Latest / Rusty's Garage / Rob Herridge - Part 2

Transcript

Rob Herridge - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:20
G'day, it's Rusty here.
0:20
All set for part two of our feature episode with Rob Herridge, who went back to back in the Australian Rally Championship in the early 90s.
0:27
It's a game that requires a mix of resilience, endurance, some backyard mechanics in the early years and clever engineering nous as you climb the ladder.
0:38
Rob jumped into the sport quite suddenly after success in barefoot water skiing and powerboat racing and he fell down.
0:46
in love with it.
0:47
He's a straight shooter and he talks that way, which in some ways made people bristle on occasion.
0:54
You need to appreciate that that is just his programming.
0:57
Some of those that he had moments with or competitive rivalries with...
1:01
have actually become good friends and accept his viewpoints, especially with the benefit of time.
1:06
Make sure you check out his early life in part one and how it gave him the determination, the resolve needed to be a winner in sport.
1:15
Coming up, you'll hear about working with Possum Bourne, doing gravel notes for the legendary Colin McRae and Ari Vartanen, and much more.
1:23
Let's get back to the convo.
1:25
When's the first win and did that accelerate the desire to pursue this?
1:31
Because we're kind of at a fork at the road here in a couple of things.
1:35
I mean, firstly, you're obviously going around town getting different things done in relation to car preparation.
1:42
Yeah.
1:42
Which...
1:44
Gets you thinking about doing it yourself, doesn't it?
1:47
Well, not yet, not yet, because I've still got a Datsa 1600.
1:51
I started winning rallies in the 1600, and I think I won my first state championship in the 1600.
1:56
But ultimately, I bought a better car.
2:00
And where do I go?
2:01
And you've got to remember, we didn't have the internet.
2:04
We only had Autosport as a publication.
2:07
You read the odd ad.
2:09
You couldn't find rally cars under MY105.
2:12
You didn't have nothing.
2:13
And I lived in the country.
2:14
I didn't live in Sydney.
2:15
I didn't even live in Perth.
2:17
I lived in Northam.
2:18
The mail took forever to get there.
2:20
And I eventually bought...
2:24
I won an Australian, you know, I led an ARC round in the Datsun 1600, but I've never won one, of course.
2:31
Here in Perth, like a forest rally or something like that?
2:33
Yeah, something like that, yeah.
2:35
And I showed some potential, but I'd won a state championship and I'd won a few rallies.
2:41
I'm trying to remember when I did win my first rally, but that probably wasn't where my life changed.
2:46
My life changed when I bought a Subaru.
2:48
Mm-hmm.
2:49
And I... You nearly went Mitsubishi, didn't you?
2:51
Yeah, I did.
2:52
I looked at Mitsubishi, and I wasn't thinking VR4 because I didn't have a VR4 then, but I nearly went Mitsubishi, Cordia Turbo, because there was...
3:01
I picked up one second-hand.
3:02
I had to drive to the middle of nowhere to buy it, but someone had crashed their road car and couldn't claim insurance on it, so I bought it.
3:08
It was still perfectly drivable, but it had a bit of a banana in it.
3:11
And I bought it back to Northam on my truck, same truck, and I had a bit of a test venue out near where we lived and probably shouldn't have been there either.
3:19
And it was faster than my 1600.
3:21
And my mate had helped me.
3:22
He said, Rob, you've spent all this time developing the 1600.
3:26
How can this road car be faster?
3:29
I said, well, one, I'll put rally tyres on it.
3:31
But two, the 1600 is old school, old generation.
3:35
This is fuel-injected, turbocharged.
3:37
It's a new car.
3:39
But it was front-wheel drive, and even though it went fast, I just thought it would be a bit of a handful.
3:43
So I eventually travelled to Sydney with my truck and bought Ed Mulligan's RX Turbo.
3:50
Paid 18-odd thousand dollars for it.
3:52
Probably paid too much.
3:53
They were a groundbreaking thing back then, weren't they?
3:55
Because it was the beginning of a push into four-wheel drive or all-wheel drive in a rally sense.
4:00
I think Chris Atkinson's dad, John Atkinson, had one too, didn't he?
4:03
Well, it was one of 10 that were bought in initial shipments, so Subaru was showing an interest in.
4:08
the Australian, well in rallying, so they brought in 10 for selected drivers.
4:12
I wasn't one of those.
4:13
Ross Dunkerton was one of those.
4:15
So he had some support from the Subaru dealers of WA.
4:18
But he ultimately left WA and started to drive in the East Pacific and started to drive for Mitsubishi.
4:24
And that left a bit of a door open and I thought, well, maybe I can put my foot in that door.
4:28
So I'm not sure whether I garnered the support of the Subaru dealers at WA before I bought the car or after.
4:35
I suspect after.
4:36
I suspect I bought it and then came back to WA and when Ross Duncan jumped ship, I thought maybe I can jump on that ship.
4:43
So I started to get some small support from Subaru dealers at WA.
4:47
What was that car like when you first drove it?
4:49
I mean, relative to 1600.
4:51
Oh, it was chalk and cheese.
4:52
I mean, they weren't exciting to watch.
4:54
And I mean, one of the first times I went east, well, the first time I went east was the Asander International Rally, and I think I got second out right behind Wayne Bell.
5:02
And I think even the commentators have gone, the boring to watch but very effective RX turbos, you know, they had no centre diffs, so things were a bit awkward in tight corners.
5:11
But when you're going fast, they're pretty grippy.
5:13
And they were easy enough to drive,
5:15
But they break pretty easily, gearboxes especially.
5:19
And how you can get a gearbox to last, this was that they were convinced I was cheating because the Subaru Turbo gearbox will not last four days.
5:26
Well, it did, if you didn't have a lot of power.
5:29
And I've kept that adage for most of my life, people won't believe this, but none of my cars have had a lot of power.
5:37
I've never gone chasing the power.
5:38
What I've gone chasing is to get rid of the weight.
5:41
And I've learned that from the truck driving days.
5:42
That's come from the truck driving.
5:44
I drive a truck loaded to the market, whether it's loaded with wool or sheep or wheat or super phosphate, but it's loaded to the max.
5:54
Overloaded generally.
5:56
And then on the way home, it'd be empty.
5:58
And I can tell you it goes a lot better when it's empty.
6:01
It stops better, accelerates better, corners better.
6:03
The drive train lasts way longer.
6:05
So I applied that theory with my rally cars.
6:09
I've just worked so hard on getting rid of weight.
6:13
And then the gearboxes and the drive shafts and everything that's suspect, all of a sudden have a better life because they're not doing the work.
6:20
And like you produce more power.
6:22
I had a young guy on the weekend talking about his thousand horsepower Subaru.
6:25
I'm going, like let's just have a couple of hundred horsepower and keep it
6:32
and then make everything as light as we can and then everything will last a lot longer.
6:35
Is that complemented by you being mechanically sympathetic to?
6:39
I think so.
6:40
I think so.
6:43
I think that changed.
6:45
I think the mechanical sympathy thing changed sometime during my rallying because in the early days we had to be mechanically sympathetic because things didn't last.
6:53
But when we were building things for Dean, I was building things to try and win like mine, but, and I was building roll cages and my only son is in this car and like how heavy am I gonna make this?
7:05
I'm trying to make it light, but I only got one son.
7:07
Yeah, safe.
7:08
And if he's gonna have a crash, there's gotta be a happy medium here.
7:12
But,
7:14
As I'm trying to tell him to be sympathetic, I'm seeing him getting beaten by people like John Macara, who are just beating up on the car.
7:22
Getting more out of the car, but at what expense?
7:24
But eventually we just came to the mindset, you know what, we've got to build the car.
7:30
If they can drive it, we've got to build it to last, to hold together.
7:36
If it busts, we didn't build it strong enough.
7:37
In my day, if it busts, we'd go drive it easier.
7:40
But driving easier by the ear of Dean, there's factory cars that replace everything all the time.
7:48
There's people modifying cars that modify things with big budgets.
7:52
So we've just got to go, we've just got to build it harder.
7:55
Couple of things here.
7:56
Firstly,
7:58
In relation to the Subaru connection, you're a country boy, you've done things hands-on all your life.
8:06
How did you go with knocking on the door of Subaru dealers WA and trying to start to garner support?
8:13
Yeah.
8:13
Okay, around the trucking, maybe you structured a few handshake deals around tyres and whatever else, but when you start to properly have to do that side of things, how did you go?
8:24
Oh, I probably didn't understand initially, but I understood more than some.
8:27
You know, I'll bring up John McCarrow's name again.
8:30
He's, he's mate, we've had our times together, but he's a mate.
8:34
And he's been fast and he's always been complimentary of when I've got somewhere.
8:38
And you go, well, Rob, you were lucky because you did that, or you were lucky you got that opportunity.
8:42
But he's gone out practicing and I've gone preparing.
8:46
He practices and the car's worn out and I prepare and the car's good.
8:50
But also I tried to conduct myself in a professional manner
8:53
you
8:55
I tried to be noticed at presentations, I tried to exceed some value back.
9:00
I probably had a, my business wasn't a big business, so any leverage wasn't big, but in the early days I struggled.
9:08
I mean, I was probably lucky that I got some support from BP, but I had a truck business.
9:12
But maybe it was my cousin had the distributorship, I don't know.
9:15
Okay, okay.
9:18
When Subaru started to support me, I think I rang Nick Senior up when I had the RS Turbo, and I've gone,
9:25
Can I speak to Toby O'Brie?
9:27
And this person has gone, Toby O'Brie's not in motorsport now.
9:31
I said, oh, my goodness.
9:32
You know, I've developed a relationship.
9:34
Who do I speak to?
9:36
You've got to speak to a man called Nick Senior.
9:38
Oh, OK, put me through.
9:39
Introduce myself.
9:40
I'm Rob Herries.
9:41
I know who you are.
9:42
What do you want?
9:43
Oh, no.
9:45
I go, well, I want, you know, I've gone to Tasmania and we didn't have any spares and I was coming second to Neil Bates and the blue, the turbo and the RS turbo.
9:53
And if I don't, I need some budget or I'm not going.
9:57
And he called me bluff of course, cause he says, well, I think you will.
10:01
But he said, well, what, you know, Nick cut to the chase, what do you want?
10:06
And I said, well, I want a thousand dollars an event.
10:11
And he's gone, really?
10:11
And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:13
And this is on the phone, remember?
10:15
Still no internet, I think.
10:16
And he's gone, well, we're not gonna give you 1,000, we're gonna give you 3,000.
10:20
And I've gone, but things have gotta change.
10:25
I've gone, oh.
10:27
Yeah, yeah, well I only really asked for a thousand because I thought that's all you'd give me.
10:31
You know, I really need three thousand.
10:33
And he's going, right, well you've got to have better spares, you've got to use the money, you've got to have a spare gearbox, you've got to buy spares, and you've got to fly to the event.
10:44
I can't have you working day and night on the car and then driving across the Nullarbor, which I've done 124 times.
10:52
He said you've got to get someone else to drive the truck and You know that money is for you to you know, yes, we can see some potential But we've got to have a bit better signage, but that's not the be of them and this is what people are
11:06
Don't work out.
11:07
The signage on the car is not the be-all and the end-all.
11:10
You've got to be some value to someone.
11:12
The signage is just an association.
11:14
But you've got to...
11:16
If they're going to associate themselves with someone, it's got to be put on a more professional front, you know.
11:21
And that doesn't just mean fancy clothes and things.
11:23
That's kind of like you now need to have...
11:25
get to the event properly, be rested.
11:29
And your level of professionalism.
11:31
Yeah, absolutely.
11:32
Yeah, so, and I mean, you've got to be lucky because they were looking for a driver accidentally while I was probably looking to go to another level, you know.
11:42
So, but...
11:44
When I built the car, there was no one place that could build anything I wanted to do.
11:47
It was just one place to do roll cage, one place did the seats, one place did the seat mounts, one place did the brake lines, one place did the exhaust, one place sold the wheels.
11:54
And I've gone, there's got to be some place you can go, but there wasn't.
11:58
And I thought there should be.
12:00
You have a good friendship with Ross and Lisa Duncan and you've done lots of boating and things together.
12:05
He was kind of the hero on the rally scene as you're coming through.
12:11
I think there's a funny yarn around you meeting him for the first time and him maybe giving you a bum steer in terms of directions or something.
12:17
Is that what happened?
12:19
Well, it wasn't so much a bum steer.
12:20
It was more the fact that he just fobbed me off.
12:23
As I said, I knew nothing about the rallying.
12:25
I didn't even know where Hoffman's Mill was.
12:27
But I've turned off the South West Highway down there where we're rallying for the Forest Rally, heading in that way.
12:33
And as we're driving up into this rally country, I've gone past a dam and I've recognized
12:40
I think I might have even stopped to have a look at it.
12:42
But I've recognised Ross Dunkin' because he's famous.
12:45
And I've thought, well, he will know.
12:46
And I've walked up, excuse me, Mr Dunkin'.
12:49
Any idea where the rally is?
12:51
And he goes, I've got no idea.
12:53
The co-drivers know that stuff.
12:55
And I felt very fopped off that this rally champion had given me, not given me the time of day.
13:00
But now that I know Ross like I know, he would have had no idea.
13:03
And the co-driver would have had to have taken him there.
13:05
So, yeah, I thought, bloody smart ass.
13:07
And, of course, he won the rally anyway.
13:10
But years later, here we are, mates, in the commentary game and boating together.
13:14
And, of course, had his son helping us on the team on the weekend.
13:17
Yeah, on the weekend, which is great.
13:20
Was there a period there where you were kind of proper rivals or did you become friends pretty quickly?
13:25
No, we were proper rivals.
13:26
Well, we weren't allowed to be friends.
13:28
His blood was red and my blood was blue.
13:30
Blue, yeah.
13:32
We didn't really compete against one another that much, as you might think.
13:34
When I was trying to win the Australian Rally Championship in 91, I'd, I'm sorry to remember back now, I,
13:43
He came back with Mitsubishi to do the Forest Rally as a bit of a test thing in a Group A car.
13:50
And he was doing it just to develop the VR4, and he wasn't doing the full Australian Championship.
13:56
And I just regarded that as him reigning on my parade a bit.
13:58
Neil Bates and I were thrashing out the Australian Rally Championship, and I needed the points.
14:03
And I think I ultimately came second behind Ross.
14:07
But I don't think we even spoke on that event, but I think he won every stage but two, and maybe I only beat him twice because he made a mistake.
14:14
But we only became mates when we became commentators and we realised we had a very similar interest in the look at life, you know.
14:23
You touched a moment ago on calling Nick Senior and then the run around town when you were needing bits and pieces.
14:31
Is this the formative time for what became Maximum Motorsport and the whole idea of a one-stop shop more or less?
14:39
It is.
14:39
When I couldn't get things done in one shop, I was travelling from Northern to Perth and I was trying to get things done and I was getting taken from pillar to post.
14:48
Everybody meaning well, but there was no one place I could go to.
14:51
I had to go between Cully's Race Equip and Opposite Lock to get things and the Custom Exhaust to get things and Aircraft and General Welding who built the roll cage and...
15:01
And I was thinking, this is all very convoluted for a bloke that just wants things done.
15:05
I didn't necessarily have a lot of money, but I was prepared to pay if I could get it done.
15:08
But time's money, so you're losing time, were you?
15:09
Yeah, time's money.
15:10
I'm coming off the truck business.
15:11
And anyway, one of the young blokes was working one of these.
15:15
I said, there's got to be someone in one place.
15:17
And he said, well, when you start it, I'll work for you.
15:19
And eventually he left his employment and he worked for Go Gear.
15:22
And ironically, Go Gear eventually sponsored me and Dick Ward and myself are still good mates.
15:26
Right.
15:27
And...
15:29
He left Dick's employment and he rang me up and said, I'm ready to go.
15:32
And I've gone, ready to go where?
15:34
He said, well, start that business.
15:35
I'm up to my head in debt and trucks and trying to rally the championship I probably shouldn't be doing.
15:44
And he would call me up and say, I'm standing in front of this building and this would be ideal.
15:48
And he had no money.
15:50
and I had very little.
15:51
And after about the third building, I was making excuses and as I'm standing there thinking, should I even be thinking about this, a bloke walked out of the shop next door and asked who I was and introduced himself.
16:04
And his name was Steve Wisby and he was the Bridgestone Motorsport dealer for WA.
16:12
He was with Ed Ordinsky, I think he had Glenn Seaton and people like that.
16:15
Yeah, he worked for Glenn Seaton on the V8 touring car.
16:17
So he was just into motorsport.
16:20
Anyway, he introduced himself, and as I'm trying to explain what I'm half thinking of doing, he said, do you want a partner?
16:26
And he blew me away a bit.
16:27
I mean, I'd never thought about that, and I'm going, well, maybe I do.
16:32
And he and his lady Kay travelled up to Northern to meet with myself and Dean's mother at the time and we formed a partnership, you might say, and for 15,000 bucks each we decided to give it a go.
16:44
Crazy.
16:45
Yeah, and we spent most of that just trying to set the shop up really and get some stock.
16:50
And some of this stock that me mate Marty McFly...
16:54
Martin McAllen, the manager, bought that he insisted were hot items, I think I've still got.
16:59
Got it.
16:59
Of course.
17:02
It is the beginning of what is largely a really tight association with Subaru that's gone for many years from building rally cars to engineering things for them, and obviously your own rally program and so on.
17:19
Wiz, I think, was a great tuner.
17:20
So he brought that to the business.
17:22
Was it a bit of a yin and yang thing between you two?
17:26
I think it was.
17:29
He was an orphan.
17:30
He was adopted.
17:30
He knew he was adopted.
17:32
He just wanted to be someone's mate.
17:34
And he was a good mate.
17:35
He was my good mate.
17:37
But he just loved his motorsport and the fact that I was involved and we could be involved.
17:42
We travelled a lot of the world together with myself and Dean.
17:46
But he would probably have spent the money in six months, any money we had.
17:50
But he had boundless energy at the time.
17:52
And he- Just the contacts.
17:54
Yeah, just the contacts.
17:55
Some were good, some were bad.
17:57
And he'd left a bit of a trail of destruction behind him before I got involved in him.
18:01
And I hope it was a yin and yang thing.
18:03
And even when he bought the diner, he's going, we need to have a diner.
18:06
I've gone, Steve, it's 160,000 bucks.
18:10
I don't think we should be buying a dyno.
18:13
And he said, well, I'm buying it with some money my mum and dad have given me.
18:16
And I said, well, if you buy it, we'll rent it.
18:18
Every time we use it, we'll rent it.
18:20
And ultimately, sadly, when he died, we paid back his widow.
18:25
They weren't married, but it wasn't the same lady.
18:28
We were still friends with the original lady and the second lady, Denise.
18:31
But we paid that back and we paid back his share, because he was a generous partner and why shouldn't we?
18:37
He left us in 2011, sadly.
18:38
How did that affect you?
18:39
Oh, no, it was making me cry now.
18:42
No, it was a big...
18:43
It was hard for us.
18:44
And we had to reinvent our business and we wondered if we had a business.
18:48
and some of our friends wondered if we had a business.
18:50
Is it true you used to write in the calendar occasionally, closing it in a month?
18:55
Yeah, this was before, this was way before he died.
18:58
This was after, in the first couple of years of business, we thought we would be a retail-based business and we would sell seats, suits and harnesses, but there was everyone else selling seats, suits and harnesses.
19:10
And it was a very competitive game, and okay, I had some contacts,
19:15
But we just thought maybe, and we started to do some contract work, and I think probably what saved the business was we got a contract with Kia.
19:26
I'd already been to Korea twice, and I was speculation to,
19:30
to sell some stuff and I was touted around as the Australian rally champion and I did some demos and Kia came to Australia to look at someone to build cars for them, to enter into Asia-Pacific rallying.
19:43
And because they made an appointment to make maximum motorsport look better and bigger...
19:48
Dean, who was working as a settlement agent at the time, I said, Dean, can you take a day off, come to work and wear a uniform?
19:55
So it looked like we got another stuff.
19:58
Little did they know that Dean wouldn't know one end of a spanner or another involved from another.
20:02
And so we eventually sold them the deal and we built six cars for them.
20:07
And I think basically it just took off from there.
20:09
Amazing.
20:10
But it wasn't all Subaru initially.
20:12
I mean, our heart has been with Subaru.
20:15
And, you know, as I said, and I probably shouldn't have said this, and I was probably told I shouldn't have said this, we were building kias for money, but we rally Subaru's with our heart, you know?
20:24
And that's been that way.
20:27
But Possum Bourne did the same thing, and he had the contracts and the contracts with them, and, you know, we were upstarts, really.
20:35
But Rally Australia helped us.
20:36
You know, the World Rally Championship event was in Perth, and that's where we were, and that's probably why Kia came to Perth, because, you know, the location, the proximity to Korea and...
20:46
So, but you know, we were offered a couple of deals to go to Subaru for Dean in early days and we didn't go automatically.
20:52
We went to England at one point for him to test with Renault for the two-litre championship.
20:57
You ran a Hyundai in the early days too.
20:59
Yeah, ran a Hyundai because at one point, and this is how Cody Crocker ended up with the drive, because we knocked it back basically.
21:05
They needed money or wanted money and Hyundai were going to pay us money and at that point we needed the money.
21:13
Probably weren't clever enough to realise if Dean had done a good job like Cody Crockett did that they might have not worried about the money after a couple of rallies.
21:20
But we were just looking at the money that they required to offset the program.
21:24
So, you know, Cody did a good job and ultimately on about the third attempt...
21:30
of Possum Bourne and Nick Senior and Subaru to do something with Dean.
21:33
And finally we got together and they did say later, if you had to knock that deal back, that was going to be the last deal you might have got.
21:40
Is that right?
21:40
Yeah.
21:42
The great thing is, Wiz very sadly left us.
21:45
Dean I think was already a part of it.
21:46
by that stage, he's taken on quite a significant role, you know, perhaps on the admin and business side.
21:53
When I walk into his office there a moment ago, I mean, there's a beautifully organized calendar, there's a plan of things.
21:59
He's made a space in the business that is his own to kind of compliment what you were doing.
22:05
Oh, of course, of course.
22:08
My ex-wife, Dean's mother, once told me I was a hard worker, but I wasn't a good businessman.
22:12
And as much as that was a bit of a front for me and a bit cheeky, she's probably right.
22:17
Well, you're sort of venturing into Maximum.
22:19
I mean, you almost, to begin with, in that retail example you gave, that's almost a bit like what Revolution Race Gear do right now.
22:26
But really, you become a very good vehicle preparation business.
22:30
You have clients that run rally cars.
22:33
You'll tune things for customers and all sorts, basically, don't you?
22:36
Yeah.
22:36
Well, absolutely, and we realised we needed to have more than one string to our bow, and that's why the retail side of the business, there was the manufacturing side of the business, there was the running the rally team side of the business, not one of them would stand up by themselves.
22:50
Okay.
22:50
And even the young guys who were helping us run the team on the weekend, they're quizzing me to go, how does all this work?
22:57
How much do you get to charge these people?
22:59
And who do you charge?
23:00
And I've gone, it's a bit of a moving target.
23:03
And even if I knew what the numbers were, I probably wouldn't tell you.
23:08
But we had to create, and we didn't do this on purpose,
23:13
By trying to win rallies and winning rallies, people want to be associated with you.
23:18
It's like when the Eagles are winning football, they've got way more members than when they're getting their bums kicked.
23:23
And so we just had a different mindset.
23:26
I tried to win rallies and my partner Steve would try and help me.
23:30
Luckily, Dean was as capable as me, probably more capable on the tarmac than me, and we were able to attract people that wanted us to build the cars or campaign the cars.
23:40
But it's their game of golf.
23:42
They come to the rally just to, Andy Van Cown is a classic example.
23:46
He's been rallying for 50 years and he's a good mate, but he just helped make his rallying fun.
23:52
And he just wants to hang around, just wants to pull up at the maximum tent
23:57
You get to the car, it's his game of golf.
24:00
It's an experience, it's the people, it's the, you know.
24:02
It's the everything.
24:03
I was looking there on a weekend at the ARC and we got two trucks there.
24:07
At one point we shouldn't have had one truck and now we've got two trucks and three vans and we've got bigger than Ben Hur.
24:14
Hundreds and hundreds of people supporting all the big teams and all the spectators and all the interested people.
24:20
And I keep wondering what keeps bringing them back.
24:23
And sometimes there's nothing much to look at.
24:25
but they're walking around, they're just soaking up the vibe.
24:27
They're passionate, yeah.
24:28
It's the vibe.
24:30
Yeah, yeah.
24:31
You called it Maximum Motorsport.
24:32
Am I right that that is in part derived from Makualen and Maximum Attack?
24:37
Where did it come from?
24:38
Yeah, that's exactly where it came from.
24:40
We decided what sort of name.
24:42
In the early days, one of the very early signs had Rob Herridge's Maximum Motorsport, but it didn't take long for the Rob Herridge to fall off that sign.
24:49
And then of course we've had a graphic artist redesign
24:55
redesigned the logo and at different points we've realised the value of marketing and we'll make it sort of a certain sign or a t-shirt and we've done it for ourself and people have picked up on that.
25:08
And the same as the fabrication, one of the cars I built had drilled alloy plates because I was trying to cover up a pretty ugly floor, but the way I drilled it was a certain pattern and a
25:20
It was, and I still build them to this day, and people have seen that and gone, when you build my car, I want those.
25:25
And they go, really?
25:27
That was kind of a jest for me, and it was, but that's a signature thing, and people go, I want one of those.
25:43
The thing about the rally community is they're a resourceful lot and they don't let much stop them.
25:48
Rian Angel Cimino is lucky to be alive and she loves the sport more than ever.
25:53
So I got to the end of 2009 and I thought, you know, if I've survived this crash and I still love this and I'm passionate about it, this has to be what, you know, I do it for the rest of my life.
26:04
And so I quit teaching full time at the end of 2009 and decided to just do rally full time from 2010 onwards.
26:14
And that included, like, I started a Brennan Reeves Supporters Club, which Brendo and I had hundreds of, like even Jim Richards.
26:22
Check out Ree's inspiring episode in the Rusty's Garage Library including memories of the late Ken Block and what it's like to work with Travis Pastrana.
26:30
Now back to Rob Herridge.
26:33
You made a comment before around the way that you sometimes either spoke about some things, perhaps either in a post-event speech or maybe in some of the dealings that you had.
26:45
Was there a little bit of a straight talk or brash is again not the right word, but did that prove to be a little bit of a limitation or difficult for you at times?
26:54
Was that something?
26:55
Oh, at times, my mouth has got me in trouble, but it's got me noticed too.
27:02
I realised that if somebody sticks a camera in front of you, if the grab's not good, they're not going to use it.
27:08
No, correct.
27:09
So if you're the world champion, they might put up with it, like a Micah Hackenden thing.
27:14
But come back below that, they're going to use the most interesting grab.
27:19
It's got to be slightly controversial.
27:21
I didn't set out to be controversial, but I told a few jokes at presentations because I would have so much
27:29
I'd see so many people thanking their mum and dad for having them, thanking the bloke at the local garage for putting the air on the tires, and I'd go, jeez, Christ, this is a little bit boring.
27:38
But I also learned that you're funnier if you're last.
27:41
Yes.
27:43
So to speak last, you've got to win the rally, though.
27:46
And if you speak last,
27:48
you can, you've got, nobody's got any comeback on you.
27:51
So there was this impetus that if I can win the rally, I can speak last and I've got the floor.
27:57
So I tried to work with that.
27:59
But at one point when I was Possum Bourne's partner,
28:04
I probably took too much of an opportunity to put the boots into the Kiwis and a couple of times on his car if he broke it.
28:11
And Nick Senior rang me up to remind me who I worked for and maybe he overstepped the mark.
28:17
And I said, well, okay, that's it, I'll keep my mouth shut.
28:21
And he said, no, no, no, no, we don't want you to keep your mouth shut.
28:24
But you found the line.
28:25
But, yeah, just, yeah.
28:27
And he was correct, of course.
28:30
The connection with Subaru is so deep.
28:33
It runs decades long now.
28:35
Is there a story around perhaps getting a legacy for the first time and they brought a handful of them into the country and they were trying to figure out who was going to get them and you were a bit borderline maybe about getting one, is that right?
28:46
Well, I don't know whether I was borderline in getting one, but I was trying to think that maybe I'd get a special deal.
28:51
I can't remember.
28:54
I'd already been rallying the RX Turbo.
28:56
I'd won a round of the Australian Rally Championship.
28:58
You know, I'd bought the RX Turbo, I did Ed Mulligan, and I think what I'd done was a good job, but they would bring in five, and you can make an application,
29:05
And I can't remember what I paid for the farm.
29:08
I can't remember what I paid for my house.
29:10
You can remember what you paid for that, can't you?
29:13
$35,280.
29:14
In what year?
29:15
1990.
29:16
That's a lot of money.
29:17
It is a lot of money.
29:18
And maybe I could get a discount because I'm the Subaru man and that's the price.
29:24
And they were discounted to that price, so they said.
29:28
And so I'm going, okay, well that's the price.
29:29
I then went to the bank manager and I didn't have $35,280 of course.
29:35
I had an overdraft with the trucks.
29:37
You know, I had a bit of a connection with the farm still.
29:40
So, you know, I still got the farm, but it wasn't earning a lot of money.
29:43
And I've borrowed the money, I borrowed all the money.
29:46
And I've said to the bank manager, well, this is what I want to do.
29:49
And if I'm not supported and it's not working for me by the middle of the year, I'll sell the car.
29:55
And so I borrowed $35,280.
29:58
I sold the RX Turbo as a going concern to another competitor called Dennis Dunlop for $18,000.
30:03
And I spent that $18,000 plus some more
30:09
to build the RS Turbo and it changed my life.
30:13
Amazing.
30:14
So, I mean, we are seated for this interview in front of a couple of cars that have history here, aren't we, for you?
30:20
Important, important history for you.
30:22
I mean, firstly, I think high up on the hoist there, is there an RX on the cover there?
30:26
Yeah, an RX Turbo.
30:27
It's not the RX Turbo that I campaigned, but it's the one that...
30:31
Chris... John Atkinson, was it?
30:33
John Atkinson campaign, Chris's dad.
30:35
Yeah.
30:36
And we will...
30:37
It's currently just virgin white, but we will do that into the colours that I first started the association with Subaru.
30:44
Given time.
30:44
Yeah.
30:45
Something to do when I'm retired, being just over 70 years of age.
30:47
I'm going to have plenty of time now, apparently.
30:49
Well, we'll talk about retirement soon.
30:52
The Legacy is an iconic car.
30:54
I mean, as it sits behind us here, it's in the Asanda Rally of Canberra colours...
31:01
We're talking in the period where you win back-to-back Australian Championships.
31:05
We're talking about you being a part of the fold with Possum Bourne there as well.
31:09
So firstly, can we come to the 91 championship?
31:13
Yeah.
31:13
Because a lot played out in that championship.
31:17
It could have potentially been Neil's first.
31:20
It took almost a year, I think, for it to get confirmed that you were the title holder.
31:24
Just tell us about it.
31:25
It took 13 months.
31:26
I was the 92 champion before I was a 91 champion.
31:29
Crazy.
31:31
Well, we were both... We were pawns in the big game, of course.
31:35
The big game was the Australian Rally Championship and the Subaru were starting to get involved.
31:40
I didn't know that Subaru were planning, you know, a team Subaru with Possum running a, you know, a pro-drive car.
31:46
But, of course, Toyota were starting to get involved and they'd picked a young guy called Neil Bates who, you know, he was...
31:52
He was... As Ross Duncan reminds me, it was my fault, Rob, because you didn't read the script.
31:57
And I've gone, is there a script?
31:58
Yes.
31:59
And he said the script was that Neil Bates and Toyota won the Australian Rally Championship.
32:04
And you come along and you're mucking it up.
32:07
And that's his take on it, of course.
32:10
That's Ross's take.
32:11
But it went down to the last rally in Queensland and...
32:19
And the last stage, I'd already had a bit of a crash.
32:22
I should have actually won the championship by the Coffs Harbour rally.
32:26
And I think this is where maybe David Eady made a bit of a mistake.
32:29
He was running second and he crashed on the last day and allowed Neil, I won the rally, but allowed Neil Bates to come second.
32:36
It didn't crash on purpose.
32:37
No, of course.
32:38
But that meant the championship went to Queensland.
32:42
And up we went.
32:43
And I'm flying in, remember.
32:45
I've got some support now.
32:46
And someone's brought my truck over.
32:48
And I'm doing the best I can.
32:50
And I have a bit of a crash.
32:51
And I hit a big bank in the back corner.
32:54
And we spend a bit of late time in those days.
32:56
We had late time.
32:58
and to try and fix.
32:59
I think we ratted Dick Senior's car in the middle of the bush to try and get parts and it was 180 kilometres away.
33:05
And then I continued, but there was always this noise in the front and we couldn't find it.
33:10
And we found it on the last stage of the night where the ball joint broke in half and the left front wheel just took off by itself.
33:17
And I had 16 kilometres on a very torturous track to get it to the end control, which I did.
33:23
But a control official thought he was doing me a favour and he said, it sounds like you've got a broken exhaust, park it over there until you're ready to go and then I'll give you a new out time.
33:32
And so I parked it over there and I put everything back together as best I could.
33:35
And then when it was time to leave, he says, OK, well, now you leave.
33:38
And I made it into the end of the night service.
33:42
With no, I was on time, I didn't need any allowance.
33:46
But what the control official didn't realise, and I didn't realise, him trying to do me a favour, really sunk us because it's the fact that he wasn't doing me a favour by holding me in control.
33:55
It's if you've got a broken exhaust, which I didn't have, you must be held in control.
34:00
And that time will be allocated against your late time.
34:04
So that 18 or 19 minutes, in conjunction with the late time I'd already used during the day, went to 31 minutes.
34:12
and that's exclusion.
34:14
But I wasn't excluded because it was the last control of the day and there was only going to be a two-hour penalty or something.
34:20
So we argued the case.
34:22
By the time the rally finished, we were arguing over what had happened in the control, and then we finally convinced everybody there was no... You know, whatever it was.
34:32
So they awarded me the championship.
34:33
The next day or so, they'd awarded it back to Toyota, and that's where the argument started.
34:39
And so it took...
34:41
With the AMSAC appeal and the appeal courts and barristers and flying to Melbourne.
34:47
It was heavy, wasn't it?
34:48
You've got some heavy lawyers and all sorts of things.
34:51
Was there a point where you thought you might bugger it?
34:53
I'm not going to worry about this.
34:54
Yeah, absolutely, because I didn't start driving for Subaru.
34:56
And I'm still trying to run a truck business in Northam.
34:59
And my mum is a competitive person, remember, of course.
35:02
And I said to my mum, sometimes, mum, when you pick a fight, you've got to fight.
35:06
And I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking, I let that go.
35:11
Gotcha.
35:11
You know, I didn't fight for that.
35:14
So I was thinking three, four, five, six, $10,000.
35:17
And at one point I said to Nick Senior, if you guys don't give me a hand, I don't think I'll bother with this.
35:22
And he quite correctly said, well, I think you will.
35:26
He was great like that, Nick, wasn't he?
35:27
Yeah, he was pretty good at working me out.
35:30
And I think they eventually slipped me a couple of grand to help me out.
35:32
Mm-hmm.
35:34
And I was so relieved to win at three o'clock in the morning in Melbourne, I mean, there were three Queens counselors and I looked for all the world the whole time like I was going to lose.
35:47
that at the end they made the judgment and they said, you know, when you've got a case and you have so many agreed facts, and I don't know what that's called now, but one of the facts is it was this rally, it was this date, I was car four and he was car two, you know, all these facts.
36:02
Like indisputable facts, is that what you're trying to say?
36:04
Yeah, I think so.
36:04
And they're agreed facts.
36:05
We don't need to argue about that anymore.
36:07
We're arguing about something else.
36:08
And one of those facts was I didn't have a broken exhaust.
36:12
And we just had glossed over all that and got caught up in all other rubbish.
36:15
Excuse me.
36:16
And eventually the Queen's council has just said, well, one of these agreed facts is the fact that you didn't have a break and exhaust, therefore the penalty was erroneously applied, therefore there's no penalty.
36:30
And that was that.
36:31
And do you want to apply for costs?
36:33
And I've gone,
36:35
No, I'm just so elated to have won.
36:37
One.
36:38
And I'd paid the lawyer some money by then.
36:40
And on the lift downstairs in the quiet lift music, Neil said, thanks very much for not applying for costs.
36:46
But if it had been the other way around, I wasn't going to either.
36:50
And I said, thanks, Neil.
36:51
Great.
36:52
And we've been mates ever since.
36:54
We were just both.
36:55
I'm sure that was probably a tense time.
36:58
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
36:59
They were on one side of the table and I was on the other side of the table.
37:05
Did you get the trophy?
37:06
What happened in the end of the trophy?
37:07
No, never got the trophy.
37:08
Neil insisted he never got the trophy.
37:10
Did they commission a replica or something?
37:13
I can't remember.
37:13
For my 50th party, one of the surprises that my wife Debbie and my son Dean and the family commissioned was to actually get the trophy made.
37:21
So that was a bit of a surprise, yeah.
37:23
Nice.
37:24
In that sense then, I mean, you win 92 before 91 has even decided, so you go back to back.
37:30
Did it ultimately make the 91...
37:34
title one that you savour more because you did what you talked to your mum about and stand up for it?
37:40
Or was the 92 thing not tarnished by what happened in 91 and therefore it is the one that stands more in your mind?
37:47
No, I don't know.
37:49
When people ask what your favourite rallies are, and as I say to Dean, and Dean says the same thing,
37:54
The favourite rallies are the ones you win.
37:56
Yes.
37:56
Because I look back at Coffs Harbour because I won at Coffs Harbour.
37:59
I look back at the Forest Rally because I won that rally.
38:02
I never won Queensland.
38:03
Want to go rally in Queensland?
38:04
Not so much.
38:05
But if I could have won in Queensland, that would be one of my favourite rallies.
38:08
But no, I don't think I have the 90...
38:13
The 91 championship was won as a privateer and I scrapped and I fought and I built and I bled and I cried and I did everything to win it.
38:23
But the 92 championship seemingly came easier, but I was in a Group N car against Group A type cars.
38:28
And of course my teammate was possibly born in an ass-kicking Group A car.
38:32
Of course he was having reliability issues.
38:34
He could clearly the driver of talent and choice at the time.
38:39
But maybe the 91 is the best.
38:43
And my family were alive to see that and my grandmother was alive to see that and all of that sort of stuff.
38:50
He was paired with Dr Roger Freeth back then, who like you, loved motorcycles, was very good around motorcycles.
38:57
He was co-driver for Possum.
39:00
Tragically, he gets killed.
39:02
Yeah.
39:03
He was a friend.
39:04
Yeah.
39:05
How did that affect you?
39:06
Oh no, it did.
39:07
I mean, I'd won the 92 championship.
39:10
Things weren't brilliant with Subaru.
39:12
They were struggling for sales of cars and probably trying to justify a motorsport budget.
39:18
Budget.
39:19
And they'd lost the Brumby, but they'd got the Impreza introduced and all the dealers weren't convinced that the Impreza was gonna be their savior.
39:29
And it was our job to go around and convince them that we didn't have the Impreza.
39:32
We were still rallying the legacy of Liberty.
39:35
And don't worry about the Brumby, this will be the thing for you.
39:38
It turned out that the WRX was the cold car and changed Subaru's history.
39:43
It changed my life.
39:44
It changed my business.
39:47
But things were a bit tough, so they were running the championship in 1993.
39:51
Things weren't going brilliantly, and then ultimately they possibly had a big crash and Roger was killed.
39:57
So the team was shut down overnight.
39:58
I was withdrawn from Rally Australia on the side of the road.
40:02
I thought that was a bit hard because he was driving a ProDrive car at the time.
40:08
ProDrive continued, I think, didn't they?
40:09
They continued as a mark of respect, and I was withdrawn as a mark of respect.
40:13
That's two different ethoses there.
40:15
Probably that's worth explaining, Rob, that ProDrive went about it one way.
40:18
Subaru had an alternate kind of viewpoint on this, and you obviously with...
40:22
rightly with Subaru Australia and went with that decision.
40:26
But what you also felt was that Possum and Roger would have wanted to continue.
40:31
Oh, of course, the whole team, we were doing particularly well in that.
40:35
And I would put a lot of work into that rally.
40:36
And I was getting paid, but only paid if I produced some results.
40:41
And if I didn't produce a result, I didn't get paid.
40:43
I put a lot of work in and don't get paid.
40:44
And it seems a bit callous to say, but everyone that made the decision, they went back to Sydney and they got paid.
40:51
But he was my friend.
40:52
And I think they probably had my best interest at heart and they had a Japanese
40:57
Ethos.
40:58
Ethos, yes.
40:59
And there has been rally teams withdrawn over the years when mechanics have been killed on the road.
41:05
So I sort of understood that.
41:06
But when the whole team is there the next day and we're trying to shut the whole thing down and we're just looking out the door and we're packing up the truck and we're going...
41:14
Roger wouldn't have wanted this, you know.
41:16
But I suppose there was this concern that if I made...
41:22
If I had a crash or I made a bad decision, they would be held... Because they let you continue.
41:29
Yeah, absolutely.
41:30
So you sent the guy out who's had his teammate killed.
41:33
Like recently, the Dockers played after one of their teammates died, tragically died.
41:38
Mm-hmm.
41:39
And they played poorly and everyone's going, well what do you expect, your teammate?
41:42
Their head wasn't in the game.
41:44
And I suppose that's probably what they thought.
41:47
And they had to make a decision.
41:49
When they stopped me on the side of the road and said, drive into the control and withdraw, I've gone, well we've got one stage to go, we just do this stage and then we sit down tonight and we'll talk about it.
41:59
And they've gone, no.
42:00
Okay.
42:01
You withdraw.
42:04
Dean tells me to ask you, I'm changing tact here in terms of the fun and light and shade, I guess you could say in the conversation.
42:10
Did you win an Australian title without a handbrake?
42:12
Is this true?
42:13
What is that about?
42:14
What is that story about?
42:17
Well, you don't need a handbrake.
42:22
Is it a handbrake or is it an emergency break?
42:26
One time.
42:27
Is this a weight saving thing?
42:29
What were you doing?
42:30
Yes, absolutely.
42:31
Because it's not the handbrake.
42:33
It's the handbrake, the bracket, the cable, the backing plate, the shoes.
42:38
You don't need no stinking handbrake.
42:40
When people go, now I've got to have the handbrake just so I can do this, you know, and think just, you think.
42:47
I took it out because it saved weight.
42:49
And if you got to a hairpin, it was a bit awkward.
42:51
You had to sort of unsettle the car.
42:53
At one point,
42:54
They had, they rang me up, Nick rang me up and said, can we borrow your car?
42:59
We were using it for promotion, it's painted yellow, as we know, it's in Sydney, can someone drive it for promotion?
43:04
I've gone, not possum I hope.
43:06
Yeah.
43:07
Thinking of John Macari, you know.
43:08
Yeah.
43:09
And he'd go, no, no, not possum, all right.
43:10
And he said, we'll fly over and you can get it ready and okay, you can use it.
43:14
Who's it for?
43:15
It's for Ari Vartnan.
43:17
Oh.
43:19
Okay, so I go over to Sydney, I spend half a day, get it off the truck, it's been traveling all around Australia, it's in poor condition.
43:25
And off to the Blue Mountains we go,
43:28
Possum's away somewhere, so it's just, and Ari rolls up, and he walks up, introduces himself, and everyone loves Ari, and me too.
43:36
Yes.
43:37
And he says, so this is the car.
43:39
And we go, yeah, and he says, okay.
43:41
And he hops in, he says, seat is not quite right.
43:45
Can we move the seats?
43:47
I said, no, no adjustment, my seat, because it's the same way.
43:49
Welk it in.
43:50
Yeah.
43:50
Yeah.
43:51
A steering wheel.
43:52
No, that's how it is.
43:54
That's how it is.
43:55
And then he goes, the brakes.
43:59
Sorry, that's it.
44:00
So then he says, we need someone to drive.
44:03
They're doing a bit of a promo on the side of the Blue Mountains.
44:07
And someone's got to hold the box.
44:09
And then he finds out that I own the car.
44:12
And he says, well, you own the car, you can come with me and hold the box, the big box with the button.
44:17
And he says, off we go.
44:19
And as he's going, he says, ah, car seems down on power.
44:23
I said, that's the way it is.
44:24
I'm sorry, that's the, okay.
44:26
And he says, gearbox ratio seemed very wide.
44:29
And I said, pfft.
44:30
That's how it is.
44:32
And then he says, and of course he's flying along on rolls now, and I've just got to make sure that button's on, because it's inclined to go off apparently.
44:39
And eventually he goes for the handbrake, and he goes, there's no handbrake.
44:42
And I said, that's the way it is.
44:45
And he said, how'd you get around the corner?
44:48
I said, I just...
44:50
Finchie finds out I'm the driver.
44:52
Of course he's driving along and he says, ah, you are a driver, I thought you were a mechanic.
44:56
He said, no, I am the driver, I'm Australian Rally Champion.
44:59
And he says, really, what class?
45:01
I said, that's right.
45:03
Really?
45:04
I go, yes.
45:07
And then I said, how do you turn on the hairpin?
45:09
I said, you just go like this and like this, he says, like this.
45:12
And I went, not here.
45:14
He says, the drop down the mountain like this and he says, yes, that works okay.
45:20
But he was a good guy.
45:22
Was he?
45:23
And he only went fast in front of the cameras and I learned a couple of things.
45:26
you know, cause he didn't have a lot of power and he's coming up and going up the steep hill and he's revving it out in second.
45:31
He's changed to third and I'm thinking, I wouldn't be changing third here cause like there's another corner coming up.
45:36
But he didn't worry, he just held the foot flat and just modulated the brake and just was out this angle.
45:41
And I'm thinking, that was pretty good effort.
45:42
So, and he only went fast in front of the cameras.
45:45
The rest of the time we were just talking and so he was a good guy.
45:49
And we become mates and yeah.
45:51
Oh, he probably doesn't remember that yet.
45:53
I know what you mean, I know what you mean.
45:54
The car behind us,
45:56
has been put back to the same colour scheme, basically, but it has had some Japanese influence in it, hasn't it?
46:05
Yes.
46:05
I think when that scheme was first devised...
46:10
For people listening on the podcast, by the way, we're talking about the legacy, we're talking about the 92 car, so please continue.
46:14
And it's got reflective sign work.
46:17
And I didn't realise that until I was actually sitting in it.
46:20
I didn't realise even when I was sitting in it.
46:21
It was only when people coming up to me at the first service at night time in the Alpine Rally, which I happened to win with Subaru, saying how amazing the car looked.
46:29
I'm going, yeah, it looks pretty good.
46:31
but I didn't realise it was reflective.
46:33
It was only when I was working back to it and other people had the lights on, I'd go, wow, how exciting is that?
46:38
So when it was touted a couple of years ago, just before COVID, they were gonna run a national televised rally sprint in the Flinders Ranges and they were gonna try and get
46:46
all the Australian champions to either come with the cars they had or a close box.
46:51
In the era.
46:52
Yeah, that era.
46:53
And the whole thing was gathering a great deal of pace.
46:55
Subaru got very excited and said, right, why don't we put the car back as it was?
46:59
So they flew Yoda out from Japan with the original drawings and stickers and off he went.
47:04
Excellent.
47:05
The finished product is beautiful.
47:15
That's the end of part two of my pod with 91 and 92 Australian Rally Champion Rob Hedridge.
47:20
Because he's done some commentary, can you tell?
47:23
Over the years, he is good with storytelling.
47:25
So we have a rare part three in the library for you.
47:29
Check it out when you have time.
47:30
From safari competition to Maxima Motorsport and the incredible partnership with Subaru and more.
47:38
All here on Rusty's Garage.