Latest / Rusty's Garage / Brendon Leitch | Part 1 - workshop lessons & cold calls

Transcript

Brendon Leitch | Part 1 - workshop lessons & cold calls · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:12
I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
0:26
For this episode, I'm in a corporate box at the impressive Bend Motorsport Park about an hour out of Adelaide.
0:31
Friday practice for the Shannon Speed Series has just wrapped up and my guest, Brendan Leach, has a wry smile on his face.
0:39
That's because the Mercedes-AMG GT3 that he races with Sergio Perez and Tagani Motorsport is in very good shape.
0:47
In fact, 24 hours after we recorded this, they took a very memorable win in the first of the weekend's hour-long races.
0:55
Brendan has done some hard yards to get to this point of his career, and you sense, even at age 30, there are still some important boxes to tick.
1:04
He absolutely has the right stuff for that.
1:08
You'll hear about early life on the South Island of New Zealand, a real tenacity to stitch a racing budget together, and how he cold-called lots of businesses in Invercargill as a youngster.
1:19
The family's pure love of the sport and being around some seriously cool cars in his dad Barry's workshop, the internationally respected Leach Motorsport and restoration.
1:30
There are candid moments here, how he's coped and regrouped when it seemed like doors were hard to open or the pandemic got in the way of plans.
1:39
He also talks about his friendship with the late Tim Miles, racing with him and the things that Tim quietly helped him with.
1:46
There's a long-standing commercial connection with the Day family and Dale ITM, plus the craziness of flatting with a couple of motorsport journos and an insight into his supercars test.
1:58
He's become a bit of a global GT gun for hire, having successfully raised all sorts of marks and in lots of different places.
2:06
There's a Lamborghini Super Trofeo European title in 2023 and he was the Pro-Am winner at the world finals in 2024.
2:14
The numbers show you that just over 25% of the time, Brendan finishes on the podium.
2:21
There's a class win at the Bathurst 12 Hour and he's raced against some stars in the New Zealand Grand Prix over the years too.
2:28
This year, he's splitting his time between GT World Challenge Australia and Asia.
2:33
A quick thanks to Barry and Marguerite, his lovely parents, his brother Damon and Speed Cafe's award-winning journo Simon Chapman for the extra intel for this chat.
2:43
It'll hook you in.
2:44
I know it did for me.
2:46
Brendan gets the medium and digital media generally.
2:49
He has a story to tell and he tells them well.
2:52
Enjoy the convo.
2:55
Hello, mate.
2:56
How are you?
2:57
Good, mate.
2:57
Thanks for having me.
2:58
I have a little bit of, if I'm honest, a bit of intel that we've had from different people, including Simon Chapman, who's here watching on tonight.
3:05
But I want to start with your lovely mum and dad, who every time we go to Invercargill for racing at Territorma and things like that are so welcoming.
3:14
I've had...
3:15
lovely kind of home-cooked meals and laughs.
3:19
And I would imagine that was what life was like growing up in the Leach household, was it?
3:25
Yeah, absolutely.
3:26
I mean, growing up, I didn't know anything different than, you know, mum's kumar and chickpea salad.
3:32
That was just a standard, you know, and lots of roast meats.
3:35
And yeah, very, very lucky growing up.
3:36
And dad was looking after lots of classic cars around January, February classic time.
3:43
And yeah.
3:45
Yeah, I was just a little kid running around the paddock and then at night go home and mum was cooking for 50, 60, even 70 people sometimes.
3:53
It was crazy.
3:54
We'll talk about their racing careers in a minute in order to set up your own.
3:57
But I think the extension of that is that every time I've gone there,
4:01
always a bit of time in the workshop.
4:04
He's had some amazing cars that he's worked on and continues to work on your dad, Barry.
4:09
How big of an impact or awareness or was that for you, like being around those kind of cars constantly?
4:18
Oh, it was great.
4:18
Ever since I was a kid, I remember being three or four years old and sitting on the workbench as dad was rebuilding my brother Damon's go-kart engines.
4:26
And I vividly remember that.
4:28
And like him just measuring tolerances on the rings with, you know, diamond hones and wondering what they were.
4:34
And like every little detail like that, I was just brought up around since a very, very young age.
4:38
And
4:39
How much does that help you now?
4:40
Like all that stuff knowing?
4:41
Heaps.
4:42
It's absolutely priceless.
4:43
That stuff is knowledge that I use every single day, whether it's at home on the simulator with my customers, at home on the simulator mucking around by myself, at the racetrack, preparation for events, everything.
4:55
It's all that there is the foundation of what this is now.
5:00
Amazing.
5:01
So, so valuable all these years on.
5:04
We've begun on some of your dad's work that he does on cars.
5:08
I mean, he still pulls the helmet on himself, and I've had the joy of seeing him do that.
5:13
But it's worth sharing with people that may not know that your mum's been a pretty handy steerer too, mate, hasn't she?
5:18
Yeah, mum used to race.
5:19
She was in go-karts.
5:21
I don't think she ever raced cars, although she might have done a couple laps around Terratonga and dad's old Lotus replica, the Leech Super Sprint.
5:28
But yeah, mum used to race karts.
5:31
She started racing just after mum and dad had met.
5:34
And...
5:36
And I think at some point she was beating dad.
5:38
So that was pretty funny.
5:39
That was a good story.
5:40
Yeah.
5:40
Yeah.
5:40
And then when I started racing and was probably a couple of years into it, dad built her a go-kart up and she did a couple of races and a few ladies' days races as well.
5:52
And like, yeah, she loves being involved in it and yeah, done it for a very long time.
5:57
Margarita, amazing human being.
6:00
They tell me, both of them kindly tell me, that when you were about five years old, maybe just before your sixth birthday, you were allowed to do laps in a midget cart at the end of a race day at a track.
6:11
And you were so excited by the prospect of this that I think around like 6.30 a.m., you were waking them up like race suit kind of ready to go type thing.
6:22
Is this true?
6:23
I didn't wake up and put my race suit on.
6:25
I slept in there.
6:27
That was just the way it went.
6:28
I don't remember, but there's also a story of my brother going to sleep, wearing his overalls and taking his little carry toolbox to bed as well.
6:35
But it was a real toolbox, like a little snap-on carry box.
6:39
That was just it.
6:40
Normal.
6:41
Yeah, loved it.
6:42
Did they, I think over one of those dinners, did they tell me, did you boys have like a...
6:48
I don't know whether it was a Shelby or what it was, but it was a toy car of some kind.
6:52
And you could kind of, it was a bit bigger than a courtyard, but there was like an outdoor kind of grassed area at home.
6:57
And you guys just cut laps all the time in that thing.
7:01
Yeah, mum used to get super frustrated because we'd just cut divots in the lawn, like rutted out.
7:06
It was like an oval sort of thing.
7:09
Dad built these half-size replica AC Cobras.
7:12
Oh, cool.
7:13
And also a Caterham Lotus 7 Leech Super Sprint.
7:18
And we had one of each car that Damon and I would share.
7:24
And I remember the super sprint was a bit lighter.
7:26
It was a bit faster.
7:27
But yeah, we just used to chase each other around the lawn and these things.
7:31
They had a little Honda engine in them, like a little 160cc motor.
7:35
So yeah, ever since I was...
7:39
I mean, Damon used to drive around the lawn and put me to sleep in the thing when I was one or two years old, my nap in the afternoon.
7:46
So that was a common occurrence.
7:47
But then, yeah, when I got a bit older and I started driving it myself at like three years old and then started to drive the midget at five.
7:55
Yeah.
7:55
And, yeah, obviously racing as soon as it was possible at six.
7:58
I think I did my first race.
8:00
My birthday might have been on the Monday or Tuesday.
8:02
Yeah.
8:03
So, back then, I mean, how many years ago was that?
8:07
Kart Sport New Zealand gave me a dispensation to do my first race when I was like, you know, five and 360 days.
8:13
So, yeah, that was pretty cool.
8:14
Couldn't wait to do it.
8:15
Hey, we'll come to your brother in a moment, but just to come to, I mean, some of the many cool cars that your dad has campaigned.
8:23
One that is sort of...
8:24
The uppermost in my mind is that Rolt RC4, the Formula Atlantic, right?
8:28
The Jacques Lafitte car, Jotin livery.
8:31
I love that thing.
8:31
Have you had a chance to drive that?
8:33
Tell me about that.
8:34
Yeah, I raced it.
8:35
I was really lucky 2013 or 14.
8:39
I did the Lady Wigram Cup in it, which was a… Mega.
8:43
Yeah, historic race for Atlantic.
8:44
People don't know that's actually a very special thing too in New Zealand, isn't it?
8:47
Yeah, it was.
8:47
And it was so much fun to drive.
8:50
It's really cool.
8:50
It has an in-car rollbar adjustment.
8:53
So, I mean, for me, growing up in junior formula, it was, you never had that.
8:57
I mean, they're doing America now and some of the junior formula stuff, but I thought that was such a cool novelty just to have the front-handed rollbar.
9:03
You could adjust how much front grip you had in the car while you're driving.
9:06
And, I mean, you've got a five-speed H-pattern gearbox there and just trying not to over-rev the thing and just felt...
9:13
I don't know, they feel very different to the cars of now.
9:16
Chapo's a journo, he would say probably like visceral, like a real kind of driver's car magic sound.
9:22
Oh, absolutely.
9:23
Like you feel everything in the seat of your pants and it's just every...
9:29
I don't know, it's just there's something about it that just feels super special and very different to what we race now.
9:34
And it's a very, very fortunate experience that I got to have to drive that.
9:39
And I can only imagine what that was like in the 80s when they were racing those things all around the globe.
9:44
I mean, over in New Zealand and Australia and then in America and the Atlantics as well.
9:48
They were just a crazy car for a 1600cc.
9:51
They were a small engine and they just produced so much downforce and grip.
9:56
For 1980s, it was the next best thing to Formula One.
9:59
It was what they were all driving when they won at a Grand Prix.
10:03
Great chapter, great chapter.
10:04
And New Zealand really embraced it.
10:07
You mentioned your brother Damon before.
10:09
I mean, he works at Highlands nowadays.
10:11
We get to see him in that instructor kind of capacity.
10:15
I've had the joy of watching him wheel the...
10:19
you know, the legs, if you like.
10:21
I'm using the wrong phrase or terminology here, but I'm wheeling a McLaren GT3 car really handily.
10:26
What about his own career, mate?
10:29
Maybe the kind of unrealized potential there and just a reflection on him as a racer.
10:33
Yeah.
10:34
Oh, I mean, Damon, I mean, he still is a really good driver.
10:38
Back until I started racing like every other weekend, he was better than me and it was like I knew it.
10:44
He was just...
10:46
something, I don't know, I didn't even know what it was, but I just remember watching him when I was younger and he was in TRS and the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand.
10:54
And, you know, Daniel Kiviat was his teammate and Daniel and him were fighting for the front row of the grid every other weekend with, you know, with Cassidy and Mitch Evans and these guys as well, all around that same time.
11:07
And then I think...
11:09
Yeah, 2015 was the last year he did that championship.
11:14
And I think he just lost a little bit of the passion for the finding.
11:19
I mean, it's a very hard thing to do to keep going and finding all the sponsors.
11:24
And he was quite a reserved...
11:27
bloke back then I would say.
11:29
I mean he's a lot more outspoken now and as he got older but yeah when he was a bit younger he was a bit more quiet and that's where you could see Damon and I were very different but on track I mean very similar and yeah he was a driver that I think now that if he kept going he would be at the top of the sport somewhere for sure he deserved to be and he just found his passion in other things and that's it.
11:55
Can we tap into what you were just discussing there around that kind of commercialities and learning a bit about that when you're younger?
12:01
So your dad tells me that you were super determined at one point to go Formula Forward racing.
12:06
This is probably about age 13, but Damon is already racing at this point.
12:12
So the challenge for the family of two racing budgets is going to be a massive thing.
12:19
He recalls you being absolutely unfazed by this and you kind of set out to...
12:24
knock on doors everywhere in Invercargill, maybe even beyond, and you had this big pile of sponsor proposals.
12:30
And every day after school, you basically filled your backpack, jumped on your bike and went door knocking up and down every street to businesses.
12:38
Were you naturally
12:40
comfortable doing that?
12:41
You were forcing yourself because you were so passionate about it?
12:43
What were you doing?
12:44
I mean, in the beginning, mum just made me do it.
12:45
She's like, Brendan, if you want to race, this is what you've got to do.
12:49
We can't afford to fund a racing career.
12:55
And being young and naive, I was like, oh, you know, that can't be too tricky.
12:59
We'll just find a way.
13:01
What were the reactions from people?
13:03
Because
13:04
And racing and, you know, our business can often have so many no's made, so many knockbacks.
13:11
As a young fellow, what are you, 13 here?
13:13
How are you coping with that?
13:14
Oh, I just had to get stuck in.
13:16
I knew that if I wanted to drive the race car, I needed to find the money for it.
13:20
And that was enough for me to say, oh, well, I mean, this is, how do I get from A to B?
13:25
And it's this way.
13:27
So I, you know, I just...
13:29
Made my own proposal.
13:30
I made it in PowerPoint.
13:31
And then, you know, mum and dad looked at it and helped me with getting it better.
13:35
And then I made a couple of phone calls and I found a company which was really cool called IQ, Ray Tinker in Invercargill.
13:42
And he said, okay, well, we'll print your proposals for you.
13:46
And that's your sponsorship from us.
13:48
So he printed hundreds of proposals.
13:50
Excellent.
13:50
bound them and everything, like really good quality.
13:53
I mean, the quality of the printing was far better than the worksmanship inside that I'd done as a 13-year-old, but it was enough.
14:00
And I took 10 proposals each day with me in my backpack to school.
14:05
I biked to school.
14:06
When I was a kid, it was like, I mean, I've been cargill is not huge, so I think it was like a 20-minute bike ride to school.
14:11
And then after school, I would go work in a workshop, engineering workshop, and I would sweep the floors there.
14:18
And then once I'd finished that, it was like,
14:20
I mean, I'd go there for like an hour, I think on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
14:23
On those days, I would bike around and I'd just choose a street either in the industrial area or in town or on one of the side streets and say, I'm just going to work my way down the street.
14:33
And I just went into every company and just said, hi, my name's Brendan Leach, you know, I'm looking to race in the New Zealand Formula 4 Championship.
14:40
This is, you know, the situation.
14:41
And I was wondering if you'd like to have a look at my proposal.
14:43
And that was it.
14:44
I said the same line every time.
14:46
But the repetition was, you know, what got me there in the end.
14:50
And I must have handed out a couple of hundred at least proposals before I got my first dollar.
14:55
And then that motivation just kept me going.
14:58
And, you know, it's all possible.
15:00
Just...
15:01
Nothing's changed now.
15:02
It's just a different, you're looking for a different thing, you know, looking for drives and...
15:07
Bigger number, more professional proposal, blah, blah, blah.
15:09
That's right, yeah.
15:10
So it's, everything that I did back then is very valuable and it was just a big learning process.
15:16
And I even had a little company where I bought myself a scanner and I would go around all our friends and family and beyond and I would scan negatives and slides and digitize them.
15:32
and I got paid like, I mean, I can't remember what the price was.
15:34
It might have been like 10 cents a slide or 5 cents a slide.
15:37
You know, so if I did a lot of those, I mean, I raised, I think, over $1,000, which was more than a set of tires and Formula Ford.
15:45
So, yeah, all those little bits and pieces made a huge difference, and that's just the way it had to be.
15:49
So, I got it done.
15:50
Just to back you up, mate, I mean, your dad, in finishing that story, tells me about –
15:54
the response that people in Invercargill had.
15:57
You know, you said they were really impressed by your passion, your commitment, and it helped the journey begin.
16:04
Give me some memories of that period for you.
16:07
I mean, we're on the cusp of Formula Ford, clearly.
16:10
What are you like as a school kid?
16:12
Are you just hell-bent on going car racing?
16:15
And what is the racing journey up until that point?
16:17
I guess this is almost a crossover point from early stuff into proper car racing.
16:21
What had that been like?
16:22
Oh, I mean, I had to have been on the spectrum at some point, right?
16:27
Aren't we all, mate?
16:27
Yeah, that's right.
16:29
No, I just, I was fully focused on racing.
16:31
I think, I knew I loved cars and I loved working on cars.
16:35
And every night I would be working on my go-kart at night with dad to get it ready.
16:39
And I had to clean it.
16:39
That was part of the rules of going racing.
16:42
I always remember if my chain guard wasn't perfectly clean, I wasn't allowed to drive the car.
16:46
So it was, yeah, it was, I mean, they definitely ingrained it into me from a young age that if you're going to do it, it needed to be done right.
16:54
And yeah.
16:56
Lots of my memories are from growing up, always just working on the go-karts, helping Dad in the shed, building the Formula Ford as well.
17:03
When Damon was racing Formula Ford, I was out in the shed helping too, not because I maybe wanted to right then, but Mum would just tell me I had to go help Dad and Damon in the shed and I'd go out there and get stuck in and just cleaning parts or whatever.
17:17
But I was involved in it and that was...
17:20
all part of the process.
17:21
And then, yeah, once I started racing, then it was my job to prepare my own car in the off season as a 13, 14, 15-year-old.
17:29
And those skills just developed.
17:32
And when I left school as well, I started working as a mechanic
17:36
for a guy in Invercargill called Scott O'Donnell.
17:39
And I was helping out in his workshop and the skills that I learned from building my own cars with dad and working in the workshop with him was why Scott gave me the chance to come and work from straight out of school.
17:49
I didn't have a qualification.
17:50
I wasn't doing like...
17:52
big jobs, but I was helping and getting things done there too.
17:56
He's become a very prominent figure in Invercargill, now a stakeholder obviously at Walkinshaw and so on and loves, absolutely loves his racing.
18:05
We have Mr Hidden Talent of yours here.
18:07
Marguerite tells me you would make hundreds of cheese rolls and Christmas truffles.
18:13
Are you a good cook?
18:14
How much did this help the racing funds?
18:16
Oh, fantastic.
18:17
Um...
18:19
I remember making the cheese rolls, but I only remember because you've told me now.
18:24
I kind of erased that from my brain, I think.
18:27
I can't remember what the recipe was.
18:29
I know it was definitely white bread because brown bread and cheese rolls was just not a go.
18:34
And just, yeah, cheese rolls, obviously, are just Southland sushi.
18:38
Yeah.
18:40
Yeah, we made hundreds and hundreds of those.
18:42
And the truffles, we didn't wrap off those, but they were gifts to all the people that sponsored me through the series.
18:49
So we'd do them at Christmas time as a Christmas gift for all the supporters and sponsors of mine back then.
18:55
So maybe I need to get back onto it, making the old truffles for Christmas.
18:57
Yeah, definitely.
18:58
I'll try some of those.
18:59
Now, in the junior phase and what New Zealand does with its summer of racing and so on, there's a period here probably where it's, I don't know, whatever it is, five years.
19:08
weekends a year, shoestring budget, but I mean, up against some future F1 stars, but then not much else for the rest of the year.
19:19
What was that sort of phase like?
19:22
That was the hardest bit probably, like knowing coming into that season and I mean not having any experience.
19:27
I didn't know any better, so that's fine.
19:29
That was probably the best bit about it was again probably my naivety.
19:33
But I just did what I could with the tools that I had and then the season was over and it was again what's the next step and yeah,
19:42
Then again for 10 months of the year, I didn't drive anything at all really until I was 19 and I got a job at Highlands.
19:51
And then I was working as a mechanic and doing my apprenticeship there.
19:54
Were you a good employee at Highlands?
19:55
What were you like?
19:56
I think so.
19:56
I think I was pretty good.
19:58
I need to fact check this, but anyway, I didn't have time.
20:00
Good going.
20:01
Trust me.
20:01
Trust me.
20:01
Okay.
20:01
No, no, it was good.
20:03
I did my apprenticeship there with them.
20:04
It was really good.
20:06
And then I was also doing hot laps one or two days a week as well.
20:08
Oh, good.
20:09
So there were miles.
20:11
I was driving, yeah.
20:12
I was driving at that point.
20:13
But up until then, I wasn't doing too much.
20:16
and I was just taking punters for rides at, you know, 60%, 70% depends, you know, how you look at it, but it was in a safe environment, a more safe environment trying to minimize risk.
20:27
So you're not giving it everything.
20:29
So it's not quite like going testing and being able to change the car.
20:31
You're not making adjustments to the ride heights, changing the wing angles, the roll bars, kinematics, whatever you want.
20:37
So...
20:38
all these miles weren't quite as good as, you know, like doing 200 days of testing in a Formula 3 car all around Europe.
20:47
It makes a huge, huge difference.
20:50
The more you drive, the faster you get, the faster you get, the more confidence you get, the more confidence you get, the faster you go, and then the circle repeats, right?
20:57
So it's all about mileage, and if there's any, like, you need to...
21:02
find any way you can to drive more.
21:04
That's the key to the whole thing.
21:06
And back then I just did what I could and that was all I could do.
21:08
And I was just, I mean, obviously driving well enough and had a really good car for a few years there and it showed what I was probably capable of.
21:17
And I was very, very fortunate to have the backing of Dale ITM, Deb and Marty, and they've been beside me.
21:22
Great people.
21:23
Absolutely amazing people.
21:24
And they've been behind me the whole way since 2014 was the first time they –
21:29
They came on board and supported me.
21:30
And again, I had the same phone call with Deb that I just told you, like, you know, I just introduced myself and told them what I was doing and asked if they'd like to have a look at the proposal.
21:38
And that's how the relationship began.
21:41
And it just flourished into their support became amazing.
21:44
And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have gone overseas.
21:46
And I would...
21:47
probably just be working as a mechanic.
21:48
So I'm super grateful for the opportunity that they gave me and then that led on to create a lot more opportunities.
21:56
But again, if it wasn't for that first hurdle, I wouldn't have got to where we are now in this position.
22:02
Before we move to that, can you just rattle off for people listening and maybe watching some of the names that you battled over the summer in New Zealand and what that was like, mate?
22:11
I mean, 2015,
22:13
For 14, I was still figuring it out.
22:14
I can't really remember too many of the drivers there.
22:17
I know my brother was there at the front.
22:18
He was fighting for the title.
22:20
2015 was the year Lance Stroll won the championship.
22:24
Santino Ferrucci was there as well.
22:26
And there was about three or four other guys that all became GT3 works drivers now.
22:29
I think Charlie Eastwood was there and he's racing in WIC, now a Corvette driver.
22:37
into 2016 was the year of Lando Norris.
22:40
And Lando won it that year.
22:42
Sorry, Johan de Ruvula came second.
22:45
I was third.
22:46
Behind me was...
22:49
Ferdinand Habsburg, Alpine hypercar driver now.
22:52
Fifth was Pedro Piquet, son of Nelson Piquet.
22:56
And the list goes on.
22:56
That year was huge.
22:57
Actually, the majority of that field, I think 16 or 17, are all professional drivers now.
23:04
And then a year after that was Marcus Armstrong.
23:07
Yeah, and the list goes on.
23:09
Liam Lawson was there in 2019 in my last full season of the championship.
23:12
Yeah.
23:13
And Lucas Auer as well, I raced a couple of times too.
23:16
And, you know, I bump into Lucas quite a lot in the paddock now and GT3 racing the Mercedes and he's also racing the Mercedes.
23:22
So it's pretty cool to still be rubbing shoulders with these guys and now racing against them and at a completely different level and, you know, completely different mindset too.
23:32
before we move to sort of overseas adventures, proudest moment at home in New Zealand because there is such a rich fabric, such a rich history of racing there.
23:40
What's the big thing for you?
23:41
The big thing for me, it's still stuck with me, is when I won the Spirit of a Nation Cup in 2015.
23:47
That was the turning point for me.
23:49
It was the...
23:50
First full season where Deb and Marty supported me and we scraped through that season on the shoestring budgets, so much so that by the time we got to Palmerston North, the last round in Manfield, they didn't have enough budget for tyres.
24:04
So I just did the whole practice on the sets from the rest of the championship and Victory Motor Racing, now known as Kiwi Motorsport.
24:12
They obviously helped me get through on that and I'm super grateful for that as well.
24:16
But yeah, that was, the Spirit of a Nation was a cool one.
24:19
That was the one where Lance Stroll came third in the race.
24:22
There was a big stack of drivers there that got on to do big things, but that was the first time I put it on pole and then won the race.
24:28
It was a feature race as well.
24:30
So the big trophy for my hometown of Invercargill was a good one.
24:35
I mean, you've just reminded, I think, young racers, right, of the importance of hunger, right?
24:40
And therefore, what you then savor when you finally are able to achieve something special like this.
24:46
Damon tells me in that first season of TRS, you fundamentally begged, borrowed, almost kind of stole from people in the team to get through the series.
24:56
He says, I have plenty of...
24:58
but I probably shouldn't broadcast those things publicly.
25:02
How much of a struggle was all about that?
25:04
I mean, that was tough.
25:05
The first year, yeah, it was, I remember...
25:08
I was often using Damon's tires.
25:10
I remember the first event, we had this rookie test on the Wednesday, day off on Thursday, and then into it Friday.
25:17
And I got through the whole Wednesday, maybe Thursday as well, and Friday on one set of tires at Territire.
25:24
I mean, it's a short circuit, did a lot of laps, but I just remember coming onto the front straight on Friday afternoon, just pulling gears and the thing just wheel spinning like nothing else.
25:32
And I,
25:34
That was all I could do.
25:35
And then anyway, then Damon started giving me some of his old hand-me-down tires.
25:38
He'd be doing quality sims and race runs and then I'd get them after that and take whatever was left in the tire.
25:44
Obviously, for anyone that's watching it, the fall off of a tire is humongous after you've done a race on it.
25:51
The tires have got to 100 degrees and you've just...
25:54
you're pretty much just scraping the bottom of the barrel and brake pads and stuff from him as well and anyone else on the team that would give me any of the leftovers.
26:02
And that's just what I had to do.
26:06
I couldn't afford to chuck new pads in and throw new tires on the car.
26:10
And if I could have, sure, things might have been different, but I think it's all part of the journey.
26:15
I look back now and I think that's pretty...
26:17
Pretty crack up, really, that we just did it that way.
26:20
The family for you is backbone of your racing journey, obviously, but...
26:26
you know, often there are people that inspire along the way.
26:29
And the Kiwis have this unbelievable, Australians do, but New Zealand especially for its size, its population, does so well.
26:38
What is it, mate?
26:39
I mean, you're from the bottom of the South Island, a small city, a small town there, and you go on to do some things and still are doing some things globally.
26:48
What is it, mate, about all that stuff?
26:50
I think it's just the determination.
26:52
I think coming from such a small country,
26:56
I mean, now it's pretty cool for all the young and up-and-coming drivers.
26:59
They have so many professional New Zealand drivers around the world to look up to and say that, you know, from all different walks of life and there's just – there's opportunity out there, but you've got to want to take it.
27:12
Have there been people that have been good at supporting you in that sense or just, you know, maybe even just a little bit of advice?
27:16
Oh, yeah, mum and dad.
27:17
Absolutely.
27:18
Mum and dad.
27:18
Like, mum is for sure the –
27:21
the hard tasker, I would say, out of the two and I remember many conversations and I wanted to like, oh, I can't be bothered doing this.
27:29
I don't want to do this.
27:29
You know, I just want to play video games or I just want to go hang out with my mates.
27:33
She's like, Brendan, if you want to race cars, this is what you've got to do and if you don't want to do these, you don't want to race cars and that's fine.
27:39
Go hang out with your friends and we'll go sell the Formula Ford or whatever and I'm,
27:42
straight away I'm up and about.
27:44
And you know, that's, I mean, when you're young, of course you want to go muck around and play with your mates, but you've got to want to do these things.
27:52
And I think it's, it's all part of it.
27:54
If you're not determined and you're not motivated, then it's like anything in life.
27:59
I think you've just got to want to do it really badly.
28:02
And if you do, then you'll make it, you'll make it work.
28:14
Brendan's countryman Paul Radisic came on the pod back in 2019 for a wide-ranging chat with Rusty, including the subtle tune-up the late Murray Walker gave Paul's surname at the height of the British Touring Car Championship in the 90s.
28:27
Paul Radisic, you know, and he's off, and he's off.
28:31
But there was a story of legend going around at the time that someone in the family had perhaps tried to gently let him know that that wasn't the correct way.
28:38
I mean, he's a legend.
28:39
You can't correct Murray Walker, but is that true?
28:41
Did someone try and gently let him know that that's not how you say you're sooner?
28:45
It did, but I figured when I produced a whole lot of T-shirts with Radiceach written on it, and they sold like hotcakes on it, it didn't really bother me at all.
28:54
Fittingly they recorded that Chad sitting in a race car while Paul waited to head up the hill climb at the Leadfoot Festival.
29:01
Check it out later if you haven't already.
29:03
Now back to Brendan Leach.
29:06
So take us to that next step, going from TRS and sort of endurance stuff in New Zealand to then double duties in Asia, racing Lamborghini and Formula 3.
29:16
I mean, where did the whole idea of going racing abroad come from?
29:21
What drove that?
29:22
What sparked that?
29:24
And how did it all get started?
29:26
Well, it was definitely Deb.
29:28
She put a lot of trust in me and knew that I had the potential to do some cool things.
29:35
And at the beginning of 2017, we were racing in New Zealand and I just had a huge crash in Palmerston North at Manfield where I just did a triple somersault, which...
29:45
It wasn't very fun.
29:47
Take people to that.
29:48
Yeah, I mean, it's on YouTube.
29:49
It got a lot of views for a little New Zealand clip.
29:52
And I was just, you know, had another bad quality probably.
29:57
And I was just stuck behind a couple of guys and they were fighting.
30:01
They had contact and I was, you know, less than a meter away from them, really close.
30:05
And I just had nowhere to go and I just flew straight over the back of the guy and then just nosedived to the dirt.
30:09
And I remember it happening in slow motion.
30:11
Like when you go over the handlebars on a push bike and you have that sick feeling in your stomach, I still remember that.
30:15
And I hit the ground.
30:17
And then the thing just pirouetted and the G meter went off the chart.
30:21
I broke a bone in my hand.
30:23
It was amazing how safe.
30:26
Not enough to scare you?
30:27
No, no, no.
30:28
No, no, no.
30:29
It was all good.
30:29
The cars are so safe now.
30:31
It's just incredible.
30:32
I mean, short touring cars, you've got a roof over your head.
30:34
It's a little bit safer again.
30:36
You have no exposure at all.
30:39
But...
30:40
Yeah, it was probably that period of time, that Saturday night, I was sitting there, I was a bit gutted about everything.
30:46
I was like, oh, what's going to happen?
30:47
I don't know what I'm doing now.
30:49
And Deb's like, no, let's go.
30:51
Let's go overseas.
30:52
So we worked with Gary Orton, who owned the team I was driving for in New Zealand.
30:57
Great person, mate.
30:58
Yeah, he gave me the opportunity to go over there.
31:00
I mean, we did it again.
31:03
We did it on a shoestring budget.
31:05
We tried to minimize costs as much as we could, and we went over there and we did a good job.
31:11
For the equipment we had at the time, it was Gary's first year in America.
31:15
We tried to develop this Formula 4 car for him as well as we could.
31:20
We got some really good results, got a lot of podiums, won a race as well.
31:25
And then 2018, I didn't race overseas.
31:28
I raced in New Zealand in the Mercedes.
31:31
It was my first time driving a touring car, racing the Mercedes SLS AMG.
31:36
It was really cool in New Zealand for a small team that doesn't exist anymore.
31:41
And we just had some fun in New Zealand.
31:44
Did really want to, like, really push...
31:47
for me to enjoy my racing, I was pretty stressful at that time.
31:52
Like I tried so hard to get to that point.
31:54
And then I became, I guess, I was just, I just found it hard to, you know, to not put pressure on myself.
32:03
And she really pushed for me to make sure I'm having fun with my racing.
32:06
You know, if I wasn't having fun, there was no point to do it.
32:09
So she was, was great from that side of things, just emphasizing that I should be enjoying myself.
32:13
And, and I,
32:14
I was, but I was just putting too much pressure on myself to perform.
32:18
And that all is in a roundabout way.
32:21
Now I pass that on to my teammates that I race with.
32:24
And you've got to be having fun.
32:26
And when you're having fun, you're going fast.
32:28
That's just the way it goes.
32:29
So...
32:30
Anyway, 2018, raced in New Zealand and then in 2019, I got the opportunity to race in Formula 3 with a team in Asia.
32:40
I got a call from the team owner and he offered me this opportunity to come and drive for them.
32:47
I was like, well, this is a first.
32:49
I've never had someone just call me and say, we've got this car.
32:52
We want you to come and do a test and if it goes well, you know, we'll...
32:55
we haven't had a good season last year and we want you to come in and develop the car for us and see if we can get to the front.
33:02
And it was really fun.
33:03
That year was great.
33:05
And at the same time, Deb was pushing for me to go to touring cars and to try and chase the GT career.
33:13
So yeah, 2019, the race in Super Trofeo Asia and Formula 3, often double duties on the same weekends, which was, which was really much trickier than I thought.
33:21
I told everybody it was.
33:24
You know, in one situation in Suzuka, I finished the race in Super Trofeo.
33:29
We won the race in our class, came into the pits.
33:31
The F3 race started straight after that.
33:33
I ran down to the car, jumped straight in there, still in my Lambo suit, went out the pits.
33:39
And as I came out of the pits,
33:41
I got on the gas off the pit limiter, full throttle, and then hit the brakes like I had ABS and just torched the front tires, completely destroyed them on the way out just because I'd just come out of the Super Trofeo with anti-lock braking.
33:52
So, yeah, it was a tricky one, but that was the turning point for me.
33:58
I had an amazing driver coach that year, and Simon, he was there this weekend.
34:04
We were racing at Suzuka.
34:08
and I had a driver coach.
34:09
His name is Richard Bradley.
34:10
He's a great guy, lives in the UK.
34:12
And after the qualifying session...
34:16
I had fired the car off at Degna too in the middle of Suzuka and I came in and he absolutely destroyed me.
34:23
Tore you a new one.
34:24
Tore me a new one for it.
34:25
And like, you know, what are you doing?
34:28
If this, if that, you know, this is what you need to be doing.
34:31
You need to be doing a better job here.
34:32
And I really did a great job of explaining what I needed to do.
34:36
But at the same time, I just felt terrible for it.
34:38
And that was like the turning point for me.
34:40
And I'd never had a driver coach before past Damon in New Zealand.
34:45
So going overseas and having this next step, I needed something to get me forward.
34:50
And that weekend was the turning point for me where the performance started to come.
34:55
And then after that, we... Yeah, well, I mean, the rest is history.
34:59
That's where the performance began.
35:00
And it was all because Richard was...
35:02
had an amazing wealth of knowledge.
35:04
He raced, you know, 24 hours at Le Mans, LMP2, lots of LMP2 experience.
35:08
Now he just does historic racing for fun and he does a bit of P2 stuff as well.
35:12
But he taught me so much on that championship in Formula 3 that it progressed my current racing so much.
35:20
I mean, you mentioned sim there before and so on.
35:23
You actually enjoy that aspect of it, don't you, mate?
35:25
The learning, the knowledge.
35:26
I'm not articulating that right, but you know where I'm going from.
35:29
Yeah, absolutely.
35:30
There's so much to learn from that.
35:32
I race around so many tracks in the world now, and often I'm going to a new circuit.
35:37
We just finished in Mandalika in Indonesia, which is...
35:41
It was a brand new circuit to me and never been there before.
35:44
Can watch video, but nothing beats driving on it.
35:46
So I managed to find a good track mod on my simulator and jump on there and cut lots and lots of laps.
35:52
And straight away, we got there.
35:54
And in the first session, we were right at the top of the times, like in the first run on the car.
35:59
You know, I knew the Ferrari already from the first round.
36:03
Didn't know the track, but I knew exactly where I needed to brake.
36:05
I knew exactly what gear I needed to be in.
36:07
And then all it was was looking for the last 1%, you know, so you just jump straight in.
36:11
So that tool is really, I mean, for people, it's really helpful, isn't it?
36:15
Yeah, absolutely.
36:15
Because a GT3 car costs somewhere between 20 and 30 euros per kilometer, right, to run.
36:21
So you don't want to be cutting laps for no reason, right?
36:24
So...
36:25
When you get to the circuit and you waste five laps, it's a lot of mileage on the parts.
36:31
It's not necessary.
36:33
Where you can do this, you can say you end up saving a lot of money, a lot of time.
36:37
You're limited with your driving time on a race weekend.
36:39
You have limited sessions, one-hour sessions through both days on a Thursday and a Friday in Asia and on a Friday here in Australia.
36:46
But...
36:47
You just gain so much, such a wealth of knowledge.
36:49
You can change things on the CERM.
36:51
They often have an impact like they would in real life.
36:54
It's just so relative to what we do.
36:56
You don't mind sharing that stuff on socials too, like in the lead up to where Talon Bend here, the Bend Motorsport Park.
37:02
I think you shared a vid of a lap around here, which you kind of commentate and do it in a manner that is...
37:07
descriptive, helpful.
37:09
Did I spot Shane Van Gisbergen diving into the comments recently and taking the mickey out of you or something or other about an Apex?
37:14
I can't remember where that was.
37:15
Yeah, it was.
37:16
There's a bit of banter in that stuff, isn't there?
37:17
I think it was around the conversation of A-rated and B-rated drivers and supercars.
37:22
I won't mention who it was, but yeah, Shane's, he's a good character.
37:27
I do a lot of sim racing with Shane for fun now and keep in touch with him, but yeah, he likes to get up in the comments and it's good whenever he gets in the comments, the videos go great.
37:36
So...
37:37
For me, it's perfect.
37:38
And yeah, absolutely.
37:39
I tried to do a V8 supercar lap at Rwapuna and I just sailed on past the apex of turn one to start the lap.
37:44
You were straight onto it.
37:46
Yeah, absolutely.
37:47
Yeah.
37:48
Rental car adventures in Japan.
37:51
I may or may not have had a bit of help from Simon Chapman here.
37:54
Tell me about rental car adventures in Japan.
37:57
Yeah, I mean, that was Suzuka.
37:59
That was an eventful weekend.
38:00
We were just talking about it and...
38:03
We had, I can't remember exactly what kind of car it was, but it was definitely a petrol car.
38:09
Anyway, we're on our way back from Suzuka, about to fly out back to New Zealand, near the airport, need to fill the car back up with fuel.
38:17
So that's fine.
38:18
You know, just looking around on Google Maps there, where can we go?
38:22
We found a gas station in New Zealand.
38:26
Petrol is a green-handled pump and diesel is black, right?
38:30
Oh, no, mate, no.
38:34
I don't speak much Japanese apart from Arigato.
38:37
So, yeah, it was a bit of a situation where we came in and filled up and I kind of wondered, you know, paid it on.
38:44
Man, it's pretty cheap.
38:45
Fuel's pretty cheap here.
38:47
I've taken this green handle and tried to plug it in.
38:50
And so, long story short, the diesel...
38:55
fuel pump nozzles are actually fatter than the Petra ones, right?
38:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:59
I mean, I was young, dumb, and yeah.
39:02
And I didn't realize this.
39:03
So I'm going to there.
39:04
I've got this handle, this green handle, and I put it up there.
39:06
I'm like, oh, Simon, it doesn't fit in the hole.
39:08
And I was like, oh, whatever.
39:09
I just, you know, squeeze the trigger like softly so I could still get the fuel in.
39:13
Oh, something's wrong.
39:13
That's weird.
39:15
Filled the thing to the top.
39:16
Very, was very low fuel.
39:17
So, I mean, it made quite a difference.
39:20
Filled it up.
39:20
Didn't think anything of it.
39:21
Man, that was pretty cheap.
39:22
You know, cheap to fill it up.
39:25
start driving on our way back to the airport.
39:26
We're about five minutes away and get to the final toll booth and I start to pull in there.
39:30
Oh, good.
39:31
I thought I heard a bit of a splutter, but I was like, oh, no, it's all good.
39:34
It's just in my head.
39:35
Pull in, pay the toll, gate opens, go to get on the throttle and the thing just starts coughing and moving at like two kilometers an hour.
39:46
I'm like, oh, no, what's going on here?
39:49
And then I just look straight across at Simon and I'm like, mate, we've definitely done something wrong here.
39:56
pull over on the side of the road, just past the final toll booth.
40:01
I'm like, what do we do?
40:02
You know, we're early 20s.
40:04
I'm absolutely packing myself here.
40:06
I'm like, oh, no, like, Deb's going to be so upset.
40:08
What's going on?
40:09
What am I going to do?
40:10
You know, this is it.
40:12
I'm over.
40:12
I'm done.
40:14
Get out of the car.
40:15
Get our bags out.
40:16
What are we going to do if we just had the hazards on?
40:17
Lock the car.
40:19
Take the keys with us.
40:22
hitchhiked for the first time in my life, who pulls up but like a typical Toyota Hi-Ace van, like a gray silver Hi-Ace van with four Japanese builders in it.
40:34
They're like, can't speak a word of English.
40:36
Here's me with Google Translate and Simon.
40:38
They're like, oh, like, you know, airport, airport.
40:40
And they're like, oh, yeah, like flying.
40:42
Yep.
40:42
Like, perfect.
40:43
Yeah, jump in.
40:44
And they open up the back.
40:45
There's just tools and stuff in there and just throw our bags in, jump on the – sit on top of the bags.
40:50
The car's just still sitting beside the final toll booth.
40:54
on our way to the airport there, not a word, not a word, just, you know, thank you very much.
40:59
Pull and stop.
41:00
Do you want something for it?
41:01
No, no, no, no, no.
41:02
Okay, okay, okay.
41:03
Carry on.
41:04
Walk over to the rental car company and, oh, hey, guys, like something's wrong.
41:12
Something's wrong with the car.
41:15
It just completely stopped and they're like, yeah, we know.
41:20
camera at the final toll booth and they just see us pull over parked there.
41:23
Here's the keys.
41:24
We've got a flight to catch.
41:25
Let me know how that goes.
41:27
I never heard anything else.
41:29
I never heard another thing.
41:30
So, yeah, it was an experience.
41:34
Definitely a life experience.
41:35
And then Simon gave me a little model car of a Toyota Silver Hiace van, identical.
41:40
As a reminder.
41:42
It still sits in my childhood bedroom in Invercargill, right next to some trophies there from Japan.
41:46
Yeah.
41:47
Awesome, mate.
41:48
Awesome.
41:49
You're talking about a number of things here that are approaching the pandemic.
41:54
How much did the pandemic impact where you were going, your plans and what you were doing and so on?
41:59
Oh, massively.
42:01
So end of 2019, I got the opportunity to go to Europe and test the Lamborghini GT3 car for the first time, current spec car.
42:11
With the manufacturer and with Light Pit Motorsport, they were doing a test for the team to try and gather customers and put a program together for 2020.
42:20
So we went over there and got some laps in the car.
42:23
It was great, came home, and then I was like, well, how can I get there?
42:28
What's the next step?
42:30
Very grateful to have some sponsors come on board, obviously including Deb and Marty.
42:36
And we got ready to go, but flights were booked for the 31st of March 2020.
42:42
Got to the 17th of March 2020 and we're in lockdown.
42:47
What's going to happen?
42:48
So couldn't go.
42:49
Canceled the flights and got a refund.
42:54
And then I was just sitting there at home, you know, like everyone else was.
42:56
What am I going to do?
42:58
Got to the point where I was considering to stop and wasn't sure what to do.
43:02
It was really cool at New Zealand.
43:03
We kind of opened back up a little bit there and we could get racing and we put together a program in an old Audi R8 LMS, one of the first generation cars, which was really cool looking back on, like a cool car to go racing in.
43:15
Brilliant, yeah.
43:16
A great little car.
43:17
And we did the South Island Insurance Championship there and then by the time we got into that and I was like, you know, I was properly g'd up again.
43:26
I was like, you know, Deb, I don't want to stop.
43:27
Like, let's...
43:28
Let's do this properly.
43:30
Molly Taylor talks, mate, in that period about chasing borders kind of thing and chasing opportunities where you could.
43:37
I mean, did it come to sort of that sort of thing for you or not as bad as it was?
43:42
Honestly, I tried so hard to that point for then the biggest opportunity that I was ever going to get at that point to fall over.
43:51
I was ready to pull the pin.
43:52
I didn't.
43:53
didn't feel like racing and Deb Deb really talked me into doing this surdeck that year and as soon as I got back out there I mean I was back in love with it and everything was back on track but Is that the closest moment you've come to stopping?
44:05
Yeah 100% that's the closest moment and probably the only moment I ever had where I felt like I maybe think about giving it up and
44:12
I was already a qualified mechanic at that point.
44:15
I was doing lots of driver coaching in New Zealand with Downforce and a few other customers there.
44:20
And I was like, oh, you know what?
44:21
I'm fine.
44:21
I'll just do this and that's going to be great.
44:23
I'm going to get a house and have a garden and whatever.
44:28
Yeah.
44:29
No, then I got myself sorted out and got back on track.
44:32
And then we started to put together the program for 2021.
44:35
And regardless of what COVID was doing, we were going to go do it.
44:39
So then flights were rebooked for 20th of April, 2021.
44:43
I still remember these days because they were so massive in my career.
44:46
Yes.
44:48
That was the day I went over to Europe for the first time and was going to live over there and be with Leip at Motorsport and put together a program to race in Europe.
44:57
And that was the first time I raced professional, semi-professionally in a GT3 car over in Europe.
45:05
Tell me about that, mate.
45:05
I mean, effectively pro, first international GT3 race.
45:08
Where were you?
45:09
Take people there.
45:10
Oh, Hockenheim.
45:10
It was a Hockenheim 12-hour.
45:13
I'd been in the country for just under a month.
45:17
I was working, I was there as a driver coach in Super Trofeo Europe.
45:23
Yeah, with a good friend of mine.
45:27
And then, yeah, Hockenheim was the first race I did.
45:30
So I was geed up by this point because I'd just been, you know, itching to get in the car.
45:34
I was just coaching, driver coaching at Monza.
45:38
Hockenheim 12 hour, we won the race.
45:41
It was...
45:42
It was awesome.
45:43
We couldn't have had a better debut with the car.
45:46
Everything went absolutely perfectly.
45:49
I mean, I can't remember a lot of the race, just that I remember finishing the race, and we had a real good battle with a couple of cars at the front.
45:56
It was top three cars all neck and neck, and we were in the fight, and we won it.
46:01
It was such a cool race.
46:02
Amazing.
46:03
That's where it all kicked off.
46:04
That's huge, mate.
46:12
That's the end of part one of my feature ep with Brendan Leach, but not the end of our conversation.
46:17
Within 24 hours of this first part dropping, we have a fabulous second instalment for you.
46:23
And in some ways, the yarns in that just keep getting better on what you've heard so far.
46:29
Making his mark internationally.
46:31
why his role in GT racing is so much more than just driver and the loss of a mentor last year that has only hardened his resolve, plus the move to Tagani Motorsport.
46:42
He opens up on unfinished business after testing a supercar too.
46:46
It's all ahead for you here on Rusty's Garage.