Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jim Richards (Part 2)

Transcript

Jim Richards (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:20
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with touring car racing legend Jim Richards.
• 0:26
  If you've arrived here and somehow missed part one, do yourself a favour, as Molly Meldrum would say, and give it a listen.
• 0:34
  How religious beliefs for another competitor actually opened the door to a drive in New Zealand for him.
• 0:41
  A signature car in those early years.
• 0:43
  How a deal was stitched together to buy it and build it.
• 0:48
  The challenges of racing at Bathurst for the first time.
• 0:51
  Memories of competing against household names on this side of the ditch.
• 0:56
  Doing business with Bob Jane and a whole lot more.
• 1:00
  We begin part two by winding the clock back to his first dealings and recollections of the king, Peter Brock.
• 1:11
  The first meeting I had with Brockie, apart from walking around the pit area, because the touring cars and sports sedans were never on the same program.
• 1:18
  Sports sedans had their own...
• 1:19
  They were huge too.
• 1:20
  A bit like the Shannon's... Series, yeah.
• 1:23
  ...where than the VR supercar.
• 1:26
  But sometimes you did.
• 1:28
  And I only knew Brockie from sort of nodding, because I wasn't driving touring cars, and they probably didn't have an interest in sports sedans.
• 1:34
  But sports sedans were...
• 1:36
  Big in the old days.
• 1:40
  And apart from nodding to them, but anyway, we both got invited, not together, but just separately, to go to Perth.
• 1:48
  And I was to race with the Falcon, a guy with the Falcon two-door, in the 300-kilometre race that they used to have there.
• 1:55
  And Brockie was going over to race with Wayne Negus.
• 1:58
  in a Toronto, Holton did him Toronto.
• 2:01
  And we got over there and we did the race.
• 2:03
  I still hadn't had much to do with him because he was up there and we were down here and battled away.
• 2:08
  And on that particular weekend, the pilots went on strike.
• 2:15
  This is the big run across the Nullarbor, isn't it?
• 2:20
  Yeah, exactly.
• 2:22
  So we had to get back to...
• 2:24
  Melbourne, because he had something to do the following weekend, and I had to go to Brisbane to race the Mustang.
• 2:30
  You garnered a Ford, didn't you, two of all things?
• 2:32
  He was in a hold, but you garnered a Ford.
• 2:33
  No, exactly.
• 2:34
  One of the officials there knew a Ford dealer that would on sell a car over there.
• 2:39
  She said, take this.
• 2:41
  An XB Ford or six-cylinder.
• 2:44
  And at the time, Bev had Jamie as a baby.
• 2:50
  She was in the back seat when Jamie was set up there.
• 2:54
  And we got the XB forward and we introduced ourselves then.
• 2:58
  Obviously then we chatted away and we got to know each other a bit better.
• 3:02
  But we drove non-stop apart from filling with petrol.
• 3:07
  And when Brock got tired, I'd drive.
• 3:09
  When I got tired, he'd drive.
• 3:10
  And we just filled up petrol.
• 3:12
  And we got over to Melbourne.
• 3:15
  And then I had to drive to Brisbane.
• 3:17
  Oh!
• 3:18
  Yeah.
• 3:19
  Was the run to the...
• 3:21
  statute of limitations has probably passed on this now, but the run to Melbourne was pretty handy time-wise, wasn't it?
• 3:27
  Oh, hell yeah.
• 3:29
  Brockie was actually scary.
• 3:32
  I mean, there were so many kangaroos on the road and that, and the middle of the Nullarbor was sort of, not loose metal, but it was sort of dirt, and there was kangaroos everywhere, and he was going, shoo, past them.
• 3:43
  You know, I was like, crap, bugger me, we're going to have a run at one of these.
• 3:47
  Anyway, we didn't, we missed them all.
• 3:49
  And...
• 3:51
  I didn't even bother counting out how long it took.
• 3:55
  But, you know, it was good memories, good memories.
• 3:58
  Great memories.
• 3:58
  I mean, you clearly formed, you know, a good relationship and things like that through that.
• 4:03
  What was the A9X like to drive?
• 4:08
  And did it have any quirks?
• 4:10
  I mean, it was such an amazing car and one that people remember fondly.
• 4:13
  But did it have any little quirks?
• 4:15
  No, not really.
• 4:16
  I mean, the first year up there in 78...
• 4:20
  I think I did six laps of practice and that's all.
• 4:23
  Shapo said, that's enough, you're qualified now for the race.
• 4:25
  That's it.
• 4:26
  And Brockie would have only done 12, 15 laps in the car.
• 4:31
  They polished the car and they cleaned all the shiny aluminium up and checked it over.
• 4:39
  But to drive, I'd only been used to sports sedans, basically, and a few touring cars, but they were way ahead with anything that I'd driven before.
• 4:47
  They were really handled good, went good, stopped good, did everything fine.
• 4:52
  Amazing.
• 4:53
  Amazing car.
• 4:54
  Did you ever, have you either come across or maybe even you witnessed someone else do it, any kind of secret squirrel stuff?
• 5:02
  Did someone don a helmet to cover for someone else to qualify for a race or anything along those lines back in those days?
• 5:11
  No, not that I know of, but I'm sure Scafie won't mind me telling.
• 5:16
  When he drove with a guy, a gazelle at Bathurst, right, and the guy was just not on the pace, and they wanted to move up the grid a little bit, Scafie put his helmet on and went out and did a practice session.
• 5:27
  Awesome, awesome.
• 5:30
  I didn't know Scafie then, but that's the stories that I hear back from Scafie.
• 5:34
  I love it.
• 5:34
  There's another great one I mean, he talks about you...
• 5:40
  teaching him so many great things in touring car racing as he was coming up as a young bloke.
• 5:45
  Was that just you by nature?
• 5:47
  Was it a conscious thing that you wanted to do or maybe Fredo even asked you to do to help this young bloke out and take the next step?
• 5:54
  No, no, no.
• 5:54
  He was in our team and I was a driver who had a lot more experience.
• 5:59
  And if every company says, geez, you're flying through that turn there, I'd just, you know, and I'd say, well, yeah, well, you know, how'd you do it?
• 6:08
  just keep my foot flat and turn around the corner.
• 6:11
  That's an example of what we would say.
• 6:13
  Because we didn't have a lot of data logging systems then.
• 6:17
  I mean, the first data logging system that I'd seen was, oh, they had it in the GDR.
• 6:27
  Like a stack dash or something or other?
• 6:28
  Yes, like a stack dash, but you could download different things.
• 6:34
  I didn't used to worry about it, but Scafie would pour over it, you know, and I would take it because I just didn't understand them.
• 6:42
  And in my era, if you want it to go faster, you try it harder.
• 6:46
  And so Scafie would be pouring over all the corner speeds and the data and everything.
• 6:53
  I would say, what are you doing all that for?
• 6:55
  He says, well, we're finding out where I'm slow and where I'm fast.
• 6:59
  So when you've done all that and you've got, you'll be a slap,
• 7:03
  print it off and let me have a look at it.
• 7:06
  And so Scafie, him and his engineer, would get his car done and then the quickest lap he'd done, then print it off and let me have a look at it.
• 7:13
  And then I said, well, print my lap off and I can see where I'm slow or where I'm faster or whatever.
• 7:19
  And I said, because there's no sense in blasting around the track knowing you're slow on, say, turn two.
• 7:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:26
  but wearing the car out for the rest of the lap when you're faster or as fast in that position.
• 7:32
  So that's what we did.
• 7:33
  He'd print out his lap and my lap and we'd say, shit, you're faster than me there and you're not as quick here and this and that.
• 7:40
  And we'd have a good time talking about it because it was just, how the hell did you get around that fast?
• 7:46
  Hey, he tells, he's shared it on the podcast, and it's one that many fans will have heard before if they've been to a dinner or whatever.
• 7:54
  Unfortunately, he had that role at Adelaide one year, and Freddo's radioing you about where's his car, what state's the car in, et cetera, et cetera, and you were kind of required to fire back a report to him.
• 8:08
  This is quite funny, and you used an analogy to describe it, didn't you?
• 8:12
  The first time we ever drove the HR 31 in 89, just to have a drive with the car to see what it was like, excuse me, got a frog in my throat, was at Winton.
• 8:25
  And Scafie went out and checked the car out, make sure everything was pointing in the right direction.
• 8:30
  And they came in, yep, no problem, she's all good.
• 8:32
  So I hopped in and had a run, and all of a sudden, I'd done about a lap or so, all of a sudden, this thing on the stacked dash started flashing.
• 8:43
  And I thought, what the hell is going on here?
• 8:47
  And anyway, so I slowed right down and had a look, and it was flashing.
• 8:51
  And I came in and said to Fred, listen, the light's flashing.
• 8:55
  I haven't sort of been able to work it out because I'm too busy looking at the road.
• 8:58
  But he said, oh, yeah, I didn't tell you.
• 9:01
  The boys were having a bit of a laugh.
• 9:03
  He said, when you join the team, if you lock a brake or dent the car, yo, the boys are slab.
• 9:12
  And on the flashing light, in the light was slab, slab, slab.
• 9:21
  So if you locked a wheel up, you know, they'd say, I was a slab.
• 9:27
  But when we went to Adelaide, Scafie had a brand new car.
• 9:32
  I had my car, Scafie had the next car that was built.
• 9:39
  And we just got out for practice and it was the first lap of practice.
• 9:46
  Anyway, I'd gone out first and gone around the track.
• 9:49
  And next minute, well, you know, like when I was halfway around the track, Fred said, oh, Scafie said I had a bit of an off.
• 9:56
  He said, next time you go around, just check how it is and give us a report back.
• 10:03
  And so I went around and, oh my god, the bloody thing was upside down.
• 10:08
  Scafie was, you know, like, he wasn't hurt, but he was, you know,
• 10:13
  bruised and battered all over.
• 10:15
  And anyway, we got past the incident and I pressed the button and said to Fred, Jesus, Fred, it doesn't look good.
• 10:24
  Fred said, how many slabs would he owe me?
• 10:27
  And I said, forget about the slabs, he owes you a small bottle shop.
• 10:33
  Fantastic.
• 10:42
  If you listened to part 1, you'll know I asked about tips for preheating the car during the colder months.
• 10:49
  What about when it's hot though?
• 10:50
  Anything to keep the car a little cooler?
• 10:53
  Let me know.
• 10:55
  You've tipped us off to a couple of cars and we're surrounded by them here.
• 10:59
  Firstly, HR31.
• 11:01
  Yeah.
• 11:02
  Tell us about that car and restoring it, acquiring it back.
• 11:06
  And, you know, most fans might think of R32 and Godzilla and that cult status car.
• 11:15
  This is a very cool machine, Jimmy, and an important part of history as well.
• 11:23
  Well, of course, I never owned any of the cars.
• 11:25
  Fred owned them and BMW owned theirs and that.
• 11:30
  But when I finished driving it, just when I first drove that car in 89, it was the best car I'd driven.
• 11:36
  Wow.
• 11:36
  It was fantastic.
• 11:38
  And I'd driven the M3s and stuff, but they were a little bit underpowered.
• 11:41
  But on some tracks, they were fantastic, you know.
• 11:42
  Like an Amaru or something like that.
• 11:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 11:45
  But the HR31 was fantastic.
• 11:47
  It had twice the power, it seemed, as the M3 had.
• 11:50
  And it seemed to break as good, it cornered as good, did everything brilliantly.
• 11:54
  So anyway, when we moved on to GDR, of course, the HR31s were sort of sold off or retired.
• 12:00
  But Fred had a collection of cars, a huge collection of cars that Gibson's had built and ran.
• 12:06
  And that mine was obviously, the one that I drove was one of them.
• 12:10
  And it was built from a lightweight shell.
• 12:14
  And so I think it was 40 kilos lighter in the shell because of the way that they'd built it.
• 12:19
  And so it was a car worth keeping.
• 12:23
  So he kept it and then he eventually sold the collection to a guy who was never to actually break the collection up.
• 12:31
  And it got to the stage where he sort of had to break it up because he had nowhere to put all the cars and this and that and that and that.
• 12:37
  And so a friend of his bought the car off him.
• 12:39
  He, Terry Ashwood, he raced the car probably for three or four races.
• 12:45
  Mm-hm.
• 12:46
  And then he bought the GTR.
• 12:48
  So then he sold the HR 31 to a friend of his.
• 12:53
  And he didn't ever race it because he was a property developer.
• 12:58
  And I think he had a bit of a hard time business-wise.
• 13:01
  And so it was just in the corner of his workshop.
• 13:05
  And I found out where it was, through Terry, and rang him and offered him a price for it.
• 13:14
  And we bartered for a while, and then he said, yeah, OK, no problem.
• 13:18
  So Faye and I hopped on the trailer on the back and drove up to Gosford and bought it off him.
• 13:25
  But it's never been restored.
• 13:27
  OK.
• 13:27
  It may have been touched up a little bit, but it's as it raced.
• 13:31
  So in the last race that I drove it in was
• 13:36
  Malala, 80, Malala 90, yeah, we were in the championship in 90.
• 13:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:42
  Yeah.
• 13:43
  Malala.
• 13:43
  And then I drive the GDR.
• 13:46
  So that car then, it did all the touring car championship, basically, but it didn't go to Bathurst.
• 13:52
  OK. Because the GDRs then were coming on.
• 13:56
  Yeah.
• 13:57
  So anyway, so I had the car and it didn't need restoring.
• 14:01
  And it's just sitting there in the workshop now as I bought it.
• 14:06
  No modifications, none exactly as it was when it raced.
• 14:09
  Awesome.
• 14:10
  The people in that operation then, I mean, it was such a professionally run outfit, some very great, very good minds behind the scenes as well.
• 14:19
  you know, either this iteration or Godzilla for that matter, did they react to things that Australia built and were Japan impressed by what you guys were doing here?
• 14:31
  Well, the story goes with Fred that he wanted to take the GDR to Japan with Scafee to run it with a Japanese guy.
• 14:41
  And the head of motorsport in Japan sort of got wind of that Fred wanted to come over and this and that and said just quietly to Fred one day, whether it was on the phone or in a letter or I don't know, Mr Gibson, Fred, you look after Australia, we look after Japan.
• 15:01
  We would rather you just left your car at home.
• 15:06
  We're also surrounded by a BMW here, and there's a great BMW chapter for you.
• 15:11
  Before we get to the one here, you and I a few years ago, you were in New Zealand.
• 15:17
  Am I right, if memory serves, I think Pete Sturgeon has the 635 CSI, and you've been reunited with that car in a couple of places, Silverstone as well, I think, haven't you?
• 15:26
  No, exactly.
• 15:27
  The car was converted back from a Group C car, which I drove, and it had the three-and-a-half-litre four-valve engine in it.
• 15:36
  But it started life as a Group C car.
• 15:41
  Now, when the Group C dropped out and just Group A came in, Fred got...
• 15:45
  Sorry.
• 15:47
  Frank Gardner.
• 15:47
  Frank Gardner.
• 15:48
  Converted the Group C car to a Group A car and then sold it.
• 15:54
  And it was sold to, I think, Jim Keough, I think, or something.
• 15:57
  Anyway, different guys owned it in the time.
• 16:00
  And then it was painted back to the colours of the JPS car as it was.
• 16:04
  But no one really knew that it was the Group C car made into a Group A car.
• 16:09
  Wow.
• 16:10
  And the only way you could tell basically was really it still had a hole in the roof to bolt the camera on, the periscope camera.
• 16:18
  Okay.
• 16:19
  So anyway, so Pete rang me and it was the Group A car when Pete bought it.
• 16:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:28
  He ran me.
• 16:29
  I didn't know him from a bar of soap.
• 16:32
  I knew he was involved in motorsport because of the way he was talking.
• 16:35
  And he said, oh, Pete Sturgeon here, Jim.
• 16:38
  I own the BMW you used to race.
• 16:41
  I said, oh, great.
• 16:42
  No problem.
• 16:43
  How's it going?
• 16:43
  He said, oh, no, all good, he said.
• 16:45
  But I want to know if you'll come back and race it for me.
• 16:49
  In the Wellington, no, not the Wellington, in the...
• 16:53
  Superston Classic, wasn't it?
• 16:54
  No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 16:55
  It was Tony's Circuit.
• 16:57
  Oh, Hampton Downs.
• 16:58
  Hampton Downs, yeah.
• 17:00
  And I sort of said, I didn't really know.
• 17:02
  And, oh, yeah, okay, okay.
• 17:05
  He said, all right, we'll organise it.
• 17:07
  I'll get a ticket ready for you and da-da-da.
• 17:09
  So I went over and drove it at Hampton Downs.
• 17:13
  And it went fantastic, really good.
• 17:15
  And we won a race in it, this and that.
• 17:18
  And while we were over there, it was the meeting that they celebrate BMWs.
• 17:23
  They sort of had a celebration of something or someone each year.
• 17:27
  Yep.
• 17:28
  And there was a lot of BMWs there.
• 17:29
  And Pip Barker, who actually built the Group C car, bearing in mind this was now Group A.
• 17:34
  Yes.
• 17:34
  Right?
• 17:35
  He came over as well just to see things that were happening and everything, and there was a few BMWs around that he was looking after.
• 17:42
  And he walked up and said, you know, of course, I knew him well.
• 17:44
  He said, Pip, how are you going, mate?
• 17:47
  Good, good.
• 17:48
  He said, which is this car?
• 17:50
  And I said, well, I'm not sure.
• 17:54
  I think it could be the Group C car, I don't know.
• 17:58
  He said, I'll have a look.
• 18:00
  Had a look around it, a hole in the roof.
• 18:02
  He said, this is the Group C car, converted back to Group A, which we did when Group C stopped.
• 18:08
  Amazing.
• 18:08
  And so Pete said, what were we talking about?
• 18:11
  And I said, this is actually the Group C car, which was built to run in Group C with a different engine and big wider wheels.
• 18:24
  And Pip said, yeah, oh, geez, it'd be great one day to convert it back to the Group C car.
• 18:29
  And Pete said, you know, this may have taken a day or two over a weekend.
• 18:33
  And what would it cost to convert it back?
• 18:36
  He said, oh, I don't know.
• 18:38
  It'd probably cost you a fair bit.
• 18:40
  He says, I'm keen to do it.
• 18:42
  Terrific.
• 18:43
  And he said, well, it'll be only 635 with a four-wheel motor.
• 18:47
  that raced in Group C in the world.
• 18:50
  And it was just the fact, so he rebuilt the car back to Group C, cut the mudguards out again, put the flares on, and it was absolutely magic.
• 18:57
  It was just fantastic.
• 18:58
  And, of course, it was better to drive now because it had a lot, lot better tyres.
• 19:04
  We were on cross-flow tyres when this car now could run radial.
• 19:07
  And it was just a brilliant car.
• 19:09
  Yeah, really, really good.
• 19:11
  I love the way you identified it too and then encouraged him to put it back to that spec.
• 19:15
  That's awesome.
• 19:17
  Beside us is a magic little M3.
• 19:22
  People will fondly remember that car too.
• 19:24
  Just if you can, what does it rev to?
• 19:28
  What did you have to do?
• 19:29
  I mean, it was great at little places, I guess, like an Amaru Park and so on.
• 19:33
  But you could hustle them, couldn't you?
• 19:34
  Oh, no, certainly.
• 19:35
  I mean, in the M3, I think, like Amaru Park, for instance, in those days, it was a fantastic little track, which is not there now.
• 19:44
  But the touring car race for the championship was only one race, 75 laps.
• 19:51
  And so no cool suits, no nothing, because you had to ride the thing for 75 laps by yourself.
• 19:58
  It was light on tyres, it didn't have a lot of torque, it had lots of, well not lots of power, but it had all its powers up top.
• 20:06
  And it was just like a little go-kart.
• 20:08
  It was just brilliant.
• 20:10
  It had great grip.
• 20:11
  It didn't have a lot of power, but it made up for it under braking and the turns.
• 20:15
  And, of course, I drove the M3 before I drove the HR31.
• 20:20
  And so I compared the HR31 with the BMW, and it was just a bigger and better thing.
• 20:26
  But the M3 was brilliant.
• 20:27
  And during that year, I drove three cars in the championship because the...
• 20:38
  Frank had an order to sell the cars by John Fairhall, New Zealand BMW agent, mad motor racing fan, for Trevor Crowe, a Kiwi racing driver, he's a really good driver, for him to drive.
• 20:52
  So he bought the 635 off Frank and eventually he wanted an M3 to compete in the Australian Series and then take it back to New Zealand.
• 21:03
  And Frank said, well, yeah, I can do that.
• 21:06
  But he said, we might have to use it in a couple of races.
• 21:09
  He said, that's all right, because he said, I want Jim to test it anyway to make sure it's all tickety-boo and everything.
• 21:16
  So we actually, the cars were built in Sydney, because Frank did all he could to prove that he could build a better car than BMW.
• 21:28
  So what he did was he ordered a body shell from BMW Motorsport.
• 21:33
  and then looked at the body shell and thought, we can do it for half the cost.
• 21:38
  So then he got three, two, five BMW bodies, which were a lot less money anyway, and converted them to M3.
• 21:46
  But that car, we started the season on, we only ran two or three meetings in that car.
• 21:52
  Then it was sold to John Fairhill, Trevor Crowe, and I got a brand new car.
• 21:57
  But that car there had the BMW factory chassis number on it,
• 22:02
  And it's the only one in the country virtually that's got that chest in it because it was built by BMW in Germany.
• 22:08
  Can you recall the first time you drove Godzilla, where you were, your first reaction, and, you know, we saw it as this sort of state-of-the-art step up in some respects, but was it massively different as a race car to you or did it not feel that way?
• 22:22
  Well, compared to the HR31,
• 22:25
  It felt like it had miles more power, which it did, but it was like 300 kilos heavier than the HR31.
• 22:33
  So when I first drove it, jeez, this has got some... And the grip that it had, coming out of a corner, just nail your foot, and just drive out of the corner without any wheel spin.
• 22:42
  And the first time I drove it was... Wanneroo.
• 22:47
  The first time I drove it, I was over there for the race, drove it in practice, that's the first time, and then drove it in the race.
• 22:54
  But it had the brake problems and gearbox dramas because it had an old five-speed gearbox in it.
• 23:01
  Nismo didn't have a six-speed for it.
• 23:04
  And so the gear change was all terrible and the ratios were bad.
• 23:08
  It wasn't that nice to drive, but it was all right.
• 23:11
  By Orrin Park, the last round of the championship,
• 23:14
  Scafie and the boys had fixed it all up, so it was really, really good.
• 23:17
  And then it felt, you know, I mean, I enjoyed driving the HR31 more than the Godzilla.
• 23:22
  Okay.
• 23:23
  Because with Godzilla, you were going to win.
• 23:27
  Someone in the GDR was going to win, and it was normally us.
• 23:30
  And that wasn't as much fun as driving the HR31 and trying to beat Dick Johnson in a Sierra, because we were way, way underdogs.
• 23:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:39
  So yeah, but the GDO was fantastic, no problem.
• 23:42
  But I liked that little calf better.
• 23:45
  The satisfaction of... Yeah, less horsepower than the Searers and the Commodores.
• 23:49
  You know, it was just good fun.
• 23:52
  Yeah.
• 23:53
  Jimmy, you and I have talked about it in different media places before, it's been well covered.
• 23:57
  I was a, you know, younger bloke under the podium in 92 that year and I sort of had the blinkers off
• 24:04
  observe the whip up in tension, if you like, among the fans underneath the podium.
• 24:11
  How much did that energy at the time, because it seems so out of character for you, and did the impact, that energy from the crowd, the negativity from the crowd, and how much did you then realise the moment that it happened, the impact that you'd had?
• 24:29
  No, I didn't realise any impact at all.
• 24:31
  I just, you know, we got out on the dais, basically, there was beer cans and bottles being thrown, but not all the time at us because I think Neil Crompton... Crompton did the bird, I think.
• 24:41
  It was third, so he was first out on the dais.
• 24:44
  And then there was Dick, and of course he built it all up, and then there was us, and we got fired.
• 24:48
  There wasn't a lot.
• 24:49
  There was quite a few, but nothing major.
• 24:51
  Did Scafie want to put beer cans in the pockets or something?
• 24:54
  Yeah, we had the leather jackets that we won in the Top Gun shootout.
• 24:59
  Yeah.
• 24:59
  And he was loading the pockets up, and I said, no, forget it.
• 25:02
  We'll just go out there, we'll say hello, and we'll be back drinking a beer in half an hour, in a few minutes.
• 25:08
  So anyway, so he did.
• 25:09
  And as we got out, Jesus, he was dodging a can or two.
• 25:13
  And then when we got to say, the crowd were yelling the whole time.
• 25:17
  They didn't quieten down once for anyone to talk.
• 25:19
  Yeah.
• 25:21
  They might have quietened down when Dick spoke.
• 25:23
  But he revved them up even harder.
• 25:24
  Yeah.
• 25:25
  I've been beaten by a car that wasn't going, that broke down, that crashed.
• 25:29
  How can that happen?
• 25:30
  Anyway.
• 25:32
  A few years later, the same thing happened to him.
• 25:35
  No, earlier, earlier in the Falcon.
• 25:39
  So I just, you know, like I was trying to talk and you can't hear what you're saying.
• 25:43
  There's so much noise and stuff.
• 25:45
  And so I just thought, you know, basically, this is not on the pack of pricks.
• 25:52
  So I just said, you know, like, you know, I didn't think we'd get a reception like this.
• 25:56
  I think you're a pack of arseholes.
• 25:57
  Yeah.
• 25:58
  And you got to correct it years later, didn't you, with Scafie on the podium?
• 26:00
  What did you say?
• 26:00
  You were a pack of nice people or something?
• 26:01
  A pack of nice people, yeah.
• 26:03
  I had to go to CAMHS, though, to have a talk to...
• 26:08
  I can't think of his name now.
• 26:09
  He comes from Brisbane.
• 26:10
  He was an accountant.
• 26:12
  He was president of CAMHS for a while.
• 26:13
  OK.
• 26:14
  Anyway, I had to go and talk to him, but he was pretty good.
• 26:16
  He just said, oh, we'd like you to apologise.
• 26:18
  I said, well, not apologising.
• 26:19
  It was just a spirit of the moment thing.
• 26:21
  Didn't mean anything by it, apart from the fact that these guys are throwing cans at us and that.
• 26:25
  And...
• 26:27
  He said, listen, if in future you have any chance of maybe just giving an apology to the people that might have upset.
• 26:37
  I said, yeah, no, no problem, no problem.
• 26:39
  Went out and never did anything about it.
• 26:42
  What about the supercar?
• 26:44
  Of all the different iterations of supercar before you stopped racing in the 1000, is there one car along the way that you had a little affinity with in the V8 era?
• 26:56
  Well, I'd have to say the 2003 car that I drove, it was the first time that I'd driven as a lead driver.
• 27:04
  And we qualified third on the grid and we ran in the top half dozen, basically the whole race.
• 27:14
  I was one of the cars that had the quickest laps in the race in the last 10 laps of the race.
• 27:20
  And so I was going as fast as anybody, basically.
• 27:23
  But I was in fifth place.
• 27:25
  And Steve, my son, was in front of us.
• 27:27
  And that car was fantastic.
• 27:30
  To qualify third and then to run fifth, that was the best drive I ever did at Bathurst.
• 27:35
  Wow.
• 27:36
  Yeah, only because it was – I wasn't driving V8s.
• 27:40
  I drive it once a year.
• 27:41
  It was at Bathurst.
• 27:43
  So it was – and the good thing about it was being the lead driver, you've got about four or five sets of brand-new tyres, which I'd never driven on a brand-new tyre before.
• 27:51
  Did it become a conscious thing at some point just because of – you know, you talked about it being –
• 27:58
  not a full-time thing for you and younger person's game perhaps.
• 28:02
  Did it get to the point where you went, I can't keep doing that, the caliber of the competition, maybe it wasn't going to be an enjoyable thing for you on that basis?
• 28:12
  Basically, when Scafie, I drove the Scafie, sorry, 2002, and then 2003, I drove the Tony Longhurst.
• 28:21
  And then he escaped, he said, well, why don't you come back next year and lead driver for the car and the team because you've got some young guys who are going to give a chance, but we just don't want them to completely go out of control.
• 28:33
  The first guy that I drove with was James Courtney, and he popped it in the wall on his lap.
• 28:40
  And then I drove, and by that time I realised that if I, my own personal view was that if I couldn't qualify in the top ten,
• 28:49
  I wouldn't bother.
• 28:49
  Okay.
• 28:51
  Because I only drove the car at Bathurst.
• 28:53
  You know.
• 28:54
  That's a big mission, Jimmy, isn't it?
• 28:56
  That's hard then, isn't it?
• 28:57
  Well, yeah, but you didn't sort of think about it as that.
• 28:59
  Fortunately, Scaifey was in the lead car.
• 29:02
  And so whenever he'd say to me, do you want the done to your car?
• 29:06
  No, no, no.
• 29:06
  Whatever they do to your car, just do to mine.
• 29:08
  And so he would come and say, what's your car like around turn three or turn two?
• 29:14
  So I just gave him a little bit of snap over to you.
• 29:16
  But other than that, no, no, mine's the same.
• 29:18
  I'm trying to try and fix mine.
• 29:21
  And so he went out and practiced and went around and said, yep, no, that's good.
• 29:25
  I said, well, do it to my car.
• 29:26
  So they did it to my car and it was beautiful.
• 29:29
  That's magic.
• 29:31
  But that was a good car because it was competitive.
• 29:35
  We were driving good and we probably could have gone a lot further up.
• 29:40
  But Tony got stuck behind Larry Perkins, I think it was, in the race and he could not pass him.
• 29:44
  He was capable of lapping probably half a second to a second quicker, but he couldn't get past him.
• 29:49
  Like for an hour and a half, he was just torturing him.
• 29:55
  We'll bounce through a few if we can.
• 29:58
  Fans would love to know, of all the titles, which is the Australian touring car title that you perhaps cherish the most?
• 30:06
  Well, to be honest, I suppose realistically, the first was fantastic because we only won two or three races in the season but ended up winning the championship.
• 30:19
  That was in the BMW.
• 30:21
  That was a 635.
• 30:23
  And then the M3 was another good one.
• 30:25
  But then the first of the Nissans, the HR31, we'd done in 99 but Skafe and I got third in that.
• 30:33
  Then when the GDRs came,
• 30:36
  It was too easy.
• 30:38
  You know, so I probably... 2002, when Scrape and I won, I knew that I wouldn't win another one because I wasn't going to get the opportunity.
• 30:52
  I didn't drive the car enough.
• 30:54
  And from then on, I was in the second car, not a lead driver in the second car.
• 31:01
  But I was there after 2003
• 31:06
  to help the young guys sort of get to grips with it.
• 31:10
  Yeah.
• 31:11
  And I thought to myself, in 2006, I think it was, I retired the car, I clipped the arm co as I went past it out of the dipper and bent the steering.
• 31:24
  The minute I did that, I said that, and that's it.
• 31:26
  That's it.
• 31:28
  And not because I thought I was past it.
• 31:30
  The fact is that it was a good reason to stop driving supercars.
• 31:37
  The car.
• 31:37
  I mean, you've driven in your career some amazing cars.
• 31:40
  I mean, there's even been truck racing, NASCAR, Oscar, dabbling in Formula 5000.
• 31:46
  What is the car?
• 31:48
  Well, I think even 20 plus Porsches or something over time too, isn't there?
• 31:52
  Is there one car that you sort of think, you know, that is just me to a T?
• 31:57
  Well, I suppose I really enjoyed the Carrera Cup cars because they were little race cars.
• 32:03
  And that was what I was driving at the time when I wasn't going to go and be a supercar driver in a series again.
• 32:12
  So I really enjoyed the Porsches because they were so good.
• 32:15
  You didn't have to do anything to them.
• 32:18
  But it's hard to say what the best car was because the 2003 Commodore that I drove with Tony, that was fantastic.
• 32:29
  But the best car overall would have to be the little M3 or the HR31 that I drove.
• 32:35
  The 635 was good too, but we won on that.
• 32:37
  The M3 was...
• 32:40
  The 635, we were favourites from the minute of the first drop of the flag in the first race because we got a car that was ready-made to Group A touring car.
• 32:49
  Brockie and Dick and all the guys had to build their own cars and so they were a little bit behind the eight ball.
• 32:54
  They're still quick, but that was sort of too easy.
• 32:59
  Basically, they knew that if you played your cars right, you were going to win.
• 33:03
  Was there a car that you either didn't get the chance to drive that you would love to have, or maybe even a little secret story, Jimmy, where maybe you were at a practice day or a test day or something and someone said, hey, do you want to have a drive of this that, you know, people perhaps don't know about?
• 33:19
  You know, did you drive an RX-7 or something?
• 33:21
  Did you, you know, things like that?
• 33:23
  No, but the only thing, one thing I do remember is my first meeting at Lakeside, this was back in the Sports Sedan days, was...
• 33:33
  for Sid Chrome.
• 33:34
  And Sid Chrome in Brisbane had a petrol account with a Shell service station in Woolloongabba.
• 33:40
  And the service station was owned by Dick Johnson.
• 33:44
  So I didn't know Dick, but I was introduced to him because he let us use his workshop to work on the car.
• 33:49
  Basically gave us a key and said, no, where are you going?
• 33:54
  At Lakeside that day, he was driving, I'm pretty sure it was a yellow XU1, sponsored by Zups or something.
• 34:01
  I can't think now anyway.
• 34:02
  And he was just driving that in the support categories to the sports sedan roads.
• 34:07
  And we were parked close to each other and we were having a chat now again about nothing.
• 34:11
  And he said, have you ever driven an XU1?
• 34:13
  I said, no, not really.
• 34:15
  Years ago I did, but not over here.
• 34:17
  He just hop and have a run.
• 34:18
  I said, what?
• 34:21
  Now, I brought that up with him the other day.
• 34:23
  He said, oh, sure, I can't remember that.
• 34:26
  So he let me have a drive of it, you know, it was good.
• 34:29
  Awesome.
• 34:30
  Was there a deal to go and race with someone or, you know, a potential plan to go and do something that maybe didn't come off that you would love to have seen come together?
• 34:38
  But, I mean, that question is a little – because you've done some amazing things.
• 34:44
  I would find it hard to think that nothing came together.
• 34:47
  No, I never.
• 34:49
  Well, the one thing that didn't come together, the twin cam escadr I drove in New Zealand belonged to a guy called Jim Carney, the loveliest guy you could ever meet, an elder guy.
• 34:57
  He was probably 50-odd when I was 20.
• 35:01
  So anyway, we went to England to buy a car off Broadspeed who were great car repairers of the day back in the 70s, late 60s.
• 35:14
  And we paid a deposit and we both flew over there to test the car.
• 35:17
  And it was driven by a guy called John Fitzpatrick, who you know.
• 35:21
  And it was dressed up in the castrol colours when they were competing in the British Touring Car Championship.
• 35:28
  And one of the main protagonists was Frank Gardner, who I didn't even know at that stage.
• 35:34
  He was in high regard in England at the time.
• 35:36
  Oh, hell yeah, hell yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:38
  And so they took us to Silverstone.
• 35:44
  to test the broad speed escort.
• 35:46
  Mm-hm.
• 35:48
  When we got there, it was pouring with rain.
• 35:52
  And so they got the car out and started it up, warmed it up.
• 35:55
  Shit.
• 35:57
  No wet tyres.
• 35:59
  Oh.
• 36:00
  So during the day, it sort of dried a little bit, but still, no way you should be out there.
• 36:04
  And they said, well, you better just go and feel the car, basically.
• 36:07
  So I did, and I was out there, and Graham Hill was practicing the Embassy Lola on the track at the same time.
• 36:14
  But anyway, I said to Jim, no, it's fantastic, really good.
• 36:19
  Now, that would have come back to New Zealand, and we would have competed against the Mustangs, Tamaras, and it would have beaten them.
• 36:25
  Not easy, but it would have beaten them pretty easy.
• 36:27
  Wow.
• 36:28
  And anyway, the last meeting to decide the British Touring Car Championship, John Fitzpatrick, Frank Gardner crashed into each other and wrote the cars off.
• 36:37
  Oh!
• 36:39
  So it never came, did you see that?
• 36:41
  It never came.
• 36:41
  No, we continued on with the one we had, and that's just before we built the Mustang.
• 36:46
  Couple to finish.
• 36:47
  When Stevie was younger, did he pester you about going racing?
• 36:52
  And I think you were quite big on encouraging him to have a ticket, a career of some kind under his belt before he went down that path, weren't you?
• 37:00
  He never really talked to me about racing, really.
• 37:05
  It was what Dad did.
• 37:06
  You know, so what?
• 37:07
  Who cares, you know?
• 37:08
  This is normalised for him.
• 37:09
  Yeah, he was more interested in playing soccer and playing cricket and this and that.
• 37:13
  But a friend of mine, we used to have at our house, we'd have Friday night fish and chips.
• 37:18
  So a lot of the guys that I rode motorbikes with and that, we'd come round on Friday night, we'd have chippies and fish and chips and that, which the whole family was there.
• 37:27
  And...
• 37:29
  One night, it was a particular night, a guy called Steve Lack came round and said to Steve, oh, I just bought a go-kart.
• 37:37
  She said, oh, yeah, yeah, come out to the track tomorrow and have a run on it if you want.
• 37:43
  She said, oh, yeah, okay.
• 37:45
  Went out, had a run, hooked.
• 37:47
  But he was in his late...
• 37:53
  Late teens.
• 37:54
  He didn't have a license and I had to trailer the cart.
• 37:58
  Eventually when he got a cart, I trailer it to the track.
• 38:02
  Then I'd unload it with him.
• 38:04
  He'd put it on the stands and I'd go and drive around and sit in the car, let him do it himself.
• 38:09
  Because nearly every time that he needed to go go-karting, I wasn't there.
• 38:13
  I was at a race meeting.
• 38:14
  At a race meeting, yeah.
• 38:15
  So he got Chummy with another young guy and his dad and made a bit of a team together and they had a ball.
• 38:22
  Awesome.
• 38:22
  Yeah, but he got into it reasonably late because it was just, I mean, I was driving for someone else really.
• 38:29
  It was never an option for... Just circumstances.
• 38:31
  Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 38:33
  But, you know,
• 38:35
  You've got to share a car with him.
• 38:36
  You've got to share a podium with him.
• 38:37
  You've did some amazing things as father and son along the way, haven't you?
• 38:40
  Oh, no, certainly.
• 38:40
  I mean, I'd give a Bathurst 1,000 win away to have driven with Steve as come in second place.
• 38:48
  That's cool.
• 38:49
  Yeah.
• 38:50
  That was really good.
• 38:51
  And now the grandkids mate, I mean, I see Priya at the racetrack all the time.
• 38:55
  She's doing some beautiful things in the media and content space and Clay's doing some racing in 86 and Formula Forward.
• 39:01
  Yeah, and now Jet, my other grandson has just built himself, him and his dad built themselves a Hyundai XL.
• 39:08
  Fantastic.
• 39:10
  They're not mechanics.
• 39:11
  And Jet is like 16 or something, 17.
• 39:16
  He bought the XL for 800 bucks.
• 39:19
  out of his own money from working at the supermarket.
• 39:22
  And him and his dad built it, Craig, and they just went out of practice the other day, which I couldn't go to, but I'll go to the next one.
• 39:28
  And so he's starting out.
• 39:29
  As well.
• 39:30
  But they're doing it because they love it.
• 39:33
  From a little fella, Jet knew every V8 supercar driver, every V8 supercar sponsor, everything.
• 39:39
  And I didn't know them.
• 39:40
  Passionate, passionate.
• 39:42
  I love it.
• 39:42
  Can we finish with a couple on almost a little bit of a selfish note when, you know, some of the first dealings that I had with you.
• 39:49
  Super touring.
• 39:51
  In the transition between Volvo 850 and S40, I mean, the arms race, the development race in England was massive.
• 40:00
  Those little S40s in the end were a very cool, very impressive little race car, weren't they?
• 40:07
  Certainly were.
• 40:07
  I mean, one of the best cars that I've driven was the S40, and especially around Bathurst.
• 40:12
  It was just an absolute – beautiful to drive.
• 40:15
  You wouldn't have known it was a front-wheel drive car.
• 40:19
  Really, really good.
• 40:20
  And I really enjoyed Super Tourism.
• 40:23
  It was terrific.
• 40:24
  I did.
• 40:24
  I don't know if you remember.
• 40:26
  There was a GTP race one day.
• 40:29
  We were at Winton.
• 40:30
  And you and Johnny Bauer were battling away pretty fiercely.
• 40:34
  And back then, the new pit lane had opened.
• 40:37
  So I was up and down the pit lane reporting, but they were still using the old finish line.
• 40:42
  So late in the afternoon,
• 40:44
  You two battled to the line, and I'm trying to look up from the pit lane to see what the race result was.
• 40:50
  And then you two came back in for the post-race interviews, and I think I started by congratulating you on the race win, but you had to correct me and say you came second.
• 40:59
  I do remember that.
• 41:00
  I do remember that.
• 41:01
  I felt so embarrassed.
• 41:03
  I was such a newbie at the whole thing.
• 41:08
  Congratulations on everything you've achieved.
• 41:11
  I think you...
• 41:13
  Kind of badge yourself now as semi-retired, but I love the fact, Jimmy, you still go and do the odd event when it suits you here and there, don't you?
• 41:21
  Whether it's a hill climb or something.
• 41:22
  No, no, I don't.
• 41:23
  Nothing?
• 41:23
  No, nothing.
• 41:24
  No, nothing.
• 41:25
  I just, once you stop, the last car I drove was the Falcon Sprint at the 2018 Bathurst.
• 41:34
  But I think I only did two rounds that year.
• 41:37
  And things were getting out of control in Turinco Masters, and you kept needing more and more money to get the car set up and to run the cars.
• 41:46
  So I decided that was a good time to stop.
• 41:48
  And the Shannons arrangement, Paul Gates, who was my contact at Shannons, a fantastic guy, he was retiring.
• 41:56
  And I thought, well, that's an even better reason to stop now.
• 42:00
  So he's retired and I was retired.
• 42:02
  But I didn't announce a retirement.
• 42:03
  That's not me, you know.
• 42:04
  I didn't announce that I was coming to be a racing car driver when I first drove my Anglia.
• 42:08
  So why should I be any different when I stopped?
• 42:10
  And importantly, you're still passionately surrounded by cars.
• 42:14
  I still love the cars.
• 42:15
  The two cars, the Falcon Sprint and the Javelin, Bruce Tyson, Mick Webb and myself built them.
• 42:22
  Yeah.
• 42:24
  And they're just, they're works of art really, but as the regulations changed, they become slightly uncompetitive.
• 42:31
  Yeah.
• 42:31
  But no, no, sorry, enjoyed it.
• 42:33
  Well done on everything.
• 42:34
  I mean, I nearly worn your voice out and I'm sorry about that, but we could talk forever, but it's been nice to- I'm sorry, the story's just incredible.
• 42:41
  You know, the things you did on the way to the track in New Zealand, and having an egg fight and throwing eggs at fellow competitors as they drove past with their Mustang on the trailer or something, blat.
• 42:53
  On a hot day, it looks like it was a fried egg straight away.
• 42:57
  Great camaraderie, great people, and you've made a wonderful life out of it, Jimmy.
• 43:01
  Thank you so much for talking to us.
• 43:02
  Pleasure, no problem.
• 43:10
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 43:14
  Series editor and producer is Ed Gooden.
• 43:17
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 43:20
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• 43:26
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