Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jason Bright (Part 1)

Transcript

Jason Bright (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:10
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:26
  For this ep, I'm in the office at home, surrounded by some motorsport memorabilia and recording gear.
• 0:32
  My guest is on the lounge at his place in Melbourne after a busy day working on his new venture.
• 0:38
  Relatively new anyway, after more than 20 years as a professional in motor racing.
• 0:43
  Jason Bright still loves driving.
• 0:46
  His career in Australia includes a Bathurst 1000 win, a Bathurst 24-hour victory and front-line roles with some of the biggest supercar teams.
• 0:56
  He also spent time racing overseas, notably in America, and stitched together a deal at the turn of the century to campaign an IndyCar at Surface Paradise.
• 1:06
  We'll talk about that and more, including a massive crash in the States, the Bright Tech motorsport team he founded and what happened to it, plus the snap career decision he made after an old boss discovered a fax at the workshop.
• 1:21
  We begin by talking about the impact family had on the life he chose, particularly his father's deep love of the sport.
• 1:28
  I've always sort of described my dad as a car racing nut because he loves all motorsport.
• 1:35
  He follows all kinds of racing all around the world.
• 1:39
  You know, if I need to know who's doing what in what country, I go to him as my source for all of that.
• 1:45
  So, you know, I grew up with motor racing heroes because we didn't go to football games.
• 1:50
  We went to car races and watched Formula One Grand Prix late at night.
• 1:55
  Where did you grow up?
• 1:56
  It was in the Gippsland region, I think, wasn't it?
• 1:58
  And what were the cars in the driveway back then?
• 2:01
  Yeah, so we grew up Latrobe Valley, which is a power generation area of Victoria.
• 2:06
  And my dad worked for the SEC.
• 2:08
  I did my apprenticeship with the SEC, the State Electricity Commission, and had Holdens in the driveway.
• 2:14
  We sort of grew up a Holden family.
• 2:17
  Yeah, I was sort of, I guess growing up, we didn't have the money to sort of go racing even in go karts until we were made redundant.
• 2:28
  And then we had a bit of money to go and play and that was pretty much where my racing started.
• 2:33
  Is it true that some of the family holidays kind of revolved around racing too?
• 2:39
  I think they always have.
• 2:39
  I mean, you know, I went away to car race with my dad, you know, for as long as I can remember.
• 2:46
  I know, you know, our family holiday to Europe back in 1978, you know, certainly centered around going to a few Grand Prix's that my dad had picked out.
• 2:56
  So, you know, I think
• 3:00
  Motorsport's always been a big part of my dad's life.
• 3:03
  And, you know, if he's ever travelled overseas, even, you know, these later years, it's usually centred around, you know, a race at Spa or, you know, the Indianapolis 500.
• 3:15
  I reckon you were five on that trip, about five years of age.
• 3:18
  Was it three GPs you took in?
• 3:20
  Which ones?
• 3:20
  Yeah.
• 3:21
  Yeah, we went to, I had Italian Grand Prix, which was at Monza.
• 3:27
  I think it was actually the weekend that Ronnie Peterson was killed.
• 3:31
  We did Silverstone, I think it was.
• 3:35
  I'm trying to think of the other one.
• 3:36
  It's a few years ago, mate.
• 3:39
  It's been a while, but yeah, I, you know.
• 3:42
  I think we were over there for three months, did three Grand Prix's.
• 3:46
  My dad went over again in 1982 and left me at home that time, which was a bit disappointing because apparently I had to go to school.
• 3:54
  So I sort of paid him back, you know, a fair few years later when I started sort of was old enough to go overseas and left him at home.
• 4:01
  You kept a special piece of memorabilia from that trip too, didn't you?
• 4:06
  I mean, I've always been a bit of a hoarder, but, you know, there was certainly some clothing like just memorabilia and I think there's a, you know, I've got a framed Nicky Louder
• 4:19
  sort of jacket that I was wearing back then.
• 4:22
  Yeah, it was a Parmalade jacket.
• 4:26
  Yeah, so that, you know, it's pretty special.
• 4:27
  It was a special trip, that's for sure.
• 4:29
  You know, I was still, I was very young.
• 4:33
  I think there's a photo of me at the Italian Grand Prix with a Lotus shirt and Ferrari hat.
• 4:39
  Yeah, sort of a little bit confused.
• 4:41
  So who were the heroes for you then?
• 4:43
  Was it sort of Peter Brock locally or was it one of the F1 drivers?
• 4:46
  Who was it?
• 4:47
  Well, I think, I mean, there was certainly an open wheel of focus.
• 4:52
  You know, my dad loves Formula One and has always sort of been into Formula One.
• 4:56
  So, you know, I guess my big hero back then was Gilles Villeneuve.
• 5:02
  And, you know, so and then locally, it was Peter Brock, you know, I was a Holden fan, you know, Brock fan.
• 5:09
  So but yeah, certainly, my bedroom wall was covered in motorsport posters.
• 5:15
  I had one whole wall that was dedicated to Gilles Villeneuve.
• 5:19
  We'll talk about Brock a little bit later in the podcast as well because you got to drive with him and share a 24-hour win and so on.
• 5:27
  The racing, you talked about how it, in a financial sense, I guess, sort of started to come together.
• 5:33
  Were you about 14 or 15 when you first got into a go-kart?
• 5:36
  How old were you?
• 5:37
  Yeah, I wasn't young, you know, by go-karting standards.
• 5:40
  I was 14 and to be honest, I felt like that was probably a benefit.
• 5:44
  You know, by the time I was sort of at the stage where I was getting into cars, I was still very hungry and very eager, whereas, you know, a lot of guys that I knew from go-karts that had been racing since they were seven years old,
• 5:57
  By the time they were 16, 18 years old and ready to get into cars, they were pretty much over being at a racetrack every weekend.
• 6:05
  And so I felt like, you know, even though at the time I felt like I was starting quite late being 14 years old,
• 6:13
  I sort of look back on that and think that it was actually a good thing.
• 6:16
  And I was, you know, I was still very eager all the way through.
• 6:22
  You look at your rise then when you started.
• 6:24
  I mean, senior club champion a year after starting, Victorian champion three years in, and I think you were third in the Aussie titles by about your fourth year.
• 6:33
  I mean, did it come naturally to you?
• 6:35
  It seems like it did.
• 6:37
  Well, I think it helps when you sort of watch motorsport all your life up to then.
• 6:41
  But, you know, I wouldn't say it came naturally.
• 6:44
  You know, there was probably had some pretty good guidance and I became part of Jim Morton's DAP team, you know, back in 1998.
• 6:54
  or end of 1991 and there was certainly some good guidance through that which I think helped me learn a lot about how to get the most out of a go-kart.
• 7:04
  So I think probably the good thing about karting
• 7:08
  was that you learnt to work on your own equipment.
• 7:11
  Back then, we didn't have mechanics to work on the carts, you did it all yourself.
• 7:16
  And that certainly, that carries with you all the way through your career.
• 7:20
  Was it hard on the family, even despite the little windfall, I guess you could call it, from what happened with your dad work-wise and so on?
• 7:28
  Yeah, it was, you know, to be honest, and, you know, thinking back on it, there was a time, you know, when I first got into cars, you know, we were running a Formula Ford, and I really had no idea what I was doing, you know.
• 7:44
  You know, we'd sort of, I'd always prepared my own go-karts, but I really didn't know what I was doing with the Formula Ford.
• 7:50
  And I remember, you know, having a bit of a disagree with my dad and, you know, not knowing,
• 7:56
  you know, what I was doing and, you know, didn't want to sort of put my career in my own hands and make a mess of it.
• 8:03
  And, you know, there were other guys out there at the time that had mechanics and we couldn't afford a mechanic, obviously.
• 8:08
  And I remember he said that, you know, you either have to learn how to do it,
• 8:12
  because no one's going to do it for you.
• 8:14
  And so I did learn how to do it.
• 8:16
  I learned how to, you know, run my own cars.
• 8:19
  And, you know, when I won the championship in Formula Ford, I did that preparing the car completely myself.
• 8:25
  So that was probably one of the most satisfying things that I did was winning the Formula Ford championship.
• 8:31
  while sort of preparing the car full time myself.
• 8:34
  So I think that was a really sort of big turning point in, you know, what I, I guess, had to do to make it work and learn how to prepare the car and, you know, what's going to make it work and, you know, no one else is going to do it for you.
• 8:54
  Some great drivers around then too, mate, because you'd finished third in 1994 behind Stephen Richards and Gavin Monaghan.
• 9:01
  I mean, it is a staple for drivers like you.
• 9:05
  Anyone who's gone on to do some good things in motorsport, no matter what category, has typically had a good upbringing in Formula Ford, haven't they?
• 9:14
  Oh, absolutely.
• 9:15
  I mean, you know, it's been a shame to see the last couple of years where it, you know, has sort of fallen by the wayside a little bit.
• 9:22
  But, you know, I look back on those days, you know, there was great racing, you know, I had a great couple of years in Formula Ford and, you know, bang wheels with Weber and Monaghan and, you know, Lowndes came through there, obviously, you know, I think at one stage, you know, there was,
• 9:42
  you know, 10 or 15 guys in supercars that had all come through Formula Ford in that same sort of period.
• 9:50
  So, you know, we're all, you know, straight out of go-karts.
• 9:55
  There was a lot of guys that, you know, I was racing against in go-karts a couple of years before that in Victoria.
• 10:01
  And, you know, they all managed to progress right through Formula Ford and, you know, through the supercars.
• 10:07
  Tell us about your friendship with Mark Webber.
• 10:10
  Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a, I mean, I guess it was great because it was a good rivalry there.
• 10:15
  You know, we had a great year.
• 10:16
  We, you know, had a lot of good races, but off the track, we actually got on really well as well.
• 10:22
  And, you know, each round our families used to all go out for dinner and, you know, so it was a very strong, you know, rivalry.
• 10:31
  You know, we had...
• 10:33
  I think at one stage there he'd cut up a Valvoline sticker and changed all the words to write something on my car and stuck a sticker on there.
• 10:41
  So I got one of his Yellow Pages stickers and turned the fingers upside down and put it on the back of my car.
• 10:47
  So, yeah, it was good times and, you know, it was great because we were both driving factory sort of supported Van Demons that year.
• 10:58
  You know, it was the first time that Van Diemen had ever sort of supported two drivers in Australia.
• 11:04
  And, you know, so we got on really well and, you know, both went overseas and drove for factory Van Diemen teams the year after.
• 11:11
  You and I, as we sit and chat here now, I can't believe the crazy timing of it.
• 11:15
  A colleague, Aaron Noonan, has literally just shared on social media a photo of you and I from I think your title winning year from 95.
• 11:24
  We're on the podium at Oran Park.
• 11:26
  I'm a little PA announcer back in the day.
• 11:29
  And that title was really significant for you, mate, in many respects, wasn't it?
• 11:34
  Yeah, it was.
• 11:35
  It was, you know, I guess,
• 11:38
  you know, the driver to Europe championship that it was back then, you know, was growing every year.
• 11:45
  I think there was 16 new Van Diemens brought in for that year's championship.
• 11:50
  You know, and that's just how strong it was.
• 11:53
  It was...
• 11:54
  You know, it was just a good period in Formula 4 racing.
• 11:58
  It was still the Kent engine and I really enjoyed, you know, the racing, those cars, you know, the tracks we went to like Orham Park and Lakeside.
• 12:08
  No, it was a great championship, you know, good fields and, you know, great racing.
• 12:14
  So, you know, I look back on those days and think how much I learnt
• 12:21
  about motorsport and preparing cars and good racing.
• 12:26
  You mentioned the fact that you were venturing to the United States in 1996 there a moment ago when you were talking about Mark Webber.
• 12:34
  How much did that US Formula 4 2000 chapter for you sort of whet the appetite to want to go to America and so on?
• 12:41
  It was, you know, it certainly whet the appetite.
• 12:45
  You know, back then I looked at Formula 4 2000, I looked at America essentially as a way to get to Formula 1 or Europe.
• 12:53
  You know, I think, you know, I look back on that sort of era and you look at the guys that were getting to Formula 1 through America
• 13:01
  stepping into top Formula One teams.
• 13:04
  You know, it was, you know, you look at Zanardi, he drove for Williams, you look at Andretti, he went to McLaren, Paul Tracy tested with Benetton, Montoya went to Williams, like all the guys.
• 13:16
  If you did well in America,
• 13:18
  you went to a top Formula One team, whereas you can go to Europe and Mark Webber was probably one of the exceptions, you could go to Europe and race Formula Ford, Formula Three, Formula 3000 and you would probably still just step into a backmarker Formula One team.
• 13:36
  And I saw a lot of careers go from Formula 3000 champions to nothing within a couple of years because it was very hard to make that break from...
• 13:47
  a low-end Formula One team to a top team and if you went to America and and made a career in IndyCar then great If you did really well and got to Formula One you were going to get the right opportunity in Formula One so Yeah, I really enjoyed America, you know the the combination of Road courses and oval racing was awesome The Formula for 2000 cars once again, they were great little cars, you know
• 14:14
  little Formula Fords but two-litre engines, winds and slicks, and we got to race on some awesome tracks like Mid-Ohio, Mossport in Canada.
• 14:24
  You know, we got to race on one-mile ovals.
• 14:28
  We got to race on three-quarter-mile ovals.
• 14:30
  We tested on one-third-mile ovals.
• 14:33
  So it was a lot of different...
• 14:37
  you know, there's a lot of different things to learn and experience during that year.
• 14:41
  What was the first oval experience like?
• 14:44
  Because I mean, for Australians, most of the time, it's just 180 of everything we do, isn't it?
• 14:49
  Yeah, it's it's funny.
• 14:50
  I mean, from the outside and I was I was probably, you know, a victim of it as well.
• 14:57
  From the outside, over racing doesn't look that exhilarating.
• 15:03
  It doesn't look like there'd be much to it, but
• 15:07
  I can tell you now it's probably the most exhilarating racing that I've ever done and one of the most technical bits of racing that I've done.
• 15:16
  So one of the most difficult things that I ever did was, you know, the oval racing side and getting used to how to race on an oval, you know, at the speeds that you race on an oval with a concrete wall that –
• 15:33
  you know, is 20 or 30 meters to your right.
• 15:36
  So, you know, I really enjoyed my oval racing.
• 15:41
  You know, I was happy to be very competitive on, you know, on the ovals over there as well.
• 15:50
  But it's certainly a very different discipline to the road courses that we're used to here.
• 15:56
  Your time in Formula Holden in Australia is probably a lot like Formula Ford in the sense that, you know, the quality of the field.
• 16:03
  You dominated the series in 1997.
• 16:06
  You won seven races, I think.
• 16:08
  I mean, just, it was a great era, great period, wasn't it?
• 16:11
  Yeah, it was.
• 16:11
  I mean, I really enjoyed those cars.
• 16:13
  Like, they were, you know...
• 16:15
  basically a couple of years old F3000 cars at the time.
• 16:21
  Good downforce, you know, the whole engine was a very good engine, you know, for the package.
• 16:27
  You know, I was fortunate to be driving for probably the benchmark team in the series, but
• 16:33
  You know, we came under a fair bit of pressure.
• 16:34
  I had a really good year battling with Bags, you know, who was driving a very similar car.
• 16:40
  You know, we had some great battles.
• 16:43
  Some of the tracks we had very different philosophies on, you know, how to get the most out of it.
• 16:47
  You know, Eastern Creek was a classic because
• 16:50
  They ran a very high downforce set up and were quick around the back and we had a very low downforce set up and were quick down the front straight and in the high speed sections.
• 16:59
  But we did a very similar lap time.
• 17:01
  But it meant that the racing was really good.
• 17:04
  So, you know, it was an enjoyable year.
• 17:07
  You know, they were very quick cars and good cars to drive and sort of cut my teeth on to go over, you know, to have another crack at Europe.
• 17:15
  Europe or America, I should say.
• 17:17
  Crazy supercars debut for you in Tasmania.
• 17:21
  I think it rained all weekend.
• 17:23
  Tell us how that came about and your recollections of it.
• 17:26
  Well, it came about because GRM or Gary Rogers, they were doing Super 2 or whatever it was, Super 2 is, and...
• 17:34
  and V8s and Steve Richards had a, you know, an event at Lakeside.
• 17:39
  He had to do the same weekend.
• 17:40
  So, uh, through my Valvoline sponsorship that I had through Gary Rogers, he asked me whether I'd do Tasmania in the supercar.
• 17:49
  Um, I got a handful of laps at Calder before the event and then went to Tasmania, woke up.
• 17:55
  There were two day race meetings back then.
• 17:57
  Woke up on the Saturday morning and it was, you know, raining and I thought, you know,
• 18:01
  you know, this couldn't be any worse as a debut for it to be raining and, you know, I'm going to make a fool of myself.
• 18:09
  And as it turned out, I was on the Bridgestone tyre, which was a very dominant tyre in the wet back then, and it made me look really good, to be honest.
• 18:19
  I, you know, bounced up and down the field, passed a lot of guys that I probably shouldn't have been passing in my sort of debut event.
• 18:27
  And, you know, that event or that one race,
• 18:31
  weekend opened up more doors from a career than winning a Formula Ford Championship or winning a Formula Holden Championship.
• 18:39
  Which, you know, which is really cruel and it annoyed me at the time that one race could make such an impact on your career when
• 18:49
  I put so much effort into winning a Formula Ford Championship and winning a Formula Holden Championship and the sponsorship you had to put together.
• 18:56
  I went to Tasmania, didn't feel like I did a good job of the weekend, but it opened up opportunities with several supercar teams and top teams to get a drive.
• 19:08
  That's just the way motorsport works, unfortunately.
• 19:10
  What unfolded next is a story worth sharing, if you will, because Gary clearly wanted you.
• 19:18
  You pinned your hopes though on a Stone Brothers deal, didn't you?
• 19:21
  Yeah, and actually I fell out with my dad for a little while there because I had turned down Gary's drive before the Stone Brothers
• 19:31
  deal was locked away.
• 19:35
  What happened with your dad then, mate?
• 19:36
  What did you say?
• 19:37
  Oh, he was just like, you know, you should be taking the Gary Rogers drive and I sort of decided to hold out for the Stone Brothers drive.
• 19:45
  I felt like, you know, being...
• 19:49
  you know, a top forward team and, you know, Lowndes was already at Holden and, you know, I just felt like, you know, the Stone Brothers' opportunity was better and they gave me a good opportunity to drive with Alan Jones at the Sandown 500.
• 20:03
  And so I sort of held out for that drive and eventually it was sort of all agreed that it was happening.
• 20:12
  And I moved to Queensland and literally the day that I got there, Ross –
• 20:17
  flew back from a meeting in Sydney with Komatsu and Komatsu had...
• 20:23
  told him that they're going with Alan Jones.
• 20:25
  And so on that day, we actually didn't have a deal.
• 20:28
  You know, it had all sort of fallen through.
• 20:33
  Fortunately, Glenn Duncan from Pertec was in the meeting.
• 20:39
  He followed Ross out of the meeting and, you know, grabbed him in the car park and said, give me 24 hours to talk to my franchisees and we'll see what we can do.
• 20:47
  And, you know,
• 20:49
  Within a couple of days, you know, they had the support to, you know, to sort of replace what Komatsu were putting in.
• 20:55
  And, you know, through a bit of sponsorship that I had from Skilled and Valvoline, you know, we put together a deal to do, you know, the 98 season, you know,
• 21:09
  not really enough money to do the whole year, but we went out and had a great year and obviously won Bathurst.
• 21:15
  So it was full credit to Glen Duncan and Pertec for having a crack that year and not sort of leaving us in the lurch.
• 21:39
  When you see someone in the supermarket slotting gaps and drifting around the corners of the aisles with their shopping trolleys, you know they are into racing as much as you are.
• 21:49
  We'll come to the 98 Bathurst win in a moment, but I want to come to 97.
• 21:54
  Scott Pruitt and getting the chance to race at the mountain there.
• 21:58
  What was your recollections of racing a supercar at the mountain for the first time?
• 22:03
  Yeah, it was pretty crazy.
• 22:04
  I mean, to be honest, I'd obviously raced at Sandown with Alan Jones and, you know, that was only meant to be a one race sort of opportunity, you know, because Scott was doing Bathurst with the team.
• 22:16
  And, you know, Scott sort of got to Bathurst and hadn't driven the car, didn't test the car, hadn't been to Bathurst before.
• 22:26
  I was not even meant to get in the car, but they gave me six laps in practice.
• 22:31
  But Scott sort of had sort of struggled to get up to speed and at the end of the weekend
• 22:37
  He admitted he just underestimated the track, he underestimated how hard the cars were to drive.
• 22:44
  It was his first time driving a right-hand drive car on a racetrack.
• 22:49
  So as it was, I wasn't even meant to get in the race.
• 22:53
  Alan jumped on a plane once the car was out of contention, so they threw me in for the last 30 laps.
• 23:01
  Other than that, I was meant to be just standing in the garage all day taking it in.
• 23:06
  But I got to do 30 laps at the end there in the last stint, which was good in some ways.
• 23:15
  Would have been good to go to Bathurst as a rookie the year after, though.
• 23:17
  Jonesy didn't mind doing some of that sort of stuff back in the Formula One days.
• 23:22
  What was it like sort of working with him on the one hand because you admired and loved Formula One.
• 23:27
  It was probably something that would have left you a little starstruck maybe, but at the same time, he can be a brisk or burly sort of guy, but when you get to know him, he's good, isn't he?
• 23:37
  Yeah, I think he summed it up.
• 23:42
  to be able to drive in a race as a co-driver with Alan Jones because, you know, when I was seven years old, he was winning Formula One World Championships and he was, you know, the gun driver in Formula One.
• 23:56
  Probably should have won the World Championship three years in a row back in that era.
• 24:00
  So having the opportunity to drive with someone that I looked up to as a hero like that was crazy.
• 24:11
  you know, as far as, you know, that weekend goes at Sandown, it was quite, you know, interesting.
• 24:18
  You know, I think at the time, Alan knew there was a bit of talk around that Stone Brothers were trying to replace him with me.
• 24:25
  So it was probably a little bit cold to me during that little window.
• 24:30
  But, you know, I think over time, you know, I got to spend a bit more time with him and do other things with him and he was always great.
• 24:38
  But yeah, I think that particular weekend at Sandown,
• 24:41
  I probably wasn't made to feel as comfortable as I would have liked.
• 24:47
  But, you know, it was still a great experience.
• 24:49
  You know, like I said, having the opportunity to drive with one of my childhood heroes was pretty special.
• 24:56
  They called the V8 1000 then the classic.
• 25:00
  So you and Stephen Richards, you know, who battled in Formula Ford, a couple of young blokes, get to win it for the Stone Brothers in 1998.
• 25:10
  And it was far, Jason, wasn't it, from a seamless weekend.
• 25:13
  You were on the back foot from the get-go, weren't you?
• 25:16
  Yeah, you could say that.
• 25:18
  You know, it was going into the weekend, I knew that we had a good chance.
• 25:23
  You know, we were a very competitive, you know, outfit all year.
• 25:29
  You know, Bathurst, you know, was certainly going to suit us.
• 25:32
  We were on, you know, the right tyre that weekend for the track because it wasn't a control tyre that period and the Bridgestone was the tyre to have.
• 25:41
  Yeah.
• 25:43
  But, you know, I had a crash in practice that, you know, made a hell of a mess of the car and, you know, the guys did an awesome job just to even get me back out for qualifying, um,
• 25:56
  You know, and I did three laps at the end of qualifying and qualified 15th instead of, you know, 40th or however many cars were back then.
• 26:06
  But it was, you know, I felt like we'd sort of thrown it all away or I'd thrown it all away at that point.
• 26:13
  But it made for a good story, fortunately.
• 26:15
  Had you repaired the relationship with your dad by now?
• 26:18
  Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 26:18
  No, I mean, when I say, you know, it was...
• 26:24
  Just tense at that moment.
• 26:25
  Yeah, it was tense at that moment.
• 26:27
  And it was really because my dad was trying to, you know, be conservative and make sure that I, you know, I was being offered a drive to race a supercar and be paid professionally and I was probably doing what I do
• 26:42
  a lot of times and that is take a risk and try and find something better or go and look for a better opportunity or do something different.
• 26:53
  And that was probably what I was doing at that point where I thought Stone Brothers was the better option and I think in the long run that turned out to be the right case, but it could have gone the other way at several points for sure.
• 27:09
  That notion of not rolling the dice, because it's a bit more calculated than that, but not being afraid to do some of that stuff, as we'll get to when we keep talking about your career here.
• 27:19
  It's something that you have done over time.
• 27:22
  I want you, if you're comfortable, to share.
• 27:24
  I mean, you cemented a relationship with the Stones.
• 27:28
  You'd won Bathurst with them.
• 27:30
  They're a great team.
• 27:31
  But you clearly had itchy feet and you wanted to go...
• 27:34
  back to the States and perhaps tackle indie lights.
• 27:38
  That was clear.
• 27:39
  And Ross didn't know about this until a fax came through to the office one night.
• 27:44
  Tell us about that.
• 27:45
  Yeah, so I mean, just to go back, I guess when I came back from America in 97, it was only because I just didn't have the funds to stay there.
• 27:54
  So, you know, I always felt like if I could raise the money or, you know, go back and have another crack, I would.
• 28:00
  And so I stayed in touch with all of the teams over in America and, you know, sort of kept...
• 28:07
  I guess, kept being known over there so that if I did, you know, I wasn't just forgotten about.
• 28:12
  If I did find the money, I could, you know, step back into something there.
• 28:15
  And so during 98, I was still obviously meeting with teams.
• 28:21
  And during the IndyCar weekend, I'd go down to the pits and see some people that I knew and,
• 28:28
  And that, you know, understandably, and I certainly understand where Ross was coming from, you know, that sort of rubbed him up the wrong way, you know.
• 28:39
  And, you know, so he was very clear, you know, you're either here or there.
• 28:44
  You know, I want you to be 100% focused on here.
• 28:47
  And so, you know, to be honest, I was.
• 28:50
  And in 99, I was focused on, you know, racing in Australia like I was, you know, all the time.
• 28:58
  I think it was colder that year, there was Lowndes' crash and then I got put on the wall on the restart after Lowndes' crash.
• 29:08
  And the officials just did nothing about it.
• 29:10
  It actually frustrated me enough to go, right, I'm going to have another crack at going back to America.
• 29:14
  And so I contacted some teams and organised some meetings and I went over to Fontana for the weekend and, you know, met with PacWest and organised a test with them.
• 29:30
  And then when I came back to Australia, there was a...
• 29:36
  I went into the workshop and, cause I used to sort of work in the workshop quite a bit as well.
• 29:41
  And I walked into Ross's office and I heard the door close behind me and Ross had followed me in and he's like, oh, there's a fax on the fax machine for you, Bridie.
• 29:51
  I'm like, oh, okay.
• 29:52
  And then, so I picked it up and read it and it was my itinerary to go to America.
• 29:57
  And he's like, what's this about?
• 29:59
  And I'm like, I'm going over to have a test in your lights car.
• 30:02
  And he's like, oh.
• 30:04
  So are you here or there?
• 30:05
  I want to know right now and this is your final decision.
• 30:08
  Ultimatum, like that.
• 30:10
  Ultimatum, yeah.
• 30:13
  And I'm like, I'm there.
• 30:16
  So I basically finished off the year with Stone Brothers and didn't have anything locked away for any light.
• 30:23
  So I was sort of doing a bit of a wing and a prayer.
• 30:26
  But you made the decision then and there.
• 30:28
  Yep, yep.
• 30:29
  And it was... Amazing.
• 30:31
  It was, yeah.
• 30:33
  Once again, nearly came unstuck a few times.
• 30:36
  I tested with PacWest and...
• 30:38
  had a great test.
• 30:39
  They wanted to do something.
• 30:41
  Scott Dixon had already been over there racing for 12 months and was managed by Stefan Johansson, and so he ended up slotting into that drive.
• 30:52
  But the team manager at PacWest phoned Doricot Racing, who had won the championship that year, and said, oh, you really should give this guy a test.
• 31:01
  And so I got a phone call to say, can I go over and have a test with...
• 31:06
  Doricot Racing.
• 31:08
  So I went over there, did the test, worked with a great engineer and they asked me to go to an oval test a couple of days later and that went really well.
• 31:20
  when I was getting dropped off at the airport, the engineer asked me what I was going to do.
• 31:25
  And I'm like, well, I'm gonna go back to Australia and try and find a couple of million dollars.
• 31:30
  And I had been sort of meeting a lot of people and there was a lot of talk and thinking that I might be able to pull the money together.
• 31:40
  But as it turned out, the team that
• 31:45
  Doricot Racing, they really wanted that engineer.
• 31:48
  And that engineer told Doricot that if I was driving the car, he'll work for them.
• 31:55
  And so that basically got me to drive.
• 31:58
  Um, and so it, it meant that I got to drive an Indy Lights car for a full season.
• 32:05
  work with a really good engineer.
• 32:07
  But, yeah, it was like could have easily just not happened at all.
• 32:14
  You know, it was all thanks to, you know, the guy at PacWest making the call to Doricot.
• 32:21
  You know, there wasn't, there was very limited teams that would have had the funding to...
• 32:26
  you know, to have a driver not pay in that series.
• 32:30
  And, you know, fortunately Bob Doricott, who, you know, passed away now, but he was just a ripper guy, loved his racing, you know, and, you know, funded that year for me.
• 32:42
  Amazing, mate.
• 32:44
  Come to the championship or that championship itself.
• 32:47
  I mean, Scott Dixon, who you mentioned there a moment ago, would ultimately go on to win it.
• 32:50
  But when you look at the results and particularly even early on, you were right in the mix.
• 32:56
  Lots of top threes.
• 32:57
  There was a victory in Portland as well.
• 33:00
  But the thing that wounds, I guess, in a very real sense, is a big crash, big crash at Chicago.
• 33:05
  Just how bad were the injuries and how long did it take to get over?
• 33:10
  Yeah, it was a bit ugly.
• 33:14
  I, you know, I was lucky there was nothing broken, but...
• 33:19
  That year, I'd lost a lot of weight during the year, and to be honest, it was purely because my belts weren't as tight as what they should have been.
• 33:28
  Wow.
• 33:29
  So the crash was nothing crazy spectacular.
• 33:35
  It was on the slowest oval that we went to.
• 33:37
  I think it was still 110 mile an hour, but we were racing on ovals that were 190 mile an hour.
• 33:43
  So I had a simple spin in practice.
• 33:47
  It was my first crash on an oval after sort of a season and a half racing on ovals.
• 33:52
  And I hit the wall so square that it didn't absorb any of the impact.
• 33:59
  Like normally you'd sort of hit it at a 45-degree angle and it would bend all the suspension and side pods and wing.
• 34:06
  I managed to hit it so square backwards that
• 34:10
  the impact went straight into the back of the gearbox.
• 34:12
  The gearbox didn't explode and I took all of the impact.
• 34:15
  And because you sit on like a 45 degree angle in an open wheeler, my body moved, but my skin and fascia didn't.
• 34:23
  So I separated the skin and fascia off the muscle on my back from my shoulder blades to my pelvis.
• 34:30
  So it essentially was a massive impact.
• 34:35
  blood blister, but off the muscle.
• 34:37
  And so they were, at the time I was conscious and one of the best neurosurgeons in America sitting on the front of the car asking me questions.
• 34:48
  And he's like, you know, what are you seeing?
• 34:51
  What are you feeling?
• 34:52
  And then he sort of got to the question, is your back burning?
• 34:55
  And I'm like, my back is starting to burn.
• 34:58
  And when they pulled me out of the car and sat me on a stretcher on top of the roll hoop, I said, oh, there's something under my back.
• 35:08
  And they felt under there and they're like, there's nothing under your back, that is your back.
• 35:13
  And that's how much it was already swollen with...
• 35:16
  blood and out of your body.
• 35:18
  So I was leading the championship at the time, you know, and I was very keen not to miss a race weekend.
• 35:26
  So they got me to hospital for the next sort of five hours.
• 35:32
  I think I was still strapped on the stretcher and you're thinking all the bad things and,
• 35:36
  you know, will you ever walk again?
• 35:38
  Because, you know, you're on there because they're doing MRIs and CAT scans and, you know, thinking to myself, you know, why the hell am I doing this?
• 35:49
  And then when they took all of that stuff off and said nothing's broken, I asked the doctor whether I could race tomorrow.
• 35:55
  And...
• 35:56
  He's like, mate, you won't be racing tomorrow.
• 35:59
  And I actually got out of bed and collapsed because there wasn't enough blood in my body.
• 36:08
  But I got up every hour after that and walked down the hallways and checked myself out the next morning and went and saw the doctor at the track.
• 36:16
  They wouldn't let me race.
• 36:17
  And to be honest, I think there was still just a lot of drugs in my system that got me to the track for the next week and a half.
• 36:26
  It was just ridiculous pain.
• 36:27
  But once they drained the blood
• 36:33
  my back that week of that, that sort of second week.
• 36:36
  Um, I felt a lot better.
• 36:39
  I drove the motor home to, from Indianapolis to Ohio.
• 36:44
  Um, we made a new seat.
• 36:45
  It would take me several minutes to get in and out of the car.
• 36:49
  Um, but once I was in the car, I couldn't feel anything.
• 36:52
  Couldn't like, I'd literally start the engine drive out of the pits and there was no pain at all.
• 36:59
  But, um,
• 37:00
  As soon as I'd get out of the car back in the pits and the adrenaline wore off, it was just ridiculous again.
• 37:06
  So it was a bit of a funny injury.
• 37:10
  It took probably six months to completely reattach again.
• 37:14
  Crazy.
• 37:16
  Which was a bit weird.
• 37:17
  How certain was the notion of you competing at the Gold Coast?
• 37:22
  Was that something that you started to put together in the early part of this Indy Lights thing?
• 37:27
  Was it something that emerged late in the piece?
• 37:29
  How, you know, was it you always wanted to do that in that 2000 season?
• 37:35
  No, it was something that actually we...
• 37:38
  I had Mark Roworth, who was a friend of mine, ended up sort of working for a few teams like the Stone Brothers.
• 37:44
  He...
• 37:45
  He helped me work a lot on it that year and, you know, we actually pitched it to, you know, the Gold Coast Indie event, you know, to take this event to the next level.
• 37:59
  It really needs an Aussie in it.
• 38:00
  They hadn't had one for seven years or something, mate, had they?
• 38:02
  So, yeah.
• 38:03
  No.
• 38:03
  And, you know, I think, you know, Gary did it and I'm not sure if Jeff did it, but, yeah, it was, you know, it was sort of the thing that, right, you know, for the Queensland Government of Tourism and for the event, like having an Aussie in there is going to be a big step up for it again.
• 38:19
  And so we put the idea to them.
• 38:22
  It was run by IMG at the time.
• 38:25
  So IMG...
• 38:26
  signed me up to a management deal that year.
• 38:29
  And as part of signing that agreement, I had it in there that I would be guaranteed to be doing the Gold Coast event.
• 38:37
  Fantastic.
• 38:38
  So,
• 38:40
  That was a bit of a win.
• 38:43
  To be honest, it nearly all came unstuck a couple of weeks from the event when it nearly didn't happen, but fortunately it did.
• 38:51
  And I got to drive an IndyCar, which was pretty special.
• 38:54
  That 2000 year was an amazing year because I got to drive an IndyLights car for 12 events.
• 39:03
  I did 20 test days in the car.
• 39:05
  I did the IndyCar race, including a couple of test days in that.
• 39:10
  I did Bathurst with Dick Johnson's team with Paul Radisic and got second.
• 39:15
  And then I also did the Pan-Aus race of a thousand years with David Braddon.
• 39:21
  That year I felt like I was in a race car all the time, driving different kinds of cars, awesome race cars as well.
• 39:30
  And I learned so much that year, working with an extremely good engineer in Indy Lights as well.
• 39:39
  I want to talk a little bit more about the Gold Coast experience.
• 39:42
  So you would run with John Della Penna, who sadly passed away last year, as you know.
• 39:47
  Toyota powered Raynard Champ car, main event, home race on the Gold Coast.
• 39:52
  I think you did something like 30 PR appearances over the weekend.
• 39:56
  You opened a new freeway with Premier Peter Beatty.
• 39:59
  And it was a, Bridie, I can remember it.
• 40:01
  It was a big crowd.
• 40:02
  It was like 107,000 on race day or something.
• 40:04
  It was huge, wasn't it?
• 40:06
  Yeah, it was, to be honest with you,
• 40:09
  I guess after racing in America all year and you're not sure how many of the fans that go to that sort of event really know enough about the drivers and, and who's in it.
• 40:21
  And, um,
• 40:23
  I, you know, it wasn't till race day when we did the driver parade that I really understood that there are a lot of Aussies there and they knew there was an Aussie in the event.
• 40:34
  Um, you know, I think I was last driver in the line on the driver parade, but the crowd were amazing.
• 40:41
  And, you know, that, that said to me what we'd been trying to tell the Gold Coast event organisers and the government that, you know, this...
• 40:50
  We need an Aussie in these international events.
• 40:52
  And this is before Weber was obviously in F1 as well.
• 40:58
  But it was just good to see an Aussie back on the grid at an IndyCar or F1 event in Australia.
• 41:04
  Those cars back then, I mean, you talked about the calibre of the championship, the quality of that championship back then, but they were good, sexy, fast-looking race cars.
• 41:12
  What was it like?
• 41:13
  Try and put it into words, if you can, to run.
• 41:17
  I know the result isn't ultimately something that you probably look back on fondly, but, I mean, you hustled in the race, Jase.
• 41:23
  What was it like to drive one of those things around there?
• 41:26
  That, I mean, it was, I'd say that was the peak of IndyCar.
• 41:31
  You know, that era, you know, I think it was Montoya and Gilles de Ferrand off the front row.
• 41:36
  You had, you know, lots of good names in there.
• 41:39
  The cars were unbelievably powerful.
• 41:43
  I think the Toyota that I had in my thing had 900 horsepower.
• 41:49
  And on a street track like the Gold Coast, I remember when we were trying to, you know, talking to teams and, you know, about which event we were going to do, they were all trying to talk us out of doing the Gold Coast.
• 41:58
  And it's like, well, they don't have an option.
• 42:00
  That's our race.
• 42:01
  Like, you know, we can't do Houston.
• 42:03
  We can't do anything else.
• 42:04
  It's Gold Coast or nothing.
• 42:05
  And they were all like, you know, Gold Coast is too brutal.
• 42:10
  And it was, you know, so it was a crazy track to make a debut on.
• 42:16
  Um, the weekend weather-wise couldn't have been any worse.
• 42:20
  I think every single lap of practice was wet.
• 42:24
  So, you know, three hours of practice Friday and Saturday was all wet.
• 42:28
  My first laps in the dry, in an Indy car on the circuit were, um, were qualifying.
• 42:35
  And so we qualified way worse than what we should have.
• 42:39
  You know, I think most of the sessions were around 16th place and the second qualifying session were actually in about 16th place.
• 42:47
  But it was so much slower than the first session because of, you know, wind and all the rubbish that was on the track.
• 42:54
  We qualified pretty badly, but I think it was still an awesome experience.
• 43:00
  It would have been nicer if everything was a little bit kinder that weekend, including the way it finished.
• 43:04
  But to line up on the grid in a big open wheeler like that, that was certainly one of the highlights of my career.
• 43:22
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with Jason Bright.
• 43:25
  Make sure you head back to the Rusty's Garage library and hit the gas on part two, where we cover the difficult call to come home from the US, how Craig Lowndes moved to Ford, opened the door for him at a legendary supercars team, his love of the data and technical side, plus the wild Panos sports car running his own outfit and getting back to the purity of driving with Brad Jones Racing.
• 43:58
  Listen up.