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

Transcript

Greg Siddle - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:18
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with respected driver manager Greg Siddle.
• 0:24
  If you've arrived here and not heard part one with Pee Wee, as they call him in this game, you are missing some ripper conversation around some of the big names in the sport over the years.
• 0:35
  Greg typically doesn't big note himself, but you'll enjoy the early stuff with Larry Perkins in Europe and legendary engineer and race car designer Ron Turanac, meeting and working with Nelson Piquet and the friendship that he has to this day with the three-time F1 world champion, the talented Roberto Moreno and the opportunity with Sir Frank Williams that slipped through their grasp.
• 0:58
  That's through circumstance more than anything else.
• 1:01
  We haven't even scratched the surface in this conversation in some ways.
• 1:05
  We begin part two with his connections to Van Diemen and the passionate, almost plea that he would make to get them to officially play down under in Australian Formula Ford.
• 1:20
  Let's venture along here.
• 1:22
  Firstly, I think a couple of steps back in the convo, I think you mentioned Ralph, and I think you were meaning Ralph Fuhrman at Van Diemen.
• 1:29
  Correct.
• 1:29
  Am I right?
• 1:29
  Yes.
• 1:30
  Tell us about your connection with Van Diemen and what went on from there.
• 1:36
  Yeah.
• 1:38
  Well, once again, I didn't know, Ralph.
• 1:39
  I mean, so I came into motor racing and got into Formula 3, and that's where I lived and breathed and whatever.
• 1:45
  And so I didn't know.
• 1:46
  It was Gould Motorsport?
• 1:47
  What did you call it?
• 1:48
  Yeah, Gould Motorsport.
• 1:49
  Well, I wasn't going to call it Peewee Racing or Siddle Racing, which everyone does.
• 1:52
  So I chose Gould, which is my wife's name.
• 1:56
  Lovely.
• 1:57
  Or she was to become my wife.
• 1:58
  So that's how that emanated.
• 2:00
  So with Ralph, well...
• 2:03
  Once again, solid guys, solid racer, ethical, and you establish a connection and trust straight away.
• 2:11
  Even to this life, and I don't teach so many young kids now, but I guess if you look at the names of the people that you're going to speak to about me, what is the underlying thing is trust.
• 2:23
  Integrity.
• 2:24
  Once you establish that trust.
• 2:26
  everything, you just don't have to worry about so many things.
• 2:29
  There's some things you just don't have to think about.
• 2:32
  And that was my relationship with, um, with, with Ralph and, um, and Roberto, in fairness, we had four offers, I think at the time and Roberto,
• 2:42
  Roberto wanted to go to Van Diemen.
• 2:44
  And so I sat down and did a deal.
• 2:46
  And he tried very hard to get a lot out of it.
• 2:49
  And I pushed back very hard.
• 2:51
  Well, you're not getting that.
• 2:52
  We will contribute a minimum amount of money, which we did.
• 2:55
  And, of course, you know, he just had a brilliant year.
• 2:58
  He just won both championships, I think, or certainly won one of them.
• 3:03
  He did some Formula 4 2000 races for him.
• 3:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 3:06
  in a car that they were trying to develop.
• 3:09
  And, of course, he won the festival.
• 3:11
  He won every heat.
• 3:12
  He won the semifinal, won the final, broke the lap record.
• 3:17
  And so once again, you know, that was that and you move on and you know who we are.
• 3:22
  And that sort of then, so gosh, that was 1980.
• 3:27
  So he came back to Australia in 1990.
• 3:28
  Did you?
• 3:29
  Yes.
• 3:31
  Or 89.
• 3:33
  And so I'll just jump on, I'll keep on the Ralph Fuhrman thing, is that I'd bumped into a guy called Steve Knott.
• 3:41
  Well, he bumped into me.
• 3:42
  He said, oh, we're in Adelaide.
• 3:44
  And he said, oh, P, I'm Steve Knott, blah, blah, blah.
• 3:47
  And he said, oh, just pick your brain about this young guy.
• 3:52
  What should we do?
• 3:52
  And I said, well, and I wasn't aware of Formula Ford in Australia.
• 3:55
  And then I was aware that Formula Ford in Australia at the time was,
• 4:00
  It was run by and controlled by guys in their mid-20s, even late 20s, and they were winning races.
• 4:09
  I mean, I'm not being disrespectful.
• 4:10
  That's just how it was.
• 4:12
  And I said, well, what sort of cars do you race here?
• 4:14
  And he said, well, 86 Van Demons.
• 4:17
  And I said, well, why are you racing 86 Van Demons?
• 4:21
  Oh, well, we wait till the couple of years old, we bring them to Australia.
• 4:23
  I said, well, why don't you buy a new car?
• 4:25
  Oh, no, we don't do that.
• 4:26
  I said, well, no.
• 4:27
  if you want to get on and you want to perform and get kids to do, get a new car.
• 4:33
  Then he said, well, how will we do that?
• 4:35
  And I said, well, the Van Diemen, I think, is the best car.
• 4:38
  And I said, I'll ring up Ralph Furman.
• 4:42
  He said, yeah, really?
• 4:43
  I said, no, I'll ring Ralph.
• 4:44
  So I rang Ralph and I said, Ralph, look, there's a guy out here, you know, they've got a young kid and they're a bit archaic about their roasting.
• 4:52
  And I said, do you sell Van Diemen's in Australia?
• 4:55
  He said, oh, no, Pee Wee.
• 4:56
  He said, no way I'm selling Van Diemen's in Australia.
• 4:59
  And I said, why is that, Ralph?
• 5:00
  He said, oh, look, if I sell a Van Diemen's in Australia, he said, those buggers in Australia, he said, they'll just go and copy it.
• 5:05
  You know, I'm not going to make any money.
• 5:06
  I bugger him.
• 5:07
  I'm not selling a car.
• 5:07
  I said, Ralph, come on, send me down.
• 5:09
  So I said, listen, Ralph, I need to buy a car.
• 5:11
  And I said, do you have a – I said, I want to be your agent.
• 5:15
  He said, no problem.
• 5:17
  So he wrote out a one-page street.
• 5:19
  So I set up the agent in Australia with Steve and his wife.
• 5:22
  Yes.
• 5:22
  And I basically let them have 60% of the business and I 40% because I didn't want to run on a day-to-day basis.
• 5:28
  Yeah.
• 5:29
  So there's a relationship that I had with Ralph.
• 5:31
  10 years prior.
• 5:33
  Prior.
• 5:34
  And, of course, I don't have to ring up and say, remember me or whatever.
• 5:37
  You just make calls, and that's how we started.
• 5:39
  And then the second year, we got Mark Larkin, who wasn't a youngster.
• 5:46
  I think Mark won him in 2021.
• 5:50
  And then he won.
• 5:52
  A great kid.
• 5:53
  He was, well...
• 5:55
  I'll let him take the kudos.
• 5:56
  He's my media manager.
• 5:59
  The next year we had Russell Ingle.
• 6:01
  Yep.
• 6:02
  Who won, who was older again.
• 6:04
  But that transformation had started.
• 6:06
  We're bringing new cars out.
• 6:08
  And the kids were coming out of GoCars into the latest spec machinery.
• 6:12
  And so their dad started talking to me.
• 6:15
  Like Cam McConville's dad.
• 6:16
  Dad.
• 6:16
  Jimmy Richards' dad.
• 6:17
  Yep.
• 6:18
  Jimmy Richards.
• 6:19
  And so Noski, the fathers were talking to me.
• 6:21
  Because the kids now were all dropping under...
• 6:25
  18, 17.
• 6:26
  Yep.
• 6:28
  Mark Noski's dad.
• 6:31
  Jason Bright's mum and dad.
• 6:32
  There'd be a tander in there somewhere too probably, isn't there?
• 6:34
  His mum and dad.
• 6:35
  They cleaned buildings in Perth.
• 6:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 6:37
  Marcus, even Marcus's dad came and bought one.
• 6:42
  Mark Webber.
• 6:43
  Yep.
• 6:43
  You know, Alan Webber, he raced one of our school cars as a kid, and I said, Alan, don't waste your money.
• 6:48
  Get this kid a car.
• 6:49
  You know, and I had to sort of – a bit of a sales pitch, you know, and I had to sort of get them to understand why they need to buy a car.
• 6:56
  And I would always say to them at the end of the most –
• 7:00
  Listen, if you don't buy a car, it's not going to change my life.
• 7:04
  Why not?
• 7:04
  Why not I owe you?
• 7:05
  If you buy a car, it's not going to change my life.
• 7:07
  This is what I suggest you do.
• 7:09
  Go and buy a new car.
• 7:11
  Spend all your money now.
• 7:12
  Take all your risk now.
• 7:13
  Put it into your kid.
• 7:14
  If he doesn't make it when you've given him every opportunity,
• 7:17
  Tell him to go and get a job somewhere.
• 7:18
  And so I would always leave that with him.
• 7:20
  And even with Alan, I remember with Alan, I sat out the front of his used car yard in Queanbeyan for probably two hours trying to convince him to spend money to buy his son a new car and all the reasons I've just said.
• 7:32
  And, of course, they did and the rest is history.
• 7:34
  So then we just had this great rapport for many years and then there was just a transformation.
• 7:39
  Every kid that we, when we ran the business, made a...
• 7:46
  a career out of motor racing except one, Troy Dunson, who won with the support of the Morrisers.
• 7:55
  But he'd already had a little engine business with his father and whatever, and he'd already had a goal in life.
• 7:59
  But every other kid that they all made a career, either through winning the championship or coming second, like Marcus didn't win, Mark didn't win, Craig, of course, won.
• 8:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:14
  I mean, you know, and their fathers, nearly all these people didn't have a lot of money, but they sacrificed, you know, and they did and they could see because often people, oh, they think there's a cheap way.
• 8:24
  There's not a cheap way in this business.
• 8:26
  Well, there certainly wasn't in those days.
• 8:28
  I don't quite understand it now.
• 8:30
  But, you know, you buy a secondhand car for the first year and I just say it's rubbish.
• 8:35
  Give the kid everything now, make the sacrifices and it'll be cheaper in the long run.
• 8:39
  And I think, like I look back at the Anderson Consulting car, which was a 92 Van Diemen, I think, for Cam McConville.
• 8:44
  And I think that's still a very cool looking car.
• 8:47
  And I think I can recall Ken, his dad, at the end of that year, kind of sitting him down and saying, Cam, that's it.
• 8:53
  You know, we've had a big outlay here.
• 8:56
  We've got the new car and we've done all the right things and he'd won the title and so on.
• 8:59
  But it was then...
• 9:01
  like up to cam to continue as professional athlete, professional racing driver and learn and grow from there.
• 9:06
  Great guy.
• 9:07
  Yeah.
• 9:09
  You've brought up Mark Webber, which is terrific, and the conversation that you had with Alan around all that sort of stuff.
• 9:14
  Was there a little bit of early involvement with him before he took off to Europe and maybe some advice or – Do you really want to know about Mark Webber?
• 9:27
  Up to you.
• 9:27
  Come on.
• 9:29
  Yeah, well, so it came about, but we had this driving school out at, not a school, driving, Van Diemen's out at Oran Park.
• 9:41
  And a friend of mine, as I said, still a friend of this day, a car deal in Canberra, would get his car dealer mates and they'd come down.
• 9:49
  And we didn't want young kids because we learned that lesson in the beginning, the pain in the bum, they crash cars, blah, blah, blah.
• 9:55
  We wanted people that enjoy it and pay the money.
• 9:58
  Anyway, so he'd rung me one day, Brian, and said, okay, I've got 10 people because it was a group of 10.
• 10:03
  And he said, now, look, one of the guys has paid me the money, but he's asked me specifically, he said, look, he doesn't want to drive, but could his son drive?
• 10:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:13
  So because this friend of mine, I said, okay, so that happened.
• 10:16
  And in those days I would go out around about 11 o'clock and stay till the presentation, whatever.
• 10:23
  And in those days, Larco and Warwick Rookland and Marcus Ambrose, they were running the days for me.
• 10:31
  And there was no sort of control because they were sensible people.
• 10:35
  You know, we didn't have control mechanisms of revs.
• 10:37
  They were told to go out and do 4,000 revs and then later 6,000.
• 10:41
  By the end of the day, if they wanted, they could drive the car.
• 10:44
  And I can clearly remember going out there just prior to lunch.
• 10:47
  And I just could hear and see this car going at a speed it shouldn't have been going.
• 10:51
  And I said to Wazilag, I said, who the hell's driving that car?
• 10:55
  They shouldn't be going that quick at this time of the day.
• 10:58
  Anyway, it was Mark Webber.
• 11:00
  Anyway, as it turned out, he won the day.
• 11:03
  And the time he'd set, because I ended up selling that particular car that he drove, because it was all documented.
• 11:10
  And the time he did, it would have put him third on the grid of a national race.
• 11:17
  So then that's when I went on to the Allen thing.
• 11:20
  Convinced him.
• 11:20
  And then so, you know, we didn't run a race team.
• 11:24
  I said to Steve, we're not going to run a race team because if we run a race team, no one will beat us because of my connections back in the UK.
• 11:32
  So we made the teams facilitate or we'd find older engineers to help these young kids, which is what we did with Mark.
• 11:39
  I put Harry Galloway with him and then off he went and he was just brilliant.
• 11:42
  But I...
• 11:46
  I'll be very delicate here.
• 11:48
  Okay.
• 11:49
  So he then befriended or she befriended, Anne Neal befriended him.
• 11:55
  And then she was on the peripheral formula forward, I think, through her husband at the time who was involved with Coca-Cola.
• 12:01
  And I think she ended up getting Yellow Pages sponsorship.
• 12:06
  And so this was Mark's first year.
• 12:08
  He was still quite young.
• 12:09
  And I, as the year went on, that relationship they were having, I'm talking professionally here, not personal, was getting strengthened, understanding, because I didn't go to all the races.
• 12:21
  And then my goal, talking to his father, I wanted Mark to stay another year in Australia.
• 12:27
  And the reason why I could see that the kid was brilliant, he was gifted with speed, like absolutely gifted with speed, which over time everyone else saw that.
• 12:37
  But I wanted to stay by so he could learn how to win a championship.
• 12:42
  And learning to win a championship is a discipline, is a discipline.
• 12:47
  And if you start doing that at an age when you were very young, you'll carry that through in your business.
• 12:51
  Because I've always looked at motor racing, formula motor racing.
• 12:54
  You don't do things retrospectively.
• 12:56
  Yeah.
• 12:57
  Once you've done this and you go to the next step, you keep going, keep going, or you're out.
• 13:01
  You don't go, oh, look, I'll go back and do Formula Ford again.
• 13:04
  And so that opportunity was there then.
• 13:06
  But the strength was that, no, they were going to England.
• 13:10
  And I just, I disagree with it.
• 13:12
  Vemently, I disagree with it.
• 13:14
  only because I believed in the kids' brilliance.
• 13:17
  But that's the road they chose.
• 13:18
  And as it turned out, I guess in reflection, it was probably the right one.
• 13:22
  He got into Formula One.
• 13:23
  He was only in Formula One because of Anne Neal, no other reason.
• 13:27
  Wow.
• 13:27
  So I can't sort of reflect that, argue or disagree with what they did.
• 13:32
  But that's what I wanted to achieve.
• 13:34
  So look, over the years, yes, I know Mark.
• 13:36
  I know him well and I've been...
• 13:39
  If I saw him at races, I'm in one race in particular.
• 13:42
  I remember I was in Monaco for whatever reason, he did Formula 3000 and, uh, I watched the race and he absolutely blitzed it.
• 13:50
  And I remember him coming back to, to, um, the F1 pit and, uh, to see Brea Tori or whoever at the time.
• 13:58
  And I said to Mark, that was brilliant.
• 13:59
  I said, what you did today, you need to put in a bottle.
• 14:01
  It was just so special.
• 14:03
  So, yeah, and look, I know his father and his mother.
• 14:06
  And if we see one another, I've seen him when he then got involved with Mitch Evans.
• 14:11
  Yeah.
• 14:11
  And now, of course, he's got involved with Pia Oscar, who's potentially our next Formula One world champion.
• 14:20
  Beautiful.
• 14:21
  So...
• 14:23
  You meet this guy, Mark Larkham.
• 14:25
  I think he was running an 81 Van Diemen at the time or was a very early 80s Van Diemen when you first met him.
• 14:30
  What was the, you know, country boy, obviously.
• 14:33
  You liked his way, I think.
• 14:37
  What was the first impressions of Mark Larkham?
• 14:41
  Well, he's certainly a country boy.
• 14:43
  Yeah.
• 14:43
  That's for sure.
• 14:44
  Coming from Griffith, I mean, my goodness.
• 14:47
  And their weekends were spent in the pub in Yender.
• 14:52
  I can only imagine what the town of Yender's like.
• 14:54
  No disrespect to the people who come from Yender.
• 14:56
  But him and his mates.
• 14:57
  And look, he just – what you see markers, what I saw back in that time, he – and what shone out for me, what he was doing with that old car and then asking him what he'd done, and he'd done nothing.
• 15:11
  He decided he wanted to go motor racing.
• 15:13
  And so he cobbled – I think from memory he looked in auto action, saw this car, went and bought it, and off he went.
• 15:20
  But I could see that there was a potential with the kid.
• 15:23
  And so we struck up a report.
• 15:25
  And it was my interest that if there are good kids there, I mean, not that we had much competition in terms of cars.
• 15:32
  We did later on with the Borland and the odd Swift and would come out from the UK.
• 15:37
  You'd want to make sure kids with potential, you know, sat in a Van Diemen.
• 15:41
  And so I kept in touch and I can't remember whether I convinced him to buy a new car.
• 15:47
  He was probably smart enough to know that he had to buy a new car.
• 15:50
  And so then the next year he bought a new car and then he went around the industrious person that he is.
• 15:56
  I think he went around and knocked on 200 shops or businesses in Griffith.
• 16:00
  Griffith, yeah.
• 16:01
  And...
• 16:03
  got 10 Bob out of 150 and then put Griffith on the side of the car.
• 16:08
  And so he was very entrepreneurial even that early stage.
• 16:12
  And so once again, we just struck up a rapport, I guess, trust, um,
• 16:18
  We won the championship.
• 16:20
  The next year was Formula 3000.
• 16:22
  We did pretty well.
• 16:23
  I think I got the car from England for him.
• 16:26
  Did well there.
• 16:26
  He used entrepreneurship and finding sponsors or exploiting that.
• 16:31
  Came to the fore with Mitre 10.
• 16:34
  I think he would probably agree or he probably would want to forget when they tried to revolutionise V8 racing by building a V8 race car like a Formula car, which fell apart and whatever.
• 16:46
  And at the end of the day, he went in the rubbish tip and then got back on track with everyone else and then had the career in V8.
• 16:55
  I am the surrogate godfather to his second son.
• 16:59
  We didn't sort of get to the church yet.
• 17:02
  That probably won't happen now given that Troy's in his mid-20s and about to be married.
• 17:09
  But once again, we just have a good rapport.
• 17:11
  I've helped him through his career.
• 17:14
  with his contracts, spent a lot of time with him.
• 17:19
  He talks about you like you're a dad to him, mate.
• 17:22
  You're a mentor, but you're like a dad to him.
• 17:24
  Went through that terrible time that he had with the supercar, losing the job, and it was just an awful, awful time for him.
• 17:33
  Dead set wrong.
• 17:34
  Dead set wrong, of course.
• 17:35
  Yeah.
• 17:35
  we plotted a scenario that we were going to go down and that was a scenario or nothing else.
• 17:42
  And as it turned out, the pressure to brought to bear, I guess, Republican understood.
• 17:46
  So, um, yeah, I mean, it's just, once again, it's a trust thing and, and, you know, I guess the same with Sam and,
• 17:54
  Adam Carroll, Max Wilson, Lucas Arrow, just, you know, you've got to talk very confidentially about how you're going to do things and why you do things.
• 18:04
  And you haven't got time to be documenting bloody contracts and all this other nonsense, you know.
• 18:09
  So, you know, our friendship still prevails to this day.
• 18:12
  It's a great friendship.
• 18:14
  Let's stay on him for a fraction here if we can.
• 18:16
  Firstly...
• 18:18
  Sam Michael, who you've brought up, comes through there and he's another one that you've mentored and you could see obviously his talent from a very early age.
• 18:26
  There's a good story which I've told in the Larco pod and it may have even come up in the Sam pod, so we might as well share it again here.
• 18:32
  And it surrounds you, which I think at the time you may have had an office above a Team Arts in Parramatta or close to Parramatta somewhere.
• 18:39
  Sam would go from wherever he was to you perhaps and then ultimately to Larco's workshop, which was in
• 18:47
  Sydney's northwest up in Carlingford there.
• 18:50
  And I think Larko rang you at one point and said, tell Sam to get some engine mounts.
• 19:01
  Which was code for something.
• 19:02
  And you said, oh, okay, no problem.
• 19:05
  Like, are there part numbers with that?
• 19:06
  Is there any details?
• 19:08
  Come on, finish the story here.
• 19:11
  It was vanilla slices the whole way along, wasn't it?
• 19:13
  From the local bakery in between, wasn't it?
• 19:16
  Correct.
• 19:17
  They were vanilla slices.
• 19:20
  Only Larko.
• 19:21
  Seriously, only Larko.
• 19:23
  Yeah, no, no.
• 19:25
  Yeah, no, Sam was a good kid.
• 19:27
  He was... Did he write to you or to Larco?
• 19:30
  He'd been working with Neil Bates.
• 19:32
  He was obviously studying at university.
• 19:34
  And I think he clearly wanted to move into the open-wheel path
• 19:39
  But he wrote to – he may have even addressed it to the team manager or something or other, but he wrote with his CV, didn't he?
• 19:44
  He wrote a letter.
• 19:45
  He was at Sydney Uni and that wasn't unusual.
• 19:49
  You know, you'd get – people would ring or write.
• 19:52
  All the time.
• 19:52
  Yeah, my parents, kids – anyway, I can recollect that –
• 19:59
  the letter, and I should have kept the thing, the historical part of it now, and, of course, what he achieved.
• 20:06
  And I just remember making a point that makes sure we talk to this kid.
• 20:10
  So, yeah, look, he came on, and he was just brilliant.
• 20:14
  I mean, he was brilliant, but the other thing that really impressed me, which was really needed at the time, he thought outside the square, was my expression of Sam.
• 20:24
  So he knew what was going on, but you'd go outside the square to,
• 20:27
  to look further into things.
• 20:29
  And a lot of people just were fixated.
• 20:31
  And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that on their job in hand or what they had to do and achieve that and then just what's next on the work list.
• 20:40
  And that's what really stuck with me.
• 20:43
  And then obviously we worked together.
• 20:44
  He was doing the data.
• 20:46
  He was proactive all the time about doing things.
• 20:49
  This was starting to creep into the business.
• 20:52
  I think the thesis or the data rather became part of a thesis for his study, I think, didn't it?
• 20:56
  Yeah.
• 20:57
  Books over there.
• 20:57
  Fantastic.
• 20:58
  Just under that Formula One book.
• 20:59
  Fantastic.
• 21:01
  And so I said to Sam, you've got to go to Formula One.
• 21:05
  And –
• 21:07
  I don't know whether he thought I was a fool or I was dreaming.
• 21:11
  Not at all.
• 21:12
  Or I was drinking or what.
• 21:13
  But I had told him, you've got to go to Formula One.
• 21:16
  Anyway, so that's how that was.
• 21:18
  And then I just remember clearly one day coming back from Carlingford to Granville.
• 21:22
  And he's in the car with me and he's having a chat to me.
• 21:25
  And he said, oh, Peewee, he said, look, I've been speaking to Mark.
• 21:28
  So next year, you know, with the… Formula Holden or Bradburn or whatever it was.
• 21:33
  Yeah.
• 21:34
  You know, I'm going to work full time.
• 21:35
  Yeah.
• 21:36
  whatever.
• 21:37
  And I said, I beg your pardon?
• 21:39
  He said, no.
• 21:40
  And I said, no, no, no, no.
• 21:41
  I said, you're going to Formula One.
• 21:44
  So anyway, we went back and then I went home that night or whatever.
• 21:47
  And I said, Jesus, now you've opened your mouth.
• 21:49
  You better make it happen.
• 21:51
  So yeah, I duly got on the phone and,
• 21:53
  To Lotus, I think, wasn't it?
• 21:54
  Well, I rang quite a few people and I got an intro in there with PC, Peter Collins.
• 22:02
  Was there a conversation with Eddie Jordan too maybe?
• 22:04
  That was later.
• 22:07
  I think from memory they came here.
• 22:09
  We were last race of the year, I think, at that time.
• 22:13
  I think memory might have spoke with Peter Wright.
• 22:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:16
  That sounds correct, yeah.
• 22:17
  And yeah, and then the next year he went and worked for Lotus and he was doing gearbox data, I think, from memory.
• 22:27
  I went and saw him at one stage.
• 22:29
  He had an old bomb car.
• 22:32
  which I think was just cable of driving from where he lived to the Lotus factory and home again.
• 22:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:37
  I can't remember whether it was that year or the next year he rang and said, he said, listen, we're going to go broke, the company, Lotus.
• 22:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:51
  I said, oh, goodness.
• 22:52
  I said, well, I'll have to ring a few more people.
• 22:54
  So I rang Gary Anderson.
• 22:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:58
  told him about this young whiz-bang kid.
• 23:02
  And I said, told him what he did.
• 23:04
  And Gary had said to me, he said, oh, look, Peewee, he said, we've just employed someone like that and I don't know anyone.
• 23:10
  So I hammered in hammering, because I knew Gary back from when he ran formula.
• 23:15
  Well, first of all, he was a mechanic at Bernie on...
• 23:18
  on the Formula 1 team, and then he created a car called an Anson with his brother-in-law in Formula 3.
• 23:23
  So I knew him quite well before he went to EJ's, to Eddie's.
• 23:29
  And I said, look, just give the kid an interview.
• 23:32
  Just interview the kid.
• 23:34
  And he said, okay.
• 23:35
  He said, look...
• 23:37
  let's say it was a Thursday night, he'll have to come here.
• 23:40
  He said, the next day I'm flying to Japan and then down to Australia.
• 23:43
  I said, okay.
• 23:44
  So I rang Sam.
• 23:45
  I said, okay, I got you an interview with Gary.
• 23:48
  Gary Anderson.
• 23:48
  With Gary.
• 23:50
  And bear in mind, I just reflected on the car that he had.
• 23:53
  I said, the car, I said, the meeting, something like it was five o'clock in the afternoon.
• 23:58
  I said, what I want you to do, I want you to leave at 10 o'clock in the morning because if that bloody car breaks down, you need to get on it.
• 24:06
  You need to leave it beside the bloody road and get on a bus or a train and make sure you miss that bloody meeting.
• 24:15
  Anyway, so he got to the meeting and they had the meeting because no mobile phones in those days.
• 24:23
  So Gary –
• 24:25
  I spoke to Sam, how did he go?
• 24:26
  Oh, he thought it all went well.
• 24:28
  And bear in mind, it was just an interview.
• 24:30
  It wasn't for a specific job.
• 24:33
  But I had no doubts about his capabilities of answering and dealing with whatever Gary had spoken to him about or what he could do.
• 24:41
  So Gary ended up, did Japan, they came to Australia.
• 24:44
  Then I saw Gary in Adelaide and I said, well, how'd it go?
• 24:47
  He said, oh, yeah, Pewey.
• 24:48
  I'm employing him.
• 24:49
  Fantastic.
• 24:51
  That was the Gary and then… Away it went.
• 24:54
  And then away it went and then a similar thing, opportunity came.
• 24:57
  I think when he went to Frank's or to Patrick and the youngest TD at the time and then Ferrari.
• 25:06
  I can't remember whether Ferrari was the opportunity he had to Ferrari or Ron at the same time when he was being coached and…
• 25:17
  but anyway he went on to McLaren A couple of things about Sam to wrap up his portion of this discussion he vividly recalls going to Central I think in Indonesia and you were there with the Formula Holden or Formula Brabham and he said he was doing something around refuelling or moving some fuel from a jerry can or something or other and he'd taken the top off it
• 25:45
  And someone needed a hand with something just for like a millisecond.
• 25:49
  And he, and he ducked off to do that.
• 25:51
  And he said, the moment he came back, the lid was back on, you were there.
• 25:55
  And you kind of said to him, Hey mate, you know, this is a game where we've got to be ultra safe.
• 26:01
  Don't, don't ever do that again.
• 26:03
  Don't ever do that again.
• 26:05
  And because he's such a perfect, perfectionist and so good at what he does, it sank in with him.
• 26:10
  And, and later that evening, I think you were going out somewhere, maybe back at the hotel.
• 26:16
  And he brought it up and he said, you know, Pee Wee, and explained what had happened.
• 26:23
  And you turned to him and you said, Sam, there are two people in life.
• 26:26
  There are those that leave the lid off and risk that sort of stuff.
• 26:31
  And there are those that put the lid back on.
• 26:33
  You need to figure out what you're going to be.
• 26:35
  And you kind of left him with that moment of, you know, serious but sort of thought-provoking thing.
• 26:44
  And it really, it really...
• 26:46
  He still remembered it.
• 26:47
  He recounted it to me this morning before I've come here to your place for this chat.
• 26:50
  So, you know, the attention to detail, et cetera, et cetera.
• 26:55
  What he clearly has learned from you and then maybe even from Adam Parr and others along the way as he's worked with them, that the early part, the Lotus, the Jordan chapters, whatever, obviously there's a very important technical component of what he had to bring to the table there.
• 27:14
  But as he went on to Williams and McLaren, it became about people, didn't it?
• 27:19
  And how you interact with people, what you do with people.
• 27:23
  And I used that analogy before about the transactional nature of engineering or whatever they needed to get a job done and ticked.
• 27:30
  Whereas you perhaps helped him to start to pull the blinkers back and think more broadly about how people work in a team scenario.
• 27:38
  That's so important, isn't it?
• 27:40
  In the ultimate success of what he's achieved.
• 27:43
  been able to achieve in Formula One.
• 27:45
  And now what he's doing in business life, which is remarkable, they've been- Probably even more successful what he's done in Formula One.
• 27:50
  Formula One, yeah.
• 27:52
  Great transition there, isn't it?
• 27:53
  It's a story that people don't probably- He did share a little bit with Tom Clarkson very recently about what he's been doing around- I think it's around machine learning and things like that.
• 28:02
  He's very, very clever.
• 28:03
  Yeah, very clever, very clever.
• 28:06
  While we're talking about that, in the Jordan chapter-
• 28:11
  He got appendicitis and he ended up in hospital.
• 28:13
  I think he was in maybe a Northampton hospital.
• 28:16
  He was very sick.
• 28:17
  Was he?
• 28:17
  Very, very sick.
• 28:19
  He didn't let on that it was a serious- He was in there for a week, I think, at one point.
• 28:22
  He was very sick.
• 28:22
  We'll see.
• 28:23
  Okay.
• 28:24
  Well, the story goes, you rang Eddie Jordan and you must have shot the breeze with Eddie about different things.
• 28:30
  And then you, in your style, basically said to EJ, hey-
• 28:36
  you haven't been down and seen this bloke in hospital.
• 28:39
  That's not great form for a team owner.
• 28:42
  You, in the right way, kind of fronted him.
• 28:45
  And then the next thing, BJ was in the hospital visiting Sam.
• 28:49
  But that came about because you... Yeah, well, Vanessa, his wife, had rung and told me how sick he really was.
• 28:57
  How bad was it?
• 28:59
  He was very sick.
• 29:01
  Was he?
• 29:01
  Very sick.
• 29:03
  Wow.
• 29:04
  And she'd got, so he was being well looked after.
• 29:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:08
  And then I rang EJ.
• 29:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:11
  And so I'd known EJ from when he first came over from Ireland.
• 29:17
  I think he came over with him.
• 29:18
  He had the Marlborough money out of Ireland and was racing former Atlantic and was always a character from the time he came to England.
• 29:27
  But, yeah, no, I had a go at him about it because my concern was that
• 29:33
  what you've just said is correct, but my concern was that Sam was not in a good way and I wanted Eddie and he was trying to push back and brush me a bit.
• 29:42
  So I, yes, my subtle way, which I guess some people have come across over my lifetime in motor racing, I let him know that he should be doing more than what he's doing.
• 29:56
  Do you take a bit of pride in what Sam was able to do in –
• 30:00
  formula one and i know you guys i think you guys have a periodic catch-up it might be you sam larko when he's in town and and so on it's great that that whole connection that relationship which goes back whatever that is now mate 30 odd years more is still ultra strong today oh yeah maybe pride so i've never reflected on pride i just
• 30:24
  Just what you did.
• 30:25
  You opened the door.
• 30:26
  Yeah, and what they achieved is what I really reflect on.
• 30:29
  Do you?
• 30:30
  They've just done really well and they were good people.
• 30:33
  And I guess the satisfaction is I saw that, you know, at the infancy with both of those guys in particular and other guys as well, I have to say.
• 30:42
  But, you know, I saw that at the very beginning.
• 30:46
  It's a pity the McLaren thing didn't turn out.
• 30:50
  Ron realized what was right and proper, but by the time he'd realized, he wasn't going to undo Sam coming back home.
• 30:59
  But as it turned out, Ron got into other issues with the company and all his shareholders and...
• 31:09
  And, you know, I say to Sam, well, thank God you weren't there through all that.
• 31:14
  And now Zach runs the company totally differently to way Ron did and different things.
• 31:21
  So, you know, Sam's decision at the time, which was quite early on the season to come home, was, you know, in reflection of the right one.
• 31:29
  And for him personally, it was good.
• 31:32
  Vanessa, you know, who's an Australian, the two kids had the opportunity to finish their
• 31:40
  Gave him a good time with them at an important part of life, didn't he?
• 31:42
  Yeah, and they're both at university now.
• 31:44
  And so it certainly was a right.
• 31:47
  And now he's doing well in his business or the company's doing extremely well.
• 31:51
  In doing that stuff in mentoring…
• 31:56
  That's the little bits of advice that they have picked up from you along the way.
• 32:00
  Larko loves one of your great lines, and that is, take the emotion out of it, Larko.
• 32:08
  He reckons that's one of your life lessons when it comes to decisions or different key moments that you've had along the way.
• 32:15
  That's one of your mantras, if you like.
• 32:19
  Is that right?
• 32:20
  Yeah, emotion bites you on the bum.
• 32:22
  Does it?
• 32:24
  And it happened to me possibly twice in the early part of my, you know, in motor racing.
• 32:30
  I was emotional about things and it just bit me on the ass.
• 32:33
  Did it?
• 32:34
  Can you share that or what happened?
• 32:36
  Oh, I can't remember specifically what those things were, but I just know I was emotional about some decision and it was just, I shouldn't have been.
• 32:43
  You know, you've just got to be quite brutal.
• 32:45
  And that's why, you know, I'm,
• 32:49
  When I look at a guy like things like Brea Tori did, I'm not talking about the Singapore Grand Prix, but some of the decisions he's made in the industry, which a lot of media didn't support, I like what Helmut does, the way he goes about things.
• 33:03
  A lot of people don't support that.
• 33:05
  Just straight up.
• 33:06
  You know, deliver.
• 33:08
  deliver and I just agree with totally what, you know, how they go about the business because you just know that there's no emotion.
• 33:14
  There might have been a little bit of emotion, I think, because you hear snippets from Christian Horner about taking on the phrase, you know, after that one-off race in Monza last year.
• 33:27
  You know, he might have been a bit emotive about that because he wasn't a Red Bull driver.
• 33:31
  Yeah.
• 33:32
  And Christian didn't agree with that decision.
• 33:35
  But anyway, when he realized the error of his ways, he said, you're going.
• 33:38
  And as he said just recently, well, why do I have to wait another two races?
• 33:42
  You know, you're going now and, you know, they have Daniel will give them some direction and we won't win races for them.
• 33:49
  I'm sure technically he'll give them direction and potentially give them some points.
• 33:53
  So I'm, yeah, because of that emotion out of it, you know, and it's hard sometimes, you know.
• 34:00
  What other life lesson would you give some of the young drivers that are coming through that are perhaps listening to this about the way they should go about the business of motor racing now?
• 34:12
  Get yourself around good people.
• 34:14
  Yep.
• 34:14
  Just get yourself around good people.
• 34:18
  and you have to learn that very quickly.
• 34:20
  And you can get your round by by talking to people.
• 34:22
  And if there's any doubt in some people, just don't go near them.
• 34:24
  You know, it's just – I've always thought that, you know.
• 34:29
  You want to win a motor racing, well, go and buy a new race car.
• 34:32
  Don't find excuses.
• 34:33
  Just get good people in you, which is what I did with the young kids when we had Van Diemen.
• 34:38
  I got good engineers around them, older engineers, so they taught and learned.
• 34:42
  Help shape them.
• 34:43
  Yeah.
• 34:43
  Yeah.
• 34:43
  Amazing.
• 34:44
  Amazing.
• 34:45
  Chris Lambden said to me that when the S5000 thing was kind of really launching with Sandown a couple of years ago and wanting to make a splash, that I think they got in contact with you to try and help with a bit of international flavour for it.
• 35:01
  And you ultimately got to Rubens Barrichello.
• 35:03
  I think you might have done that through Luciano Berti.
• 35:05
  Did you go that direction first or how did you?
• 35:07
  Well, yeah, well, so Chris rang and they had an idea about –
• 35:11
  I think I might have been Felipe Massa though.
• 35:14
  They were talking names, which I had no connection, but I could connect with them.
• 35:18
  But I rang Luciano, who I brought Luciano out to do the Formula Ford series in New Zealand many years ago.
• 35:26
  So I had a rapport with him and I was introduced to him through Roberto.
• 35:31
  And so then I had a good rapport with Luciano still to this day all through his Formula 4 2000, Formula 3, Formula 1, Ferrari test driver, blah, blah, blah.
• 35:43
  So I rang Luciano and I said, listen, and I knew he had – so there's a bit of a mafioso with him and Max Wilson.
• 35:50
  All connected.
• 35:51
  And Rubens and Canaan.
• 35:55
  Yep.
• 35:55
  So I rang Luciano.
• 35:57
  So he rang Rubens and he said, yeah.
• 36:04
  But so once again, it just comes back to this trust thing.
• 36:09
  You know, if Luciano rings Rubens about a deal with a guy in Australia who Rubens – Rubens may have been aware who I was.
• 36:17
  But that introduction is worth a lot, mate, isn't it?
• 36:20
  You know, he didn't know me.
• 36:22
  But if Luciano is telling Rubens that this peewee guy in Australia, it's all okay, then it's done.
• 36:27
  And I think that's the reason I think I saw sometime later that Chris quoted that –
• 36:33
  Well, if you want to ring someone and you want to trust, just ring people.
• 36:37
  So, and that's, that's how it happened.
• 36:39
  So I negotiated.
• 36:41
  It was a bit of to and fro with the money, but I felt I got him reasonable money, uh, for what, for what he did.
• 36:47
  And he was happy with that.
• 36:49
  And we came back again.
• 36:51
  To the Grand Prix.
• 36:52
  Just before COVID, wasn't it?
• 36:53
  Yeah.
• 36:53
  Just before COVID.
• 36:54
  We agreed with that again.
• 36:55
  And so, yeah.
• 36:56
  And then I nearly brought his son out to do TRS two years ago, but that stopped because of COVID.
• 37:01
  But, yeah, no, that came through Luciano.
• 37:05
  I'm indebted to you because you helped me get him on the podcast back then.
• 37:08
  He was – You did.
• 37:09
  Yes, I think I bumped you in the street when you walked out of a restaurant with LP and – Yeah, and we were all – Did you speak to him?
• 37:15
  Yeah, I did.
• 37:15
  We were all stunned about what had happened with COVID –
• 37:18
  and to your point about introductions, I said, well, you know, obviously now we're at a loose end here because who knows what's going to happen in the world.
• 37:25
  I said, well, Rubens is here.
• 37:26
  Can I, could I speak to him?
• 37:28
  And you just like, just easy.
• 37:30
  I've spoken to him, but we, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 37:32
  He's at this hotel.
• 37:33
  Off you go.
• 37:34
  I was blown away here.
• 37:35
  Am I going to, you know, in the very early days of this podcast, I was going to talk to Rubens and we sat in a, um, in an, in a,
• 37:42
  a bar area upstairs in the hotel, and it was probably only half an hour, but it was just some of the most passion-filled, beautiful conversation, as is Ruben's way.
• 37:53
  Good guy.
• 37:53
  Good guy.
• 37:54
  Good guy.
• 37:54
  You've connected, as I said at the beginning of the chat here, you've connected with the South Americans.
• 37:58
  We haven't even talked Max yet, who came out and ran for Dick Johnson, among others.
• 38:04
  I still have a little bit of dialogue with him on socials to this day.
• 38:06
  He's just a great, great guy.
• 38:08
  Good guy.
• 38:08
  Isn't he?
• 38:08
  Yeah, amazing.
• 38:09
  Very emotional, but – Yeah.
• 38:10
  Yeah.
• 38:11
  But a good kid.
• 38:11
  Yeah.
• 38:12
  But it was all that came through.
• 38:13
  So he came to Australia.
• 38:14
  I can't remember how he came or why he came here.
• 38:17
  He came from Europe to here.
• 38:19
  He'd done a little bit of IndyCar too, hadn't he?
• 38:21
  A tiny bit maybe.
• 38:22
  Yeah.
• 38:22
  And the connection was, so Luciano and him are close.
• 38:25
  So Luciano said to Max, go and speak to Pee Wee.
• 38:29
  So he did.
• 38:31
  And then I did all his contracts with Pee Wee.
• 38:34
  There was a guy called Briggs, was there?
• 38:37
  John Briggs, yes.
• 38:37
  Yeah, yeah.
• 38:38
  And then I think Dick.
• 38:39
  Yeah.
• 38:39
  And then Triple Eight.
• 38:42
  Yeah, would have been with, yeah.
• 38:44
  With Roland.
• 38:44
  Yeah, yeah.
• 38:45
  So, yeah, I did all his contracts.
• 38:47
  And, of course, then he went back home, yeah.
• 38:48
  Amazing.
• 38:49
  Good guy.
• 38:49
  Good guy.
• 38:50
  I must get him on the podcast for, you know, for the sake of a...
• 38:55
  of a catch-up would be good.
• 38:55
  A couple of other things we should dive around about before we wrap this up.
• 38:59
  People have asked me to reminisce a little bit about the Porsche, Le Mans, Larry, and I think Brock, that was all.
• 39:07
  Well, you were involved in that project, weren't you?
• 39:10
  Am I right?
• 39:10
  So that came about, we, 83, so Alan drove for me with Roberto in the Grand Prix.
• 39:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:20
  And we went, and John Fitzpatrick was out here with a 935 Porsche.
• 39:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 39:28
  I don't, there must have been GT racing happening at the time.
• 39:31
  Anyway, that night we all went back to Alan's place in Kew.
• 39:35
  or I mean quite a few people, but I know Brock went, John was there, and, well, I was there, Alan, and whoever and whoever.
• 39:45
  And –
• 39:48
  They were talking, probably a bit of beer talking, and Fitz was saying, because Fitz at the time also was running Skull Bandit 962s in Le Mans type racing in Europe.
• 40:03
  It said to Brock, why don't you come over and do Le Mans?
• 40:06
  And so that conversation was going on in the kitchen of the house, so Brock comes out, hey, people, get in here.
• 40:14
  Fitz wants us to go and do Le Mans.
• 40:17
  So anyway, so that's basically how it started.
• 40:22
  So we sort of worked out a bit of a strategy, how much, you know, obviously we had to pay.
• 40:28
  I can't remember what the fee was.
• 40:30
  It might have been $200,000 because we were doing Silverstone prior in Le Mans.
• 40:35
  I pushed for Larry to be in the car.
• 40:37
  Good car too.
• 40:38
  Yeah.
• 40:39
  Bob probably didn't want Larry in the car.
• 40:44
  So off we went.
• 40:45
  And so then I had to sort of, you know, raise the sponsorship, which wasn't sort of my go really.
• 40:54
  But the thing that –
• 40:56
  Got it over the line.
• 40:57
  So we got Alan Hamilton on board with engines, who was Porsche Australia at the time.
• 41:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:02
  Tire company, Dunlop, you know, so peripheral stuff.
• 41:05
  We needed money.
• 41:07
  And then what I did was I actually brought the car out to Australia, which wasn't the cost of the X's.
• 41:14
  I think from memory it cost about $7,000.
• 41:16
  Oh, wow.
• 41:17
  To air freight it out.
• 41:19
  And –
• 41:20
  and a similar amount to send it back to Europe.
• 41:24
  And that was the linchpin.
• 41:25
  By bringing the car, because Le Mans cars, people in Australia are aware of what they were, but probably physically never had seen one.
• 41:32
  Not connected to it.
• 41:32
  Because I brought the thing out and sat in Brock's workshop.
• 41:36
  So once again, the corporation heard about this.
• 41:41
  It's Channel 7 with Mike Raymond.
• 41:43
  Fantastic.
• 41:44
  Wanted to get behind it.
• 41:46
  And then the corporation said, you come and speak to us.
• 41:50
  So I go there and once again, to the angst of the financial director, Mr.
• 41:56
  Reverse Cash Flow is in the building again.
• 42:00
  And so we sat down and Bob...
• 42:05
  Julie wrote out a check and there was a lot of contra offset from seven.
• 42:11
  So off we went.
• 42:13
  And so, um, we did Silverstone, which was okay.
• 42:17
  And then LP unfortunately crashed in the night and
• 42:20
  He feels – when you reflect on that with him now, I think that's the one he – you know, one of the moments he feels – that was a tough one, wasn't it, for him?
• 42:29
  It was.
• 42:29
  Because it was – he was – correct me if I'm wrong in the storytelling here, but he was kind of coming back through the field.
• 42:34
  He was going pretty hard and it was a bit of lap traffic and it went to Custer, didn't it?
• 42:39
  So, yeah.
• 42:41
  The impressive thing about that was that it was Brock again.
• 42:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 42:44
  He really got up to speed with the car, which was very impressive.
• 42:47
  Because it was so different to what he'd been.
• 42:49
  Very impressive.
• 42:51
  And so that was a shame and then he came back and.
• 42:56
  got involved with the mumbo jumbo and, and his bloody cars and whatever it was.
• 43:01
  And he wouldn't do sand down.
• 43:03
  And I think from memory, Andrew Madiki and Colin Bond did sand down and, and that, and that was the Lamar exercise done and dusted.
• 43:13
  Wow.
• 43:14
  What, um, you know, before that period happened with him, I mean, you know, the fun you had in the kitchen and so on, what was he like?
• 43:20
  If people love a Brock memory, what, what are your kind of memories of, of him?
• 43:26
  Oh, his persona.
• 43:27
  I mean, I'd just never seen an operator like him.
• 43:31
  He just knew how to play people and deal with people.
• 43:35
  Connect with them.
• 43:37
  I was just blown away.
• 43:40
  From a gifted race driver, most gifted race drivers are just purely focused on that person.
• 43:46
  race driving thing and everything else.
• 43:48
  But Brock played the whole dance.
• 43:51
  In fact, I remember he was with Advantage International.
• 43:53
  I've forgotten the chap's name now, who managed or ran Advantage International in Australia and Brock was a client.
• 44:02
  And he used to call him the icon and he was, he was just an icon.
• 44:06
  I mean, what the hell he was doing in that car that took his life, I have no idea.
• 44:10
  But anyway, we can't do anything about that now.
• 44:12
  Yeah.
• 44:13
  Very easy to work with.
• 44:14
  Once again, getting it back to the days when you want to sell something and you wheel those sort of people in front of sponsors and whatever.
• 44:22
  It grabs their attention.
• 44:23
  It makes the deals very easy to put together.
• 44:35
  If you're enjoying this episode, it's worth diving back into the Rusty's Garage Library for his fascinating chat with former Williams Technical Director and McLaren Sporting Director Sam Michael.
• 44:46
  It was Pee-wee who quietly helped open the F1 doors.
• 44:49
  Once you make it in there, you feel like you owe something back to them to make it and to not let them down, especially Pee Wee, because he'd opened these doors and used contacts and friendships to say, give this young guy a go.
• 45:02
  He's just a ripper human being.
• 45:04
  Yeah, and he's still doing it now.
• 45:05
  So he's still...
• 45:07
  I had a coffee with Pee Wee about a week ago because he lives in Sydney, and he's still saying...
• 45:13
  He's particularly focused on drivers, probably...
• 45:16
  rather than engineers, but he still has the odd engineer come through, but he still sort of, if he sees someone, he's there to help them.
• 45:22
  And yeah, he's done a lot for Australian motorsport.
• 45:26
  He sure has.
• 45:27
  Let's hear more of Pee Wee's story now with Rusty.
• 45:32
  Your career by and large has been around
• 45:36
  open-wheel cars, not completely, but that is a strong, I guess, component of what you've done.
• 45:43
  But there has been a little bit of the saloon car, if you like, stuff that you brought up before.
• 45:49
  Can we touch, if you're okay, on Charlie Lamb?
• 45:52
  I mean, very sad that he is gone now, how you felt when that news happened and what he was like generally.
• 45:59
  I mean, he made such a mark, didn't he?
• 46:02
  Yeah, Charlie's probably one of the sad things in my career because we were very extremely close.
• 46:07
  Often talk, it'd be one o'clock in the morning and we'd talk like for hours.
• 46:13
  He was an absolute...
• 46:16
  racer, like through and through.
• 46:18
  And he had a twin brother who was also a racer, but nothing compared to Charlie.
• 46:24
  He was just brilliant.
• 46:25
  He knew how to – because I did a lot of long-distance races.
• 46:30
  He wasn't destined to go into motor racing.
• 46:33
  He was studying in university and has degrees and was going to go –
• 46:36
  into the business world.
• 46:37
  And it was only because his older brother was killed in a motorway accident that he then came into the family business.
• 46:45
  So Herbert and Joseph, Joseph, so they were schnitzers.
• 46:49
  And the schnitzer father died and the mother had remarried a lum and was Dieter and Charlie.
• 46:56
  And so we ended up just from that very outset, I can remember...
• 47:00
  When we first met, so I flew from Zeltweg, the Austrian Grand Prix, to Freylarsing and met Stuppert and the other B&W people at the pub in Freylarsing, the Moosleitner.
• 47:17
  And we were there and we were chatting until about 11 o'clock at night and the owner...
• 47:22
  had, uh, was still around and everyone had left and Charlie and I were talking and I guess I was giving Charlie stories about what I had done and, and he was sort of living in this world of BMW 2 and car racing in Europe and the people I knew.
• 47:36
  And I guess he was quite intrigued.
• 47:38
  you know, what I'd been doing and whatever.
• 47:40
  And I tell you, we sat there till about two o'clock in the morning.
• 47:44
  In fact, the owner of the hotel had come to Charlie and he was aware of the schnitzes and the lums and said to Charlie, look, here's the keys to the pub.
• 47:52
  I'm off.
• 47:52
  Yeah.
• 47:53
  I'm going, can you please lock up when you're finished?
• 47:55
  So we just sat there till two o'clock in the morning.
• 47:58
  Excellent.
• 47:58
  And that was just the start of a wonderful friendship.
• 48:01
  And then, of course, we did Bathurst and then they came out.
• 48:04
  We did Bathurst again the next year with the 635s.
• 48:07
  And then the next year it became, I can't remember if it was a world championship race, but the M3s came out.
• 48:13
  So they came out as a proper factory team under the BMW banner.
• 48:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 48:18
  So then he had a good report.
• 48:19
  They did New Zealand.
• 48:21
  And so I'd always just be in contact with him.
• 48:24
  I'd go to Europe.
• 48:25
  I would specifically go to Frey Larsing to have dinner and invariably I would just arrive at the factory and walk upstairs into his office unannounced or...
• 48:36
  As your son's got older, the younger son, Lenny, I'd say, come into Frey Lansing, can you make sure you and dad and mum go to a restaurant?
• 48:46
  And I'll just walk into the restaurant at 7 o'clock.
• 48:49
  And Charlie, you know, he'd just say, Pee Wee, what are you doing here?
• 48:54
  So yeah, very, very sad.
• 48:55
  In fact, I was in New Zealand with the Goward's nephew when Lenny had written to me and said, Dad had just passed away.
• 49:03
  Very sad.
• 49:05
  The connection for you with younger races, you still, you know, even when you and I spoke on the phone yesterday, you were...
• 49:12
  interested in the Toyota racing series in New Zealand, perhaps what might be coming up this summer, how last summer was and so on, the impact that the Middle Eastern Formula Regional series had had in this past summer and so on.
• 49:23
  You keep a very active interest in that space, don't you?
• 49:26
  Well, it's been my life.
• 49:26
  It's been my business.
• 49:28
  It's how I made my living.
• 49:29
  You just can't, well, I just don't switch off.
• 49:33
  I follow things and I follow people and look where the talent is.
• 49:37
  There's a great Italian kid,
• 49:39
  Antonelli now is coming through.
• 49:41
  He said, let's just see.
• 49:42
  And in fact, even when I was in New Zealand and Lando had come out, I rang Helmut.
• 49:48
  Did you?
• 49:48
  I said, listen, this kid is the business.
• 49:52
  But around that time, he had a good group of people around him already.
• 49:55
  And I think by the time he got back to Europe, there were plenty of people knocking on his door.
• 49:59
  And the same with Liam Lawson.
• 50:02
  I mean, they're just gifted kids.
• 50:03
  I hope he gets his.
• 50:05
  And for me, it's not hard to...
• 50:06
  for whatever reason, I can just see that.
• 50:10
  And I still enjoy it, you know, and that's why, I don't know, for whatever reason, I mean, look, he doesn't have a father.
• 50:14
  His father passed away some years ago.
• 50:17
  So, you know, I guess it comes back to that trust thing.
• 50:19
  You know, in life, you've got to always speak to someone about something.
• 50:24
  You can't be a hermit, you know, and then, of course, you talk about things very personal or businesslike.
• 50:31
  You know, you've got to be wanting to trust people other than going, sitting in a bloody lawyer's office at a time.
• 50:37
  charge you $350 an hour where you have to tell them.
• 50:40
  You just talk to people.
• 50:42
  Can you see someone who you think is – can you recognize the gift behind the wheel or is it more the package outside the car?
• 50:51
  Package.
• 50:52
  Is it?
• 50:52
  Package.
• 50:53
  Is it?
• 50:53
  What do you look for?
• 50:54
  What are the things that stand out for you?
• 50:55
  I can't tell you, Greg.
• 50:57
  I know that's the secret of your business, but you clearly –
• 51:00
  You listen.
• 51:01
  I mean, that's one of your great things.
• 51:03
  Sam said to me today, he goes, your biggest challenge in doing this podcast is that Pee Wee will turn the tables and the microphones and try and ask about you.
• 51:10
  So he goes, you've got to make sure you get out of him.
• 51:12
  I said, okay.
• 51:14
  And you're a great listener, as you've talked about earlier in the podcast.
• 51:18
  But you can also – there are many facets that make a champion, aren't there?
• 51:24
  Totally.
• 51:25
  Yeah.
• 51:27
  Look, one of the things I guess my fortuitous or whatever the word may be, I was only in the business three years and I got involved with Nelson.
• 51:40
  And Nelson became a world champion.
• 51:43
  So already you knew where the bar sat.
• 51:45
  Yes.
• 51:46
  You know where the bar's at straight away.
• 51:48
  So that's what you had to aim for.
• 51:50
  I didn't know that in 1978, but when that same kid became world champion three years later, you knew, geez, what we were doing was right.
• 51:58
  And as I said before, Ron Turanik said we would have won the world championship five years earlier with the package we had in that year.
• 52:05
  So you know the level.
• 52:07
  I mean, a lot of people in this business, they do it because they love it and enjoy it, whatever.
• 52:11
  But they never see where that bar's at because they've just not been put in front of them.
• 52:16
  But when you see that and what makes that person and what that people achieve, you just pick up all these little things.
• 52:22
  And I can see that.
• 52:23
  But no, I think if someone comes to me or I hear people saying, oh, I saw that kid driving.
• 52:30
  He's brilliant.
• 52:31
  I just think, well, you're a wanker.
• 52:32
  You don't know what you're talking about.
• 52:35
  I mean, everyone can drive a race car.
• 52:36
  I mean, you know, if you can tell me the difference, you know, the difference between Lewis and... Max Verstappen or... You know, the difference or Perez, you know, by physically looking, well, you know, there's just so many other facets to it.
• 52:53
  You're starting to wind back a little bit now.
• 52:55
  So, I mean, you have that great manufacturer connections as well.
• 53:00
  We probably should talk about the fact that,
• 53:01
  You worked, I think Larko told me about, reminded me about you working with Nissan and doing, he would do, um,
• 53:09
  projects with them that would showcase a vehicle for the media, wouldn't you?
• 53:13
  You might do a economy run or you might do all those sorts of things.
• 53:17
  And you've had long-term relations.
• 53:19
  I mean, I don't know how long the Nissan one was, but I think VW has been at least 10 years or something, hasn't it?
• 53:24
  How long have you been dealing with those guys?
• 53:25
  Well, the Nissan one sort of happened when I – mid-early 90s.
• 53:30
  And that went till 2000.
• 53:32
  And, yeah, and we did.
• 53:34
  We bought special vehicles for them.
• 53:36
  I mean, stuff that –
• 53:38
  they didn't give to Fred because Fred was just doing purely motor racing.
• 53:42
  And we did launches like we, like a guy, the director of Volkswagen said the other, I was just reading about you the other day, Peewee, how you built 60 special vehicles, uh, 300 ZXs, still in 300 ZXs for them, which we did, you know, and I'd forgotten about.
• 53:56
  And, and that relationship might've continued, but it only stopped because the, the pivotal guy in Nissan at the time, Brad Leach, uh, when they started Volkswagen Australia in year 2000, uh, 2001, uh,
• 54:08
  They sent out a CEO from Japan, an expat Pom, to start the company, of course, but then he had to draw on people throughout the industry, you know, to come and work for Volkswagen.
• 54:21
  And then my pivotal guy at…
• 54:23
  Nissan then went to Volkswagen.
• 54:25
  Yep.
• 54:25
  And I was in Europe at the time and I've still got the email, I think 1999, oh, Peewee, I'm starting at Volkswagen.
• 54:32
  We need this, this, this, this, this, this.
• 54:33
  You're coming with us.
• 54:35
  You're coming with us to the extent it became so big that my little business I had out of Granville in the Bob Jane building, you know, I closed down and I went there.
• 54:43
  And, you know, once again, I've always looked at the bigger picture.
• 54:45
  You know, you look after people and they look after you and I've always had that philosophy as well.
• 54:50
  I mean, just don't grind everyone in.
• 54:52
  And here I am about to finish, but after 20 odd years, I still do stuff for the company.
• 55:01
  Can we get a couple of things to finish on key people?
• 55:05
  Firstly, I'm not a believer in regret.
• 55:08
  I reckon you make the best decisions you can at the time.
• 55:10
  And sometimes there's circumstantial things.
• 55:11
  So you've talked about Roberto and that potential at Williams and what have you.
• 55:17
  I mean, he went on to do some
• 55:19
  some cool things in IndyCar, an immensely talented guy, a great character.
• 55:25
  When you think of Roberto and his career, what do you think of?
• 55:30
  What do I think?
• 55:34
  He could have got more and probably deserved to have got more.
• 55:37
  But, you know, once again, the circumstances, and that's part of the game, you know.
• 55:42
  And when the opportunities are getting back to that wave, you make sure you get on it and stay on it.
• 55:48
  And so an opportunity came his way.
• 55:55
  He was a test driver for Ferrari.
• 55:58
  and doing a great job.
• 55:59
  And when he first started being a test driver of Ferrari, John Barnard was there.
• 56:04
  And he was going somewhere to Europe, to Japan or somewhere.
• 56:10
  And he'd rung John to come round and speak to him about something or other.
• 56:16
  And John said, okay, come round about lunchtime.
• 56:20
  And I know he was driving a Formula 1 car for the Swiss guy, you know.
• 56:24
  Bit of Salva.
• 56:25
  Crook.
• 56:25
  No, not Salva.
• 56:27
  Bruin or something.
• 56:28
  Crook.
• 56:29
  Anyway.
• 56:30
  Anyway, John said, so he went round to Benetton and John's secretary came out all ashen-faced,
• 56:41
  And didn't allude to anything.
• 56:43
  He said, look, John's just tied up for the moon.
• 56:45
  Like, he's just absolutely tied up.
• 56:48
  But he wants you to wait here.
• 56:51
  So he bushing waited there.
• 56:54
  And John finally came out and said, okay, come into my office.
• 56:59
  And he said, I need you to drive at the next race.
• 57:02
  I can't remember what the next race was for Benetton.
• 57:05
  And he said, what do you mean?
• 57:06
  He said, we've just had the phone call this morning from Nanini.
• 57:11
  Yes.
• 57:12
  He crashed his helicopter.
• 57:15
  severed his arm and they kept the arm alive, the medics, by circulating blood and it was actually stitched back on.
• 57:23
  Wow.
• 57:24
  So out of that became an opportunity for Roberto that was just never in the making, never in the plan.
• 57:31
  But we had to get out of the contract with the guy which was done and then off he drove for Benetton.
• 57:37
  And then, of course, then he signed the next year and they had that wonderful finish, ironic finish, him and Nels in Japan.
• 57:43
  And then they signed for the next year.
• 57:46
  But then the wheels fall off it again.
• 57:49
  None of his doing.
• 57:50
  And once again, people are pretty angry about Briatore, but what Briatore did was the correct thing.
• 57:58
  They had to get rid of someone.
• 58:01
  because they needed Schumacher in the car.
• 58:03
  You know, and that was just a brilliant, and it was a Brea Torrey thing.
• 58:06
  I mean, people might say it was Tom, but it was Brea Torrey.
• 58:09
  They said, we need him.
• 58:09
  We've got to get him in the car, which they did.
• 58:12
  And, of course, the easiest target to get out of contractual, which I won't go into the background of all that, was Roberto and not Nelson.
• 58:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 58:21
  And Brea Torrey had told me some years later that he actually wanted to keep Roberto because of the youth and whatever.
• 58:28
  And I think that might have been Nelson's last year or the year.
• 58:33
  That sounds about right.
• 58:34
  I can't remember.
• 58:35
  So there's those opportunities.
• 58:36
  But, you know, I mean…
• 58:38
  There could have been more, you know, and that could have been one of the more things than him driving with Schumacher.
• 58:44
  Am I saying that you're implying that he'll beat Schumacher?
• 58:46
  Of course not.
• 58:47
  But that opportunity had gone.
• 58:49
  And so he was out again, back in a pile of rubbish, you know, and his dogmatic attitude to be in the business.
• 58:54
  Of course, then he went to Indicar and made a few bobs.
• 58:58
  Nelson Piquet.
• 59:01
  Nelson Piquet.
• 59:04
  Yeah, just gifted.
• 59:07
  And I'm blessed that, you know, that opportunity to work together, you know, in 78, and we're still friends to this day.
• 59:16
  And I think I might have said to you before that, you know, we talk often now.
• 59:20
  We don't talk about motor racing.
• 59:22
  He doesn't talk about his daughter's boyfriend, Max Verstappen, very much.
• 59:28
  We talked mainly about politics.
• 59:30
  We were the same ilk.
• 59:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:32
  conservative, right wing, whatever you want to say.
• 59:36
  But yeah, just, you know, a friend, you know, just a friend, you know, and we're planning to go out there and spend time at the end of the year.
• 59:43
  Where does the nickname Pee Wee come from?
• 59:46
  You're a tall man.
• 59:47
  You're a tall man.
• 59:48
  I know that.
• 59:49
  Great presence.
• 59:50
  Where's Pee Wee come from?
• 59:52
  Who coined that and how did it come about?
• 59:54
  Okay, so I went to live in Darwin and there was a bunch of guys in the house
• 1:00:00
  four or five guys, they all had nicknames, which was not uncommon for people to give an Aussie guy a nickname.
• 1:00:06
  Nickname, yep.
• 1:00:09
  Anyway, one of the guys or some of the guys said, okay, we're going to call you Peewee because I had fuzzy hair, I was tall-skinned, and there was a group in Australia called the Deltones.
• 1:00:18
  Yes.
• 1:00:19
  And it had a guy called Peewee Wilson.
• 1:00:21
  Of course, of course.
• 1:00:22
  Big deep voice, I think, too, didn't he from memory?
• 1:00:24
  So what I can add to that,
• 1:00:26
  Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, get a job or something.
• 1:00:29
  So what I can add to that is I can honestly tell you, I can honestly tell you, I've never said to anyone ever, my name is Pee Wee.
• 1:00:38
  What had happened was one of the guys in that house and I traveled together.
• 1:00:45
  We went to South Australia initially for a short time and they were together.
• 1:00:51
  So then we went to South Africa and then we went to Rhodesia.
• 1:00:55
  And then I went to Germany.
• 1:00:57
  He was always with me.
• 1:00:58
  So he was saying to me, oh, peewee this or peewee that.
• 1:01:01
  And then when I went to England, you know, Larry had heard my nickname was peewee.
• 1:01:07
  So there was just a continuation of someone around me that.
• 1:01:11
  Called you this.
• 1:01:12
  And then, of course, I did well in the business, in motor racing quite quickly.
• 1:01:18
  And the Poms used to like writing, and they thought this was a bit
• 1:01:24
  odd or indifferent, this Aussie guy, the nickname.
• 1:01:27
  So it was always written, even in the articles, Greg Peewee Siddle.
• 1:01:31
  And so it just stayed.
• 1:01:34
  And so an example, so I rang Goward about bringing Lucas out to New Zealand.
• 1:01:41
  So Lucas, Goward says, when you get to just look up Peewee,
• 1:01:48
  They don't even say my name.
• 1:01:51
  And I think there's an F1 book I noticed some years ago of nicknames in Formula One, and of course my name's in there.
• 1:01:58
  So I am, yeah, as I said to you, I've never ever told anyone my name is Pee Wee.
• 1:02:03
  Pee Wee.
• 1:02:04
  And yet everyone will look for this, will look for Pee Wee, no doubt.
• 1:02:08
  Can we finish with, you won't pump your own ties.
• 1:02:12
  I'm not asking you to necessarily do that.
• 1:02:15
  I won't.
• 1:02:16
  No, I'm not asking you to do that.
• 1:02:17
  But I want you to just pause for a moment and reflect a little bit here because you're a student of life, as Larko would say, a good student of motor racing and the business.
• 1:02:30
  You've managed to create this incredible career when perhaps early on you weren't necessarily sure where it might go.
• 1:02:41
  What do you reckon, I mean, you've talked about integrity and some of those key
• 1:02:48
  or core values that you clearly have.
• 1:02:50
  What's been the secret of your longevity in this, do you reckon?
• 1:02:53
  Because you've just made this life that's been around great people, amazing characters.
• 1:02:59
  Yeah.
• 1:03:02
  Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  Look, I, oh gosh, deal, look, just dealing honestly and integrity with people.
• 1:03:12
  It's just how I do it and I still do it.
• 1:03:16
  And as I said, I've, I've been, my company's contracted near on 20 years to Volkswagen and through that time there's probably been five CEOs.
• 1:03:26
  I've only ever had a contract for one year in those 20 years.
• 1:03:29
  Really?
• 1:03:29
  It's just been basically a handshake deal.
• 1:03:32
  year in, year out.
• 1:03:33
  And once again, I think if you do good in life and you do well in life, as I respect you because of what you do and I know what you do.
• 1:03:42
  Thank you.
• 1:03:43
  And people...
• 1:03:45
  Look at me, and I've never had a CV in my life of what I've done in my life.
• 1:03:51
  People nowadays check people out very quickly.
• 1:03:53
  Yes, yes.
• 1:03:55
  And when you're told something about someone, it basically stops there.
• 1:03:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:59
  And that's how I've always conducted myself.
• 1:04:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:03
  in that way.
• 1:04:04
  And as I said to you, I can give you some names of people if you want to ring after this and ask them what they think.
• 1:04:11
  You're better off asking them what they think of me.
• 1:04:12
  But I know what they would say, and I reckon we've captured a lot of that in this conversation, which is good.
• 1:04:18
  Has there been a deal, when you look back on this amazing career, that got away from you?
• 1:04:23
  Has there been one for a potential driver to work with, or has there been a moment where...
• 1:04:31
  For whatever reason, just, you know, something turned hard right for whatever reason beyond your control perhaps, it got away.
• 1:04:37
  Drivers, no.
• 1:04:38
  No?
• 1:04:38
  No.
• 1:04:39
  No, I've been happy with the people I've got involved with.
• 1:04:44
  Even back here in Australia with Mark, with Alex Davison through Porsche, you know who I took to Europe.
• 1:04:51
  He raced all those years in Porsche.
• 1:04:52
  I did that deal.
• 1:04:53
  Porsche loved him in that phase too, didn't they?
• 1:04:54
  With Michael Winkler.
• 1:04:55
  Yep.
• 1:04:57
  That was an introduction through Peter McKay.
• 1:05:00
  Opportunities, oh no, probably that Williams deal.
• 1:05:05
  Yeah?
• 1:05:06
  With Roberto.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  That was really tough.
• 1:05:10
  That was really tough.
• 1:05:12
  But as I said, I can't, you know...
• 1:05:16
  Should we have signed that deal with Lotus at the time?
• 1:05:18
  Maybe not, but we can't change it.
• 1:05:20
  But that's probably the only thing.
• 1:05:23
  So there's probably two things to that.
• 1:05:25
  Missing that opportunity, and Frank was right.
• 1:05:28
  I mean, I understood Frank clearly.
• 1:05:29
  Well, I'm not going to have someone here then lose him in a year's time.
• 1:05:33
  But had that opportunity, Roberto was primed at that time to be in those cars at that time.
• 1:05:40
  Final one for you.
• 1:05:43
  A few of us think that that,
• 1:05:45
  other areas of the sport, maybe administratively or governing bodies or whatever, could have
• 1:05:51
  you know, um, benefited from someone like you being, being on that, that side, if you will, you've had a career that's been more about, you know, your chosen direction and, and working with drivers or working with, with the manufacturers in the manner that you've described before.
• 1:06:08
  Would you have ever have contemplated that?
• 1:06:10
  Would you have contemplated working with a, you know, being embedded if you'd like in, in the system of a, no, no, I'm,
• 1:06:19
  I'm too independent.
• 1:06:21
  That's the word I was looking for.
• 1:06:22
  Got my strong ideas.
• 1:06:24
  And generally when you work with groups of people, there's people in those groups that shouldn't be there.
• 1:06:32
  They're there for other reasons.
• 1:06:33
  And I just couldn't tolerate it.
• 1:06:35
  And at the end of the day, you know, I curtailed one of my things at Volkswagen for that reason.
• 1:06:43
  You know, I just...
• 1:06:45
  I just couldn't tolerate it, and I'd probably be as subtle as a brick house, and that doesn't get you anywhere.
• 1:06:53
  Okay.
• 1:06:54
  It has been a joy to sit here.
• 1:06:55
  I'm sure there are a ton of other stories.
• 1:06:59
  That's for another time maybe.
• 1:07:00
  It's been wonderful to walk down memory lane here with you, mate.
• 1:07:03
  Thank you for doing that because I know it's not your way necessarily to shout it from the rooftops.
• 1:07:08
  I love the fact that you've created through –
• 1:07:14
  your personable nature, these amazing relationships with people.
• 1:07:20
  Sadly, some of them have left us, but I think it's just tremendous that there are so many success stories and all that.
• 1:07:27
  And I love the fact that you're still deeply in love with the game now and thinking about that next generation.
• 1:07:35
  Congratulations.
• 1:07:36
  I know you won't say it, you won't pat yourself on the back, but from the rest of us, thank you for the part you've played, mate.
• 1:07:41
  It's not...
• 1:07:42
  a part that may be necessarily widely known, but I'm glad we could share a bit more of it.
• 1:07:48
  Well, Greg, I have to say thank you for those words, but we both maybe should thank my- Your agent.
• 1:07:58
  My inverted commas, media manager, agent,
• 1:08:04
  Mark Larkham for making this happen because I did when you did contact me I did go to Mark and made it pretty clear that you know this is not my cup of tea and he came back just as strongly even using the numbers of 100% you're doing this so maybe we should both if you've enjoyed this and your audience enjoyed then maybe thanks we'll just give him thanks we certainly won't be paying many bloody money thank you mate
• 1:08:39
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• 1:08:43
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• 1:08:46
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• 1:08:49
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• 1:08:53
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• 1:08:59
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