Latest / Rusty's Garage / Owen Kelly - Part 2

Transcript

Owen Kelly - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:18
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with Owen Kelly, an Aussie racer with a deep passion for the American scene, especially NASCAR.
• 0:28
  This is quite a yarn that I know you'll enjoy over the summer holiday off-season when it dropped in our library.
• 0:34
  Now, if you've arrived here for some reason before checking out part one, do not pass go, do not collect $200, head straight back to the garage library and give it a listen.
• 0:44
  There's some fun recollections in there of his time as a junior in carts in Tasmania where he grew up.
• 0:50
  and the powerful influence his dad's Speedway career had on him.
• 0:54
  Not to mention tracking down one of his father Chas's signature cars and the authentic restoration work he and his brother Christian especially did on it.
• 1:04
  Plus, gripping recollections of a crash that nearly ended Owen's career before it even started.
• 1:11
  I know he's particularly grateful to the doctors and rescue crews that day, and how changes at Phillip Island in the wake of Greg Hansford's fatal crash certainly helped save Owen's life.
• 1:22
  We begin part two by talking about how he learned about the business of racing in his teens, and in typical Kelly fashion, it was hands-on learning.
• 1:35
  It really started in 98 with the Formula Ford because Dad helped me into it, but then, right, you've got to go and find the money to run it.
• 1:41
  So what are you doing here?
• 1:43
  Because there's no internet or not much internet, you're probably ringing people and trying to...
• 1:47
  I wish I had the energy that I had then because I was just wearing people out on the phone and just by hook or by crook.
• 1:58
  It was a game of numbers.
• 2:01
  At some point, someone's going to say yes.
• 2:04
  So I'll keep ringing.
• 2:05
  I'll keep ringing.
• 2:06
  So I'd go down to Snap Printing and put together these... Proposals.
• 2:10
  Actually, let me say, I'll go back.
• 2:12
  I had no idea about proposals and what should be in them and how you do all these things.
• 2:18
  But a huge benefit that I had in 98, being in the Young Lions, was Brock was still around.
• 2:26
  And I got to...
• 2:29
  I think.
• 2:31
  I got to go to Brock's house one night and sit in the kitchen with him and Bev.
• 2:35
  Fantastic.
• 2:37
  Which I look back on now as a great memory.
• 2:40
  And how that happened, I got... 97 was his last year at HRT.
• 2:48
  I had a Falcon Ute.
• 2:51
  And I'd moved to Port Melbourne.
• 2:53
  I was living with Simon Hardwich that owned the Formula Ford.
• 2:57
  And Scott Dixon lived just around the corner.
• 2:59
  And unlike today, Scott didn't like getting out of bed to go and train.
• 3:04
  And one of my jobs was to go and get him out of bed and get him up on the bike.
• 3:09
  And not that I was any... Now he's like a rowing machine king, mate.
• 3:13
  Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 3:14
  No, he's a different bloke.
• 3:15
  But it was quite funny because he was younger too, you know, and he was on this program that had him on and...
• 3:24
  having to lie about his age and smuggle him into the saloon in Turak Road on a Tuesday night with the other Formula Ford bikes.
• 3:33
  And I can tell you, Scott Dixon hasn't changed from those days then to now.
• 3:36
  In personality.
• 3:37
  Yeah, he's still the same bloke.
• 3:39
  I must get him on.
• 3:40
  I must get him on at some stage.
• 3:41
  Yeah, keep going.
• 3:42
  But I had this Ford ute and it got stolen literally two blocks from where we're sitting here.
• 3:46
  Really?
• 3:47
  It was parked on the street.
• 3:48
  Couldn't believe it.
• 3:49
  Come out and it was right there.
• 3:50
  That's it.
• 3:52
  I don't know if you've ever had a car stolen, but it's quite a surreal thing.
• 3:54
  It was literally right there.
• 3:57
  Now it's not.
• 4:01
  There was this white club sport sitting at,
• 4:04
  HRT hadn't moved for weeks and I totally couldn't afford it.
• 4:10
  But clever me says to Jeff Gritch, what's going on with that club sport?
• 4:15
  Oh, that was Brock's company car.
• 4:16
  We just, he's just dropped it off.
• 4:18
  We haven't done anything with it yet.
• 4:19
  So are they going to sell it or?
• 4:21
  Yeah, probably.
• 4:23
  Go and talk to Crenno.
• 4:25
  So I go and talk to John Crenno and he's, oh yeah, we can do you a bit of a deal on that.
• 4:30
  And so I buy it, put it on the drip, and stupidest thing I did as far as, you know.
• 4:37
  Business.
• 4:38
  Yeah.
• 4:39
  As far as, it definitely wasn't in the budget, but it was.
• 4:44
  But far out, I've got Brock's car.
• 4:45
  How good am I going?
• 4:48
  Had to be done.
• 4:50
  So, and then, and the cheek of me, so then I ring Peter Brock up.
• 4:56
  Hey, Peter, would you mind?
• 4:57
  And I'm not trying to make money.
• 4:59
  I'm not selling it.
• 5:00
  I'm not doing anything.
• 5:00
  But it'd be really cool if you would sign a bit of paper that this was your car.
• 5:10
  Car, yeah.
• 5:11
  Because it's in the cool factor, you know.
• 5:13
  Yeah.
• 5:14
  And, oh, yeah, no problem.
• 5:15
  I said, just, when do you want to do it, just come up to the house.
• 5:19
  I said, oh, it never suits you.
• 5:20
  And I organised a time and went up there.
• 5:23
  And I'm straight out of, I've literally been in Melbourne for three months, green as, believed everything that everyone told me.
• 5:32
  But he was awesome.
• 5:32
  He said, now, what's going on there with this Young Lions thing and this and that and what are you doing with this and what are you doing with that and that.
• 5:38
  So I'm telling him and he's like, right, well, this is what's going to happen.
• 5:41
  They're going to say this, but they're going to do that.
• 5:44
  And then this is going to happen.
• 5:45
  Then that's going to happen.
• 5:46
  And just mapped it all out.
• 5:47
  And he was not all bad.
• 5:49
  I'm not suggesting that.
• 5:50
  No, no, no, no.
• 5:50
  But it helped you immensely.
• 5:51
  Oh, yeah.
• 5:52
  It was all exactly like he said it was going to happen.
• 5:55
  And so that was really cool.
• 5:57
  And...
• 5:58
  Was it a bit of mentoring advice?
• 6:00
  What was that that he gave you?
• 6:01
  What did he tell you?
• 6:02
  Yeah, it was more the politics side of it than anything.
• 6:07
  And I'm sure that he could see that I was as green as...
• 6:12
  Does that stuff drive you mad even now, mate?
• 6:13
  Because you just want to go racing, you know, all that bullshit, all the... Yeah, politics does, but yeah, but probably more, when I say politics, I probably should say it was probably more just the business side of it and so on.
• 6:26
  But I think where we were headed with that was the business side of it.
• 6:29
  It was at the start of 98 that I realised when I was doing a few of these little deals that people had to have invoices.
• 6:36
  I couldn't just hand you money.
• 6:37
  So it was, all right, so I've got to go and set up a business then.
• 6:44
  So I got that all started and set all of that up and then basically ran that whole... Professionally.
• 6:51
  Yeah, and then I didn't know how to do a sponsorship proposal, but...
• 6:58
  Somehow I stumbled on some really, really good data from one of these mobs that you would know.
• 7:04
  Like a Rippy Com or one of those?
• 7:06
  Something like that.
• 7:08
  I don't know how, but I've come across this really good stuff.
• 7:10
  And I was talking to Mark Scaife.
• 7:12
  What's it like?
• 7:12
  Like TV figures and all this sort of stuff?
• 7:14
  Yeah, and demographics and things and words that I didn't understand.
• 7:18
  And I'm telling Scafie about it.
• 7:21
  And I said, would you mind helping me do a sponsorship proposal so I can put together an actual document?
• 7:28
  And I've got these numbers from this mob.
• 7:30
  And he goes...
• 7:31
  Well, how'd you get that?
• 7:32
  I said, I don't know.
• 7:34
  I just did this, this and this and then here I am, you know.
• 7:37
  And I remember him being surprised that I had it.
• 7:39
  And he said, I'll come around and I'll give you a hand.
• 7:42
  And he came to my apartment and sat down.
• 7:45
  We had a coffee and he wrote the whole thing out by, just on a bit of paper with a pen.
• 7:51
  And then I trotted off to Snap Printing and got it all printed up with a bunch of photos.
• 7:55
  And the way you went.
• 7:57
  The way I went, yeah.
• 7:58
  And then annoyed the heck out of everybody.
• 8:02
  Amazing.
• 8:03
  The lead-in to this was, the goal was co-drive Bathurst 1000.
• 8:09
  Yeah, it was, well, it was, you know, full-time in whatever it can get in.
• 8:14
  So, you know, if you look at the steps, we've been in Formula Ford, went into, after Formula Ford, went into Super Touring with Paul Morris and had been doing a bit of testing there.
• 8:27
  with him, which I should mention, Ian Walburn, Wally, been around forever, was instrumental in that.
• 8:34
  He was working on the toll team.
• 8:35
  Oh, yeah.
• 8:37
  And when I said you couldn't get laps in a supercar, like I would go to...
• 8:41
  a test day and stand there all day and just hope to get five laps at the end of the day and sometimes that's all you got but you had to keep putting these five laps together and to get experience some experience and um and wally was really really good and uh he actually suggested to paul to give me an opportunity and so i'd get i got quite a bit of testing with paul in the in the big kev case
• 9:07
  And then a couple of cool things come out of that.
• 9:10
  We did the Super Touring Championship in the BMWs.
• 9:14
  You had a good battle in Tassie too at Simmons Blinds, I think the pair of you did too.
• 9:18
  Yeah, we did.
• 9:19
  He was in a bit later car, but it sort of worked out that the brakes were the same.
• 9:26
  And we were swapping the lead and we may or may not have had the radios hooked up together as we were talking to each other.
• 9:33
  um uh actually that came later at simmons we didn't and we um i worked out how to keep him behind me for a few laps and then um i thought i'm going all right here i'm gonna see if i can win this and and uh obviously but you gotta you know the bloke behind me owns the car and uh you gotta keep all that in mind and um
• 9:57
  He ended up knocking the rear bumper off the thing at the hairpin, and Wally came on the radio and said, I think that's your sign.
• 10:05
  Bumper's dragging off down the road.
• 10:08
  Yes, got the message, Wally.
• 10:10
  Cool cars, though, mate.
• 10:11
  Super cool.
• 10:12
  Unbelievable cars.
• 10:13
  Ended their development phase.
• 10:14
  I mean, they were just unreal, weren't they?
• 10:16
  Yeah, they were.
• 10:17
  And even then, I mean, that's 22 years ago, and still one of the coolest cars I've ever raced.
• 10:23
  Good thing.
• 10:25
  We've still got the closest finish in Simmons Plains history there because we went across the line.
• 10:31
  It's .00 something.
• 10:33
  Yeah.
• 10:34
  We went across the line virtually dead even, and neither of us knew who did win.
• 10:39
  Awesome.
• 10:41
  One of the other cool things that come out of that is Kevin Schwantz came and drove with Paul in the Queensland 500.
• 10:46
  Yeah, I remember.
• 10:49
  And I wasn't in the Enduro.
• 10:51
  Well, I was at Bathurst, but I wasn't in the 500 that year.
• 10:57
  But they would go testing, and basically Paul was testing with the new car and the new VT, and we had Schwantz in the older car, and I was sort of...
• 11:08
  Which was an XHRT car for memory, wasn't it?
• 11:10
  Yeah, it was, yeah.
• 11:11
  And I kind of had the job of...
• 11:14
  even at that early stage of sort of driver coach to get this bloke up to speed and braking markers.
• 11:19
  And I'd done quite a few laps around Willowbank at that point.
• 11:22
  And so that was a cool moment to... Work with him.
• 11:27
  Work with Schwantz and get to know him.
• 11:29
  Great guy.
• 11:30
  Yeah, great guy.
• 11:31
  Yeah.
• 11:32
  I mean, as is you, mate.
• 11:34
  You've crossed paths with all these people along the way from...
• 11:38
  I can vividly remember...
• 11:40
  12-hour cart races where you paired with Paul, Mick Doohan, you guys had a team.
• 11:45
  I think there was the Crazy Kiwis, Murph, Andy McIlroy, Tim Miles, and I'm missing someone there.
• 11:50
  You were in our team.
• 11:52
  I was up against you.
• 11:53
  I was with Gary Holt and a few others.
• 11:55
  Oh, that's right.
• 11:55
  I was the worst.
• 11:56
  I was the worst.
• 11:57
  But it was all about fun, wasn't it?
• 11:59
  You got great people, good fun.
• 12:01
  Daz was in it.
• 12:02
  Daryl, yeah.
• 12:03
  Daryl Beattie was in it.
• 12:06
  Where I want to go here now is, let's continue the supercars theme for a moment, because as you rightly corrected me on, the goal is full-time driving, right?
• 12:14
  But I want to get to Bathurst first time.
• 12:17
  What did you think?
• 12:18
  Where were you?
• 12:19
  What was the car?
• 12:20
  And what impression did it leave you with?
• 12:24
  It was...
• 12:26
  The very first one was the big Kev car, 2000, with Aaron McGill.
• 12:32
  So Paul's second car.
• 12:34
  So it was – he had Matt Neal actually come to do Bathurst in the main car – in his car with him.
• 12:41
  And so I'm starting the race.
• 12:46
  I remember, I don't think I'd driven one in the wet.
• 12:49
  And I think the start of the race was, I think it was just wet enough for wets.
• 12:55
  But I had a door come open or something crazy on the warm-up lap.
• 13:04
  Was it on the warm-up lap or the, yeah.
• 13:08
  I can't remember, but we...
• 13:11
  What advice were you getting?
• 13:12
  First time in the wet at the mountain and things like that.
• 13:15
  Yeah, Paul's obviously there.
• 13:16
  You know, just take it easy.
• 13:18
  You're not here to prove anything.
• 13:20
  Which, yeah, but it was pretty daunting, you know.
• 13:24
  Sort of 650 horsepower in the rain at that joint.
• 13:27
  And you're still trying to just find your way around the place is one thing.
• 13:31
  It's much less go fast.
• 13:33
  And so, yeah, it was certainly an eye-opener.
• 13:38
  It was, you know, and you could – I'm sure that even Jim Richards would tell you that –
• 13:43
  Every time he went there, he learnt something new.
• 13:46
  That he probably thought, shit, I wish I knew that the last 30 races I did.
• 13:49
  But it's just one of those places, isn't it?
• 13:51
  That you just pick up something every single time.
• 13:55
  Did you love it?
• 13:56
  Did you fall in love with it and go, I've got to keep doing this.
• 13:59
  Yeah, just the whole event.
• 14:03
  You know, just the whole thing.
• 14:06
  And that tradition of...
• 14:09
  um you know everyone drove to bathys because that's what brock did forever ago you know and everyone uh the road trip and um the whole week and the way it all rolled out it was um yeah no it was i do and i remember uh i think i did 12 or 13 bathys but um
• 14:29
  it was clear to me, and I don't know why, that every year I'd be coming down Conrad during the race at some point and pulling six gear down Conrad and...
• 14:42
  And it had just come into my head that, how lucky am I?
• 14:46
  There's only whatever, back then I think there was 36 cars or 34 or whatever.
• 14:51
  60 blokes or 60 drivers.
• 14:52
  60 odd blokes in the country or the world getting to do this this weekend and I'm one of them.
• 14:59
  It was pretty cool.
• 15:00
  Pretty special, mate.
• 15:02
  Is there a race there that stands out for you?
• 15:05
  I mean, an extension to that question.
• 15:09
  There's probably a few deals or potential deals along the way in supercars that almost panned out or came close.
• 15:16
  They're probably worth sharing too, mate.
• 15:18
  Tell us about that.
• 15:20
  Yeah, there's – or races at Bathurst.
• 15:24
  There's a couple that – and we've all got the wooders, coulders and shoulders.
• 15:28
  Yeah, I know.
• 15:29
  That's not you, but anyway.
• 15:30
  Yeah.
• 15:32
  Probably 05 was... And you've got to remember back then, you could pair your lead guys together.
• 15:41
  So your two lead... You know, your Mark Scaife and Craig Lowndes and the whole racing team are in one car.
• 15:45
  And then there's two non-regulars in the second car, unlike today.
• 15:50
  And so they're pretty hard to go up against, those cars.
• 15:53
  And...
• 15:56
  Probably 05 in the super cheap car at PWR with Nathan Pretty.
• 16:01
  Yep.
• 16:02
  So we're both non-regulars.
• 16:07
  What's his character?
• 16:08
  What's he go by sometimes?
• 16:09
  Randy Corners.
• 16:13
  Randy Corners.
• 16:14
  Good going.
• 16:15
  Love you, Randy Corners.
• 16:16
  This is pre-Randy, although we did have a selection of different wigs and other things for the weekend floating around.
• 16:24
  So, 05 with him, super cheap car.
• 16:26
  Yeah, so we...
• 16:28
  I'm qualifying the thing and it sucks a bolt out of the airbox into the motor on the first lap.
• 16:33
  And so we don't get a lap in.
• 16:38
  So we start in the pit lane.
• 16:42
  So obviously come in and top it off with fuel and you're at the back anyway.
• 16:45
  So, yeah.
• 16:48
  and we we drove it all the way to the front and under green so satisfying yeah and as non-regulars you know and so and the car was brilliant and really really good Bryce Seals was the engineer and doing an awesome job and
• 17:07
  Dave Ward was running the team, doing a great job.
• 17:09
  It was just a really good group of guys.
• 17:13
  But unfortunately, that was the year that my mate Murph... And Ambrose.
• 17:19
  My other mate Ambrose.
• 17:20
  Ambrose.
• 17:22
  We got towards those later stages, and we were floating around that fourth, fifth, and we're like, shit, we just need a bit of luck here, and we're on a podium.
• 17:31
  We just need something to happen to someone.
• 17:33
  And we might be a podium here, but we were that close.
• 17:36
  And...
• 17:39
  And I've got to keep saying, you know, that's when you're the non-regular main car.
• 17:44
  We were really batting above our average, really.
• 17:48
  And that's when...
• 17:50
  So we were in that crash with Murph and Ambrose in that roadblock and bent steering and this and that and whatever, and we wound up six.
• 17:57
  But this was still okay.
• 17:59
  But when you should have been, you know, a bit further up the road, that was probably... That was a good year, but...
• 18:04
  Let's go the parallel opposite.
• 18:06
  You have a great relationship with the Kellys now, so we're not going to diss that in any way.
• 18:10
  But you did get to drive for them.
• 18:12
  Probably, I may not be articulating this right, but it might be fair to say in a formative phase for the team.
• 18:20
  So the gear was a bit spread out across everybody while everything's building and so on.
• 18:25
  And you're with Merv.
• 18:28
  And I seem to recall he came in after driving the car for the first time there.
• 18:36
  What were his debriefs like when he got out of the car?
• 18:38
  What did he say?
• 18:40
  Well, I've got to say, first of all, that's a really good mate.
• 18:44
  Yes.
• 18:45
  But, I say but.
• 18:49
  And I will say, out of all the blokes up and down the pit lane...
• 18:56
  A lot of blokes won't help you that much because you might be a threat or you might become a threat.
• 19:02
  A lot of blokes won't give you much in terms of anything that might help you.
• 19:06
  Did he help you?
• 19:08
  Ever since I've known him, he's done nothing but help.
• 19:11
  Not just me.
• 19:12
  He's just one of those...
• 19:14
  You see the angry side of him as well from time to time.
• 19:17
  It's actually passionate more than anything else, isn't it?
• 19:19
  Yeah, that's what it is, yeah.
• 19:21
  And he's so competitive and passionate.
• 19:26
  But you're right.
• 19:29
  Feedback of...
• 19:31
  G Murphy.
• 19:32
  The car is effed and slamming the door.
• 19:37
  Not helpful.
• 19:37
  Let's decode that, boys.
• 19:39
  I think that's three rounds of bump out of the front shock and lose a bit of roll centre in the back, probably five mil.
• 19:46
  Good to go.
• 19:50
  But I remember we were at Bathurst and he goes out and does first practice, comes in.
• 19:56
  I'm standing there about to jump in.
• 19:58
  And he gets out and his hands are shaking.
• 20:02
  And he goes, good fucking luck with that.
• 20:05
  I'm like, way to fill me with confidence.
• 20:10
  Thanks.
• 20:11
  Good on you, mate.
• 20:12
  Yeah.
• 20:13
  And, yeah, get in and go.
• 20:15
  Amazing.
• 20:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:17
  But...
• 20:19
  No, it was really cool to do Bathurst with Matt.
• 20:23
  What about the drive that got away, mate?
• 20:24
  Am I right in saying that maybe there might have been a gig with FBR at one point in time and trying to stitch that together?
• 20:30
  I'm maybe not joining the dots quite right here.
• 20:32
  Probably one, I try not to have any regrets or try not to go, I would have, could have, should have made a different decision.
• 20:39
  But probably one was in 2002, I guess it was, I drove with Glen Seton.
• 20:47
  It was the last year of Glen Seton Racing.
• 20:53
  And for the Holden bosses at the time, we should point out that at Bathurst, when I got sick and they put David Bernard in the car, they all thought this was actually a real kick in the guts for me.
• 21:13
  I was genuinely sick and unable to drive the car.
• 21:17
  Okay.
• 21:19
  Just fill that back story for people that don't know.
• 21:21
  How were you crook?
• 21:22
  What was wrong?
• 21:22
  So I'm driving.
• 21:23
  I'm in the Ford Credit Car, single car team with Glenn Seaton.
• 21:28
  David Bernard was the driver in the Caltex car.
• 21:32
  He had Wayne Gardner driving with him as a co-driver.
• 21:34
  Yep.
• 21:35
  Stone Brothers.
• 21:36
  And it's obviously both factory Ford-backed teams.
• 21:43
  And I guess it was the Thursday night
• 21:46
  I remember walking down through the back of the pits.
• 21:51
  This is pre the new pits at Bathurst.
• 21:53
  And everyone had their own little shed sort of spread out the back.
• 21:57
  And there's no, no one had trainers and dieticians and chefs.
• 22:05
  And you're on your own.
• 22:07
  Like I think Glenn that year, and I'm not, this is nothing against Glenn.
• 22:10
  No, it's just how it was at the time.
• 22:11
  It's just how it was.
• 22:12
  He rang me up one day.
• 22:12
  He goes, you going to the gym?
• 22:14
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  Okay, good.
• 22:16
  Like, that was it.
• 22:17
  Okay, he's doing that.
• 22:19
  We're ticked.
• 22:20
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:22
  And that was it, you know.
• 22:24
  And I was still, I think that was only my, well, sort of third Bathurst, I guess.
• 22:28
  And you're still learning all these, without any help, you're learning all the, you know, hydration and eating correctly and all these things.
• 22:37
  You just don't know.
• 22:38
  And how much... And it's come a long way, mate, hasn't it?
• 22:41
  All that stuff.
• 22:41
  Massively, massively.
• 22:43
  And...
• 22:44
  But not suggesting I'd done anything wrong, but I remember I had a ham and cheese sandwich, which you would think would be pretty safe.
• 22:52
  And I'm walking down the thing, and then all of a sudden I'm like, shit, I'm going to throw up.
• 22:56
  Like, just hit me.
• 22:57
  It was food poisoning.
• 22:58
  It was food poisoning.
• 23:00
  And I threw up right there in between those trailers.
• 23:03
  And he always had the house outside Turn 1 there in Bathurst.
• 23:07
  And so the whole next day I'm over there throwing up and on a drip.
• 23:13
  And, you know, they've got a doctor coming and checking on me and so on.
• 23:18
  And if you remember back...
• 23:22
  you had to have your, I think it was Friday lunchtime, was it?
• 23:25
  You had to have your... Cut off.
• 23:27
  You used to cross enter everybody, in case you wanted to swap your drivers around and whatever.
• 23:33
  Well, Gardner went out in practice and had done a brake pad change, didn't pump the pedal up...
• 23:39
  Didn't pump the pedal, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:41
  And proceeded to knock the wall down at turn two and wrote the car off.
• 23:48
  Here they are in a, and I can understand their situation.
• 23:51
  They're going, well, you got a bloke on a drip over there that can't keep knitting down.
• 23:56
  And we've got our factory guy here with nothing to do because his car's been written off.
• 24:02
  And to his credit, Glenn came to me and said, what do you want me to do?
• 24:09
  And he said, you know, what do I do?
• 24:11
  And I said, well, do what you got to do, you know.
• 24:17
  I can't, you know, do you reckon you'll be right tomorrow?
• 24:21
  Well, I can't really answer it, can I?
• 24:23
  I mean, you want to say yes, but you don't want to let him down either.
• 24:25
  And, you know, so the writing was on the wall.
• 24:29
  They had to do, you know, they're going to have to put Bernard in the car.
• 24:32
  And so then what, and I didn't see this coming, and it was bitterly disappointing that...
• 24:39
  So straight away, because remember, at those times, you're in the thick of the Ford versus Holden thing.
• 24:44
  It was as big as it had ever been.
• 24:45
  Fever pitch rivalry.
• 24:46
  Yeah.
• 24:47
  And so Holden jumped straight on that and tried to stop it from happening, going, no, no, no, that's all bullshit.
• 24:54
  They just want to put Bernard in the car because he's one of their guns.
• 25:02
  and basically that it was, which put me in a bad light, that I'm getting parked to the side just because Bernard's got nothing to do.
• 25:09
  And that wasn't the case.
• 25:13
  So that was pretty disappointing.
• 25:17
  So to back up Glenn and that, you know, because if I got put to the side, I wouldn't hang around, would I?
• 25:24
  No.
• 25:26
  You'd be giving them the bird and see you later.
• 25:29
  And so I stayed on Sunday.
• 25:32
  I was in the pits all day.
• 25:34
  in there with them and um yeah and it's nice glenn's come out since in in his book i think or in a podcast or something and said that one of his biggest regrets was making that decision and putting bernard in the car he's a beautiful guy though so you clearly had a tough time doing it mate didn't he so so um uh
• 25:59
  Yeah, that's what happened with that one.
• 26:03
  But getting back to the FPR drive, the next year I hadn't signed to do the Enduros with anybody.
• 26:14
  And I had the ride in the Smith's Trucks car.
• 26:18
  Robert Smith?
• 26:18
  Yeah.
• 26:19
  And Ryan McLeod was running the car and he rings me up and he's like, right.
• 26:26
  What we're going to do, I'm taking you and Steve on, we're going to Winton, and we're having a shootout.
• 26:30
  And whoever's the fastest gets the drive.
• 26:34
  And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay.
• 26:36
  No worries.
• 26:39
  That's interesting.
• 26:40
  It hasn't been done like that before with me.
• 26:45
  So we go up there, and I'm thinking, shit, what's the right strategy here?
• 26:49
  Do I go first, put the pressure on, or do I wait and see what he does and then try to beat that?
• 26:55
  And I finangled it, so I went first.
• 26:58
  I thought, oh, no, I think that's the strategy here, to try and lay a lap down.
• 27:03
  And it was literally a one-lap shootout.
• 27:06
  And I think we got to have a bit of a practice.
• 27:09
  on some old tyres, we got, you know, might have got five or ten laps each, and then it was literally... On.
• 27:14
  Right.
• 27:14
  You got a lap, going, whoever's the fastest gets this gig for the year.
• 27:19
  And luckily, I managed to squeak out a decent lap and beat him.
• 27:25
  But we went to Adelaide, and...
• 27:29
  It was only, Ryan was literally the only guy on the car and with a bit of help, not that I was much help, but with a bit of help from me.
• 27:38
  And I remember we went to, we were late getting a, it was an ex-Murphy Gibson car.
• 27:43
  Car, yeah.
• 27:44
  Kmart thing.
• 27:46
  Yeah.
• 27:47
  Or Wins, sorry.
• 27:47
  Yeah.
• 27:49
  We went to Winton and tested this new steering rack, and then we had to go literally from Winton straight to Adelaide for the...
• 27:56
  The rise.
• 27:57
  ...Clipsal.
• 27:58
  Yep.
• 27:59
  And that was Mark Winterbottom's first year, so he's there in a full-blown Stone Brothers car.
• 28:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:06
  And we put it on pole, and straight after qualifying...
• 28:11
  I think it was after qualifying or after the race.
• 28:13
  I think it was after qualifying.
• 28:16
  Someone from Stone Brothers came down and said, we want to offer you an enduro gig.
• 28:23
  So they had Ambrose and Bernard at the time.
• 28:28
  And I'm there with, I said to Glenn Seaton, what do you think?
• 28:36
  And he said, no, no, no, you've got to stay with us.
• 28:39
  He's sold the team.
• 28:41
  It's FPR now, their first year.
• 28:44
  David Flint was running it and he's like, no, no, no, we're going to go to three cars and we want you to be in the third car and so on and so forth that never, never eventuated.
• 28:54
  Sorry, fourth car, I think it was.
• 28:57
  So I stayed and, um,
• 28:59
  with FPR for the Enduros and, um, uh, no, sorry, it was Ingle and Ambrose at Stone Brothers then.
• 29:07
  Brothers, yeah, yeah.
• 29:08
  Because Bernard was at FPR in his first year, yeah.
• 29:11
  And, uh, so I stayed and, well, I signed with FPR, um,
• 29:15
  later that day.
• 29:17
  And, um...
• 29:19
  Anyway, that's one that I just go, probably should have gone with Stone Brothers.
• 29:23
  Stone Brothers.
• 29:24
  They were right in the, you know... Purple patch, a good phase.
• 29:27
  Yeah, yeah.
• 29:28
  But anyway... Hi there.
• 29:39
  Only me again.
• 29:39
  OK. We're off to America next.
• 29:43
  Let's fly.
• 29:46
  At what point does the idea of going to America and maybe chasing something there kick in?
• 29:55
  What was the catalyst?
• 29:57
  When did you decide that?
• 29:59
  When did that happen?
• 30:00
  It was the day that Marcus announced that he was going to the Truck Series.
• 30:04
  Okay.
• 30:05
  Do you know, can I rewind a little story here?
• 30:07
  Because you've joined the Dots with Lee Diffie at one point, spent a bit of time with him in America and so on.
• 30:14
  Diff came into our compound at the Australian Grand Prix in 2005, so Formula One, earlier in the year, like March or whatever it would have been.
• 30:25
  And they got a whiff of Marcus contemplating this.
• 30:30
  And he was dispatched to go and interview Marcus about it.
• 30:34
  And so in the course of the interview, he asks the question, you know, like there is some talk about this.
• 30:39
  And to his credit, Marcus answered it.
• 30:42
  He didn't dodge it.
• 30:43
  He answered it.
• 30:45
  I think Brett Murray, PR man and Speed Cafe and what have you, kind of cornered Diff afterwards and said, mate, like three people in the world knew about that kind of deal.
• 30:56
  And that then started the story.
• 30:57
  And it was a really long year for him, mate.
• 30:59
  It was hard because everyone knew that he was going to ultimately go.
• 31:01
  And I think Coco was a bit miffed that the champion was going to leave and all of these things, mate.
• 31:06
  But so at somewhere around this point of the Grand Prix, you obviously get, wow, okay, well.
• 31:10
  As much as I love NASCAR, but it was just a, I wouldn't say it was a pipe dream, but it was just, I couldn't see a way of, it seemed NASCAR had this reputation back in certainly 90s and early 2000s, been a closed shop, good old boys.
• 31:31
  Hard to break in.
• 31:32
  Hard to break in, just the southern blokes and, you know.
• 31:36
  And I guess because Marcus and I race karts as little kids in Tassie, and he went off to Europe and did amazing things, and then came back and did amazing things in touring cars.
• 31:54
  So, um, but I guess cause I've got a, I had a, um, well, if you can do it, if you can do that, I need to have a look at this.
• 32:05
  I'm not suggesting I was as good as Marcus or anything like that, but, um, he's streets above me, but, uh, I thought, well, if you can do that, um, that's your dream, it's not a closed shop.
• 32:19
  And, um, yeah.
• 32:23
  So, yeah, it was at that point that I was like, right.
• 32:25
  But I still didn't have a plan or didn't know, but it just made me, and then I'm like, right.
• 32:31
  So I kept a really close eye on what he was doing.
• 32:36
  Robert Presley, the people he was hanging around with and learning from.
• 32:39
  Yeah, so I went, he did the first year in 06 in the trucks, and his timing was, whether it was by design or not, it was really good because it was right before the GFC.
• 32:52
  And they had a push for diversity and things like that, that are programmed, didn't they, mate?
• 32:56
  They had diversity, all the manufacturers had... That's right, Ford got involved, didn't they?
• 33:01
  That's right.
• 33:02
  Yeah, they had, you know, I forget what they call it, development deals.
• 33:09
  And to get young blokes through and so on.
• 33:12
  And there was a lot of that going on.
• 33:17
  So he got in on that program with Ford.
• 33:19
  And so he did that first year in the trucks.
• 33:24
  And then I went to the Daytona 500 in 07.
• 33:30
  So February 07 was his first nationwide race.
• 33:35
  So I went to that to...
• 33:37
  you know obviously watch him see that see the Daytona 500 all that and um went down after the race and uh and I remember he got out and a bit like Murph at Bathurst he he was he was like this he said shaking that was the craziest thing I've ever done
• 33:54
  Wow.
• 33:54
  Which you can understand.
• 33:55
  Yeah, yeah.
• 33:56
  Because the year before, they didn't approve him to do super speedways.
• 34:01
  And that is some insane stuff.
• 34:03
  And he did really well.
• 34:06
  And he was with a...
• 34:11
  mid-pack, bit better than mid-pack team at the time.
• 34:15
  And he told me that Robert Presley was his driver coach.
• 34:19
  And I'm like, oh, like the old cup driver Robert Presley, which I knew who Robert was.
• 34:23
  And he's like, yeah.
• 34:24
  And I said, well, what about these late models?
• 34:26
  I've been reading about the asphalt late models, like what you call a NASCAR late model.
• 34:31
  And he said, oh, Robert's got a couple of those.
• 34:35
  You should talk to him.
• 34:37
  And so...
• 34:40
  um, introduced me to him and he said, Oh, you know, come and see me.
• 34:43
  We'll work something out.
• 34:44
  He said, I've been wanting to put together a bit of a program that I can, you know, rent out this car.
• 34:49
  And, um,
• 34:51
  All very loose and Roberts is as Southern as I get.
• 34:54
  Yeah, yeah.
• 34:55
  Can you impersonate him?
• 34:56
  Impersonate him.
• 34:57
  What would he say to you?
• 34:57
  What would he say to you?
• 34:58
  Come on, come on.
• 34:59
  Well, I've got a good impersonation of him at the first race.
• 35:02
  Okay, okay.
• 35:03
  I'll do that, yeah.
• 35:05
  But so I'd planned to, I think I hadn't planned to go to Charlotte in this trip, but I quickly changed that and drove from Daytona to Charlotte and then up to Asheville where he lives.
• 35:19
  Which is a beautiful part.
• 35:20
  I mean, Charlotte is a beautiful part of the world, mate.
• 35:23
  So, anyway, keep...
• 35:23
  It is.
• 35:24
  What's that drive time, Daytona to Charlotte?
• 35:25
  How long does that take you?
• 35:26
  Oh, it'd be a good 12 or 14 hours.
• 35:29
  It was decent.
• 35:30
  Okay.
• 35:30
  So, you change and off you go.
• 35:32
  Yeah.
• 35:32
  And so, we drive up there and it's full Days of Thunder.
• 35:37
  The house is on the hill.
• 35:39
  The shop's over the road down here.
• 35:40
  And it's full old school.
• 35:44
  And...
• 35:44
  Great family, just fantastic people.
• 35:47
  Where are you staying?
• 35:48
  I'll just find a motel around the corner.
• 35:50
  No, no, no, come and stay with us.
• 35:53
  So here I am sleeping in Robert's basement.
• 35:56
  Can't believe it.
• 35:58
  He wants to put together this deal and rent out this car and have a bit of a development program in a late model.
• 36:05
  But he's never done it.
• 36:05
  It doesn't...
• 36:06
  not sure how he's going to do it, but, and so this is February and he's, so we work out that, all right, I'll come back in May and we'll do these four races.
• 36:16
  Um, and I'm, he's, he's son Coleman races as well.
• 36:20
  Um, he's now, uh, Joey Logano spotter and Coleman's a really good racer.
• 36:26
  He hasn't raced for several years.
• 36:27
  And just the other day, he jumped in a late model at Hickory and won the fall brawl, which is a big race there.
• 36:33
  And, um,
• 36:34
  But so we organize, he's emailing me all these race dates, you know, where do you want to go?
• 36:39
  And I'm like, I don't know.
• 36:40
  I don't know anything about it.
• 36:41
  I don't know.
• 36:42
  The tracks.
• 36:43
  I don't know anything about where I should go and do these short tracks.
• 36:46
  I mean, I can talk to you about Darlington and Daytona and Martinsville, but I don't know Hickory and Tri-County and...
• 36:53
  When you say they're tiny, small, small... Yeah, half miles, quarter miles, all little stuff.
• 36:59
  Hickory's been there since 1948.
• 37:04
  So I go back in May and he's got this car ready.
• 37:09
  He's like, all right, well, we'll go and do a test and then we'll go to Tri-County first because it's probably a bit easier to get around than Hickory.
• 37:18
  And we go and do the test and I feel pretty comfortable and...
• 37:22
  I'll tell you what I learned.
• 37:23
  People say, you know, people that don't know racing say, it can't be that hard to drive around an oval, right?
• 37:28
  Oh, you've got to just turn left.
• 37:31
  Well, yeah, you're right.
• 37:32
  It's not that hard.
• 37:33
  So how hard do you reckon it is then to be the best at it?
• 37:36
  Because you go from circuit racing, you talk in tents.
• 37:41
  They talk in hundreds.
• 37:42
  Yeah.
• 37:43
  Because the margins are just so narrow.
• 37:45
  Bit of black art in it too, mate, isn't it?
• 37:49
  And, you know, Robert would be running around with the tyre pyro and he's like, how's it feeling?
• 37:54
  I'm like, I'm loose.
• 37:57
  And he's like, hmm, well, this is telling me you're tight.
• 38:01
  You know, reading the tyres.
• 38:03
  And we were both right in that I was loose, but the tyres were saying in 150 laps, you're not going to be able to turn this thing because you're going to be tight based off these temps.
• 38:15
  Um, and the way, you know, the way the car was working and all.
• 38:19
  And, um, so it was insane to learn that, but we went to the first race and, um, so Robert's on the, on the cans as the spotter and, um, and I'm feeling like I'm under pressure because I got this cup driver.
• 38:33
  And back in the 80s particularly, like in the, what was the Bush Series, if you wanted to win a Bush Series race, you had to beat Robert Presley first.
• 38:41
  He just dominated that stuff.
• 38:43
  And this, you know, big guy out of the mountains that would just tear your head off in a heartbeat if you needed to.
• 38:49
  And...
• 38:52
  So it was pretty intimidating, you know.
• 38:54
  But a great honour at the same time.
• 38:55
  Oh, yeah, and a great bloke, you know, really, really good people.
• 38:59
  And so we're in this first race.
• 39:01
  I think it was 100, 150 laps and summer night, you know, really hot.
• 39:08
  And Tri-County, it's around the bottom, around this fence and this little concrete wall around the bottom, and it's where you need to be.
• 39:15
  And some guy, he's spotting, you know, and I'm learning all this lingo.
• 39:19
  Like what?
• 39:20
  What are they saying?
• 39:20
  Come on.
• 39:21
  You know, like just like, all right, you know, he's looking, he's looking inside, inside, you know, and just all the different things that they're trying to... Yeah, the terminology and trying to understand the southerness, like he's just so southern.
• 39:34
  Hmm.
• 39:34
  And, um, beautiful.
• 39:36
  There's this one dude, I can't remember who it was, but he's, he's got me jacked up a couple of times and he's hitting me and knocking me sideways.
• 39:42
  And this has gone on for 30 laps.
• 39:44
  Well, now I've had enough, you know, like I'm not pulling over for him, but he's, um, probably I should have been getting out of the way and worrying about him later, but I'm, I'm in there racing like it's three to go.
• 39:54
  Yeah.
• 39:55
  And, um, and Robert's not telling me like, all right, just let him go.
• 39:58
  He's like, you're good.
• 39:59
  Just keep doing what you're doing.
• 40:00
  And then in the end, I'm like, Robert, who's hitting us?
• 40:06
  I'm starting to get frustrated.
• 40:07
  And I'm probably raising my voice a bit.
• 40:11
  Who's into us?
• 40:12
  I'm probably starting to talk a bit faster as well.
• 40:15
  And he just stops talking.
• 40:17
  And I'm like, is the radio working?
• 40:19
  Nothing, you know.
• 40:20
  And get going green again, and this blokes into me again, you know.
• 40:24
  And I'm like, who is that?
• 40:26
  Because I'm going to launch this guy when I find him, if he gets past me.
• 40:30
  And I come in after the race.
• 40:34
  I think we finished, I don't know, fifth or sixth or something.
• 40:38
  Good start.
• 40:38
  I was really, really happy with it.
• 40:40
  And he was happy.
• 40:43
  Because a lot of people, they look at you like, how could a guy from Australia possibly know anything about driving around an oval in a stock car?
• 40:50
  Because they don't know what we've got here or, you know, it just seems so foreign that someone... You are an alien, mate.
• 40:55
  You're an alien.
• 40:55
  You're an alien.
• 40:56
  Yeah.
• 40:58
  And he said, I said, hey, what happened to the radio, Robert?
• 41:03
  The radio stopped working.
• 41:05
  Well, Owen, you're just like Marcus.
• 41:10
  You get excited.
• 41:12
  I can't understand a damn word you're saying.
• 41:18
  And so I'm like, yeah, okay, cool.
• 41:21
  So you just stopped talking?
• 41:22
  Yep.
• 41:25
  Just gave up.
• 41:26
  In the heat, in the heat of it all.
• 41:27
  Yeah, he said, whatever, you'll be all right.
• 41:29
  Awesome.
• 41:31
  So that's your entree.
• 41:32
  That's your entree.
• 41:34
  Yeah, so we had this, we're going to do Tri-County Friday, Hickory Saturday, we're going to do that over a week and a half.
• 41:42
  and or it might have been over a couple of weeks but we're gonna do four races and and this is his first time doing this right so we went to hickory for the first time and um there was a wreck ahead of me on the start and i got in it knocked the radiator out of it knocked the nose off it and um you know whether i was too eager or probably i don't think i could have avoided it but anyway it was what it was and
• 42:06
  There was quite a bit of work to do and Robert wasn't ready to... You know, we just weren't going to be ready to make that last race.
• 42:14
  And I got a flight home booked, you know.
• 42:17
  And so he rang me a couple of days out and he said...
• 42:21
  And I was going back and forth from Asheville with Marcus, and Marcus has taken me around some of the other shops and, you know, trying to get something going.
• 42:32
  But they don't know you, so they just give you the price.
• 42:36
  Yep, no worries.
• 42:37
  Bring two million and you're on.
• 42:39
  All that kind of thing, you know.
• 42:41
  And so all of that seemed, you know, it was a bit of a pipe dream.
• 42:45
  And then he said, I've organized your ride for Saturday night.
• 42:52
  It's a Black 87.
• 42:54
  Just turn up with your gear.
• 42:56
  The boys will be there.
• 42:57
  This is a bit like old-school sprint car stuff where the dudes would turn up with a helmet, hoping to get a ride.
• 43:03
  The teams would be looking for a ride, and away you go.
• 43:07
  Exactly right.
• 43:10
  So I turned up to Hickory, and I was staying at my buddy Jamie Coates' house on this particular day.
• 43:18
  night and he was away he was working for penske on the indycar and um he was away racing so i'm at his house by myself and i've just got a rental car and throw my bag in and drive up to hickory and helmet and bag that's it helmet bag and just rock up there and i walk in and i'm waiting at the um i'd say the pit gate but they don't have a pit gate there's just no gate you just hit the end of the fence and i'm waiting waiting there for this that usac midgets pavement midgets out there and
• 43:46
  It was a black 87, wasn't it?
• 43:47
  Black 87.
• 43:48
  And I wait for this session to finish and I cross the track and I'm walking up and down the pit lane.
• 43:53
  I'm looking at all these cars, can't find it.
• 43:55
  And I hear this Aussie voice like, hey, what are you doing?
• 43:58
  And I turn around and it's Stephen Graham.
• 44:00
  Oh, fantastic.
• 44:01
  And so Barry and Stephen were still living over there and they were running a few of these USAC midgets.
• 44:06
  And I said, I'm looking for this black 87 that I'm driving.
• 44:12
  I don't know where it is.
• 44:14
  I said, I'll talk to you later, you know.
• 44:16
  Find it around the back somewhere, and here's these guys, and they're like, these dudes look like bikies.
• 44:22
  They've got tats down to their wrists and rough as the owner wasn't there.
• 44:26
  40-degree night.
• 44:28
  It's 40 degrees, and I'm like, oh, hey, yeah, I'm your driver, I think, you know.
• 44:32
  And they're like, yeah, yeah, jump in, adjust seatbelts, you know.
• 44:35
  And this thing looked rough, but it drove awesome.
• 44:39
  And...
• 44:41
  You finished third, I think, didn't you?
• 44:42
  Yeah, we finished third in the race, which was awesome.
• 44:45
  And Coleman and Coleman Presley ended up winning the race in his car, which that was cool.
• 44:53
  And then it was just got out, got changed.
• 44:58
  Thanks, boys.
• 44:58
  You know, shook hands and left.
• 45:01
  Crazy, crazy.
• 45:02
  Years later, you would be at a wedding, I think, in Charlotte.
• 45:05
  And join some dots.
• 45:06
  The team owner was on the table with you or something, wasn't he?
• 45:09
  Yeah, that's right.
• 45:09
  We were at this wedding of a friend, one of Whitney's friends, and he said, what did you used to do?
• 45:15
  And I'm telling him, he's like, I think you drove my car once.
• 45:17
  Ah, yeah, I did too, yeah.
• 45:20
  It turns out it was one of the best late models I've driven the whole time I was there.
• 45:25
  But, yeah.
• 45:26
  How much did that light the fire for you, mate?
• 45:28
  I mean, this is what you'd read magazines about.
• 45:32
  This is classic old school racing that you loved.
• 45:38
  It was, I went home and I thought, I mean, that deal with Robert, like I had to buy a few tyres and that was about it, you know.
• 45:44
  And, you know, he's such a nice bloke that it took me six months to get him to tell me how much a radiator was.
• 45:54
  I said, I've got to at least pay for that radiator.
• 45:56
  you know, knock the radiator out of it.
• 45:57
  Let me at least pay you for that.
• 45:58
  And, oh, yeah, you know, I don't know, it'll be all right, you know.
• 46:02
  And it just, I went home thinking, Marcus and I had been around a bunch of teams because they didn't know you at that point, that you're just another, you know.
• 46:11
  Trying to get a drive.
• 46:12
  Yeah, just join the queue.
• 46:14
  And I actually went home and thought, that was good fun, but, you know, it's probably not going to happen.
• 46:24
  And...
• 46:25
  I think I come back, we did, I had a ride with FPR in the Enduros.
• 46:32
  I drove with Terry Wahoorn in the, I was supposed to do two races with Terry Wahoorn
• 46:40
  in the development series or Fujitsu series I think it was by then.
• 46:46
  So we did those and that all went really good and we won that race in the rain from the pit lane and now I'm back on to trying to get a full-time supercar ride.
• 46:59
  So, American things, probably unlikely.
• 47:02
  But it was a great experience.
• 47:04
  Great experience.
• 47:05
  And then did the Enduros, ran third at Sandown with Richo, which was great.
• 47:13
  But that's massive.
• 47:14
  Don't understate that for a moment.
• 47:16
  Like, that's...
• 47:17
  That's cool.
• 47:18
  Richo's a good bloke who you rate.
• 47:20
  Yeah, and another guy that was really good to me in the early days, like helping out with any advice or anything.
• 47:27
  As is his way, mate.
• 47:28
  Yeah, he is, yeah.
• 47:30
  Anyway, so you thought America may have been just a...
• 47:34
  part-time thing.
• 47:35
  You might go back and have a bit of fun, but it wasn't necessarily an objective.
• 47:38
  And then, I think it was just before Bathurst or just after, there was three races, I think, after Bathurst that year.
• 47:48
  Paul Morris rang and said, oh, can you drive the other car?
• 47:50
  Coulthard had been in it up until then.
• 47:52
  I'm not sure what happened there, but
• 47:54
  He said, can you do these three races in this second car?
• 47:56
  I'm like, yeah, I can do that.
• 47:58
  And then I think it was Bahrain, Indy and Phillip Island.
• 48:03
  Phillip Island.
• 48:04
  Well, just before Phillip Island.
• 48:07
  Dale Jr.
• 48:08
  I heard that Dale Jr. was coming with a bunch of his buddies and going to do Phillip Island, going to come to Phillip Island, doing a Chevy Camaro release or something, and then...
• 48:18
  coming to the race and I thought, and I'd been to the shop at Junior Motorsports, saw that I've got a bunch of late models and there's plenty going on there.
• 48:26
  But, you know, over there, you're not going to get within five miles of the bloke.
• 48:32
  He wasn't hooked up with anybody coming into Phillip Island, was he?
• 48:35
  But you made it a kind of, among others probably, but you made it a mission to meet him, get to know him, as is your way, mate.
• 48:42
  Well, after all that stuff in May and talking to all them teams and all that, I thought, right, here's an opportunity that, one, he's got lay models.
• 48:49
  We just did some of that.
• 48:51
  Um...
• 48:53
  here's an opportunity to corner him for a chat at least you know and um with Paul's help you know we um we so they come to Phillip Island and he said oh um I said look just hang out with us we'll show you we'll show you just show that show you around all that and so they did the race and then um went to the Gold Coast and then um uh he wanted to have a driver car so
• 49:18
  This is a great story for one quick second here.
• 49:20
  Yeah.
• 49:20
  Because Russell's at one end of the pit line at Willow Bank or Queensland Raceway announcing...
• 49:26
  maybe that he was moving to Super Cheap Auto with Paul or something or other.
• 49:30
  Yeah.
• 49:30
  So the press are all down that end, but you're up with the car at the other end.
• 49:34
  And they think I'm testing.
• 49:35
  And Dale's in your suit or something.
• 49:37
  Is that right?
• 49:38
  Yeah, they think I'm testing.
• 49:39
  And he does.
• 49:40
  He's in my helmet, my suit, and he does, I don't know, 120 laps right under their nose.
• 49:45
  They don't even know.
• 49:46
  Fantastic.
• 49:46
  Fantastic.
• 49:47
  Fantastic.
• 49:48
  Yeah, that was a good...
• 49:51
  So you're getting to know him more at this phase?
• 49:53
  Had you had a conversation about late models?
• 49:56
  So it was actually at the end of that test day, and we were going to have a beer on the Gold Coast, and I said, now, what about all these late models?
• 50:02
  What's going on there?
• 50:03
  And he said, oh, yeah, we do this, and we, you know, these cars are mine, and this guy, he owns his car, but he runs it out of my place because I like him, and he, et cetera, et cetera, and I help him or whatever, and...
• 50:15
  And I said, have you got any open seats?
• 50:18
  And he looked at me like, what, you'd come and do that?
• 50:22
  And I said, yeah, in a heartbeat.
• 50:23
  And he said, so you'd stop doing this to come and do that?
• 50:27
  I'm like, yeah, yeah, no problem.
• 50:29
  If you've got an open one, I'll be there tomorrow.
• 50:32
  And he didn't know I didn't have anything for next year.
• 50:37
  But he said, I'll check with my sister and, you know, let me ring her tonight and we'll see what's going on.
• 50:44
  And then he said, you sure about that?
• 50:46
  He said, you've got to work on it.
• 50:47
  You've got to wash the truck.
• 50:49
  You've got to build the shocks.
• 50:50
  You've got to fix the car.
• 50:51
  The only thing you don't do is build the engine.
• 50:53
  And I said, of course, I just said yes to everything.
• 50:56
  And as you would, worry about it later.
• 50:59
  And yeah, and then so we did that deal and then had to go through the process of getting a visa and all the paperwork, which was like a three-month exercise to get all that happening.
• 51:13
  And then went over there and away we went.
• 51:18
  Amazing.
• 51:18
  We're going to bounce around a little bit here because this is a great chapter, mate.
• 51:21
  Firstly, in the midst of driving for him, you have some success with him.
• 51:27
  I want you to tell this story better than I will tell it.
• 51:29
  But you win a race.
• 51:31
  You ring him to tell him that you'd won a race.
• 51:35
  And he goes, how the hell did you do that kind of thing?
• 51:39
  Forgive me.
• 51:39
  I can't do his accent well enough.
• 51:42
  Get in your car.
• 51:43
  come back and have a beer with me and tell me how you did that.
• 51:46
  Now, he's messaged us for this pod, and he loves that story.
• 51:50
  He wants to know, even now, how you did that.
• 51:52
  Yeah, so, you know, back then, their late model team now, it's a real powerhouse.
• 51:58
  And back then, to me, it was like, I think he's running this like his dad made him do it.
• 52:12
  Because it was early days kind of thing.
• 52:13
  It was early.
• 52:14
  Well, yeah.
• 52:15
  And so he had sort of three cars that he owned, and then...
• 52:21
  a couple of others that ran out of there that he helped.
• 52:25
  And so there's five cars all up in that first year.
• 52:28
  And we concentrated on a particular track championship in Virginia at Motor Mile, which in that year that was regarded as the toughest track
• 52:40
  weekly show and philip morris who was a multi-time national champion he ran there every week and so if you can hang with philip morris you were doing something you know and um uh so we we concentrated on going up there and then um i think we ran up there you know 18 times or something just at that track and then do you go testing once on your own like you packed the car and you went up on your own
• 53:05
  We'd often go up there the day before and just try a couple of things.
• 53:09
  You didn't have lots of tyres or anything, but you'd just try a couple of things and then just get a motel and race the next night.
• 53:15
  And this one week, he's – and you've got to remember, this is – what people see now, they see Jovial Dale Jr. and –
• 53:24
  podcasts and media podcasts and I am available to do that now and he's on the Kentucky Derby and he's on this and he's on the Olympics and he's gin and all sorts he's everywhere and uh well I had the original Dale Jr.
• 53:37
  Nocturnal, didn't want to talk to anybody.
• 53:41
  You never knew what you were going to get sometimes.
• 53:44
  And you lived there, mate, didn't you?
• 53:47
  Yeah, on the farm.
• 53:48
  On the farm, yeah.
• 53:51
  So I feel like I had the original version.
• 53:56
  Yeah.
• 53:57
  Current version is still good, but that's pretty cool.
• 53:59
  Don't get me wrong.
• 54:00
  It's all come good for him.
• 54:02
  And it wasn't bad.
• 54:06
  He'd been through a lot.
• 54:07
  He had a lot on his shoulders.
• 54:08
  It wasn't that many years after his dad passed away.
• 54:12
  And they've just got this behemoth of a business around them.
• 54:15
  And he's trying to grapple with all that.
• 54:18
  Yeah.
• 54:18
  Yeah.
• 54:19
  And it was just literally, um, someone said, someone did a t-shirt or something one day.
• 54:25
  Uh, we did a Wrangler ad, Wrangler jeans ad.
• 54:29
  And he got a couple of us and we're, you know, if you squint your eyes and your quarter of a second, I'm in there somewhere.
• 54:35
  But, you know, and they, they, the guys made this t-shirt.
• 54:38
  If Dale Jr. Wins, America wins.
• 54:41
  And it was actually true.
• 54:43
  Everything just was... Because he was so big, mate.
• 54:46
  Yeah, it's just mega.
• 54:48
  So anyway, so you're driving for him.
• 54:50
  You go up testing on your own.
• 54:52
  So he said to me, what's on this week?
• 54:55
  I said, well, we're going to Motormont.
• 54:56
  Are you testing on Friday?
• 54:58
  No, I can't because Ace used to help me.
• 55:00
  I had one guy that helped me.
• 55:03
  Ace had something on.
• 55:06
  It was the one weekend he missed, you know, and Dale Jr. was sort of half grumpy and pissed off, you know.
• 55:10
  He said, well, you don't need no one to go testing with you.
• 55:14
  Okay.
• 55:14
  Yeah, okay.
• 55:16
  So I took that literally and come Friday I loaded that thing up and, you know, in a fifth wheel trailer with a winch you can pull your pit cart in and pull the car in by yourself.
• 55:25
  Yeah.
• 55:29
  rolled the car out and um there's another couple of teams there i'm like hey man do you mind just putting my window net up when i come past you know and i go out and bust off some laps and then jump out real quick and pyro the tires let my helmet on and just pyro the tires have a quick look see what's happening maybe slide a sway bar in and try that and just trying a few things and spent the day there and then a couple of those guys come down like yeah you're okay
• 55:55
  Yeah, why?
• 55:56
  Well, why are you by yourself?
• 55:59
  I haven't really thought about that.
• 56:02
  Yeah, no, I'm good.
• 56:03
  Yeah, no, we're good.
• 56:04
  No problems.
• 56:05
  All right.
• 56:06
  So then I got back that night.
• 56:09
  He's like, where have you been?
• 56:12
  Well, I went testing.
• 56:13
  What, by yourself?
• 56:15
  Yeah.
• 56:16
  Well, shit, I was only joking.
• 56:17
  You didn't seem like you were joking.
• 56:21
  But you win a race, mate, and it blew him away, didn't it?
• 56:24
  Yeah, so it was, you know, there was, I don't want to, I'm not downplaying what we had, because it was great.
• 56:30
  But the cars were four or five years old, it wasn't, you know, it was all to a strict budget.
• 56:37
  And it was run out of the Nationwide shop with the NASCAR, so there's a few swerves there on the budget.
• 56:49
  You had a great relationship with the parts guy, didn't you?
• 56:51
  You needed to have a great relationship with the parts guy.
• 56:54
  Tell this story.
• 56:54
  This is good.
• 56:55
  What did you do?
• 56:55
  So sawmill was the parts guy.
• 56:58
  Sawmill.
• 57:00
  And, you know, so it was basically like walking into a, you know, a super cheap store up to the counter.
• 57:06
  Sawmill, I need this and I need one of these and two of those.
• 57:10
  And that went against your budget, you know.
• 57:13
  And so the bean counters could keep track of it because...
• 57:16
  You know, the size of those teams, that parts counter, that's the epicenter of those businesses who could just get away from them so fast if they didn't have control of it.
• 57:27
  So you figure out.
• 57:29
  So, you know, you make Sawmill your new best friend.
• 57:36
  Sawmill, I need one of these.
• 57:37
  That's for the five car, you know.
• 57:40
  Sawmill, I need one of these for the 88 car.
• 57:43
  And, yeah, we might have moved a few parts around a few different cars just to make it all right.
• 57:47
  And you came in under budget, mate, didn't you?
• 57:49
  Yeah, they're like, geez, he hasn't spent much money this year at the end.
• 57:52
  Awesome.
• 57:54
  But no, we went to, so they have, you know, your track championships through the year, and then at the end of the year, they have a bunch of big races, you know, Martinsville, Carraway.
• 58:03
  There's a bunch of big paying races, or big paying for those cars, and where you'll get everybody come to them, or more than usual.
• 58:13
  So we'd done the track championship at Motor Mile and then there was a 10 grand to win show at Carraway.
• 58:19
  So we went to that and that put me, I was in a, ironically, and this wasn't by, this was sheer chance.
• 58:26
  It was a 73 when I got there.
• 58:28
  And he allowed me to change the 73 to be the same as Dad's font, if you like.
• 58:34
  And I showed it to him.
• 58:36
  He said, yeah, that's cool.
• 58:37
  I like that.
• 58:37
  Yep.
• 58:38
  And we ran that and...
• 58:40
  But towards the end of the year, Martin Truex's cousin, Curtis, was in the 88.
• 58:47
  And he'd been let go and they needed to finish X amount of races in that car.
• 58:54
  And they put me in that car.
• 58:56
  And so we're in the 88.
• 59:00
  And we went there and it was 45 cars showed up.
• 59:05
  And they were going to take 32 or something for the race.
• 59:09
  The top 16 in qualifying are locked in, and then it went to heat races after that.
• 59:13
  Got to get a spot in the 16.
• 59:14
  Yeah, so you've got to... Those heat races just turn into... Demo derbies.
• 59:19
  So you... We squeaked in 15th.
• 59:23
  We qualified 15th, and it was like...
• 59:25
  But it was a little half mile...
• 59:30
  reasonably flat sort of a track been there since the 50s, asphalt's worn out and it was a 250 lap race so at half way you could put two tyres on, anywhere you wanted to put them and that was it so no, there's no green flag pit stops or anything like that they just put tyres on at half way and
• 59:51
  Yeah, so we qualified 15th, and we just, you know, first half, we're like, all right, we'll just work our way forward, just try and pick them off one at a time, and...
• 1:00:01
  And we got to, it was coming down to the end and we got to third.
• 1:00:05
  Actually, I got to third by halfway.
• 1:00:06
  And then, sorry, we're in good shape here.
• 1:00:08
  You know, car's turning really well.
• 1:00:09
  Everything's working really good.
• 1:00:12
  And we got going in the second half and we went back to fifth or sixth or something and then got back to third and really good on a long run.
• 1:00:21
  And the two leaders were side by side.
• 1:00:24
  And it's coming down like 10 to go.
• 1:00:26
  I'm like, something's going to happen here.
• 1:00:27
  And they hold me up.
• 1:00:28
  I'm there.
• 1:00:28
  Yeah.
• 1:00:29
  but just waiting for something to happen.
• 1:00:31
  He just, trucks blocked basically.
• 1:00:33
  And, uh, we ended up, I think it was, we're coming around to, it was two to go.
• 1:00:40
  And the, the wall used to stick out a little bit at turn four there.
• 1:00:43
  If you weren't careful.
• 1:00:44
  Uh,
• 1:00:45
  I found that out the next time we went there.
• 1:00:48
  But the leaders got together in four.
• 1:00:52
  One bounced off the wall, and he came down and hit the other guy, and it flattened his right rear tyre, and he sort of went to the bottom, and it slowed them both down, and I sort of...
• 1:01:01
  shut one eye and squinted the other and stayed in the gas and thought, well, I'm just going to shoot the gap in the middle.
• 1:01:06
  You can drive through it, Cole.
• 1:01:10
  And it was Matt McCall who's one of the best late model guys over there.
• 1:01:16
  He's now Brad Kerslassi's crew chief, actually, and...
• 1:01:18
  There's a bit of talk on socials about him recently, I think, wasn't there, that he could still do some good things.
• 1:01:22
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:23
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:24
  So I got to his left rear, got clear of the guy on the inside, got to his left rear and, you know, had my elbows out a little bit, getting into one and sent him up the hill a little bit and then come off two and the yellow come out and we're in the lead.
• 1:01:38
  Amazing.
• 1:01:39
  And I thought, shit, we're looking good here.
• 1:01:42
  This is...
• 1:01:43
  This is working out really well, but now I've got a restart, and I've got Matt McCall on me, which would be in late model land.
• 1:01:54
  That's like having a restart with Shane Van Gisbergen.
• 1:01:58
  Wow.
• 1:02:00
  So, pressure's on.
• 1:02:03
  So, what does this genius go and do on the restart?
• 1:02:05
  I sort of half do a misshift.
• 1:02:07
  on the restart and I thought, well, he's gonna get me going into one and just send me up the hill or spin me whatever it takes for 10 grand.
• 1:02:19
  So I drove it, he was right on me and I just drove it so deep into one that I went up the hill
• 1:02:25
  anyway and he went further up the hill because he missed me and if i hadn't sort of got in there that deep i was gone for all money and then um managed to get off too and and uh keep the lead and um well i just just had to finish three and four off and we won the race yeah
• 1:02:49
  That's the end of part two of my podcast with Owen Kelly.
• 1:02:52
  He's been good enough to take time out from TEH and the family's transport industry commitments to give us a longer chat for you to enjoy over the festive season.
• 1:03:02
  When you're ready, there's a third instalment.
• 1:03:05
  We don't often do that, but it's all loaded up and good to go right now.
• 1:03:09
  From meeting a legend like Bobby Allison, working with fellow Tasmanian Marcus Ambrose and subbing for him, nearly getting stranded in Montreal,
• 1:03:19
  Getting to drive Jimmy Johnson's car under a veil of secrecy.
• 1:03:23
  Great story, that.
• 1:03:24
  Plus, outlaw karts and the potential next generation Kelly races and a whole lot more.