Latest / Rusty's Garage / Greg 'Rusty' Rust - Part 2

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Greg 'Rusty' Rust - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:20
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of this special 100th feature episode of my podcast, Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  Now, if you've arrived here and missed part one, you'll call, but it's 45 minutes or so that charts the early part of my career.
• 0:36
  For this ep, we've answered your requests for a bit more of a dive into aspects of my world.
• 0:42
  Please forgive the self-indulgence, but I'm touched that so many of you are interested in this episode.
• 0:47
  The guru he really is when it comes to podcasting, Mark Howard from the Howie Games, who's my longtime friend and colleague, is at the helm for this one, given that the tables have been turned.
• 0:58
  This is a selection of stories from 20 plus years of broadcasting, particularly around my first love, motorsport.
• 1:06
  In that first instalment, you'll learn about a sliding doors moment that helped start a significant career shift into media.
• 1:13
  How going to the Speedway with family at a young age had a profound effect.
• 1:19
  Some of the people that have mentored and guided me in those early years in the media...
• 1:24
  And of course, fun yarns along the way.
• 1:26
  Gee, there's been some laughs.
• 1:28
  Now, we're not going to get to all of those stories because I've shared a few in other pods already and no doubt I'll bring up a few more and pepper them through the next 100 eps.
• 1:38
  Best ride, I can hear some of you asking, Randy Mimola on the Ducati two-seater MotoGP bike.
• 1:44
  I think we were fourth gear doing a mono down the main straight at Phillip Island on race day at the Australian Grand Prix.
• 1:52
  That was wild.
• 1:53
  The World Rally cars with Chris Atkinson and Neil Bates are etched in my mind too.
• 1:57
  They are seriously impressive.
• 1:59
  Best drive?
• 2:01
  That's hard because work's afforded me the chance to sample some very cool things, from driving the HRT three-seater supercar and nearly vomiting in the passenger seat while Krompo drove, to getting behind the wheel of a Brad Jones Commodore.
• 2:17
  It's so busy, that's the thing I can't get over.
• 2:19
  Kim actually slammed the door that day as I was getting ready to drive out of pit lane and he said, if you fence it, don't come back.
• 2:27
  Plus my buddy Craig Baird, Porsche and Michelin giving me a full test day at Winton in a Carrera Cup car.
• 2:35
  That is something that I will never, ever forget.
• 2:38
  You can find some YouTube gold as well of me yanking the steering wheel off an Aussie racing car if you go looking.
• 2:43
  This is the best part.
• 2:44
  You've got to listen.
• 2:46
  Listen, listen, listen.
• 2:47
  He never got flustered.
• 2:48
  Listen.
• 2:49
  Hang on.
• 2:52
  Here we go.
• 2:54
  And of course, there's the one of me impersonating a Kiwi radio announcer doing a gotcha call on Peter Brock.
• 3:00
  Something...
• 3:01
  that he loved and laughed about.
• 3:03
  I wish he had the chance to get even.
• 3:05
  Plus a freakish moment visiting the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne while Jason Richards happened to be there for some chemotherapy treatment.
• 3:13
  His beautiful smile lit up the whole room.
• 3:18
  Sometime later, I was tasked with the job of more or less emceeing his funeral.
• 3:23
  That's a job that
• 3:25
  deep down you wished you weren't doing and yet one of the greatest honours of my career.
• 3:31
  We begin this second part by talking about another friend and colleague who helped my career immensely along the way, one of the most polished, professional and gifted presenters who was the face of 10 Motorsport at its zenith, Billy Woods.
• 3:48
  I don't want to get too upset, mate.
• 3:49
  I promised myself I wouldn't do that here and I'm as soft as marshmallows, you know.
• 3:52
  You mentioned Billy Woods before.
• 3:56
  He's another one who's been in my corner, mate.
• 3:58
  I learnt he's a wordsmith.
• 4:01
  We would get in for RPM.
• 4:04
  He'd arrive having hit a hay bale on Sydney Harbour Bridge.
• 4:08
  He's the only bloke I know who could find a hay bale on the Harbour Bridge and hit it.
• 4:12
  He'd be telling you that story.
• 4:14
  Scott Young, the executive producer, would say, righto, mate, here's all the...
• 4:19
  stories, here's the rundown.
• 4:21
  And he would just sit there and he'd go, and he'd just type it all and type it beautifully and write these words that were melt in your mouth kind of stuff.
• 4:31
  He's just unbelievably good, Billy.
• 4:34
  And he was very good to me.
• 4:36
  And we did have a bit of fun behind the scenes, mate.
• 4:37
  I have to say when Baz and Daz would turn up, they'd
• 4:44
  look up websites that probably you shouldn't on his thing, and he hit the panic button about IT.
• 4:49
  It was just shenanigans, mate.
• 4:51
  It was absolute shenanigans.
• 4:52
  It was always good fun.
• 4:53
  But he is a really, really good operator, whether it's news reading, sport, radio, whatever, just a great bloke.
• 5:02
  The event in Canberra, and I reckon you know this stuff off the bat,
• 5:08
  The V8 race?
• 5:09
  Yeah.
• 5:10
  I reckon Bertie won in the Pertec car.
• 5:13
  What was it called?
• 5:14
  The G?
• 5:14
  Remember the wheel?
• 5:15
  Remember a wheel came off and Baz was doing his famous commentary?
• 5:19
  Do you know what I remember very quickly about that event?
• 5:22
  What?
• 5:23
  I don't know what colour the lovely make-up lady chose, but we all look like we are jaundice.
• 5:29
  So we walked out into the deadline and people are going, you guys are all right?
• 5:34
  Like we looked orange.
• 5:34
  We looked orange.
• 5:38
  My memory is I was making the tea or something.
• 5:41
  I'd come back from the Olympics and F1, and Billy Woods gave me the time of day.
• 5:46
  And he was chatting with me and asking me what I was up to.
• 5:48
  And we were having this conversation.
• 5:50
  He was asking me about Formula One, and he was telling me about the V8s and who to keep an eye out for.
• 5:54
  Meanwhile, the floor manager, whoever it was, we were out on track.
• 5:58
  He was just behind the concrete pylons.
• 6:01
  He's giving him the five, four, and he's still looking at me.
• 6:05
  So, Howie, you know, what was Monaco like?
• 6:07
  Three, two, and just hold on there one sec, mate.
• 6:10
  And then he turned to camera and he delivered this three-minute monologue and then ad break.
• 6:17
  So, anyway, now you were telling me about Monza, and I was like, holy heck.
• 6:23
  And I didn't.
• 6:24
  I didn't realize you can get like that due to experience, but he could do it on motor racing, on a bushfire, on – he was unbelievable, Billy.
• 6:34
  He is unbelievable.
• 6:36
  I was with him for the World Superbikes one year, and a couple of lights blew out in the studio, and so there's sort of glass shattering and what have you, and he's just as cool as a cucumber.
• 6:44
  Don't worry about that, everybody.
• 6:46
  And then off he went on a –
• 6:48
  That three-minute hole you were talking about before, he could fill those with ease, absolute ad lib.
• 6:54
  He was like the odd couple, he and Baz.
• 6:58
  They were great together on air.
• 7:02
  But, mate, I'll speak to him every once in a while now, and he's someone that I'm very grateful that I crossed paths with.
• 7:10
  How fortuitous or how that happened, I'll never know, but it was very beneficial for me.
• 7:16
  You mentioned Baz, Barasheen.
• 7:17
  Now, I'm enjoying this because I'm getting to tell you a couple of short stories I haven't heard of for years.
• 7:23
  Darwin V8s, I've broken my hand the week before playing footy, and we get to Darwin.
• 7:28
  It's all strapped up.
• 7:29
  I can't do his accent, but he basically said, mate, I've broken every bone in my body.
• 7:33
  They've done that wrong.
• 7:34
  Come with me to the medical center.
• 7:36
  He cut the plaster off my finger, and he said, that's no good for you.
• 7:40
  Restrapped it up.
• 7:40
  He said, you'll be good to go.
• 7:41
  I don't reckon I've been able to bend that finger properly for 20-odd years,
• 7:46
  But he was confident in everything he did.
• 7:50
  I didn't know him at all like you guys did, but the relationship you all had, and he was the leader of the band.
• 7:57
  I remembered him from the Shell ads with Dick Johnson.
• 7:59
  Oh, get us a chocolate bar while you're in there.
• 8:01
  Chocolate bar?
• 8:01
  Yeah.
• 8:02
  Okay.
• 8:03
  Actually, make it a cup or I'm starving.
• 8:06
  He was unreal, mate.
• 8:08
  In truth, I only knew him for whatever it was, five to seven years of what was left of his life.
• 8:15
  Mate, he would have escape plans.
• 8:17
  You'd go to Phillip Island and you'd arrive on Sunday for race day and he'd go, here, thruster.
• 8:22
  Right.
• 8:23
  What I'm going to do, Rob, I'm going to park the car out here and he'd park it out near the gates, like the ticket gates right at the front.
• 8:30
  He goes, you go and get the scooter.
• 8:33
  Come up here and meet me.
• 8:34
  And as soon as we're off air, five past five, we're legging it up there.
• 8:38
  So we'd go up.
• 8:39
  He'd double me.
• 8:40
  And I'd go up there.
• 8:41
  He'd drop the scooter.
• 8:42
  Some poor bugger would be picking up the scooter.
• 8:44
  I don't know who that was, but he'd have all that organised.
• 8:46
  He always had an escape plan.
• 8:49
  He'd give me relationship advice.
• 8:51
  We'd be driving back in the car.
• 8:52
  Oh, hang on.
• 8:53
  Mate, I'm serious.
• 8:54
  He had experience in the field, to be fair.
• 8:56
  Okay, so he says to me at this stage –
• 9:01
  here, listen here, start out as you mean to continue.
• 9:06
  Don't go flooding them with flowers and all this sort of stuff.
• 9:09
  You know, he'd say things like that.
• 9:11
  And then we'd be driving along and my mum would ring for something and he'd go, oh, hello, Anne, how are you, darling, blah, blah, blah.
• 9:18
  And, you know, he'd have this just surreal, mate, when you think about it.
• 9:22
  He coined the nickname Thruster.
• 9:25
  Everyone thinks there's some legendary story behind it.
• 9:27
  There really isn't.
• 9:28
  The fact is Russell Ingle was –
• 9:30
  already called Rusty.
• 9:31
  They were great mates, he and Baz, great, great mates.
• 9:34
  And he always thought, Baz, that when I marched up the pit lane to interview people, I thrust my chest out and looked for the big interview and all this other stuff.
• 9:43
  So he called me thruster.
• 9:45
  But he was, as I said before, he was very good with his dollars.
• 9:51
  And I remember he bought us dinner one night.
• 9:53
  There was Mark Osler, myself, and Diff, and we were all in Brisbane.
• 9:57
  And he found some Italian joint in Brisbane and, you know, he ended up behind the counter making coffees because he loved his coffee and he could make it himself and the Italian owners were all over him.
• 10:06
  Yeah, Baz, you knock yourself out, you know, go and use the coffee machine or whatever.
• 10:10
  And so we had this incredible night, this great team dinner.
• 10:14
  And at the end of it, he pulls out –
• 10:16
  I don't know, whatever it was, an Amex or something, and goes, yeah, I'll get this.
• 10:19
  I'll get this.
• 10:19
  It's on me.
• 10:20
  You know, Baz, that was amazing.
• 10:22
  So I'm calling mum the next day and I said, yeah, I'm not going to believe this.
• 10:26
  Barry Sheen bought me dinner.
• 10:29
  And so fast forward, David White arrives a day or two later for the weekend of supercars racing.
• 10:36
  And I said, Chief, I said, Baz bought us dinner.
• 10:39
  He goes, oh, I know.
• 10:40
  I know.
• 10:41
  He's already faxed through the receipt for reimbursement.
• 10:44
  Yeah.
• 10:46
  Quick little one here on Baz, mate.
• 10:50
  That's so him, honestly, so him.
• 10:52
  I have that I've kept since I was knee high or a little bit older, really, probably primary school.
• 10:58
  I have this book on Barry Sheen written by Nick Harris, the famous motorsports commentator and bike racing commentator who was with Baz for many years with different things around.
• 11:08
  Sponsorship and marketing, I think, and so on.
• 11:11
  And it's a book with drawings of Baz racing and telling a bit of Baz's story with big text in it, you know, like stuff that kids could read.
• 11:20
  And mum found it and she gave it to me.
• 11:24
  I said, mum, this is awesome.
• 11:25
  I'd totally forgotten about it.
• 11:26
  And so I took it and I showed him and I said, Baz, this is, you know, from when I was a little kid and he loved it.
• 11:33
  And anyway, so he autographed the inside of it for me and I probably would have it here somewhere.
• 11:38
  And he wrote, dear thruster, you're a very handsome man and don't think I ever noticed.
• 11:43
  Yeah.
• 11:45
  Stuff like that.
• 11:46
  So I mentioned that he was the leader of the band.
• 11:49
  It left a tremendous hole.
• 11:51
  It really did, mate.
• 11:52
  At Channel 10 when he passed.
• 11:54
  Yep.
• 11:55
  A tremendous hole.
• 11:57
  How did it affect you, what happened to Baz, and how quickly it happened?
• 12:03
  I can vividly recall going to his place maybe two weeks before he died and –
• 12:12
  Sarah and I were up there on holidays on the Gold Coast.
• 12:15
  And I didn't pressure him, but every day he'd sort of text or say, oh, let's make it tomorrow.
• 12:21
  Let's make it tomorrow.
• 12:22
  And Sarah said to me, he's probably trying to find a day where he feels good or he feels like he's got good color in his face or whatever it might be.
• 12:32
  And she goes, just understand that.
• 12:34
  Just go when he's ready for you to drop around.
• 12:37
  And so anyway, toward the end of the holiday, I did go around.
• 12:42
  He had a new helicopter at the time that he was immensely proud of, mate, that he'd always wanted in Augusta.
• 12:47
  And he showed me around that.
• 12:48
  And Russell Ingle and his wife, Julia, were there at that stage.
• 12:51
  And the house that he was living in at the time –
• 12:56
  had a number of motorbikes in it from his career.
• 12:58
  So he, you know, proudly walked me around and showed me some of the bikes and so on.
• 13:01
  The kids were there then, Freddie and Sydney.
• 13:04
  I keep in touch with them a little bit now.
• 13:07
  They're all grown up.
• 13:08
  They were kids, you know, sort of teens, I guess, back then.
• 13:12
  Freddie might have been a little bit younger.
• 13:15
  So, yeah, mate, I mean, just massive hole.
• 13:18
  As I said before, he was –
• 13:20
  Freddie said to me years later he can recall riding on the back of the bike in London going somewhere and being chased by the paparazzi.
• 13:28
  And I didn't see that side here.
• 13:32
  You didn't realize how massive he was on that side of the globe.
• 13:34
  I mean, there's stories of him teaching the Royals, you know, William and Harry about bikes and go-karts and stuff.
• 13:44
  And then here, what I got to see was this two-time world champion
• 13:50
  who had immense character, always out for a level of fun.
• 13:55
  He'd say before the broadcast started, you know, you know that they'd be counting down, he'd go, yeah, let's have a laugh.
• 14:00
  You know, that was his big mantra.
• 14:03
  But I just saw this incredibly genuine human being who was so giving and,
• 14:11
  I don't reckon I ever saw him brush anyone for an autograph.
• 14:15
  And if he did, it certainly wasn't intentional at all.
• 14:18
  Just a great example of – and they tell me, you know, in some of the podcasts I've done with Tony Cochran and others, I mean, he was a master in a business sense.
• 14:27
  And he did little things that people didn't see either.
• 14:31
  Diff might have told you this in his podcast with you.
• 14:35
  And, you know, he had rung and badgered the BBC a little bit about hiring Diff for the World Superbikes.
• 14:41
  And, you know, Diff did a lot of legwork too.
• 14:43
  It wasn't a lay-down Mazaire he would get that.
• 14:45
  I'm not suggesting that at all.
• 14:46
  He absolutely earned and deserved that.
• 14:48
  But to have someone like Baz in your corner was massive.
• 14:52
  I mean, I think I can recall him ringing at one stage with a –
• 14:55
  with a potential sponsor and, and, you know, he can, I, can I have Garth Tander's telephone number, you know, he thought Garth might be a good fit for these people.
• 15:03
  I don't know if that sponsorship worked out, but that's the Baz I got to see, mate, um, and, and have a lot of laughs with.
• 15:09
  And, and, um, as I said, I used fortuitous with crossing paths with Billy before that's one, I feel incredibly fortunate how that happened, how that,
• 15:20
  moment happened that I would end up working with him.
• 15:23
  And I did one job at Channel 9 with him and the late Darrell Eastlake before I got to 10.
• 15:30
  I worked on the support categories at the bikes there one year at Eastern Creek.
• 15:34
  And I obviously got to know Baz a lot better after that, but that was kind of the first real opportunity.
• 15:41
  Yeah.
• 15:41
  And he used to, when it was cold and it was Phillip Island, he used to wear those Dunlop gloves from the tyre blokes.
• 15:46
  I don't know what those gloves were for, but he'd have those bloody gloves on.
• 15:50
  Just keep warm.
• 15:52
  Yeah.
• 15:53
  He hated the cold.
• 15:54
  He hated the cold.
• 15:55
  You were there with the famous, welcome to Phillip Island, the gateway to hypothermia.
• 15:59
  That line will live in, if I had to give you one line from V8 Supercars in my time in Channel 10, that was it.
• 16:05
  Welcome to sunny Phillip Island, gateway to hypothermia.
• 16:09
  Welcome to Malaysia and this holiday in the heat for Barry Sheen.
• 16:13
  It is so hot here, and I'm just wondering why we're wearing long-sleeved shirts, quite frankly.
• 16:17
  He and I were at the superbikes the year that it flooded.
• 16:20
  It was either 01 or thereabouts.
• 16:22
  I can't remember.
• 16:22
  They sent out maybe Troy Bayliss and Colin Edwards to see if the race was even doable, but there was like a foot of water in the pit lane.
• 16:29
  It was insane.
• 16:31
  And Helen Colantonio, who worked with us at RPM and was...
• 16:36
  working on the broadcast, she's trying to find Baz to fill some holes like you're talking about because there's no bikes, no racing.
• 16:42
  What the hell are we going to talk about while we're on air?
• 16:45
  And she's in the truck and you can open in the outside broadcast truck, which has all these inputs and microphones and vision and whatever coming in and out.
• 16:53
  And she's trying to find Baz.
• 16:55
  So she's clicking switches.
• 16:57
  And she clicks a switch that she thinks is Barry's microphone and she can hear Lionel Richie and like some sort of love song thing going on.
• 17:07
  And what Baz had done, Baz had gone into a rental car, turned the heater on because he was like, this is ridiculous.
• 17:12
  I'm not going out there, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:16
  Here's Helen trying to find him.
• 17:17
  Hello, is it me you're looking for?
• 17:23
  It's a bit crazy, the bike riders.
• 17:25
  And I would like to think that your great mate, a friend of both of ours, Darryl Beattie, will be listening to this in his truck, Darryl Beattie Adventures Tours, heading up to Northern Territory somewhere with his mate Scooter beside him.
• 17:38
  I hope the boys are listening to this.
• 17:39
  Jeremy Burgess probably.
• 17:41
  Yeah, he'll be up there as well.
• 17:42
  Yeah.
• 17:44
  I had the pleasure of doing five or six years of the MotoGP with him at 10 after you've moved on from that.
• 17:49
  And we just used to have to do a little half an hour preview and then throw to the commentary, have our sausage rolls and watch the race and wrap her up at the end.
• 17:57
  And that was job done.
• 17:58
  But you and Daz, in the heyday of Channel 10 Motorsport, from my memory, would host and call the 125s, the 250s,
• 18:09
  And the 500s, didn't you?
• 18:10
  All on the same night.
• 18:12
  Now, people, we talk about preparation.
• 18:15
  This is extraordinary what you blokes are doing.
• 18:18
  It started out with he and I doing 250s and 125s.
• 18:21
  We sort of did the undercard, and Barry and Bill, Billy Woods and Baz, did the 500s.
• 18:28
  So you're calling it off.
• 18:28
  So the boys aren't at the racetrack.
• 18:31
  This is a studio call.
• 18:33
  Yeah, that's right.
• 18:33
  This is predating COVID, which is the world we all went into.
• 18:37
  You would not want to do that now.
• 18:39
  I mean, I get why we do it.
• 18:42
  You want to be at the ground or the venue as much as you can.
• 18:45
  But anyway, I can remember being in there for the 125s and 250s and we'd have the desk set up and we had a statistician there with us, Phil, and so on.
• 18:53
  And Baz would then arrive and there would be all this ruckus when Baz arrived and we're trying to be quiet because we're commentating and stuff.
• 19:00
  And he comes in one night.
• 19:01
  And we're in this big studio in Piedmont.
• 19:03
  It's got quite a high roof and lots of lighting and things in it.
• 19:06
  And the next thing, Baz starts up this scissor lift that can get up high to the lights, right?
• 19:11
  So we're in there and we're going, there's Randy so-and-so down the outside of someone.
• 19:15
  Then you hear this meep, meep, meep, meep.
• 19:18
  And that scissor lift's going up.
• 19:19
  And I'm looking at him.
• 19:20
  I'm looking at him going, what?
• 19:21
  And he's pulling levers.
• 19:23
  And as he gets up, oh, oh, f***.
• 19:26
  Now he's trying to not hit the, excuse my language, everybody, not to hit the lights and so on.
• 19:32
  Another time he'd caught the cab from the hotel to the studios and there was, I think he'd spilled something in the cab, a coffee or something or whatever.
• 19:41
  And so my couple were like, Baz, give us your jeans.
• 19:43
  You know, he never wore anything but jeans and a shirt, no ties.
• 19:46
  He hated that stuff.
• 19:47
  It was in his contract.
• 19:48
  I remember him telling me.
• 19:49
  It was in his contract.
• 19:50
  No tie.
• 19:51
  No tie.
• 19:52
  They made him.
• 19:53
  He went to the Melbourne Cup one year, I think with Russell and Julia, and he tried every which way to get out of wearing a tie.
• 20:00
  And I think he may have even called David and, you know, they rang senior people at racing and I think they basically said to him, Baz, you have to wear a tie.
• 20:07
  That's just how it is.
• 20:09
  And anyway.
• 20:10
  So we're in the studio, Daz and I are calling the 125s and 250s, and the next thing, Baz comes in to our eyeline, and he's in a denim skirt.
• 20:22
  Like, what the hell is going on here?
• 20:24
  So they'd gone to wardrobe or something or other and said, you know, there's no clothes.
• 20:30
  He was 50 or 60 kilos.
• 20:32
  There's nothing of him.
• 20:33
  And I think he was in a denim skirt of Jessica Rose or something.
• 20:36
  It was just hilarious.
• 20:37
  So the stories with Daz, mate, are some of the funniest moments of my life.
• 20:45
  One night, Sarah was away at a triathlon with the kids.
• 20:50
  And we have a dog, a cross Springer Spaniel Border Collie Buster.
• 20:56
  And Daryl goes, bring him in.
• 20:58
  Bring him in.
• 20:59
  It's like 3 in the morning.
• 21:00
  We're doing one of those crazy South American races.
• 21:01
  There'll be no one around, mate.
• 21:03
  Bring the dog in.
• 21:03
  I said, I'm not bringing the dog into Channel 10.
• 21:05
  That'll be chaos.
• 21:07
  He goes, bring the dog in.
• 21:08
  No one will know.
• 21:08
  No one will know.
• 21:10
  So I had a ute, and I packed the ute up, and in I come, and we go into Channel 10,
• 21:15
  And we go into makeup and Daz is in there, Renee, who was very good with both of us and was very good with animals as I learned that night.
• 21:24
  Renee.
• 21:24
  Renee.
• 21:25
  She was terrific.
• 21:25
  She was wonderful, Renee.
• 21:27
  So Buster comes in and he sees the two of them and he doesn't – like I brought him in with me and doesn't know who these two are.
• 21:33
  And he's sort of backing down on his haunches and he's barking at them.
• 21:36
  He's barking at them.
• 21:37
  And Daryl puts his hand out like a scene out of Crocodile Dundee where he's with that – Buffalo.
• 21:44
  He's almost doing the shucka with the buffalo.
• 21:46
  It's not that handsome or whatever it is.
• 21:48
  And the next thing, Buster is like melted butter in Daryl's hands.
• 21:54
  He just falls totally in love with him.
• 21:56
  Daryl just fully wins him over.
• 21:57
  Yeah.
• 21:58
  And, you know, it's chaos.
• 22:00
  So he says, leave him with us.
• 22:02
  And I said, Darryl, the dog will be barking while we're on air.
• 22:05
  I can't do that, right?
• 22:06
  I've got a nice bed for him.
• 22:08
  I'm going to put him in the ute.
• 22:09
  The security will keep an eye on him.
• 22:10
  It'll be okay, right?
• 22:12
  So I take Buster back out of makeup around to the lift and I press the button on the lift and I look down and he is dropping the biggest nugget you have ever seen on the ground, right?
• 22:25
  And I turn, I turn and the first thing my eyes are drawn to is the red light on the security camera looking straight at this.
• 22:33
  I'm like, this is on camera somewhere.
• 22:37
  So I go, shit, what am I going to do?
• 22:38
  So I run to the men's.
• 22:40
  I come back to, you know, clean it up and flush it, whatever else.
• 22:44
  And I look, no dog.
• 22:46
  Buster's missing.
• 22:46
  I'm like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
• 22:48
  So I clean up the dog shit.
• 22:50
  I get rid of that.
• 22:51
  I'm thinking, where the hell could he be?
• 22:54
  He must have got in the lift.
• 22:55
  So I'm pressing buttons on the lift.
• 22:57
  Next thing the door opens, there's my dog.
• 23:00
  So anyway, I put him in the car.
• 23:03
  All ends well.
• 23:04
  Thank God.
• 23:05
  And I think no one knows about this, right?
• 23:07
  I go for all these years, no one knows about it.
• 23:09
  And I took Georgie, our eldest daughter, into work one day on a Friday.
• 23:14
  And she's got colouring in pens.
• 23:15
  She was very young then.
• 23:17
  She's working away and Adam Cush, who's one of the managers in sport then, is in his office.
• 23:22
  And she strolls in and she goes, Adam, do you know how Dog did a poo dance?
• 23:28
  He goes, you can come in and tell me these stories anytime, Georgie.
• 23:31
  I did not know that.
• 23:34
  He's a good man, does.
• 23:36
  But it continues at Channel 10.
• 23:38
  We could speak about this for hours and indulge ourselves with the people that we know and love.
• 23:41
  Yep.
• 23:43
  One of the things I reckon where I really saw you in your element, and it comes back to that when I was talking about preparation, and I could see the enthusiasm you had for it and the pride of the way you had prepared was 2010 Comm Games or 2006 Comm Games?
• 24:01
  No, I reckon it was a little bit later.
• 24:03
  I want to say 2013 Sochi, 2014 Comm Games, and it would have been Sochi was Winter Olympics and the Comm Games was Glasgow.
• 24:11
  Yeah, because I was crossing from the bloody mountain in Sochi and it was freezing cold and you were there looking cozy in your green tie, but just knowing so much about so much.
• 24:22
  And again, it hit me in preparation, but it struck me that, yeah, it was much later.
• 24:26
  You're right.
• 24:27
  Those Olympic Commonwealth Games experiences really meant a lot to you.
• 24:33
  They had done a few other things with Scotty Young, actually, to step out of the comfort zone a bit.
• 24:39
  I did 2010 World Road Cycling Championships in Geelong.
• 24:43
  I did the World Sailing Championships in Perth with him.
• 24:46
  And there'd been a management change then.
• 24:48
  David White had sadly gone from 10 and Dave Barham had come in and Dave was very good to me as well.
• 24:56
  He...
• 24:58
  I think noticed that I'd done a little bit of that.
• 25:01
  I think he felt it was like a good idea that I'd be a bit more diverse than just motor racing, that I do a few other things.
• 25:07
  And he, he actively encouraged and, and helped me into those hosting roles.
• 25:12
  So the primetime stuff was, was kind of left to others, but I, I did have shifts hosting shifts and they were, you know, as you know, mate, they were sort of two solid weeks each time for, for those out of, out of Melbourne, you were immersed in it.
• 25:26
  Got to work with,
• 25:28
  Nicole Livingston, Lizzie Ellis, a whole heap of great people there.
• 25:35
  Probably the most special thing for the Rust family, mate, is that I got to work with David Colbert, and he's a medalist, as you know.
• 25:42
  He's an Olympian, a medalist in long jump at Comm Games level.
• 25:45
  I think he's got a bit of silverware there.
• 25:47
  And his father and my father were the absolute best of mates.
• 25:54
  Sadly, my Uncle Tom's gone in the last year or so.
• 25:56
  My Auntie Judy and Mum are super close.
• 26:01
  Basically, Dave Colbert was on the desk with me and we were getting to do different things together.
• 26:08
  And for the Rust family, mate, that was super special.
• 26:10
  He does a great job with his athletics commentary and everything that they throw at him, basically.
• 26:15
  So that was a super thing for both the family.
• 26:30
  Rusty says he's lucky to have worked with a number of good people in broadcasting, from Mark Weber, who you can also find in the Garage Library, to Murray Walker and another true professional in James Allen who shares, in his episode of the podcast, what it was like working with Murray as the F1 circus traveled the globe.
• 26:49
  We went to a dinner in his car in Silverstone, and it was a very smart sort of BMW and what have you.
• 26:54
  And he and I walked into the restaurant together from the car park, and I left something in the car.
• 27:00
  So I came back out about 15, 20 minutes later, I asked Murray if I could have the keys.
• 27:04
  And I came out to my mobile phone and something dropped out of my pocket.
• 27:08
  And as I walked through this crowd of kids, I heard one of them say, that's Murray Walker's driver.
• 27:12
  Okay, I've made it now.
• 27:17
  Working hard or hardly working?
• 27:19
  We are not really sure when it comes to this TV stuff.
• 27:23
  Now back to Harry with Rusty in the hot seat.
• 27:27
  The other highlight for me of you is when, Rusty, you became a movie star.
• 27:32
  I loved it when you made the step that you were always destined to, from the pit lane to the commentary box to the silver screen.
• 27:39
  I had the opportunity to work on the Brock biopic, so...
• 27:45
  The production company had reached out and said, we'd love you to be involved.
• 27:50
  We want you to do this role as a podium announcer.
• 27:55
  And I said, no, no, no, no, you've got the wrong guy here.
• 27:57
  You want Gary Wilkinson.
• 27:58
  And I fobbed him off twice.
• 27:59
  I said, you've got to go and call Gary.
• 28:00
  He was the legend who did it for Channel 7 back then.
• 28:04
  He's your man.
• 28:05
  And I don't know what happened, mate.
• 28:06
  I don't know why they didn't pan out, but they came back to me a third time.
• 28:10
  And I said, yeah, okay, righto.
• 28:12
  So I agreed to do it.
• 28:15
  They, in northwest Sydney, in a car park, in a national park there, recreated the 1970s Bathurst Pit Lane fundamentally.
• 28:26
  They did a great job of it too with all the old wardrobes, some cool old cars and so on.
• 28:31
  The lead actor who played Brock was Matt Lanéves from Offspring.
• 28:38
  Sarah, my wife, and her good friend Tracy, they love him.
• 28:40
  So they were massively jealous of me getting to do that.
• 28:44
  And, mate, he couldn't have been nicer.
• 28:46
  He came and greeted me.
• 28:48
  I mean, he's a star.
• 28:49
  I'm just brought in for this little cameo bit thing.
• 28:52
  He's the star.
• 28:53
  He came and greeted me.
• 28:54
  He walked me through.
• 28:55
  I met the directors and all these people.
• 28:57
  I got to wear the mock-up famous red Channel 7 jackets.
• 29:02
  They put me in a porn star 80s moustache.
• 29:05
  Yes, it was nice.
• 29:06
  And I ran the podium.
• 29:08
  The short ending here, mate, is that they take a bit of license with that stuff, right?
• 29:13
  And so they –
• 29:16
  What really transpired was a lengthy court case that would ultimately determine Brock's win after the Egenberger Sierras were disqualified.
• 29:23
  And what they wanted to do was compress it so that the story evolved and kind of resolve that on the podium.
• 29:30
  So in truth, a court case took months to sort of figure it out.
• 29:33
  They wanted to make it happen on the podium, this sort of podium that didn't quite happen that way.
• 29:38
  So I did it.
• 29:39
  It was great fun.
• 29:40
  I had an amazing day.
• 29:42
  I probably, in truth, would love to have done a bit more acting over time.
• 29:47
  But the fans didn't necessarily like it.
• 29:50
  They didn't like meddling with the Brock story.
• 29:52
  Yeah.
• 29:53
  I kept it in perspective because it's a biopic.
• 29:56
  They do have a bit of leeway, I guess, in that sense, but not for diehard fans of athletes like Brock.
• 30:05
  You just, in their mind, you just don't meddle with stories like that, mate.
• 30:08
  So it didn't really, for the production company and the network, resonate the way that they hoped it would.
• 30:14
  Mate, before we get to current day, you and the V8s, the supercars and the pit lane, why is it no longer a thing?
• 30:26
  Can I ask that?
• 30:27
  Of course you can.
• 30:27
  Of course you can.
• 30:29
  At the end of 2017, they decided to go a different way.
• 30:36
  We'd had some good discussions about it.
• 30:38
  It looked, pardon me, like it was going to be a thing, that it would continue.
• 30:51
  you've got a navel gaze in life, right?
• 30:53
  You've got to sit back and look at what you contribute or don't contribute to something.
• 30:58
  In my world, I'm not good at politics.
• 31:02
  I've never wasted the energy on that.
• 31:05
  I find it immensely draining.
• 31:07
  I would rather just make good television.
• 31:11
  There are some amazing similarities between the television world and race teams.
• 31:16
  They can be highly charged environments at times.
• 31:18
  But you know what?
• 31:19
  If you don't...
• 31:21
  like the business, you shouldn't be in it.
• 31:22
  I love the business and I know that's a reality of it.
• 31:26
  So I was gutted at first, but I was determined to finish it right, mate.
• 31:32
  It came out around Bathurst that year.
• 31:35
  I can vividly remember Davey Reynolds.
• 31:37
  I was doing the PA announcements for his first Bathurst win and, you know, ladies and gentlemen, you're winners.
• 31:43
  And he grabbed the microphone out of my hands.
• 31:45
  He goes, we love you, Rusty.
• 31:46
  You know, just stuff like that.
• 31:52
  I was disappointed a couple of people didn't handle it the way they should have behind the scenes.
• 31:59
  We had multiple reviews during the year.
• 32:01
  They kept saying, we love it.
• 32:02
  It's great.
• 32:03
  Don't change anything.
• 32:06
  So if that was the case, why did we come to sort of that point?
• 32:10
  Years later, mate, I was in Melbourne around the Grand Prix having a dinner.
• 32:17
  The kids were there and a senior...
• 32:20
  let's call it a cable TV executive, walked in and I made eye contact with them and I smiled.
• 32:27
  And the first thing they did was reach into their pocket, fumble with their phone, pretend they were looking at a text message and turn hard right.
• 32:36
  And in that moment, I smiled and I realized that environment at that time
• 32:43
  was not for me.
• 32:44
  And I said to the kids, I said, you see that person there?
• 32:47
  I said, that's what just happened.
• 32:49
  I said, don't you ever, ever do that.
• 32:52
  You have the gumption in life to go and have a conversation with that person.
• 32:58
  Life moves on, right?
• 32:59
  I'm not a bitter person.
• 33:01
  I'm a big believer in going forward.
• 33:05
  So mate, it came to an end and
• 33:08
  I was a little gutted at first.
• 33:10
  I worked immensely hard between that period just before Bathurst and then the final event in Newcastle to ensure that it absolutely finished right with nothing left on the table.
• 33:21
  Rihanna and Will kindly organised a hot lap for me at Newcastle.
• 33:25
  I can remember being beside Todd Kelly as he was wrapping things up.
• 33:30
  There were emotional aspects of that send-off in Newcastle, but here's the two lasting things.
• 33:36
  I've never really spoken about this.
• 33:38
  In my mind, in the celebrations, I'd emceed the podium, champagne's going everywhere for the Red Bull team.
• 33:45
  And Roland Dane put his arm, sort of his half arm, half around me and he looked me in the eye and he goes, we will work together again somewhere.
• 33:53
  Don't you worry about that.
• 33:55
  And then the next morning when I woke, there was an email in my inbox from Roger Penske, one of the all time greats of the automotive world and racing world.
• 34:05
  You know, he's a busy man.
• 34:07
  Maybe other staff would have been involved in putting that email together because he's just got so much on.
• 34:11
  But the fact that he took the time to even think about wishing me well and what have you meant a great deal to me.
• 34:20
  I needed a reset, mate.
• 34:25
  Deep down, mate, just so you know, I still immensely love it.
• 34:29
  I love that sport.
• 34:30
  It has its moments, but I deeply love it.
• 34:33
  That will never really change.
• 34:36
  Sarah and I had bought a place in Hawke's Bay in New Zealand, where I'm talking to you from now, which is east coast of the North Island.
• 34:43
  It's kind of like...
• 34:45
  Yarra Valley meets the sea.
• 34:46
  It's sort of wine country.
• 34:49
  We brought the kids here before they hit high school, and we've had a nice lifestyle change, mate.
• 34:53
  I do lots of freelance motorsport now, so my cup gets filled in different ways.
• 34:59
  If anything gets a bit too tender or a bit too political, well, you know, a week later I'm working with someone else.
• 35:05
  I'm doing something else.
• 35:06
  And probably the best bit,
• 35:09
  The best bit about this, at the height of COVID in 2021, Nathan Prendergast contacted me and said, will you come and work on Bathurst with us?
• 35:17
  And I was working for the other series, which I still do.
• 35:19
  I love it.
• 35:20
  I'm working with the TCR guys, Stan.
• 35:23
  But that year at Bathurst, everyone had to down the swords.
• 35:27
  We had to work together to have this big week-long festival of motorsport, get everything that, you know, couldn't have two Bathurst.
• 35:32
  You had to get it all together and what have you.
• 35:35
  And we were playing here, mate.
• 35:37
  Yeah.
• 35:38
  we were playing lotto for spots for quarantine.
• 35:43
  So I'm online trying to get a spot.
• 35:45
  Murph is literally just – Greg Murphy is effectively a neighbour.
• 35:48
  He's like a couple of k's away.
• 35:51
  We're tic-tac-ing with each other.
• 35:52
  He gets like when it opens, pardon me, he gets like 14,000th in the queue and I freakishly get 600 and something.
• 36:01
  So I hang on.
• 36:03
  I get quarantine.
• 36:04
  It's the one time I did quarantine, you know, thankfully, over the whole of COVID, only seven days.
• 36:09
  But I went to Bathurst.
• 36:11
  Nath asked me to help.
• 36:13
  Jesse Yates actually got a little bit crook, so I helped with a couple of hostings.
• 36:16
  I did some commentary, and I was in the pit lane again, which I loved.
• 36:20
  And at the very end of the race, I did what I always do, and that is you go to where the action's sort of happening.
• 36:24
  And I sort of parked myself near the Walkinshaw team.
• 36:28
  Chas Mostert and Lee Holdsworth were very likely to win.
• 36:31
  I didn't want to jinx it, so I didn't go in there, but I was sort of within eye shot so I could move in if we needed to.
• 36:37
  And over my shoulder, I could see young Chad Nalon.
• 36:41
  And he'd been in the pit lane and kind of replaced what I was doing and was doing a super job of it.
• 36:47
  And –
• 36:49
  I don't think he wanted to tread on my toes.
• 36:51
  And I radioed the truck.
• 36:53
  I spoke to the pit producer, Ange, and I said, Ange, this is not right.
• 36:57
  This has been Chad's all year.
• 36:58
  This is not mine.
• 36:59
  I've come here to help out because Murph's trapped in New Zealand.
• 37:03
  Marcus Ambrose can't get out of Tasmania and so on.
• 37:06
  I'll go and do something else.
• 37:07
  This is Chad's.
• 37:09
  And some people have said to me since then, you know, why the hell did you do that?
• 37:12
  You know, you were there and –
• 37:14
  I'm a team player, mate.
• 37:14
  You don't do that shit.
• 37:15
  You don't come in and be some arrogant so-and-so at the last minute.
• 37:19
  I mean, he's...
• 37:21
  I am very passionate about working in the same way that I've got a great relationship with John Smales, Will Hagen and those guys.
• 37:27
  I'm very passionate about that next brigade, mate.
• 37:30
  So Chad Nalon's just done the eSport Olympics in Singapore.
• 37:33
  Matt Nolte, who I call TCR with, he's been in the States doing stadium trucks.
• 37:38
  Richard Crail absolutely hits it out of the park with F1 on 10 with Weber and those guys when he's done it and Damon Hill.
• 37:45
  He's just been to the Le Mans 24-hour.
• 37:47
  And then I've worked with...
• 37:49
  Cam van der Dungan in Singapore at the Grand Prix and Aaron Noonan on different things too.
• 37:52
  And I'm absolutely determined to have a great relationship with those guys, mate.
• 37:55
  I think that's very, very important.
• 37:59
  On my podcast, Rusty, I never offer my opinion.
• 38:02
  I just ask questions and listen to the guest.
• 38:05
  But it's your podcast, so you don't have to respond to this, but I'm going to offer my opinion just on this one topic we've talked about.
• 38:11
  Okay.
• 38:12
  Not a reflection on anyone that has done the role or is currently doing the role.
• 38:19
  And you've moved on and continued your career on an upward path, and you not being involved with the V8s day-to-day has allowed you to do things like this fantastic podcast.
• 38:29
  So you're probably giving more to the world of motorsport than you could be anyway.
• 38:33
  But you, being removed from the V8 supercars, this is someone that's worked in production, worked with a lot of the people involved, and then now just sits home watching it as a fan, as uncomfortable as this may be for you to hear.
• 38:46
  You being removed from that broadcast is one of the most boneheaded decisions I have seen in my whole time in television.
• 38:56
  And the fact that you just told us that story about Chad and how focused you are on a team, whether you want to do it today or tomorrow or not, the fact that you were removed from that due to what is a very political world is, in my opinion, dumb, dumb, dumb, and the coverage suffered for it.
• 39:16
  That's very kind of you, mate.
• 39:18
  Well, it's obvious, mate.
• 39:19
  It's obvious as the nose on your funny little face, my friend.
• 39:23
  I'm a huge believer that you never say never, so who knows what the future will hold.
• 39:27
  I've worked hard to ensure, despite what you've spoken about, that the relationship remains sound because I'm doing podcasting with some of them.
• 39:36
  I just, I'm eyes forward about it.
• 39:41
  Who knows?
• 39:41
  Maybe the landscape would change at some stage.
• 39:44
  I feel some aspects have moved on.
• 39:47
  But I retain and want to retain good ties there.
• 39:51
  I don't want to shoot it down.
• 39:53
  It's got its challenges and...
• 39:58
  Leave it to me.
• 39:59
  I'll say it for you.
• 40:00
  It's a disgrace.
• 40:01
  It's a disgrace.
• 40:03
  That's kind of you, mate.
• 40:04
  I mean...
• 40:06
  It is, mate.
• 40:07
  It's just a...
• 40:08
  I don't know the whys or whens.
• 40:09
  I just know sitting at home watching the V8s, if I want to know what's happening, I want you telling it to me.
• 40:15
  But that's just a bloke sitting on the couch watching.
• 40:18
  I think the human aspect is important in that game.
• 40:22
  And as it tries to...
• 40:25
  I don't think it can get back right now.
• 40:27
  The market's not right for it to get back to what we enjoyed with 10.
• 40:31
  We have to, you know, I reckon Daz might have had a conversation with David Barham.
• 40:36
  David really wanted Daz to be a part of the return of supercars to Channel 10 in 2015.
• 40:42
  And Daryl said no.
• 40:43
  And I think he stood firm on that.
• 40:45
  And it probably was a bit awkward.
• 40:46
  I'm talking out of school here now.
• 40:48
  But Daryl's response very simply was,
• 40:52
  It'll never be as good as it was back then, and I don't want to taint that thing.
• 40:57
  And he was right.
• 40:57
  Now, mate, in truth, when I first went back there in 2014 – 2015, rather, a couple of things happened.
• 41:04
  Matty White had been at Channel 7 doing Today Tonight.
• 41:09
  They brought him over to do a breakfast show at 10.
• 41:11
  The breakfast show folded before it even –
• 41:13
  You know, he'd even set foot in the building.
• 41:14
  He did.
• 41:15
  She knocked off before.
• 41:16
  It was struggle straight at that stage.
• 41:20
  Great man, Whitey.
• 41:21
  Great man, Betty White.
• 41:22
  And, you know, then my, you know, it was a contractual year for me.
• 41:29
  They had him on board.
• 41:30
  What were they going to do with him?
• 41:31
  You know, it probably was a bit awkward for Matty and I there for a while.
• 41:34
  It was not his fault.
• 41:35
  I was not angry at him.
• 41:36
  And there's no mortgage I can have on that role.
• 41:39
  But I'd worked very hard to get to that role and David...
• 41:42
  very kindly gave it to me and I worked hard at the F1 hosting and the MotoGP hosting and so on.
• 41:46
  And I was in my dream job and I was a bit gutted about that.
• 41:51
  But Matty and I now work together again and we have this great, beautiful thing going, mate.
• 41:55
  It's like the old days when we drive to the track.
• 41:59
  Now, I won't say who, but I was warned at the end of sort of 2014 by someone I greatly respect not to go.
• 42:08
  They said to me, you don't want to do this.
• 42:10
  I didn't listen, mate.
• 42:15
  I don't regret that because you make the best decision you can at the time, but they were ultimately right.
• 42:20
  So I'm grateful you say that.
• 42:22
  The world's moved on, and I've proved the point.
• 42:24
  I went back in 2021.
• 42:26
  We had a fantastic time together.
• 42:28
  If they rang tomorrow and said they needed a hand, I'd happily help them out.
• 42:31
  And I'm doing some other good things, mate, between –
• 42:34
  You know, working with, you know, Matty again, as I said, on TCR and stuff on Channel 9 and Stan and the podcasting that I'm doing here.
• 42:42
  And I've just got a nice variety happening there, brother.
• 42:45
  A couple of short, sharp ones for you, Guru.
• 42:47
  Yep.
• 42:48
  You can choose any guest to come on the podcast that hasn't been on.
• 42:51
  Who is it?
• 42:53
  Ah, wow.
• 42:54
  Mario Andretti.
• 42:55
  Mario Andretti.
• 42:56
  Yep.
• 42:56
  Okay, so motor racing legend.
• 42:59
  I interviewed him once on the pit wall of the Gold Coast IndyCar race, and I'll never forget it.
• 43:05
  He could not have been nicer, more engaging.
• 43:07
  We follow each other on Twitter now, and there's an occasional comment, a proper, proper legend, mate.
• 43:11
  One day when I go back to the States and what have you, that would be one I would love to do in a racing sense.
• 43:18
  Off track from racing, I'm sure.
• 43:21
  I've been able to do Eric Banner.
• 43:22
  I've become a very good mate of Shane Jacobson's.
• 43:24
  He and I worked together on a couple of things.
• 43:27
  Probably the funniest one, mate, was getting to interview Will Ferrell for Talladega Nights.
• 43:32
  I still savour that day.
• 43:34
  The 10 or so minutes flew by.
• 43:36
  We were at a hotel in Sydney and all the rooms, the next one down was Koshi and Mel for whatever and so on.
• 43:42
  And at the end of it, the cameraman, Benny Green, said, hey, can we get a photo?
• 43:46
  And the PR lady's like, no, no, they've got to go.
• 43:48
  They're going to the Today Show or something or other.
• 43:50
  And Will Ferrell turned to her and said, hey, these are good guys.
• 43:55
  We're going to have a photo with them.
• 43:56
  We've had a nice conversation.
• 43:58
  And, mate, I talked about Anchorman and John C. Reilly, who was with him, is very funny.
• 44:02
  I mean, he had been in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise.
• 44:06
  It wasn't the first time he'd done NASCAR.
• 44:07
  I mean, we talked about all this stuff, mate.
• 44:08
  It was awesome, awesome.
• 44:10
  That's who you want on the podcast.
• 44:12
  You can go to any racetrack in the world to watch an event.
• 44:17
  Where are you going?
• 44:17
  Yep.
• 44:19
  I went to the Le Mans 24 Hour in 2015.
• 44:22
  I've done some great things with British Grand Prix and Italy for MotoGP.
• 44:26
  Been very fortunate, mate.
• 44:27
  Super fortunate.
• 44:28
  Nürburgring to drive some cars.
• 44:30
  But...
• 44:31
  I've never done, for whatever reason, the Indy 500.
• 44:34
  So, brother Diff, if you are listening, I reckon 2024 is the year and I'll come and hang out.
• 44:41
  That'll be good.
• 44:41
  There's a tough one for you.
• 44:43
  So, we get to this racetrack.
• 44:45
  You can pick P1, 2, 3, and 4 to start this imaginary race.
• 44:49
  It doesn't matter what cars they're in.
• 44:51
  You get four drivers, P1, P2, P3, and P4.
• 44:55
  They're going to lead the race off.
• 44:57
  Who are they?
• 44:57
  A tough one for you.
• 44:59
  Uh...
• 45:00
  I've had a great relationship with Mark Webber that continues to this day.
• 45:03
  So is he on pole?
• 45:05
  Barbecue on pole?
• 45:06
  At least on the front row.
• 45:07
  Oh, okay.
• 45:08
  I reckon on the front row.
• 45:08
  So P2 for the barbecue, right?
• 45:11
  Come back to three and four.
• 45:13
  Can I go any motor racing series here or what am I doing?
• 45:15
  I don't know where I'm going.
• 45:16
  No category, just four drivers you'd love to see race together in a homogenous vehicle.
• 45:23
  Far out.
• 45:24
  So we've got the barbecue.
• 45:25
  Webber, Alonso.
• 45:27
  Oh, Fernando, who's killing it this year.
• 45:30
  I'm a huge fan of Fernando.
• 45:33
  I feel like I'm picking only Formula One here, mate.
• 45:35
  I need to pick something else out of left field.
• 45:40
  Oh, so tough.
• 45:45
  Maybe give me a Will Power on there in IndyCar.
• 45:47
  Oh, Will Power.
• 45:48
  Okay.
• 45:49
  Very good.
• 45:49
  So we've got Webber, Alonso, Power, and...
• 45:53
  Let's finish with something left of field here.
• 45:55
  Maybe a supercars driver.
• 45:57
  Maybe you've had him on the pod, mate.
• 45:59
  Maybe a legend like Larry Perkins or someone like proper old school hard driver.
• 46:04
  Maybe him.
• 46:04
  I think I'd like to see him at Spa.
• 46:06
  I think I'd like to see Weber, Alonso Power and Perkins at Spa.
• 46:09
  Spa.
• 46:09
  That sounds good, mate.
• 46:10
  That would be outstanding.
• 46:12
  You've got to go because you've got so much on.
• 46:13
  No, no, I'm good.
• 46:14
  You want two quick funny stories to finish?
• 46:16
  Yeah, go on.
• 46:17
  Beatty has played some serious gags on us over time, and not often have we got even with him.
• 46:23
  But when we went to the China...
• 46:26
  supercars race.
• 46:27
  The seat warmers is what always got me.
• 46:29
  He'd get you in the car.
• 46:31
  Shoot, it's hot in his car.
• 46:33
  Crank it up.
• 46:33
  Cackling away in the Volvo.
• 46:35
  And he'd have your seat on 34 degrees.
• 46:37
  Are you all right, Guru?
• 46:38
  It's like, you got me with the seat warmers.
• 46:39
  Sorry, we're going to China.
• 46:41
  So we're on the plane.
• 46:44
  We're in the air.
• 46:44
  Yeah.
• 46:45
  And he falls asleep.
• 46:46
  Yeah.
• 46:47
  And the drivers, like it was this plane load of supercars people, and the drivers started lining up with their Sharpie autograph pens, and they're doing everything from Paul Stanley stars on his face to tattoos to you name it.
• 47:03
  And they just drew everything.
• 47:05
  And I thought, I mean, he looked like this crazy.
• 47:07
  And I thought, surely he'll wake up, you know, before we descend and wash his face and whatever else.
• 47:12
  And he never did, mate.
• 47:13
  He woke up when the tyres touched down on the runway in Shanghai.
• 47:18
  So we're lining up.
• 47:19
  I'm two rows from him.
• 47:20
  We're lining up in customs.
• 47:21
  And I'm thinking, what the hell?
• 47:22
  He's going to get arrested here.
• 47:24
  And the looks he was getting while he was going through customs in Shanghai was unbelievable.
• 47:29
  So we got him a beauty and he didn't know it until he got to the hotel.
• 47:33
  Then we went to Bahrain.
• 47:35
  This is my final one.
• 47:37
  We go to Bahrain and it's hot as hell and Diff goes, let's go and do a workout.
• 47:45
  So we go to the gym, brand spanking new gym.
• 47:48
  And while we're in there, the gym owner is like, oh, would you mind if we-
• 47:50
  took a couple of pictures.
• 47:52
  And they're two unfittest blokes in the world in the gym on the cycling machine.
• 47:56
  So we do that.
• 47:57
  We don't think anything more of it.
• 47:58
  We have a great time at Bahrain.
• 47:59
  The following year, the supercars goes to Channel 7.
• 48:02
  Diff's in America.
• 48:04
  I'm doing something else.
• 48:05
  And my phone rings and it's Jason Bright.
• 48:08
  And he is crying with laughter.
• 48:10
  He's on the floor because beside the hotel is this massive billboard of the gym and it's Diff and I.
• 48:18
  Dip an eye on the riding equipment.
• 48:21
  Oh, mate, I could go on with stories for every day.
• 48:24
  There's been some very, very funny moments along the way.
• 48:26
  It's been a joy.
• 48:28
  Remiss of me not to bring it up to this point, Georgie and Stella, you've got two delightful girls.
• 48:33
  You've got a wife that has stuck with you.
• 48:36
  Heavens no way, Rusty, things you've put Sarah through over the years.
• 48:42
  What does family mean to you in the middle of 2023?
• 48:45
  Yes.
• 48:46
  A lot, mate.
• 48:49
  I'm a pain in the ass, really.
• 48:50
  I'm far from a pinup dad, but we have a lot of fun, a lot of laughs here.
• 48:56
  Sassy's the brains of the operation and she is the yin to the yang, if you like.
• 49:01
  She keeps things grounded when I get too serious or too perfect, trying to be too perfect.
• 49:08
  She took me to Everest Base Camp nearly 20 years ago now, mate, and that's a trip that I...
• 49:13
  will remember very fondly.
• 49:15
  It was outside my comfort zone and I'm very proud of that little trek, not to the top, to be fair, only to base camp, but it's still an amazing thing to do.
• 49:23
  Georgie's driving now, mate, crazy.
• 49:24
  My little eldest, she's driving.
• 49:27
  She's got a modelling contract and she came to the Grand Prix this year and did a bit of work experience.
• 49:34
  Who knows?
• 49:35
  Who knows where it'll lead.
• 49:38
  She's very similar to me sometimes, but I go, oh, darling,
• 49:41
  maybe don't do it that way or and she's no no and she's headstrong about doing it the way she wants to so and the little tacker made um some funny vision of her floating around at one of georgie's shoots where she's run on two phones she's all on all go on two phones pretty handy on social media so she's just started expressing an interest in maybe sports media so we'll we'll see she's uh they're both huge drive to survive fans they've come to singapore they've come to
• 50:06
  to Melbourne with me.
• 50:07
  And yeah, mate, yeah, they're a nice balance in my life, brother, for sure.
• 50:14
  I always finish my podcast the same way.
• 50:17
  If you haven't heard of it, it's called The Howie Games.
• 50:19
  Check it out.
• 50:20
  Yes, I know.
• 50:20
  We've had a lot of motorsport people on, not as many as Rusty had.
• 50:26
  But I always often finish the same way, and it's my favorite part of the show, is you've had a very successful career, not only in broadcasting, but as a father to a beautiful family and a friend to a lot of people, as well as your broadcasting and a reliable person.
• 50:44
  trustworthy, honest team player, which is as much as anyone can want to be described, as I reckon.
• 50:52
  What advice would you give to the young people out there that listen to your fantastic podcast that want to achieve some success along the lines of the tremendous success you've achieved?
• 51:01
  And I've got no doubt much more is in front of you, mate.
• 51:04
  I still feel like I've got good stuff in the tank, mate.
• 51:08
  Fairness and balance.
• 51:10
  That doesn't win a lot in the crazy clickbait world that you and I are in now, but I have maintained that steadfastly.
• 51:17
  I want to be known for that.
• 51:19
  I tell the kids when you stop and read something, consider the other side.
• 51:24
  If I interview Howie and I need to go and interview Daz to get the balance, I want to do that.
• 51:28
  I want it to be perceived as fair.
• 51:31
  Work hard.
• 51:33
  It's a business that will reward you if you're prepared to put in the long hours.
• 51:36
  Be diverse.
• 51:38
  Try different things.
• 51:39
  Writing, PA commentary, do some radio, do podcasting, whatever it might be.
• 51:45
  And don't just think about going straight to the top job.
• 51:50
  And then finally, mate, a setback.
• 51:52
  isn't necessarily the end of the world, providing you're not in the front page of the papers and having done something bad.
• 51:58
  You can reinvent.
• 51:59
  You can change course, change tact.
• 52:03
  I've proven that.
• 52:04
  I've had two careers and I'm very proud of both of them, but you can change direction and still be a success, mate.
• 52:14
  Mate, when you asked me to come and do this, I was immediately privileged.
• 52:17
  And I said to Tommy immediately, yep, let's do it.
• 52:19
  Because as I mentioned right at the start, you showed me tremendous kindness when I first walked into that channel 10 OB.
• 52:27
  I know people enjoy hearing the backstory of you because you brought people 99 wonderful stories and there's so many more stories to come.
• 52:34
  I think it probably best if we get Alan Jones back on the line and he gives a summation of how he thinks the podcast went.
• 52:42
  Do you know, that Greg Rust appeared on Ready Steady Cook one time and there was claret going everywhere.
• 52:47
  Cut his finger on live television with the celebrity chef Alistair McLeod.
• 52:52
  Daryl Beatty had won it.
• 52:54
  Rust like a capsicum.
• 52:56
  Perfect, mate.
• 52:58
  You're a star.
• 52:59
  I love you.
• 52:59
  Keep punching, Guru.
• 53:01
  Love you too, mate.
• 53:02
  I owe you greatly.
• 53:03
  Thank you so much for doing this and I hope everyone enjoys it.
• 53:05
  Cheers, mate.
• 53:11
  That's the end of my podcast.
• 53:13
  Thank you for allowing me to share a decent chunk of my story for this 100th ep of Rusty's Garage.
• 53:20
  A couple of people that I'd like to spend a moment thanking that perhaps didn't get a mention along the way in the conversation, but they've been great supporters, so I want to acknowledge them.
• 53:29
  To Stevie Wood, a producer I still work with to this day, thank you, mate, for the guidance and encouraging me to grow.
• 53:36
  To the other behind-the-scenes members of the 10 team from back in the day, Andrew Radford was there, Helen Colantanio, who kept Baz's stash of Kit Kats for us in the draw, Rachel Proudman and many more.
• 53:48
  That crew worked incredibly hard and made the office in Piedmont there in Sydney a joy to go to every day.
• 53:56
  Thank you.
• 53:56
  I've been re-energised by the Speed Series that I work on with the team there at Channel 9 and Stan, led by a former colleague from Network 10 in Andrew Janssen and a tight on-camera team that includes Nolts and Kralsey, as well as Molly Taylor, Matty White, Chris Stubbs, Fabian Coulthard and more.
• 54:15
  It's a small team that punches really hard to make a quality product.
• 54:20
  Thank you to Gary Rogers, too, who called me in the early days of TCR Australia and said, Gregory, we want this to be fun and entertaining.
• 54:28
  Been our mantra ever since.
• 54:29
  Pretty cool to have Gary in your corner.
• 54:32
  To the team from the Super Sprint Motorsport New Zealand Championship as well.
• 54:35
  We've done one great summer season, and I am absolutely looking forward to season two.
• 54:40
  We've got some great things in the pipeline there.
• 54:43
  To the crew at Motorsport Australia and Motorsport New Zealand, respectively, who I work with in various ways, it blows my mind to think that a race fan effectively could be so well embraced by the governing bodies.
• 54:58
  Sorry if my voice on hold messages in Oz drive the members mad there.
• 55:02
  To car sales and VACC, it's been a great road trip and I know there's lots more good stuff to come.
• 55:09
  To Tony Quinn, Josie and the team from TQ's Interests in New Zealand, I am truly loving the association there too.
• 55:16
  It's just the beginning.
• 55:18
  Over to Supercars Media.
• 55:19
  The crew there led by an old colleague in David Tunnicliffe.
• 55:22
  Now, there may have been some speed humps that I touched on in the podcast, but that is in no way a reflection of that team, many of whom are...
• 55:31
  like family to me.
• 55:33
  I love working with them when I get a chance to do that in other capacities.
• 55:37
  To my motor racing mates, those I go go-karting with for fun in NZ, to the people in the pit lane on both sides of the ditch, thank you.
• 55:46
  To my high school buddies,
• 55:48
  Words are not enough.
• 55:49
  It is awesome that we are so close three decades later.
• 55:53
  Finally, to mum, who tells me to keep my feet on the ground before every broadcast, and dad, who is immensely supportive.
• 56:00
  To my brother, sister, my brother-in-law and nephews, and especially to Sass and our daughters, you have all been unwavering in your support.
• 56:09
  I probably won't do another this is your life style chat like this.
• 56:13
  I don't reckon I deserve it.
• 56:14
  I prefer it to be about our guests.
• 56:17
  But for sure, I'll continue to find ways to weave in some of the adventures that I've had along the way where it's appropriate.
• 56:24
  Thank you so much for listening.
• 56:25
  And here's to the next 100.