Latest / Rusty's Garage / Scott Pedder | Part 2 - The Pedder’s business story & conquering fast Finnish roads

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Scott Pedder | Part 2 - The Pedder’s business story & conquering fast Finnish roads · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature episode with Scott Petter.
• 0:23
  I won't bang on too long here.
• 0:25
  You know that I usually remind you about now that if for some reason you've arrived here without checking out part one, you are coming in halfway through the story and you're missing all the good stuff, all the foundations.
• 0:36
  How he went to his first rally before he could even walk.
• 0:40
  You'll get a sense of why Scott is such a good student of the sport.
• 0:44
  The influence of his grandfather, Alton.
• 0:46
  and his dad, the Pedder's suspension ties with motorsport and how far they go back, plus turning heads in a Ford Escort in Victoria on the way to tackling the ARC.
• 0:58
  Let's get into part two now.
• 1:02
  You mentioned Ed Odinsky there before.
• 1:04
  Let's come back to that third gear versus fifth gear story.
• 1:06
  That sounds like a great story.
• 1:07
  When Dino was on, he talked about riding with him somewhere and, you know, Mr. Group N, how good he was.
• 1:14
  But it opened Dean's eyes to just how much you can push those Group N machines, what he could do.
• 1:20
  So tell me what your yarn is.
• 1:23
  Happy birthday to Ed.
• 1:23
  I think he was 70 this week.
• 1:25
  So happy birthday, Ed Mann.
• 1:27
  Yeah.
• 1:30
  Yeah, look, the story goes, when we first learned to do testing and when I was going from the Victorian Championship into the National Championship, so Ed was obviously exceptionally good at that point.
• 1:44
  I think he'd already run five or six Rally Australia, so it was pretty handy.
• 1:49
  And I was a 22-year-old cocky kid that had just won, a 23-year-old that had just won his second Victorian Championship, so I thought I was pretty good.
• 1:58
  And I took him to a place called Coles Creek Road in Tulangi, which we'd use as our test road quite a lot.
• 2:05
  And I thought I was, yeah, the benchmark time.
• 2:08
  Anyway.
• 2:09
  I've got this.
• 2:10
  I've got this.
• 2:11
  And I took Ed for a ride and –
• 2:15
  He said, yeah, it's not bad, you know, like, and we did paste notes, and I'd called a particular corner down the bottom halfway through a six right, and he goes, so, you know, in my language, that's third gear.
• 2:29
  And I said, yeah.
• 2:30
  And he goes, I reckon that's fifth.
• 2:32
  And I just went, mate, there is no way in hell that corner is fifth gear.
• 2:37
  Anyway, he said, well, I'll show you.
• 2:39
  So he, my time was at 2.32 or so.
• 2:43
  As I get, I'm guessing.
• 2:45
  He jumps in my car.
• 2:46
  So never driven this car before.
• 2:48
  And I sit next to him.
• 2:50
  He did a couple of runs of pace notes.
• 2:51
  So I'm not calling notes, right?
• 2:53
  But he knows the road because he's done two runs of it.
• 2:57
  He did 2.29 first up.
• 3:01
  including that corner in fifth.
• 3:03
  And then by the end of the day, I got down to a 226, and guess what?
• 3:08
  That corner was fifth gear.
• 3:10
  Unreal.
• 3:11
  And that day, I put down 50% of my pace.
• 3:16
  Just that sheer...
• 3:20
  ability to look at a corner and go, no, if the, if the note is saying it was actually an eight, I'd, I'd downgraded it for, and he said, never downgrade, never downgrade, never, it's an eight, isn't it?
• 3:32
  I said, yep, it's fifth gear.
• 3:33
  So I put that day down to 50% of my success in my career.
• 3:37
  Amazing.
• 3:38
  And I don't think I've ever told Ed that, so I hope he's listening.
• 3:40
  That's a lovely birthday present for him.
• 3:42
  I mean, he's such an amazing bank of knowledge.
• 3:46
  Have there been others along the way that have maybe given you a little bit of advice?
• 3:49
  Yeah, of course.
• 3:49
  I mean, you've got to be careful.
• 3:50
  Fawson Ball gives you lots of advice.
• 3:54
  Simon Evans is the other way as well.
• 3:56
  But, yeah, they're both great people, obviously.
• 4:00
  Yeah, I mean, you know, Bill Orders is a big, big part of my life and obviously no longer with us, unfortunately.
• 4:05
  You know, Dad, Dad, big part.
• 4:07
  You know, my brother, Mark.
• 4:09
  But, you know, in terms of competitors, you know, probably the standout one would be Ed.
• 4:15
  Dean Herridge, you know, too nice to be a rally driver.
• 4:19
  Dino.
• 4:19
  And then most recently, Harry, you know.
• 4:22
  The worst thing about competing with Harry, he's such a nice guy.
• 4:24
  You don't want to hate the guy, but...
• 4:26
  We often get out of the car and he'll beat me on a stage or vice versa and we're high-fiving each other.
• 4:32
  Love it.
• 4:33
  You know, GMAT can't work it out.
• 4:34
  We're giving cuddles to Coral and that sort of stuff.
• 4:38
  And then Hayden hasn't worked that out yet.
• 4:41
  He still needs to come to the cuddles and high-fives.
• 4:46
  I think we'll get him there.
• 4:46
  You'll dial that euro out of him, won't you?
• 4:49
  You run at one point the ARC.
• 4:52
  You are the boss of the championship.
• 4:56
  Tell me how that came about and what was it like?
• 4:58
  Because all of a sudden, I mean, Krompo uses that line about poacher turned gamekeeper.
• 5:03
  You're on the other side then, aren't you?
• 5:06
  You've been competitor, but now you're guiding the show.
• 5:09
  You're guiding the series.
• 5:10
  What is that like?
• 5:11
  Yeah, when it came about really because I had a huge crash in 2010.
• 5:15
  Which we haven't talked about yet.
• 5:18
  Yeah, I hit a tree at about 155 or something like that, 160 k's an hour straight on.
• 5:22
  So very fortunate to be here.
• 5:25
  My fourth child then was two weeks old, so poor Kaz had five kids to look after.
• 5:30
  for about six months.
• 5:31
  And I had some, um, I had some bad diagnosis.
• 5:34
  So I was actually walking around on a broken ankle for about six months.
• 5:37
  So, um, whilst the knee repaired, um, so really the recuperation took longer than what it did, both physically and mentally and family, you know, those three things.
• 5:49
  Um, and then, um,
• 5:51
  I just love the sport so much.
• 5:53
  I just, the thought of not competing was whatever, but the thought of not being involved in rallying.
• 5:59
  And I think also the combination, as I said before, the frustration that this sport isn't anywhere near what it should be.
• 6:05
  You know, like 2010 was an okay year.
• 6:07
  I think it was me and Simon and a few others, but yeah,
• 6:09
  It was just an incredible sport which just wasn't being commercialised.
• 6:15
  So I thought, well, geez, no one else is going to do it.
• 6:18
  And obviously, you know, I thought I'll have a crack.
• 6:23
  And I had a chat to Ben Rainsford, who was the chairman of the ARC and RCOM and Cole Trinder at the time.
• 6:29
  And I said, look...
• 6:31
  I want to have a crack at this.
• 6:33
  I'm going to spend less time at Petters and have a little bit of a crack at this, but I need your support.
• 6:38
  I'm going to come up with some crazy stuff and go from there.
• 6:43
  So, you know, essentially from, I think, 2000... And look, Katie Phelps was an amazing, amazing, still is.
• 6:50
  Yeah, she's still in there.
• 6:51
  Help for me in that period as well, along with a lot of other people, Ross Tapper and those sort of people.
• 6:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 6:57
  um, you know, backed me and then, you know, so we, you know, we introduced unrestricted, we introduced side-by-sides We got Bosch as a naming ride sponsor.
• 7:04
  I mean we had a million dollars of sponsorship in 2012 um, you know for a sport that you know was and then And then the two-wheel drive thing really started as a result of that because I you know I was I grew up in the manufacturer era You know people don't realize how important manufacturers are because they just haven't been in that era They they are seriously
• 7:25
  very, very important in this sport, like they are in supercars.
• 7:28
  So I thought, well, the Evo's dead, the WRX is dead, what's next?
• 7:33
  And then obviously Honda are in it.
• 7:35
  They're a big supporter and I just started to tap some doors, went and spoke to Mazda, went and spoke to Renault, went and spoke to Citroen, Nissan, lots of other Ford, lots of other people, Holden.
• 7:46
  And there was some genuine interest there.
• 7:48
  We didn't get all those people.
• 7:49
  And at the same time, we had SUVs as well, which was pretty crazy as well.
• 7:54
  And then Calder Park.
• 7:54
  Calder Park was around in the Australian Championship in 2012, and it rained for – had 85 mil of rain.
• 8:01
  But in essence, what you were trying to do there, which is bring the people to – or the event to the people –
• 8:05
  Yeah, probably went too fast, too quick.
• 8:08
  You know, taking some of the older rally people on the ride was a bit of a journey, but a bit similar to franchising, actually, at Petters.
• 8:16
  Taking people for a ride on the journey was a bit difficult, but, you know, I'm still pretty proud of what we were able to achieve.
• 8:23
  And, you know...
• 8:25
  But at the same time, Adrian Coppin's taken the mantle and he's just doing such an amazing job.
• 8:31
  Along the same lines, he's just not taking no for an answer and putting a bit of passion back into it.
• 8:37
  I mean, you sort of lent into that a minute ago, politics and maybe…
• 8:42
  sometimes views that are, you know, very, let's call it traditionalist, where you're locked onto and maybe not open to new ideas.
• 8:49
  I mean, was some of that stuff tough to navigate?
• 8:51
  Because it's all of a sudden, it's not pedders, it's your passion, your love, but your...
• 8:58
  you know, that can be quite, that can take a lot of the, a lot of the passion out of it for you when you're, when you're trying to crest those humps, mate, can't it, you know?
• 9:08
  Yeah, it can, you know, like dealing with volunteers, you know, is, is interesting.
• 9:13
  But we need them, but we need them.
• 9:14
  100%, you know, and, and just the way,
• 9:16
  and this is not a shot at motorsports, but I think they do a good job.
• 9:20
  But in rallying, their model is set up for looking after the base level.
• 9:24
  Their whole model, financial model, is about membership.
• 9:28
  So not that they don't care about the top end, but financially they don't.
• 9:35
  They're worried about the club competitor and that sort of stuff.
• 9:39
  trying to run a commercial model whilst having people that really just want to turn up and have some fun.
• 9:49
  Having to mix those together is very, very difficult to do.
• 9:54
  I think we found a way to do that.
• 9:56
  I'm very proud of the fact that of that million bucks that we ended up getting, obviously a lot of that went to TV and paying for all the things that we needed to pay for.
• 10:04
  But we gave a
• 10:07
  which came from that franchising model that we all win together.
• 10:10
  But I think back to the original question, I've always been a big believer in leadership is about action and about passion.
• 10:19
  If you're passionate about something, generally speaking, you can get people around to your way of thinking.
• 10:27
  As soon as you...
• 10:29
  take a blip in that passion and that action, that's when you let yourself down.
• 10:35
  Because they've seen that then, haven't they?
• 10:36
  They've seen that.
• 10:37
  Yeah.
• 10:37
  So just, you know, I just didn't take no for an answer.
• 10:40
  As I said, had great support, had a crack and what came out the other side, I hope was a better championship.
• 10:48
  Don't play that down.
• 10:50
  I think Mark sort of said to me that
• 10:53
  Maybe deep down you feel a little bit because, you know, it required a huge amount of commitment, a huge amount of time.
• 11:02
  You absolutely dedicated yourself to that.
• 11:04
  But in the same breath, Peders is doing good things.
• 11:07
  And you sort of, at the end of the day, had to make a choice, mate, didn't you?
• 11:09
  Is that right, at the end of that chapter, so to speak?
• 11:11
  Yeah.
• 11:12
  And look, essentially, you know, and full credit to Mark and Dad.
• 11:16
  for sort of allowing me to do that.
• 11:18
  To do that.
• 11:18
  And I'm putting, you can't say this on the radio, but I'm putting my fingers up.
• 11:21
  Inverted commas.
• 11:22
  Inverted commas.
• 11:23
  But, you know, Mark and Dad ran the business essentially, you know, like I kept an eye on it, but really I took two years away from the business, so to speak, to focus on running a better Australian championship.
• 11:36
  So...
• 11:37
  As I said, that's my personality.
• 11:39
  I can't do things by halves, particularly when I'm passionate about things.
• 11:42
  Caroline will tell you that I do lots of things by halves, by the way, but certainly things that I'm passionate about, once I put my mind to it.
• 11:53
  And once particularly people tell me I can't do it or it's not going to work, watch me.
• 11:57
  That's fine to lie.
• 11:59
  We'll come to the two-wheel drive era in a minute because it's a very important part of your career and that you talk about the foundations leading into that a minute ago.
• 12:05
  But I'm glad you've been okay to talk a little bit about the crash.
• 12:09
  I wasn't sure if you would want to do that today.
• 12:12
  I mean, you had had success on those roads.
• 12:17
  They are fast, addictive, really cool roads there.
• 12:20
  But it's a very memorable crash for a lot of people.
• 12:23
  you especially take us if you can to that day and yeah well i mean the the overarching summary is if you if you play with fire sometimes you're going to get burnt right so um yeah i think the crash started months months before really is you know um we were we were um contesting the australian championship against a guy that i rate probably is one of the the best that we've had which is simon evans um we've got a very healthy team
• 12:52
  respect for each other but a very healthy rivalry rivalry so he didn't want to lose to me and i certainly didn't want to lose to him and and we'd won the first two rallies so we beat him in tasmania and we beat him in uh in forest rally comfortably both times um and then um we got to get to coffs harbour i think we were running about neck and neck there i'd have to check someone will tell me
• 13:17
  And I had a crash and that sort of put the championship, I think I might have still been leading or just he was leading, but probably in hindsight put a little bit of pressure.
• 13:28
  And then I'm not sure whether Simon put the illegal engine in or whatever he did for South Australia.
• 13:35
  That's a joke, obviously he didn't, he just got better and faster.
• 13:38
  He did a really good job on Saturday in South Australia and he won that quite comfortably.
• 13:45
  Um, so I went into, uh, stage one on Sunday, a very brisk morning place like Chalks Road's the name just outside of Mount Pleasant.
• 13:56
  Um, stage incredibly fast, very tree lined.
• 13:58
  I don't run the stage anymore because it's just too fast, too dangerous.
• 14:02
  Uh, big gum trees, all the, all the things that you love about rallying and, um,
• 14:06
  and you hate about rallying at the same time, and particularly South Australia.
• 14:11
  We take off on car one at that point.
• 14:15
  Simon's the car behind me.
• 14:17
  I think it was about two corners, so it's about a five-metre straight left-hander, a five-metre straight right-hander.
• 14:22
  I come around the right-hander at about 160, so fifth gear, and I just ran wide.
• 14:29
  I literally just ran wide, hit a little berm.
• 14:32
  In the berm was a tree root from the tree, which was quite a long way from the berm.
• 14:39
  I break the left-hand rear suspension, and it literally just turns me directly right,
• 14:46
  uh, into the tree, which was about eight metres from the first impact.
• 14:50
  Um, and I hit a gum tree, probably the size of the car as in, as in the width of the car, straight in the middle of the car.
• 14:58
  Um, I get knocked out.
• 15:01
  Co-driver, uh, Johnny Mortimer gets, gets knocked out.
• 15:04
  Uh, I come to, um, my first instinct, um, was the cars on fire because the radiator is obviously somewhere back
• 15:14
  smoking and obviously cold morning.
• 15:16
  So the first thing you do is the smell and the steam and the smoke.
• 15:23
  I go to open the door.
• 15:24
  That's not going to work because the door's now crashed and that sort of stuff and jammed.
• 15:29
  So John comes to a little bit after me.
• 15:33
  He's fine, a little bit of whiplash.
• 15:37
  He can get out.
• 15:38
  He gets out.
• 15:40
  He obviously, this is pre-rally safe day, so Simon's now coming down the road at mark factor 10, no doubt into that corner as fast as I've gone.
• 15:50
  So fortunately, he sees my marks and slows down before he sees John.
• 15:57
  So again, I'm not sure how he's done that.
• 16:00
  He comes to me.
• 16:02
  I'm stuck in the car.
• 16:05
  I realise, at this point, I don't realise what's happened to me still.
• 16:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:11
  You can feel your legs and stuff?
• 16:12
  I can feel my legs.
• 16:13
  I looked down and my kneecap came out of my skin.
• 16:20
  So it's sort of sitting on my thigh, my right kneecap.
• 16:23
  So I thought that's not good.
• 16:25
  But the body takes over, no pain really.
• 16:29
  But mainly the left ankle.
• 16:30
  The left ankle was very, very sore and
• 16:33
  and I can't get the left ankle past the brake pedal because it's been mangled and snaps like that.
• 16:41
  So literally I just sit there and I was actually relatively calm.
• 16:46
  John Morton might tell you a different story, but my recollection is I'm quite calm.
• 16:50
  And then obviously it all happened.
• 16:52
  The medical medic say, Simon and Sue did a great job.
• 16:55
  Sue stayed with me and held my hand.
• 16:58
  I got ketamine injected into me, which was really, really cool.
• 17:02
  and then got a helicopter out and had operations at Royal Adelaide and then obviously took, as I said, got some misdiagnosis and took a long time to recover both physically and mentally.
• 17:15
  Did you frame it like, that's it, I'm not getting back in the car, or what did you do?
• 17:18
  No, you go through stages, you know, certainly, you know, and full credit to people like Simon that get back from their accidents straight away and Valentino Rossi's and those crazy people that do it a week later.
• 17:31
  I couldn't, I wasn't ready for probably at least six months, I reckon.
• 17:37
  um, um, mentally, uh, and probably physically more like a year really, because the ankle took forever to get, gain some strength and, and be able to break, break properly and accelerate properly and not get cramps and all that sort of stuff.
• 17:51
  So, um, it was, it was a very interesting time.
• 17:55
  And obviously, as I said before, you know, four kids and that played into it and the, and the business and the family and that sort of stuff.
• 18:01
  So that, so that, um, um, um, um,
• 18:02
  yeah that could have been very easily the end of my career for sure did you get help just sort of i mean because i mean you're back you're back you're fast all that sort of stuff now and i'll come to the moment where i think you made the decision to come back but you know when you think about that stuff i mean you've got to clearly you've just given me great detail in what what transpired in that crash you can't relive that you can't you can't bring that back can you i mean did you have to deal with that in some way
• 18:25
  I haven't watched the Inca.
• 18:27
  Mark's got it on his phone.
• 18:28
  Does he?
• 18:29
  Yeah.
• 18:29
  And he's often, we've had a few drinks and he's like, come on, let's watch it.
• 18:33
  No, I don't want to watch it.
• 18:35
  Okay.
• 18:35
  I don't want to watch it.
• 18:36
  So I'm not sure what that means, but I don't want to watch it.
• 18:39
  No, it's...
• 18:42
  It was a big crash.
• 18:43
  Like, if we had really safe now, the G-forces would have been crazy.
• 18:49
  The car was actually not written off, but it should have, almost could have been.
• 18:55
  Very lucky that it wasn't.
• 18:56
  You know, essentially, I've seen the photos of the car and, you know, there was no car past the windscreen, essentially.
• 19:05
  So it was a seriously big crash.
• 19:07
  And as I said, it took me a...
• 19:10
  It took me a while to get through, but physically took longer than mental.
• 19:14
  Mark says, I think he may have been competing.
• 19:17
  He was.
• 19:18
  You might have been with his wife and you were watching somewhere and you get the bug again.
• 19:23
  Is that right?
• 19:24
  I'll paraphrase that.
• 19:25
  I don't know what's transpired there.
• 19:27
  You...
• 19:29
  It was when I – it may have been a moment of realization that you were missing it and you wanted to get back behind the wheel.
• 19:33
  Yeah, to be honest, I think it was – obviously, I'd ran the championship for a bit.
• 19:38
  And, yeah, I was standing with – it might have been Miff, Mark's wife and a few others or whatever.
• 19:44
  And it was Eli.
• 19:45
  Was it?
• 19:47
  Little Jazzers or maybe it was a Civic.
• 19:50
  And I'd watched the quick group end cars come through and I forget who was running those in Bowdoin.
• 19:55
  I think maybe those sort of guys are driving those things, unrestricted cars and that sort of stuff.
• 19:58
  And then I could hear this thing coming through the forest and Eli drove that thing really well.
• 20:04
  Very, very aggressive.
• 20:05
  And, you know, his last name's Evans.
• 20:06
  What hope has he got?
• 20:08
  And I just went, and then that tingle that you get, that tingle that I got when I was two years old standing at the mineshaft.
• 20:15
  I got that back and then, yeah, and from pretty much there, I went home and had the very difficult conversation with my wife.
• 20:28
  And she said, you know, after weeks, no, no, straight away pretty much, go and do what you want to do.
• 20:34
  And then obviously the Renault thing started.
• 20:37
  Let's go with that.
• 20:38
  Where did you track that car down?
• 20:39
  Why did that...
• 20:41
  sort of, I mean, that was for me, I know it doesn't have the raw top speed of an Evo and maybe the, you know, the cornering performance and everything that the R5 cars and Rally two-spec cars offer and so on, but they sounded so sweet, those things, at full noise.
• 21:00
  And man, you could brake late in them, couldn't you?
• 21:02
  Probably the best car that I've ever driven.
• 21:05
  Really?
• 21:05
  Yeah, in terms of...
• 21:06
  to my personality, you know, perfectionist and wanting to get the most out of a car that just should not be driven.
• 21:12
  Yeah, it was – so the story is we went over to Paris, myself and Lane Heenan from Race Talk and Dale Moskett and we went for a tour of Renault because –
• 21:24
  Obviously, you had the two choices.
• 21:26
  You could go a G2 car, which was basically a hand-built, proper two-wheel drive thing.
• 21:33
  And the regs were quite free in that thing.
• 21:36
  Or you could just go and get an R3 car, which was sort of like a Group N plus version of the way of going about it.
• 21:44
  So I'd sort of grown up with the easy option.
• 21:46
  And to be honest, time was against us.
• 21:49
  And we didn't, you know, I just thought it'd be pretty cool to run, run something from overseas.
• 21:55
  And, um, so we did, we went over and got an R3 Renault, um, from Renault Sport in Paris.
• 22:02
  And they'd, I think they'd made 500 cars and 482 of them were tarmac.
• 22:06
  So to the point where, um, again, another funny story, the first test that we did in Marysville, um,
• 22:12
  which not that long before that had some bushfire issues, we realised after a couple of runs that the underbody was wooden because obviously on tarmac… It doesn't matter.
• 22:30
  We thought jeepers creepers.
• 22:31
  Thank God we didn't put it off the road or that sort of stuff because that would have been a bad day for the Marysville residents again, unfortunately.
• 22:39
  But, yeah, we brought that car back and we ran it as an R3 car in the first year, 2013, with Tommy Wilde and the Race Talk team.
• 22:48
  It was a very basic front-wheel drive car.
• 22:50
  It had 40 or 50 horsepower, probably less than the Hondas.
• 22:54
  It was a car that was built to a specification of about $150,000.
• 22:58
  So very much Group N+.
• 23:01
  Running against Eli in the Honda, full Mugen engine.
• 23:05
  He'd driven front-wheel drive cars.
• 23:06
  So again, when you look back at it now, I thought I was a chance, but in reality, I wasn't.
• 23:11
  And then obviously things changed in 2014.
• 23:14
  14.
• 23:15
  What did it mean to win that for you?
• 23:17
  Oh, that was, yeah.
• 23:18
  I mean, you saw the vision with Dino.
• 23:20
  Dino cried more than me, by the way.
• 23:22
  I'm just putting it out there.
• 23:23
  He was new to television at this stage, and I think he moved in to interview you and feeling green, but both of you were caught up in the emotion of what that really meant to you, weren't they?
• 23:32
  Well, as I said at the start, I...
• 23:34
  I'd only ever wanted two things in my life, and that was to have kids and to win the Australian League Championship.
• 23:42
  So that was very, very special, and special to have Dino there, special to have all my family there, special to have Mark competing in the event.
• 23:48
  He was about six minutes behind me.
• 23:51
  I was, I sort of was a mess and then I'd recovered myself and then I saw Mark and then I was a mess again.
• 23:59
  But yeah, that was just, yeah, I mean, it was incredibly special and, and, you know, it's, it's not the best day of my life, but it's pretty close.
• 24:09
  Yeah.
• 24:09
  Did you keep that car?
• 24:11
  Yeah, still got it.
• 24:11
  Have you?
• 24:12
  Yeah, yeah, still got it.
• 24:14
  It's had an engine blow up about six months ago.
• 24:18
  But we're potentially going to run it in a state round later on in the year.
• 24:23
  Unreal.
• 24:23
  Yeah.
• 24:24
  That's cool.
• 24:24
  Yeah, yeah.
• 24:25
  Great thing that you did there, mate.
• 24:27
  And clearly then the fire is a little bit lit for the mist window on some international stuff.
• 24:34
  So in 2015, you embark on Portugal and Finland.
• 24:38
  Tell us about bolting that together, when you thought you would want to do that and why you'd want to do that and so on.
• 24:45
  Oh, look, it was a combination of an itch.
• 24:47
  You know, obviously, again, ego.
• 24:50
  You thought you've won the championship.
• 24:52
  What's next?
• 24:53
  To me, multiple Australian championship doesn't...
• 24:56
  you know, yeah, that's a great thing and I'd love to win another one, but I think once you've won one, don't be greedy.
• 25:01
  So, um, you've completed that mission.
• 25:04
  I sort of completed that.
• 25:05
  Yeah.
• 25:05
  And I thought what's next.
• 25:06
  And I sort of always had that.
• 25:08
  Am I good enough?
• 25:09
  You know, where, where do I rank?
• 25:10
  Am I, you know, I want to go and challenge myself.
• 25:14
  So, um, that's again, your nature.
• 25:17
  Yeah.
• 25:18
  It is my nature a little bit.
• 25:19
  And, and, and commercially also Petters had started to get some wins internationally and, and, uh, we had some export opportunities, which sort of, you know, I'm, I'm sort of stretching it the truth a little bit there, but you know, um, it certainly didn't pay for itself, but, but there was a good opportunity to do some stuff over in, in Europe, particularly around the rallying.
• 25:41
  Um, yeah.
• 25:42
  So we went to M Sport.
• 25:45
  We went to Malcolm Wilson and spoke to him about a Ford.
• 25:49
  Fiesta.
• 25:50
  Unfortunately, it was too expensive to go with M Sport.
• 25:52
  So we went with a company, offshoot company of theirs that were running for.
• 25:56
  It's called RMC in Spain.
• 25:58
  In hindsight, we probably did
• 26:00
  And we went in there too cocky and we did some stuff a bit cheaply.
• 26:04
  We got a deal with DMACC tyres, which ultimately weren't as good as a Michelin.
• 26:08
  The RMC car certainly wasn't a rocket ship.
• 26:11
  And as I found out, there's two types of Fiestas.
• 26:14
  There's the custom one and the non-customer one or the M Sport one, which I was to find out later on.
• 26:20
  So it was an unbelievable experience.
• 26:24
  It was just a dream come true.
• 26:27
  My first event was Portugal.
• 26:29
  Unfortunately, we rolled the car in the first day, but we did get an opportunity to come back the following year and do Portugal properly.
• 26:37
  But essentially the first couple of rallies, I really struggled.
• 26:41
  I struggled with the car, the conditions, and again, regrets.
• 26:47
  My personality got in the way and I was worried about split times and competing and where was I coming and that sort of stuff.
• 26:54
  And I wasn't taking in the fact that I've made it.
• 26:59
  I've got to where I want to go.
• 27:00
  To be in the moment, mate, too.
• 27:02
  So we got to Finland.
• 27:03
  I'd done three events or four events and just had terrible results and that sort of stuff, because I was trying too hard.
• 27:09
  I was so pent up with the competitiveness.
• 27:11
  And I said to Dale, co-driver at the time, Dale Muscat, I said, mate, I don't care.
• 27:17
  I'm not going to let that get in the way of Finland.
• 27:19
  Finland's the Holy Grail.
• 27:20
  It's the Monaco Grand Prix of rallying.
• 27:22
  I'm just going to go there and have some fun.
• 27:24
  That's great.
• 27:24
  That's tapping back into what the Petters team was all about back in the day.
• 27:28
  It's tapping back into that kid that was driving that blue cart down the driveway, right?
• 27:33
  That's why I'm there.
• 27:34
  So that's why I took into Finland in 2015.
• 27:37
  And we ended up fourth WRC2.
• 27:42
  Someone told me, and I'm not sure if it's still the fact, but it's the best debut by a non-European ever in Finland.
• 27:48
  That's cool.
• 27:50
  So, but my God, Finland.
• 27:53
  Oh, wow.
• 27:54
  Tell people, because, I mean, there's some people that I know that are listeners of the program that are heading over soon to go and spectate.
• 27:59
  I mean, I think Coral and Mark Taylor went when they were younger and sort of piggybacked with some cameramen.
• 28:05
  It is, to draw a parallel, it is a spar of Formula One.
• 28:12
  It is a bathist of touring car racing and more, mate, isn't it?
• 28:16
  The only way I can explain it to someone that's not involved in rallying is imagine going to the AFL Grand Final in the forest.
• 28:23
  Yeah.
• 28:23
  Because that's what it's like.
• 28:24
  It's basically a Collingwood-Carlton game at the MCG.
• 28:26
  That's the passion.
• 28:27
  Yeah.
• 28:29
  The people, the roads obviously are ridiculous and it's just crazy jumps and that sort of stuff.
• 28:34
  You know, like you're doing stages.
• 28:35
  I think Owen Poyer is whatever it is, 25K long, but the TerraTrip says 24 because you're in the air for a kilometre, which is crazy.
• 28:45
  But it's the people.
• 28:46
  It's the, you know, I missed a pace note on a jump in a stage called Yuka Yavi.
• 28:55
  it's a double jump the first crest is not a jump the second crest definitely is a jump and i stuffed it up i thought there was three crests and i didn't break for the for the jump and we went 56 meters um osier went 54 and i got back into to the service at the midday service uh car was actually all right which actually landed pretty good dale darl winst anyway um i got back in the midday service
• 29:20
  and I'm going to my service bay, and I couldn't get into my service bay because literally there was 200, 250 fans with their horns and that sort of stuff, and all of a sudden I was the local cult hero.
• 29:31
  Who's this crazy... Because of the jump.
• 29:32
  Who's this crazy bloke that jumped, that didn't lift over the Yukiavi jump... Kangaroo!
• 29:36
  First time.
• 29:38
  It definitely wasn't on purpose.
• 29:39
  But that was Finland.
• 29:41
  That's the atmosphere, and I still put that...
• 29:45
  That would be my best ever result in terms of what I was up against.
• 29:49
  The fact I'd never been there before.
• 29:52
  The fact that I'm so proud of my pace notes.
• 29:54
  And I think that event, you have to have great pace notes.
• 29:59
  I'm proud of the fact that I can get onto stages first time and do a good time.
• 30:04
  So all of that sort of bundled in to why that's probably, if you ask me, that's probably the best result I've ever had.
• 30:09
  That's lovely.
• 30:10
  Great yarn.
• 30:11
  What about those cars?
• 30:12
  What do they like to drive?
• 30:13
  Oh, man.
• 30:14
  Yeah, I mean, we're driving them now.
• 30:16
  It's just, they're not sharp.
• 30:19
  They're not...
• 30:22
  hugely powerful.
• 30:24
  We take people for a ride, they go, it's got some torque, but they're only 280 horsepower at the end of the day, but they're 0-100 in four and a half seconds on gravel.
• 30:33
  It's just out of a 1.6 litre turbo with a 32 mil with basically 33% of the air taken out of the intake in the turbo from a normal standard car.
• 30:43
  So crazy.
• 30:45
  And Bates, I was speaking to Neil Bates yesterday, or actually yesterday, and I said, when are you going to have a drive of the boys' car?
• 30:56
  And he goes, oh, they actually gave me a present for my birthday.
• 31:01
  It's a drive in my car.
• 31:03
  I said, oh, geez, the kids are good these days.
• 31:08
  And he said, well, what are they like?
• 31:10
  And I said, well, imagine a car.
• 31:12
  Imagine driving a rally car that does everything you want it to do every time you ask it to do it.
• 31:17
  I said, that's what driving these cars is.
• 31:20
  You turn and it turns and it breaks and it breaks and that sort of stuff.
• 31:23
  But obviously the window is very, very small is that
• 31:26
  particularly this year, obviously, with Hayden and Harry going pretty quick, is the speeds are quite insane.
• 31:31
  I think the WRC two times prove it is we're essentially five years slower than the outright times.
• 31:39
  So we're basically doing times now that what the outright time was in 2020, which is a little bit frightening.
• 31:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:46
  There's kind of a groundswell of potential around WRC maybe heading that path.
• 31:50
  I mean, if you could imagine –
• 31:52
  All those manufacturers, hot kids, you know, fast youngsters coming through, that would be amazing, wouldn't it?
• 31:57
  Well, that's what rallying's all about, isn't it?
• 31:59
  Like, yeah, when I think about my passion for the Australian Rally Championship and my history and experience and what I love about the sport, I love that guy that's car 28 that's winning the rally or, you know, Huey Bell...
• 32:10
  you know mixing stages with Ari Vartan when he comes over and that sort of stuff well you can't do that now you know like you unless you're gonna unless you're prepared to spend You know Ten million dollars on a season and go and give Malcolm a big check for ten million dollars You can't do it because you also can't turn up with one event You can't just expect to to be a good driver and go his five hundred thousand dollars I want to go and compete in a WRC one car because you're just not gonna do it justice but
• 32:37
  having a rally two plus category yeah you've got 2 000 cars 3 000 cars out there in the world that literally if that happened tomorrow it'd be oversubscribed in an hour that event you know like you'd have to make sure that you you know when the exact entry list was coming out because you would you would not get a spot after an hour um and and you'd have literally probably
• 33:00
  40 or 50 drivers that could win stages.
• 33:03
  The cream's always going to rise to the top.
• 33:05
  10X is always going to be fast.
• 33:06
  OJ's always going to be fast.
• 33:08
  Solberg is always going to be fast.
• 33:09
  But, geez, Harry Bates or Scott Petter on a stage car 20, maybe a chance.
• 33:15
  Really cool.
• 33:16
  Taylor Gill's over there, you know, batting really hard, doing some good things there at the moment.
• 33:20
  It would be nice to think if that did happen that we could pluck someone out of the Australian Championship and...
• 33:25
  Give them a crack at the world stage.
• 33:26
  Wouldn't that be fantastic?
• 33:27
  You know, and, you know, we've done a great job, I think, with the blacktop stuff, you know, obviously Piastres and Lowndes and Van Gisbergens and those sort of people and Webbers, whatever.
• 33:39
  I've missed a lot of them, but we haven't done that with rallying.
• 33:42
  You know, obviously Atkinson is our closest opportunity and we've had Dunkin' and those sort of things, but we just haven't had that Hayden Padden person yet or that Piastri person yet.
• 33:53
  Dan Ricardo, those sort of people.
• 33:55
  So it'd be nice to have that same thing with the sport that I love for sure.
• 34:10
  Often it's the stories of what happens out of the car that make the best listening.
• 34:14
  Like the time fellow rally driver Neil Bates had to break into a hotel room while they were away on an event.
• 34:20
  No key.
• 34:22
  So then I go around and the window is open, but it's a bit high up.
• 34:30
  So I'm climbing up a tree trying to get up to this window.
• 34:33
  Like a thief.
• 34:33
  Like a thief.
• 34:34
  And then the security guy comes around, shines a torch on me.
• 34:39
  What are you doing?
• 34:40
  Trying to get in the maroon.
• 34:42
  Neil has never let his co-driver Coral Taylor forget that story.
• 34:46
  While she may have misplaced the key that day, her navigating skills are world class.
• 34:51
  You can find both of them in Rusty's library.
• 34:53
  Check them out when you're finished listening to Scott Beddow.
• 34:59
  One thing in jumping ahead to your return to the sport from the crash and so on that Mark spoke to me about, was the first proper event back a tarmac event too and you were like a
• 35:11
  You know, you went like a cut cat straight away.
• 35:13
  Oh, no, it was actually, if you talk about my proudest moment in rallying in 2013.
• 35:20
  So the first event that we ran in the Clio.
• 35:23
  So I'd never driven a front-wheel drive car before.
• 35:25
  Obviously, I had the demons of 2010 crash.
• 35:30
  round one Canberra.
• 35:32
  Eli's running, Brendo's running in the Mazda.
• 35:37
  Elfin Evans comes over and runs with, you know, Fiesta R2 car.
• 35:43
  So talk about expectation, nerves, and that sort of stuff.
• 35:47
  We actually won that day.
• 35:48
  So we won the first day in Canberra back.
• 35:53
  We got smoked on the first stage.
• 35:55
  I think we were sixth or seventh.
• 35:57
  I sort of got out of the car and I sort of got the mirror out and said, Scott, come on.
• 36:03
  And I said to Dale, I said, I'm going to push in here.
• 36:05
  And it was the mineshaft stage.
• 36:07
  And we took 18 seconds out of, or 15 or 18 seconds out of Eli in that stage.
• 36:13
  And that set the win up for the day.
• 36:15
  So that was, yeah, that was proud because, you know, that mental journey, physical journey,
• 36:23
  fact that i've never driven a front-wheel drive car you put a nice bookend on that yeah that was that was that was really nice very much up there with finland for sure well done i'm glad you bring up elfin evans because one aspect of the of the journey around uh wrc2 that you perhaps didn't allude to is that you're up against people like him in this phase and you're showing your skill again i mean you know he's a you know a star of the wrc
• 36:46
  Yeah, we had some, you know, particularly 15 was the last year of the regional rally car where we had R5 cars with regional cars.
• 36:52
  So the regional car was a world rally car with a small restrictor, very much unfair.
• 36:56
  So we had Nassau, Atiyah and guys like that still in those cars.
• 36:59
  And then we had, you know, Lappy and Tiedemann in factory Skodas.
• 37:06
  And we had Elfin in the factory Ford.
• 37:08
  And we had, you know, lots of national champions.
• 37:14
  I remember...
• 37:15
  catching up with jenis juridae was running for a young kid uh it was obviously didier oil's co-driver back in the day and he was running with a young kid and i was sort of looking at the times in finland and he comes over to me and he goes uh who are you and introduced himself and and he goes uh you you know you're running very well and i think it was on i employ the first run through and i'd run seventh
• 37:39
  the first time through and I was a bit down in the mouth about running seventh, you know, which is an insight into my personality.
• 37:46
  And Dennis is like, uh, are you okay?
• 37:49
  He goes, I'm just a bit, a bit annoyed about my pace in there.
• 37:52
  And, and he's, he pulls out his, his phone and, and he says, um, the guy behind you is a Swedish national champion.
• 38:00
  The guy behind him is a Norwegian national champion.
• 38:02
  The guy behind him is a French national champion.
• 38:04
  The guy behind that is a Spanish.
• 38:06
  And he went down the list, uh,
• 38:08
  And he goes, mate, you're doing all right.
• 38:10
  If you're ahead of Norwegians and Swiss on those roads there, that's damn good.
• 38:15
  So that's good.
• 38:16
  Yeah, hell yeah.
• 38:17
  That's good.
• 38:18
  Hell yeah.
• 38:18
  The next part of telling your story, if we were doing it in a timeline, comes to your role as the...
• 38:25
  as the head of Petters.
• 38:27
  But I want to break back a bit and tell for people that are listening a bit more of the Petters story because they're sort of in parallel here.
• 38:34
  I mean, firstly, as you and I sit here, it's a couple of key milestones this year for the company, isn't it?
• 38:40
  I mean, 75 years, I think 50 years as you got proudly on your thing, you know, supporting rallying and so on.
• 38:46
  I mean, tell us...
• 38:47
  Yeah, I mean, the Petters story, you know, 75 years.
• 38:50
  So 1950, it started off as my grandfather started it, who was a World War II metal, white metal welder.
• 38:57
  So for those that don't know, aluminium particularly is very difficult to weld.
• 39:02
  So he learned his craft in the Air Force.
• 39:07
  So welding planes together and that sort of stuff, and then came out and was welding pots and pans together.
• 39:12
  So PETA's die-cast welding service started on August the 1st, 1950, so we're not going a couple of weeks away from the official celebration there next Friday, I believe.
• 39:27
  And then really out of a bit of luck, back in those days, the English cars that were coming over to Australia...
• 39:34
  We had aluminium shock absorbers and obviously our roads were a bit trickier than a bit tougher, a bit rougher than the British roads.
• 39:41
  So the shock absorbers were bursting.
• 39:44
  And then he got a name for being able to weld these things up.
• 39:48
  And then obviously the business grew from there, from one person to two people to ending up being 30 people in a shed in Malvern.
• 39:55
  And then Moorabbin essentially started.
• 39:58
  you know, fixing shock absorbers and welding them back up and sending them out there.
• 40:05
  And then we ended up getting quite a lot of interest or Roy in particular and dad had started joining the business there.
• 40:12
  Roy's your grandfather, Ron's your dad.
• 40:13
  Roy's my grandfather, Ron's my dad, yeah.
• 40:14
  Yeah.
• 40:15
  So he started in the business as well.
• 40:18
  And, you know, we got a lot of interest from motorsport and people like that that looked at us as a way of retuning their shock absorbers is having harder shock absorbers.
• 40:27
  So, you know, one of the great stories of Pedder's is that there was two banana boxes on the floor of the reconditioning business.
• 40:38
  One had no paint.
• 40:40
  uh and the other one so one was for the standard replacement don't you know don't change the velving yep and the other one was for the motorsport harder velving one so someone said the other day well one day we we need to identify which ones because once they're sealed up you don't know whether it's it's firm or soft right so so someone said how are we going to identify the the hard ones from the knot and someone said well why don't we put a bit of red paint on the
• 41:04
  on the hard ones.
• 41:05
  And, and that's, that's what, that's where Petters red, or the red Petters.
• 41:10
  And, and the, and then obviously then the bull came about is our upgrade product is, is red.
• 41:15
  So, um, and then dad took over in the, in the mid seventies and that's where, you know, he, he decided that he wanted new product.
• 41:23
  And then after that, franchising, big part of the business.
• 41:26
  You were, if I'm right, correct me if I'm wrong here, you were only within a few years of McDonald's sort of pioneering that whole franchise model, weren't you?
• 41:31
  Yeah, I think McDonald's first was sort of early 70s and we had our first franchise in 79.
• 41:37
  So, you know, really apart in the automotive space, apart from probably some of the dealerships and maybe Midas around that time.
• 41:44
  We were one of the very first or dad was very the first pioneers in franchising and interesting that the first two franchisees we have were all motorsport people.
• 41:52
  Is that right?
• 41:53
  Yeah, just people we've met from rallying and that continued.
• 41:57
  That's been a massive trend throughout the journey.
• 41:59
  So what are you today in terms of size?
• 42:02
  Tell people about it.
• 42:03
  Yeah, so we're about 125 outlets around Australia.
• 42:06
  So 75 of those are full stores and we've got about 50 sort of regional country dealerships.
• 42:13
  We export to many, many countries throughout the world, 50 odd countries.
• 42:19
  Turnovers of our business is about 75 million bucks a year.
• 42:22
  Across the whole group is about 200.
• 42:24
  We include all the stores as well.
• 42:26
  We're sort of not huge, but we're certainly not small.
• 42:29
  But, yeah, it's a very proud, still family-owned.
• 42:33
  We've just put on a new CEO, so the first time that we've had him.
• 42:37
  Scott Minnelli.
• 42:38
  Scott Minnelli.
• 42:38
  So he's week five through his induction.
• 42:40
  Is he?
• 42:41
  So he officially takes over on the 1st of August, which is a bit of a milestone period.
• 42:47
  So that technically gives me a bit more time to do some rallying.
• 42:50
  Nice.
• 42:51
  The Motorsport Connection will...
• 42:54
  will stay.
• 42:55
  And the thing I love about it, mate, is you've kept it in different areas too.
• 42:58
  I mean, you partner with Oscar Fioranotto a few years ago.
• 43:03
  You have a connection with supercars as well, don't you?
• 43:05
  Yeah.
• 43:06
  I mean, supercars, I mean, motorsport's always been a big part of our lives, but it's generally always been rallying up until 2000s when I stepped into the role of marketing.
• 43:16
  And,
• 43:17
  You know, we'd been doing all the normal stuff, radio, TV, Yellow Pages back then for those young people.
• 43:23
  That's like Google, but on paper.
• 43:28
  And then really through, again, a motorsport connection, Luke Wilson, who had worked –
• 43:36
  for IMG I think back in the day when they were running the the Australian Championship he'd moved to SEL which was then running supercars under Tony Cochran and we just caught up and started chatting and that sort of stuff and he and Luke being the sort of opportunistic person that he is said Why don't you be involved in in V8 supercars?
• 43:54
  It's the perfect thing
• 43:56
  Well, you know, I said, what does that look like?
• 43:57
  And anyway, he put together a proposal for me around the safety car, I think it was back in the day and that sort of stuff.
• 44:06
  And actually, interestingly, our relationship with supercars started a bit before that is that we did some trade events in 2005.
• 44:15
  Crompton will kill me if I get that wrong.
• 44:18
  Five, I think.
• 44:19
  And we weren't involved with Crompton or we weren't involved with supercars from an official capacity, but...
• 44:25
  I think we got the details through Ned, through Craig Kelly, who was managing Crompo at the time, I think, and Scafie.
• 44:37
  And we went, well, we're going to do these trade events.
• 44:39
  We need a name.
• 44:40
  Just talk about that.
• 44:41
  So we got Crompo to host it, and we got Todd Kelly, Rick Kelly, Scafie,
• 44:47
  Johnny Bauer, I reckon, was there, a few others, to do some stuff around the country, do these events around the country.
• 44:53
  And that's where our relationship with Neil Crompton started, which was a massive part of how we got into supercars, obviously.
• 45:00
  Crompo's been a part of the Peders family for 20 years, and you and I both share our opinions of that great man.
• 45:06
  He's a great fellow, and they're still involved, I think, now, aren't they, through Airtime Media with Chad and what they're doing on the side there.
• 45:14
  A couple of little things there, just around the motorsport connection.
• 45:15
  Firstly, with the ARC this year, too, you have run in conjunction with lots of the rounds, things that bring people to the – it's experiential.
• 45:26
  It helps from a training point of view and all sorts, doesn't it?
• 45:28
  Yeah.
• 45:29
  Again, back to frustrations about rallying is that we – Mark and I, when we sort of decided or when I decided really to come back and do the Australian Championship again –
• 45:39
  And after a bit of a break, seven-year break, we sort of said, why don't we just actually have a crack at doing this commercially?
• 45:44
  Like, we've sort of hidden rallying a little bit through the business.
• 45:48
  It's sort of been a little bit of a rich boy sort of thing that we didn't want to sort of portray.
• 45:55
  And we hadn't really done anything.
• 45:57
  Leveraged it properly.
• 45:58
  Leveraged, that's exactly the word.
• 45:59
  Thank you for that.
• 46:01
  So, you know, and our big thing at the moment is impacts of weight, you know, utes and cars that need to be upgraded because they're heavy.
• 46:12
  You know, we track speed in a car.
• 46:14
  You know, the police will pull you over if your 10K is an hour loader.
• 46:17
  But weights are, from an engineering standpoint, just as important, if potentially more, than speed is in terms of dynamics and safety.
• 46:25
  So, yeah.
• 46:26
  So as part of the ARC campaign, before those weeks, we've been doing impacts of weight days where essentially people from fleet and government and that sort of stuff get an education around driving a car that's fully loaded with standard suspension on it and standard brakes versus our upgrade.
• 46:46
  And it's not about bagging manufacturers, you know, because it's impossible to build a car that's going to have
• 46:53
  zero weight and a tonne.
• 46:55
  So we provide a secondary manufacturer product, a gross vehicle mass upgrade, which is fit for purpose, fit for weight.
• 47:04
  So as part of that day, they drive that.
• 47:06
  And then obviously we give them a spin in the rally car as well as a bit of a Pedda's experience and go through the history of Pedda's with them and that sort of stuff.
• 47:12
  And
• 47:13
  That's been good, that program, hasn't it?
• 47:15
  Yeah, well, you know, I'm probably giving away a few industry secrets here.
• 47:18
  So hopefully none of our competitors are listening.
• 47:21
  But when you look at the growth of PETAs last year, 65% of the growth of PETAs came from the 35 customers that came to those events.
• 47:31
  So, you know, in terms of, you know, return on investment, did they all spend because they came to those events?
• 47:39
  Obviously not, but certainly helped.
• 47:41
  That's great.
• 47:43
  Supercars.
• 47:44
  Little birdie tells me you got to steer one at Calder Park.
• 47:47
  Yes, super.
• 47:49
  Tell me about that.
• 47:49
  It was a bit of a damp day too, I think, was it not?
• 47:51
  Damp?
• 47:53
  Damp, cold, wet, miserable.
• 47:56
  If you can imagine the perfect day at Calder, that was it.
• 47:59
  So, yeah, I had Will Brown and Brodie Kostecki at Erebus at the time, and they drove my Skoda, the one that I – So around the car park area, you'll know that well, the dirt circuit, which ironically we used for Rally Calder 13 years before, 12 years before.
• 48:16
  And those guys were so nervous.
• 48:19
  I've never met two guys that were so nervous to drive a car.
• 48:22
  Really?
• 48:22
  And I'm like, guys, it's just a rally.
• 48:24
  There's nothing to hit.
• 48:25
  Like, there's a couple of poles that, geez, if you hit them, you're not doing too well.
• 48:29
  And Brodie was, you know, very technical.
• 48:33
  Both very, very, obviously, naturally good drivers.
• 48:36
  Handbrake turns were a bit of an issue.
• 48:38
  But Will was sort of more, less technical, more flamboyant.
• 48:42
  He'd done some rallying stuff before.
• 48:44
  It was just so fantastic to get their reaction.
• 48:47
  They had an absolute ball.
• 48:49
  And it was just awesome to give them the experience that we love, right, about rallying.
• 48:54
  And then it gets to my turn to go on the flat track at Calder.
• 48:59
  I did say I reckon it was two degrees.
• 49:02
  It was wet.
• 49:03
  They'd just done a drag race with that stuff that they, the VVTV.
• 49:08
  Yeah, it was a change.
• 49:10
  On to the main straight.
• 49:11
  So Brody goes out there and I'm sitting next to him.
• 49:15
  And I've noticed that I've never sat in a supercar before.
• 49:18
  I'd never been in a supercar before.
• 49:21
  But he's struggling.
• 49:22
  Like, I know when a driver's struggling.
• 49:24
  He's struggling.
• 49:25
  Yeah.
• 49:25
  With the grip.
• 49:26
  He comes in, takes his helmet off, talks to the team and says, that's the slipperiest road I've ever driven on.
• 49:33
  That is insane.
• 49:35
  Good luck.
• 49:35
  Good luck.
• 49:35
  Basically.
• 49:37
  So I get in there and fair to say I didn't set the world on pie.
• 49:41
  I don't think the lap record was any chance, but, geez, it was an experience, you know, like –
• 49:47
  Power breaking, the sound, the noise.
• 49:51
  It's just one of the best experiences of my life.
• 49:55
  That's brilliant.
• 49:55
  Brilliant.
• 49:56
  As you approach, I think it's 2019, it's probably just months out from the pandemic, you and your brother having a little glass of red wine.
• 50:04
  Right.
• 50:05
  He's the older brother.
• 50:06
  You're the younger brother.
• 50:07
  I think I've got that right.
• 50:08
  Correct.
• 50:09
  And he on a whim says, do you want to have a crack at the top job?
• 50:15
  And I think you had a sip of red wine and said, yeah, let's do that.
• 50:19
  Was it as simple as that?
• 50:21
  And then you've been at the reins ever since?
• 50:23
  Yeah, look, I've been incredibly fortunate with Dad and Mark is that, you know, dead set from a professional point of view.
• 50:31
  You know, we used to fight a lot when we were kids and teenagers like brothers do.
• 50:35
  But from a professional point of view, Mark and I have never, ever had a fight.
• 50:40
  We've had disagreements, but those disagreements have never been more than five minutes.
• 50:46
  So we've always had an understanding.
• 50:48
  And Marx, as I said before, Marx, we're yin and yang.
• 50:51
  We do personality tests.
• 50:52
  And if he put us together, we're the perfect human.
• 50:55
  Separate, we're totally different.
• 50:57
  He's a reader.
• 50:58
  He's a mechanic by trade, technical, great with his hands, terrible with detail, terrible with numbers.
• 51:04
  Whereas you're meticulous.
• 51:05
  I'm meticulous.
• 51:07
  So the business had got to the point where that culture-building blokey-blokey thing
• 51:16
  lack of detail thing had got to the end and we were struggling, I think, and Mark and I both realized it at that time, as you said, that over that glass of red, that it just needed something different.
• 51:29
  And I'd finished rallying, I thought, and I was heavily back in the business.
• 51:37
  I'm not sure Mark, I've never asked him, was probably enjoying it as much as he was because I think he could see the pressures.
• 51:43
  that were coming and, you know, all the new age stuff, like spreadsheets, for instance.
• 51:49
  I don't think a brother can say that.
• 51:51
  I know that.
• 51:52
  And, yeah, we made the decision to change.
• 51:55
  He didn't tell me that three months later this thing called...
• 51:58
  It would be a pandemic.
• 51:59
  ...that COVID was coming.
• 52:01
  But I think, you know, it's been a good journey.
• 52:05
  And, look, that...
• 52:06
  That detailed and that look at the business from a professional lens rather than an emotional lens is why we've got Scott Minnelli in the seat.
• 52:14
  I've got an ego, but I'm also very, very practical in that.
• 52:19
  I think the next step for Petters is for Mark and I and Caroline and Dad to take a step back and work on the culture and the opportunities from afar and have someone that's skilled.
• 52:32
  uh, someone is that, that is the Sebastian Lope of, of franchising in Australia to go in there and, and, and, and do a better job than, than I've been able to do.
• 52:39
  Nice.
• 52:40
  The, the, um, pretty, pretty big moment for you though.
• 52:43
  And, in, you know, but it doesn't enable you by the sounds of the both of you to kind of hit the road again.
• 52:48
  Is that what's going to do?
• 52:49
  Yeah.
• 52:49
  We haven't worked out what our, what our day is going to look like.
• 52:52
  Uh, I might have it looking for a job for us to you.
• 52:54
  If you, if you, uh, if this, if this rates, it's, you know, it'll be good.
• 52:58
  It
• 53:00
  Yeah, but the theory is that when you're involved in the business, when you're ingrained in it, and when you're in the weeds, you don't get to see the opportunities.
• 53:09
  You don't get the opportunity to open your eyes and see the blue sky.
• 53:14
  And Scott, you've got a fresh set of goals, hasn't it?
• 53:16
  Yeah, and that's why big businesses have boards.
• 53:19
  They have that overarching around compliance and opportunity and
• 53:23
  governance and they have the people running the business and doing the stuff in the weeds so hopefully you know this this marks the the next step of peders and in in being a powerhouse in the world great stuff you talked about the comeback before i can't remember the exact story you'll have to tell tell me the details was it something around a chance to drive one of the subarus for dino or something what transpires here
• 53:47
  And why?
• 53:48
  I'm not sure what was first.
• 53:50
  I think first was...
• 53:54
  Yeah.
• 53:56
  I think it, I think this one might've been ego actually.
• 53:58
  I think I was watching an event and, and I was getting a little bit frustrated with, with the Harry and Lewis show and, and the fact that no one else could seem to get up with him.
• 54:07
  Quinny would get close and that sort of stuff.
• 54:09
  And, and I just said, do you reckon I've still got it?
• 54:12
  And I rang Lane and I think he had a, my old, um, uh, Skoda, wasn't my old car, but it was the car that I drove in 16.
• 54:20
  And,
• 54:22
  And I thought, well, I'll just give it a shot.
• 54:23
  I'll just see whether I've still got it.
• 54:25
  It's been seven years and that sort of stuff.
• 54:28
  Spoke to Caroline.
• 54:29
  She said, again, no, but yes.
• 54:33
  And only if you've got a good co-driver.
• 54:35
  So I thought, oh, who's out there that's a good co-driver?
• 54:38
  Westo wasn't interested.
• 54:40
  He's making too much money as a dentist.
• 54:42
  Dale was off doing his stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 54:45
  Oh, what about Glenn McNeil?
• 54:47
  So I ran GMAC.
• 54:49
  And he said, no.
• 54:50
  He said, no, I'm interested.
• 54:51
  I'm starting up this business.
• 54:52
  I'm too busy.
• 54:53
  Power play business.
• 54:54
  Rah, rah, rah.
• 54:57
  And I said, mate, look, I don't want to put any pressure on you, but if you say no, I'm not doing it because I think there's only a few people that my wife would trust to put in the car and you're one of them.
• 55:11
  So I finally convinced him.
• 55:14
  And I still think to the day, I still think even sort of in the first few days of that event, I don't think he was that sure.
• 55:22
  About eight seconds into the first stage is when I reckon he changed his mind and thought, this is pretty cool.
• 55:29
  Yeah, and then we ended up winning the first stage.
• 55:30
  So again, when you think back to the Finland and the Renault with the Canberra thing, we did that again.
• 55:37
  Unfortunately, second stage, we ran off the road into a bank.
• 55:42
  in, again, a slippery condition and didn't finish rally.
• 55:44
  But it's fair to say that that bug was back.
• 55:49
  And then, as you said, I got a great opportunity with Dino to test and to develop the Subaru Challenge cars.
• 55:58
  Which, when you say to someone that's driven probably the best rally cars in the world, come and drive a standard...
• 56:08
  Literally.
• 56:08
  Literally.
• 56:10
  Rally car with suspension, brake pads, and tires.
• 56:14
  It doesn't sound that interesting, but again, my personality, competitive, detail, perfectionistic.
• 56:19
  I absolutely loved it.
• 56:20
  In fact, I was saying to GMAC the other day, if I rated the most enjoyable rallies of my life, I reckon Canberra in the Subaru Challenge car would...
• 56:32
  uh, would, would right up there because we were beating people that we shouldn't beat in production and all that.
• 56:36
  So, and we were having an absolute ball and also I was helping him out.
• 56:39
  I was helping a mate out, you know, Dean's been a big part of my life and, and he's a great, great fellow.
• 56:43
  And I, I could see what he wanted to do.
• 56:45
  He's been great commercially.
• 56:46
  He's just put his heart and soul into the sport.
• 56:48
  So I wanted to help out and, and I loved it.
• 56:50
  And then, you know, geez, the bug's back and I've got to go and spend a million dollars on rallying again.
• 56:57
  G-Max says you have good conversations between the recce, between stages and stuff.
• 57:01
  And some of that has helped him too, I think, on the Powerplay side.
• 57:03
  I think you've shared a bit of business combos, haven't you?
• 57:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 57:06
  I think I'll end up, I think, if you'll have me on the Powerplay board.
• 57:11
  That's an unbelievable business.
• 57:13
  He's done super well there.
• 57:14
  Him and Jeff David are just on a winner there.
• 57:19
  So it's a scalable business.
• 57:20
  It's potentially a franchise business.
• 57:23
  It's just a money-making machine.
• 57:27
  But you know what?
• 57:28
  It's a business that's based on passion.
• 57:30
  And that's why I love it is that, you know, GMAC had the opportunity and was backed by Jeff.
• 57:35
  And Jeff said, you know, stop being lazy and, you know, stop being a co-driver.
• 57:40
  You can't be that for the rest of your life.
• 57:41
  What are you going to do?
• 57:41
  Grow up.
• 57:43
  So he said, Jeff said, well, what do you want to do?
• 57:45
  And he goes, what do you love?
• 57:46
  He goes, I've only ever loved motorsport.
• 57:48
  And he goes, well, go and do something, go and open a business that's involved with motorsport.
• 57:51
  What a great chat.
• 57:53
  So he did that.
• 57:54
  And that's why I love it, because those conversations that we're having, it's not about money and profit and how do I make the business better?
• 58:04
  It's how do I take my passion into that business and make it better?
• 58:08
  And that's why I think, you know, that's the Petters thing.
• 58:10
  We've never wanted to be the biggest business.
• 58:12
  We don't want to be Bill Stein or Persons or Repco or all that sort of stuff, but, geez, we want to be the best at what we do.
• 58:18
  Excellent.
• 58:19
  They tell me you're a fiend for an ice cream between stages or events.
• 58:22
  Is this true?
• 58:25
  I've got some issues.
• 58:26
  Do you?
• 58:28
  And that's one of them.
• 58:29
  That's one of them.
• 58:30
  Yeah, I do love ice cream.
• 58:31
  Yeah.
• 58:32
  In fact, if you go into an ice cream shop and see an 80-year-old bloke one day that looks a little bit like Scott Petter, it probably is.
• 58:41
  Okay.
• 58:42
  How are you framing the whole return to the sport?
• 58:46
  Because it's Harry Lewis, you know, great cars, competitive phase for those guys.
• 58:52
  It's awesome to think that we've been able to attract a Hayden Patton to come and play in our backyard this year and all that sort of stuff.
• 58:57
  You're a competitive human being.
• 58:59
  You detailed that at the beginning of the chat today.
• 59:01
  How, I mean...
• 59:04
  be fair in yourself, not hard on yourself.
• 59:06
  Give yourself a little report card.
• 59:07
  How are you going?
• 59:07
  For this year?
• 59:08
  Just generally.
• 59:09
  Again, probably a follow-on for my career.
• 59:11
  Pace good.
• 59:12
  I've probably fallen back into the habits that I spoke about in 2015 of putting a little bit of some pressure on myself.
• 59:22
  One car sponsors arguably the best car, 49 years old, racing against...
• 59:31
  two guys, particularly Harry and Hayden and Lewis is not that far behind from a pace point of view, but two guys that probably would step into the top five or ten in our Rally 2 plus category if that ever happened across the world.
• 59:44
  So probably need to do the Finland thing again and
• 59:47
  and enjoy myself a little bit more and, and recognize that it's okay that to come third or fourth.
• 59:52
  Um, that's good.
• 59:53
  You say that, um, it's very hard to, to tell myself that, but I'm, I'm probably getting to the point now where I'm running out of years and I don't want to have those, those regrets.
• 1:00:03
  Um, so a bit of a, a bit of a scoop here is that obviously after the Queensland accident, we're going to miss two rallies.
• 1:00:09
  Um, and that's really, you know, uh, both the physical and mental recuperation and also the car cop, a little bit of a hiding and
• 1:00:19
  A bit of a mission in all that, getting parts and stuff and what have you.
• 1:00:22
  It is.
• 1:00:23
  And there's one particular thing that's going to take a little bit more time than anticipated, which is minor, but unfortunately the homologation rules are what it is.
• 1:00:33
  But the brakes really, for me to go, stop being an idiot, Scott, stop, just smell the roses.
• 1:00:41
  And unfortunately I've got a similarly competitive co-driver with me.
• 1:00:45
  but we've had a discussion and we're going to go to Tassie with the intent of having the best time that we can possibly have and just see what happens from there.
• 1:00:54
  And I probably need to be competitive, be perfectionistic, but also swallow my ego a little bit and recognize that
• 1:01:02
  I'm 49.
• 1:01:03
  And maybe Hayden Padden and maybe Harry Bates are better than me.
• 1:01:11
  And that's hard to say.
• 1:01:13
  I don't think that's the case, but maybe that is.
• 1:01:16
  And I just need to recognize that maybe I've only got five years of driving or two years or one year or 10 years, but I don't want to get to the end of that and regret the experiences that I've been able to get.
• 1:01:26
  Beautiful.
• 1:01:26
  I won't get into it.
• 1:01:28
  He gave me a beautiful...
• 1:01:30
  kind of summary around that about, you know, you being your harshest critic and maybe, maybe not realizing how good you are.
• 1:01:39
  Maybe underestimating how much you literally love it, mate, you know, and you've just sort of summed it up there then.
• 1:01:45
  Yeah, I do love it.
• 1:01:47
  But interestingly, and Neil Bates and I have had this conversation, I don't love the driving.
• 1:01:55
  I love the competition.
• 1:01:57
  I love the competition.
• 1:01:58
  I love winning.
• 1:01:59
  I love that feeling.
• 1:02:01
  the best feeling in a rally car, apart from standing on a podium spraying champagne, is that feeling between the finish board and the control.
• 1:02:09
  When you know, you know that you've won that stage.
• 1:02:12
  You know that no one in the world is going to beat you.
• 1:02:15
  Now that, that, that sometimes bites you in, when you go to the world championship and, and, and someone has beaten you.
• 1:02:21
  But I reckon 99 times out of a hundred, I, I, I know, you know, you just know, you just, you've got to the end of that stage and you're like, just for that small moment in time,
• 1:02:31
  you are unbelievably good, you know, and then when you even break that down, that, that one, that one crest, that one corner where, you know, from a perfectionistic point of view, where you, you've imagined how you're going to go in there and you've planned how you're going to go in there.
• 1:02:47
  And that's obviously intensive seconds and hundreds of seconds.
• 1:02:50
  And then it plays out.
• 1:02:51
  It plays out.
• 1:02:52
  It doesn't happen very often.
• 1:02:53
  It's like golf.
• 1:02:55
  I play golf.
• 1:02:55
  I hate golf.
• 1:02:57
  Ironically, I play sports between trees, the perfectionistic and frustrating and annoying.
• 1:03:04
  It's the same thing.
• 1:03:06
  You can hit 100 terrible shots, but you can hit that one, and that one brings you back.
• 1:03:11
  And it's the same with rallying.
• 1:03:12
  It's that one corner, one stage.
• 1:03:15
  But for me, it's not about the driving.
• 1:03:17
  I don't get...
• 1:03:19
  overly the enjoyment.
• 1:03:20
  I don't get the, the bars out of the adrenaline.
• 1:03:23
  I get the bars out of that, that chasing perfection and, and ultimately going head to head with someone and beating them.
• 1:03:32
  Nice.
• 1:03:33
  Nice.
• 1:03:33
  I reckon we finished it there, mate.
• 1:03:35
  That's been an absolutely beautiful chat.
• 1:03:37
  Thank you.
• 1:03:38
  And I hope, I hope,
• 1:03:39
  when we see you in Burnie with that machine all ready to rock, that you do exactly what you just talked about.
• 1:03:46
  Just go and enjoy it for the purity, the pure love that you have for it.
• 1:03:51
  And you still, you know, across all of those eras, the different classes of cars, the great things that you've shown along the way, there's not many, I reckon, globally that could talk at your age, that they could still be delivering the same fashion that you've done.
• 1:04:05
  And congratulations on the, not just the title,
• 1:04:08
  But the never-ending fascination, passion that you have for the sport and for the ARC, well done.
• 1:04:16
  Thanks very much, Rusty.
• 1:04:17
  I really appreciate it.
• 1:04:25
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:04:29
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 1:04:34
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