Latest / Rusty's Garage / Michael Dowson | Part 1 - Hansford’s brilliance and wheelies at Bathurst

Transcript

Michael Dowson | Part 1 - Hansford’s brilliance and wheelies at Bathurst · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:14
I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
0:27
For this episode, I'm on the road in Western Australia.
0:30
A number of you have messaged and asked me to put Michael Dowson on our guest wish list.
0:34
So I thought it was time to get him on.
0:36
And it's great that we are finally making this one happen.
0:39
I'm about an hour or 90 minutes north of Perth on a huge farm that belongs to a friend of his.
0:45
Ordinarily, you'd find him and his lovely wife, Jo, down south around Bunbury, where he spent the early part of his life.
0:52
This pod will broadly tell the story of his bike racing career, but also his foray into touring cars.
0:58
Let's just say he was very good there too.
1:01
In a 2018 story in the Old Bike Archives, they described him as stylish, swift,
1:07
and safe.
1:08
One of Australia's most gifted and successful motorcycle racers, up there with the very best.
1:14
He's tied with Ken Blake for the record for most Castrol six-hour wins.
1:19
Took 11 victories at Bathurst on two wheels, including a double the first time that he went there in 1980.
1:25
Those of you who love your bikes will fondly remember him in Yamaha leathers with various blue chip sponsors and a stint with Kawasaki too.
1:34
His racing wasn't just limited to our part of the world.
1:37
Mike had success in Asia and he shares stories around the famed Suzuka 8-hour.
1:42
There are all sorts of names that he went wheel to wheel with and had fun in the paddock with.
1:47
Kevin McGee and Robbie Phyllis, who you can find, both of them, in our garage library, as well as Malcolm Campbell, who I'll track down in the coming months and a swag of international stars of the day.
1:58
Keep an ear out for a great yarn on Mick Doohan.
2:01
Dowson respectfully talks about realising Mick's talent when they raced against each other and were teammates.
2:08
He then quietly helped open some doors before Doohan's career hit top gear internationally with Honda in what we now know as MotoGP.
2:17
As the conversation flows, I'm kicking myself a little because we didn't talk in detail about Dowson's 1988 Swan Series win, that fame series.
2:26
After five years of trying and two runner-up finishes, he beat Doohan and Campbell to the prestigious crown, which came down to the final race at Phillip Island.
2:35
Now, Dowson has since reminded me by text...
2:38
that Mick actually had a clutch problem in the decider.
2:41
For mine, though, it's the series, not just one race, and a huge overall achievement worth shining a light on.
2:48
He worked with some guns, like the late Warren Willing, Mal Pittman and more.
2:52
We'll talk about them along the way.
2:54
A quick thank you to a few people who help with backstories, like my great mate Darrell Beattie, who actually bought a TZ350 off Dowson.
3:03
It was Daz's first GP bike,
3:05
And Michael threw in some Toshiba leathers too.
3:08
I've chatted with Mick Doohan, who was back home briefly.
3:10
All these years on, he has immense respect for Dowson as a rider, and he's quick to acknowledge what he's done for him in those early years.
3:19
There are more who assisted me with intel here, including Motorcycling Australia CEO Peter Doyle, and my broadcast colleague John Smales.
3:27
JS recalls Dowson's brilliance...
3:29
and selfless nature, but also how he seriously impressed a Toyota in a star search competition, which opened the door to touring cars, all while he was still doing great things in bike circles.
3:42
Like me, this convo might make you wonder what could have been on the four-wheel side with Toyota
3:49
pros and cons of Dowson's move from Yamaha to Kawasaki and I sense there are plenty who feel that he could have had a stellar career in the World Motorcycle Championship had timing and opportunities been right but Michael doesn't strike me as a shoulda woulda coulda type.
4:06
This is a great chat filled with straight talk, some laughs and wonderful recollections.
4:13
Enjoy.
4:16
Hello, mate.
4:16
I had a few people message and say they wanted to get you on the podcast.
4:20
You jokingly said to me, who are these two people?
4:25
Oh, serious?
4:26
No, this is overdue, which is great.
4:28
Can I begin with nicknames?
4:29
The Colonel, The Doorman, what else was there, and where did they come from?
4:35
Can you remember?
4:36
You're going to have to ask the guys that made them, because I...
4:42
uh magoo called me smoky i think that was dawson uh-huh okay okay that was one of them yeah i'm gonna he give me that one i don't know how far that went um was the doorman because you were pretty handy to closing the door on people or that's what they that's what they insinuated like i reckon there was a bunch of guys were way better at it than me yeah closing the door and sticking me in the bush so okay names will remain anonymous yes yeah
5:07
Um, yeah, so there was different things.
5:09
I think at one stage in the Marlborough era, they had quite a few brooches they'd produce with the Marlborough staff and then have me and Kevin or Mick or Peter Goddard and they'd take our photos.
5:21
And at some stage I decided on a moustache and I think that's where it started.
5:26
Everyone had a crack up with my little moustache and they called me the Colonel.
5:29
The Colonel?
5:30
The Colonel?
5:30
I think so.
5:31
Okay.
5:31
I'm not really...
5:33
There's a photo here?
5:34
Joe, your lovely wife is telling me there's a photo here.
5:37
I have to look at this later.
5:39
What are we talking like?
5:40
Full 80s spec, you know?
5:44
I don't know what it was.
5:45
At this stage, my younger brother Anthony was a machinist in the RAF.
5:49
Okay.
5:51
And he was at Wagga Wagga for a long time.
5:53
And I get to see him.
5:54
He was at the Air Force Base near out west of Brisbane.
6:02
So I caught up with him a fair bit out there.
6:04
And I think going out the Air Force and seeing all the fly boys, and I was always a keen pilot.
6:09
So I kind of figured that, well, if I'm not going to go flying an F-111, I might as well just have a mustache, make it look like a foot pilot or something.
6:17
I really don't know why I did it, but come off after a while because I was copping up, getting my piss taken out of it.
6:23
Were you a genuine pilot?
6:24
Like you actually went into like fixed wing or something?
6:26
What were you doing?
6:27
Yeah, I got my private pilot's license some time ago, but it was a funny story.
6:31
I finished up racing and thought, right, I'm going to get a fixed wing license, which I started to do.
6:40
And I got to the point where navigation was on, so it was a bit of flying, yeah, you get up to 10,000 feet and head off to a spot and watch the GPS, blah, blah, blah.
6:49
And I remember I did one with my training pilot, and he said, well, are we going to go out and do some stuff?
6:56
I said, oh, I've got an uncle that's a copper out at Muck and Budden, and he's got to go home, so how about we'll factor that out?
7:03
So I rang Nick, and I said, are you sure you want to get in a boat and a plane with me?
7:07
Because he didn't like getting in a boat with me.
7:09
Okay.
7:09
He said, oh, yeah, well, that's the best way of getting home, because I really hadn't thought about how I was going to get back to the police station.
7:14
So anyway, that's why I can do that.
7:16
So I did the old flight out to Muck and Wooden, landed, took back off after dropping Nick off, got back to Bunbury and said that was the most boring thing I've ever done and stopped.
7:28
Really?
7:29
Yeah, it was boring as about shit.
7:31
Because up until when you start training, you're doing these emergency landings and stuff.
7:36
Yes.
7:37
And I was out over a swamp called the Bell.
7:39
I can't remember the name of it now.
7:42
Out near Brunswick.
7:44
And there's a big...
7:47
just a big old dam basically and they you do touch and goes and you can do emergency landing sort of stuff and i had a ball i just loved it but this thing about sitting up at 10 000 feet and just being a taxi yeah and i come back to the airport and said no that's me and that was it so many people in racing do gravitate to that stuff i mean das quite enjoys flying so does mick and so on and we'll come to some of those boys and they're
8:12
correlation to your story as we go here.
8:14
I'm really glad that you brought up your brother there a moment ago because that naturally takes us to early life for you.
8:20
You were both into bikes from a young age.
8:23
We're recording this to the north of Perth, but early life around bikes and stuff was that...
8:29
at Wonthaggie, at the island, or was it down Bunbury Way?
8:32
Where did it start for you?
8:33
No, so I was born in Victoria at Wonthaggie, and then I had chronicle asthma as a kid.
8:38
Did you?
8:39
So Mum and Dad decided to do an Australian trip, do a lap.
8:43
And got to Adelaide, caravan, five kids, mum and dad, and got to Adelaide.
8:49
Dad decided to work for a bike shop.
8:50
Didn't actually work for Pittman's, but worked for somebody.
8:53
And we were all going to school, obviously, and mum found that my lungs were starting to clear up.
8:58
So we come across to Perth, still on the lap thing, and we were here for about six months, I think, and my lungs cleared up completely.
9:07
But I don't believe for a minute that I'm the reason we're still here in Western Australia.
9:11
But that's pretty much, I think, what happened initially.
9:15
My lungs, probably if I'd gone back to Victoria, would have been in a hole if I stayed in those cold areas with my lung issues as a kid.
9:24
Joe's found a wonderful photo here with the mo.
9:26
You're in jocks.
9:29
Don't explain it.
9:30
You're in jocks.
9:31
You're in the back of it.
9:32
Well, thank God you haven't got cameras and stuff.
9:35
I'm good at descriptions.
9:36
I'm good at descriptions.
9:37
You are quite the male model there, mate.
9:43
Oh, God.
9:44
Take me to early life then.
9:45
Your dad, you talked about working at a bike shop and so on.
9:48
And he, from what I can gather for both you boys at a young age, put a bit of a makeshift bike together as one of your firsts.
9:55
Is that right?
9:55
Yeah, so the first bike we had was a JT1, which was a –
9:59
production trail bike for kids, probably the first junior bike.
10:02
Okay.
10:02
That was pretty cool.
10:03
So our first motorbikes were brand new bikes in those days.
10:06
It was pretty amazing.
10:08
But mum and dad worked for Ken George Yamaha.
10:10
So Ken George was the distributor of Yamaha in Western Australia in those days.
10:14
Yep.
10:14
So mum and dad worked for Ken in Perth.
10:18
And then Ken liked what he saw with dad.
10:20
So he said, well, how about I'm going to start a new shop in...
10:23
in the southwest on a retail shop in the southwest.
10:26
So I set mum and dad up to go to Bunbury.
10:30
Yep.
10:30
And so we've been there since the early 70s and still there.
10:33
What age were you and how vivid are the memories of that bike shop?
10:37
And was it a powerful?
10:38
It was a gold mine.
10:39
It was just, you know, Anthony and I just loved it.
10:42
Just I think we tried to get out of school to get back to the bike shop type thing.
10:46
Yeah.
10:47
I remember putting ag bikes together for Dad after school, and the ag bikes would be boxed up in two.
10:53
You'd pull them out of the box, and they'd all be sitting there on the forks on the front end, and the back wheel is already attached.
10:59
So we'd set them all up.
11:00
One day, we set them all up in line.
11:02
We had about 30 lined up on their forks on the front end, and Anthony and I were getting between them, putting the stands on them, so we could put the front wheels in.
11:09
Anyway, I reckon Anthony, not me, but one of us knocked...
11:13
one of the bikes with our back, and the old pendulum effect of about 30 bikes fell over.
11:19
Like a scene out of a movie.
11:20
Yeah.
11:21
I still remember Dad's face.
11:24
We were still allowed to go back down.
11:25
I don't think we did too much damage, but we did.
11:27
I just remember all these bikes going down.
11:29
Oh, my God, we're gone.
11:30
But anyway.
11:31
That feeling of riding a bike for the first time, was it sort of love at first sight, whatever you want to call it?
11:37
Yeah, so we started off as motocross, and my dad being a mechanic and a very good one, he always said to us, right, motocross is on, he built bikes for us, and that's how we started motocrossing.
11:49
And it was like turn trail bikes into motocross bikes.
11:53
In those days, kits could be purchased for trail bikes.
11:55
Okay.
11:56
And then you do that and then they become a motocross bike.
11:59
So that's what happened for me and Anthony initially.
12:01
And Anthony was the one that was more interested in road racing.
12:06
I wasn't so much.
12:07
I was pretty keen on motocross.
12:09
But eventually, Dad produced a motocross bike and turned it into a road racing bike.
12:15
For those who remember, the really, really old people, AS3 Yamaha was a little road bike.
12:21
He took the engine out, two-cylinder air-cooled motor out, and put a YZ125C single-cylinder in that chassis.
12:28
And that become our road race bike.
12:30
But the only road race circuit in Western Australia was what was now's Barbagallo or whatever they're called now.
12:35
Yeah, Wanneroo.
12:36
So the Wanneroo racetrack.
12:37
So I was 16 first.
12:39
You had to be 16 to ride.
12:41
So Dad had produced this bike initially for Anthony.
12:44
But because I was the oldest and he had 17 months to go before he could have a ride, I think Dad was more keen than anyone to get it up to Wanneroo.
12:51
So anyway, get to Wanneroo and I did a full day of riding.
12:56
Um, and the other thing that really got me was, um, with our dirt bikes, dad said, righto, I'll make your motorbikes, you clean them, then I'll work on them and get them ready for the next weekend.
13:06
So our job was getting them clean first.
13:08
Had to be cleaned.
13:09
If he wasn't happy, that'd be cleaned again.
13:10
Right.
13:11
And that was the deal.
13:12
And the road race bike, I rode it all day.
13:14
And at the end of the day, when he put it back in the trailer, it was as clean as the start of the day.
13:18
I said, that was me.
13:19
I said, that's it.
13:20
That's me now.
13:21
I can see myself doing road racing because I was sick of cleaning bikes already.
13:25
I reckon you've missed a tiny element to the story here, and I'd love your thoughts on it if you can.
13:29
I think there's a yarn that I've read about you being a young fella, going to Wanneroo there, and then maybe wandering down to the bowl and watching the likes of maybe the sales and Hansford in particular, wasn't it?
13:42
Tell me about that.
13:44
Okay, so Wanneroo in the day, the pit lane section was down in the bowl.
13:50
Yep.
13:51
So it was in the middle of the circuit, and there was an underground pass to get in.
13:55
Mm-hmm.
13:56
And so we'd always be there for the Australian Championship before I rode.
14:02
Dad had friends that were road race champions of the day for the national side – sorry, state side.
14:06
Yeah.
14:08
And all these guys were always there.
14:09
So we'd go along and we'd watch and we'd go to the Australian Rounds.
14:13
We'd watch Hansford, all those guys, Rosenfall, Willing, the Perrys, all those guys, the Sales.
14:25
And they'd all be there with factory machinery.
14:27
It was a mind-blowing period because they had these… Because of what they were doing or because of the cool bikes?
14:32
Yeah.
14:33
I think it was a bit of both, but it was a matter of what they were doing.
14:35
I think I only really understood and could see what they were doing of the day, what they were doing.
14:44
About 1985, I got to ride a TZ750, which was what Will Hagen called as the old man's axe.
14:51
So it was an old 750cc two-strike, but in the day when the Hansfords and those boys were around, they'd come across Tawonroo and those things were like...
15:01
a MotoGP bike is today.
15:03
That's the level.
15:04
And the tyres they had in those days were pretty much just road tyres, nothing like what they've got now with radials or whatever.
15:11
And I think probably the point you're getting to is, I remember standing in the pits
15:18
mind-boggling about what's going on with these machinery in the pits and then talking to the guys or not not so much talking to them but looking at them and thinking oh my god and then going to the back straight so you could walk across the pits all secure that's no problem stand inside the fence and watch the boys exiting the bowl and coming over the hill on the back straight
15:39
And I just remember the guys on the 750s, they'd come out with so much power and aerodynamics weren't that good.
15:45
And you'd get a headwind over the top and they'd have to roll the throttle off to keep them from flipping.
15:52
Oh, wow.
15:52
And that's what you'd be watching.
15:53
You'd be watching these guys.
15:54
There's a bit of a kick on the top of the hill at the top of the hill on the back straight.
15:59
So halfway up the back straight, that's where the hill is.
16:01
Peak of the hill and you go down a hill.
16:03
Yep.
16:03
So the boys had come up and, you know, wheel spinning out of the bowl and then sort of manhandling these things up to the top of the hill.
16:11
And then when they get to the bridge to the top of the hill, rolling the throttle off or working out how they can stop these things from flipping.
16:17
Mostly meant they had to roll the throttle off.
16:21
And, you know, you're chasing times.
16:22
You know, back then is no different to now.
16:25
Everyone was chasing times.
16:26
So it's all a matter of how you could – he who holds the throttle open the longest is going to be the guy that's going to win, mostly.
16:33
Absolutely.
16:33
So here's a section of the track where you've got to roll off or you'll flip.
16:37
So, Hansford was the only guy that did this at the top of the hill.
16:41
You see how they do – in motocross, they call it the barber scrub, where they roll the bike on the side and just about put the handlebar into the mud as they go over the hill.
16:49
Yep.
16:50
Hansford was doing that on a KR 750 factory three-cylinder water-cooled GP bike.
16:57
That's like a photographic memory for you, isn't it, of what he was doing?
16:59
It's just stuck in my head because I just – I walked away from it thinking and watching the rest of the day, thinking, well, no one else is doing it, just Greg.
17:05
Hmm.
17:06
So to be doing a barber scrub in the early, mid-70s, mid-late 70s,
17:13
And everyone thinks, oh, Bubba Scrub, what they were doing in motocross, and they all do it now.
17:19
But here's a legend of our sport, Greg Hansford, doing it on a 750 rocket with shit tyres and doing a scrub across the top of the hill.
17:28
Everyone that races bikes and has been to Wanneroo and knows what I'm talking about, I don't know anyone that's done a scrub except Greg Hansford.
17:37
And I don't know how many people can actually say, yeah, I remember seeing that.
17:41
And appreciating what that was, the significance of that.
17:44
Mind-blowing.
17:45
But I remember he did it.
17:46
Too bad he's not here to tell us how he did it.
17:48
Absolutely.
17:48
I'd love to have had him on the podcast.
17:51
And in the very early phase of my career around broadcasting for Super Touring and so on, that was the tail end of his time.
17:57
Yeah.
17:57
You know, his time.
17:58
Very sad.
17:59
Very sad.
18:00
Guy, absolute legend, absolutely lovely guy.
18:03
I had a bit to do with him at the end of his life, obviously, but in the period because him and Warren were very good friends.
18:10
So that gave us an opportunity to meet him and talk to him, which was pretty cool.
18:15
And, yeah, that's what I remember...
18:17
And you know what?
18:18
I never spoke to him about it.
18:19
I wish I did.
18:19
Yeah, absolutely.
18:20
What transpires next for you?
18:22
I mean, the record books show, you know, a variety of state titles, but does it click straight away, the road racing stuff?
18:29
Are you immediately sort of almost podium material, or are there some tough moments in learning?
18:33
Where are you at in the first phase of that road racing journey?
18:36
Yeah.
18:37
I just loved the technical side, understanding what your suspension did, your geometry.
18:44
Dad's teaching you that or your silk?
18:45
Absolutely.
18:46
100%.
18:47
Yeah, dad was all over it.
18:49
The biggest problem I had with my father…
18:51
was he was always saying to me, look, okay, the Australian Championship's coming over.
18:56
You're allowed to ride in it, but just don't get your hopes up.
18:59
These guys have got way better machinery than we are.
19:01
Just let them go.
19:02
Your age what here?
19:03
What age do you reckon you are?
19:05
17, 18.
19:05
Okay.
19:06
And you know what I was thinking?
19:07
What?
19:08
Are you kidding me, man?
19:10
I can do this.
19:10
I reckon I could take them on.
19:12
If you're telling me to slow down, I reckon I can run with them.
19:16
Okay.
19:16
But I never said it to him.
19:18
Would never have said it to him, but maybe that was the difference.
19:21
I remember it echoing in my ears, driving from Bunbury to Wanneroo, which was in those days a three-hour trip.
19:28
Trip, yep.
19:28
Just don't overcook it.
19:30
Your mother will kill me if you hurt yourself.
19:32
These guys got better gear, way better stuff than what you've got.
19:36
Just let them go.
19:37
Okay.
19:37
I reckon in an article I read, the one I reflected on before, you gave them a quote, and it was something along the lines of, I had dad helping me with the prep on the bike kind of thing, and mum praying, so I had it all covered type deal.
19:50
Was she a worrier?
19:52
Was she a, what was mum like?
19:54
An avid Catholic and devout Christian and the best person to have on your side.
20:00
Okay, lovely.
20:01
She wasn't a nervous person about you and your brother racing, riding, stuff like that?
20:05
She was.
20:05
She held it.
20:06
She always said, God will protect us.
20:07
I've got a funny story about mum.
20:09
So later in life, she got a brand-new Corolla, like what you can see around.
20:13
So a brand-new Corolla, and I'm driving around Bunbury with her, and she's got to go over an intersection, a dual carriageway.
20:20
And we're talking about different stuff, and I'm looking left.
20:24
She's looking right.
20:25
Anyway, I said, I don't know.
20:26
You shouldn't go now, and she went.
20:29
And I'm like, oh, and she goes, no, it's okay.
20:31
God will protect us.
20:35
And he did.
20:36
We never crashed.
20:37
The car never got a dent in it, but yeah, God will protect us.
20:41
Jo's amazing.
20:42
While we've been going here, she is flipping through some of the things that you've printed out along the way, which help assist in the storytelling.
20:49
So firstly, there's some black and whites here.
20:51
Just talk me through and describe what we're seeing.
20:54
I mean, there's an early sash that you've got here.
20:56
Is that right, from a win by the looks of it?
20:57
Yeah, so you had a couple of years in Western Australia that I was having a really good time and greeting the chequered flag first, which was pretty cool.
21:06
Yep.
21:07
This photo here is of my dad with a fueling device for a two-hour race
21:12
On a production bike.
21:12
Like an early churn, so to speak, basically, isn't it?
21:15
Like early 80s.
21:16
So it was just like a 20-litre container, BP container with a welded tube, a tapered section on the bottom like a funnel.
21:25
Yep.
21:26
In a bore valve, and that was the fueling device.
21:28
Yeah.
21:28
past refuelling.
21:29
But the dude here is my Uncle Nick, the policeman I was saying that I drove, flew out years later to become a copper.
21:36
He was a carpenter then.
21:37
Yep.
21:38
But I remember he being a policeman later in life.
21:42
He was working at Muck and Budden and
21:46
That's the guy that I took out on the plane.
21:47
And he's the guy that helped end my career in flying airplanes.
21:53
Yes.
21:54
But so much to talk about in your career on two wheels first.
21:58
And we'll get to the car racing, some of the car racing stuff a little bit later.
22:01
There are multiple championships here in WA before the family makes a big decision to go east.
22:07
Just tell me about some of the memories from those state titles.
22:09
And you did it in multiple classes too, didn't you?
22:12
Yeah, so again, having an amazing father that was just devoted to McCandle's stuff and was a genius.
22:21
I can't ever really have a failure in my racing career prior to going with Warren.
22:28
So I went basically with my mum and dad all the way through until when I got a ride with Warren Willing in 86 on the Marlborough team.
22:34
So in that period before, I just can't remember having a failure.
22:39
through my dad's abilities of having a machine put together properly.
22:43
So, yeah, so basically he was the guy that made it all happen.
22:50
What's the trigger point for the big move for the family to go east?
22:53
You clearly have ability.
22:56
Is there a moment in the West here where you pit yourself against someone or race against someone and you realise, okay, maybe –
23:04
maybe it's time, you know, I can have a crack at this on a national level.
23:08
Well, yes, there was.
23:09
And it was probably this two-hour production race.
23:12
So that was a national race that was held in Wanneroo, and guys like Andrew Johnson were coming across and riding.
23:20
So Shannon Johnson's father, I think, AJ, wasn't he?
23:22
Correct, yes.
23:23
So...
23:26
Andrew was a bit of a rat bag.
23:27
Was he?
23:28
But an extremely professional racer and an extremely good racer, a very hard racer.
23:34
And he and I rode 250 production bikes in this race.
23:39
And I think I must have beat him.
23:41
I can't remember if second or first to him.
23:43
Anyway, after this meeting, we started to get to know over the period before that, riding 125s and 250s and starting to know some of the guys from the East Coast.
23:57
Andrew was a really friendly guy, and he would be very helpful.
24:01
And he was giving me advice about riding and stuff.
24:04
And I remember mum and dad, after I think this race, said, you know, what do you think he's talking about me?
24:11
They said, what do you think about Michael?
24:14
Do you think he's got some capacity?
24:16
His capabilities, yeah.
24:17
And he said, this kid would go good on the east.
24:19
Yeah.
24:21
So after that, mum and dad started thinking about going east.
24:24
That's amazing.
24:25
Yeah, so I didn't go east by myself.
24:27
Mum and dad come with us.
24:28
As well, yeah.
24:28
So, yeah, the whole family went and basically, yeah, went to Queensland.
24:34
Yeah.
24:35
And didn't know if it was going to work or not.
24:37
Just to fill in a little bit of the blanks here, firstly, you've completed school at this stage and are you an apprentice mechanic or something?
24:44
What are you doing?
24:45
Yeah, so in that period, a couple of things have happened in that period.
24:49
We started racing the Australian Championships.
24:53
while doing the state stuff, so state and national.
24:56
Yep.
24:57
So we were doing six trips across Australia from Perth, a high-ace van with a box trailer.
25:03
Over the Nullarbor and wherever else.
25:05
Yeah, mum and dad, me, and an Esky and a bunch of bikes.
25:11
We go across and do the Australian rounds, and we've got a...
25:14
A funny one, we'd done the trip from Perth, from Bunbury, gone to Amory Park.
25:20
Park, yeah.
25:20
So Amory Park, Australian Championship coming up.
25:23
And this is in about 1980, I think.
25:26
And I had to get back to work because one of the employees that I had at the time was getting a bit annoyed.
25:31
Yeah.
25:31
With the time off.
25:32
Yeah.
25:33
He's never here.
25:33
Okay.
25:34
So a friend of my dad's who was in the band, my old man was a euphonium player in the local band.
25:42
Okay.
25:43
Dad was a musician as well.
25:45
I don't know how he got all the time to do what he did.
25:47
But he was a musician in one of the bands in Bunbury and the main guy had a car shop and somehow dad got me in there and I did my apprenticeship for a bloke called Terry Wallace.
25:59
And Terry eventually at some stage said to mum and dad that, you know, he's away too much.
26:04
This can't go on.
26:06
So the Toyota people in Bunbury, the crickies.
26:10
Yes.
26:10
Yeah, absolutely.
26:11
So Peter, Ron, Johnny, all those boys are all mad keen petrol heads.
26:17
Yeah.
26:18
And they said, mate, no worries.
26:19
You come and work with us and come and go to need.
26:23
So I did my apprenticeship between, I pretty much finalised my apprenticeship when I'd left my Toyota.
26:29
And from there, we'd moved to the east.
26:32
Okay.
26:33
Were you any good at school?
26:34
Were you, I mean, you talked about... Horrible.
26:35
Were you?
26:37
I was more happy to get out of school at the bike shop.
26:41
So that's a pretty big sacrifice for mum and dad, right, to move to the east?
26:45
Yeah, there was five of us.
26:46
Yep.
26:46
And pretty much Anthony was the academic.
26:49
He went to the RAF in the machining side with the RAF.
26:52
Yep.
26:52
He initially wanted to be a pilot, but he was too tall.
26:54
Okay.
26:55
So we had to give up those aspirations and went for the engineering.
26:58
Did he end up, you were talking before, but did he end up at the base there, not all that far from the Ipswich track out towards the back of Brisbane?
27:06
Is it Amberley?
27:07
Amberley, yeah, yeah.
27:07
So he was there a lot.
27:08
So we were living in Brisbane and he was in Amberley for a long time.
27:22
You can find lots of great Aussie writers in the garage library.
27:25
Many of them are lovable.
27:27
Larry can too put it all on the line in their careers, like Robbie Phillis.
27:31
So I took the Kawasaki deal.
27:33
And then a week later, Raymond rings me.
27:36
And I should have just told Kawasaki, no, I don't want to do the deal now.
27:40
But my word is my word, you know?
27:43
I don't.
27:43
Has that always been the way?
27:44
It's always been the way.
27:45
I don't need to sign anything.
27:46
OK, yep.
27:48
And so they took Fogarty.
27:52
Recorded in August 2025 around some classic bikes in the shed, Robbie's two-parter is quite the journey.
27:59
If you're enjoying this episode, you'll love the full throttle chat with Phyllis.
28:03
Let's get back to Michael Dowson now.
28:06
One element I haven't come to, and I hope you don't mind if we do talk about it, I am a good mate of young Chad Nalon who's doing some great things.
28:14
in broadcasting nowadays around supercars and so on.
28:17
And his dad and you had a bit of a friendship or you knew each other.
28:21
And Chad said to me in the lead up to this, that when he was a really young boy, his dad took him out.
28:26
He's still a really young boy.
28:27
Yeah, he's still a really young boy.
28:28
You're right.
28:29
His dad took him out to Wannaroo.
28:30
I think you came and greeted them on a quad bike and showed him around.
28:34
And he was absolutely kind of mesmerized.
28:37
And you were the first kind of proper big name motorizing person.
28:41
It's all your fault.
28:42
It's all your fault.
28:43
It's very sad that we've lost his dad, obviously, but I love the impact of some of these key moments.
28:49
His late dad loved bikes.
28:51
Meeting you obviously played a big part in it as well, mate.
28:53
Yeah, so I don't know Chad to talk to in his current life, obviously.
28:59
But yes, his parents and my parents were friends in One Thaggy.
29:03
Okay.
29:04
And my parents and his parents...
29:05
Both ended up here in the West.
29:06
Ended up in the West.
29:07
So yeah, that's how it was.
29:09
So John and I stayed close for many, many years.
29:12
And in the last bunch of years, I remember before his passing, I'd be teasing him and saying, how are you going, Chad's dad?
29:21
so yeah so chad become the guy and he's done a great job he sure he sure has john was extremely proud of me on a number of occasions that he was just tickled pink to have his boy doing what he's doing he'd be thrilled to see what he's doing now too absolutely absolutely first uh national win australian 350 grand prix national championship early 80s take me there
29:43
Yeah, again, coming and going from Western Australia to the East Coast to be able to be anywhere near the points to finish and win any of that stuff, you had to be there.
29:54
And that was meaning five to six trips a year from Perth.
29:59
And in those days, it wasn't all that easy, but that's what you had to do.
30:02
And I got two parents that were probably more keen than I was to do it, which was huge.
30:09
And I just, the more I look back at what happened and how it went down and the, the, the,
30:15
the things mum and dad had to go without to make me allow this to happen.
30:20
It's just mind blowing.
30:21
Remarkable.
30:22
So in, in Brisbane, does your dad get a job at a bike shop?
30:25
What are you, you're now beyond high school, obviously.
30:28
Is it just, are you hell bent on racing or you're juggling it with a job?
30:31
How are you?
30:32
Yeah.
30:32
So that, what we, mum and dad had organized that they did the, the managers, operators, they did the mechanics, they did everything.
30:38
I was just a loose head hanging around, uh,
30:41
ride a motorbike.
30:42
So mum and dad did all the legwork for all that stuff.
30:45
Dad opened up doors with a guy called Rob Asink up at Gaythorne Yamaha in those days.
30:51
And Rob had a racing background.
30:54
He had professional race teams going.
30:56
Look at the Gaithor and Yamaha gear.
30:59
Here we are.
30:59
So there we go.
31:00
So Robbie was just instrumental.
31:02
He employed Dad.
31:04
So Dad was working there as one of his mechanics, as well as developing my racing career.
31:09
So Rob and Frank Assig, they had Honda and Yamaha all in the same building.
31:16
And they worked together that way and supported us in those days, which was...
31:21
Without them, we wouldn't have got it anywhere.
31:24
Basically, when we got it with Gaythorn Yamaha, it was probably 84.
31:29
And Yamaha had released an RZ500, which was a road bike of the 500 Grand Prix bike.
31:36
And no one thought too much of it.
31:38
Anyway, they had a couple from...
31:42
So the Anand and Thompson was the Queensland distributor of Yamaha at the time.
31:46
Yep.
31:46
And they had a good relationship with Rob Asingh.
31:49
And he said, well, look, we've got one of these RZ500s for the Hub 300, which is a big endurance race, a start of the endurance production racing in Australia.
31:57
And it was at Lakeside in Brizzy, which was my home circuit at that time.
32:03
And they gave me the opportunity to ride this RZ500 through Annan Thompson, through Robbie Asink at Gaythorn Yamaha.
32:12
and we won it.
32:13
So we were the first people in the world to ride and race this RZ500.
32:17
And that really, I think, put me on a map.
32:20
Tell me about that machine.
32:23
How much influence have you had on it?
32:26
How much influence perhaps from other areas?
32:29
Maybe there's even a factory element.
32:31
What was that thing like to ride?
32:33
Yeah, it was a bucket of bolts, to be truthful.
32:35
Was it?
32:35
Yeah, so it was just a...
32:37
It wasn't a... Look, I'd ridden TZ 250, 350, 500, 750s.
32:43
I'd already ridden proper bikes.
32:46
Bikes, yeah.
32:47
And this was a road bike with ADR compliance issues, oil injection, the engine was...
32:54
a mix of piston port parts and reed valve engines.
32:57
And if you know what you're talking about with engines, that was a bit of a weird mix.
33:01
Okay.
33:01
So it was basically the factory was building a bike for homologation to be sold around the world.
33:08
to be able to work in certain environments.
33:11
So we got this thing that was, to me, I really didn't think too much of it.
33:15
I didn't think it was very powerful.
33:17
But funnily enough, we ended up getting the chequered flag first, which was a bit of a surprise to me.
33:25
I didn't think the bike was anything really spectacular.
33:29
And we were riding against VFR 1000 Hondas.
33:32
We were riding against GPZ 900 Kawasaki.
33:36
So are you making the difference on the day here?
33:39
How did that come together?
33:42
And what is the reaction?
33:42
You said it puts you on the map.
33:44
What is the reaction from this win?
33:46
Yeah, I think that the factory, the Japanese factory, at that stage there was Japanese running Yamaha Australia in Sydney.
33:54
Mm-hmm.
33:55
And I think that is helpful.
33:57
If you just had people like Anand Thompson who were locals.
34:01
Yes.
34:01
And just being a contact to the factory.
34:04
Yeah.
34:05
But because the Yamaha boys were Japanese in Sydney, and I think that was our direct link to the factory.
34:12
Okay.
34:12
So that, I think, if we just had, I think, I can't remember, Mr. McCulloch's or someone was the Australian distributors of Yamaha early in the piece before the Japanese took over.
34:22
That would have probably just left us being nationally, you know,
34:27
having some kind of profile.
34:29
Yeah, we would have probably got as far as that.
34:30
But having the Japanese, I think, indoors within Yamaha's management system in New South Wales and them being able to, I think back in those days, was sending a, what was it called, a fax or whatever.
34:43
Fax, probably a fax.
34:45
Oh, just one big race in Australia.
34:47
We are winners.
34:49
Oh, who's a lighter?
34:51
Oh, Dawson-san.
34:52
Oh, wow.
34:53
There you go.
34:54
Excellent.
34:55
I don't know, but that's how I believe it.
34:56
So I all of a sudden started getting rides.
34:59
So that was 84.
34:59
Yep.
35:00
We end up, mum and dad and I end up getting the Toshiba Yamaha racing money to go racing nationally in Australia from Yamaha in Sydney.
35:11
Wow.
35:12
So no longer we were, we were still working with Robbie because they had all the experience, the workshops and all that sort of stuff.
35:19
So the Toshiba Yamaha thing was happening from Gaythorn Yamaha with assistance from Edmund Thompson, but it was money coming from Australia, Sydney from the Japanese.
35:29
So that really started helping me to have my name up front with Yamaha.
35:34
And then in 86, the Mulberry Yamaha thing happened.
35:38
Can I come back to one or two little things, if you don't mind here, and joining some dots?
35:42
Firstly, going to Bathurst and riding Bathurst for the first time.
35:47
What?
35:48
Loved it.
35:48
We're talking pre the chase and all of those things.
35:51
Describe that.
35:52
What was that like?
35:52
Yeah, Bathurst was just – that was the circuit.
35:57
I started racing in Western Australia on TZs and stuff on road circuits.
36:04
So that's me in Bunbury.
36:05
Check the road circuit.
36:07
That's a TZ350 in 1980.
36:12
How the world has changed, right?
36:14
That's a road circuit.
36:15
Yeah.
36:16
So, I mean, there's people sort of just lying on the side of the road only feet from where you're roaring past.
36:22
So I was already doing road circuits.
36:24
I'd raced Amroo.
36:26
I'd raced Oran Park.
36:27
Park, yeah.
36:28
So I knew that, you know, racing with things.
36:32
My dad always said, dad was never a racer, but he always had a good plan about how to stay alive.
36:40
He said, don't look at anything.
36:41
Look at where you need to be.
36:43
Don't look at these walls.
36:44
Don't look at those arm goes.
36:46
It's just your line.
36:46
And that's why I was never scared of arm goes and stuff because I never looked at them.
36:50
Okay.
36:51
What were you focusing on then?
36:52
Your eyes up down the road?
36:53
Yeah, that's correct.
36:54
I think probably the best way, and top riders now, we all know it now, when you look at photos of the top guys, they're looking so far down the road.
37:01
And probably the example for kids is if you can speed read,
37:06
Uh, that's exactly the same.
37:08
The further ahead you can read and, and then verbally let that out of your mouth, the further down, the more fluent you become and racing's the same.
37:17
Yep.
37:17
The further down the road you can see, um, that's going to assist you to go faster.
37:22
I'll tell a little yarn here.
37:23
I'm digressing for one quick second.
37:25
I reckon I've had a similar conversation with Darrell Beattie about this.
37:28
And some of the inter-school conglomerate guys who you know as well, I think, I won't mention names here, but I think they were spectating off the back of Corporate Hill at Eastern Crete one particular year.
37:40
And in practice, Daz come around Corporate Hill and he's looking like right down the road to what is, I guess, turn nine or something along those lines.
37:48
But out the corner of his eye, he glimpses on Corporate Hill.
37:52
I think some of those boys had their kid off as he was coming past.
37:57
And he was like, oh, no.
37:59
But he knew straight away who the cheeky ones were there.
38:04
me with my limited capacity would never have taken my eye off what I was doing, but BD and doing, they could probably do all that shit, but I just could never do that.
38:14
I had to be focused, looking straight ahead.
38:16
As soon as I looked up in the crowd, I would have been in the bush.
38:19
We will talk about that almost rarefied air, but you describe it better than me.
38:23
We'll talk about that as we go in this conversation.
38:26
Can I bring you back to Bathurst?
38:27
You do reminisce about a couple of the races there.
38:30
You had some great results at the mountain.
38:33
When you were roaring down what was just a flat Conrod straight, a sequence of humps, 300 probably k's an hour nearly at the final one, what was that like?
38:44
Okay, so the first time I rode a big bike was for Pittman Yamaha in 1984.
38:50
So it was a TZ750, and it was all, you know, the chassis, the suspension, the forks or the brakes were all antiquated.
39:00
So Malcolm and his father were able to convert –
39:07
late model road bike stuff into this machine to bring it up to speed in regards to geometry and suspension and just rigidity, all that sort of stuff.
39:15
So we went to Bathurst in 84 and here's this beautiful thing.
39:21
Apparently it was brand new crankcases, brand new Conrad.
39:25
crank assembly.
39:27
Everything was brand new in the motor.
39:28
And he still never told me where it came from.
39:30
But these engines at this point were already probably 20 years old.
39:34
Wow.
39:35
To have a brand new engine to go to Bathurst in 85 was very special.
39:40
Unheard of, was it?
39:40
Yeah, yeah.
39:41
Unheard of.
39:42
So I remember going down Conrad and we were chasing times.
39:45
We were chasing times back in those days like everyone does now.
39:48
And all I was interested in was the lap time.
39:50
And I can't remember what the numbers were, but...
39:52
I know that I'm on a 750.
39:54
I know it's pretty quick.
39:56
And let's see how we go.
39:57
And I remember getting just about sucked off the back of the bike, holding onto the bars, down Conrod before the chase.
40:04
So it's just all the way straight down, over the hill, into the brakes.
40:08
No Caltex chase.
40:10
And these things would wheel stand between the humps.
40:12
So you'd have a ramp up.
40:14
just like a plateau jump, and then you'd wheel it across the plateau and then you'd put the wheel down.
40:19
The front wheel would be like an aircraft landing.
40:23
They'd smoke up the front tyres when they'd smoke up.
40:26
Well, that's what the front tyres would do.
40:28
So you'd smoke the front tyre up, make sure you're sort of keeping it straight, and then you'd pull the brakes on.
40:33
Unbelievable.
40:34
Yeah, so that was... Joe's found pictures here.
40:37
Yeah, that's it.
40:38
I want to describe these.
40:39
I mean, here you are on the number seven.
40:40
The wheel is... Yep.
40:42
For the non-motorcycle racer listening, right?
40:44
I mean, when you say it's off the deck, what are we talking there?
40:46
It's a foot, at least, if not more off the deck.
40:50
Insane.
40:50
You're hunched down as best you can be underneath.
40:52
Because remember, all I'm interested in is I'm not thinking, oh, look at me doing a wheelie.
40:56
I'm thinking, what freaking time am I doing?
40:59
I'm looking at the taco.
41:00
So I've got an engine temp gauge and a taco.
41:03
And that's your guide.
41:03
That's your guide.
41:04
You're looking for it.
41:05
Yeah, right.
41:06
Yep.
41:06
So I remember doing – so what happened was doing the laps and looking at your sort of tucked in behind the screen, watching the taco, and I remember just touching the clutch every once in a while, trying to bring the revs up because the engine was good for about 9,500 revs, and I think I was getting about 8,700.
41:24
Something like that.
41:25
So I'm flicking the clutch trying to get it to go, but it was already pushing that much wind.
41:29
It wasn't going to go any faster.
41:31
So I remember thinking, you know, I'm a bit pissed because this thing's probably, there's 500 RPM that I could have got down straight, and therefore that would be extra time off the clock.
41:40
That's what I'm thinking.
41:41
You did a hand gesture then too, like a real gentle flick with you.
41:44
Yeah, you just get the engine going, whoa, whoa, whoa, just releasing the load of the engine off the load of the wind.
41:50
Yeah.
41:50
But it's up against the pressure, as you say, the air pressure.
41:53
Yeah, so it's something you're not supposed to do, but that's how keen I was to get going quicker.
41:58
So anyway, I remember going into the pits, not being able to hear any of the PA stuff going on.
42:04
Going into the pits, and Malcolm pats me on the back and goes, how was that?
42:08
I said, 8.7, mate.
42:11
8,700 is all it would do.
42:13
You said it should do 9.5, so we're going to have to change the gearing because it just won't pull it.
42:17
It just won't pull the revs.
42:19
He just looked at me and goes, you're never happy, are you?
42:24
And he goes, you just did 302 kilometers an hour and broke that record, and you're not happy.
42:30
Well, so I didn't know that.
42:31
I'm just telling you what I'm seeing.
42:33
And that's typical of what we all get.
42:35
These days now with all the telemetry, the first guys that know what's going on these days are in the pit on exactly what's happening on your bike.
42:43
Whereas in our days, right through with Daryl and Sam,
42:47
Mick and all those guys, the telemetry and stuff was only just brand new.
42:51
And it was only really as we were finishing up, it was coming on.
42:54
It was starting to come in.
42:55
One of the other picks that Joe has pulled out here, I'll just zero in on for a moment because it's going up Mountain Strait.
43:01
There are no walls either side of it like there are now heading into what is turned to.
43:09
There is an armada of bikes.
43:11
There's 30 or plus more bikes going up the hill here.
43:15
Are there some contemporaries in here?
43:17
Like, is there a Paul Feeney?
43:18
Is there, like, who's in the group here that you might have been up against back in the day?
43:22
They're all there.
43:22
So that's Roger Freeth.
43:24
Oh, man.
43:24
Sir Roger Freed?
43:25
Yeah.
43:26
Yep.
43:26
So that was interesting.
43:29
So that was a big start for us, for Kevin and I, an eye-opener in regards to the tactical side of things you do with bike racing.
43:38
So there's Kevin behind Roger Freed.
43:40
When you say Kevin, you mean Magoo.
43:41
Magoo, yep.
43:42
That's me.
43:42
Yep.
43:44
Len Willing.
43:45
Yep.
43:46
A bunch of guys I could read about.
43:48
Mel Campbell.
43:49
Paul Feeney.
43:50
Super cool, mate.
43:51
Yeah, all the boys.
43:53
So even with Paul, I call him... You hang with Thien now, don't you?
43:58
Yeah, I call him Rock's dad.
43:59
Yeah, do you?
44:03
I love that.
44:03
I must get him on the podcast.
44:05
Are you all respectful of each other?
44:07
Are you hard out?
44:08
What are you like in this phase of your life and time?
44:11
Yeah, I was probably unsocial.
44:16
Unsocial?
44:17
Yeah, I don't think I was a very social kind of person.
44:19
But you don't strike me as that here now.
44:21
Yeah, now, because I'm not racing anymore.
44:23
Okay.
44:24
Yeah, but the racing days I took very seriously, I thought.
44:26
There was a few times when probably we should have been more serious.
44:29
I can tell you about that too if you want to hear it.
44:31
Okay, yes.
44:32
But yeah, I enjoyed the bikes.
44:35
I enjoyed the technology.
44:37
I enjoyed working with Warren Willing.
44:39
Mm-hmm.
44:40
guys that I looked up to.
44:42
It was just a life.
44:45
It was your life.
44:47
You gravitated to suspension and things, or are you all about engines?
44:51
Is it the whole bike?
44:52
What is it technically that you... Yeah, I understand reciprocating engines.
44:56
I understand consome gear boxes, all the stuff that we've got now.
44:59
Now they've gone on to seamless transmissions and stuff, which is unbelievable.
45:03
Yeah.
45:03
But yeah, I always had dirty fingers, you know, getting in and being involved.
45:07
You have them today, mate, don't you, as we talk?
45:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:09
So nothing's changed.
45:10
So Dad and I learned together a lot of things, developed a lot of things in our early days with two-stroke racing, not so much with four-stroke.
45:19
But, yeah, that was the thing.
45:20
So getting back to Bathurst.
45:22
Bathurst, you can see here, Roger Freeth on his Suzuki, McIntosh Suzuki, I think.
45:29
We were on 750cc Yammies that Warren and his team had put together, and that was the RI500, 500 kilometres.
45:38
So that race, Roger was always the guy to beat because he had the biggest fuel range.
45:43
Mm-hmm.
45:44
And around Bathurst, your range is pretty much what's going to get you over the line first.
45:51
So these boys from Yamaha put massive fuel tanks on these things.
45:54
Okay.
45:54
So we went to Bathurst.
45:56
Because tactically you knew you had to do that to try to have a shot at him.
45:59
Only way to touch him.
46:00
Yeah, right.
46:01
Was to be on equal footing with range.
46:03
Okay.
46:04
So that's what the boys looked at.
46:06
And I remember going out, we'd done testing at Oren Park, which is a fairly low-speed circuit.
46:11
The G-force on your bike's nowhere near as much as at Bathurst because you're traveling so much faster.
46:15
Faster, yeah.
46:16
So we had situations where we're going across the top of the mountain on a bike.
46:20
still aren't co-railed everywhere, but didn't look at it.
46:23
And you were flat sick trying to get gears up.
46:26
So you're going up through Reid, McPhilamy, across the top before Skyline.
46:31
All that's on the side of the bike.
46:33
And the problem was we always wanted to shift up.
46:36
So halfway through the top of the mountain, we'd be accelerating and over-revving the engine and you'd need to shift up.
46:42
But the shifter was on the ground.
46:46
And so back in those days, we were using the standard shift, which was one down, four up.
46:52
And so therefore you had to put your foot under the shifter to accelerate.
46:55
So you're laying the bike on the top, across the top of the mountain.
46:58
You're trying to get in the next gear, but without picking the bike up to put your foot under the gear, you couldn't do it.
47:03
Oh, wow.
47:04
So you couldn't put your foot under the gear stick.
47:05
Because you needed the angle.
47:06
The lean angle, you couldn't get it underneath.
47:07
Yeah, so you couldn't get it underneath.
47:08
The stick was already on the ground.
47:10
So we've gone back in the pits and we've both explained this is the problem.
47:14
The heavy weight of the fuel is pushing on the bike so much you can't get your foot under the gear shift.
47:19
So one goes simple, just switch the ratio, switch it around so it's one up, five down.
47:25
Down.
47:25
So now all you've got to do is go across the top of the mountain and push down on the shift, not trying to get your foot underneath it.
47:31
Underneath it, yeah, yeah.
47:32
And we've gone, oh, shit.
47:34
I know.
47:35
Well, yeah, okay.
47:37
Well, that's what we did.
47:38
So we reversed the shift.
47:40
We both missed a few gears, but at that place, you don't want to do that very often.
47:43
You blow a gearbox or you go into a hill.
47:45
But that's just habit though, isn't it?
47:46
Because you're so used to it being the other way.
47:49
You had to be able to concentrate on the most dangerous circuit in Australia and do the lap time as you need to do and think about changing your shift pattern all at the same time.
47:58
We didn't go and ride a road bike for a week.
48:01
Yes.
48:01
It was there at the weekend.
48:03
We were racing.
48:03
We were doing the RI500.
48:05
And we had practice to work it out, but we basically were learning in the race.
48:10
So we went into this race at the start with Roger Freeth, learning a new shift pattern.
48:16
So that's what we did.
48:17
So this is the kind of stuff that you would think, you know, probably wouldn't have thought about it.
48:22
But Warren always thinking outside the box and looking at, he was always looking at fixing things.
48:27
Mm-hmm.
48:28
How could we adjust and make things better?
48:30
And that's what took him through to a world championship with Kenny Roberts Jr.
48:34
The guy was, you know, the guy you wanted on your side.
48:37
You've sparked a number of things that I want to ask about here.
48:39
Firstly, I mean, a thought on, I mean, you've talked about him in a technical sense, in an excellent sense, and what he's achieved and so on.
48:49
What was he like away from the limelight, Warren Willing?
48:52
What was he like to be around in the...
48:54
Very quiet man.
48:55
Yeah.
48:55
Very driven.
48:56
Very driven.
48:57
Really?
48:59
The whole time.
48:59
So Warren took us to Japan.
49:03
When we did some good in Australia, we eventually got to ride in the 8-hour.
49:07
So Warren was able to open those doors with the Yamaha factory.
49:10
And this was 86.
49:12
So we already had the Melbourne thing going.
49:15
We wanted to go and do the 8-hour.
49:16
Kevin had already done the 8-hour, so he was the one that was pushing to go back.
49:20
He said, let's sign our contracts in 86 and say, as long as the eight hours on, we're in.
49:27
Yep.
49:27
As long as it's a part of it.
49:28
Yeah.
49:29
So Warren was able to put that together through Kevin that initiated it.
49:33
And I said, look, I don't care.
49:34
I just want to race motorbikes.
49:36
Yep.
49:36
So that's where that started.
49:38
And we went across and got some times in Japan.
49:42
And one time specifically, well, there's a couple of times, but there was a time where we got to ride over in Japan.
49:50
We couldn't speak Japanese.
49:53
They spoke very limited English.
49:55
And we got to do a ride around the Yamaha test circuit at Iwata on their Formula One station.
50:02
rocket ship race machine 754 stroke that was like oh my god man here we own japan riding a formula one 750 factory type that kenny roberts rides surreal unreal so anyway we get out there and we're both getting around the circuit and we're riding with the japanese riders setups
50:21
And they're shit.
50:23
So we both come in and said, we can't ride them like this.
50:25
We've got to adjust them.
50:26
And the Japanese guy said, Warren goes, talks, and he's broken English to them.
50:31
And no, you cannot touch the motorbike.
50:34
Just ride.
50:35
And Warren goes, righto, boys, pack up your gear.
50:37
Yeah.
50:38
And we're like, what?
50:39
He goes, yeah, pack up your gear.
50:41
You can't adjust the bike, so we're wasting our time being here.
50:43
So pack up, we're going home.
50:44
Okay.
50:45
And we're like, oh, okay.
50:47
So anyway, halfway getting packed up, this Japanese guy is on the phone.
50:53
Walks over to Warren and goes, okay, you can adjust.
50:58
I'm just going to quickly dive in here.
50:59
I try to avoid doing that, as you know.
51:01
Younger generations might think, oh, that Japanese impersonation sounds a bit racist.
51:07
Sitting opposite Michael, as we recorded, left me feeling the exact opposite.
51:12
He is highly regarded by the Japanese.
51:15
He's got great respect for them and vice versa.
51:17
So as we go, and he does it on occasion, just remember that he's a ripper storyteller and he's putting you in the moment.
51:25
So please don't feel offended.
51:27
Press on.
51:29
And I said to him, I reckon I could take two seconds off of that record if I get to set some settings.
51:34
Uh-huh.
51:36
He said, okay, whatever.
51:37
So I went out there, and I think we took two and a half seconds off of that record.
51:40
Unreal.
51:41
So then they started to realize, oh, shit.
51:44
Okay.
51:44
You know, these guys.
51:45
Technically, yeah, yeah.
51:46
The buy hasn't changed.
51:47
We've just made some adjustments to its geometry.
51:50
Mm-hmm.
51:50
and were able to make more sense than what their factory guys were.
51:54
So another funny story with that too was around that time, I think when we first got there, the Japanese riders had to ride them first.
52:02
Yep.
52:03
So they're doing that, and we're watching and thinking, oh, my God, we're going to ride a factory bike.
52:07
This is going to be amazing.
52:09
Anyway, yellow lights go on, ambulance van goes out, and we ask what's going on.
52:15
Oh, test rider, big crash.
52:18
Oh, shit, maybe dead.
52:21
And we're like, oh, my God.
52:24
And they must have seen our eyes pop out, and we're all like, and they say, oh, no problem, plenty test rider.
52:31
Didn't make us feel all that good, but...
52:36
That's a true story.
52:36
You were never in fear of the game?
52:39
It never sort of really...
52:40
I mean, you talked about the walls and stuff at Bathurst before.
52:42
You weren't focused on that.
52:44
Did it ever really hit you?
52:46
No.
52:46
Again, I'd always sort of take note of how the bike was put together.
52:50
We'd always... You'd be there looking at a bike.
52:52
You'd be seeing how...
52:53
I always looked at guys.
52:54
I always had really good mechanics.
52:57
Glenn Willing, Warren's brother.
52:58
He was my guy up until 89 with the MR thing.
53:02
We had a great...
53:03
Paul, who's an excellent, he was a rider as well, and an excellent mechanic.
53:09
And again, we had very, I can't remember having any problems in that racing period.
53:14
The guy was good.
53:14
I could sort of say, righto, I didn't have to get out there with a torque wrench and check things out.
53:18
I knew that he was all over it.
53:20
And that was the deal, you know.
53:21
But I would not sort of jump on the bike with my eyes closed.
53:26
You know, I'd be all over the bike.
53:27
I'd be feeling for temperature changes.
53:29
I'd be looking at different things, looking for oil leaks.
53:31
All these things come into play.
53:33
And that's part of the program, you know.
53:36
For you to be at the top of your game, it's not just a matter of… It's the detail.
53:40
It's not a matter of where you hold the throttle.
53:42
Everything, you know, the tyre pressures, the wheels, there's just so much in it, and that's what I love.
53:53
That's the end of part one of my feature episode with Michael Dowson.
53:56
Within 24 hours of the release of this first instalment, part two will be released, and it's just as entertaining.
54:03
From some zenith moments on two wheels to his vivid memories of the day that he called time on motorcycle racing, doing double duty and racing touring cars, and how one piece of fancy driving at the mountain ended up a national marketing campaign, plus boats,
54:20
and big sharks.
54:22
It's all ahead here on Rusty's Garage.