to an autocross track over there, and he drove it over there, and it was just an incentive.
• 13:33
  So I try and do whatever I can to...
• 13:36
  to help young people make the championship better, you know, encourage people, because, you know, I think it's an amazing sport and it's an amazing, cool championship, and it's, you know, to me, it's still the most spectacular form of motorsport that there is.
• 13:51
  MUSIC
• 14:01
  This rally business sure is exhilarating but there are rare occasions it goes bear shaped.
• 14:06
  Just ask this guest from the Rusty's Garage Library.
• 14:10
  Neither of us remember what happened, but we had a serious crash over a jump, which we had marked as something like a nine left over jump, which is flat out 180 kilometres per hour, and jumped into trees and stumps and all of those crazy things.
• 14:27
  And then I woke up in hospital and the first person I see in front of me is actually Sue Evans and Jack Monkhouse and Simon Evans and Coral Taylor and all these people, and I'm like in hospital and I'm like, oh, I don't know what's happened here.
• 14:42
  The US-based Aussie co-driver shares an incredible comeback story from that crash in her Rusty's Garage episode.
• 14:49
  Reamon also said Rusty shouldn't be allowed anywhere near pace notes.
• 14:53
  He's not bad with a mic though.
• 14:57
  As someone who is on that basis as a many-time champion, as a team owner, you have this sort of custodian aspect of what you're talking about there.
• 15:08
  If you crystal ball gaze, what things would you like to see the ARC maybe do over the next five to ten years?
• 15:16
  If I have a look at the, you know, people talk about some of the best times in rallying and they talk about in the late 70s when there was the factory Ford teams and Nissan teams and then they talk about, you know,
• 15:30
  Pospinai World Rally cars, but probably when I look at it, the strongest that I've seen it was in the early 2000s.
• 15:38
  Mitsubishi were there and all sorts.
• 15:39
  Mitsubishi were there, the Pedas were there.
• 15:42
  I looked at that and that was when we built the Group NP cars and if you had an average stage, you could be ninth, fastest, and you sort of go, jeez, ninth, what in the hell?
• 15:52
  And I have a look now, and I've got to say this is a credit to Adrian Coppin.
• 15:57
  You have a look now.
• 15:58
  There's a huge amount of cars here, a huge step to the field.
• 16:02
  And you had a look in Perth or whatever, and...
• 16:09
  There's a huge depth to the field and a whole lot of competitors.
• 16:12
  So it's heading to the moment where it's as strong a championship that it's what it's ever been in history.
• 16:20
  If you asked me what I wanted to see, it would be more coverage of it.
• 16:24
  Yes.
• 16:24
  For sure.
• 16:26
  It's lacking that at the moment for sure.
• 16:28
  But as far as cars, depth of fields, everything, it's all very strong.
• 16:33
  But if there was one thing, for sure, more coverage.
• 16:36
  Gotcha.
• 16:37
  In addition to what you're doing here, the 86 series in Australia has more or less exploded over the last, I don't know how many years it's been running here now, to the point where it's got a multi-tiered sort of structure.
• 16:51
  You guys have been heavily involved here at Neil Bates Motorsport in the development of the cars, the build package, if you like, when a customer buys them to want to go racing.
• 17:00
  Tell us about that because it's a massive undertaking, mate.
• 17:03
  And the new generation car is literally beneath us here.
• 17:06
  It's just been revealed in the last few weeks, hasn't it?
• 17:08
  Yeah, the 86 series was a brainstorm between Mike Breen, Yoda, and it wasn't long before he retired, Neil Crompton and myself.
• 17:22
  And if you have a look, Mike Breen had been involved in the TR7 series back in the day when he worked for Leyland.
• 17:29
  He'd been involved in the
• 17:31
  the um laser series when he worked for goodyear and you know the 86 was the perfect car for it and it came out and you know yeah that was spoken about and then we you know we went and developed a car and
• 17:46
  And, you know, the idea of that was to be an affordable package that was on the main game.
• 17:51
  You know, and, you know, it's interesting, you know, you look at the time when it was announced and everyone goes, you won't get 10 cars, you won't this.
• 17:59
  You know, the day is, these days the social media, everyone's a...
• 18:03
  An expert, keyboard expert.
• 18:06
  And then you rock up to Bathurst and the field is massive, absolutely massive.
• 18:09
  We rocked up to the first round of Winton.
• 18:11
  I've never been so nervous in my life, I think.
• 18:15
  I can't remember if it was either 38 or 39 cars.
• 18:18
  Like you're standing in pit lane of Winton and they're just going out and out and out and you go, when's this going to finish?
• 18:23
  And you're thinking, we're in charge of this.
• 18:26
  I hope they keep going round and round.
• 18:27
  And they went round and round.
• 18:29
  Look, initially there was a couple of tiny little...
• 18:32
  teething issues but you know essentially that series has run incredibly well we've got a whole lot of champions out of it that are now in supercars you know we've got the including your nephew including your nephew who's had great success in it who's now running in super two yeah
• 18:48
  Yeah, we've got the Brock Feeneys, we've got the Will Browns, we've got the Cameron Hills, we've got the Declan Frasers.
• 18:55
  So it has been an amazing series with some amazing rallying.
• 19:00
  Drivers.
• 19:02
  Amazing rallying and we've seen some incredible drivers come out of it.
• 19:06
  Yeah, amazing.
• 19:07
  Well done.
• 19:07
  And when you look at what we sat down and spoke about initially, it's ticked every single box.
• 19:14
  Well, that's to your point.
• 19:16
  You all brought different strengths to that table and the execution from beginning to end, I think, from the quality build of the cars to obviously Mike's sort of vision for what it should be and Crompo's execution around the administration, even the social media and marketing that Toyota put behind it.
• 19:32
  I mean, it's just a great thing.
• 19:34
  And the fact that it's unearthed a bit of talent and helped them take that next step is tremendous.
• 19:39
  Yeah, Crompton and Mike had the ideas.
• 19:42
  We just did all the work.
• 19:44
  They'll both laugh at that.
• 19:45
  They will, they will.
• 19:49
  Just diving in here quickly, don't misinterpret this.
• 19:52
  It's Neil being tongue-in-cheek.
• 19:54
  He said it with a smile, knowing full well that it's his collective work with Mike Breen and Neil Crompton that created something incredibly professional and it's delivering on its aim of cost-effective, ultra-competitive racing that helps those with talent on the pathway.
• 20:12
  Now back to the conversation.
• 20:16
  The Yaris is a world-class thing, mate.
• 20:21
  Just give people a little snapshot of it, if you will.
• 20:25
  So we're talking, I think we're talking three-cylinder, turbocharged.
• 20:30
  What you guys have built here has sort of been recognised globally, I think, in terms of what you've been able to achieve with it too, hasn't it?
• 20:39
  Yeah, look, it's a very cool car.
• 20:41
  We're the first people in the world to build a GR Yaris rally car.
• 20:47
  We've had inquiries from all around the world wanting people...
• 20:51
  to build us one, but we just don't have the capacity to do that.
• 20:55
  And, you know, the thought of that is scary.
• 21:00
  Just, you know, the amount of time and the amount of effort and everything into building them, you know, we're not big enough for that, but it's a nice thing.
• 21:08
  You know, we had the head of...
• 21:12
  kazoo racing world rally team come out and have a look at it along with norio from fantastic from tootter kazoo racing in europe um you know that they're watching every single rally where we got engines and tgre and you know that they're incredibly helpful and interested in what we're doing so that's a huge fever in our cap
• 21:34
  That hand-in-glove connection is a massive feather in your cap, mate.
• 21:37
  That's tremendous.
• 21:38
  And, you know, it's so good to be involved with them and, you know, it's been an incredible journey with these cars.
• 21:50
  You know, we built them, two of them in four months, which was hell, and then went to the first rally and got first and second in them.
• 21:58
  So, you know, it's been...
• 22:01
  an amazing car, an amazing journey with them.
• 22:05
  And, yeah, they are very cool things.
• 22:07
  Like, as you say, 1.6-litre, three-cylinder, 32-mil restrictor.
• 22:13
  Yeah, they make a massive amount of torque and, you know,
• 22:18
  around 300 horsepower, six-speed sequential gearbox.
• 22:22
  And, you know, yeah.
• 22:25
  And, you know, if you have a look at that, we've competed against a whole lot of Rally 2 cars and been very competitive.
• 22:32
  So, you know, it's pretty cool to build something here.
• 22:36
  that we can compete with, you know, cars that had a lot more money and a lot more time and effort put into them, you know, it's a pretty cool thing.
• 22:45
  But in saying that, you know, we build cars because we have to.
• 22:51
  You know, like Toyota are building a Rally 2 car now and we can't wait for that as soon as that happens.
• 22:55
  We'll get one, you know.
• 22:57
  I look, you know, the...
• 22:59
  So many times over the years we've built cars because we have to build cars because Toyota haven't been producing one to use in railing, so we've had no choice but to build them.
• 23:12
  But, you know, that's...
• 23:16
  I enjoy that.
• 23:17
  It's incredibly good to do, but it's hard work.
• 23:20
  I'll bet.
• 23:20
  With the exception of some of the extra massive overgrown wings and things, just to stand back and look at them and then look at the build quality inside them, it is almost WRC spec, mate.
• 23:31
  So you're to be congratulated.
• 23:33
  To be able to do that...
• 23:34
  from basically Australia, from Canberra.
• 23:37
  Yes, okay, there is a little bit of connection to other things, but by and large from here, that's mega when you sit back and think about it.
• 23:44
  Look, it's amazing.
• 23:45
  Yeah, yeah, have a look at what we spoke about before when –
• 23:49
  Bjorn Wallegaard drove the ST185 and he said, Come a long way, mate.
• 23:53
  Nice road car.
• 23:55
  And what we've all learnt as a team, what, you know, Daryl's learnt, what Ant's learnt, what Sam's learnt, you know, a couple of years ago I sent Harry and Lawson Sam over to Rally Finland because unless you see this stuff, you don't understand it.
• 24:11
  You need to know what the world's best practice are if you're going to try and build the world's best practice.
• 24:20
  I'm shy in sending them over to have a look and understand and copy and know what's best.
• 24:28
  If you have a look at these latest Yaris's, they're underweight.
• 24:32
  They've got a whole lot of ballast in them.
• 24:33
  They've got an incredibly low centre of gravity.
• 24:36
  If you have a look at us over a team, we've gone from modifying a road car, rally car to building...
• 24:43
  something that's almost as good as a Rally 2 car.
• 24:46
  So it's pretty cool.
• 24:48
  And you have a look at Darryl's taught himself to do CAD drawings.
• 24:55
  Sam's a mechanic by trade taught himself to be an incredibly good fabricator and we'll do our own body shells.
• 25:04
  Ant's learnt the...
• 25:05
  the whole Bosch stuff and we do our own wiring.
• 25:09
  We do, you know, so as a team, I'm incredibly proud of what we do, what we've achieved and how far we've come to understand to build something as good as...
• 25:21
  most other things in the world.
• 25:22
  I want to take that word pride and extend that to the two boys.
• 25:28
  Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine that a father and two sons would be in the record books as Australian rally champions?
• 25:40
  I mean, that globally in a statistic sense is nigh on unheard of, mate.
• 25:46
  Just remarkable.
• 25:48
  Yeah, it's something that, you know, it's till you say it, I probably don't think about it, but it is a remarkable achievement and I thought I'd actually got away with how them been involved in rallying because Harry was an AIS race walker and Lours was the first grade soccer player and all of a sudden one day they came.
• 26:07
  well harry got compartment syndrome in his legs which had to have an operation for that and then he was almost going to be looking at potential olympic material wasn't he like like ais that's that's the development for that i mean he was very serious wasn't he with that yeah absolutely like he was training every morning every night you know and um yeah but then when he got compartment syndrome in his legs he had to have an operation on that and then they cut the walk program and
• 26:31
  Then Coral couldn't do a rally in Queensland.
• 26:33
  He navigated for me, which was a mistake, and all of a sudden he had the rally bug and, yeah.
• 26:38
  But, yo, look, they've both done incredibly well.
• 26:42
  Yo, Harry started off in rallying, had a dream run.
• 26:46
  Yo, his second ever rally Coral navigated for him, which was at Narooma in a front-wheel drive Corolla.
• 26:52
  And I remember the director of the rally sending someone over to the service park to see whether I was in there.
• 26:58
  Oh!
• 26:58
  Really?
• 26:58
  Because he was leading the rally against four-wheel drives.
• 27:02
  About checking you weren't subbing.
• 27:03
  They honestly thought I was subbing and they wouldn't find me in the service park.
• 27:11
  So, yeah, and then Lewis's start to rallying was a bit harder because he had a few...
• 27:19
  In his first ARC round, he was doing incredibly well, and then he slipped off the road into some dry grass, then the car caught fire and burnt to the ground.
• 27:28
  So he had a pretty rough start to it all.
• 27:30
  He came back from that.
• 27:31
  But it probably took him a little while to come back.
• 27:33
  But I look now, they're both incredibly...
• 27:38
  competent drivers.
• 27:39
  You know, Harry went over to New Zealand last year and whilst he had a pretty average run over there, he still got three fastest times in WRC2 and, you know, we didn't.
• 27:53
  We probably didn't put enough into that rally, didn't do enough testing, hadn't driven on the tyres before.
• 28:01
  But, you know, he certainly showed that he had the speed.
• 28:05
  So, you know, he's got...
• 28:10
  You know, you look now, they're both very, very competent and doing incredibly well.
• 28:15
  Thanks.
• 28:16
  And, you know, people always say you must be proud of that, but probably the thing that I'm most proud of is they're both nice kids, never giving us any trouble.
• 28:23
  Yeah.
• 28:24
  Yeah.
• 28:25
  Can I, you've got some quotes in here.
• 28:26
  I don't know if you want me to share them.
• 28:27
  They're on the whiteboard here.
• 28:28
  Yeah, no, that's all good.
• 28:29
  Lewis Bates on the left says, my dream is to play for the Socceroos, to go to the ARC and to win the championship.
• 28:37
  My dream is to win the World Cup.
• 28:39
  That's Lewis Bates, 2003.
• 28:41
  Harry Bates, 2003, has written, my journey, beautiful handwriting too.
• 28:45
  My journey is to go to the Australian and World Rally Championship.
• 28:49
  My dream is to win the World Rally Championship.
• 28:51
  I'd love to think the boys, mate, would...
• 28:53
  You know, Harry's been to New Zealand, as you talked there before, to do a bit more international stuff.
• 28:57
  Do you think that is in the pipeline maybe for them, depending?
• 28:59
  It's hard to know that.
• 29:00
  It's, you know, it's probably been very hard for the opportunity to do that because, you know, he'd drive for Toyota and they've never had a car for that before.
• 29:10
  So to do New Zealand, we had to obviously get a Skoda and, you know, to put all that together, you know, you have a look at that.
• 29:17
  Harry worked for six months trying to make that deal all come together and,
• 29:21
  You look at that, he was probably almost a wreck before he got to the rally.
• 29:24
  But given that Toyota are doing a rally two car in the future, there could well be opportunity there.
• 29:32
  We'll just have to have a look at that along the way and see for sure if there was any opportunity.
• 29:37
  They'd both take it with open arms.
• 29:41
  Don't compare them as drivers because I don't reckon that's fair with your kids.
• 29:45
  Two-part question.
• 29:47
  Do you get nervous or did you ever get nervous?
• 29:48
  Because, I mean, you started doing stuff with them like hill climbs and maybe carna crosses and stuff from 12 years onwards, didn't you?
• 29:55
  So did you ever get nervous at all for them?
• 29:57
  Because it changes.
• 29:58
  All of a sudden you're the guy who doesn't mind being that wild child with long hair and what have you to now it's your own flesh and blood.
• 30:06
  That's a very different thing.
• 30:07
  It is, and it is incredibly hard.
• 30:09
  You know, it took, like I watched Coral go through this and I used to sort of think, you know, I thought I dodged a bullet and that wasn't going to be happening.
• 30:17
  But I do find it incredibly difficult.
• 30:19
  I do get incredibly nervous.
• 30:21
  You know, I struggle to watch Rally Safe because sometimes the dots stop and, you know, so then you think that they've had an off or whatever.
• 30:31
  And I have got better with it over the time, but I walk...
• 30:36
  Several kilometres up and down the service park every rally while they're out on the stages, out of nerves.
• 30:41
  And, you know, as I say, I have got better, but I'm still struggling with it.
• 30:45
  And I remember a few years ago having this conversation with Alistair McRae at a rally as we're pacing up and down the service park.
• 30:52
  Because he's going through that now too, isn't he?
• 30:54
  Having a laugh at each other going, you know, how did we end up here?
• 31:00
  They are wired differently though, aren't they?
• 31:02
  That's where I'm going.
• 31:03
  I don't want to compare their driving because I don't think that's fair, but you talked a little bit about Lewis before and I mean, Harry's immensely organized, but they are different, but they go about the, when they're in the, you know, behind the wheel, they are both immensely competitive human beings, aren't they?
• 31:19
  Yeah, look, Harry, Harry probably does it more naturally and he's, you know, the most amazing thing is growing up,
• 31:29
  Laws was a wild child and Harry was a conservative one.
• 31:32
  But when it comes to rallying now, I'd probably call it the other way around.
• 31:35
  Really?
• 31:36
  Harry's just in there and at it.
• 31:40
  And Laws thinks about it more.
• 31:42
  And he's probably a little bit more like I was as a driver.
• 31:46
  He's probably a bit more calculated, thinks about it a little bit more, probably thinks about the car because he works on it.
• 31:53
  Probably, you know, Harry doesn't.
• 31:55
  give a shit about any of that.
• 31:56
  He's just in it.
• 31:58
  So, yeah, they do go about it very differently, but Lewis has proven in the last 12 months that he's becoming very, very good and Harry's definitely looking in the mirror.
• 32:08
  Cool.
• 32:09
  Pride was the word you used before.
• 32:10
  The extension of that pride also goes to Molly Taylor.
• 32:14
  I know you have been overseas and stood on the side of the road and watched her driving and then offered feedback in a kind of coaching sense.
• 32:21
  What...
• 32:23
  You know, there's lots of people that have been involved in that and primarily she is a very big, very big driving force on her own.
• 32:30
  But what she's been able to achieve, mate, is tremendous.
• 32:33
  It's remarkable on the global stage really, isn't it?
• 32:36
  Yeah, for sure.
• 32:36
  Look, obviously I've done a hell of a lot with Molly over the years and still do.
• 32:41
  You know, you look a couple of years ago when she...
• 32:50
  got replaced at Rosbergs, and then she was in a bit of a, probably, you know, a bit of a dark place from her driving.
• 32:57
  What's the future hold, yeah.
• 32:58
  What's the future hold, started doubting her ability.
• 33:02
  You know, and then when she got the gig with Veloce, you know, I said, right.
• 33:08
  So we went and did some driver training and some stuff where I put her against Harry in a car that they hadn't driven before and some high-intensity stuff where they were short, quick.
• 33:22
  Because if you have a look at Extreme, it's all about going quickly straight away.
• 33:27
  And to see Molly bounce back.
• 33:32
  from that and do what she's been doing this year in extreme air.
• 33:34
  Rossburg must wonder what he let go, mate, seriously.
• 33:37
  Where she's now the fastest woman again, which is where she started in its own thing.
• 33:43
  I said to Molly after the round before or whatever, I said it's a hell of a lot easier watching this when you're winning than when you're driving around doubting yourself.
• 33:53
  So I said, yeah, you need to keep this up definitely.
• 33:56
  Well done.
• 33:56
  So, yeah, look, she's an incredibly good driver.
• 34:00
  in her own right, for sure.
• 34:02
  And, yeah, hopefully we'll see her back in the ARC at some stage.
• 34:06
  I agree.
• 34:07
  I hope that happens sooner rather than later.
• 34:10
  You like driving trucks.
• 34:11
  The Peterbilt is something pretty special.
• 34:14
  When you go over the Nullarbor, Coral drives sometimes too.
• 34:17
  Do you do the Hollywood shifts and she's up at night driving or what?
• 34:20
  How does that all work?
• 34:21
  Who told you that?
• 34:22
  Look, I'm...
• 34:27
  I actually drove over on Moan this time, which is only the second time I've ever done it, every other time.
• 34:32
  I don't know how many times I've been across the Nullarbor, probably 60 or 70 times or something.
• 34:36
  Chad, Harry and the boys all tell me, if you get in the car in the passenger seat, one of the first things you do is turn the radio music down.
• 34:44
  Is that right?
• 34:45
  I just don't.
• 34:48
  I look at the world and everyone idolises these singers who –
• 34:53
  generally, you know, cocaine addicts and, you know, they're all in and out of rehab and whatever and we idolise all these people.
• 35:01
  I just don't understand that whole world.
• 35:03
  But anyway, if we behave like that, we'd be all over the news everywhere and wouldn't have a drive and wouldn't have a gig and wouldn't have anything.
• 35:11
  Totally.
• 35:12
  Can we highlight, just as we come toward the end here, someone pretty special in this whole journey, and that's your lovely wife, mate.
• 35:24
  I was going to bring that up if you didn't mention it.
• 35:27
  Jane, I think at the time you had a two-year-old in Harry.
• 35:32
  Lewis had just come along, if I've got that right.
• 35:35
  You were driving the Super Touring Camry.
• 35:37
  Doing some international stuff, some local stuff, no doubt other things around Toyota, etc.
• 35:44
  You were on the road fundamentally 260 of the 365 days.
• 35:50
  That was a massive commitment from her.
• 35:52
  I mean, it has been a whole way, but that in particular.
• 35:55
  This came up only a few weeks ago and I said to Jane, I look at that now and this probably came up because Harry's just had a baby.
• 36:03
  I think how could have I been so selfish?
• 36:05
  But Jane said that was your job, you know, and the most amazing thing about that, I met Jane in, well, we got married in 1989 and, you know, Jane had an interest in rallying because she was friends with, you know,
• 36:18
  David Eadie at the time, who I was competing with in the New South Wales Rally Championship.
• 36:23
  But, you know, they say behind every good bloke is a stronger woman.
• 36:29
  And, you know, that is 100% the case in my opinion.
• 36:34
  In my life, Jane has just been the rock that looks after everything while I work stupid hours, go away all the time, drive race cars.
• 36:43
  But as you say, in 1997, Harry was two, Laws was born.
• 36:50
  I did the Australian Rally Championship.
• 36:52
  I did the Super Touring Championship.
• 36:53
  I did the Enduros in the supercars.
• 36:57
  I did the Race of Champions.
• 37:00
  I did, you know... What a year.
• 37:03
  Targa.
• 37:04
  I was just away more than what I was here.
• 37:08
  And I also did three rounds of the World Rally Championship that year.
• 37:10
  We did New Zealand, Indonesia, Rally Australia.
• 37:14
  So, yeah, the amount I was...
• 37:18
  away was ridiculous and Jane never, you know, I was just off doing my thing and Jane never complained, never, which I just look back at now and think how could have I been that selfish?
• 37:31
  But I suppose it's a very selfish industry that we're in at times and you need that support at home and I've had that my whole life which I'm incredibly grateful for and...
• 37:48
  what can you say to think that you know what I mean like it's just yeah it's incredible amazing you have given me a couple of notes here we've talked about um zero zero Glenn Seton Paul Wheel and so on you've noted here 12 hours tell us a bit about that
• 38:02
  Yeah, I did quite a few 12-hour races.
• 38:05
  I did them with Toyota in the early 90s with MR2s, and we won our class several times.
• 38:12
  We came fourth outright twice in an MR2 in a class car.
• 38:17
  Once we were six seconds off being on the podium, which was behind the RX7s.
• 38:22
  they were an incredibly good car because you could drive them flat out all day.
• 38:25
  They didn't wear brakes out.
• 38:27
  Nothing broke on them.
• 38:28
  So you just did qualifying laps every lap for 12 hours, which was really cool fun.
• 38:33
  And then, you know, at the end, while all these other things are smouldering, Rex running around 10 seconds a lap off the pace, you're hauling them in.
• 38:42
  And, you know, if it went for a few more hours, we would have been on the podium.
• 38:46
  So they were enjoyable days.
• 38:48
  We had...
• 38:49
  Fangio come out a couple of times and that was really cool.
• 38:53
  He was a really nice guy, a very quick driver.
• 38:56
  Then I did the 12-hour a few times with Colin Osborne in Sleekers, in class cars once again, got some incredibly good results because they're another car that you could drive around.
• 39:08
  You know, flat out all day.
• 39:10
  Was there a Viper in there somewhere too?
• 39:11
  Yeah, I drive a Dodge Viper in a three-hour race, which, you know, that was an incredibly cool experience because you look at a Viper as a pig of a car and heavy and no brakes and all that sort of stuff, which –
• 39:25
  Yeah, no brakes was definitely a truth.
• 39:27
  But the interesting part in that race, we qualified on pole and it actually got fuel surge on the lap.
• 39:33
  So I could have been on pole by more.
• 39:36
  And then everyone thought it was going to run out of brakes.
• 39:38
  And I remember Alan, when I look back at the coverage, Alan Jones was commentating and goes, oh, yeah, you know,
• 39:46
  this thing is really fast but it'll run out of brakes soon.
• 39:49
  And then, you know, lap 10 and lap 20 and lap 30 and, you know, like and it's still forging ahead.
• 39:56
  And also it had...
• 40:01
  Everyone thinks it's going to be heavy on fuel, but it had incredibly good fuel consumption.
• 40:06
  And we hooked up a temperature gauge to the brakes and we had a set of brakes in it that if we didn't go over 650 degrees, they're an endurance pad, they'd last forever.
• 40:19
  So we had a digital readout on the dash with brake temperature so we could keep an eye on the brake temperature and we just kept it under 650.
• 40:27
  did the whole race without a brake pad change.
• 40:32
  And I drove the first stint.
• 40:34
  I was driving my, it was Ray Lintot's car.
• 40:36
  Yep.
• 40:37
  And we were driving a guy, American guy, Neil Hammond, who raced Vipers in America.
• 40:43
  He was the co-driver.
• 40:45
  And he came over and brought a tune over with him and it ran incredibly lean, was incredibly good on fuel.
• 40:51
  and, you know, we should have won that race, but it was the Ferrari ended up winning, but we got black flag because it was blowing a bit of smoke because the diff got so hot it started melting the diff seal and it was dripping diff oil onto the exhaust, so they brought us into the pits to, you know, I look back at it, it was...
• 41:17
  you know not sure that we should have been called into the pits at all but we were because the Ferrari was coming second and it was a Ross Palmer event and yeah you know we can have whatever conspiracies we want but but the end result is you know the car was incredibly fast we made it do the whole race without changing brake pads and then at the end we even though we didn't win or anything we spent about six hours at
• 41:42
  Scrutineering pulling the fuel tank out because no one could believe it went that far on fuel.
• 41:46
  Wow.
• 41:47
  So it was an interesting weekend and interesting that one, we got the brakes holed up and secondly, we went far longer than everyone else on our load of fuel, which made it... And it was an incredibly well-balanced car.
• 42:03
  You brought up Ray Lintop there a moment ago, a former car dealer in Sydney.
• 42:08
  I reckon he bought...
• 42:10
  an ST165 at one point into the country.
• 42:13
  That was the car I drove in Rally Australia in 1991.
• 42:17
  And the most amazing, a couple of incredible stories about that.
• 42:21
  Once, when he got that car, he wanted me to do some rally driving lessons with him.
• 42:25
  And we went up to Hiles.
• 42:28
  Which is where, here in Canberra.
• 42:29
  Here in Canberra, a stage in Canberra that I know incredibly well.
• 42:32
  And I drove him along that stage in the passenger seat.
• 42:36
  And when we got to the end, he was literally...
• 42:39
  hyperventilating like he just went you've got to be kidding.
• 42:42
  So then we spent the day and we started off with doing handbrake turns and he said, you know, and at one stage he got it wrong and he said why can you do handbrake turns and
• 42:55
  And I can't.
• 42:56
  And I go, well, when we were 16, Ray, you went to Parramatta Road to make your first million.
• 43:01
  I was out in the forest on handbrake turns.
• 43:04
  So now we're in a situation where you can afford to buy this and you're very wealthy.
• 43:08
  And I'm bloody good at handbrake turns.
• 43:13
  The memory I have of that car, Mark Taylor, Coral's husband, had driven a media car on the Australian Safari.
• 43:20
  And I was with him for that.
• 43:22
  And I had to return something to them after the event.
• 43:25
  And, you know, so they were in, I think, Sydney's northwest at the time.
• 43:28
  So I went not far from where I'd grown up.
• 43:31
  And I went around to drop it off, whatever it was, and –
• 43:37
  Mark gives me this kind of wry smile and he goes, hey, hey, hey, come on, I'll show you something in the garage.
• 43:41
  And he opened the garage of their house and there was this plain white, I think it was plain white, was it?
• 43:46
  WRC spec car for a while.
• 43:48
  And did you guys, I think, to make it a little bit easier on Ray, I think you put a different chip in it to detune it or something.
• 43:53
  Yeah, because he ran that car in some gravel rallies and then ran it in Target, Tasmania, and we made quite some changes to it just to make it a little nicer and probably a little...
• 44:05
  User-friendly, shall we say.
• 44:06
  More user-friendly, but the most amazing story with that car, when Ray sold it, he offered it to me.
• 44:14
  Ray offered me a couple of cars because his 996 Porsche was the most unbelievable car, and we did a whole lot of work on that, including going to...
• 44:26
  Porsche North America and tuning it and then for the engine, like on an engine dyno in America.
• 44:36
  But that car Ray offered me for 70 grand and then it sold a few years later in England because that car won more points than any other car in the World Rally Championship and it sold for 1.2 million pounds.
• 44:53
  The other thing that happened when Ray passed away, in his will, there was a clause in the will for me to purchase that 996 Turbo and at the time it was 90 grand and it was probably worth 120 or so at the time but, yeah, you've got to have the 90 grand spare at the time and all that sort of stuff and I didn't do that and it was three or four years later they were worth like 400 and now they're probably 600 or 700.
• 45:20
  Crazy.
• 45:20
  So, yeah.
• 45:21
  Boy, everyone's got those stories.
• 45:23
  Stories, don't they?
• 45:24
  Should have.
• 45:24
  Don't they?
• 45:25
  For you to finish.
• 45:26
  Firstly, Sandown 500.
• 45:27
  You asked me to bring that up with you.
• 45:30
  Yeah, in circuit racing terms, it was probably my most exhilarating, exciting race, Sandown 500, and it was when they were GT cars.
• 45:42
  So I was in a Porsche with Steve Webb.
• 45:44
  Yep.
• 45:46
  And John Bauer was in the Ferrari, and Steve drove first, and then I hopped in, and we were leading the race, and John Bauer was –
• 45:58
  hunting me down towards the finish, and, you know, I came down to the last few laps, and it was an incredibly good race, and, you know, we were doing qualifying laps right at the end of a 500k race.
• 46:12
  John Bauer did end up getting me, but that was...
• 46:15
  Yeah, we finished nose to tail.
• 46:18
  Unreal.
• 46:18
  And it was a very cool race where I felt like I did an incredibly good job.
• 46:24
  Very memorable.
• 46:25
  Yeah.
• 46:25
  Special to you.
• 46:27
  Righto.
• 46:28
  The car.
• 46:29
  Is it the 205?
• 46:31
  Is it – could it be anything you've driven over time?
• 46:34
  It doesn't have to be one that you've built.
• 46:35
  The car.
• 46:36
  Yeah.
• 46:39
  Probably the 205.
• 46:41
  When I look at the RA40, that's just the most fun car you could ever drive.
• 46:46
  But there's something about the 205 that I just have a special bond with.
• 46:51
  I think we won a lot with it.
• 46:53
  It was the first proper Group A rally car that we ever built.
• 46:58
  Target success in it.
• 46:59
  Target success in it.
• 47:00
  So, yeah, there is a special bond with that car for sure.
• 47:05
  The stage or the piece of road?
• 47:12
  Probably the best stage would be a stage.
• 47:20
  My favourite rally used to be a rally in Melbourne.
• 47:23
  There was a stage called Act Run Way that I just absolutely loved and that was probably my favourite stage, yeah.
• 47:29
  Okay.
• 47:30
  From the event that you would perhaps love to have a crack at that you haven't done, could be anything, circuit, rally, anything.
• 47:40
  When you look back and you talked about the WRC and you talked about various things, I don't have...
• 47:46
  If there's one little regret I have... Don't have regrets, but anyway... Yeah, don't have regrets.
• 47:52
  But if there was one thing that I...
• 47:54
  Probably should have done, which we did talk about a few times, was do a tarmac WRC round.
• 47:59
  Okay.
• 47:59
  Because, you know, I was always very good on tarmac.
• 48:02
  I had the rally skills and I would have, you know, if I look, I would have loved to have gone, you haven't done Catalonia back, you know, back when it was the essence of a tarmac rally that was more like Circa racing than the other rally.
• 48:18
  So I would have loved to go and do that just to see how it went.
• 48:21
  The win or the moment?
• 48:25
  It's interesting, you know, you do so much in your career.
• 48:27
  Probably when they win, probably the first time I went to Otago because everyone, including Murray Kootu, I've mentioned Murray quite a few times in this, we're very, very close and, you know, we've done enormous amount of suspension development and stuff over the years.
• 48:44
  And when I was going to Otago, you know, we built a car to go over there and beat the escorts
• 48:49
  And everyone told me you couldn't be competitive there the first time, including Murray for the first time ever.
• 48:55
  He probably didn't back me.
• 48:57
  And I remember getting to the finish of that rally.
• 48:59
  We were on the transport driving out of the last stage and I rang Murray and said, Hi.
• 49:04
  Hi.
• 49:06
  Thought you couldn't do this the first time.
• 49:07
  We just won it.
• 49:08
  Yeah.
• 49:09
  I don't know if I've got my ages right here.
• 49:11
  I can't even picture you being 58, am I right in saying that you're a grandfather?
• 49:16
  You still seem so ridiculously young to me.
• 49:22
  Are you slowing down?
• 49:24
  I don't ever recall you saying that you've stopped driving.
• 49:27
  I don't know that you'd – like if an event came up now, you'd still go and do it, wouldn't you?
• 49:30
  I'd still go and do it 100%.
• 49:31
  The only reason I'm not competing at the moment is time.
• 49:34
  There was a rally sprint here in Canberra that I went to do twice this year, got called off once for fires and the second time for flooding.
• 49:42
  So, for sure, I still want to do some rallies and I haven't stopped that.
• 49:46
  Has it been hard to slow down, though, is what I'm asking?
• 49:49
  Because obviously the business takes precedence.
• 49:52
  The boys are going exceptionally well.
• 49:53
  But that means the thing that you've loved and that has been the backbone of this whole deal slows up.
• 50:00
  Has that been hard to...
• 50:01
  Yeah, for sure it has been because I love driving and, you know, sometimes I'll hop in a car now and you feel a little bit rusty and you think, geez, I need to do more of this to, you know, and it was good, you know, with the development of this new 86.
• 50:15
  I did a couple of, you know, I did a day at Sandown where it was just a whole day and just...
• 50:21
  Got to enjoy the pleasure of driving.
• 50:22
  Got to enjoy the pleasure of driving and, you know, by the end of the day I thought, I'm actually going pretty bloody good here.
• 50:28
  Excellent.
• 50:28
  But it takes a little while.
• 50:30
  The less you do it, you know, you're not.
• 50:33
  You know, if I jumped in the rally car now, you know,
• 50:36
  I would still probably go very quickly, but would I be absolutely on the top of my game now?
• 50:41
  And the answer to that would be no because I'm not doing it all the time.
• 50:45
  When you're doing it all the time, you're right there, you're right on it and, you know,
• 50:53
  But it's, I suppose, a change in life.
• 50:56
  I still want to compete.
• 50:57
  I did a hill climb in the 205 there not long ago and set a new class record at the hill climb and finished second out right behind an open wheeler.
• 51:08
  I still love driving.
• 51:09
  I still want to do it, but it's not my main focus these days.
• 51:14
  And when you talk slowing down at the moment, it's totally out of control, but I would like to...
• 51:24
  I don't mind being busy but out of control becomes a bit much at times and I'll be happy when we've built 35 of these 86s and hopefully I can slow down ever so slightly.
• 51:34
  You are.
• 51:35
  I mean, one thing that's permeated this whole discussion, and it's been long, thank you, mate, for the time in this.
• 51:39
  I've wanted to do this for a long while now.
• 51:44
  long-termers that are a part of this business, 34 years with Toyota.
• 51:51
  Remarkable for a young man who worked two jobs from a very humble upbringing to think that you've created this, have had the success that you've had, whether it's rallying, Bathurst, you know, podiums and more.
• 52:07
  The longevity of that relationship is a credit to you, mate, I think.
• 52:10
  So...
• 52:11
  Yeah, probably.
• 52:12
  As I say, Toyota are an amazing company.
• 52:15
  I work with amazing people there.
• 52:19
  It's rare in motorsport now, don't you reckon, to have that sort of – people change.
• 52:24
  They get lured by something else and we're in this fast-paced life that younger people seem to adapt to so well.
• 52:32
  To have that longevity, mate, is an immensely rare and special thing, I think.
• 52:36
  Yeah, look, it is, and I think that I'm an incredibly loyal person
• 52:41
  uh person i think the toyota an incredibly loyal company and as i say i've worked with some amazing people there and you know it hasn't always been you know beer and skittles along the way there's been some hard times on my part their part whatever but you know we've we've always managed our way through it and we've come out the other end and you know like you talk um
• 53:04
  doing other stuff, it's hard to even imagine anything without a bullshorn on it.
• 53:09
  And, you know, it's, yeah, as I say, I can only thank them and hopefully they think the same.
• 53:16
  But, yeah, you know, it's got years to go, you know, it's got...
• 53:21
  still forging ahead with the 86 series with the new series and all that sort of stuff.
• 53:26
  So, you know, there's rally two cars coming that obviously we want to get and compete with.
• 53:31
  So, you know, it's certainly not over but it's been an amazing journey and, you know, I just feel incredibly grateful.
• 53:40
  And motorsport is, you know, as you would well know, it's an incredibly tough climb at times, incredibly hard work.
• 53:46
  But to do something you're passionate about is, you know, I've driven to work for...
• 53:52
  you know, 40 years now working out how you're going to make something lighter, how you're going to get more power, how you're going to get a lower centre of gravity, how you like to think about improving stuff and that on a daily basis.
• 54:07
  You know, it's a pretty cool job.
• 54:10
  Congratulations on everything.
• 54:12
  As we wrap this up, are you grandpa?
• 54:14
  Are you grandfather?
• 54:15
  What's your nickname?
• 54:16
  I'm Pops.
• 54:18
  I love it.
• 54:19
  I love it.
• 54:19
  I'm Pops and Jane's Flip.
• 54:21
  What?
• 54:22
  Well, because when Jane doesn't swear, so when something goes wrong, she says Flip and said the other.
• 54:30
  So little Harry's called a Flip and that's just stuck.
• 54:32
  Stuck.
• 54:33
  Awesome.
• 54:33
  So I'll all...
• 54:35
  Well, no, Jane, it's flip.
• 54:37
  But, yeah, look, as I say, one thing I've got to emphasise with all this, we're here talking with me about all this, but the people behind you that make this happen along the way, you know, I look at myself, I'm not the world's smartest person, but one thing I've learnt in life is to surround yourself with incredibly good people and I look at...
• 55:01
  I look at Daryl.
• 55:02
  I look at Peter Reynolds in the earlier years.
• 55:04
  I look at Sam that we've got here now.
• 55:07
  I look at, you know, Harry and Lawson now integral part of the business.
• 55:11
  I look at Ant.
• 55:12
  You know, there's some amazing people that have made this happen and, you know,
• 55:21
  If you looked at me trying to wire a car, that would be not a very pretty exercise.
• 55:26
  And you looked at me on CAD, I don't have none of computers.
• 55:30
  So you have to have the right people and some incredibly smart people.
• 55:37
  Like I feel that we've got...
• 55:40
  some of the best motorsport brains in this country in in this little shed in canberra you should feel proud they're a reflection of you and how you you run this thing congratulations thank you for sharing the story mate it's been great to get you on no worries thank you very much i'll be able to listen to it on the way to my next trip sorry if my voice drives you mad thank
• 56:06
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 56:10
  Series editor and producer is Thomas Dullard.
• 56:14
  Audio production by Link Kelly.
• 56:16
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• 56:21
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