Latest / Rusty's Garage / Bruce Garland (Part 2)

Transcript

Bruce Garland (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:20
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with larrikin, safari and Dakar racer Bruce Garland.
• 0:27
  If you haven't already, head back to the library and give part one a listen.
• 0:31
  From his early years paddock bashing to the Ford Escort that is a work of art inside and out.
• 0:38
  Plus his memories of Peter Brock.
• 0:40
  You will absolutely love it.
• 0:42
  Coming up...
• 0:43
  The piss-o-meter or the piss-o-phone.
• 0:45
  Some Aussie ingenuity for when nature calls and you're competing.
• 0:49
  It's very funny.
• 0:50
  Plus the highs and lows of Dakar, which nearly left him in a wheelchair.
• 0:55
  And why a heart attack didn't stop him mashing that throttle pedal to the floor.
• 1:00
  We begin part two with the importance of those that sit beside him while he's competing.
• 1:06
  The co-driver.
• 1:09
  It's nearly like a marriage, you know.
• 1:13
  Except when something goes wrong, they don't bring it up all the time again.
• 1:18
  But that's probably the only difference.
• 1:20
  But, yeah, look, we had a great working relation with Harry.
• 1:23
  And I've got a mate of mine now who comes with my escort, Stevie Green.
• 1:29
  You're in the car.
• 1:30
  They're putting their trust in you that you're not going to hurt them or kill them.
• 1:35
  You know, so there's a bit both ways.
• 1:37
  You trust them that they're doing all right.
• 1:40
  So there's a mutual trust going on and respect and things like that.
• 1:44
  And you go through the good, take the good things and the bad things together and, you know, there's no, you know, if like that, you know...
• 1:52
  There's no point.
• 1:53
  I've seen bikes yell at their navigators when the navigator's made a mistake.
• 1:56
  Well, they're human.
• 1:57
  They're going to make a mistake.
• 1:58
  Get over it.
• 1:59
  Move on.
• 1:59
  Do you want them to yell at you when you make a mistake, which is quite regular when you're driving?
• 2:03
  Every time you don't make the cornerback, you shouldn't yell at them.
• 2:07
  It doesn't achieve anything.
• 2:08
  Just get, okay, well, where do we go wrong?
• 2:10
  Let's go back and do this, and we'll move on together.
• 2:12
  You know what I mean?
• 2:13
  So it is quite a special relationship that you have with your navigator.
• 2:17
  Any...
• 2:19
  rally driver that has a good relationship with the area is successful.
• 2:24
  The success you had here was important, I guess, for the step of going to international things, particularly like Dakar.
• 2:33
  What of the achievements here from the safari and the wins that you enjoyed there?
• 2:40
  Even, I think, in the record books, you've got the last round Australia trial win, haven't you?
• 2:43
  Yeah.
• 2:43
  Things like that are...
• 2:46
  hugely satisfying what's the most in your mind on the domestic scene uh i grew up with the round australia so winning the round australia was it was a i tried to do it in 95 but you got fourth that year yeah we did there was a few things went against us with that
• 3:05
  They kept taking out all the rough stages, although we probably would have won it.
• 3:08
  But we did win in 898.
• 3:10
  That was good.
• 3:12
  And I think the other, yeah, all those things prepared to go to do the right thing.
• 3:17
  I went to Dakar and I think the ideal thing for looking at the whole period was when we went to Dakar, I was the first driver that built
• 3:30
  that built their own car.
• 3:31
  Every driver in front of me was either a paid factory driver or they'd paid a factory to build their car.
• 3:36
  So our old team was one we all built together.
• 3:40
  And that was probably the biggest achievement.
• 3:44
  We won our class and that was a huge achievement.
• 3:48
  that's probably not underscored enough because, A, you were knocking on the door of the top ten, but you're effectively the first, as you've just described there, kind of privateer or amateur or non-factory team, if you like, class success.
• 4:03
  I mean, that was a big feat, wasn't it?
• 4:06
  It was a huge feat, and we probably didn't, because we did it, and the car, we didn't
• 4:13
  It ran, you know, there's minor things with the car, but it went, it was fairly solid, you know.
• 4:17
  It, sure, afterwards you can make things a bit better, but it came out of the box really well and it drove well and it just performed.
• 4:27
  The engine never missed a beat.
• 4:29
  I mean, it just, it did everything right.
• 4:31
  We had a lot of, a few driver setbacks, lost quite a few hours, and that's just learning the terrain and things.
• 4:38
  But, yeah, it's...
• 4:42
  It was, we didn't realise how, because we thought we could do it again, and we tried to, but things just keep going, little things go wrong, you know, and you can plan as much as you like and prepare, but there's other things that affect the, you know.
• 4:57
  we probably need to tell a little bit of the preparation story in the sense of, I think you had probably about eight people working for you maybe at the time.
• 5:04
  You had a little workshop in northwest Sydney maybe, is that right?
• 5:07
  Yeah, yeah.
• 5:08
  I've got a workshop in, I've got five acres with a big shed on it.
• 5:12
  Yeah, we had times, we had contractors, you know, we had staff, we had someone full-time doing logistics and paperwork and, you know, the first time we went we were building a car for a customer.
• 5:24
  a mate of mine, Pelle, from Sweden.
• 5:27
  And we had a sort of, it was a joint team, you know.
• 5:28
  There was, by the time we went to Dakar, there was
• 5:31
  I think there were 16 people, 18 people involved in the team.
• 5:36
  So it's a huge logistics exercise.
• 5:39
  It starts a year out and preparation.
• 5:42
  And then there's the things like the Safari and the Condo 750 and things like that.
• 5:48
  They're just tests and pre-run.
• 5:50
  They sort of hone the car.
• 5:52
  They're like the practice before you go to the Olympics.
• 5:56
  They're all those sort of things.
• 5:58
  Yeah, it was a big, big exercise.
• 6:02
  It was full time.
• 6:03
  It was every day, seven days a week for a year.
• 6:07
  Everything was focused on doing that.
• 6:10
  So the car and the equipment would be sea freight.
• 6:14
  So that would obviously go in a container at some point.
• 6:16
  And you, we're talking about the South American iteration here of Dakar.
• 6:21
  You would go what, just prior to Christmas?
• 6:23
  The first year we went,
• 6:28
  That was a bit sad.
• 6:28
  You go to your wife, yeah, we're going to go to the Dakar and we're going to leave on the 16th of August and we'll be back at the end of January.
• 6:34
  So we won't be here for Christmas, we won't be here for New Year's and we're going to spend every cent we've gotten more.
• 6:40
  So that took a bit of hostage negotiation skills to get that over the table.
• 6:45
  But, look, it's... Yeah, we went there earlier to climatise the first year.
• 6:49
  But the car, like...
• 6:52
  The way I work at the Dakar started, well, it used to start that.
• 6:54
  It was the 1st of January.
• 6:56
  So you have to work back.
• 6:56
  So you have to be there.
• 6:57
  There's all paperwork, documents, and a whole lot of rigmarole you need there a week at least before that.
• 7:02
  Then you have to prepare, and there was stuff we were getting from Europe and trucks and things like that.
• 7:08
  And then we had to get things.
• 7:10
  It was a logistics.
• 7:11
  So we went early the first time to get a climatised project.
• 7:14
  And we had to do altitude testing because the engineers for the engine had never been above 2,500 metres and we were going to 5,000.
• 7:22
  So we had to go and test the car at 5,000.
• 7:24
  That's Everest base camp stuff, mate.
• 7:26
  Yeah, you can hardly breathe up there.
• 7:28
  It's pretty hard going, you know.
• 7:30
  But once you go up there once and the main thing is slow breaths.
• 7:34
  lots of water, and don't run, don't rush.
• 7:38
  You just walk really slowly like sheep on a hot day.
• 7:42
  And once you've been up there, like we went up and did high-altitude testing.
• 7:48
  First time I went up there, I had a headache and I wasn't feeling so good.
• 7:51
  But then when we went back during the rally, because my body had got used to it the first time.
• 7:54
  Yeah, climatized.
• 7:55
  It did get, oh, it knows what to do.
• 7:57
  It turned into a thing and it wasn't so bad, you know.
• 8:02
  But, you know, I'm just trying to go back to the logistics.
• 8:05
  So the...
• 8:07
  So you're working back from the start of the race, but then the container, because it had to go, it's one of the longest shipping routes in the world, it had to leave in the end of September.
• 8:16
  So you had to have all the parts, everything made, everything ready to pack, everything, tools, swags, everything in that container.
• 8:25
  Because anything you forgot, everything cost you $1,000, a box to send.
• 8:31
  So if you got it wrong, it could do another $10,000 in freight.
• 8:35
  just because you didn't get it in time.
• 8:37
  And sometimes we didn't because we didn't have the supply.
• 8:39
  We went to Dubai.
• 8:40
  We had overheating problems.
• 8:41
  So we had to take a whole lot of radiators and fans and water pumps and all sorts of stuff to upgrade the cars, you know.
• 8:49
  So we had a lot of excess baggage, so we had to pay the customs official a bit of cash to get it through, which was the quickest way to get it through anyway.
• 9:00
  And, yeah, look, it did...
• 9:02
  It worked out right in the end, but yeah, it's a big, big, big exercise.
• 9:06
  Yeah, the other thing with the Dakar was 2009, so it was the end of 2008, the global financial...
• 9:13
  and, you know, the entry fee for us was about $120,000 Australian dollars and then the shipping went, everything was in American dollars and then for some reason the Australian dollar just went to crap, you know.
• 9:28
  So the budget that was getting, was tight, just went way out the window like, it was up.
• 9:34
  hundred thousands of dollars.
• 9:36
  So we had to reassess everything.
• 9:37
  And anyway, we had to cut back our spare.
• 9:40
  We had to do a real shuffle to get the numbers to work.
• 9:43
  And then when we sent it, we didn't have any money to pay for it to come back.
• 9:47
  So we just, I hope we're going to do all right.
• 9:50
  So, yeah, because it was like, I think our shipping bills were like $60,000 or something for fees and war fees and stuff like that.
• 10:00
  But then we, because we did so well, one of the cars went to...
• 10:04
  Bangkok Motor Show and then down to Malaysia so they, Isuzu helped us with all that in the end so it wasn't too bad.
• 10:11
  It was better than not too bad.
• 10:14
  Let's go to 2011.
• 10:16
  It's probably a tough memory in many ways.
• 10:20
  First of all to Dakar and the crash.
• 10:25
  Take us to that moment, what happened and how you immediately felt when you landed.
• 10:31
  Yeah, well, we were going really well.
• 10:32
  This is the... We were running in the top 12, I think.
• 10:39
  We were up fighting in there, and then I... That stage early on, I'd broke... We'd ripped the turret end off.
• 10:47
  We hit a big wash away, and we'd got out and fixed it.
• 10:50
  Then we got a bit lost, and then we'll come to the dunes, and then...
• 10:54
  We were mixing it with the trucks, and the problem was with the trucks is you can't...
• 10:59
  They can't see you.
• 11:01
  So they'll come over the sand dune land on top of you.
• 11:04
  So I came into the dunes, and there's a truck on my right.
• 11:07
  I can still picture it now.
• 11:08
  There's a truck on my right, another one on the left, and we're all heading to a waypoint up the top of the sand dunes, and there's thousands of spectators up there, and there's cars bogged everywhere and motorbikes bogged.
• 11:19
  And in amongst this, there's other motorbikes coming in and quads.
• 11:22
  So they're all verging on the...
• 11:25
  GPS point up in the top of this dune and I was running on top of a ridge and I was looking at the truck next to near me because I was about to turn and come across in front of it and I took my eyes off the road and that thing we're talking about before just happens in a fraction of a second and I looked dead flat to me and I looked I looked at the truck I felt the car bogging
• 11:47
  So I automatically just gassed it, and then I looked up, and it went into a ravine about a width of a car, down about... Just dropped?
• 11:57
  It dropped probably...
• 12:01
  maybe two stories or something, and then straight back up again.
• 12:05
  So I've gone over with the throttle on and then I've gone, shit, we're going to get stuck when it lands.
• 12:11
  If I don't keep the throttle on, we're going to get bogged down here.
• 12:13
  And that was probably the worst decision I made, because as it hit, it drove my throttle in more and then the car hit really hard on the nose and slammed down that hard.
• 12:25
  And I didn't know at the time, but it...
• 12:28
  it actually broke my back, a compression breakage.
• 12:31
  And we launched back out of the ravine.
• 12:34
  And the pain was incredible.
• 12:38
  It was like a lightning electric shock went right up my body and out to my hands.
• 12:44
  We both got out of the car.
• 12:45
  We stopped and got out of the car.
• 12:46
  I was just screaming in the pain and then we carried Voltaren and some Panadol.
• 12:53
  So he took took some of them.
• 12:55
  How many cars did you have to go on the stage?
• 12:57
  I still another 30 through the sand dunes.
• 13:00
  So but a problem the impact was that hard it broke up.
• 13:03
  the engine mount bracket off the side of the block.
• 13:06
  So it broke a huge chunk out of the...
• 13:09
  It was a massive hit.
• 13:10
  I don't know how many G's it was.
• 13:13
  The boys' calculator was horrendous.
• 13:15
  I mean, to break what it broke, to break the engine, it was a fair hit.
• 13:22
  But then we couldn't drive it up the dune because the engine was jumping around.
• 13:25
  So I was in so much pain.
• 13:28
  Anyway, some locals helped us and...
• 13:31
  We jacked the engine up and put the...
• 13:33
  I said, have you got any 4B2 wood?
• 13:36
  And they don't even know what I'm talking about.
• 13:37
  There's no tree for about 1,000 kilometres.
• 13:40
  So I need a bit of wood under the sump.
• 13:41
  So I walked around the car and we had the snatch strap.
• 13:44
  Yeah.
• 13:44
  So I got coiled up and I went, oh, that'll do.
• 13:46
  So we jacked up, put the engine on that on the sump guard and then we zip-tied the engine onto the chassis.
• 13:56
  And it was good enough to drive out.
• 13:57
  And I drove it out and it was...
• 14:00
  Jeez, I hit it a couple more times, just little hits, but not bad as that.
• 14:04
  And I was in a lot of pain.
• 14:05
  So I thought, oh, maybe I've hurt my kidneys or some bloody thing.
• 14:08
  I wasn't thinking that it was going to be my back.
• 14:11
  So we got in, had a shower, took some more Panadol, and I'm lying there and the pain just was getting worse.
• 14:18
  So I went down to the medical thing and the boys are fixing there.
• 14:20
  They've got to re-engineer the whole...
• 14:22
  They're going to mount the engine.
• 14:24
  So you're with the Dakar Medicos at this stage?
• 14:26
  Then I went down to the Medicos.
• 14:27
  So the boys are left with the car.
• 14:28
  I said, I'm going down to the doctor to see if there's something wrong with my kidneys.
• 14:32
  Because they said, we've seen you hit the thing ground hard before and you're normally... You're not in that much pain.
• 14:37
  There's something wrong.
• 14:38
  So they told me...
• 14:39
  I go down there.
• 14:41
  They give me an x-ray and they said, oh, next thing I know I'm in an ambulance going to the hospital.
• 14:46
  And then they're all Spanish.
• 14:47
  I didn't even know.
• 14:48
  I had my phone.
• 14:49
  I had nothing.
• 14:50
  So I rang home.
• 14:51
  My wife was getting her hair done down the road.
• 14:54
  I says, I don't know where I am.
• 14:55
  I've hurt my back.
• 14:56
  And I don't know where.
• 14:58
  I can't contact the boys because so you have to tell them.
• 15:01
  Because I went and had a CT scan and then they took me in a shield wheel.
• 15:07
  They took me in the end sitting up.
• 15:09
  And then as soon as they did the x-ray, they strapped me on the...
• 15:13
  skirny and then I didn't get, they wheeled me into a hospital with all the other wounded for about four or five days we were in there.
• 15:22
  The extension to this is that the fracture was big and it was very close to your spinal cord, is that right?
• 15:30
  How close did that go to a life changing moment?
• 15:33
  They said if I'd hit it again, I would be paralysed.
• 15:36
  It was pretty close.
• 15:38
  They said, look, I went back and saw the specialist back here, and he said three months it'll be 80%.
• 15:45
  So I'm still calculating I'm going to do another rally.
• 15:48
  80% in three months, so I want to do another one in five months, see?
• 15:53
  So we were going to do a rally in...
• 15:56
  I sent the car to the UAE and it was just on three months.
• 16:02
  I said, I'll be right for that.
• 16:03
  But then I had the heart attack from, I was sitting two months waiting for it to heal.
• 16:11
  Didn't do anything.
• 16:12
  And then I had a heart attack, stress, help didn't help.
• 16:16
  And then I had to open up surgery.
• 16:19
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  It all happened in once and it was pretty life-changing, that was.
• 16:24
  Is the theory that the heart was also affected by the crash?
• 16:28
  I know that you had the heart attack later on and required some pretty significant work from a bypass point of view.
• 16:34
  Didn't you tell them to take some vein or archery from your... Not your right leg.
• 16:40
  You needed that from driving?
• 16:41
  Yeah, yeah, they said...
• 16:43
  I said, we're going to take an artery from your legs and both your arms.
• 16:50
  I said, well, take it on the left leg because if it shits itself, I can still drive.
• 16:55
  And I said, don't dig around.
• 16:56
  I want dash 12.
• 16:58
  Give me the big hoses.
• 16:59
  I don't want ones that block up easy.
• 17:01
  So he said, what's a dash 12?
• 17:03
  I said, well, when you're plumbing a race car, that's a dirty big hose that you use for the dry sump.
• 17:12
  So anyway, I had a really good surgeon down in Monash Heart Hospital, down in Melbourne.
• 17:17
  That's where I was at the time.
• 17:19
  And they said, looks like you haven't damaged the... Because that's the problem.
• 17:23
  When you get a blockage that stops the blood flow and the muscle dies and it doesn't recover.
• 17:30
  Your muscle in your heart, once it kills the muscle, it's damaged forever.
• 17:34
  So they said, look, it looks like you're lucky it didn't damage it.
• 17:37
  So then I had to go through the whole rehab process, which was...
• 17:41
  very long and painful because I'd already had the broken back and broken ribs.
• 17:46
  So that was sore.
• 17:46
  Then they cut my chest open, spread it all apart to do the surgery.
• 17:51
  And then they banged her all back together and, oh man, it hurt.
• 17:55
  And then I was on endone and all those other mind altering drug painkillers.
• 17:59
  And I was in bed one night, I was just rocking.
• 18:03
  I'm going, I think I'm on the edge of insanity.
• 18:05
  I was like, like I was on the cliff.
• 18:08
  I'm not taking that shit anymore.
• 18:10
  So, yeah.
• 18:13
  Did that bring you to a crossroads?
• 18:15
  Was that, you know, a prompter for maybe a life discussion with your wife and family?
• 18:20
  Or did the doctor say to you, hey, mate, you're going to have to scale this back a bit?
• 18:23
  What impact did that have?
• 18:25
  I'd had a bit of everything.
• 18:27
  You know, my wife was so good, she got me up and I didn't feel like getting up and doing exercises.
• 18:33
  The main thing with any of those operations is get up and get moving as quick as you can.
• 18:38
  And we started off with small walks and then we went big and then sometimes I couldn't make it home and she'd go and get the car and, you know, and it worked.
• 18:46
  So that reassessed a lot of things after that.
• 18:50
  You know, I just...
• 18:52
  I was a bit high strung, you know, to drive that project you need to be...
• 18:59
  quite passionate and you've got to push to get things the way you need to know that they need to be done, you know.
• 19:07
  And I just feel like, you know, I'm not going to, I'm just going to, I get angry with somebody, someone does something wrong and just don't worry about it.
• 19:15
  You know, at the end of the day, start another day.
• 19:18
  Don't go back over what went wrong last week and someone did something wrong.
• 19:23
  is not worth it, you know.
• 19:26
  So I did that and then I just, then I reassessed.
• 19:29
  I really wanted to go back one more time and I got a, eventually I got a better and then I got a personal trainer and he helped me get back.
• 19:37
  I went to physio and got back strong enough to go back again.
• 19:42
  We went back, but we had car issues the next time, you know.
• 19:46
  And then we didn't finish, unfortunately.
• 19:59
  Unlike other motorsport events, petrol usage at the Dakar is not regulated.
• 20:04
  However, receiving petrol from fans or locals is not allowed, though if a rider is forced to do this, it normally means he's having a seriously bad day, and protests are rarely made in this case.
• 20:17
  Bruce, to get there, to get to Dakar, I mean, for a Toby price to win it on two wheels is a massive thing.
• 20:23
  And I don't know that everyone in our world, in motorsport, I think people appreciate it and understand it.
• 20:30
  But in the broader community, maybe people don't.
• 20:33
  But even to do what you did to, you know, to be that first non-factory driver home that time, to be on the edge of the top 10 with the minimal budget relative to others.
• 20:43
  I mean, they're big things.
• 20:45
  Yeah, they were big achievements.
• 20:46
  I mean, when you're in the mix of doing it at the time, you don't realise that, you know, sometimes.
• 20:52
  You got a licence in... Was it an A-grade endorsement or something?
• 20:56
  What was the... A-seeding.
• 20:57
  Well, we got A-seeding back in the 90s.
• 20:59
  Well, that carried on.
• 21:00
  I got a...
• 21:01
  I did get the top seating.
• 21:04
  And then when you start the DACA, you start in the top 20.
• 21:09
  And if you have something wrong with your car, the worst you're going to start is 20.
• 21:14
  So we had that.
• 21:16
  But we'd also got a seating, which was...
• 21:19
  the best that you could do.
• 21:21
  There was only 40 or 50 people in the world had a A seating at that time.
• 21:25
  This was rally seating.
• 21:26
  Yeah.
• 21:28
  Um, because we'd won the world championship round that was in Australian Safari, you know, and that kept, because I kept going and doing international events, I kept, it keeps going.
• 21:37
  If you don't do stuff, it doesn't, you lose it.
• 21:41
  Yeah.
• 21:41
  Um, yeah.
• 21:42
  So there, there was some big achievements on the way for sure.
• 21:47
  didn't get all the way that I would have liked to have gone.
• 21:50
  You know, but, you know, if you know you've done the best you can with what you've got and done it well with it and everyone else's, you know, haven't made any, you made lots of friends on the way, you've done a good job.
• 22:02
  And you talked about Toby Price.
• 22:04
  I mean, that was a legend.
• 22:05
  He, you know, was so good, so happy for him to win that, you know, because I knew how hard it was.
• 22:12
  Anyway, he was the first Australian to win that.
• 22:14
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  He was the first non-European to win.
• 22:16
  They didn't want him to win.
• 22:17
  They kept trying to change, shorten stages when he was leading by miles.
• 22:22
  You know, they wanted a European to win.
• 22:25
  So, him to do it and then do it twice is just lead and stuff, you know.
• 22:29
  So, yeah.
• 22:31
  You have been very clever on the engineering side to finding solutions for some of the things that this style of competition presents.
• 22:43
  We more or less have patented a thing called the piss of fun.
• 22:49
  Tell people, because you're at the wheel for long periods of time and you can't afford a nature stop, mate, can you, in that moment?
• 22:55
  No, no, especially if you're chasing someone or someone's chasing you and then you might have to do a nature stop and then you'll drop behind them and have to follow them for 300 or 400 kilometres, you know.
• 23:05
  So the only time you stop...
• 23:08
  for personal reasons is to you don't stop if you've i've never vomited but the co-drivers have done over the time but you don't stop for any of that stuff it's only if you've got to have a crap you know yeah but yeah so what happened was it was a long process to we've got enough time testing and development r&d gone into it i'll tell you what there's a lot of failures when you do r&d
• 23:32
  So it happened, look, we're three, so three or four hundred K stage, you might be in the car for...
• 23:40
  I've been in the car in Dubai for a 300k stage for six, eight hours.
• 23:44
  You've got to hydrate in that moment, don't you?
• 23:46
  You've got to in that 40-plus degrees outside.
• 23:51
  Inside the cabin's literally hotter than a sauna.
• 23:55
  So if you're not going to the toilet, you're dehydrating.
• 24:00
  And the problem is when you get a full bladder,
• 24:03
  it just it's a rough road and you've still got 100 kilometres to go and you're absolutely busting it's you can't concentrate properly so you need to some way so we had a few so the first one I did was I used like to have in the in the hospital where you put the strap on your leg and you
• 24:21
  You put what's called, I didn't know what it was called then, it was called a ureterum.
• 24:24
  It's like a condom glues onto your old fella.
• 24:27
  And it's got a tube on it and it goes down and fills the bag.
• 24:30
  So that's fine when you want to do, but you can be doing multiple, having to go to do number one.
• 24:37
  So the bag fills up, but because you're doing literally a thousand clutch changes, when the bag's full, it's got a lot of weight in it and it's bouncing up and down on the rough road and your clutch is going in and out.
• 24:47
  And what happens is the bag wraps around your calf
• 24:50
  and ties itself in a knot.
• 24:51
  No, no.
• 24:53
  So then by that, you've filled the bag up and then it's got a knot in it and then you've got to go again and it's absolutely painful and you can't, what do you do?
• 25:02
  You've got to...
• 25:04
  trying to rip the bag off and you got the suit on, it just didn't work.
• 25:08
  So then we tried, I tried all different things like men's nappies and then we tried, I just go see a bucket, I just fricking drilled a hole in the seat and then that hits the hot floor and stinks like a bastard.
• 25:20
  So there's a few failures and then we,
• 25:25
  We get to the, we had a, that's my palais, my Swedish mate, and I'm telling him we're trying to solve the problem before we go to Dakar because we just can't get a solution.
• 25:33
  There's other off-roaders in America, they have the tube goes down and it's near their left foot and they wee on the floor, there's a hole in the floor, but they're automatic so their left foot doesn't move.
• 25:44
  We can't do that because we're going up and down and then all the floors are wet under your pedals and it's shit out.
• 25:52
  It doesn't work.
• 25:53
  So anyway, the Swedish says, I have talked to the helicopter pilots from the military.
• 26:00
  He's got the whole thing.
• 26:01
  He says, you've got to shave your jets, crackers and your alpha and you glue this thing on and the tube goes down and you put the bag on the leg.
• 26:08
  I said, it doesn't work.
• 26:09
  Yeah, but they're in the helicopter for, they don't get out for days in the military, you know.
• 26:13
  I mean, and they sweep in the bow.
• 26:15
  I said, mate, that doesn't work.
• 26:17
  Anyway, first day he used it, 300k stage in, he pulls him behind us, he comes screaming out of the driver's seat, running to the closest tree in agony because it's wrapped around his leg, tied in a knot.
• 26:28
  Pulls the hose off, it's like a fire hydrant going everywhere and all over him and I go, I told you that wasn't going to work.
• 26:35
  Anyway, so they came up with an idea
• 26:38
  So what happens is you get, because every third or fourth drink you should drink a hydration drink.
• 26:45
  So the hydration drink, like a Gatorade, has got a big hole.
• 26:48
  Because you can't wee into a normal bottle.
• 26:50
  The hole's too small.
• 26:52
  Especially when it's bouncing.
• 26:53
  So the Gatorade bottle's the nice size.
• 26:57
  So they've, so what you do is you're gonna do, so in the Dakar there's like, you're going through villages and stuff.
• 27:03
  So you've got to slow down to 50.
• 27:05
  So when you'd come to that, you'd get ready, loosen all your seat belts, undo your seat belt, navigate it, hang onto the steering wheel.
• 27:10
  He'd finish drinking the Gatorade bottle and then you'd throw a wee in the Gatorade bottle and fill it up, put the lid back on and you'd hoik it out the window.
• 27:18
  So when you're in the Atacama Desert and you come across a Gatorade bottle, it's orange.
• 27:22
  Do not touch it.
• 27:23
  Don't drink it.
• 27:24
  Anyway, so that works all right.
• 27:27
  But the problem is the villages can be hundreds of kilometres apart where you have to slow down.
• 27:32
  So we come up with a better.
• 27:33
  So there's got to be a better solution.
• 27:35
  So we came home.
• 27:36
  I rung my brother.
• 27:37
  I said, mate, he's a doctor.
• 27:38
  He's in action emergency up in Queensland.
• 27:41
  I said, there's got to be a wet awake.
• 27:42
  What about that cassata thing?
• 27:44
  Can we shove one of them things in there?
• 27:45
  He said, no, no, no, you can't do that, especially out in that bush for a week.
• 27:49
  And he said, you've got to go and see what the disabled people have got different hardware.
• 27:55
  The UriDome.
• 27:56
  See, you need a UriDome.
• 27:57
  So I knew what I had to look for.
• 27:58
  I Googled it.
• 27:59
  Anyway, go down to the Disabled Centre in Silverwater, New South Wales.
• 28:03
  Lovely people.
• 28:04
  And I go into the girl, I ask the girl, I said, can I, I want to do this.
• 28:07
  I'm doing the racing and I need to, blah, blah, and the bag doesn't work.
• 28:10
  And I, I mean, what options have I got?
• 28:12
  Bigger bags or...
• 28:14
  Whatever.
• 28:15
  And she said, oh, that's unusual.
• 28:17
  I've never had, we've never had that come back.
• 28:19
  She said, but what you need to do for the UriDome is you need, there's this gauge.
• 28:23
  It's a square-sided thing.
• 28:25
  A template.
• 28:26
  There's a half circles in it.
• 28:28
  And that's like...
• 28:29
  25 mil, 30, 32, and there's one that's about 50 mil.
• 28:33
  He says, you've got to go into the toilet and pull the old fella out and measure it with this no-go gauge.
• 28:39
  Tell me what size it is so I can get you the right one.
• 28:42
  And I looked at her, and the one that was 50 mil, I said, who has a dick that big on the slack?
• 28:48
  It was like a donkey.
• 28:50
  It was insane.
• 28:52
  Anyway, so that's where I got the extra large one.
• 28:58
  No, I got it.
• 28:58
  So then I had to go and look at all the, they had this wall of things, they had amazing products to help people to look after loved ones at a home.
• 29:06
  Of course.
• 29:06
  You think, right?
• 29:07
  So I've gone, okay, so the technology was, okay, so I got the UriDome, I got a hose.
• 29:13
  I didn't know how to get it out.
• 29:14
  I watched in the V8 supercars and I see the boys walking down the pits.
• 29:18
  And they've got two tubes hanging out the side of their pocket for their dry suit.
• 29:22
  I can't, shit, because you can't cut the driving suit to bring it out the front.
• 29:26
  From a safety point of view.
• 29:27
  So, no, it's not legal.
• 29:29
  So, they cut the hole in the pocket.
• 29:30
  So, that's a good idea.
• 29:31
  So, I've gone, I'll do that.
• 29:33
  So, then I go out and I've bought all these packets of different things because the problem is then you've got to click it into the floor.
• 29:40
  Now, you can use a proper connection, but then when, if you get out and forget to disconnect...
• 29:46
  and the thing's glued to your old fella, you go out the door, your old fella goes back in the cab.
• 29:53
  So that's a lot of R&D in that whole thing.
• 29:55
  So then I went and got all these bits, and so I get all these different pieces, and I cut the bit off that and use that fitting and end up with a nice tapered thing so it goes into like a plastic reciprocal.
• 30:07
  And then if you forget, it just comes out.
• 30:09
  So that took maybe a seven-year process to get it perfect.
• 30:15
  But it's still not so, it doesn't always work, but it works 90% of the time, yeah.
• 30:21
  There are stories at Bathurst of well-known drivers in double stints having to, you know...
• 30:28
  Weigh in the seat.
• 30:30
  On the run.
• 30:30
  So look for that in the future, the patented pisser phones.
• 30:34
  I have offered it to some of the...
• 30:36
  I did take Lowndes.
• 30:38
  I told Lowndes about it.
• 30:39
  He wasn't having the issue.
• 30:41
  Some of the other boys were.
• 30:42
  I said, well, I've got the fix for it, mate.
• 30:44
  You don't be busting.
• 30:45
  You won't be busting yourself.
• 30:46
  You can go as many times as you want.
• 30:49
  And if you've got it through the floor, you cut the end of it, it's got like a venturi effect.
• 30:53
  It cools the diff down as it's going out.
• 30:58
  Oh, beautiful, beautiful.
• 30:59
  Let's finish with a couple of fun things.
• 31:03
  Firstly, the achievement in motorsport that you are most proud of in the career that stemmed from, what are you now?
• 31:09
  You're in your 60s and you started in your late teens, didn't you?
• 31:12
  Yeah, yeah, 62 now.
• 31:14
  I think the, talking about the Daco, having my own team, I did drive for a Japanese team in 1998 and we had a lot of the stuff was all there, but it just didn't.
• 31:24
  I just didn't do a few things right.
• 31:26
  And I knew it wasn't right before in, but I got the drive.
• 31:29
  But I swore I'd never got mental health issues for years after that.
• 31:34
  I was so disappointed.
• 31:35
  I said, I'm never going back unless I'm taking my own team and build my own car.
• 31:39
  And we did that.
• 31:40
  And we did it.
• 31:41
  We did that.
• 31:42
  We took two cars there.
• 31:43
  They both finished.
• 31:44
  We finished at one hour class.
• 31:46
  Yeah.
• 31:46
  against and we're the first car behind all the factory cars i think that's probably and most nearly 90 of the motorsport equipment in the car was made in australia the wheels the gearbox the brakes the he so much many components were built here in australia and that that was a was a very proud of that achievement
• 32:11
  You're talking about it like it's a zenith moment.
• 32:14
  Just share with people what that car was like.
• 32:16
  Am I right in saying it produced about 700 Newton metres or something?
• 32:20
  It had huge torque.
• 32:22
  It had 700 Newton metres at two grand.
• 32:25
  It only revved to about 4,300 but if it was in two-wheel drive at 160, 170 K on the dirt, it had wheel spin.
• 32:33
  It had that much torque.
• 32:35
  It didn't use too much fuel.
• 32:37
  We were putting 200 litres in and the
• 32:40
  V6 Nissans were putting 500 litres to do the same stage.
• 32:45
  Crazy.
• 32:46
  But yeah, look at it, it was just so strong, Isuzu engines.
• 32:53
  They do make sensational engines and stuff.
• 32:55
  Has there been, along the way, a thing in motorsport that you haven't done that you would like to have had a crack at?
• 33:04
  I would like to do a race at Bathurst.
• 33:08
  Would you?
• 33:09
  A race.
• 33:09
  So now I've got the car like that.
• 33:11
  I was talking to the boys.
• 33:13
  Maybe like a Bathurst six hour or something.
• 33:14
  No, no, no.
• 33:16
  I can take my escort now and run it in sports sedan, that mix.
• 33:18
  Fantastic.
• 33:19
  There's a mix like street sedans, but you've got to be invited.
• 33:22
  So I wouldn't go...
• 33:23
  I'd want to go and do a program of...
• 33:27
  of doing a few race, because I haven't done a great deal of tarmac.
• 33:31
  And there'd be, I just wouldn't go up there straight away.
• 33:34
  It's too, you've got to respect that place.
• 33:36
  So I wouldn't mind doing a few events and we might now get the car sorted, put it in some tarmac spec and then do some races here.
• 33:44
  And then maybe down the track, if I'm still alive, have a crack at, maybe doing a couple of laps up there.
• 33:49
  Awesome.
• 33:49
  You talked about a couple of the cars that you've acquired back for the workshop.
• 33:53
  One thing you did do in relatively recent times with unique cars was track down a Leyland P76.
• 34:03
  You found it in Alice Springs, is that right?
• 34:05
  Yeah, yeah, that was a good car.
• 34:07
  I like the P76.
• 34:08
  They got a bit of a flogging when they were new, but engineering-wise, they're way ahead of their time from their base model compared to a Holden.
• 34:17
  If you drive an early 70s Valiant Ford or a Holden and then drive the P76...
• 34:24
  With good tyres on it, you know, so they've all got good tyres.
• 34:27
  It's way ahead.
• 34:29
  The V8, 6-0 is a waste of time, but the V8 P76 was a lot better car than people think that it is.
• 34:37
  This thing I think had been lying around since the 80s.
• 34:41
  It was the 4.4 that you talked about, the V8, four-speed.
• 34:45
  Yeah.
• 34:45
  And you brought it back to life basically.
• 34:47
  It was a burnt orange colour, is it right?
• 34:49
  Burnt orange, there wasn't too many burnt oranges left.
• 34:52
  There wasn't too many sold and there wasn't too many left, but it was a burnt orange V8 manual and had been in this bloke's, he was a bit of a hoarder collector.
• 35:02
  and had been in the same spot for like 35 years or something, and then had a Mustang next to it.
• 35:07
  They had to pull the sheds down.
• 35:08
  He died, and then they had to sell all of the stuff off, and he had his car collection around that.
• 35:13
  It took him, I think, two months to get all the cars out because they had to pull sheds down to get them out and then pull another shed down to get the next lot out.
• 35:20
  They were jammed in that tight, and they were looking all the time for a big pot of gold, and under the P76 was a huge bag of coins, but they're only half pennies.
• 35:32
  Yeah, but that was a nice car.
• 35:35
  That's a, it was a pretty car.
• 35:36
  But yeah, it's just, bring it back.
• 35:38
  It only had 16,000 miles on it.
• 35:40
  It was, it was quite amazing.
• 35:42
  But yeah, they're good, the P76.
• 35:46
  Is there a Grail car that you don't have that you would like tucked away in the shed?
• 35:52
  Oh, geez, that's a good question.
• 35:53
  I do have my eye on an Isuzu Belette GTR in Japan, but it's got no engine in the gearbox, and I was thinking of getting it back here and then shoving a Honda engine in it.
• 36:06
  Does your wife know you're trawling eBay or whatever you're doing?
• 36:09
  No, it's not.
• 36:10
  It's actually in an old Isuzu race workshop.
• 36:13
  They've got it out the back.
• 36:14
  Fantastic.
• 36:15
  So anyway, it's hard to get it back in at the moment.
• 36:18
  Life at the moment means you're on the road a bit.
• 36:20
  It's fantastic.
• 36:21
  We'll wrap this up with you doing some rally sprint action, which I think is tremendous.
• 36:25
  But you are doing a bit of stuff around trucks and windmills.
• 36:29
  Is that right?
• 36:30
  Yeah, yeah.
• 36:31
  I go out and buy.
• 36:32
  I find old trucks, real old, like...
• 36:35
  30s 40 50 60 about 70s about the latest one early 70s and windmills and i and i clean them and get them going or if i can and then i send them on their way i find somebody that wants them that's going to get them going again and i've got a couple of rat rods projects you always got to have heaps of projects going but i like saving them from the scrappers
• 36:56
  And then I'll find parts.
• 36:57
  Some bloke will be looking for a cab for a 1937 Chev or whatever, and I'll find one.
• 37:04
  So it's good.
• 37:07
  It meets lots of interesting different people.
• 37:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 37:11
  And in the coming months, you are a legend, mate.
• 37:12
  You may not like the term, but you're going to go and get to hang with a number of legends at a very special meeting, aren't you, that gets back to the rally routes.
• 37:21
  Yes, look, it's going to be cool.
• 37:22
  It's down at the border rally sprint down... Rangers, sorry, rally sprint down in...
• 37:28
  near Wilpena Pound, at Rawlsley Station.
• 37:30
  That's in June.
• 37:32
  So there's, I think now they're supposed to get every ARC rally champion that's alive, is supposed to be coming.
• 37:38
  And then there's Bondi's gonna be there driving his old Round Australia Cortina.
• 37:43
  And we didn't even touch on Round Australia stories, Christ.
• 37:46
  But yeah, it's gonna be a big weekend.
• 37:49
  There's gonna be lots of lying and drinking and
• 37:53
  I'll get the faster I was stories.
• 37:56
  But yeah, that'll be a huge weekend.
• 37:57
  So if you want to do a bit of camping and see a bit of a lovely Australian Outback, put it in your diary, because it's the weekend before Fink.
• 38:06
  And then we're up to watch the crazies at Fink.
• 38:08
  Which is an awesome event.
• 38:10
  Let's finish with that.
• 38:10
  You've brought it up around Australia.
• 38:13
  Is there a yarn that springs to mind from having tackled that?
• 38:17
  Because in motorsport, it's held in such folklore, isn't it?
• 38:22
  Yeah, it's just, the first one we did was, I did with Bondi in 79, and we should have won it, but we just didn't, the preparation was late and we didn't have enough money and that's pretty normal, but if we'd have just done a little bit of testing beforehand, we'd have beat the Commodores, you know.
• 38:39
  And then, so when I won in 98, I said to Bondi, thanks for showing us how not to do it.
• 38:46
  No, and I said, look, I learnt from that, and that's why we were so successful, because you learn from your mistakes, and we did that.
• 38:55
  You must have seen some incredible parts of the country.
• 38:58
  Oh, at speed.
• 38:59
  Yeah, now my wife, I want to go over to the Kimberley's.
• 39:02
  Yeah, I did that in about four hours.
• 39:05
  It's like a four to five day trip.
• 39:08
  I want to go back and see it now slowly.
• 39:10
  So I'm taking my wife back to where I used to race it through in literally minutes and hours.
• 39:17
  And then we're going to spend days going and look at the gorges and things like that.
• 39:20
  Awesome.
• 39:22
  Awesome.
• 39:22
  Well done, mate.
• 39:23
  Congrats on everything that you've achieved.
• 39:24
  I love the fact that you're still having a pedal in some stuff like this in rally sprints, and you're, it seems, as infectious as ever.
• 39:31
  Don't ever change that.
• 39:33
  No, no, no.
• 39:34
  That'd be the ideal way to die, either on the job or in a rally car, you know.
• 39:40
  You said to me over lunch before we got going here, we don't want that to happen to you, but what did you describe it as like being at the end of a ruler or something?
• 39:48
  Oh, no, no.
• 39:49
  Life's a 12-inch ruler.
• 39:50
  We're in the last one inch.
• 39:53
  Don't waste it because you don't know whether you're going to get an eighth or the whole inch.
• 39:57
  So, in other words, go out and buy that car if you want a rest hour.
• 40:01
  That's it.
• 40:01
  Go and buy it.
• 40:02
  You want your last check to bounce.
• 40:04
  And my mate said you want the whole checkbook to bounce.
• 40:09
  Awesome, mate.
• 40:10
  Thank you very, very much.
• 40:11
  Thank you, Rusty.
• 40:12
  Good on you, mate.
• 40:17
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 40:21
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 40:25
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.