Latest / Rusty's Garage / Trevor Sheumack | Part 2 - the Michelin Man & rallying a beast!

Transcript

Trevor Sheumack | Part 2 - the Michelin Man & rallying a beast! · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:05
  G'day, it's Rusty here.
• 0:06
  All set for part two of my feature episode with Trevor Shumack, part of our commitment to stories from the paddock and service par from time to time by good storytellers who are these long-time, friendly, familiar faces who we see so often when we go to work at events, but you don't always realise the things they've done or the significant people that they've worked with along the way.
• 0:27
  On that note, worth listening to part one if you haven't done so before hitting the gas on this one.
• 0:33
  from working on rides in Manly to Formula Ford fabrication and then rolling the dice on Europe where he met and worked with some great people.
• 0:42
  Coming up, special tyres and security around them, some sleepless nights there, plus a cool BMW and a beast of a rally car that is all set to tackle some iconic Aussie roads.
• 0:54
  Let's launch back into it now.
• 0:58
  You have bought one of those BMWs.
• 1:00
  It's got a bit of history too.
• 1:01
  Johnny Giacotto, I think Paul Morris and someone.
• 1:03
  Tell me about that thing.
• 1:04
  And you ran it at Winton not all that long ago, didn't you?
• 1:07
  Is that right?
• 1:08
  Uh, yeah, a couple of years ago, I sort of had, um, an opportunity to, I mean, I've always had those, the super touring cars, rear wheel drive, you know, they're just fantastic.
• 1:20
  And they sound amazing and what have you.
• 1:21
  Anyway, I bought a car out of New Zealand that, um, was the first.
• 1:25
  Nigel Barclay helped you too, is that right?
• 1:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Nights, you know.
• 1:28
  I've been talking to Nigel for a couple of years saying, you know, if you find me a car and he came up to me when I was there one time and he says, hey, how about this?
• 1:34
  I've got a deal for you.
• 1:35
  How about this one?
• 1:37
  And anyway, catalog story short, I got that car.
• 1:40
  And it's originally, it ran in the 1993 World Cup with Johnny Chocotto.
• 1:44
  Monza?
• 1:45
  Monza, yeah.
• 1:45
  Monza, yeah.
• 1:46
  Yeah, in the factory Wohlsteiner FINA sort of color scheme with the big flag and all that sort of stuff on it.
• 1:53
  And so, but it was one of the first cars that was, so it was a Bugazzi run car.
• 1:57
  Uh-huh.
• 1:58
  And then it came to Australia to, you know, Norwell.
• 2:01
  Yes.
• 2:01
  You know, to the local team here.
• 2:02
  Yeah.
• 2:03
  And Paul ran it in one of the championships in Diet Coke cars.
• 2:07
  Because in the logbook, it's a Diet Coke car.
• 2:10
  Diet Coke car.
• 2:11
  So was it an H-pattern to begin with before it became a sequential?
• 2:14
  Correct.
• 2:14
  What is it?
• 2:15
  Yeah.
• 2:16
  So in a 93 spec, they ran with no wings effectively.
• 2:19
  And then 94 and 95, and my car's running...
• 2:22
  It's a 93 car, but it's running a 95 aero package on it.
• 2:24
  Package, yeah.
• 2:25
  And that allows it to be a 95 aero sequential.
• 2:28
  So it's got a Hollinger H-pattern box, but with a sequential kit on it, so to speak.
• 2:34
  Awesome, awesome.
• 2:35
  So it's just, you know, it's just a cool thing, and they sound amazing.
• 2:38
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  And, you know, that's fantastic.
• 2:39
  So I've run that at...
• 2:42
  at Phillip Island a couple of times.
• 2:43
  Yeah.
• 2:44
  And Winton.
• 2:45
  And then I did, you know, they had that heritage thing at Bathurst a couple of years ago, which was pretty cool, yeah.
• 2:48
  Awesome.
• 2:49
  That is like a little later life.
• 2:53
  I really love those cars.
• 2:54
  I want to get one of those.
• 2:55
  Is that what's transpired there?
• 2:56
  Pretty much, yeah.
• 2:57
  Yeah.
• 2:57
  Exactly that.
• 2:58
  Nice.
• 2:59
  What did it require when you got it from Nige?
• 3:01
  Did it need a whole lot of love?
• 3:04
  Look, it was in very good shape.
• 3:05
  It came out of it.
• 3:05
  It had been in New Zealand for 20 years.
• 3:07
  They do have a number of tucked away over there, don't they?
• 3:10
  They've got heaps of them over there.
• 3:11
  And it had been looked after.
• 3:13
  But, you know, yeah, when I got it, we sort of learnt a lot.
• 3:16
  And, you know, I probably...
• 3:17
  made a couple of mistakes with different things.
• 3:19
  And so we've sort of refreshed it and what have you, but it's a, you know, it's a nice little car.
• 3:22
  It's a good little project and, you know, I love it.
• 3:25
  Good.
• 3:25
  Rally does tempt you back in the early 2000s though.
• 3:29
  Steve Winwood, XR8 Falcon.
• 3:33
  You don't mind the wild rally cars, do you?
• 3:35
  Well, when we were, you know, looking after Neil and I was in that rally paddock, I mean, I love rally.
• 3:40
  I love the interaction of it because, you know, with the rally tyres in that era, we were cutting the tyre between stages.
• 3:47
  So you could have more of an input.
• 3:50
  Yes.
• 3:51
  And you feel a bit closer to the performance of it, you know.
• 3:54
  The result.
• 3:55
  You're playing a part in the result.
• 3:56
  Yeah, yeah, a little bit of that sort of thing.
• 3:57
  And I just love the whole environment of rally.
• 4:00
  And then...
• 4:01
  And Steve Woodward was running a Falcon.
• 4:03
  They had like an Aussie class or something.
• 4:05
  I can't remember in the ARC.
• 4:07
  And I just said to him at one of the events, I said, hey, you know, I'd love to drive you.
• 4:10
  Yeah, sure.
• 4:11
  Well, you know, we should do a deal and blah, blah, blah.
• 4:12
  What have you?
• 4:13
  Anyway, so I found some tires and bits and pieces.
• 4:15
  And I went and did Bega in, must have been 2004 in his ARC car.
• 4:21
  And had a hoot.
• 4:22
  And because, you know, those shire roads in Bega are amazing and what have you.
• 4:26
  And then just, you know, probably a couple of years ago,
• 4:29
  Another mate of mine, David Greig, who runs Spring Cup, he was talking about maybe buying RSN 800 or something.
• 4:36
  I said, yeah, tell you what, we should get a Commodore.
• 4:39
  And he just said, hey, what a great idea.
• 4:41
  Anyway.
• 4:42
  You've got one.
• 4:42
  So between us, we've got a Commodore and I'm running Bega in two weeks' time.
• 4:46
  So good.
• 4:47
  What model is it?
• 4:48
  It's a VH.
• 4:49
  Okay.
• 4:50
  So, you know, but it's just, I mean, there's nothing like a V8 in the forest.
• 4:53
  No.
• 4:53
  You know, like it's just, they sound amazing.
• 4:54
  Amazing.
• 4:55
  Good thing is you get the wrong gear, you can still pull out.
• 4:58
  There's so much torque and they're easy to drive.
• 5:00
  What is that rally like now?
• 5:02
  Is it only daytime stages?
• 5:03
  Is there any nighttime stuff?
• 5:04
  I did it last year in this car.
• 5:06
  And then we started at like 2 o'clock on Saturday and finished at 10 o'clock at night.
• 5:10
  So in the night stages.
• 5:12
  Awesome.
• 5:12
  But they're just – they're such beautiful roads.
• 5:14
  Magic roads.
• 5:15
  Yeah.
• 5:16
  I can record maybe on VHS, mate, or something somewhere, the likes of Greg Carr or might have been Dunco or any of those guys.
• 5:24
  I mean, you mentioned –
• 5:25
  Mulligan before, you know, on those roads.
• 5:28
  40 split seconds.
• 5:28
  Do you remember that?
• 5:29
  Yes, I do.
• 5:29
  Yes, I do.
• 5:30
  That camera event?
• 5:31
  Yeah.
• 5:32
  Yeah.
• 5:32
  Yeah, no, it's amazing.
• 5:33
  So just, you know, rally and beautiful shire roads.
• 5:36
  And so, you know, I want to do that silver fern, the one in New Zealand, you know?
• 5:40
  Yes, New Zealand.
• 5:40
  Yeah.
• 5:41
  So that's sort of on my radar.
• 5:42
  You know, a bit of that.
• 5:43
  With that car?
• 5:43
  You would want to do it with that car?
• 5:44
  Yeah, yeah, I'd ship it over there and have a bit of fun.
• 5:45
  Oh, they'd love that.
• 5:46
  Yeah.
• 5:46
  That's something, you know, to the already impressive offering that they have for that event.
• 5:52
  In the timeline, you talked about,
• 5:53
  almost, I guess, consulting, subcontracting there in sort of 95.
• 5:58
  But as you detailed, it becomes in sort of, you know, 2003, the distributorship, if you will, for Michelin.
• 6:05
  And then, you know, New Zealand becomes a part of that and so on.
• 6:09
  Melbourne is your base.
• 6:10
  You have a truck, you bring in people for the weekend.
• 6:13
  What does that look like in shape?
• 6:15
  We've got, yeah, we're based out of Melbourne and Auckland.
• 6:18
  Yep.
• 6:18
  And we've got branded trucks, you know, so we look the part.
• 6:22
  And we go all over the country here.
• 6:24
  And in New Zealand, we do the same.
• 6:25
  We've got fully branded trucks and we look after all those programs in New Zealand.
• 6:28
  Yep.
• 6:29
  And then, so in Australia, you know, we have Curra Cup, Sprint Cup, Mustang Cup now.
• 6:36
  Yep.
• 6:36
  And we had TCR, you know, like, so we've had a pretty solid sort of program here.
• 6:39
  Yep.
• 6:40
  In 2015 or so, Michelin were looking to rationalize their program in Asia.
• 6:48
  And they asked me if I could be involved in their, there's like some regional programs up there.
• 6:52
  So not domestic stuff in Asia, so not stuff in Malaysia or Thailand or whatever.
• 6:57
  They said the programs that they stretch across Asia, could I look after those programs?
• 7:02
  So in 2016, I took over that program up there, which was back then it was,
• 7:08
  Audi R8 Cup, Carrera Cup, TCR, Asian Le Mans.
• 7:13
  Anyway, so that's filtered out now.
• 7:15
  We pretty much look after now some of those categories have gone, but we look after Asian Le Mans and Carrera Cup.
• 7:22
  Carrera Cup, which is strong, mate.
• 7:24
  And I have a warehouse in Malaysia, and so I probably ship 60 or 80 containers a year, moving stuff around different places.
• 7:30
  And the Asian Le Mans stuff's pretty massive now.
• 7:33
  Yeah, we sort of...
• 7:34
  We've been in the Middle East there for the last five years doing races in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and that sort of stuff.
• 7:41
  And we have a staff of like 40 or 50 people and 20 containers full of tyres.
• 7:46
  And yeah, it's pretty full on.
• 7:48
  I've released today an episode as we record this with Brendan Leach.
• 7:51
  And there's a picture of him on the podium from one of those rounds.
• 7:54
  Really cool, mate.
• 7:55
  The game then, I mean, logistics isn't a good enough word, but it must be a bit of that.
• 8:01
  Like...
• 8:02
  We're going to need a bank of these amount of tyres to satisfy Australia.
• 8:05
  Shipping's a challenge at the moment.
• 8:07
  We need these for Asia.
• 8:09
  You're about to, even if I get a bit micro for a second, we're about to go, you and I, speed series event at Queensland Raceway.
• 8:19
  There's some support category stuff then the weekend after at Darwin.
• 8:23
  Not all that long after, again, we're back in Darwin with Speed Series.
• 8:26
  What is that juggle like?
• 8:28
  Well, that's the big program now.
• 8:30
  The big program is just stitching all that together and making sure we have the right tyres in the right place at the right time.
• 8:36
  And having enough wets and all those sorts of things.
• 8:39
  And, um, and so, yeah, and, uh, and Australia, you know, like the distances are, you know, when we're heading to Darwin twice this year and, and with Townsville and, uh, and QR a couple of times, what have you, the distances are all quite big, but it's just about trying to be efficient and make sure we've got the right people in the right place at the right time.
• 8:55
  On the ground, let's say the Speed Series as an example where I often see you, right?
• 8:59
  It might be for Sprint Challenge and things like that and Mustang Cup now.
• 9:04
  How many people would you have on the ground?
• 9:05
  Are you starting putting tyres on on Wednesday or Thursday?
• 9:09
  What does that all look like?
• 9:10
  We're pretty much in there on Thursday morning and we have...
• 9:14
  And we're pretty busy on Thursday and Friday.
• 9:16
  Yep.
• 9:17
  And then usually after that, it's a bit of a caretaker role.
• 9:19
  If the weather changes, you know, we might have to, because once they've got all their quality tyres, they're sorted.
• 9:23
  Yep.
• 9:24
  But we'd have probably six to eight people, depending on, you know, the volume.
• 9:28
  Yep.
• 9:28
  But the work doesn't stop there, though, for you, because I would imagine you're then also assisting teams around whatever, pressure settings, recommended suspension, blah, blah, blah, and then probably even providing feedback.
• 9:43
  Monitoring, yeah.
• 9:44
  Monitoring all that.
• 9:46
  You know, we know where we're challenged at the circuits where Sydney Motorsport Park, Phillip Island, what have you.
• 9:52
  And so some other circuits, Winton and what have you, doesn't load a tyre in the same way as some other circuits.
• 9:56
  So we know where we need to focus.
• 9:58
  You know, when you go to Darwin, you've got more temperature.
• 10:00
  So we adjust pressures and, you know, yeah, I'm sort of constantly talking to people and monitoring what they're up to and making sure that they're keeping within our recommended guidelines or trying to do my best to keep them within the recommended guidelines.
• 10:13
  Yep.
• 10:14
  Yeah.
• 10:14
  They have, I mean, this is a, you know, full transparency.
• 10:18
  They've been unbelievably supportive of me and I've done a various, you know, from podcast to MC to you name it.
• 10:25
  I've done some things with them, cool things with them along the way, including passion experience in Malaysia and so on.
• 10:32
  But –
• 10:34
  I can remember Darrell Beattie talking to me about, you know, in the 500cc and MotoGP era, what they would do at the factory and then overnight some tyres for the next day and so on.
• 10:45
  The depth of…
• 10:47
  knowledge, passion, blah, blah, blah, HQ is huge, mate, isn't it?
• 10:51
  I mean, the thing about Michelin is, and I mean, we don't have competition so much nowadays.
• 10:56
  It's mainly controlled series, but competition is what really drives them.
• 11:02
  And the thing about Michelin and the people I've dealt with in France is whenever they entered into, when they came into MotoGP or when they went into Formula One, they understand there's a challenge in it, but the belief in France is not,
• 11:17
  If they will win, it's when they will win.
• 11:19
  When, yes.
• 11:20
  So the confidence and, you know, and they have a huge respect for the opponents and what have you.
• 11:26
  And sometimes when it doesn't work and they're behind the eight ball, that inspires them more because they just go and dig deeper.
• 11:33
  And then way back in those super touring days, you know, when we had the full-blown confidential tyres.
• 11:38
  I mean, when they came out to Bathurst, we were putting tyres back from the teams in our containers with security overnight.
• 11:47
  Yeah.
• 11:47
  The teams were not allowed to keep them in the garages.
• 11:50
  So the level of technology in those tires, it's like Super GT.
• 11:54
  We're not in Super GT anymore, but the level of confidentiality in those tires is so high.
• 12:01
  If you lose one, it's the end of the, you know, like it's, your life depends on it.
• 12:04
  I tell you, I've had, you know.
• 12:06
  There have been times when I'm counting them back in myself.
• 12:10
  Really?
• 12:10
  Just because the fear of losing one and having to say to someone, you've lost a tire.
• 12:17
  So, yes, the technology is amazing.
• 12:19
  I mean, what we deal with here in a commercial sense now is a much more user-friendly tire.
• 12:25
  But the special stuff is really special.
• 12:27
  And when you bolt it on the car, you know…
• 12:30
  I've listened to your podcast before, and Paul Morris spoke about it from 20 years ago.
• 12:34
  Brad says the same thing.
• 12:35
  You know, when they bolted those tires on that are special tires, they still remember it 20 years later.
• 12:42
  Mega.
• 12:42
  Mega.
• 12:42
  I love that.
• 12:43
  It's so vivid.
• 12:45
  Can we come back to a bit of racing?
• 12:46
  And I'm jumping around, but 1997, there's a three-hour...
• 12:50
  class win with Andrei Pavicevic in the mighty Suzuki, mate.
• 12:54
  Tell me about that, baby.
• 12:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:56
  That was good.
• 12:56
  It was fantastic.
• 12:57
  I'll tell you, that was, you know, those three-hour races I used to do were great fun.
• 13:01
  Yep.
• 13:02
  And to do it in a Suzuki, because you're just literally flat out from, you know, up the mountain, across the top, down the other side.
• 13:09
  And it was great.
• 13:10
  We're just really – that was my first run at the mountain.
• 13:12
  Yeah.
• 13:13
  And I went up with Andrei and we won our class.
• 13:15
  So I stood on the podium, Michelin podium cap.
• 13:18
  You know, I'd only been – So good.
• 13:19
  I'd only been sort of looking after Michelin for a couple of years then, so it was a pretty amazing opportunity.
• 13:23
  You mentioned your lovely wife before and the whole Uncle Toby thing, and it does collide in GTP to an extent, doesn't it, with Grant and Lisa Curry.
• 13:32
  Tell me about that.
• 13:33
  I did a little bit of GTP.
• 13:35
  Do you remember the street circuits in Canberra?
• 13:38
  Yes.
• 13:39
  So I was running a Subaru and Grant Kenny was in a Subaru at the same time.
• 13:43
  And, uh, and we just, you know, I think there was a bit of, you know, paneled, uh, rubbing or whatever.
• 13:48
  Anyway, Karim was in some meeting with Lisa Curry the next, you know, during the next week at an Uncle Toby's thing talking about, I don't know, the Olympics or whatever it was.
• 13:56
  And she said, Hey, what's this?
• 13:57
  Your boyfriend running into my husband.
• 13:59
  And there was a bit of banter like that.
• 14:01
  It's a bit of fun.
• 14:02
  Yeah.
• 14:02
  Awesome.
• 14:03
  To your point about tyres there before, I don't know if we've covered this, was there a secret test in 96 at Lakeside with Brad and what transpired with all of that?
• 14:13
  Yeah, that was at the peak.
• 14:16
  That's when we rolled those tyres in and we pushed them down the rig.
• 14:19
  Back, yeah.
• 14:21
  And that was, uh, and we had some French people there with us and we said, uh, and I knew Brad very well.
• 14:26
  And I said, Hey, you know, you should try it because you should understand what you're missing out on here.
• 14:31
  Anyway, um, they rang Germany to Audi and.
• 14:35
  We, my people, you know, our people rang France and we got the clearance and we went back on the Monday.
• 14:41
  No one around?
• 14:42
  Nobody around.
• 14:42
  My truck had left.
• 14:44
  We fitted up five tyres on rims and we went back to the circuit in a rental car and then they put them on.
• 14:51
  And Brad was basically in a quali sim.
• 14:55
  He was a second faster.
• 14:58
  And across a race distance, it was like about 0.7 of a second per lap for the race distance difference.
• 15:04
  And he just, you know, rolled, it just blew his mind.
• 15:07
  Like the difference was so amazing.
• 15:09
  So what happens then?
• 15:10
  Because sometimes people get a bit protective of not wanting that to go to a rival.
• 15:14
  Did that cause some...
• 15:17
  We kept all that within our program.
• 15:19
  And then I think you'll find that I think the next year Brad was still contracted to Dunlop, but after that they moved to Michelin.
• 15:25
  And I think Audi formed a partnership with Michelin from probably 12 months up.
• 15:30
  But I think that was probably opened their eyes to – maybe they never really understood –
• 15:38
  the difference that the tyre had because they had the four-wheel drive car.
• 15:41
  Yep.
• 15:42
  It had only ever run on a Dunlop.
• 15:43
  Yep.
• 15:43
  It had never run, so all of a sudden they put the best tyre on it and it was just mundane.
• 15:58
  Legendary broadcaster Neil Crompton joined Rusty for a two-part chat back in April 2020.
• 16:03
  While most fans know him from Touring Cars or V8 Supercars, Crompo has also covered IndyCar, Formula One and there's a little alarm on appearance you may not know about.
• 16:14
  I remember at about three or four o'clock in the morning having to sleep under the bench and the commentary box because I couldn't spell my own name at that stage.
• 16:20
  I was so tired.
• 16:22
  But anyway, so Brundle and those guys won the race.
• 16:25
  And so they sent me up on the podium.
• 16:26
  And I'd completely forgotten about this until someone showed me the photograph recently.
• 16:31
  And here's me standing there next to Martin interviewing him on the podium at 1990.
• 16:35
  So, I mean, really being on the podium at Le Mans?
• 16:38
  Everyone's done that.
• 16:41
  Search for it later if you haven't already.
• 16:43
  NC is so endearing and a ripper storyteller.
• 16:46
  Now back to Michelin Man.
• 16:48
  Well, Trev doesn't really look like Bibendum, but you know what I mean.
• 16:53
  You mentioned the New Zealand aspect of your business there before.
• 16:55
  I have a bit to do with what is now, it's got quite a long acronym, but everyone calls it Toyota Racing Series, right?
• 17:01
  You had an involvement there for a time, didn't you, as the tyre supplier there too, basically?
• 17:05
  When Barry Tomlinson, who put all that program together in, must have been 2003 or 2004 or something like that, they proposed that championship.
• 17:12
  You know, I went to him and I said, hey, I'd love to be involved in this.
• 17:15
  I'd like it to be fantastic.
• 17:17
  And that's when Toyota were in Formula One and they were with Michelin.
• 17:19
  Yep.
• 17:19
  And so that sort of helped the cause a bit.
• 17:22
  And so we did a deal and we became the official tyre of Toyota Racing Series.
• 17:26
  And at the same time in Europe, Formula Renault was super strong.
• 17:30
  It was like one of the main stepping stones before F3.
• 17:34
  And so it was almost Formula Ford, Renault and then F3.
• 17:37
  Yes.
• 17:38
  And so it was a good synergy with the guys that wanted to come out and race in New Zealand and what have you.
• 17:42
  So we just, we looked after that program immediately.
• 17:44
  you know, uh, man, some cool names have come through their trips and, you know, some, and then a few years later, I mean, I, I love the formula so much.
• 17:52
  Like I was so passionate about Toyota racing.
• 17:54
  Didn't you?
• 17:55
  I bought one, then two, and then I ended up running a team of four cars and, um, and I ran, you know, some, some great jobs, Scott Pye, you know, early days I put Leanne and Martin Moore.
• 18:06
  Yeah.
• 18:07
  Yeah.
• 18:07
  Yeah.
• 18:07
  All those.
• 18:07
  So I tried to help some of the Aussies in there and then we had overseas drivers and Keita Mazepin.
• 18:12
  Callum Eilard?
• 18:13
  Yeah.
• 18:14
  Mate, I think Timmy Slade drove in somewhere there too.
• 18:17
  Is that right?
• 18:17
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:18
  But I just love that formula so much, yeah?
• 18:20
  It was so fantastic.
• 18:21
  And then I was so busy on the tyre thing that I was not focusing on it, and that's when I got Bruin Beasley involved.
• 18:29
  And I said, Bruin, come and just help me out.
• 18:31
  Can you run this program for me?
• 18:33
  And he was doing a much better job at running it because I was too busy.
• 18:36
  And I said, hey, let's just morph this into EmTech, which is what Brillouin's got now.
• 18:40
  You were E-Tech, I think, at the time, weren't you?
• 18:42
  It was E-Tech and now it's EmTech.
• 18:43
  EmTech, yeah.
• 18:44
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:44
  So, yeah, and I still love it.
• 18:47
  I still watch it today.
• 18:49
  You've missed a little something here.
• 18:51
  Forgive the self-indulgence.
• 18:53
  But you bring one of those cars to Orrin Park, to the South Circuit.
• 18:56
  You decide, or I don't know how, I can remember you ringing me about it.
• 19:00
  We get RPM involved.
• 19:02
  And the idea was that Neil Bates and Simon Evans would drive the car.
• 19:07
  And rookie Greg Rast, who's an idiot, got a chance to sample the damn thing too.
• 19:11
  That was an awesome afternoon.
• 19:13
  And I seem to recall Evans giving it like a typical hymn, 11 tenser.
• 19:19
  That was great.
• 19:19
  I'd forgotten about that.
• 19:20
  Mate, I reckon I would have the story somewhere.
• 19:23
  Michael Heaton, who still today works with Larko and works out of Crompton's office and things like that, an amazing producer, he, I think, was with me on the day.
• 19:32
  And we got all these rustic shots because it was toward the end of Orrin Park's life or 10 years.
• 19:37
  So you brought that out.
• 19:38
  I remember when we were trying, you know, I was trying to bring the category to Australia.
• 19:41
  I was trying to, because it was such a good thing in New Zealand.
• 19:43
  Why couldn't we have it over the ditch?
• 19:44
  And you think, why couldn't we?
• 19:45
  run them there for five weeks in January and then bring them here and do like, you know, an Australian season.
• 19:50
  And I brought them and we did a test day at, um, at, uh, Winton and we put drivers in them and we did a whole, you know, we'd sort of worked hard at it, but it never, never, uh, fell the right way.
• 20:01
  We did try, mate.
• 20:02
  We did try with a promotional story.
• 20:04
  It was a funny day that one.
• 20:05
  I think, um, Batesy was on the wall at one point.
• 20:08
  I don't know.
• 20:10
  I don't know what he said to me.
• 20:11
  I'm paraphrasing here.
• 20:12
  I think he was watching Simon and he turned to me and said something about, we thought this was going to be a joke, pull him in kind of thing.
• 20:18
  Because Evans was full tilt as always.
• 20:23
  Now, Dubai, you have a crack at the 24-hour there.
• 20:27
  Was it 2008 in the VIP car?
• 20:29
  Is this right?
• 20:30
  Tell me about this.
• 20:31
  Yeah.
• 20:33
  I knew Beto quite well from some stuff we did in Europe.
• 20:36
  I went to America with him and stuff.
• 20:38
  Actually, I have missed that story.
• 20:40
  It's the J-Splitter Racing Formula Atlantic, isn't it?
• 20:42
  Tell that first.
• 20:43
  That's quite a story, yeah.
• 20:44
  That's 97.
• 20:44
  Is that right?
• 20:45
  No, early 90s.
• 20:46
  You know, I'm losing...
• 20:50
  But Craig had a deal to go to America to run Atlantica and Rick Gorn out of Reynards had sort of offered him or put him in connection with some guy who was going to like run a Penske style operation.
• 21:02
  Like he had more money than you can imagine.
• 21:04
  And he had a mechanic with him called Alistair Gibson.
• 21:07
  Yes.
• 21:07
  Who's a great guy that I've known before.
• 21:10
  And they rang me and said, hey, can you come over and give us a hand with this Atlantic gig?
• 21:15
  Yeah.
• 21:16
  And they got there before me and they're just dreaming on how good it's going to be and the guy's going to have the biggest truck and, you know, have all the money.
• 21:24
  And when I turned up, you know, the first day, we went and stayed at the hotel and they'd already been to the motorbike shop working out what dirt bikes they were going to ride, you know, buy and all this stuff.
• 21:33
  We went to the workshop the next day and it was just full of old sort of midget speed cars with sawdust on the floor and, you know, axle stands and like it was just – and the guys go, no, we're going to build a big extension and it was all –
• 21:45
  Anyway, it was all smoke and mirrors.
• 21:48
  And the guy gave us some traveler's checks to go down.
• 21:52
  Craig had air freighted his, because they couldn't supply a new Raynard, Craig had air freighted, he owned an Atlantico, or his dad owned Atlantico, air freighted it to Los Angeles.
• 22:01
  So we, on some dodgy traveler's checks, we went down to Los Angeles.
• 22:05
  We get a rider truck.
• 22:07
  We wait two days at United Airlines and got the Craig's Atlantic Carrier.
• 22:11
  Went out to Phoenix, to the Oval there.
• 22:14
  And we're ringing this guy over the other day saying, you know, where's the money?
• 22:18
  And he said, oh, the big truck's coming.
• 22:20
  And he was still trying to sell the story.
• 22:22
  Yeah.
• 22:23
  Anyway, we were out there.
• 22:24
  There was an Australian, a Kiwi, and a South African, being the three of us.
• 22:29
  We had a rider truck and two A-frame stands.
• 22:31
  We left the car on stands at night, went back to the hotel, and the car was just sitting there in the paddock.
• 22:37
  And there's all these other teams, like the players team with Jacques Villeneuve and incredible money.
• 22:43
  Anyway, we sort of...
• 22:47
  The cars, if you have a shunt there, it was the weekend when, remember when Mansell shunted and went through, smashed the wall or something?
• 22:54
  So it was that weekend.
• 22:55
  But anyway, the guy turned up at the 11th hour.
• 22:58
  We were sort of spent because we were just, you know, and we said, you are with this money and what have you.
• 23:05
  So we got him in the back of the truck and said, you know.
• 23:08
  pay us our money.
• 23:09
  And then in the end, we didn't race because the risk was too high and the guy wasn't going to go forward.
• 23:13
  Okay.
• 23:14
  And so, so it was pretty massive.
• 23:17
  I mean, it's a much longer story than that.
• 23:19
  But Beardo and Alistair, we still, you know, still have a laugh about it every now and then.
• 23:23
  He would have been running the Duran Duran hair back then, looking pretty sharp to Beardo.
• 23:27
  So fast forward then to 2008 and the VIP.
• 23:31
  And so in that era around that sort of – when Quinny and Sean Juniper had those RSRs and what have you, a few of them they were doing Nürburgring and a few others, the Australian dollar was low.
• 23:43
  So I could –
• 23:44
  give them tires in their container here at a good price, like same tire.
• 23:48
  Yeah.
• 23:49
  And they go to the event when they came back, um, I would just take back the ones I don't use that I could sell the tires.
• 23:54
  So it was a, it was a bit of a commercial range at which worked for them because the tires, our tires were cheaper because of the Australian dollar.
• 23:59
  Gotcha.
• 23:59
  And, um, so I just give them a stock of tires and, and so I'd go to some of those events and service, you know, the, like you'd be the tire man.
• 24:07
  And I had that Dubai 2008, I had six or eight cars or something.
• 24:11
  And,
• 24:12
  And Beto rings on Christmas Eve or whatever and says, hey, you better bring your helmet because we're down one driver in the nine on six.
• 24:20
  And I said, sure, I'll do that.
• 24:22
  So I went to Dubai and I took my helmet and everything.
• 24:26
  And I ran in that race in 2008.
• 24:29
  um, with, um, Dean Grant and I can't remember the other two guys, but they were, one was a German Porsche test driver or something.
• 24:35
  And another one was out of career cup and I just drove the nine on six with them.
• 24:38
  And so cool.
• 24:39
  Yeah.
• 24:39
  And they won the race in the nine, in the RSR.
• 24:41
  That was the one when, um, Beardo and, you know, Tony and Clark and, uh, Ryder would have been a tiny little tacker then probably.
• 24:49
  And now he's, now he's racing if that's the one I'm thinking of.
• 24:51
  Yeah, wow.
• 24:52
  Crazy.
• 24:52
  Yeah, yeah.
• 24:53
  So anyway, this is pretty amazing, yeah.
• 24:54
  Crazy, crazy.
• 24:56
  You find before COVID, or maybe just around the time of COVID, a Formula Ford.
• 25:01
  Is it your Formula Ford that you found?
• 25:03
  What is this car?
• 25:06
  A few of my mates were racing, you know, historic Formula Ford.
• 25:09
  Yeah.
• 25:10
  And they were saying, hey, you know, you should find that car that you built, you know, way back, you know, in the...
• 25:15
  in your 20s, the one that you built back then.
• 25:17
  So I sort of did a bit of research and I sort of tried to dig it up.
• 25:21
  Anyway, I found it in South Australia.
• 25:23
  So not the Renmax.
• 25:24
  No, no, this was the car that I built.
• 25:25
  You built, yeah, yeah, okay.
• 25:27
  In my Fun Rides of Australia factory.
• 25:29
  It's called the FRA 01 because I was going to build more.
• 25:32
  I was going to build multiple cars.
• 25:34
  Yes.
• 25:35
  And anyway, I found this car in South Australia.
• 25:39
  Somebody had converted it to a hill climb car.
• 25:41
  Okay.
• 25:42
  And it started a different engine, the chassis had been changed a bit or what have you.
• 25:46
  And when I sort of got onto them and had a chat to them about it, they said, you know, we were thinking about restoring that car back to the Formula Ford.
• 25:53
  You haven't still got the original drawings, do you?
• 25:56
  And I said, well, I'm not in the same factory because what I did last time, I drew it on the floor.
• 26:02
  but you're relying off memory because you'd remember a lot of things so I got the car back and I said about I had to sort of cut the chassis a bit but all the original chassis part of it was about 80% of it
• 26:16
  And I built new uprights.
• 26:18
  And so during COVID, during the lockdown period, my boys and I, we were at, you know, we're not doing so many tyres.
• 26:24
  And so we just set about sort of building this car.
• 26:26
  So we made all the jigs and I made uprights and wishbones and, you know, all that, the chassis and what have you.
• 26:32
  And is it back to, you know, as it was?
• 26:35
  I'm racing this weekend with Malcolm.
• 26:36
  That's so cool.
• 26:37
  We're racing at the Winton Historic.
• 26:38
  And another side story, Bob Holden,
• 26:43
  So I ring Bob to tell him the story.
• 26:44
  I mean, this is, you know, Bob's 86 or 87.
• 26:47
  He's 93 now, but 86 or 87.
• 26:49
  I ring him and I say, hey, you know, I bought my Formula 4.
• 26:52
  I bought this Formula 4.
• 26:53
  I'm going to restore it and, you know, get it back to – and he says, he says, you'd be looking for an engine, wouldn't you?
• 26:59
  And I said, well, yeah, well, I'll need an engine.
• 27:02
  Anyway, rings me the next day and he says, I don't know if you remember, but Bob had a little like Mark II Escort panel van that he always had at Amaru Park.
• 27:09
  Like it had, anyway, he said, and he's still got that van today.
• 27:12
  And he said, it's got Stephen Brooks championship winning engine from 1980 in it.
• 27:16
  In the van?
• 27:16
  In the van.
• 27:18
  And he said, I'll pull it out and you can have that engine.
• 27:23
  And I'll put just a, you know, it had a 4X block or something.
• 27:25
  There's a special block that those Formula 4 engines had.
• 27:28
  Yeah.
• 27:28
  So Bob, at 86...
• 27:31
  pulled that engine out of the van himself.
• 27:34
  And I went up to Taree and picked it up.
• 27:35
  Like I went up to, you know, and picked it up.
• 27:37
  And then I since had it refreshed here and what have you.
• 27:40
  But just the story, you know, Bob at 86, pulled the engine out of the van himself.
• 27:43
  That's so good.
• 27:43
  So good.
• 27:44
  That's very cool.
• 27:45
  Did COVID, how challenging was that for the business, for you, for... Look, I think, yeah, I think it was hugely challenging for a lot of people.
• 27:53
  I was fortunate because New Zealand...
• 27:55
  You know, New Zealand closed the doors.
• 27:56
  Yes, but they remained sort of opened internally a lot of the time.
• 27:59
  And in actual fact, the racing program, you know, pushed on.
• 28:03
  Yeah.
• 28:03
  And so we had, we derived income because we were selling tyres in New Zealand.
• 28:07
  And I was distributing some tyres into the northern states of New Zealand.
• 28:10
  Nothing like the normal year.
• 28:12
  And then the other thing is Asian Le Mans that year.
• 28:15
  Um, they'd been traveling through Asia for all their championships.
• 28:18
  So they'd been going to, you know, Shanghai, uh, Fuji, you know, Malaysia and Thailand.
• 28:25
  And for that year, they moved to do Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
• 28:30
  And because they were able to run a bubble.
• 28:32
  And so that was at the back end of 21.
• 28:34
  And I had to, so we put this program to go there.
• 28:37
  Remember when Formula One were traveling in a bubble, you know, and they only had 400 people or whatever.
• 28:40
  That's exactly what Asia Lamar did.
• 28:42
  So they did a number of races in the Middle East there.
• 28:45
  And we were, um, I had to get a, like a approval from Australian government to leave Australia.
• 28:51
  And I flew over there on an Emirates plane with nine people on it.
• 28:54
  People on it, crazy.
• 28:55
  And I came back, did my quarantine when I came back.
• 28:57
  But we were there for two and a half weeks or something or three weeks nearly.
• 29:00
  And we were tested every second day and we wore masks the whole time and you weren't allowed to do this and what have you.
• 29:07
  But it worked well, mate.
• 29:10
  And so therefore we managed to derive income outside of Australia, which sort of helped me through the COVID period for sure.
• 29:18
  Nice.
• 29:18
  What's next?
• 29:19
  Is there a bucket list race you'd like to do?
• 29:22
  Is there something or other?
• 29:24
  What?
• 29:24
  Yeah, look, you know, I think just I've got a Formula Forward, a BMW Super Tour and a V8 rally car, so I've got a good cross-section of, you know, and I think just, you know, doing a little bit of that.
• 29:34
  I just love it, you know.
• 29:35
  I watched a bit of that Otago the other day.
• 29:37
  Awesome.
• 29:38
  You know, I'm thinking, how cool is that?
• 29:40
  Put that on the list.
• 29:41
  Yeah, and maybe, you know, the BMW, it could go to Europe and I could do a couple, you know, because nowadays, you know, those like Spa Classic and those sorts of things,
• 29:51
  they're much more festivals than they are race meetings.
• 29:54
  But they're so well attended though there, yeah.
• 29:56
  You know, and you go along there and it's the whole activity around the thing.
• 30:01
  It's got such a great atmosphere.
• 30:03
  And so a good friend of mine, Bill Cutler, who races in Group A in Australia, Mm-hmm.
• 30:09
  He's got an E30 M3.
• 30:11
  He's in Europe.
• 30:11
  He ran at Spa on the weekend.
• 30:13
  Okay.
• 30:13
  And he sends his car to Europe and it gets moved around and he just goes into Zandvoort and, you know, Nürburgring Short Circuit and, you know, and you can just pick and cherry pick a few events like that.
• 30:25
  And so, you know, maybe down the road, you know, I'd like to spend some more time in Italy, you know, that sort of stuff.
• 30:29
  Yeah.
• 30:31
  Who knows?
• 30:32
  To finish here, team is super important, right?
• 30:34
  I want to talk team in two types here.
• 30:39
  Firstly, family for you, your lovely wife, kids, and so on.
• 30:43
  Tell me a little bit about that.
• 30:45
  And then separately, when I walk into your setup, the Michelin setup at any racetrack, there are the same, by and large, familiar faces every race weekend.
• 30:57
  There are some integral people that are a part of that operation, mate, aren't there?
• 31:00
  Yeah, yeah.
• 31:01
  Yeah, firstly, on the family side, you know, look, Karen's been alongside me, backed me in business, all that for 25 years or more.
• 31:08
  Mad racing is not necessarily her thing, but, you know, she's been a great supporter of the business.
• 31:15
  And my two girls, I think similar to you, Greg, Lucy's got a full-time job to finish uni and Chloe's at uni at the moment.
• 31:20
  I mean, you know, they're full of beans.
• 31:22
  Funny, Lucy's now, you know, with the drive to survive thing, she's got a real interest in the car racing.
• 31:26
  Love it.
• 31:30
  January this year, there was an opportunity at Sandown to give them a passenger ride.
• 31:34
  Oh, to really?
• 31:35
  So they all had a passenger ride in the BMW.
• 31:37
  Yeah.
• 31:38
  The two girls were big smiles, Karen not so much of a smile.
• 31:42
  But anyway, I think, so they're fantastic.
• 31:46
  And, um, and on the work side, you know, I've had some amazing people help me along the way.
• 31:51
  Lloyd Davies, who, who backed me in my tire store was a great man of Jimmy Richards.
• 31:55
  And, you know, he sort of really helped me a lot in my, uh, I had a retail shop and he was the backbone there and he's Michelin to the core.
• 32:03
  Duncan and the boys, you know, that helped me day to day now.
• 32:06
  I mean, the guys that you, you see all the time, Phil and Peter, and you know, there's, there's the whole crosshair.
• 32:12
  I mean, we're the dad's army because we're all...
• 32:14
  You know, all the gray.
• 32:15
  There's a wealth of experience in all of that, though.
• 32:17
  But we just, you know, we sort of smoke on.
• 32:18
  We have a sort of busy time, you know, for a couple of – a day or so, you know, a few hours or what have you, and then the rest of it, away we go.
• 32:26
  Yep, and get to enjoy some rice.
• 32:27
  Yeah, so you don't know.
• 32:28
  I couldn't have done it without – Wayne in New Zealand, Wayne Scott, who you know as well, just does such an amazing job.
• 32:34
  Yeah.
• 32:34
  And represents me.
• 32:35
  And in an identical fashion, really, doesn't he, with the people and the approach.
• 32:39
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:39
  He really is the –
• 32:40
  the key player in New Zealand.
• 32:41
  Like, you know, and the operation he runs, you know, I'm proud of every...
• 32:45
  I go there and I look at how beautiful the trucks are and, you know, how we present and he has the right connection to the people and, you know, it's fantastic.
• 32:52
  Congrats, mate.
• 32:53
  It's nice to sort of tell a bit of your story, your varied life, the pure love of motor racing.
• 32:59
  You're still doing it all these years later and the backstories are what...
• 33:02
  you know, what makes these things and rolling your sleeves up and saying, what the heck, I'll have a go at Europe and look at the...
• 33:11
  places it's taking you and the people that you've met and so on amazing i'd have to say i i feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to represent such an amazing brand you know you look at doesn't matter what walk of life you're in if you get to represent one of the very best brands in the world and have their backing and you know their support i just feel very privileged to have had that opportunity congrats
• 33:34
  Yes, we're great.
• 33:35
  Mate, it's been lovely to chat with you.
• 33:36
  That's blown my mind about that yarn we did back in the day to sell Trevor Shumak to the universe.
• 33:41
  But lovely to tell some of your story.
• 33:43
  Thank you, mate.
• 33:43
  Fantastic.
• 33:44
  Thanks, Greg.
• 33:52
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 33:56
  Series editor and producer is Joel Harrison.
• 33:59
  Audio production by Link Kelly.
• 34:02
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• 34:06
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