Latest / That Car Show / Colin Clark. The Voice of Rally.

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Colin Clark. The Voice of Rally. · That Car Show

• 0:00
  I think you've got to be critical and you've got to be a
• 0:02
  little bit skeptical. You know, if you take everything
• 0:07
  at face value then what's the point?
• 0:11
  Today on that car show, it's Colin Clark, and if you follow
• 0:16
  Rally at all, you know his name and you know his voice.
• 0:20
  From his beginnings sponsoring the FAME to 555 Subaru World
• 0:23
  Rally Team at Rally's larger than life personalities, to his
• 0:27
  work now with Dirt Fish and the sport's exciting resurgence in
• 0:30
  the United States, we covered all.
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  And if, like me, you don't know the first thing about Rally,
• 0:36
  that's OK too, because Colin's just a hell of a nice guy and
• 0:40
  his enthusiasm for the sport will turn you into a fan by the
• 0:43
  end of the episode. It's Colin Clark, the voice of
• 0:47
  Rally, and it's that car show. Welcome to this week's episode
• 0:51
  of That Car Show. And we have a bit of a special
• 0:54
  one around motorsport. I'm joined, as usual, with Ryan.
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  Hey, Ryan. Hey, it's good to see.
• 1:00
  This week, Ryan, I am going to give you an education on
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  rallying and I brought a subject matter expert to come and help
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  me do that. Before I before we talk to
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  Colin, let's do a quick introduction.
• 1:11
  If you followed modern, if you followed modern rallying, I said
• 1:15
  that again. It's good job we record, isn't
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  it? If you follow more, I can't say
• 1:19
  the word. Modern I have these moments.
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  It's not that I could say introduce yourself Colin, but
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  let's let's do it right. If you follow modern rallying,
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  you've heard his voice. Our guest today is one of the
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  most recognisable voices in the sport.
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  Rally commentator, journalist and lifelong car obsessive Colin
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  Clark. Colin has covered the highs, the
• 1:44
  heart breaks, the politics and the personalities of rallying at
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  the highest level. He's interviewed world champions
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  after victory, he's navigated on unpredictable service parks and
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  he's brought fans closer to the sport.
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  Colin, welcome to the show. Wow.
• 2:00
  Well, I've never had an introduction quite like that.
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  Dan, that was magnificent. Thank you very much for inviting
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  me on your show. Just just one point, Dan,
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  journalist, I think. I think maybe you're pushing a
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  bit far describing me as a journalist, but it was a lovely
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  intro. Thank you very much.
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  Have you seen those those LinkedIn posts that say what you
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  did and then what you put on LinkedIn?
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  So it's almost like I made a cup of tea, but in but in essence, I
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  conducted a scientific experiment where I boiled water
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  to a point and then applied a third party material to that
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  water to create. So anyway, we're available for
• 2:39
  any intros if you ever need us, Colin.
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  Yeah, well, and I love that. No, I just always feel guilty.
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  I mean, a journalist is is AI get called a journalist a lot.
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  But you know, I'm not a journalist.
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  You know, you're trained to be a journalist and journalists have
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  particular skills. My biggest skill is that I've
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  always got an opinion and I'm not.
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  I'm not sure that qualifies me as a journalist.
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  That's the most important part. Right.
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  You don't want to hear from folks that don't have an
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  opinion, do you? So and your opinion is, is, is
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  created by a set of experiences and a set of research.
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  So I think you are a journalist. That's fair enough.
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  And, and, and I guess, you know, I'm quite fortunate in that my
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  experiences in rallying, certainly from the media side of
• 3:23
  things cover both sides. You know, I, I started off in
• 3:26
  rallying on the other side as a, as a sponsor.
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  You know, I was in charge of the, the 555 sponsorship of the,
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  the Subaru World Rally team and its second iteration in the, the
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  early 2000s. So I've kind of seen it from
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  both sides. I've seen it from the, you know,
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  the sponsor side and I've seen it from obviously the, the, the,
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  the media side, the presenter, the commentator, the inverted
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  commas journalistic side of it I've seen as well.
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  So yeah, it, I guess it is a reasonably unique set of
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  experiences that I have in it. And I always think it, you know,
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  it does qualify me to comment on, on what's going on in the
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  sport. Yeah, very much so.
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  Now, Ryan, I knew we were talking about the word, the word
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  rally. And it gets used in so many
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  different ways, doesn't it? It does.
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  So, Colin, how would you describe, I guess, what I would
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  call the noble sport of rally? Your rallying is, is, is the
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  purest form of motorsport in in my, my books.
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  You know, these are cars that you can more or less buy in the,
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  the, the showroom on the Monday morning.
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  OK, You know, there's the argument with the space frames
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  at the very highest level. We've moved away from that, but
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  we're on proper roads. We're we're we don't have arm
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  codes, we don't have sand traps, we don't have run offs.
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  It is man and machine against the elements, the roads and and
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  I think that is the absolute purest form of motorsport.
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  You when we see Rd. racing on motorbikes, well, it doesn't
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  really get much more real for bikes.
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  Well, this is the same thing, I suppose, for for cars and, and
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  do you know what this is the interesting thing for me, Ryan
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  is, is, is you're, you're, you're a big obviously motoring
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  person. You, you, you, you deeply
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  involved in cars and in motorsport.
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  And I just, I wonder why rallying has struggled to take
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  off in America because for me, it's so well suited for the
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  Americans. There's adventure, there's
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  excitement, there's drama, there's big cars with big
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  engines. There's Jeopardy.
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  There's everything you could want, you know, as an American
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  kind of motorsport fan. But it struggles to, it
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  struggles to get any traction. I wonder why that is, Ryan.
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  I, I don't know, because it is great racing and there's a
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  little bit of everything and I think the level of skill is
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  arguably much higher than other forms of racing.
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  And I think it's so social media friendly too, right?
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  I mean, it's, it's made for like 2026, right?
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  It's, it's I, I don't know, I don't know, maybe we're just we
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  have a spoil of riches here in the States, right?
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  And. You know what?
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  Yeah, but but you've absolutely hit it on the head with the
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  social media friendly side of things.
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  And, you know, I'm sure we'll get on to this as we talk a bit
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  further. But there's a lot of a lot of
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  discussion, a lot of debate, a lot of, you know, a lot of
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  controversy over the promotion of the sport just now.
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  And we're, we're just in the process of changing promoters
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  and for a sport that is so, so ripe for the picking when it
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  comes to social media, we let ourselves down badly and we're
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  not. And that comes from the very
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  top. You know, we company, I work for
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  Dartfish, we do a fantastic job of it.
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  But you'll sport itself. The promoter, the WRC needs to
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  be doing a whole load more than they are doing.
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  And it was who was the last guy, the English guy that ran the FIA
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  few years ago helped me out. Then a lot of controversy around
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  him when he got caught in a slightly compromising position.
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  What was his name at the FIA? Not mostly Max, mostly.
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  Mostly Max, mostly Max mostly. And you know, whether or not
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  you, you, you agreed with a lot that Max mostly did or said, He
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  was quite an intelligent guy who understood motorsport.
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  And one of the last things he said before he retired was, and
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  this is what, 15 years ago, I guess, Dan, that you retired
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  must be 50, maybe more than that.
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  Now 1518 years ago, he said in terms of all the assets that the
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  FI have, all the championships that they cover, he said
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  rallying is positioned perfectly to take advantage of.
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  And he was a bit of a visionary to take advantage of this
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  explosion in social media. Now, social media was hardly a
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  thing. Well, it was, but not such a big
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  thing 1518 years ago. But Max mostly recognized that.
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  And we've we've, we've let ourselves down as a sport.
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  We have let ourselves down. And it's a shame because we
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  could have been, I suspect, a lot more popular in places like
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  the States in other parts of the world if we'd actually jumped on
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  that social media explosion and exploited it.
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  The thing I don't get is the elements that have originated in
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  rally have made it big in the US.
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  So you look at the Gym Carter series, for example, originally
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  with Ken Black and obviously more recently with Travis and
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  the skills that they are using have originated from their rally
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  skills, but they get multi, multi million views.
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  The rally piece just doesn't seem to get picked up.
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  What? I'll give you a story.
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  I'll give you a story which looking back seems almost
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  unbelievable, but it but it's why the current promoter has
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  been so, so widely castigated for their lack of vision, the
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  lack of ability. Ken Block, you know, a man that
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  I watched for many, many years. He competed in the World Rally
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  Championship regularly and I remember when he first appeared
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  with Travis, 2000 and six, 2007. So we're doing the second level,
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  if you like, and then came progressed into the top level.
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  But Ken, at that point, you know, I remember going to Mexico
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  and you couldn't move when Ken and Travis were around.
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  They were absolute superstars. Forget Sebastian Loeber's.
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  It was at the dime and Pettis Solberg and the top names in
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  rally. You only could quite happily
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  walk through the streets of Mexico.
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  Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, it it was the closest thing to your
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  adulation I've ever seen. It was incredible.
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  You know, there were huge names around the world in the the the
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  early days of social media and Ken went, you know, when he
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  progressed to the highest level of sport, he could see there
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  were issues and he went to the promoter and offered his
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  services, said I can help you with this guys.
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  You know, maybe one of the most 6 I remember Ken.
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  Ken was an older guy. You know, he wasn't one of these
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  young upstart, you know, upstarts that kind of, you know,
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  the young kids basically affiliated with it.
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  Ken was a bit older. He understood these things and
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  he said I can I can help you this.
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  And he said thanks very much. No thanks really.
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  It's just, it's just inconceivable to think that
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  anyone would turn down Ken Block with all his ability to
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  understand social media, to harness all of the potential of
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  it. You know, and this is when, you
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  know, gymkhana was already a big success.
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  So, so that's, that's just an indication of of where we've
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  where we've stuffed up along the wayside.
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  But, but we're looking for a brighter future.
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  I think it's there. The great thing is that rallying
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  has all of those assets you need to be successful in, in a, in a
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  modern media environment. It's got all the assets, you
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  know, and we're just waiting to for someone to come along and
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  say this is how you exploit it. Yeah, yeah.
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  You take someone off, you know, take an alien off a UFO and put
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  them down and show them, I don't know, NASCAR and show them rally
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  and they're going to go rally every time, right.
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  I mean, the product is is superior.
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  I mean, truly, right. You've got all the elements.
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  It is and and it's, it's, you know, the, the product is
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  superior, I think, and I think the drivers, as you already
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  mentioned, they're superior as well.
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  There's another great story about Ayrton Senna.
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  No, it wasn't it. It was Michael Schumacher.
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  Michael Schumacher who had a home in Sweden very close to
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  where Subaru were testing for Rally Sweden, middle of winter.
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  And Schumacher turned up at the test.
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  Schumacher turned up, He was a Subaru World Rally Team.
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  Beto Solberg was testing and Schumacher just came along.
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  He heard there was a test, so they got him in the car with
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  Petter and they had a few runs and apparently Michael got out
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  of the car and said, he said there is no way in the world
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  that I could do what you are doing.
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  He said, but I fully suspect that you can do what I'm doing.
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  That's what he said to penis over.
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  So from from maybe the greatest Formula One driver that there's
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  ever been. It shows the level, the level of
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  kind of appreciation that these guys have of what the rally
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  drivers are doing. But but yeah, it is odd to be.
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  But do you know, I think it's it's such a cultural thing with
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  the States. You know, you guys love social,
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  it's quite clear and you love sporting social occasions and
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  something like NASCAR, any of your big roundy, roundy races,
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  you know, just offers a great, a great, a great social sporting
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  occasion, doesn't it? Rallying is a little bit
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  different. It's more adventurous.
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  It's more smaller groups. You've got to get out into the
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  forest and you're always on the move.
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  You're always chasing the cars. Remember down that event we did,
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  always chasing the cars around the countryside.
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  It's not such an I'm not saying it's not social because it is
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  social. You know, the weekend in Sweden,
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  I was in a, a spectator area and there was so much fun being had
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  there. It was nuts.
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  But but maybe not quite the sort of social environment that, that
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  that American motorsport fans are looking for.
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  But I, I think you can learn, Ryan.
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  I think you can learn. I think and I think we can teach
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  you and we can help you learn. Well, I'm an individualist.
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  I mean, this, this is appealing to me.
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  I don't really want to go sit in a big stadium, you know, under
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  the baking sun and drink, you know, 23 Bud Lights.
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  I mean, that's just not really me, you know, I mean, something
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  like this really appeals. Being in Colorado started going
• 13:01
  to to the Pikes Peak, you know, race every year.
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  The hill climb, rather, is what they say.
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  And it's very much, I think what the rally experience must be
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  like and that, you know, you're one place, you see one car go by
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  and then you do a little hike and then you find a new corner
• 13:14
  or something and you're in the woods and it's great.
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  And it's, you know, I mean, yeah, so you don't have a food
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  truck, you know, 50 feet away or whatever, but it's an adventure
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  to your point. And you know that you're stuck
• 13:23
  there until the race is done. It's kind of great.
• 13:26
  Dan had a good You had a great time.
• 13:29
  Yeah, it was fun. It was, it was fun.
• 13:31
  We got up way too early. But other than that, it was a it
• 13:34
  was a very good experience. But did you get?
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  To the top though, Did you get right to the top of the
• 13:38
  mountain? Is that an air?
• 13:39
  Fashion talk, No, but been before.
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  Done it before. But on that occasion we stayed
• 13:44
  at the bottom because you could get access to the service park,
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  you could actually talk to the drivers, you know you.
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  We had press passes, so we then hiked up and we were able to
• 13:54
  take photographs on corners and stuff.
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  But yeah, not right to the top. But it was an interesting year.
• 14:01
  It was two years ago and it was a long day.
• 14:04
  So the drivers that got up there saying, is it Danny Sandano?
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  The the who's the He's a WRC driver.
• 14:13
  Danny Sardo. Danny Sardo?
• 14:15
  Yeah, he was. He was there in the Hyundai.
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  Yes, so he was, he was complaining because he was stuck
• 14:20
  up there for like 9 hours. I spoke to him briefly at
• 14:24
  Goodwood afterwards and he was like, I was there for 9 hours at
• 14:27
  the top and there was nothing to do.
• 14:30
  So. But the actual spectating of
• 14:31
  watching it is, is awesome. Yeah.
• 14:33
  You need to come and cover that one, Cole.
• 14:35
  Yeah. No, I do.
• 14:36
  I absolutely do. And you know, I've talked to
• 14:38
  various people that have done it and, and, and they all say the
• 14:41
  same thing. It's just one of the world's
• 14:43
  great motorsport challenges. You know, when you talk to
• 14:47
  Michelle Mouton about it and she'll, she'll, she'll tell you
• 14:49
  some great stories about Pikes Peak about how the Americans,
• 14:53
  because she she didn't, she win it and she was disqualified or
• 14:56
  something. She had some some concern.
• 14:59
  Yeah, yeah. And I think it was 40 years ago
• 15:02
  last year. Yeah.
• 15:04
  But she was like, they didn't want a woman to win it.
• 15:07
  So they put as many boundaries in way in the way as they could.
• 15:10
  But things have changed a lot since then.
• 15:14
  Amelia Hartford did very well last year I think, Ryan.
• 15:17
  Yeah, yeah, Lonnie Unser has done very well.
• 15:20
  Yeah, the unser. What are the cars they're using?
• 15:23
  I mean, I'm I'm I'm thinking back to the days where monster
• 15:25
  Tajima used to do it in a in a ridiculous Suzuki with like 1000
• 15:30
  horsepower and that Peugeot they made for Sebastian Loeb to drive
• 15:34
  up the hill. You are they one off designs
• 15:37
  that one off builds these days. It's I think the most diverse
• 15:41
  group of cars you'll ever see at a single event.
• 15:44
  Because there is homebrew stuff that's like the most amazing
• 15:47
  part about Pikes Peak, right? You know, it's families, it's,
• 15:50
  it's fathers and sons and grandfathers and granddaughters
• 15:52
  and things. And they're running stuff
• 15:53
  they've built literally in their barn.
• 15:55
  And then you, you mentioned Hyundai and these, these factory
• 15:57
  teams where you know, they're on the matching outfits and
• 16:00
  they're, you know, they're, they're fielding 8 cars or
• 16:02
  whatever. And you know, the EVs are a big
• 16:04
  part of it now, but you have, you know, pickup trucks from the
• 16:07
  1950s with 900 horsepower and a big stack sticking out of the
• 16:10
  front hood, right? And you know, the next car is a
• 16:12
  a 240SX, right? That's struggling to, you know,
• 16:15
  you know, at the higher at the higher altitude.
• 16:17
  So it's a mix, you know, I, I think as far as what's been
• 16:20
  winning recently, it's a lot of EV stuff, right?
• 16:23
  I mean, Ford very famously ran that that bread van thing couple
• 16:26
  years ago and. I've been in that.
• 16:28
  Have you really? Oh my God, the what do they
• 16:33
  call? That it looks like with UMass
• 16:36
  with Romantic. Mass No, I was in it with man
• 16:40
  for stall. And we did.
• 16:42
  We did a stage of the Catalonia rally in Spain, so we went
• 16:47
  through before the rally cars came through.
• 16:49
  It was the most bizarre experience.
• 16:51
  It looked to me like the Scooby-doo van, and that's what
• 16:53
  I called it. That's a very similar profile,
• 16:55
  yeah. It looked like the Scooby-doo
• 16:57
  van, but I mean, what did it have?
• 16:59
  It had 1000 plus horsepower. And it was, it made me feel
• 17:04
  quite sick. I have to say.
• 17:05
  It was a strange, strange experience.
• 17:07
  But we, we were actually following Michelle because
• 17:10
  Michelle was the, the safety commander on the stage and we
• 17:13
  were following her through the stage.
• 17:15
  And she did stop us at one point and say, you just need to be a
• 17:17
  bit careful with this thing, man, for who's a fabulous
• 17:21
  driver. He just let her get, you know,
• 17:23
  seven or eight corners in front. And then we floored it and it
• 17:26
  was bonkers. Absolutely bonkers.
• 17:31
  Yeah. Kind of experience that you kind
• 17:34
  of you get out of and go, yeah. Did I enjoy that?
• 17:37
  I don't care. Is it a hell of an experience
• 17:39
  You've. Had a few interesting
• 17:41
  experiences with professional drivers in Cars Ave.
• 17:44
  Can you talk about any of them? Yeah, yeah.
• 17:47
  Look, I'm, you know, I was, I was in, in, in the Disney park
• 17:52
  here today. And my favorite ride was the, I
• 17:56
  can't remember what it's called, but it was in the kids, kids
• 17:58
  part of Magic Kingdom because it was a really gentle roller
• 18:01
  coaster. You know, I'm not going on
• 18:02
  anything else. I'm the world's biggest coward,
• 18:05
  the world's biggest coward, the world's biggest coward.
• 18:08
  But yeah, I had a crash a few years ago in a car with, with a
• 18:12
  guy in Australia called Brendan Rees.
• 18:13
  And it was odd because I knew we were going to crash and had that
• 18:18
  a really uneasy feeling about this.
• 18:20
  And and Brandon has been on to me all week about going with him
• 18:24
  and he's a fabulous driver, one of the best drivers in
• 18:26
  Australia. And this sectional Rd. we were
• 18:28
  on, he driven it 8 or 9 times that morning without any
• 18:31
  problems. And we got in the car and
• 18:34
  there's a video of me saying, you know, I shouldn't be doing
• 18:37
  this. You know, I've always said I'll
• 18:39
  never get into a, a little car again.
• 18:42
  And then 5 minutes later we're up in the air at 90 miles an
• 18:45
  hour, spinning runs. I've been smashed into a bank.
• 18:50
  And we got back and my cameraman, producer, I said to
• 18:53
  him, I said, look, I said, and you and you were going to crash.
• 18:56
  And he went, yeah, so did I see that, the feeling that you drove
• 19:00
  off? He told me.
• 19:02
  And we could have, we could have had a little discussion and we
• 19:04
  couldn't. But no, I, I've had a few, I've
• 19:06
  had a few like that where, where it's all been a little bit
• 19:10
  entertaining, but, but you know any of those things, whenever
• 19:13
  you get into a car with a professional driver, whatever
• 19:15
  type of car is you, you understand what they do and it
• 19:20
  gives you such a better understanding, particularly if
• 19:23
  like me or you're, you're paid to commentate and you're paid to
• 19:26
  understand what's going on. The best way to understand is to
• 19:29
  get in a car. And I'm not suggesting the best
• 19:32
  way to understand is to have a crash.
• 19:35
  Maybe not ideal, but but no, I've, I've been lucky over the
• 19:39
  years I've, I've been in, been in some, some cars with some of
• 19:41
  the the world's best drivers. And, and I wouldn't say I've
• 19:44
  enjoyed every minute of it because I am a coward, but it,
• 19:48
  but I've appreciated every minute of it.
• 19:49
  Yeah, yeah. You know, I read somewhere
• 19:52
  calling that you say that you have the best job in the world,
• 19:54
  and I tend to believe that. But how did this all start?
• 19:57
  I mean, for you go way back, What's what's?
• 20:00
  Your, I am fortunate Ryan and that, that you know, I have seen
• 20:03
  the other side. You know, I didn't work in
• 20:05
  corporate life for 12 years working for a tobacco company.
• 20:07
  I worked in marketing that I worked in, in promotion.
• 20:10
  I moved from brand marketing for a tobacco company into promotion
• 20:14
  and, and we it was part of our promotion portfolio.
• 20:18
  We were involved in sponsorship and you know, we sponsored, for
• 20:21
  example, the IT was at the time where we had our own Formula One
• 20:25
  team. So it was the BAR Formula One
• 20:27
  team. And remember we had that
• 20:29
  ridiculous car with the the split livery that was zipped up
• 20:32
  the middle with the 555. Yeah, it was the last time.
• 20:35
  So the 90s, you know, 5551 side and Lucky Strike on the other
• 20:40
  side. So we, we as a company, as a
• 20:44
  company, we had our own Formula One team.
• 20:47
  I don't think this is protected information.
• 20:49
  I think it's well known, but in the three years, the first three
• 20:52
  years of that project we spent, we spent 1 billion dollars, $1
• 21:01
  billion and achieved nothing, absolutely nothing.
• 21:06
  So, so basically what happened was the boss, the big, big boss
• 21:12
  of BAT, the big marketing director.
• 21:14
  There's a guy called David Richards.
• 21:16
  Have you come across David Ryan? David Richards runs a company.
• 21:19
  He runs a company called Prodrive.
• 21:21
  Oh, sure. Absolutely.
• 21:23
  And he also, he's also been involved in Formula One.
• 21:25
  So our boss wanted David Richards to come and and run his
• 21:30
  Formula One team because even by tobacco standards, a billion
• 21:34
  dollars in three years with no, no results is is is a little
• 21:37
  difficult. A lot of cigarettes, yeah.
• 21:39
  It's a lot of cigarettes to sell.
• 21:41
  So David Richards, who had the Subaru World Rally team at the
• 21:45
  time, he said, yeah, I'll quite happily come and run your
• 21:49
  Formula One team. And he took the whole of the
• 21:52
  rally team. So the, the sporting director,
• 21:55
  the marketing director, the sales director, the engineers
• 21:58
  took them all, moved them to Banbury, which is where the
• 22:00
  Formula One team was based, and went out to dinner with
• 22:04
  Romeshefsky, the head of BAT. And Romeshefsky's, you know,
• 22:07
  quite got a big bluff bloke and he scared me, scared a lot of
• 22:10
  people. And he asked David whether
• 22:14
  everything was OK. And David said yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 22:15
  fine, we're all set to go Formula One team, all the people
• 22:18
  in place, he said, but we've got a small problem with the rally
• 22:21
  team. And apparently your Mashefsky
• 22:23
  turned around and said what's rally?
• 22:24
  What's a rally team? You very little about it.
• 22:27
  David said your your biggest, your biggest rival is looking to
• 22:31
  well, they've offered us a lot of money to sponsor.
• 22:33
  And he said it won't look right. It won't look right if you're
• 22:35
  your biggest rival sponsors the the rally team and I'm working
• 22:39
  for your Formula One team. And Rum Mashefsky said, well,
• 22:41
  how much, how much? And the story goes that Richard
• 22:46
  said was it's a three-year deal and it's $5,000,000.
• 22:49
  And Remy Shevsky just said, OK, I'll give you 15,000,000 for the
• 22:52
  three years. And Richard's meant 5,000,000 /
• 22:56
  3 years. So, so basically this, this
• 23:02
  happened on a Wednesday night, on a Thursday morning, I got a
• 23:03
  phone call saying we're going back on the side of the Subaru,
• 23:07
  you know, and no one else in the company was particularly
• 23:09
  interested in rallying because, well, this enormous, really sexy
• 23:13
  involvement with Formula One. So I'm told it was, it was, it
• 23:16
  was very late in December. You know, we're going back on
• 23:19
  the side of the Subaru and, and we're launching in Monte Carlo
• 23:22
  in a few weeks time. And that was, and I'm at the
• 23:25
  time I had an interest in in all Motorsports, but not, not a
• 23:28
  particular passion for rallying. But I went to Monte Carlo, set
• 23:32
  all that. But we got, we got going with
• 23:34
  internal kind of launch and then the external launch.
• 23:37
  And I turned up and my first morning was in a helicopter at
• 23:42
  Monte Carlo. I've never been in a helicopter
• 23:44
  in my life. And as I've already said, I'm a
• 23:45
  complete coward. We're bumping our way up between
• 23:48
  I'm thinking I want out, This isn't, this isn't fun.
• 23:51
  You know, I really want out. And there's a little Irish guy
• 23:54
  next to me and he's going, you'll be all right, you'll be
• 23:56
  fine. Don't worry about it.
• 23:57
  A little Irishman. So we'll be absolutely fine.
• 24:00
  This is your first time, first time in helicopter, first time
• 24:03
  at a rally. And he starts telling me all
• 24:05
  about the rally and starts telling me a lot about your
• 24:08
  Monte Carlo rally, about the cars.
• 24:10
  And we get down to the stage. We park, park as you do, with
• 24:13
  the helicopter parked at the side of the stage.
• 24:16
  And he's talking me through the cars.
• 24:18
  He's going to just watch the lighting of this car.
• 24:20
  And I turned around tomorrow eventually, when you seem to
• 24:22
  know an awful lot about this. And he went, ah, yeah.
• 24:25
  He said, I, I won this event in 1964 in a mini.
• 24:28
  And it was, it was a legendary Paddy Hopkuck.
• 24:31
  And I've been sitting next to him for an hour discussing.
• 24:34
  He'd been educating me. So I spent my first morning
• 24:37
  rallying with Paddy Hopkuck. And it was just the best way.
• 24:41
  It was the best introduction. And at that point it was like,
• 24:45
  Oh yeah, yeah, I, I think I could quite enjoy this sport.
• 24:49
  And yeah. And we had went about a year
• 24:50
  then then the UK government banned to back of sponsorship.
• 24:54
  So so I left, took my redundancy and then then started missing
• 24:59
  rallying after about a year of being redundant.
• 25:02
  And I set up a website selling motorsport ringtones.
• 25:06
  You boys are probably just about old enough to remember when
• 25:10
  people were making a lot of money from ringtones and I was
• 25:13
  going to become a ringtone millionaire.
• 25:15
  I love it. I had this brilliant idea.
• 25:17
  I had this brilliant idea. It was speedphones.com, right?
• 25:23
  So if you were a fan of Better Solberg, if you were a fan of
• 25:26
  Jacques Villeneuve, you could have the sound of his car as
• 25:29
  your ringtone. What could go wrong?
• 25:31
  You know, brilliant idea. Interesting millionaire.
• 25:34
  It didn't quite work out like that.
• 25:35
  But I needed, I needed to record some sounds.
• 25:38
  So I went to, I went to a rally and a friend of mine said, well,
• 25:40
  you know, borrow some equipment from the guy who does the radio.
• 25:43
  He's got some really good sound equipment.
• 25:45
  So I went to speak to him and I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can
• 25:48
  borrow my equipment, but you've got to do me a favor.
• 25:51
  But short of staff this weekend, so I want you to help me out and
• 25:54
  do some interviews. I can do this.
• 25:58
  Yeah, why not? I need these equipment.
• 25:59
  So I'll just, I'll just, I'll just say yes to it.
• 26:02
  And and I tell you what I remember it was it was actually
• 26:04
  Cyprus and I stood at the end of the first stage and I've never
• 26:08
  known anything like it was so totally intoxicating.
• 26:10
  You are. I've been around rallying for a
• 26:12
  while, but in, in a slightly more rarefied sort of atmosphere
• 26:15
  as a sponsor and just seeing, seeing the damage to the cars
• 26:20
  you're sensing and, and, and smelling the emotions and the
• 26:24
  fear stage and from the drivers. And at that point I thought,
• 26:27
  Nah, speed tones can be someone else's $1,000,000 problem.
• 26:32
  I'm off to do, I'm off to do radio.
• 26:35
  And that's how I got involved. It's a very long story.
• 26:37
  That's how I got involved. That's how I got involved in
• 26:39
  rallying. That was 202526 years ago.
• 26:44
  And, and I've been very, very lucky in that, you know, every
• 26:47
  year since then, someone has wanted to pay me to, to work in
• 26:50
  rallying. So yeah, it was a very
• 26:52
  fortuitous weigh in, I have to say.
• 26:55
  But yeah. And I must have been good at
• 26:57
  something because I'm still still here.
• 26:59
  Absolutely, absolutely. So few people get to do
• 27:03
  something they love, right. We seem to have a lot of them on
• 27:05
  the show, which is cool, but but most people just, you know,
• 27:10
  that's. So special, it is special.
• 27:12
  And when, when your job doesn't feel like a job is special, but
• 27:16
  when, when you can really appreciate it as well.
• 27:17
  I'm not saying that, that, that, that, you know, not everyone who
• 27:21
  has jobs like mine appreciate them, but you know, I, I did
• 27:24
  work in corporate life for 12 years, 15 years, you know, so
• 27:28
  to, to come from a job, we should do, you know, a lot of us
• 27:31
  are kind of prostitutes to our work.
• 27:32
  We don't love it necessarily, but we do it because it pays
• 27:36
  well or whatever it might be, it's convenient, whatever it
• 27:39
  might be. But to actually be in a
• 27:41
  position, you know, I, I grew up wanting to be a golfer.
• 27:44
  I, I grew up wanting to play, you know, the Open Championship
• 27:47
  is Saint Andrews. But I get that feeling every
• 27:50
  week, every time I go to rally. You know, you, I get that.
• 27:54
  I, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm in a position where I'm part
• 27:58
  of what I think is the greatest motor sport in the world.
• 28:00
  And I'm privileged to be able to talk to the drivers, to talk to
• 28:03
  the fans, the team bosses and, and it's, it's, it's like that.
• 28:07
  It's like playing playing in the open of the Masters.
• 28:10
  Every time I go to a rally, I get that kind of buzzes.
• 28:12
  Wonderful. It's.
• 28:13
  It's very, very cool. I can't remember who said it,
• 28:16
  but someone said travel broadens the mind.
• 28:18
  And with the the World Rally, which obviously you cover, you
• 28:22
  know, one week you'll be in the coldest part of Sweden.
• 28:25
  You know, the next week you'll be, well, obviously on vacation
• 28:28
  in Florida, but the week after you'll be in Africa covering.
• 28:31
  Yeah. So you get to travel the world.
• 28:33
  We have a lot of fans in Peru. Are there any rallies near Peru
• 28:37
  that you've been to? Yes, funnily enough, then there
• 28:40
  are, yeah, there's, but the Dakar went to Peru, didn't it?
• 28:46
  Yeah, but we go to, we go to Paraguay and we go to Chile.
• 28:51
  So I don't think that's too far from Peru.
• 28:54
  And then we used to go to Mexico.
• 28:55
  So that's a bit north of Peru, I guess, isn't it?
• 28:57
  But, but no, we, we, we do go on and rallying in South America is
• 29:01
  really, really popular. They've got a really strong
• 29:04
  rallying community out there. And the the level of rally in
• 29:07
  South America, particularly in places like Paraguay and Chile
• 29:10
  and Argentina, obviously it's really, really high, Really
• 29:13
  high. Our timing is perfect having you
• 29:15
  on. Yeah.
• 29:17
  So let's do a quick shout out to everyone in Peru because we are
• 29:19
  #1 in the automated podcast in Peru.
• 29:22
  So we're not quite there for the US yet, but I believe that Peru
• 29:26
  is always a leading edge listening group.
• 29:28
  So it's only a matter of time, right?
• 29:31
  Absolutely, yeah. Thank you.
• 29:34
  Thank you. What's your favorite rally to
• 29:36
  cover around the world and why do?
• 29:38
  You know, that's a really difficult one because I
• 29:44
  genuinely do enjoy them all and I enjoy going along.
• 29:49
  I enjoy the the diversity in rallying and it's, you know, it
• 29:54
  is so diverse. It's quite difficult to pick a
• 29:56
  favorite, But there was a time where I could all, I could never
• 29:59
  tell you what my favorite was, but I could always tell you
• 30:01
  which one I would miss, which my least favorite was, and that was
• 30:05
  Rally GB, my home rally. I hated it for so many years, so
• 30:09
  many years. I really disliked going to Rally
• 30:13
  GB, not because of the quality of the rally and because the
• 30:16
  stages were magnificent, but purely because of the people
• 30:19
  that ran the rally. You know, it's like anything,
• 30:22
  you know, the culture that the, the the the organizers create
• 30:27
  quite often is, is how the rally is, is perceived.
• 30:31
  And, and GB used to be a horrible one for me, really
• 30:34
  horrible. Just disliked it, really dislike
• 30:36
  going. But if you said where do I like
• 30:38
  going? I love going to Australia.
• 30:39
  I do do quite a lot of work in Australia and sadly there's no,
• 30:44
  there's no round of the World Rally Championship in Australia
• 30:47
  just now, but I cover the Tiger series.
• 30:49
  Dan, I'd love to see you down there for Tiger one year.
• 30:52
  I tell you we should try and do something where we get, there's
• 30:54
  a wonderful experience. The Tiger Tour, 5 days,
• 30:58
  thousands and thousands of kilometers.
• 31:00
  Oh my goodness, it's great fun. But you know, I, I love those
• 31:04
  events more and more as I'm getting a little bit older and
• 31:07
  I'm getting a little tired of the politics of, of say the
• 31:10
  World Rally Championship. I kind of find myself
• 31:13
  gravitating towards more, more local events.
• 31:16
  I do an event in, in SA called the Heartland Rally.
• 31:20
  It's a blind rally, so no pace notes, just route notes, which
• 31:24
  is quite a skill in itself to be able to, and, and it requires a
• 31:28
  lot of commitment. But that's 550 KS over 2 days of
• 31:33
  just, you know, in the Australian Outback and it's,
• 31:35
  it's astonishing, just a great community.
• 31:37
  It's a great, it's a great leveller.
• 31:39
  You know, you're sitting around the, the campsite in the evening
• 31:43
  and you know, the bloke across, there's just all these business
• 31:45
  for 1 1/2 billion. The guy next year works for
• 31:49
  $10.00 an hour and they're all sitting, they're all sitting
• 31:52
  having a beer on a chat and, and talking about shared
• 31:54
  experiences. And I and I love that.
• 31:56
  I love getting back to the grassroots or rallying the
• 32:00
  basics and, and, and it's just, it just reminds me what's great
• 32:03
  about the sport. Politics gets in the way of any
• 32:06
  sport, any sport. And, and I find that more and
• 32:10
  more over the years, at the very highest level, politics has been
• 32:13
  a real hindrance to the World Rally Championship.
• 32:16
  But, but you know, but as I say, I think things are changing and
• 32:18
  moving on. But yeah, in terms of my
• 32:19
  favourites, if I had to name one, if I had to name one, no, I
• 32:25
  couldn't, sorry, but probably one of the ones down in
• 32:30
  Australia and New Zealand. The Otago, let's see the Otago
• 32:33
  Rally. Let's see the Otago in New
• 32:35
  Zealand. I absolutely blooming love that
• 32:38
  event. It is.
• 32:39
  It is just a special event with special people and special cars.
• 32:43
  Mark 2 escorts. If you're a fan of the Mark 2
• 32:45
  escort, the Otago Rally in in New Zealand, you'll see 40 or 50
• 32:50
  of the best Mark 2 rallying escorts you'll find anywhere.
• 32:55
  It's it's astonishing. There we go.
• 32:57
  Let's. Talk about, let's talk about the
• 32:59
  cars a little bit. If we could, how have they
• 33:01
  changed in the 25 years that you've been at this?
• 33:04
  Look, you know, we've seen various different manufacturers
• 33:07
  come and go from the sport over the years.
• 33:11
  And yet particularly in the 20 odd years I've been involved 25
• 33:14
  years. But you know, the, the DNA of
• 33:17
  rallying was, was what I talked about earlier on, the fact that
• 33:20
  these cars were always based on the chassis of the road cars,
• 33:24
  even at the highest level, our World Rally cars, you know, they
• 33:27
  were all registered, you know, the focuses, the Volkswagens,
• 33:31
  they were all Rd. glowing car chassis that were then turned
• 33:34
  into these incredible, you know, machines on, on the stages.
• 33:38
  That's changed over the past three or four years.
• 33:41
  The top level is now space frame based for the purest.
• 33:46
  That's a problem. It's not such a problem for me
• 33:48
  because these cars still look like the road going versions,
• 33:52
  but you would be slightly held back.
• 33:55
  I think by by by when we had the chassis, it was it was certain
• 34:00
  segments within the motoring industry.
• 34:01
  So, you know, we were talking about Volkswagen Polos, we were
• 34:04
  talking about Ford Fiestas, we were talking, you know, Citroen
• 34:07
  DS threes. These are small cars and and and
• 34:11
  very specific to certain markets.
• 34:13
  With space frame, the manufacturers can put whatever
• 34:16
  they like on. You know, if you want to put a
• 34:19
  Ram 500 into a World Rally Cut, you can do it right.
• 34:23
  You can do it a little strange. The aerodynamics might not be
• 34:26
  great, but you can do it. You know, you can do it.
• 34:28
  So, so the biggest change has been the shift towards at the
• 34:33
  top level space frame chassis. And that that's been a bit of an
• 34:38
  issue for, for the, the absolute purists.
• 34:40
  But as I say, for me, it's not an issue.
• 34:41
  You know, what we have to do is we have to be as appealing as we
• 34:44
  can. And that, that's in terms of
• 34:46
  the, the segments that we that we're allowed to, to, to rally.
• 34:50
  And in terms of the, the, you know, for a while we were
• 34:53
  heading as a lot of motorsport was headlong towards electric.
• 34:57
  And then it was like, you know, this, this really isn't, isn't
• 35:02
  something that's achievable in, in the near future.
• 35:06
  So the new regulations they brought out, you know, they
• 35:09
  covered just about any type of, of, of trans of, you know, of,
• 35:15
  of engine, you know, it can be electric, it can be hybrid, it
• 35:18
  can be diesel. In the first year, it'll be a,
• 35:21
  you know, the first few years it'll be a standardized petrol
• 35:24
  engine. But, you know, the the
• 35:25
  regulations will allow for the manufacturers to say, this is
• 35:29
  where we're going and this is how we would like to prove our
• 35:32
  cars in rally. And if it is electric, we'll
• 35:35
  come along and the regulations will allow that.
• 35:37
  So it's becoming a lot more inclusive in terms of, you know,
• 35:40
  the type of cars that are involved.
• 35:42
  And we've learned that from Dakar.
• 35:43
  You know, Dakar basically said, you know, whoever wants to come,
• 35:46
  you bring what you want and we'll we'll find the equilibrium
• 35:49
  in terms of the sporting side of it.
• 35:51
  And they did it very well in Dakar, and I think they can do
• 35:53
  very well in rally. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:56
  Because they had Octa debuted this year for Dakar, didn't it?
• 36:00
  The Land Rover Octa. Who's that?
• 36:03
  Yeah, yeah. It was a factory team from Land
• 36:06
  Rover and I think they did pretty.
• 36:08
  Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
• 36:10
  Sarah Price, Sarah Price having fun.
• 36:12
  What a fantastic example of of, you know, the, the system in
• 36:17
  America. She is, She's she's she's done a
• 36:18
  great job. She's working her way through
• 36:20
  the ranks and proving herself. She's a hugely talented girl,
• 36:23
  really enormously talented. I saw her winning her first
• 36:27
  stage at DACA and I think, I think she was only the second or
• 36:31
  third women to win a stage out, not outright in her class at
• 36:34
  Dakar. And when someone does that, you,
• 36:36
  you sit up and take notice. Sarah's a very talented girl.
• 36:39
  We had Land Rover, but yeah, we, we go back a few years at Dakar,
• 36:42
  we had Audi with the, the supposedly electric vehicle that
• 36:46
  wasn't electric. You know, I had four DTM engines
• 36:50
  basically powering the LA of flying power to electric motors.
• 36:55
  But you know, Audi wanted to run Dakar as a marketing and I guess
• 37:01
  an engineering experiment. And, and the, the, the Dakar
• 37:04
  organizer said, yeah, bring it in and we'll, we'll find, we'll
• 37:06
  find a way of not, not so much balance of performance, but you
• 37:10
  know, our equalization of technology, but we'll find a way
• 37:12
  of making it all fair. And it worked.
• 37:14
  Yeah, yeah. You talked a bit about, you
• 37:18
  know, the cars going to space frame and this kind of thing.
• 37:20
  Something Dan and I have talked about is the cars being based on
• 37:23
  the cars that, you know, you knew growing up and we didn't
• 37:26
  have that here in the States, right?
• 37:27
  A lot of these cars were foreign to us, right?
• 37:29
  So I think that's changed. I think every 10th car here in
• 37:33
  in Colorado anymore is a WRX, right?
• 37:36
  But it probably isn't, it's probably a Forester, but there
• 37:39
  are a lot of them, right? I, I feel like that is sort of a
• 37:42
  climate has changed where the car, we now know the cars,
• 37:45
  right? We now know the cars, but you
• 37:48
  know, Dan talks about you know, it was the car you lusted after
• 37:51
  as a as a kid. Was it?
• 37:52
  I think we had it was the the Mccur, but it it was a.
• 37:55
  Oh the yeah, the old Sierra cause within the.
• 37:57
  Yeah, the Sierra. Yeah.
• 37:59
  And it just. We just didn't.
• 38:00
  Yeah, you know, we just grew up with different stuff too, you
• 38:03
  know, but. That that's so important,
• 38:04
  though, isn't it? And I guess, yeah, that could be
• 38:06
  part of the reason, a good part of the reason why maybe running
• 38:08
  hasn't quite as yet taken off in the States.
• 38:11
  You know, there has to be something that's recognizable
• 38:14
  and desirable there, isn't it? You know, we we were running the
• 38:17
  the fiestas for years. And did you ever have the
• 38:19
  fiestas in the States? I'm not.
• 38:20
  We did. I don't think it was the same
• 38:22
  same car. We had a little 3 cylinder in
• 38:24
  the 90s, right, which is kind of the bottom barrel tiny little
• 38:27
  thing. You know, I don't think we've
• 38:28
  really had the good fiestas, but until recently, until recently,
• 38:33
  until with the SD and all that, yeah.
• 38:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's rumours that next
• 38:37
  year there may be a WRC round in the US.
• 38:39
  Do you think that's going to happen?
• 38:42
  Yeah, look, it's enormously important.
• 38:45
  I mean, how can you have a top level worldwide competition
• 38:50
  without the US? Well, unless double the Arsenal.
• 38:53
  Or American football. I was watching the Seahawks won
• 38:56
  the Super Bowl the other week and there was a bus that went
• 38:59
  through the centre of Seattle. And sorry, we'll come back in a
• 39:01
  minute. But this is important to me
• 39:03
  because the bus, part of this bus had Seattle Seahawks world
• 39:08
  champions. They'd won the Super Bowl, but
• 39:10
  no other country was allowed to enter.
• 39:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But going back to your point,
• 39:15
  sorry, Colin. But that's, yeah, that's that's
• 39:18
  an interesting concept, isn't it?
• 39:20
  You can be world champions. An interesting concept, yeah.
• 39:24
  For another day, a debate for another day.
• 39:27
  I can't remember what I was saying now that.
• 39:28
  No no, we were talking about women on Chattanooga, TN.
• 39:32
  Yeah, yeah. Look, you know, last time we
• 39:35
  were in the States was the Olympus rally and that was what,
• 39:38
  30 years ago? I don't know.
• 39:39
  It was a long, long time ago. And we were never in the states
• 39:42
  on a regular basis. It's, it's a project that's been
• 39:46
  ongoing for many, many years. And you, I love rallying in
• 39:52
  America, but, but there are, there are issues.
• 39:54
  There are issues with obviously the geography.
• 39:58
  You know, you're on a championship in Britain and the
• 40:00
  most you're going to have to do is drive 500 miles to get to an
• 40:03
  event. You know, you've got guys that
• 40:04
  are driving 3 1/2 thousand miles across America from one event to
• 40:08
  the other. You the the level of rallying
• 40:12
  and the the the championship in the States, You know, it's taken
• 40:16
  a little while to build it and and to build it up to a level
• 40:19
  that. That could then perhaps
• 40:21
  translate into a round of the World Rally Championship.
• 40:23
  But there have been some really big efforts from from some very
• 40:28
  talented people to to find the right place to rally in the
• 40:32
  States. That's another big issue, to
• 40:33
  find the team to put the rally on, maybe even a bigger issue.
• 40:37
  And then to find your way to sell that, to sell that to
• 40:41
  Americans. And it's looking really
• 40:43
  positive. There's a really strong team
• 40:45
  that have been put together by comes.
• 40:48
  I forget the guy's name. You might know his name then the
• 40:50
  guy who's heading. A lot.
• 40:52
  Is Lance involved with it? Lance involved, but not Lance
• 40:55
  knows it's a guy who's got a tremendous background in
• 40:58
  promotion and sports promotion, not of Motorsports of other and
• 41:01
  which I think is great. I think part of the problem
• 41:04
  we're rallying is we're not too many people.
• 41:06
  Yeah, we need we need people with outside ideas.
• 41:09
  But yeah, Chattanooga is looking good for for for the the base
• 41:13
  for the rally. There is what they call a
• 41:16
  candidate event, so a test event if you like, taking place in
• 41:21
  June this year. And fingers crossed they'll
• 41:23
  they'll confirm that the US will be back on the calendar of the
• 41:27
  WRC next year. And that'll be the first time in
• 41:30
  30 plus years. And it'll be exciting, exciting
• 41:32
  just to see, you know, how well it's received.
• 41:37
  And then what the legacy is. There needs to be a legacy, and
• 41:39
  the legacy for me has to be rallying in America and the
• 41:43
  growth and the strength of the American Rally Championship.
• 41:47
  And I'm hoping that there are a lot of positives come out of the
• 41:50
  WRC coming to America, but we have to be there.
• 41:53
  Goodness me, we've got high on dire.
• 41:55
  However you guys say it, I say it differently from most other
• 41:58
  Scots people. So I don't know how you
• 42:00
  pronounce high on die, but you've got high on that fig in
• 42:02
  in in the US Ford obviously enormous.
• 42:05
  We've got other manufacturers looking to come into the
• 42:07
  championship. We've got around in America.
• 42:10
  It really does strengthen that proposition for them as well.
• 42:13
  So it's so important that we come to America and it's so
• 42:17
  important that when we do come to America, we get it right and
• 42:21
  we do it properly. I'm excited.
• 42:24
  I'm excited to already buy it. Absolutely.
• 42:26
  So Colin, you're an American like.
• 42:27
  You're coming showing up, Brian. Sorry.
• 42:28
  Thank you. I would love.
• 42:30
  You, you're #1 on my VIP list. You're coming.
• 42:33
  That has never happened to you in my life.
• 42:34
  So I, I will be there. I I.
• 42:36
  Appreciate that. So what am I looking for when I
• 42:38
  come? What am I?
• 42:39
  What am I watching out for? What do I need to know?
• 42:41
  Like what's break it down for me?
• 42:44
  OK, so you know #1 it's fun and it's an adventure.
• 42:49
  So for me, there's a tremendous movement and young people away
• 42:52
  from this, this data kind of electronic, you know, they want
• 42:57
  to find something they can get into that that doesn't involve
• 42:59
  them sitting on their phones all day or whatever.
• 43:02
  And, and rallying is a great opportunity for like minded
• 43:05
  people to get out into the countryside to discover you.
• 43:10
  I've discovered some of the most beautiful places in Scotland
• 43:13
  where I come from through rally. You know, it's an opportunity
• 43:16
  for folklore in that area to go out and to find parts of the
• 43:20
  countryside that perhaps they didn't even know existed.
• 43:23
  And then to get yourself in a position where you can actually
• 43:26
  sit and appreciate on roads that you'd look at and go, I'm not
• 43:30
  even sure I want to drive that road.
• 43:32
  To watch cars coming down those roads AT100110 mile an hour is
• 43:36
  the biggest thrill. And, and you know, and part of
• 43:38
  the fun is a three day event, might even be a 3 1/2 day event.
• 43:41
  It's about getting out. It's about you're getting the
• 43:44
  maps, getting hold of maps, not Google Maps, but getting hold of
• 43:47
  proper maps and, and planning your route, planning your
• 43:50
  weekend, planning who you want to see and getting out there and
• 43:54
  making a week of it and just enjoying the absolute adventure.
• 43:58
  And here's the great thing, You get to the service part,
• 44:01
  wherever that might be. And they're not going to keep
• 44:03
  you 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet from the cars and the drivers.
• 44:08
  You will practically be able to touch the mechanics as they're
• 44:11
  servicing the cars. You will walk through the
• 44:14
  service part with the greatest drivers in the world walking
• 44:17
  through it is such a real sport. You know, there's nothing, you
• 44:23
  know, there's nothing pretentious or Ponce or, or
• 44:25
  stuck up about rallying. It's, it's a proper, proper
• 44:29
  sport. And then at the end of the
• 44:30
  evening, you can go and hopefully watch them going
• 44:33
  around the streets of Chattanooga, have a few beers or
• 44:35
  a glass of wine. Does it get any better?
• 44:38
  I'm not sure it does get any better than.
• 44:40
  That I think it does. And just as a public service
• 44:43
  announcement, if you do go to one of these rallies, please
• 44:46
  don't touch any of the mechanics.
• 44:47
  They don't like it. That's not what I hear, Dan.
• 44:51
  Some of them do, but you're but that's a different story.
• 44:54
  Another day, that's another podcast.
• 44:57
  You're a bit of a celebrity in the paddocks though, Cole, so
• 45:00
  yeah, maybe they treat it differently when you touch them.
• 45:03
  Well, yeah, no, but it's a great event.
• 45:05
  But you're, if you do go along and, and, and you're, I think
• 45:09
  there'll be a lot of rallying newbies going along.
• 45:11
  And it is really, really important just to to familiarize
• 45:17
  yourself with the safety issues because, you know, you'll go to
• 45:20
  places where there are no fences, there are no paddocks
• 45:23
  there. You know, you will be on your
• 45:25
  own. You'll be free spectating.
• 45:27
  How great is that? Free spectating?
• 45:30
  But you need to be careful. You know, it can be a dangerous
• 45:34
  sport. Cars can do very, very
• 45:36
  unpredictable things. Yeah.
• 45:37
  So, you know, I would just ask that anyone going along just
• 45:40
  familiarizes themselves with the basics.
• 45:42
  You never stand on the outside of a corner.
• 45:44
  You'll never ever stand on the outside of a corner because the
• 45:47
  car is going to go off. That's where it's going to hit
• 45:50
  you. Just be aware if it's gravel,
• 45:51
  which it will be rocks. You know, I've, I've been hit in
• 45:54
  the head, taking what I think are the greatest photographs and
• 45:57
  then bang, you get hit in the head by a rock.
• 46:02
  It turns through on your day. So things like that, just just,
• 46:05
  you know, just go along and and spectate, have fun, you know,
• 46:10
  treat it as the adventure that it is.
• 46:11
  But, but obviously, number one is, is the safety side of
• 46:14
  things. We need to make sure that that
• 46:16
  everyone is, is spectating safely.
• 46:17
  I'm sure they will. Yeah, and there's usually,
• 46:21
  there's usually folks with vests on.
• 46:22
  So, you know, if in doubt, ask. There's no nothing to be lost by
• 46:26
  asking. Yeah, absolutely right, those
• 46:28
  folks. And there'll be plenty.
• 46:30
  Yeah, there'll be plenty, I'm sure beforehand in terms of
• 46:33
  your, there'll be plenty of little bits and pieces on
• 46:35
  Instagram and Facebook and all the digital outlets just
• 46:39
  explaining to people what what to do, what not to do, where to
• 46:42
  go, you know, But that's a great thing.
• 46:44
  They'll tell you where you should go.
• 46:45
  And the great thing is you can choose to go there or you can
• 46:48
  maybe just go where you want. As long as you do it safely,
• 46:50
  it's great. Good.
• 46:53
  Lots of iconic drivers over the last 20 odd years.
• 46:56
  Any favorite drivers, whether that's because of their talent
• 46:59
  OR just the rapport that you've built with them?
• 47:01
  Yeah, my, my absolute favorite driver is is Sebastian Ogier.
• 47:05
  Without that, he is one of those guys, you know, he's an absolute
• 47:13
  when it comes to to world greatness.
• 47:16
  You know, this guy is, I think one of the greatest drivers
• 47:18
  we've ever seen. I would argue he's the greatest
• 47:20
  rally driver that we've ever seen.
• 47:22
  The OK, he's won nine titles. Loeb's won nine titles.
• 47:27
  Others he he might argue won fewer titles, but we're more
• 47:31
  talented. But but Loeb, Loeb won all of
• 47:34
  his rallies bar one with Citroen, won all of his titles
• 47:39
  with Citroen. Citroen built a car for him
• 47:41
  every year and he won. And I'm not taking anything away
• 47:44
  from Lokes achievements. They were quite remarkable,
• 47:46
  utter domination during the North East.
• 47:50
  But then OJ came along and and you know, he drove a Volkswagen,
• 47:54
  won his first title of Volkswagen.
• 47:56
  The FI didn't like the absolute domination that he was asserting
• 48:00
  over everyone. So they changed the rules to try
• 48:03
  and stop him winning. They changed the rules to try
• 48:05
  and stop OJ winning and all it did was make him more determined
• 48:10
  and he still won. He still won when they changed
• 48:13
  the rules to try and stop him. He went to M Sport.
• 48:16
  You know, the the absolute underdogs in the paddock and he
• 48:20
  shook them by the scruff of the net and he took them to the
• 48:23
  first manufacturer's title. 1 driver's titles with M Sport
• 48:26
  went back to Citroen, had a bit of a torrid time there, but went
• 48:30
  to to Toyota, won a title or two.
• 48:33
  I think with the one to one title with Toyota might have
• 48:36
  been two. I can't remember.
• 48:37
  Then he retired, came back part time last year and won the
• 48:40
  championship. Was a part time driver.
• 48:43
  I mean, he and, you know, on top of that, he was never for me.
• 48:46
  He's, he reminds me a lot. I said earlier, I was a golfer.
• 48:50
  He reminded me of a lot of, you know, when he was focused, he
• 48:54
  was just, his focus was purely on driving and winning.
• 48:58
  And the kind of fallout from that is that occasionally you'll
• 49:02
  say something, you'll do something that's taken badly.
• 49:05
  You know, it's perceived as being arrogant or rude or
• 49:08
  whatever. It's not.
• 49:09
  It is the sign of champions. It's the focus of the world's
• 49:13
  very best. And I saw it when I was younger
• 49:15
  with Sevy Ballesteros, the greatest golfer that ever walked
• 49:18
  this earth. And I, I was at the the Open in
• 49:22
  1983, thirteen years old, the Open Championship in Saint
• 49:25
  Andrews with my little brother, Big Brother at a time.
• 49:28
  And we were camping, 13 and 14 years old at Saint Andrews
• 49:32
  getting all these autographs with the programme, we're
• 49:35
  getting the autographs. Ballesteros, he, we followed him
• 49:39
  during the, the practice. We followed him all day trying
• 49:43
  to get his autograph. And he in his in Spanish said
• 49:46
  no, no, no, end of end of the round, back of the clubhouse.
• 49:49
  I will and and dismissed everyone, dismissed everyone.
• 49:52
  So you're me and our little army of little friends that I'd made
• 49:56
  all went to the back of the clubhouse.
• 49:57
  Who walks out first? Arnold Palmer.
• 49:59
  Arnold Palmer walks in the back of the clubhouse on the 18th
• 50:03
  being in Saint Andrews. And he spent 45 minutes signing
• 50:07
  autographs, talking to all the kids.
• 50:09
  Savvy appears having promised all these kids he was going to
• 50:12
  sign the autographs, jumped in his car and drove off.
• 50:15
  And at the time, at the time I thought what a, you know, at 13
• 50:22
  years old, I thought, what a nasty piece of work.
• 50:25
  Who won the Open that year? Ballesteros.
• 50:28
  Ballesteros. Who's the greatest golfer that
• 50:31
  ever walked this earth? Ballesteros.
• 50:33
  The nicest golfer that ever walked this earth.
• 50:36
  Quite possibly Ballesteros. But in that moment, he was a
• 50:40
  tosser. He really was, but because we
• 50:44
  didn't understand, we don't walk in the footsteps or or the the
• 50:48
  shoes of these people. We don't understand what it
• 50:52
  takes to be a world champion. It was the same with Sebastian
• 50:55
  Oji. People criticized him because he
• 50:57
  seemed as if he was rude, as if he was arrogant, as if some of
• 51:01
  the things he did were unsporting.
• 51:03
  No, all of that made him what he was and what he is.
• 51:08
  You're an absolute ruthless world champion and those of us
• 51:12
  who haven't been world champions, you know, can't
• 51:15
  criticize that sort of behaviour because that's what it takes for
• 51:19
  a kid who didn't come from money, from a kid who didn't
• 51:21
  come from privilege, from a kid who had to win every step of the
• 51:25
  way. One, one loss and he wasn't
• 51:28
  going to be world champion. He had to win, win, win, win,
• 51:31
  win, win. You just can't imagine what that
• 51:35
  takes. And what that takes is I guess
• 51:37
  is a single mindedness. So I've always loved them.
• 51:40
  I've always absolutely loved them.
• 51:41
  And one of the stories that I tell them, I don't have to
• 51:47
  defend them and I don't defend them, you know, because you
• 51:50
  know, he doesn't leave defending.
• 51:51
  He, you know, his record kind of speaks for itself.
• 51:55
  But we we were in Mexico. We So the winner of Rally Mexico
• 51:59
  gets a pair of cowboy boots, supposedly handmade, supposedly
• 52:03
  handmade cowboy boots. And it was the Sunday of Rally
• 52:06
  Mexico. And unusually, it started at the
• 52:10
  Super special. She was just outside Leon and
• 52:12
  there's no one there. There was absolutely no one
• 52:14
  there. And the drivers turned up early
• 52:16
  and I was doing radio and I was chatting away to him and there
• 52:18
  was Chris Meek. There was one or two others and
• 52:20
  Osier was there and we was chatting and he was leading by
• 52:24
  about two minutes and I said, Sir, this will be your fifth
• 52:28
  pair of cowboy boots and he said my wife won't let me bring them
• 52:33
  home because they smell. He said I've got these 4 pairs
• 52:37
  I've never worn sitting in the cupboard at home and the smell
• 52:40
  of this new leather is doing her head in.
• 52:42
  You're the absolutely smell. I said well I'll tell you what
• 52:45
  Sir, I said I've got a pair of I bought the year before for about
• 52:49
  30 bucks. I bought a pair of pinks patent
• 52:53
  leather cowboy boots and Leon, which I wore twice because you
• 52:56
  can't wear them and where I live in the Midlands of England, all
• 52:59
  them twice. I love them and I own them for
• 53:01
  for a couple of a couple of occasions.
• 53:03
  I said, Sarah, I've got this pair of pink cowboy, which I
• 53:06
  tell you what, they don't smell. If you win today, I'll swap them
• 53:09
  with you. Forgot all about it.
• 53:12
  Forgot all about it. 2 rallies later were in, were in Sardinia
• 53:16
  and I'd gone into the, the Volkswagen hospitality area for
• 53:19
  dinner and, and you know, the drivers are there and the team
• 53:25
  are there and you leave the drivers alone in the evening.
• 53:27
  You tend not to go near, let me just leave it on.
• 53:29
  And he's beckoning me across and I'm going, oh, what have I said?
• 53:32
  What have I done today? What have I said?
• 53:35
  And I'm racking my brain. So I'm doing radio at the time
• 53:37
  thinking, have I been critical? Have I said something
• 53:40
  controversial? I'm thinking, oh God.
• 53:42
  So over I went to his table and he gets his man, he's bag man.
• 53:46
  And he says go and get that bag that brought in earlier on.
• 53:48
  And he comes up with this, this carrier bag and it's got the
• 53:51
  winners cowboy boots in it. And he goes there you are
• 53:53
  called. I promised you these, you can
• 53:55
  help them. And I mean, haven't got the pin
• 53:58
  points for you. He went.
• 54:01
  But where's the guy? Yes, he remembered that
• 54:06
  conversation. So I, I own a pair of winners
• 54:09
  cowboy boots from Raleigh, Mexico.
• 54:11
  He had no no need whatsoever to do that.
• 54:15
  But the sort of guy is he remembered, he brought him with
• 54:18
  him to a rally 2 rallies later and I love him.
• 54:20
  I absolutely bloom and love him. He's a special champion.
• 54:25
  That's cool, that's cool. That's.
• 54:26
  Cool. I did want to just touch on
• 54:28
  something you said around these drivers being misunderstood and
• 54:32
  being very focused. But you're in your day job.
• 54:36
  You know you have got to get the best story out of that driver
• 54:39
  and they may not want to talk to you.
• 54:41
  Now, obviously over time you build up relationships.
• 54:43
  You know who they are, they know who you are.
• 54:45
  But but how do you do that when they are probably so focused on
• 54:49
  whatever the next stage is ahead?
• 54:51
  But you have to get that story. Yeah, you know when I say that
• 54:56
  some of them are focused, that happens very rarely.
• 54:59
  You know, even although said was was ultra focused, unless you
• 55:02
  asked him something silly, he would always give you an answer.
• 55:05
  He was very polite, he was very courteous.
• 55:07
  You had to be really, you have to be winding him up from to to
• 55:11
  be. You're a bit difficult with you.
• 55:14
  But you know, there's one driver, a guy called Lloyd Tanak
• 55:17
  who was a world champion in 20/19/2019 Estonian.
• 55:22
  Again, the most focused and driven man, but also sometimes
• 55:27
  quite unpleasant, quite unpleasant to talk to and you
• 55:30
  just have to persevere. Then you just have to persevere
• 55:33
  and, and, and you have to, you have to understand when you know
• 55:38
  there might be an occasion where, where you just got to let
• 55:40
  them be. You know, you just got to let
• 55:42
  them be. It is quite a small community,
• 55:46
  the rallying community and you, you more than anything, the
• 55:49
  drivers have to trust you. If you lose the trust of the
• 55:51
  drivers, they just won't speak to you.
• 55:53
  They just won't speak to you if you try and stitch them up.
• 55:57
  You'll only do it once and you'll never talk to them again.
• 56:01
  So what you know, it is about you.
• 56:03
  It is just about, you know, I'm reasonably not Flippant isn't
• 56:07
  the word, but but you, I like to have a bit of a laugh.
• 56:09
  I like to have a bit of a joke. I like to talk about things that
• 56:12
  other interviewers don't talk about, you know, and, and, and I
• 56:15
  think the majority of drivers appreciate that and they enjoy
• 56:19
  it. You know, most of these kids
• 56:21
  these days are coming through are very savvy.
• 56:23
  They're very social media savvy, They're very image savvy and
• 56:27
  they understand the value of, of, of communicating with people
• 56:30
  like me and having a bit of a laugh and, and showing the sport
• 56:33
  for what it is, which is real. It's fun.
• 56:36
  Yes, it's the most challenging, the most difficult, the most,
• 56:40
  one of the most dangerous forms of motor sport.
• 56:42
  But, but these, these are real kids.
• 56:44
  These are real men and women who are taking part and, and you
• 56:48
  know, they want to be seen that way.
• 56:49
  So, so they do appreciate it when you, when you can be a
• 56:52
  little irreverent with them at times.
• 56:54
  You know, and I and you know, and I, I like that.
• 56:57
  I like you. I know how to ask the right
• 56:59
  questions at the right time. I know how to be hard.
• 57:02
  I know how to pick up on someone who is bullshitting, you know,
• 57:06
  if you like. And I and there are times when
• 57:08
  you know, they're, they're not telling the truth, but you let
• 57:11
  it go, you let it go. And there are times when they're
• 57:13
  not. And it's your job, it is your
• 57:16
  duty to actually find out what's going on behind the top line
• 57:20
  answer that they're giving you. If you just accept the top line
• 57:23
  answer all the time, then then you have no integrity as, as, as
• 57:27
  a pundit, you have no integrity as a, as an interviewer.
• 57:30
  And I, I, I, I think picking that time, picking those moments
• 57:35
  to be asking the hard questions. I think the drivers appreciate
• 57:38
  that. I really do.
• 57:39
  I really do. I think they know that they're
• 57:41
  not always going to get it from me, but they know if they want
• 57:44
  to try and pull the wool over my eyes, I'm going to ask
• 57:47
  questions. I'm going to ask hard questions.
• 57:49
  And it takes a bit to build that rapport up to that situation
• 57:53
  where you can ask those questions and still have a chat
• 57:55
  and a laugh for them the next morning.
• 57:57
  Yeah, Ryan, I don't know about you, but this sounds like a set
• 58:00
  of skills that a journalist would have.
• 58:02
  Well, that's exactly what I was going to say.
• 58:04
  And it's something we see less and less of, right, in the
• 58:06
  automotive journalism world, whether you're writing about,
• 58:09
  you know, whether you're writing car reviews or you're, you know,
• 58:11
  covering races or whatever, it's just there's, there's, there's
• 58:14
  so few folks that are critical anymore, right, I feel.
• 58:18
  I think you've got to be critical and you've got to be a
• 58:21
  little bit skeptical. You know, if you take everything
• 58:26
  at face value, then what's the point?
• 58:28
  What's the point? You know, you have to be
• 58:30
  skeptical. You have to ask questions.
• 58:32
  And you know, if people are doing things for the right
• 58:34
  reasons, they won't mind that. They won't mind you asking
• 58:37
  questions. They won't mind you.
• 58:38
  You know, you know, you've got to be able to justify what
• 58:41
  you're saying, what you're doing.
• 58:43
  More, more team bosses than team drivers you in that regard.
• 58:48
  But if, if they're, if they're not doing anything not naughty,
• 58:51
  if they're not doing anything bad, they ain't gonna mind you
• 58:53
  asking questions. You know.
• 58:55
  But I guess that many don't. It's too many don't.
• 58:58
  I'm agreeing with what you said earlier.
• 58:59
  Too many just don't these days to sanitize, you know?
• 59:03
  And that's it. I'm sure that's a school that
• 59:05
  you've honed over the 25 years, right?
• 59:07
  I'm sure that first time you went out there with that
• 59:09
  equipment you were going to use later, right?
• 59:11
  I mean, probably didn't come quite as easily, yeah.
• 59:16
  There's a bit of it in the family.
• 59:17
  My, my poor old granddad never, never lived there to see me
• 59:21
  doing my current job. My dad did thank goodness for
• 59:23
  that. He used to love coming on events
• 59:25
  with me. But my granddad was a
• 59:26
  journalist. He was, he was, he was a
• 59:29
  headmaster in later years, but he started off his career as a
• 59:31
  journalist. So and my dad, my dad did a bit
• 59:34
  of soccer commentary and soccer writing back in the day in
• 59:38
  Dundee Soccer. Dan, I'm really sorry, Dan, I'm
• 59:44
  seeing soccer just because you talked about some strange sport
• 59:46
  called football where they never use their feet.
• 59:49
  I don't get that. No, there's a couple of things
• 59:52
  since living over here. Firstly, no one calls it
• 59:55
  football over here and and that is just highly frustrating.
• 59:59
  People don't know the plural of Lego over here.
• 1:00:02
  So the plural of Lego is Lego, not Legos.
• 1:00:05
  And finally, it's it's pronounced Jaguar, not Jaguar.
• 1:00:09
  Sorry, I'll get off my high horse at this point.
• 1:00:13
  Yeah, you know what, Dan? You're choosing to live here so
• 1:00:16
  you might have to adapt mate. Tell us about soccer commentary
• 1:00:20
  and journalism. No, it's, it's there in the
• 1:00:24
  family a little bit. So, yeah, so, so there's, you
• 1:00:27
  know, there was maybe some sort of DNA and me somewhere that
• 1:00:31
  maybe I'm just just just a yeah, maybe I'm just a bit of a bit of
• 1:00:35
  a nosy bugger at times. I think that's probably more
• 1:00:37
  more likely what it is. I think it's one of the most
• 1:00:40
  what you do is got to be one of the most difficult professions.
• 1:00:43
  You know, Dan knows this, but I had an opportunity to commentate
• 1:00:45
  a race at Laguna Seca a couple of years ago.
• 1:00:47
  One of the historic races should be easy, right?
• 1:00:50
  Well, I get up there and it's the what was it, the Andretti
• 1:00:54
  era? Wasn't it?
• 1:00:55
  F1 cars, which I know nothing about, right, you know, and, and
• 1:00:59
  it was the most tense and sort of stressful, you know, 20
• 1:01:03
  minutes of my life. But I'm so glad I did it.
• 1:01:06
  I'm so glad it. But I don't know how someone
• 1:01:08
  does that, you know, for 20, you know, races or does that day in
• 1:01:12
  and day out. Because you're walking such a
• 1:01:14
  fine line. You have to be honest.
• 1:01:16
  You have to be critical. You don't want to piss anyone
• 1:01:18
  off, right? You don't want to make a mistake
• 1:01:19
  because your credibility is out the window.
• 1:01:21
  You know, it is such a fine, fine line.
• 1:01:24
  Yeah. How do you, how do you, you get
• 1:01:25
  up and do that, you know, every day?
• 1:01:28
  Yeah, back in the day, so, so when I started up until about 8
• 1:01:33
  years ago, it was radio. Radio was what I did and and and
• 1:01:36
  and radio with rallying was a very particular skill.
• 1:01:39
  You know, I would stand at the stage ends and interview the
• 1:01:42
  drivers and we would tell the story of the evolving event with
• 1:01:46
  myself at the stage end and my Co host in the studio.
• 1:01:49
  She had all the time, she had all the information, but I had
• 1:01:52
  all of these incredible vistas. I had all of the drama, the, the
• 1:01:56
  views and, and you know, and a lot of that was about just
• 1:02:01
  conveying to people back home the atmosphere and again, not
• 1:02:06
  forgetting how lucky we were to be there.
• 1:02:09
  But, but I, I was quite good at being able to, to create an
• 1:02:13
  atmosphere. Not you had to create it as
• 1:02:15
  such, but if you like being able to convey that atmosphere at
• 1:02:17
  stage ends, which is very, very special.
• 1:02:20
  You know, if you could get so the Indy 500, if you could get a
• 1:02:24
  reporter quite literally jumping on the side of that winning car
• 1:02:28
  as it crossed the line, as it crossed the line, as it's just
• 1:02:31
  beginning to slow down and sticking a microphone under the
• 1:02:34
  winning driver's nose and asking him questions.
• 1:02:37
  That was what it was like at stage ends with every driver,
• 1:02:40
  you'll think literally 10 seconds before they've come
• 1:02:44
  around the corner at 120 mile an hour, putting their life on the
• 1:02:47
  line. They break, they come to a stop
• 1:02:49
  and I'm there waiting to interview them.
• 1:02:51
  Oh my God, how special is that? But it yeah, you know, it's it
• 1:02:57
  wasn't difficult to tell stories.
• 1:02:58
  It wasn't difficult to build up. What was difficult was trying to
• 1:03:01
  remember all the facts and and you in the days of everything is
• 1:03:05
  in my head. And you've got people saying he
• 1:03:07
  got that wrong. But that's nice and easy when
• 1:03:08
  you can sit in front of your computer and go and research,
• 1:03:11
  you know, XY and Z, but I'm having to tell the story I'm
• 1:03:15
  having to you. And it was about telling
• 1:03:18
  stories. It was about building a
• 1:03:20
  storytelling environment and, and keeping people excited #1
• 1:03:24
  taking them to where I was, you know, and that could be the side
• 1:03:27
  of a mountain in Greece overlooking a 4000 year old
• 1:03:30
  ruin. It might be on top of a stage
• 1:03:32
  end in Argentina overlooking the Andes, just some of the most
• 1:03:37
  incredible locations. So it was about, you know,
• 1:03:40
  painting pictures, telling stories, creating drama,
• 1:03:44
  building drama into what's going on with, with limited
• 1:03:47
  information and then and then getting the best out of the
• 1:03:50
  drivers at the stage ends. I, I absolutely loved that.
• 1:03:54
  And it was a great training ground for me in my efforts to
• 1:03:58
  be accepted as a journalist, not that I want to be, but it was a
• 1:04:01
  great training ground and it was, it was one of those things
• 1:04:05
  to me, it came really easily. It came really, really easily.
• 1:04:09
  But, but you know, I, we were doing the British Rally
• 1:04:13
  Championship, we were making ATV programme for Channel 4 in the
• 1:04:16
  UK and I was doing the presenting and I was doing all
• 1:04:19
  the, the interviewing at the stage ends and all the rest.
• 1:04:22
  And I got food poisoning one night.
• 1:04:24
  We're on the Isle of Man, on the Isle of Man and they had stages
• 1:04:27
  on the Isle of Man that finished after midnight.
• 1:04:29
  And I, I said to our producer and he was in real life.
• 1:04:32
  He's now, he's now really high up in Formula One, one of the
• 1:04:35
  most talent, really one of the most talented kids I'd ever met.
• 1:04:39
  He was 21 years old at the time, most talented kid.
• 1:04:43
  I said to him, I said, mate, I can't come out tonight.
• 1:04:46
  I'm just, I honestly don't trust myself walking out the front
• 1:04:49
  door. It was that bad.
• 1:04:50
  And that was the one and only time that I've ever missed it.
• 1:04:53
  And he went, oh, don't worry, go full of confidence of youth.
• 1:04:56
  I'll go and do the interviews. I'll go and speak to the
• 1:04:58
  drivers. So I made it down to breakfast
• 1:05:01
  the next morning and I was with the cameraman and the cameraman
• 1:05:04
  went. He said, go on, don't you ever,
• 1:05:07
  ever be ill again. He said.
• 1:05:09
  He absolutely wrapped himself. He just couldn't do it.
• 1:05:13
  This was the most, the most talented kid I've ever met.
• 1:05:17
  But when it came to, and it's a sport that he was was immersed
• 1:05:20
  in when it came to asking questions, he just couldn't do
• 1:05:23
  it. He just couldn't do it.
• 1:05:25
  So some of some of us have the ability to put people at ease,
• 1:05:28
  ask the right question at the right time.
• 1:05:31
  One of the things I never, ever, ever did at a stop line.
• 1:05:35
  And you might be interviewing, you know, I don't know, same
• 1:05:41
  drivers, but you might, might be doing A120150 interviews a day,
• 1:05:45
  you know, as in your stop line interviews only one minute each
• 1:05:49
  for me. If I was asking how was it, How
• 1:05:52
  was the stage then I'm not. You know, you can, any monkey
• 1:05:55
  can ask that, any monkey, any recording.
• 1:05:59
  But you know, he couldn't get beyond that.
• 1:06:02
  He couldn't get beyond that as poor lad.
• 1:06:05
  And a lot of people, a lot of people who look at what what we
• 1:06:08
  do at stage ends, what we do around rallies think, oh, that
• 1:06:10
  must be easy. It's not so easy.
• 1:06:13
  I think it's easy. I honestly think it's easy.
• 1:06:16
  But I know when other people have tried that, you know, to to
• 1:06:20
  really to just encapsulate the, the, the locations, the
• 1:06:24
  atmosphere, the adrenaline, the jeopardy, all of those things.
• 1:06:28
  And to convey that in a way that people will sit back home at
• 1:06:32
  home and listen on a radio, for example.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah, it takes, I guess, a little bit of skill.
• 1:06:38
  That's a great answer, you know, and it's something I, I think
• 1:06:40
  about, you know, in, in print or web journalism, whatever you
• 1:06:44
  want to call it, you know, kind of the death of long form
• 1:06:47
  writing, right? Because that storytelling is
• 1:06:49
  harder and harder to do right. And do you know, do you know
• 1:06:52
  what, Ryan? It's all about storytelling.
• 1:06:54
  And, and this is where we're missing out on rallying just
• 1:06:56
  now. Rallying gives more stories than
• 1:06:59
  just about any other former motorsport.
• 1:07:01
  And we have stories all around rallying, the characters,
• 1:07:04
  locations, the drama, the cars. We have, we have, we have
• 1:07:08
  stories that have returned. You know, it's a Jack and Orias
• 1:07:11
  cornucopia of Jack and Orias. And, and we're, we're, we're
• 1:07:14
  failing to tell the stories in it.
• 1:07:16
  It's, it's, it's, it's criminal. It's criminal that we're failing
• 1:07:19
  to do in rallying. But storytelling is, is
• 1:07:21
  everywhere. And you're right, the art of
• 1:07:23
  storytelling, you know, it's a dying art.
• 1:07:27
  What a shame. What a real shame.
• 1:07:28
  Well, and to be able to do it on the fly like you can, I mean,
• 1:07:31
  that's, that's a gift, right? I think that's just a, that's
• 1:07:34
  just something you may be born with, right?
• 1:07:35
  That that gift. Well, maybe, but I never do.
• 1:07:38
  You know that That first one I told you about that first event
• 1:07:40
  I went to? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:41
  How'd that go? Strange, strangely, strangely, I
• 1:07:43
  I I lacked confidence speaking, even though I'd I'd been
• 1:07:48
  working, you know, reasonably high profile job and and marked
• 1:07:51
  a high profile. What a high profile was a good
• 1:07:54
  job in marketing. I actually took my little
• 1:07:57
  brother along to that event. He was there, he was there with
• 1:07:59
  me when we were getting the recordings, but he'd, he'd done
• 1:08:02
  a whole lot of my little brother's an actual performer.
• 1:08:06
  He works in the Alps and he's, he's done karaoke and all sorts
• 1:08:10
  of stuff. He had no problems talking to
• 1:08:12
  people and talking to crowds. And I said to him before the
• 1:08:15
  first car came in, first car was Toshiara, Japanese driver.
• 1:08:19
  And literally, you know, Toshiara was 2 minutes away.
• 1:08:21
  And I said, Simon, if I can't do this, I am going to hand you
• 1:08:24
  this microphone and you will do it.
• 1:08:26
  And that's how that's how uncertain I was of whether I
• 1:08:29
  could do it. I actually had him prepared and
• 1:08:31
  he was like, oh, yeah, I can do it, no problem.
• 1:08:33
  And he stood there with a face like Thunder, you know, as I got
• 1:08:37
  more and more into it with his first stage.
• 1:08:40
  But, yeah, you know, I, I was very uncertain about whether it
• 1:08:44
  was something I could do and, and, and I was just, I, I was
• 1:08:48
  lucky. Ryan, it is luck.
• 1:08:50
  People say, how did you get there?
• 1:08:51
  Luck, Absolute luck. Right place, right time.
• 1:08:55
  And then there was a bit of talent there that allowed me to
• 1:08:58
  to develop what I do. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:02
  Don't dismiss that part of it. Yeah, I can't tell my son who
• 1:09:05
  was there. I can't tell him out here.
• 1:09:07
  I mean, there's no, there's no assured way of doing it.
• 1:09:11
  Yeah, well, when you're busy schedule, you still enjoy
• 1:09:14
  getting out for a drive. Yeah, look, look, I I love
• 1:09:18
  driving, but but I'm, I'm, I'm not a van Pilling when it comes
• 1:09:21
  to driving. I don't have that sort of skill
• 1:09:23
  and talent and commitment. I've seen some of Dan's driving.
• 1:09:25
  He's a good driver. I love driving.
• 1:09:28
  I do love a road trip, but I'm so I, you know, when I ski, so
• 1:09:34
  which I do rarely. I went skiing for the first time
• 1:09:37
  in a long, long time again when my little brother lives in the
• 1:09:40
  mountains. Great skier, fabulous skier and
• 1:09:43
  absolutely No Fear whatsoever. Jumped himself augments and he
• 1:09:47
  said that as I went down. He said, oh, you can tell you've
• 1:09:49
  not skied for a long time because you look like lady die
• 1:09:52
  when you're skiing that in there.
• 1:09:54
  And that's what I like. I like that.
• 1:09:56
  Nice. Nice kind of controlled legs
• 1:09:59
  together. Nice.
• 1:10:00
  I know the picture. That's the funny part, yeah.
• 1:10:02
  Yeah, so it was that that real control.
• 1:10:05
  And that's exactly the same when I drive.
• 1:10:07
  I just like you. I like taking lines.
• 1:10:09
  I like, you know, the occasional little squirt of power, but I
• 1:10:13
  like to be in control and to be neat and to be tidy.
• 1:10:15
  He scares the crap out of me When I start driving fire, I
• 1:10:18
  scare myself. I scare myself.
• 1:10:20
  I once said a nine A964911 which I bought when when I retired
• 1:10:25
  from the tobacco company with with the massive payment that
• 1:10:28
  they gave me, I wanted to buy. I tell you what, I wanted to
• 1:10:31
  buy, I wanted to buy an AR GTV Cup card.
• 1:10:37
  Only 500 of them made a beautiful thing, 3.2 litre
• 1:10:40
  beautiful thing. And we went to look at one and
• 1:10:42
  dad said to me, he said, thought he said it's a great car, you
• 1:10:45
  have a lot of fun. If it's on the road, a lot of
• 1:10:48
  time we'll be in the garage being fixed.
• 1:10:50
  He said, and you know in a year or two time it'll be worth half
• 1:10:52
  of what you pay for it. And he said go and get a
• 1:10:54
  Porsche. And it was one of the best bits
• 1:10:56
  of advice he ever gave to me. So I thought, yeah, never
• 1:10:59
  thought about Porsche, but 964911 and it was the best thing
• 1:11:04
  I have ever owned. I could drive it to the shops, I
• 1:11:07
  could drive it around town. If it was a straight line, it
• 1:11:10
  went like a rocket ship. I'm told it handled quite well.
• 1:11:13
  But I was never, never brave enough to throw it into garden.
• 1:11:16
  Yeah. But I loved it.
• 1:11:17
  I loved, I loved the fact it was it was it was powerful, but it
• 1:11:21
  was poised and it was, it was a beautiful car to drive.
• 1:11:24
  But no, I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not one that gets my kicks
• 1:11:27
  from tyres squealing and and the back end stepping out.
• 1:11:30
  Scares me. Yeah.
• 1:11:33
  We've done one hour and 10 minutes without saying the P
• 1:11:36
  word. We were doing so well.
• 1:11:39
  So a regular theme on this show is that we're always talking
• 1:11:41
  about Porsches. So we had done so well up until
• 1:11:45
  this point. A long time ago, Dan.
• 1:11:47
  And. And when my kids are finished at
• 1:11:49
  school, maybe I'll treat myself to another one at some point.
• 1:11:53
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're just so good, you
• 1:11:55
  know, what can you say? Look so.
• 1:11:57
  So, but The thing is Ryan, I, I'm again one of those people
• 1:12:01
  that, that over the years cars have cost me a lot of money.
• 1:12:04
  You know, I spend a lot of money on them and then sell them for a
• 1:12:08
  lot less or, you know, give them away.
• 1:12:11
  One of only two cars that I've ever owned that I've sold for
• 1:12:15
  more than I bought it for. So I I paid £21,000 for that car
• 1:12:22
  and sold it 18 months later for 20, 2223 thousand.
• 1:12:27
  I think if I still owned it, it would be about 70 or 80,000 lbs.
• 1:12:31
  That's the truth. Thank you, Singer.
• 1:12:33
  Yeah, it's yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:35
  So, yeah, but, but yeah, the other one, the other one
• 1:12:38
  interestingly was my second favorite brand.
• 1:12:39
  Yeah, Saab Saab 95 convertible. Paid £800 for it, sold it for
• 1:12:45
  £850. I I missed Saab.
• 1:12:51
  I missed those interesting cars, you know.
• 1:12:53
  I loved it. It had a button, It had a night
• 1:12:56
  mode button on it. That's right.
• 1:12:57
  Well you pressed the button and everything went dark apart from
• 1:13:01
  the Speedo. That's right.
• 1:13:02
  So the Speedo. In the.
• 1:13:03
  Middle. That's right, it was.
• 1:13:04
  From The Jets, exactly that. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:13:07
  I never treated the night mode as it should be treated.
• 1:13:10
  It's. Bring it to my car for sure.
• 1:13:12
  Yeah. What's next for you, Carl?
• 1:13:13
  What are you up to next? Off to Kenya.
• 1:13:16
  Off to Kenya in a few weeks. And then it gets busy.
• 1:13:19
  We go down to Otago and New Zealand and the the Heartland
• 1:13:25
  rally in SA. Yeah.
• 1:13:27
  It just just gets busy. But it gets busy.
• 1:13:29
  I'd like to slow down a wee bit. But it's, it's, it's, you know,
• 1:13:33
  I mean, it's not like I'm going into to do a proper job every
• 1:13:36
  day. But yeah, it's a busy old time
• 1:13:39
  this time of year. Yeah.
• 1:13:41
  But Kenya, I love, you know, we go and we, we rally amongst the
• 1:13:44
  giraffes and the baboons and the lions and the tigers.
• 1:13:48
  Or is it lions or tigers? We don't do lions and tigers.
• 1:13:51
  Someone like Dan will know what is it?
• 1:13:53
  What is it we have in Africa, Dan?
• 1:13:54
  Is it like it's lions? I think it's lions, yeah.
• 1:13:56
  I think there are other places like India and stuff.
• 1:13:59
  Aren't they? That's it.
• 1:13:59
  Yeah, no, Yeah. And it's it's the most
• 1:14:01
  remarkable thing. I absolutely love.
• 1:14:03
  I love going to Kenya. So that's next on the next on
• 1:14:06
  the agenda. Fun sounds fun.
• 1:14:09
  Yeah, it is always. Cool.
• 1:14:11
  If people want to follow your adventures, what is the best way
• 1:14:15
  to to do so? Well, dart fish, dart fish is
• 1:14:19
  you are is is AUS company I work for.
• 1:14:22
  We are we're the probably the world's number one rallying
• 1:14:25
  media. We're there on Instagram, on
• 1:14:28
  YouTube, TikTok, even I don't really know what TikTok is.
• 1:14:33
  Kids do apparently we've got apparently we've got a million
• 1:14:35
  followers on TikTok, would you believe?
• 1:14:38
  Yeah, apparently I don't get involved much in that, but we're
• 1:14:41
  there. We're on Facebook.
• 1:14:43
  It's all the kids. Absolutely, absolutely for the
• 1:14:47
  kids. But yeah, they can follow that
• 1:14:49
  or just look me up calling Clark Rally and you'll, you'll find me
• 1:14:52
  on, on all of those platforms as well.
• 1:14:54
  But, yeah, you know, just just look up rallying.
• 1:14:57
  And, and if, if rallying is something that's new to you and
• 1:14:59
  you're just discovering it with this talk, then goodness me,
• 1:15:02
  you've got a wonderful voyage of discovery in front of you
• 1:15:05
  because there's so much, so much out there to enjoy with
• 1:15:08
  rallying. Yeah.
• 1:15:09
  Yeah, no, if you go to YouTube, for example, and search for Dirt
• 1:15:12
  Fish, you'll see multiple, multiple videos with Colin
• 1:15:16
  sharing interviews with drivers, sharing some of the highlights
• 1:15:21
  from from the basically the, you know, the different events.
• 1:15:25
  So definitely do that. Check Colin's personal Instagram
• 1:15:28
  account out because that's where he's got a lot of the car stuff
• 1:15:31
  and a lot of the photography that he does.
• 1:15:34
  Right, I love seeing pictures. Any closing thoughts from you?
• 1:15:37
  Yeah, just that our buddy John Dicey at Porsche Colorado
• 1:15:40
  Springs recently, well I guess it was probably 6 months ago
• 1:15:42
  now, was that Dirtfish? And he said that was the best
• 1:15:45
  time he had ever had behind the wheel of a car.
• 1:15:47
  And that says a lot because he's driven a lot of cool cars.
• 1:15:50
  So shout out to Dirtfish and. No, that's very kind of a man.
• 1:15:53
  And you know what's great about Dirtfish is that we have some
• 1:15:56
  some really good cars, but more than that we've got some top
• 1:15:59
  quality instructors. They are the very, very best and
• 1:16:02
  they'll we've got how, how many kilometers down.
• 1:16:05
  You'll know we've got many, many kilometers.
• 1:16:07
  Acres of of dirt and woodland and and the guys are actually in
• 1:16:13
  in I think they're northern Michigan right now teaching
• 1:16:15
  people to do it on the ice as well.
• 1:16:17
  So check out dirt. Very cool for all the details.
• 1:16:20
  Yeah, absolutely. No, it's a great place to go to
• 1:16:22
  land to you know what, even even for folk who don't necessarily
• 1:16:26
  want to become rally drivers, if you just want to understand how
• 1:16:30
  to drive your Rd. car better, you know it.
• 1:16:32
  It's fantastically useful to have a day or two skidding
• 1:16:35
  around and and learning about weight transfer, about breaking,
• 1:16:39
  about apexes and cornering it. It teaches you so much.
• 1:16:42
  Even for someone like me, it thought it taught me a huge
• 1:16:45
  amount about how to get the best out of my car.
• 1:16:48
  Yeah, no, I I agree. Well, Carl, thank you so much.
• 1:16:51
  We really love catching up with you this.
• 1:16:53
  Is great. Always entertaining, it's always
• 1:16:55
  informational and you know, those are certainly signs of a a
• 1:16:59
  true great journalist. So I'm going to officially say
• 1:17:02
  that you are a journalist. And for those listening,
• 1:17:06
  especially my friends in Peru, thank you for listening.
• 1:17:10
  Until next week, this has been That Car Show and Ryan take us
• 1:17:14
  out. Until then, always be driving.
• 1:17:16
  Thanks so much, Colin. Thanks guys for having me.