Latest / Rusty's Garage / The Motorsport Brief: Josef Newgarden's Indy500 win with Aussie Engineer Luke Mason
Transcript
- 0:02A listener production.
- 0:05Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
- 0:06It's Wednesday, the 31st of May, 2023.
- 0:08What a weekend of racing.
- 0:12A shower during the Monaco Grand Prix spiced things up.
- 0:15And at the Indy 500, it was a wild dash to the finish that kept us on the edge of our seats.
- 0:21Today, you'll meet the Aussie who played an important part in Roger Penske's 19th win at the greatest spectacle in racing.
- 0:32G'day everybody, Greg Rust with you for this week's Rusty's Garage Shortcast.
- 0:37Thank you for all the feedback on our latest long-form episode 2 with Nathan Prendergast, who has made quite a mark on motorsport TV coverage locally and globally, from supercars TV and drag racing in Australia and New Zealand, through to World Supercross,
- 0:53Dakar and F1.
- 0:55You will enjoy that journey with him.
- 0:56Lots of laughs along the way.
- 0:58Now, while we're on the subject of kind of spreading your wings to work in motorsport beyond this corner of the world, today's guest is a shining light.
- 1:07A bit like James Small, who we had on recently.
- 1:10Luke Mason is now based stateside.
- 1:13and works in a significant role on Joseph Newgarden's car.
- 1:16So that win in the 500 must have felt bloody special for Luke too.
- 1:21He has dialed in from Charlotte, North Carolina.
- 1:24Congratulations.
- 1:26Cheers, mate.
- 1:26It still doesn't sound real when you say it like that.
- 1:32The more people keep telling me it happened, I might have to start believing it soon.
- 1:35There is a cool piece that listeners can find online by the legendary Marshall Pruitt, right?
- 1:41Racer.com.
- 1:42Just to set the scene here, six races into your partnership with Joseph and you win, mate, an iconic race that some have waited a lifetime for.
- 1:55It almost feels like you're cheating a little bit because you see guys that have been in that paddock for 25, 30 years, busting their ass trying to win the thing.
- 2:04And we rock up, you know, first time engineering the car there and we go and get it done straight away.
- 2:09So it's, as I say, it's still pretty surreal to think about what we just did.
- 2:15Marshall talks about, I think he said, your lips were quivering afterwards as you stood beside the famous yard of bricks.
- 2:24Share, if you can, a bit of that moment with us.
- 2:27I mean, it clearly, as it would, meant a lot to you.
- 2:30Yeah, I think he just got good timing because I've just run around like an idiot for the last 15 minutes cheering and hugging everyone.
- 2:36So I think it was more out of breath than what I was quivering.
- 2:39But, no, it was...
- 2:43you're watching that car cross the line and you have the moment where it's like, this is actually happening.
- 2:47And then at that point, I said, I blacked out for the next 15 minutes just going mental with all the crew and everything else.
- 2:55And then the driver rocks up and parks it on the bricks and he exits stage left straight into the crowd.
- 3:00So the first thought of all of us is, well, we're going into the crowd.
- 3:05So off we went.
- 3:07Off we went and by the time we'd climbed the fence and had a good time with the crowd there, he said I was out of breath.
- 3:14So I sort of slowly made my way back to the bricks there and then sure enough, Marshall sticks a microphone in his face and says, let's go.
- 3:24So what he captured was about as raw emotion as you could get, I think.
- 3:28It was right there, right then.
- 3:30those celebrations in the crowd will be replayed time and again.
- 3:34They are really cool.
- 3:35Take us a bit beyond that.
- 3:37You may not be able to share too much with us, Luke, but what were, once everything's settled down and you were, you know, back in the, you know, with the team and what have you and Roger and so on, what were the celebrations next phase like?
- 3:50Yeah, so you sort of, you do all that stuff on the track and then you go up and they put the car up on the ramp and you go,
- 3:58go up the top there on the podium.
- 4:00So we all gather around there and then the wreath comes out and the milk comes out and that starts going everywhere.
- 4:05So, you know, there's, there's multiple bottles of milk that get passed around and shed around the team.
- 4:10So that got, that got drunk pretty quick and then that got spilt very quick on everyone else.
- 4:15And, yeah,
- 4:16more photos and we get that done and then from there it's it's down to the bricks and they go do their little victory lap in in the convertible there and wave to the crowd and they line all us up so when he when he comes in the front straight there he jumps straight off and we get down our hands hands and knees and make out with some you know 50 degree bricks which is uh i think that was the moment it really hit home what we were doing is you know
- 4:42You see people and you watch that on TV, that tradition, and being able to say that you've ticked that box and done that, that was pretty special.
- 4:51Luke, in this business, as you know, mate, some days are diamonds, right?
- 4:55Is it true that you guys fundamentally left the car alone for the whole race?
- 5:01It seemed like it was just perfect.
- 5:03Is that correct?
- 5:04Yeah, so you go into these things thinking you're going to get it wrong and the weather's going to change and the track rubbers up and grips up and obviously you go forward and backwards depending on where you are track position-wise.
- 5:15So the expectation is you're going to touch something at some point and...
- 5:19And more often than not, we're engineers.
- 5:21We can't help ourselves when I try and make everything better.
- 5:23But we just kept going through the day and, you know, we kept asking the question, you know, do we need a tyre pressure adjustment?
- 5:29Do we need to touch a wing?
- 5:30You know, what do we need to do here to put ourselves in the position to go?
- 5:33And every time we asked, he's like, no, it's good.
- 5:36Don't touch it.
- 5:38And we kept asking and he kept saying, don't touch it.
- 5:41So, yeah, you have those days where the thing's perfect and you don't touch a thing.
- 5:47As an engineer, that's about as good as it gets.
- 5:49Agreed.
- 5:50It's kind of still relatively early, right, in your IndyCar engineering chapter.
- 5:55What is it like working for the captain, Roger Penske, Tim Sindrick, that whole organisation, and what was their reaction to this win?
- 6:04You just pinch yourself at, you're surrounded by quality.
- 6:07You know, you've got Roger and Tim who have been at Dunnard forever and...
- 6:11And the one that got me was, you know, we've got four-time Indy winner Rick Mears in our garage the whole two weeks, just hanging out, having a chat like he's your best mate, about to go have a beer with you after practice, you know.
- 6:23And you're surrounded by all these people and, you know, everyone's just so committed and so driven and all they want to do is win the race.
- 6:31It's whatever it takes to win that race, so...
- 6:34I'm pretty fortunate that I get to work alongside Tim on the two-car anyway.
- 6:38He's the strategist to Joseph and has been for quite a long time.
- 6:42Me and Tim are pretty close in how we go and call the race.
- 6:49We haven't had an argument yet.
- 6:51I'm sure it's going to happen soon and he'll win because he's the boss and that's how it works.
- 6:55But no, you see those guys and...
- 7:00Roger comes up to you and gives you a big hug and a handshake and says, great job, and you're like, I just won this guy's 19th Indianapolis 500 and he knows who I am.
- 7:10It's still surreal.
- 7:12That is why he is a great leader, mate, yet another example of it.
- 7:15What about Joseph, right?
- 7:17We see his character on Bus Bros with his good mate, Scott McLaughlin, who we all know.
- 7:22What about Joseph, the racer, now Indy 500 winner?
- 7:26He would be the most competitive guy, whether it was racing, sports, life, the most competitive guy I've ever been around.
- 7:36Wow.
- 7:36You know, how dedicated that guy is to his craft and what he does, you know, in his preparation.
- 7:45You know, not just the driving side, but obviously looking after himself.
- 7:48And I went on afraid to give him some shit about him taking his shirt off all the time whenever he gets the chance.
- 7:53But if I had a rig like that, I'd walk around without my shirt off as well.
- 7:56So, you know, he really is.
- 8:00He really is, you know, just so passionate and dedicated and driven to be the best race driver he can be.
- 8:06And, you know, ultimately he wants to be the best IndyCar driver that's ever existed.
- 8:10So...
- 8:11In many respects, it makes my job really easy because, you know, if we're not there, we're not fastest and the car's not competitive, it's me.
- 8:20I've got to get the car right because he's going to figure himself out and do his job to the best of his ability.
- 8:26Luke, in unpacking the race and the whole kind of month of May for that matter, firstly...
- 8:33How was the lead up and how much confidence did you kind of have?
- 8:36Because on paper, the Penske cars didn't exactly have great qualifying speed or it looked that way.
- 8:43But did you feel like you had something good for the race for the 500?
- 8:47Yeah, it's a funny one because you always do all your R&D in the off season and you go do your aero work and you work on your driveline and...
- 8:56you think that you've made big gains and then you rock up to the speedway and maybe you get to Fast Friday for the first time and we get to turn the boost up and that's kind of the moment where you can see what everyone's got.
- 9:09We have to try that day.
- 9:11And we sort of tried and we're like, okay, we should be there or thereabouts and we were fairly happy and then...
- 9:16we got the qualifying day and we realised that we just, we just didn't quite have it.
- 9:20We just weren't quite there.
- 9:21And you sort of go through that day.
- 9:23And, you know, I'll tell everyone who asked that, and the race day is the easy day.
- 9:28It's qualifying day is the most stressful day of the year, but by a mile, the amount of pressure that everyone's under to perform that day.
- 9:33And so unfortunately we, we just didn't have the speed and, you know, it wasn't for a lack of trying.
- 9:39We tried a few different things amongst the three of the cars to try to find a bit more.
- 9:43And we just, we just couldn't get there.
- 9:45So that's,
- 9:46It's obviously a big priority in the off-season, but the whole two weeks, even going back to the open test, which we had there in April, we always had a really high level of confidence in the race car.
- 9:58The conversation amongst our group was, we just have to get this thing to the front.
- 10:02It doesn't matter where we qualify.
- 10:04If we find a way to get it to the front, we're going to go win the race.
- 10:07And we sort of carried that confidence with the race car team
- 10:12the majority of the way through.
- 10:14And yeah, it just showed there at the end there that, you know, you can win from anywhere that race.
- 10:19It's strange things happen, you know.
- 10:21You don't generally have to have the fastest car.
- 10:23You seem to have a very good, capable car and a driver whose confidence is through the roof to be able to do what he needs to do.
- 10:29I like a Bathurst, a lot does happen in that 500.
- 10:33The race itself, mate, the first kind of two thirds or three quarters was this crazy sprint.
- 10:39And then we had some stoppages.
- 10:41What words did you have for Joseph and what did the kind of crew talk about knowing that you basically had to go out at the end and lay it on the line one final time?
- 10:53Well, it was funny because we had three goes at it.
- 10:55We had three red flags.
- 10:57So we kind of...
- 10:58You know, Ericsson had led one and we obviously get some live data through different channels to know that, well, he's probably going to restart in this gear, this speed and this rev.
- 11:07So to maximise our performance, we need to be here.
- 11:10So a big part of the initial part is making sure that we get him to do the right thing to maximise our restart.
- 11:18And then sure enough, you know, we were leading the restart the second time and we were
- 11:24And we had a big plan and we're talking about what we're going to do when our big plan is.
- 11:27And unfortunately, he completely botched it.
- 11:30So we ended up getting overtaken at the start-finish line.
- 11:34And that proved to be a blessing, to be honest, because we got another opportunity.
- 11:37And at that point, it really paid to be second in line for the final lap shootout.
- 11:45I don't think, regardless who you were, you weren't going to win if you were first, or it was going to take something pretty remarkable to keep the lead just based on what had happened throughout the day.
- 11:54So to start second, you know, we gave him the information that he needed, that he was probably going to be at this speed and we want you in this gear and be ready to go.
- 12:03And after that, we were hands off and he's good enough to know what he needed to do and plan what he needed.
- 12:09And sure enough, he executed.
- 12:12Luke's been good enough to stick around a little bit longer.
- 12:14Quick break and back with more on this edition of the Motorsport Brief.
- 12:20When I set out on this podcast mission, Luke, I wanted to make them a bit broader, right?
- 12:25Not just winning drivers, riders and so on.
- 12:28There are so many stories in our game.
- 12:31Worth sharing for our audience, if you don't mind, about how you got into it, right?
- 12:34What fuelled the fire?
- 12:35Where did the love of motorsport come from for you?
- 12:38I don't really know.
- 12:39I think my old man was always a redhead and he always was around cars.
- 12:44I remember looking at photos of an old HQ Monaro and a nice panel van.
- 12:49He was building motors and a few family videos of him back in the day with his big moustache and mullet working on an engine.
- 12:57This is pretty cool.
- 12:59And then from there, I think a lot of it was just being stuck in front of the TV at the right time watching stuff.
- 13:05I can remember watching Bathurst in 95 when Larry won and all of a sudden I liked the green car and had no idea who it was, but the green car was my favourite.
- 13:14And it probably all started back there.
- 13:17And then from there, it was always...
- 13:20For whatever reason, it was never limited to supercars when I was younger.
- 13:24I would record F1 races and watch those, and mum will kill me, but I accidentally deleted a 96 Family Trip to Darwin video to watch the Monaco Grand Prix.
- 13:37So we'd lost that one.
- 13:38That one's gone forever, unfortunately, but I can tell you the race was great.
- 13:43I remember watching Monaco and being sent to my room for what I'd done, but...
- 13:48No, I think it's always been there from a young age, and you sort of go through that phase where you kind of realise that the money's not there to successfully drive or have what it takes to go through that path.
- 14:00So what's second best?
- 14:03I think some way, somehow, I was going to end up in motorsport.
- 14:06I was just going to depend on my path, what I was going to take and where it was going to lead.
- 14:11Did you always have that inner desire to want to go to either a Europe or an America?
- 14:17Was that something very early on that you were passionate about pursuing?
- 14:21Yeah, in some ways.
- 14:23I think I was pretty early thrust into the whole supercars engineering world.
- 14:29I was 24 when I took over that gig on...
- 14:32on the Mercs there with Will Davo, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
- 14:37I was a race engineer on a Viet Zivica, and that's all I wanted to do.
- 14:40And, you know, when that thing looked like it was going to go in a different direction, I sort of made a choice there that, you know, if I don't move now or don't try anything, be it Europe or America, that I was going to stay there for the rest of my life.
- 14:56It was going to be Australian racing, and I was going to...
- 15:00put down some groundwork and that was going to be me forever.
- 15:02So the way it worked out and the timing of everything, it's like, well, I need to go now, otherwise I'm never going to do it.
- 15:08So that's kind of how it came about.
- 15:12I've got very fond memories.
- 15:13I think there's even a lovely congratulations from Rihanna Crean there on socials for you and Will Davison as well, that win that you talked about.
- 15:21It's etched very much in my mind, 2015 in Perth, that you played a very significant part in with those Mercs.
- 15:29The move to the US, initially, am I right in saying the pathway was actually NASCAR, Richard Childress and so on?
- 15:35How did it sort of start?
- 15:36How did you get a break in there?
- 15:38I kind of realised that I was going to go, and then America seemed the easiest path, just the way it worked out and who I was talking to.
- 15:47And through friend groups and everyone else in racing, you meet people and you sort of form relationships.
- 15:55And one was with James Small.
- 15:57You know, I got to know him pretty well, and I sort of asked the question, like, hey, are they...
- 16:03looking for anyone else over there.
- 16:04What do they think?
- 16:05And sure enough, they said they were.
- 16:06So I got an interview with those guys and it was midway through the supercars year in 2015.
- 16:12I had to go back to Perth for some family reasons.
- 16:19I was showing the workshop at Richard Childress.
- 16:23pretty much had the contract ready to go and signed it then and there.
- 16:27So after that, it was a matter of just getting through the year and figuring it out.
- 16:31So I can thank Smallsy for that one, for originally opening the door.
- 16:35He's another guy who's sent you a great congratulations.
- 16:37Just quickly on Erebus, they've had a great run of late with Brodie Kostecki, Will Brown, who's been on the podcast recently.
- 16:42Do you kind of watch?
- 16:43Do you stay in touch with people in the paddock there?
- 16:46Yeah, there's a lot of people there I'm very close to.
- 16:49And you always, obviously the time zone and the way it works out is a bit awkward, but generally speaking, we can get practice one over here.
- 16:56And if I'm feeling really bold, I can stay up and watch qualifying.
- 16:59And every now and then, you'll have the race on for breakfast.
- 17:04That's just generally how it works.
- 17:07No, I've kept my eye on it.
- 17:09For me, you never know what might happen, right?
- 17:13So if something were to happen and the circumstances were right and I had to come home, you've got to keep your finger on the pulse.
- 17:19This sport moves pretty quick and you don't want to be left behind if you had to come back.
- 17:25Correct.
- 17:25Few to finish here.
- 17:26You add to the kind of wonderful Aussie, the Antipodean flavour, if you like, sprinkled through the Penske Racing Organisation, Will Power, of course, reigning IndyCar champion, Scotty McLaughlin there, good mate of Joseph's, as we've already talked about.
- 17:41Has it been a matter of you kind of dialing out some of your Aussie mannerisms when it comes to briefings, radio, whatever, or are you sharing some of that Aussie culture and flavour with them?
- 17:53No, I'm pretty much an open book, so what you see is what you get.
- 17:57It's what you get.
- 17:59I've been pretty lucky that I haven't put my foot in it yet, which I'm sure is going to happen and I'm going to get the slap on the wrist.
- 18:05But it does get pretty interesting when you get the three of us in engineering debrief and we just go on a bit of a tangent and we start talking like we're back home.
- 18:16Back home at the pub having a few cold ones and literally everyone else is looking around the room trying to figure out what the hell we're talking about.
- 18:23Exactly.
- 18:23Fourth in the points now, just three behind Paddo Award, 11 to go in the NTT IndyCar Series.
- 18:30Given the form that we're seeing, you know, from the likes of Aaron McLaren, we know how good Ganassi are, and it almost looked for a moment there like a...
- 18:39like a fairy tale for AJ Foyt and Santino Ferrucci at Indy.
- 18:43How hard is this mission going to be to help Joseph to a third title?
- 18:48I mean, they're very kid about it when they say it is the most competitive championship in the world.
- 18:53And I think we all believe that over here.
- 18:55The calibre of driver and team is so high now that you can't leave a tenth behind.
- 19:02I think years gone by, you could afford to be a tenth off and you'd still qualify in the ten and you'd have good pit stops and figured it out.
- 19:09But now everyone's so good that we've done it this year.
- 19:12You're misqualifying just and all of a sudden you're 15th, 16th and you're trying to figure out, geez, if I just had another 10th, we would be fifth, you know.
- 19:21It's going to be difficult.
- 19:22You know, we've had a really good weekend.
- 19:26We've celebrated a really good weekend and today we're all back in the workshop trying to get a car ready to go, put it in the truck and head to Detroit and keep this momentum rolling.
- 19:35It doesn't stop.
- 19:37Good stuff.
- 19:37Let's finish with that.
- 19:38Detroit this weekend, as you said.
- 19:41Give us a sense of that preparation because you're back on the streets this time of downtown Detroit.
- 19:46And am I right in saying, too, it's a bit of a unique pit set up there for this weekend, isn't it?
- 19:51Yeah, it is.
- 19:51It's a brand new track.
- 19:53No one's been there.
- 19:54And it uses part of the old F1 Grand Prix tracks.
- 19:59There's still a few straights and corners they use from that.
- 20:03And then it winds around the GM building, smack bang in the middle of downtown.
- 20:07So obviously a real important race for us being Chevrolet GM affiliated.
- 20:12So we're doing everything we can for those guys to make sure they have a good weekend and have a good result as well.
- 20:17So...
- 20:18No, it's going to be an interesting one.
- 20:20A lot of guesswork going into right heights and what we do with wing angles and the car setup because no one knows.
- 20:28No one's walked it yet.
- 20:31We do have some scans and we will jump in the simulator tomorrow night.
- 20:36GM's lucky for us that we're so well committed with those guys that they're going to give us some time tomorrow night because Joseph's obviously in New York gallivanting around, showing everyone his trophy and his ring and...
- 20:50The earliest we can get in there is 7pm tomorrow night.
- 20:53So we'll do a couple of laps there and get our feet wet to kind of get an idea of where we need to be.
- 20:58And then, you know, Friday P1, we figure out how far off we are or whether we got it right.
- 21:03Good on you.
- 21:04Hey, it has been fantastic to spend a bit of time with you.
- 21:06Thank you very much for coming on, for allowing us to share a bit of your story and to hopefully inspire...
- 21:13more engineers that might dream of going abroad and doing a similar thing to what you and James Small have achieved.
- 21:19Congratulations on winning the 500, being a part of that whole organisation.
- 21:24Enjoy the celebrations and go well for the remainder of the championship.
- 21:28I appreciate it, mate.
- 21:29Cheers.
- 21:29Cheers.
- 21:31He was fabulous, wasn't he?
- 21:32A couple of other quick stories that caught our interest this week.
- 21:35Clay Richards, grandson of the great Jimmy Richards, son of multiple Bathurst winner Stephen Richards, is going to make his debut in TCR competition.
- 21:45He's going to drive a Melbourne Performance Centre Audi.
- 21:47Really looking forward to that.
- 21:49He'll be a part of the Speed Series, June 9 to 11 at Winton there in Victoria.
- 21:53More recently, of course, he's been racing an 86 in Australia and did some research.
- 21:58racing over summer in New Zealand as well at the wheel of a Toyota 86.
- 22:02Will Brown, who was on the podcast recently, has driven a sprint car at Sydney Speedway, joining the likes of Cam Waters, Shane Van Gisbergen and Brodie Kostecki to dabble on the dirt.
- 22:13While we're on sprint car racing, well done to JMAC.
- 22:16James McFadden, who's in our Rusty's Garage library at Lawrenceburg there, he bounced back.
- 22:22Return to the winner's circle.
- 22:23That's a well-deserved victory too after a bit of a tough run for him recently.
- 22:27Keep it going, my man.
- 22:29I mentioned the Monaco Grand Prix at the top of the podcast.
- 22:31Max Verstappen has won there, extending his series lead.
- 22:36But the talking point for us back home is Oscar Piastri with a points finish.
- 22:41and impressing the team at McLaren.
- 22:42It didn't look necessarily that great in Friday practice, but with that little sprinkle of rain and some good decisions, he fought his way into a points finishing position.
- 22:52Congratulations.
- 22:53Statler and Waldorf, Matt Nolte and Richard Crail.
- 22:57It's called the Saturday tear-up, a little something that's caught our attention on Facebook.
- 23:01You'll be able to see that at each round of the Speed Series.
- 23:04No driver, team member.
- 23:06or even commentator is safe.
- 23:08Now, speaking of Krause, shining a light for a moment on some Aussies abroad involved in motorsport, not necessarily just behind the wheels.
- 23:16So he's headed off overseas to take in the 100th anniversary, the centenary of the Le Mans 24 Hour.
- 23:24And some talk that our good buddy here on the podcast, Lee Diffie,
- 23:27We'll be heading to that race as well, fresh from calling the Indy 500.
- 23:31Krause and Lee won't necessarily be working together, but both, we understand, will have broadcasting roles in that legendary race.
- 23:39We wish them well.
- 23:40That is it for this edition of the Motorsport Brief.
- 23:43Don't forget our next long-form episode out very, very soon with drag racing royalty, Jim Rhee.
- 23:50Don't miss that.
- 23:51On behalf of all of our team here, I'm Greg Rust.
- 23:53We'll catch you next time.
- 23:54Bye for now.