Latest / Rusty's Garage / Bill Woods (Part 1)

Transcript

Bill Woods (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:29
  I'm at Fox Sports News Studios in Sydney for this episode, not all that far from Central Railway Station, and I'm catching up with an old colleague, Bill Woods, who's getting ready to do the evening bulletins here.
• 0:40
  We worked together for over a decade at Channel 10 when the Australian Commercial Network had the lion's share of motorsport broadcast rights.
• 0:48
  I mean, they had just about everything, and Billy was the man, the front man, for all the big events and panel shows.
• 0:55
  I learned a lot from him.
• 0:57
  In this chat, we'll reminisce for a bit, forgive the indulgence there, but I reckon you'll enjoy the insights, particularly about the late, great Barry Sheen, who was as much a friend as a workmate.
• 1:08
  The journey for Billy started on the south coast of Sydney and as you'll hear, media wasn't the first career path he took.
• 1:15
  Grew up in Morooya, small country town.
• 1:18
  And in those days, you're either a Holden or a Ford family.
• 1:21
  We always had Holdens, and usually a Holdens station wagon.
• 1:25
  First car I got, I bought off my old man for a couple of grand.
• 1:28
  Not cash, I had to work it off.
• 1:30
  He had this ledger every Saturday and whatever.
• 1:32
  I was helping him out with the business.
• 1:34
  So after we racked up two grand's worth, I think he was probably generous, I don't know, uh...
• 1:39
  I got the Kingswood and that was a wagon because I was playing the drums in a band and I also had to lay carpet.
• 1:44
  That was my trade as a teenager.
• 1:47
  And so I had the station wagon, three on the stick.
• 1:51
  It was all good.
• 1:52
  So my mate had a Tarana.
• 1:55
  Never forget once.
• 1:56
  One of my mates had a drive of this car, this Tirana, and he put a helmet on just for fun because we all wanted to be Peter Brock back in those days.
• 2:06
  And here he is driving along with a helmet, about 100km on the highway, perfectly legal, I might add, coming up to a sweeping left-hander, and he decides to take his helmet off and it gets stuck.
• 2:16
  And he can't see.
• 2:19
  So here's me trying to steer the Tirana from the passenger seat with my hand.
• 2:24
  And in those days, obviously, the cars weren't quite as precise as they are now, so it was a bit hairy.
• 2:28
  Eventually, my other mate in the back seat ripped the helmet off him and we got it under control.
• 2:33
  But, yeah, this Ford Holden thing was so strong that my mate that owned the Tirana actually started going out with another friend of ours, and her father ran the local Ford dealership.
• 2:44
  Oh, ho, ho.
• 2:44
  And there was huge problems.
• 2:47
  And I'll never forget the day he came to me, he would have been 19.
• 2:50
  He said, oh, what's he?
• 2:51
  I'm getting rid of the Tirana.
• 2:53
  I'm going to buy myself a falcon.
• 2:55
  I wouldn't talk to him.
• 2:56
  He was set on that girl, wasn't he?
• 2:58
  Well, they're still married to this day, I might add.
• 3:00
  They're close friends of mine.
• 3:01
  But I wouldn't talk to him for ages.
• 3:03
  He was that strong.
• 3:04
  I had another mate who was a Ford.
• 3:05
  I mean, it really, it ran through the social fabric.
• 3:10
  If people went and bought a Ford, even if it was another guy went and bought a Mustang, one of the...
• 3:16
  Yeah, not a, not a, one of my mates, obviously, a parent.
• 3:21
  And that was the subject of great ridicule and hatred.
• 3:25
  But, of course, secretly you were going past, that thing actually looks pretty good.
• 3:29
  You just weren't allowed to say it.
• 3:32
  I want to get to what you touched on before about the carpet laying.
• 3:34
  You and I share a little something in common, and that is we've ended up in the media, but we had a different career to begin with.
• 3:40
  So mine was banking and finance.
• 3:42
  You're a carpet layer.
• 3:43
  And, mate, I'm sure I've got this right.
• 3:45
  One night you were presenting either the news or sport at 10, and as you do, you form a great relationship with the floor manager, the cameraman, the people around you.
• 3:55
  Did one of them say to you, hey, mate, when you're done here, can you come around and help me lay some carpet at the week?
• 4:01
  That's exactly right.
• 4:03
  I can't remember who it was, but I know one of our reporters, John Hill, used to jokingly say to me, oh, Woodsy, can you come and lay some carpet for me?
• 4:10
  Other people would often ask me to do it, mostly as a joke, but even well into my media career, reading news and earning pretty good coin, I was still laying carpet for relatives and things like that.
• 4:26
  So was the station wagon the car, or did you get a ute or something when you're doing that?
• 4:30
  That's a funny story.
• 4:31
  The station wagon I had for a few years and then I went to university, had absolutely zero money.
• 4:37
  In fact, you know, I admit I wouldn't have voted for him, but thanks to Gough Whitlam, I probably, you know, wouldn't have gone to uni if it hadn't been for the free education thing.
• 4:46
  So I finished up.
• 4:49
  The Kingswood got too thirsty for me.
• 4:51
  And it started to get a bit old and the repairs were piling up.
• 4:55
  Mum and Dad had bought a Gemini.
• 4:56
  Just, I don't know, don't ask me why.
• 4:58
  But Dad bought a Gemini, I guess because it was a Holden and it was the latest thing.
• 5:02
  And they had then retired from the business.
• 5:06
  I was supposed to take over the family carpet laying business and I didn't.
• 5:09
  So they sold it, retired.
• 5:11
  And we finished up swapping cars.
• 5:13
  They got the Kingswood back because they weren't driving as much.
• 5:15
  They had dogs.
• 5:16
  And I still needed a little wagon, but it was a lot cheaper to maintain.
• 5:20
  And so I went from that to a Gemini.
• 5:23
  And it wasn't until...
• 5:25
  I got married and Leanne and I bought a little Corolla because, again, we're just trying to save money.
• 5:32
  And I don't think there was anything then.
• 5:33
  There might have been a Berina or something available or an Astra.
• 5:38
  But I finally departed the fold.
• 5:41
  I had to go for something a bit more, you know, practical.
• 5:45
  People listening to the podcast will fondly remember, as I do, mate, a great chapter at 10 Motorsport, which kind of really began, I suppose, in the mid-'90s.
• 5:55
  Great period for all forms of the sport, and you were the front man, mate.
• 6:00
  What connection...
• 6:02
  or perhaps what coverage of the sport had you done prior to that?
• 6:05
  Because I think you had a stint at 2WS in radio too, didn't you?
• 6:08
  Yep.
• 6:08
  I'd only done the average sports journo's coverage of Bathurst, basically.
• 6:14
  But I do remember before we even got a sniff of motorsport at 10, for years there weren't many guys in the newsroom that were that interested in it.
• 6:21
  So whenever an important thing came up, I remember doing...
• 6:24
  exhaustive, glamorous packages, which is what we call a TV report, for big Formula One races, for example, between Centre and Prost, et cetera, et cetera.
• 6:35
  And WS, even though they hadn't actually sent me to Bathurst, I was still compiling lots of Bathurst reports.
• 6:40
  See, we had Mike Raymond working for WS in those days.
• 6:43
  So Mike basically did all the stuff from Bathurst, and I was sort of compiling it back in Sydney, which is a bit...
• 6:49
  Difficult for me, but at least we're covering it.
• 6:52
  And, you know, you just do your job.
• 6:54
  Anyway, but what they did do at WS is send me to Adelaide for a Grand Prix in 86, I think it was.
• 6:59
  And I met a whole bunch of guys who were doing the circuit there, reporters, who showed me around how to get – because there were guys like Mark Fogarty who were genuine roundsmen.
• 7:08
  who were covering F1 all the time.
• 7:09
  And they introduced me to Ayrton Centre and Alan Prost, Nigel Mansell, Gerhard Berger.
• 7:15
  I even ran into Barry for the first time at the 86th Grand Prix.
• 7:19
  All those people that these guys helped me.
• 7:21
  And I'll never forget the help they gave me back in those days, mentoring, showing me around.
• 7:25
  I didn't have the guts to walk up to Ayrton Centre in the back of a pit garage and say, oh, Ayrton, do you mind having an interview?
• 7:30
  I didn't know it was possible, but it was.
• 7:32
  And, of course, it wouldn't be now.
• 7:34
  But in those days, that was how you did it.
• 7:37
  And those guys said, well, you know, you don't walk in the front, you go in the back, you don't avoid this person because he'll try and block you.
• 7:43
  All these little tips, they were so good to me.
• 7:46
  And I had a great time there.
• 7:47
  So I had an interest in it but never had access to it as a rights holder, as you would know yourself, same sort of situation.
• 7:54
  And when 10 started getting some motorsport from about 96 onwards, started with the Sandown 500...
• 7:59
  And then we got Indy, I think, and then on and on and on it went.
• 8:01
  And they accumulated everything after a while.
• 8:03
  And, of course, you and I were rubbing our hands thinking, how good is this?
• 8:06
  Yeah, it was an awesome period, mate.
• 8:09
  We'll get to it a bit later in the podcast.
• 8:11
  Nowadays, it's Bill and Boz.
• 8:13
  Great panel show that you have with Mark Bosnich here at Fox Sports.
• 8:15
  But motorsport fans will fondly remember the odd couple, Bill and Baz.
• 8:21
  Barry Sheen, who you mentioned a moment ago.
• 8:23
  You've just told us about your first meeting with him.
• 8:26
  What about the first time you started working together at Channel 10, some of those early memories of working with a great man?
• 8:31
  That was hilarious.
• 8:32
  I was terrified.
• 8:33
  Really?
• 8:33
  Because, well, I was never a rider.
• 8:36
  As much as I respected it, loved it, I had mates who rode, I had no difficulty with it at all, but it just had never become part of my life because I either couldn't afford to have a bike as a second vehicle, I needed a station wagon for most of my career.
• 8:50
  And once I got married, if you know Leanne, she was never letting me ride a bike.
• 8:56
  So I had this weirdness about all appreciation but no experience.
• 9:00
  And I just said to Barry, teach me everything you can.
• 9:03
  And basically I sat there.
• 9:05
  And I think one of the things that got us together were two things.
• 9:08
  Initially, my approach was not as a smart ass.
• 9:10
  I said to Baz, I want to learn as much as I can.
• 9:13
  I'll do play by play.
• 9:14
  I'll call what I see.
• 9:15
  But you do all the explanation.
• 9:17
  And you, as we go along, you teach me what not to say to fall into any pitfalls.
• 9:22
  Not that I didn't, I still did, but, you know, trying to do it the best way I can.
• 9:26
  The other thing was, as you know, this wicked sense of schoolboy humour.
• 9:29
  We were like two little kids and we couldn't help ourselves.
• 9:33
  And you've been in those production meetings where we'd have, you know, a serious, well-meaning...
• 9:38
  very credible producer trying to hold a meeting about the next eight hours of TV we're going to do, and we'd all be giggling like idiots and cracking jokes.
• 9:47
  We'd all done our homework.
• 9:48
  He knew it.
• 9:50
  He knew that we weren't going to let him down, that we were totally committed to the job, but we're all just acting like idiots.
• 9:56
  And that was one thing we had in common.
• 9:58
  If someone said something that had a slight double meaning, we'd see the rudeness of it.
• 10:04
  And it was just, you know, you were part of it, we were all part of it.
• 10:08
  It became just a huge team of guys who just loved having a joke but also loved what we did.
• 10:13
  He would often say before we went on air, they'd be counting down, there'd be seconds to go, and he would say, yeah, let's have a laugh.
• 10:19
  It was his kind of mantra, which I loved.
• 10:22
  And there were funny things that people listening won't realise.
• 10:26
  In the commercial, the famous commercial with Dick Johnson about, you know, it's a Kit Kat or whatever, we had a stash of Kit Kats in the drawer at Channel 10 for him, didn't we?
• 10:34
  Yep.
• 10:34
  We had a stash of Kit Kats.
• 10:36
  When we did the late-night MotoGP calls, it was, you know, 500cc back then.
• 10:43
  Baz was...
• 10:46
  He was always coming from his hotel room and he'd have half a bottle of wine with him just for a warm-up.
• 10:53
  So we'd all have a glass of wine.
• 10:54
  But there was one night we were still having that glass of wine as we started the race.
• 10:58
  Paz has knocked it over and it spilled all over the desk.
• 11:03
  We started giggling and the poor old producer was saying, What's wrong?
• 11:06
  What's wrong?
• 11:06
  I'm not hearing any commentary.
• 11:12
  Anyway, there's stuff like that.
• 11:13
  I think some of the better ones, I mean, you'd be aware, we taped your driving shoes to the ceiling of the room.
• 11:21
  We're in Darwin.
• 11:21
  Yeah, just before you were... Oh, I hit the roof.
• 11:24
  I had a full sense of humour.
• 11:25
  If you'd hit the roof, you would have found them.
• 11:29
  But we were, yeah, and you were only a minute away from going on air.
• 11:33
  Stupid stuff like that.
• 11:34
  People's phones got hidden.
• 11:35
  My phone was in Arabic, all that sort of stuff.
• 11:38
  But the best one, I think, of all those things was when Baz almost had me arrested in Perth.
• 11:44
  We're over there for Rally Australia, and he begged me to drive down this pedestrian mall, which was totally illegal.
• 11:49
  So I'm driving a hire car down this pedestrian mall with all these...
• 11:53
  Oh, we're fine, Bill.
• 11:54
  This is all right.
• 11:54
  Exactly.
• 11:55
  You know how it would go.
• 11:57
  And little old ladies turning around in horror thinking, what the fuck is this car doing here?
• 12:02
  And the reason was Lee Diffie was doing a stage presentation for 10 with some of the rally guys, and we were there to sort of, I don't know, be part of a panel.
• 12:10
  I can't remember.
• 12:11
  It was something on stage.
• 12:12
  Anyway, Baz wouldn't stop and walk the, you know, 500 metres or so to the thing.
• 12:18
  He had to be driven right up to the stage.
• 12:19
  Exactly.
• 12:20
  We get to the stage, we've parked the car beside the stage, and I'm sweating bullets.
• 12:25
  Anyway, we're hanging around waiting for Stiffy to finish his thing, and then this copper comes up to me and says, Are you Bill Woods?
• 12:32
  Yeah.
• 12:32
  Is that your car over there?
• 12:36
  I said, well, yeah.
• 12:37
  Well, it's a hire car, but anyway, he goes, did you drive it here?
• 12:40
  I said, yes, I did.
• 12:42
  And he goes, well, I'm going to have to arrest you because that's so illegal.
• 12:45
  You know, there's so many laws you've broken doing that.
• 12:48
  And I'm thinking, how do I get out of this?
• 12:51
  So I go, well, I work for Channel 10.
• 12:52
  Does that help?
• 12:53
  I said, oh, we're doing the Rally Australia.
• 12:55
  This is good for tourism.
• 12:56
  I'm just telling him all the shit I can think of.
• 12:59
  Anyway.
• 13:00
  After a while, I hear this laughter coming from behind the stage.
• 13:04
  There's Baz literally falling over with laughter.
• 13:07
  And finally the cop starts to laugh as well.
• 13:10
  He did a great job, that copper.
• 13:12
  He really had me going.
• 13:13
  And then there was the other time when Baz, again, refusing to have to walk anywhere.
• 13:18
  He and I are driving up to our hosting position for one of the day's coverages at Rally HQ.
• 13:26
  And...
• 13:27
  He's driven through this section that we were allowed to go into and he said, that's not close enough.
• 13:33
  So he keeps driving and there's this bloke chasing us because we've driven somewhere we're not supposed to be and eventually we get onto a dirt road and there's this other bloke stopping and waving his arms and blocking the road.
• 13:43
  And Baz said, listen, job's worth.
• 13:46
  He used to call everyone jobsworth.
• 13:48
  It's more than my jobsworth to let you through.
• 13:50
  Exactly.
• 13:51
  This is jobsworth.
• 13:52
  Just let us go.
• 13:53
  We're working here.
• 13:53
  And he goes, Mr Sheen, excuse me, but if you don't get off this track, Colin McRae is going to come through here at about 150 kilometres an hour and he's not going to be able to stop.
• 14:04
  It was like, I'm glad we're sharing these yarns, this is terrific.
• 14:08
  It was like a military exercise.
• 14:09
  I can recall going with him to Phillip Island one time and it was race day.
• 14:14
  And we had an hour and a half before we were on air and he says, right, for us to come with me, because you get the rental car,
• 14:21
  We're going to park it right out the front of the track.
• 14:24
  And when I say park out the front of the track, we were on the grass verge near the entry sign or whatever it was to Phillip Island.
• 14:29
  It was as close to the exit as you could make it.
• 14:32
  He followed me up with the moped, with the Vespa, whatever it was.
• 14:35
  I jumped on the back road back in with him, and he had the whole getaway plan figured.
• 14:39
  It was like, thanks, we'll see you next time.
• 14:41
  Hope you've enjoyed the coverage.
• 14:42
  Bye for now.
• 14:43
  And then he'd have the bike fired up.
• 14:44
  We'd roar out to the front on the bike, and we'd make the big escape mission.
• 14:47
  He was unbelievable like that, wasn't he?
• 14:49
  Didn't like a crowd, didn't like to be held up.
• 14:52
  He was so connected.
• 14:53
  You know, he would be probably the first superstar you and I ever worked with and globally.
• 14:59
  Funnily enough, in the country that he lived in for so many years of his life, there were a lot of people who probably had no appreciation of how big he was.
• 15:06
  As you well know, he taught Princes William and Harry to drive go-cars.
• 15:11
  He knew everybody and he was so well connected.
• 15:14
  Elton John and Billy Joel were doing a concert in Sydney one time
• 15:19
  never bought tickets for myself and my wife to go.
• 15:22
  Yeah, all that stuff, the usual thing you do.
• 15:24
  And Baz goes, well, do you want to go or not?
• 15:27
  And I said, of course I'd like to go.
• 15:29
  So he picks up the phone and goes, hello, Elton.
• 15:32
  I need two tickets.
• 15:33
  Within an hour, Leanne and I were six rows back from the stage watching this.
• 15:38
  And there was another time that I went to interview Carmelo Espeleta over in Barcelona.
• 15:46
  And anyway, Carmelo's very friendly, as you know.
• 15:51
  They were always very nice to deal with.
• 15:53
  Anyway, I'm sitting down.
• 15:54
  Just before I did the interview, Carmelo goes, is Barry with you?
• 15:58
  In his heavily English accent.
• 16:00
  Spanish accent.
• 16:01
  And I sort of looked at him and I said, yeah, he is actually.
• 16:04
  And Carmelo had a look of horror on his face.
• 16:06
  And I said, what's wrong?
• 16:07
  He said, where is he?
• 16:08
  I said, why do you ask?
• 16:10
  He goes, well, the last time he came to Catalonia, he stole my helicopter.
• 16:17
  He won't notice it's gone.
• 16:17
  We'll put it back.
• 16:20
  I went, I don't know how true it was, but for Carmelo, he was that afraid.
• 16:25
  But at the same meeting, a guy walked up to Baz and said, I bet you don't know me.
• 16:31
  And you've had a story like this.
• 16:33
  And Baz goes, give me a second.
• 16:35
  Just give me a second.
• 16:36
  He was brilliant.
• 16:37
  And eventually he'd say, you know, you're Bob Smith and you were one of my dad's mechanics and I met you.
• 16:43
  He knew everybody.
• 16:44
  He never forgot a face or a name.
• 16:47
  I'm really good at faces, but I'm terrible at names.
• 16:49
  I've probably upset a lot of people over the years who I actually liked a lot.
• 16:53
  Knew their faces, couldn't think of the name, but Baz never, ever missed a name or a face.
• 16:58
  He had an amazing memory because, what, seven languages?
• 17:00
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  Yeah.
• 17:02
  Yeah.
• 17:02
  He taught – there was one supercars round that you and I were doing at Winton, and it was at the time where the sport was big on expanding its international profile.
• 17:12
  So we're going to all these different countries of the supercar coverage, and Tony Cochran, I think, said, what we need is a couple of opening hostings in these other languages.
• 17:19
  Wow.
• 17:19
  So Baz would go around and teach the drivers, and I can recall him teaching Russell Ingle Spanish or something or other, and I was always worried, is he telling Russell really the correct words?
• 17:30
  That's exactly what I think.
• 17:32
  I can just imagine Russell saying, and make sure you keep your balls clean every time you, you know, something like that.
• 17:40
  I can just imagine there'd be some slight little change in the meeting because Baz couldn't resist it.
• 17:58
  Automotive engineering is a combination of mechanical, electrical and material science.
• 18:03
  So pretty much you're a mad scientist.
• 18:06
  He lived on another...
• 18:08
  Plain to the average human being.
• 18:10
  I mean, with the helicopters and the wealth and all and the associations he had.
• 18:15
  But you know what?
• 18:16
  He still had very down to earth and basic values.
• 18:20
  And I know he was a lad and all those things.
• 18:22
  There's no doubt about that.
• 18:23
  But, you know, we often had our most meaningful and sort of close discussions about our kids.
• 18:29
  But anything like that that was personal and he was so connected with you that way.
• 18:35
  It wasn't like it was all fun and games, but if you had a problem, he didn't want to know about it.
• 18:40
  It wasn't like that, was it?
• 18:41
  He was always so thoughtful and caring.
• 18:44
  He's gone now, sadly, but I reckon he still had his first dollar.
• 18:47
  He was unbelievable like that.
• 18:50
  We went, all of us, you may have been with us.
• 18:52
  We went to dinner one night in Brisbane.
• 18:54
  We were there for the supercars and we went to an Italian restaurant, beautiful.
• 18:58
  At the end of it, as he often did, he went behind the coffee machine and he was making the coffees and chatting in Italian to them and things like that.
• 19:05
  Awesome night.
• 19:06
  And at the end of it, he pulls out his platinum Amex and goes, boys...
• 19:11
  This one's on me.
• 19:13
  And Lee Diffie and I are looking at one another going, can you believe this?
• 19:15
  Like Barry Sheen is buying us dinner.
• 19:17
  This is unbelievable.
• 19:19
  So the next day, our then boss, David White, arrives and we're just chewing the fat as we're going.
• 19:24
  I said, Chief, you'll never believe it.
• 19:26
  Baz bought us dinner last night.
• 19:28
  He goes, oh, I know.
• 19:29
  He's faxed me the receipt for payment already.
• 19:33
  He did the same thing to me.
• 19:35
  He did the same thing to me.
• 19:36
  There was always one dinner.
• 19:38
  But I'll tell you what, we were in Kuala Lumpur.
• 19:41
  very early in the piece, and it was actually our fact-gathering race.
• 19:46
  It was the first year we'd done it together, so we went to a race so we could learn, you know, Baz's introduction to Mick and all those things.
• 19:52
  So it was a real busy weekend.
• 19:54
  Pang, hot, humid.
• 19:55
  Yeah, and we were getting... And Baz was basically coaching me.
• 19:58
  You know, this was my big initiation sort of thing into the real world.
• 20:02
  So anyway, we retired that night and had a nice dinner, and I remember having some kind of pasta with lobster in it,
• 20:10
  And one of my terrible habits, whether it was the motorsport days or any of the other stuff I've done, if I ever had a nice meal, I couldn't help it, but I'd ring my wife up and tell her what a nice meal I was having.
• 20:19
  And there you are sitting at home, look what I'm having sort of thing.
• 20:22
  And just as a joke, it never went down that well, funnily enough, but I couldn't help it.
• 20:27
  Anyway, so this night, because Leanne's favourite food is lobster, so I've rung her up and I've gone, hello, love.
• 20:33
  What time is it back home?
• 20:34
  I'm eating lobster.
• 20:36
  Anyway, Baz goes, you're so cruel.
• 20:39
  What would you do that to your poor wife for?
• 20:41
  Anyway, about two years later, we're having one of our annual RPM meetings, and it was at my place in Sydney, and you were probably there.
• 20:50
  Baz flew down from Queensland, gets the driver to stop by the fish markets on the way to our place and walks in with a couple of lobsters for Leanne.
• 21:00
  He never forgot.
• 21:01
  Yeah, unreal.
• 21:02
  It was years later.
• 21:04
  I can remember it.
• 21:06
  He did a few cheeky fun things.
• 21:08
  Helen Colantonio, who worked with you and I, she was in a producer role, Greek origins, lovely girl.
• 21:16
  We were somewhere for some motorsport stuff at one point and he turns up on the MV Augusta and she's never been on the back of a motorbike before.
• 21:24
  And he says, oh, oh, we'll just trundle around, jump on the back, I'll just, I'll look after you.
• 21:31
  And, of course, the very first thing he did was let go of the clutch and then popping a mono on the way out of the track or wherever we were going to.
• 21:37
  And she's screaming, absolutely.
• 21:39
  But, I mean, he loved her.
• 21:41
  He did everything to look after.
• 21:43
  He was that kind of guy.
• 21:45
  You've raised a couple of good things, which I like.
• 21:47
  Firstly, to wrap up some stuff on Baz,
• 21:50
  People may not realise, mate, he had it in his contract, didn't he?
• 21:52
  No ties, got to wear jeans, that sort of – he was really – but you did go – I think, didn't you guys go to the Melbourne Cup one year and he tried every which way but loose to get out of wearing a suit and tie?
• 22:03
  Maybe he went with Russell Ingle, but in the end they made him wear one, didn't they?
• 22:07
  I do vaguely remember it.
• 22:08
  I can't remember whether I was there.
• 22:09
  But I know it was a political crisis.
• 22:12
  It was like, you know – How can I get out?
• 22:15
  Yeah, but you've reminded me about the contract thing.
• 22:20
  I'll never forget the first time he did a contract.
• 22:24
  Mike Ortson, who was head of sport, poor bugger, he's no longer with us.
• 22:28
  Mike was on the plane with Baz all the way to wherever we were going.
• 22:33
  Basically, I think the only reason Mike went was because he still hadn't got Baz to sign the damn thing and there was all these little clauses that he had to iron out.
• 22:40
  And...
• 22:42
  Baz and I were as normal sitting together.
• 22:44
  Mike comes up and says, do you mind if I sit with Baz because we've got to sort this contract out?
• 22:48
  It won't take long.
• 22:49
  Basically, you've just got to get his signature.
• 22:50
  I think it was a 15-hour flight and they were still on, still trying to sort it out by the time we landed.
• 22:57
  Oh, gosh.
• 22:58
  And he was, yeah, I sometimes wonder...
• 23:03
  Baz could have easily in his twilight years been our manager, Rusty, and you and I probably would have been superstars.
• 23:08
  But he was amazing that way.
• 23:11
  He rang Volvo once when I didn't have a car deal or something, and he rang Volvo.
• 23:15
  I get a call from Volvo, and they said, oh, Mr Woods, you know, we need to have a meeting about possibly doing some deal.
• 23:22
  I never did it, but...
• 23:23
  They said having a meeting about doing a car deal, and I said, what's all this about?
• 23:27
  And he said, well, I presume Barry Sheen's a friend of yours because he rang me and told me I was an absolute idiot if I didn't hire Bill Woods to drive Volvo's.
• 23:36
  He did that stuff, I love it.
• 23:39
  But he did that kind of behind-the-scenes thing.
• 23:41
  Yeah.
• 23:42
  Our good mate, Lee Diffie, has worked very hard and carved his own path initially when he left Australia in the UK and with the World Superbike Championship and then in America with the great stuff that he's doing now.
• 23:54
  But Baz did, from memory, make a little phone call to the BBC when he first left here and...
• 24:01
  stressed in a similar way that you really need to have a look at this guy.
• 24:04
  But look, let's not muck around.
• 24:05
  Nearly everybody needs a leg up because, unfortunately, the world doesn't work purely on merit.
• 24:13
  You've got to...
• 24:14
  It's not what you know, it's who you know.
• 24:16
  And if you can't get somebody at some stage to get a door open for you at least, then, you know, you...
• 24:25
  you're very unlucky because that's basically how a lot of these things happen.
• 24:28
  And Baz was amazing.
• 24:29
  He's only too willing to do that.
• 24:30
  He had to be worth it, but he'd do it.
• 24:32
  That was a true mark of his character, wasn't it?
• 24:34
  How did you feel, mate, when you learnt that he had cancer and his passing rocked all of us, didn't it?
• 24:42
  Yeah, I know.
• 24:42
  I, yeah, it was, again, when you know a bloke like that, you don't...
• 24:51
  imagine them being normal humans with normal problems, if you know what I'm saying.
• 24:57
  It's like we all near Baz smoked a lot, and I used to actually chide him about it.
• 25:02
  I wouldn't say we ever argued about it, but, you know, he used to tell me to shut up a few times.
• 25:09
  But...
• 25:11
  When we first found out, and he was pretty open with us because it was a losing battle, it was devastating because, I don't know, we just never thought it would happen to him.
• 25:23
  He was indestructible, especially what he'd been through with his career and everything.
• 25:27
  We'd all seen the videos and all those sort of things, and we literally thought he was indestructible.
• 25:31
  And you and I both did a similar thing, that we went up to see him towards the end.
• 25:36
  Unfortunately for me...
• 25:40
  it was just before our first Australian Grand Prix coverage.
• 25:43
  It was the only piece of the puzzle 10 didn't have.
• 25:46
  We got the rights to Formula One.
• 25:47
  And Baz was so excited about that and played a major role in us getting the rights to it.
• 25:53
  Because of his contacts there, he knew Herbie Blash, all those people.
• 25:58
  Anyway, he...
• 26:02
  Well, I don't want to talk about some of the aspects of that day, but one of the funny ones is he had an F1 handbook which was exclusive to the people in Formula 1, which was like a guidebook to the next season.
• 26:15
  And he said, oh, I must give it to you before you go.
• 26:17
  And I must say, and you went up at a similar time, he was in pretty bad shape by then.
• 26:22
  He was almost hard to recognise.
• 26:25
  And the bugger, he handed me this book and he said, no, I'm not giving it to you for keeps, you've got to give it back.
• 26:32
  I thought, thank you, mate.
• 26:34
  And I said, and I will.
• 26:35
  I'll come back and give it to you after the Grand Prix.
• 26:37
  But, of course, we found out during that weekend that he'd gone, and he probably knew it too.
• 26:42
  You made an unbelievable mark on that whole period of Channel 10.
• 26:46
  It was amazing, mate.
• 26:47
  The best ride you've had.
• 26:49
  I reckon I can recall you going for a ride with Kenneth Erickson in the Subaru WRX WRC car it might have been.
• 26:55
  What else did you do, and what's the one that impressed you the most?
• 27:02
  I did, as you did, the Randy Mammler ride.
• 27:04
  The scariest ride.
• 27:05
  Let's start at the top.
• 27:06
  Yeah.
• 27:07
  The scariest ride was clearly the… Moto G2C.
• 27:12
  Yeah, but I'm just trying to think.
• 27:13
  I think I… Who did it first?
• 27:15
  Yamaha or Ducati?
• 27:16
  Yamaha.
• 27:16
  I did the Yamaha.
• 27:17
  Okay.
• 27:18
  Was it the M1?
• 27:18
  I don't remember.
• 27:19
  I can only remember the Ducati.
• 27:20
  You did Ducati.
• 27:21
  I did Yamaha.
• 27:22
  It might have been its last year too.
• 27:23
  Okay.
• 27:24
  Anyway, and bloody Mick and Darrell Beattie told Randy to really scare the crap out of me.
• 27:31
  So I'm pretty sure, I stand corrected, but I'm pretty sure we got up to 270 Ks down the straight.
• 27:36
  That's a lot?
• 27:37
  Yeah.
• 27:39
  But he was doing stoppies on the, I think, Lukey Heights,
• 27:44
  We both rose into the air and I was just pooing my pants.
• 27:48
  It was just ridiculous.
• 27:51
  And I can't, I stuck, I tried to, I'm thinking to myself, I've got to make the most of this experience.
• 27:57
  It'll probably never happen again in my life.
• 27:58
  So I've tried to stick my head up to have a bit of a look around.
• 28:00
  As soon as my helmet got out of the slipstream of his, nearly blew my bloody head off.
• 28:06
  Didn't make that mistake again.
• 28:08
  Tried to look sort of sideways, same thing.
• 28:10
  So basically I'm just sort of sitting there tight, hugging or holding onto these bars on the side of the bike and just sort of looking as much as I can to take up as much as Phillip Island from that vantage point, not having ridden around there myself, certainly not at that speed.
• 28:26
  And that was scary and exhilarating at the same time.
• 28:30
  I suppose the next one would have been riding in a sidecar at Eastern Creek, which Channel 10 forbade me to do.
• 28:36
  So did you break the rule and go and do that?
• 28:38
  Yeah, I spoke to David White.
• 28:41
  And here's the funny part.
• 28:43
  There's no footage or evidence of it because of that.
• 28:46
  The camera crew said, you know, I should have got...
• 28:48
  I don't even think we had photographs.
• 28:50
  We didn't have photos on our phones in those days either.
• 28:52
  So I don't think anyone got any record of it at all.
• 28:55
  That's wild that you did that.
• 28:57
  Oh yeah, it was, I wasn't quite prepared for it.
• 29:00
  Well, I was, I did, I did what I was told.
• 29:03
  Um, and that was, you know, obviously we were going a lot slower because I couldn't shift or do anything like a proper, um, pillion rider would do.
• 29:12
  So, um, it was restricted in that sense.
• 29:14
  Cause if I started doing that stuff, I could cause chaos, you know, but I think he told me to do a couple of things.
• 29:20
  Um,
• 29:21
  while we were just a little bit of a lean maybe, you know.
• 29:24
  But it was – to be honest, I was just too busy hanging on.
• 29:27
  I just didn't want to slide off the thing because it's like being on a dinner plate.
• 29:31
  There's not much going on in a racing sidecar.
• 29:35
  It's just got to hang on.
• 29:36
  And it's a bit of a blur actually because it was –
• 29:40
  So scary and it was not sanctioned.
• 29:42
  I mean, I would have loved to have been able to look back at the vision of it, but it just doesn't exist.
• 29:47
  And I didn't have the heart.
• 29:48
  I didn't want to say anything because I distinctly remember being told, no, you're not doing that.
• 29:52
  You're not doing it as a story.
• 29:53
  But you can go out and shoot an interview with them and shoot them riding, but you can't do it as I wrote on a sidecar thing.
• 29:59
  So I went out and I did the story, but I just, yeah.
• 30:02
  Anyway, there was that.
• 30:02
  And the other one that you've done as well is jumping with the Red Berets out of a helicopter at the time.
• 30:08
  in Adelaide.
• 30:08
  And that was the one that I landed in the medalist side.
• 30:11
  Let's talk about that because that is hilarious.
• 30:12
  We were together.
• 30:13
  Can we share this?
• 30:14
  Oh, that's what we did together.
• 30:15
  We were together.
• 30:16
  So to set this in for those of you listening, we're at the Adelaide 500.
• 30:20
  As a part of the promotion in the days leading up to the race, we were asked, would you mind to go with the Red Berets up in the helicopter to 10,000 feet?
• 30:27
  You'll jump out with the good guys.
• 30:30
  You'll be strapped with them, and we're going to land in the circuit.
• 30:34
  So, beauty.
• 30:35
  Up we go.
• 30:35
  I'm thinking – I've never parachuted before.
• 30:37
  I think this is awesome.
• 30:39
  Up we go.
• 30:41
  If you're sitting in the back of a chopper, I'm on the left-hand side.
• 30:43
  You're on the right side.
• 30:45
  And the sliding door opens on your side, the side we're going to bail out of.
• 30:49
  So you're the first one to bail out.
• 30:51
  And my guy says to me, he goes, man, he's screaming because you're up so high and there's lots of air rushing around.
• 30:56
  He goes, man, the wind's changed.
• 30:57
  And I went, oh, what does that mean?
• 31:00
  And I looked across and you're out.
• 31:02
  You're already gone.
• 31:03
  You're away.
• 31:04
  It was one of the most exhilarating things I can ever recall doing.
• 31:07
  It was awesome.
• 31:08
  We land in this paddock, not all that far from the track.
• 31:10
  We're pretty close.
• 31:11
  And I'm looking around going, where's Woodsy?
• 31:13
  Where's Woodsy now?
• 31:15
  Now tell everyone what happened.
• 31:16
  Well, I must admit, if anyone wants to do it, by all means do it.
• 31:20
  Do it with a reputable group of people, of course.
• 31:22
  They're called blokes, actually.
• 31:22
  Oh, the Red Berets, they're army.
• 31:24
  They're just so well-trained.
• 31:25
  We felt safe, didn't we, really?
• 31:27
  We're scared but safe.
• 31:28
  Anyway.
• 31:30
  It was a beautiful experience because you don't realise you're falling.
• 31:34
  You're that high up.
• 31:34
  There's no relativity, is there?
• 31:36
  So you're just a lot of wind noise, but you feel like you're floating.
• 31:39
  It's pretty good.
• 31:40
  Unlike, I'd say, a bungee jump, which I've never done because I just didn't want that feeling of I know I'm falling somewhere and I hope to hell I don't keep going.
• 31:48
  Anyway, when the chute went up...
• 31:52
  We're sort of just gradually, you know, enjoying the scenery.
• 31:56
  And the bloke says to me, oh, yeah, that wind is pretty bad now.
• 32:01
  He said, looks like we'll have to go to plan B.
• 32:03
  And I said, what's plan B?
• 32:04
  And he goes, oh, don't worry.
• 32:05
  We've always got backup places if the wind changes or something else blows us off course.
• 32:11
  And I said, oh, OK, no problems.
• 32:12
  And then he goes after a couple of seconds, looks like we might be going to plan C.
• 32:18
  Anyway, and then after that, it was, I think it might be plan D, was he?
• 32:25
  And I've gone, plan D?
• 32:27
  What's that?
• 32:27
  He goes, well, we don't really have a plan D. We're just going to find a bit of open space.
• 32:32
  Anyway, after a while, I'm sort of thinking, oh, what could go wrong?
• 32:37
  Then I started imagining power poles, trees, church spires.
• 32:41
  Yeah.
• 32:44
  at least there's no one shooting at us.
• 32:45
  There's a plus.
• 32:46
  Anyway, finally, he goes, oh, I've got an idea.
• 32:51
  I think this will work.
• 32:52
  So we go over some trees and there's a clearing.
• 32:55
  And he says, I've spotted this thing.
• 32:56
  This will be all right.
• 32:57
  I'm not quite sure where we are, but there's plenty of room for us here.
• 33:00
  We had a perfect landing.
• 33:01
  We did this sort of sliding thing in, as you probably did.
• 33:04
  And so we're both on our knees and he unstraps me and we get up and he rolls up the chute and we start walking.
• 33:10
  And then these people start walking towards us and I could tell...
• 33:13
  They're kind of a variety of ages.
• 33:15
  So I thought, gee, it's not a school.
• 33:16
  Where the hell are we?
• 33:17
  Is it a hospital?
• 33:19
  Anyway, this young lady walks up to us, and I can't recall...
• 33:26
  whether the parachute...
• 33:28
  I can't recall whether the parachutist had figured it out or whether there was a sign-up that he saw or something, but he's basically said to me, ''We're in an asylum.
• 33:37
  This is a mental hospital.''
• 33:39
  And this lovely young lady walks up to us and says, ''Who are you?''
• 33:45
  And I said, oh, my name's Bill.
• 33:46
  I said, we just parachuted out of a plane.
• 33:48
  She said, out of a helicopter.
• 33:50
  She goes, out of a helicopter?
• 33:51
  What, up there?
• 33:52
  I said, yeah.
• 33:54
  How high?
• 33:55
  I said, oh, I don't know, 8,000 to 10,000 feet.
• 33:57
  I couldn't remember.
• 33:58
  And she goes, and they think we're crazy.
• 34:05
  Just awesome.
• 34:12
  That's the end of part one of my chat with the great Bill Woods.
• 34:15
  If you're keen on some more laughs and backstories from a ripper chapter with 10 Motorsport, make sure you hit the gas on part two.
• 34:26
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 34:30
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 34:33
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 34:42
  Listener.