Latest / Rusty's Garage / Stephen Grove | Part 1 - meeting Greg Norman & quietly building an empire.

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Stephen Grove | Part 1 - meeting Greg Norman & quietly building an empire. · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  I'm in Tasmania for this episode, gearing up for a broadcast in the Australian Rally Championship.
• 0:08
  But on the way, I stopped in at Listener Studios in Melbourne to record this feature episode.
• 0:12
  We were joined by Stephen Grove, team owner for Penrite Racing and Supercars.
• 0:17
  They're doing some great things there at the moment.
• 0:20
  If you enjoyed the business aspects of, say, the Tony Quinn,
• 0:23
  Epp or Sam Shahin, you'll enjoy that side of the discussion in this one as well.
• 0:29
  The immense inner drive that he has, meeting a real idol when he was younger and why he looks for the fight in young races.
• 0:38
  Stephen doesn't stop, as you'll hear, to savour the successes for all that long, whether it's in the pit lane or in business generally.
• 0:45
  We, of course, talk about how
• 0:47
  He got the bug, how it all got started.
• 0:49
  Some of the international races that he's done with some good international drivers as well, enjoying success abroad with family and racing with his son, Brenton, coming back from an unbelievable, a frightening crash at the Bathurst 12-hour and how he went off painkillers very early so that he could be ready for the Le Mans 24-hour.
• 1:09
  That is a story of real grit.
• 1:11
  And then, of course,
• 1:12
  the decision around the time of the pandemic to go boots and all into supercars team ownership.
• 1:17
  And then the growth from that point onwards, some of the people that have joined them along the way, both drivers and in the engineering group.
• 1:25
  And yes, of course, we'll tackle some of the recent headlines as well.
• 1:28
  And then perhaps one day when he's sitting on the porch, the legacy that he would like to leave.
• 1:34
  Let's get into the conversation.
• 1:36
  Hello, mate.
• 1:39
  Welcome.
• 1:39
  Welcome.
• 1:40
  Yeah, thank you for having me, Rusty.
• 1:42
  It's good to get out and actually have a chat.
• 1:44
  It's good.
• 1:44
  Have you done one of these before?
• 1:45
  No, I actually haven't.
• 1:46
  Never done a podcast, so it's new.
• 1:48
  Yours is an interesting story, and that's sort of, I think, beyond just what you're doing in motor racing at the moment, deserves a bit more kind of light on it.
• 1:57
  If I look at where you are now, and we're going to get to kind of where it all started, is that something you stop and give yourself the chance to ponder at all and how far it's come in business and the kind of success you're now starting to enjoy in motor racing and stuff like that?
• 2:11
  Not really.
• 2:11
  I mean, one of the faults I think I have is I don't reflect back.
• 2:15
  I never have.
• 2:16
  whether it be business, whether it be my own, you know, small level of racing or whether it be supercars, whatever we do, I sort of move on really quickly.
• 2:24
  Like after winning Bathurst, that was a huge goal for me.
• 2:27
  But I think, you know, Tuesday morning we were starting to move on, me mentally, from that point on.
• 2:32
  And it's, you know, I think –
• 2:35
  when I'm really, really old and I'm sitting on the, on the balcony and I'm thinking about the things that I have or haven't achieved, um, I'll reflect then, but now it's, it's just get on with it.
• 2:43
  That's an amazing trait.
• 2:45
  And, and, um, I'm intrigued about whether that is a learned thing or a competitive gene, like, like, because, um,
• 2:53
  To stop and savor that, a Bathurst 1000 is a massive thing for any fan listening, for someone who loves the sport and so on.
• 3:00
  It takes the culmination of a heck of a lot of work to try and achieve that.
• 3:05
  But a lot of successful people have that in them, don't they?
• 3:09
  They savor it very briefly, but then it's like, right, right.
• 3:13
  I've got to do it again now or onto the next thing.
• 3:16
  Is that how you're wired essentially?
• 3:18
  Definitely how I'm wired.
• 3:19
  And it comes from that business background where you're onto the next thing.
• 3:22
  I mean, you just, you know, in business, especially in business and motorsport even more so, I think, you can't stop.
• 3:28
  You can never stop because there's someone else that's trying to, you know, push up to where you are or trying to achieve what you've achieved or whatever.
• 3:35
  or trying to change the way you think about where you are and what you've achieved.
• 3:40
  So for me, it's like, okay, achieve, what's next?
• 3:43
  Let's keep going.
• 3:44
  And I've always been built like that from the day I started work.
• 3:47
  I love that.
• 3:48
  Give listeners a sense of your upbringing, if you're okay.
• 3:50
  I mean, you were a pretty good golfer from what I can gather when you were younger and you were around golf courses basically, weren't you?
• 3:57
  Yeah, my grandfather and then my father were both golf course curators, so they looked after golf course.
• 4:01
  So I grew up at Upper Beaconsfield, which was a golf course.
• 4:05
  I grew up on a golf course.
• 4:06
  Wow.
• 4:07
  Every day after school, I would come home and get on one of the fairways or tees, the one closest to the house, and I'd just putt or play shots or try and work out how to get out of bunkers and do 100 shots out of a bunker.
• 4:22
  So I spent an enormous amount of my time playing golf as a young kid
• 4:27
  as young as I can remember.
• 4:29
  I mean, I had a golf course in my hand, I think, before I had anything else in my hand.
• 4:31
  You know, I played from really young right up to about 15 or 16.
• 4:35
  There is an extension to that story, and that is, you know, there was some significant golf course builds along the way here.
• 4:45
  Did you guys do one for the Sultan of Brunei and things like that?
• 4:48
  Tell me about that side of it.
• 4:49
  Yeah, it was a business my father started and my older brother.
• 4:52
  So we had a golf course construction business.
• 4:54
  So we did build one for the Sultan of Brunei and Bruno.
• 4:57
  We did all the greens and all the fairways down, the Crown one that they have down there in Moorabbin.
• 5:02
  Uh, we built one for Greg Norman.
• 5:04
  Wow.
• 5:04
  That was an interesting story because as a kid, I used to watch a lot of motorsport, but I used to watch a lot of golf and I'd watch Greg Norman.
• 5:11
  I'd get up at night and I'd watch him play.
• 5:13
  And I remember them saying, you know, we signed a contract with his company to build a golf course and they said, you'll get to meet Greg Norman, which was an amazing thing for me to meet my idol.
• 5:23
  Yeah.
• 5:23
  Yeah.
• 5:24
  Um, and I, I remember meeting him and I remember him saying, uh, you know, the first time they introduced us and, and he actually said, I said, it's really good.
• 5:32
  And I said, you'll get to know Steve pretty well through the construction process.
• 5:36
  Um,
• 5:37
  And he said, well, if he does a bad job, he'll get to know me pretty well.
• 5:42
  Now that's coming from your idol, from Greg, and he was fantastic.
• 5:45
  So we built a course for him here in Melbourne.
• 5:47
  Both successful DNA, you and him in some respects.
• 5:52
  I actually got to meet him for the first time on the grid at the Grand Prix in Melbourne here this year, and I sort of doorstopped him for an interview.
• 5:58
  And I was a little awestruck, a little bit starstruck, and he couldn't have been better.
• 6:03
  But I gather he's like that in...
• 6:05
  the same way I guess he was when he played professionally, to in business, he's pretty serious, isn't he?
• 6:11
  Oh, extremely.
• 6:13
  And it's, again, what we reflected on before about moving on.
• 6:15
  He's that type of guy.
• 6:16
  Is he?
• 6:17
  Yeah, definitely.
• 6:18
  He's a very, very successful business guy, and he gets on with it.
• 6:21
  And he's so focused, whether it was playing golf or in business.
• 6:24
  Yeah, he was great to work for.
• 6:26
  The golf side of things seems a bit of a world away from where you are now.
• 6:31
  Did some of that early stuff help you?
• 6:34
  Does it apply around what you do now or was that just sort of a part of growing up more or less?
• 6:39
  It was a part of growing up, but I think it had an impact because –
• 6:43
  You've got to be so accurate.
• 6:44
  So you would go out and just – you'd have to really persist, and that's a strength I think I've developed over the years is to be really persistent.
• 6:52
  So you'd have to persist and try to get all those shots right.
• 6:55
  So I think that was a good –
• 6:57
  Good upbringing, I think.
• 6:58
  I think that really helped me.
• 7:00
  In fast-forwarding a little bit of the growth here for you, and join the dots if I don't quite get this right, you, I think, were a youngish dad, and maybe Brenton's brother had arrived.
• 7:09
  Were you studying at uni or something as well?
• 7:11
  Was this sort of in that part of your life?
• 7:13
  Was that a lot on your plate at that relatively young stage?
• 7:18
  Yeah.
• 7:18
  Yeah, I worked for a company called Rec Air, a higher after I left school, and they were owned by Brambles.
• 7:23
  And they'd sort of progressed me really quickly through their management structure.
• 7:26
  And they'd sort of said to me, if you want to be general manager and that's where we think you're going to head, you need to go back to uni.
• 7:32
  Wow.
• 7:33
  So I went back to uni and studied a Bachelor of Business, majoring in management.
• 7:37
  And at the same time, I had Jaden come along.
• 7:39
  And then I started to run, and then I'd left Rec Air and started on my own business but kept going with the study.
• 7:44
  So it was a pretty busy time.
• 7:46
  People listening to the pod might remember Rec Air Hire.
• 7:49
  And is there ultimately a story around you and them and where you have ultimately landed now?
• 7:55
  What takes place next in regards to what Grove Group, Grove Hire has become?
• 8:01
  When did that whole notion of that sort of come about for you?
• 8:04
  Yeah, my father and my brother were really looking for someone to come in and help them more on the management side.
• 8:08
  So I left Rec Air and I came in and started to help them develop the golf course side.
• 8:14
  And then I saw a real opportunity in the high side because I'd spent most of my life with Rec Air.
• 8:18
  So Rec Air became really a competitor.
• 8:21
  Wow.
• 8:21
  And we competed with them early stages quite aggressively because they wanted to make sure that there wasn't another player coming up.
• 8:29
  So they worked pretty hard to try and...
• 8:32
  keep me on the bottom, I suppose.
• 8:34
  And, uh, you know, we sort of developed and that developed.
• 8:36
  And then we obviously sold, my father got out of the business and then we sold the golf course business.
• 8:42
  Um, and then my brother, uh, yeah, I brought him out and then sort of just went myself.
• 8:46
  And then we sort of grew from there to the, all the businesses that we're currently doing.
• 8:49
  Okay.
• 8:50
  So what gave you the confidence side of the university degree?
• 8:52
  I mean, that's a lot potentially to take on.
• 8:55
  Are you sort of
• 8:57
  sticking your neck out in a financial sense with a young family and all that sort of stuff?
• 9:01
  What was that early phase of that like?
• 9:03
  Yeah, I mean, it was quite tough because everything was on the line.
• 9:07
  You were trying to provide for your family.
• 9:09
  My wife wasn't working anymore because we had young children and you're trying to grow a business and it takes a lot of effort into doing that.
• 9:16
  So financially, it's really tough.
• 9:19
  But you just got to keep going.
• 9:20
  You got to back yourself.
• 9:21
  And that's what we did.
• 9:22
  And it turned out to be okay.
• 9:23
  Okay.
• 9:23
  Give listeners a snapshot of what the group and Grove Hire initially, I guess, set out to do and what it's become because its footprint is significant.
• 9:33
  It's massive now, isn't it?
• 9:35
  Yeah.
• 9:35
  I mean, we got into different businesses.
• 9:37
  So in our hire business, we hire portable buildings or site accommodation in the construction industry.
• 9:42
  Um, you know, we operate the largest private own fleet in Australia.
• 9:46
  Um, we, we manufacture portable buildings for, for governments.
• 9:49
  We've done some big projects.
• 9:50
  We did the Commonwealth games.
• 9:52
  Uh, we built the quarantine center here in Victoria and the one in Perth during quarantine.
• 9:58
  We built an enormous amount of schools and kindergartners and a whole lot of, uh, different buildings.
• 10:03
  Um, and then we sort of, that sort of transition into, into transport and property development.
• 10:08
  We started to do a lot of that in construction and we've got a new business, Growblocks.
• 10:12
  It does a lot of really big, you know, we, we did a lot of work at Melbourne Grand Prix last year in building structures that they fit out.
• 10:18
  We did one for Ford.
• 10:19
  We did one for Audi.
• 10:20
  Nice.
• 10:21
  Mastercards.
• 10:21
  You know, there's a lot of big, uh, and that's through our business called Growblocks.
• 10:24
  Okay.
• 10:26
  Yes, and just a little distillery down in Tassie.
• 10:29
  We've got a little gin business, Dash and Fisher.
• 10:31
  We sort of brought that during COVID and, yeah, we just sort of hung on to that business.
• 10:36
  Brenton says that you can still remember the first dollar and that is one of your strengths, staying on top of,
• 10:44
  I guess, the expense side.
• 10:47
  I feel like you look upon it, even though it's a big thing now and there are probably good people in the right places, which you need for a business like that to succeed.
• 10:58
  But by keeping it a little kind of grounded and almost thinking of it at times like a startup, is that an important approach that you take?
• 11:08
  Yeah.
• 11:08
  Yeah, I know probably Brent and my older son, Jay, they probably get a bit frustrated because, you know, I still see the value of a dollar.
• 11:16
  And I still try and say you can only spend it once.
• 11:18
  So it's not that we're frugal on what we do.
• 11:21
  I mean, we invest an enormous amount of money into, you know, regenerating our businesses.
• 11:26
  And, yeah, we certainly spend a lot, but…
• 11:29
  Especially when you're owning a supercar team.
• 11:31
  That's a whole different thing.
• 11:32
  I don't want to come into that.
• 11:34
  That's a whole different thing.
• 11:35
  But yeah, I still value a dollar as much as I did when I was 25.
• 11:40
  Because I think the thing in that is it doesn't take all that long for a business to strike trouble if you are not at times taking a bit of a micro approach on some things.
• 11:51
  Like you need to be across it.
• 11:53
  Well, yeah, listen, we've been going 30 years.
• 11:55
  I mean, I started this obviously in 1996.
• 11:58
  And, yeah, and that also goes back to the reflection of saying, you know, you've never made it.
• 12:04
  Like I said, I'll sit on that, you know, with a nice beer when I'm 75 and go, yeah, I did a pretty good job if I still have by then.
• 12:12
  You will.
• 12:13
  So, yeah, you just never take anything for granted.
• 12:15
  You've got to continually work hard every day, no matter whether you're, you know, tiny or whether you're big.
• 12:21
  And, yeah, so that's important.
• 12:28
  I know this is your first podcast and maybe you haven't done a huge amount in the way of speaking about the success of this, but invariably as you grow and when you go from a small entity to – I've had a similar conversation about this with Tony Quinn and staff numbers and then when it gets to a level where it perhaps functions with a little less – not stress, but there's a number I think he feels like where things become a bit more of a flow or a bit more manageable –
• 12:56
  What did it teach you in the early part when there was maybe some challenging or some tough stuff?
• 13:01
  What did you learn, do you reckon, even about yourself?
• 13:03
  Yeah, I just learned the process.
• 13:06
  You know, it's a terminology used a lot, but you just never can give up.
• 13:10
  You've got to continually work and you've got to work through each of the issues that pop up.
• 13:14
  It is a big business now, but for me, traditionally, in the way we all operate as humans, all my phone calls are about, you know, there's a problem.
• 13:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:23
  where do we go here?
• 13:24
  How do we fix this problem?
• 13:25
  There's not a lot of times people ring and go, gee, we did a really good job there.
• 13:28
  So you're always sort of working in that environment of trying to solve problems.
• 13:32
  And I think it just taught me to just keep fighting, really.
• 13:36
  Invariably now there is a family element.
• 13:38
  There was around your dad and golf courses and things like that.
• 13:41
  I mean, you've talked about the boys, Brenton as well, who's helped me here a little with some background and what have you.
• 13:48
  Yeah.
• 13:49
  Maybe there's more family members that are a part of it that I perhaps don't know about.
• 13:53
  So tell me a little bit about that.
• 13:54
  Do they bring individual strengths that complement what you do?
• 13:58
  And how do you kind of manage that successful mindset that you have?
• 14:03
  And also family harmony, because that's a tricky balance at times, isn't it?
• 14:07
  Yeah, very much so.
• 14:08
  I mean, mainly Brenton because he had a lot of, he really enjoyed racing and we traveled a lot overseas racing.
• 14:14
  I've done an enormous amount of racing overseas.
• 14:16
  So he would spend a lot of time.
• 14:18
  He'd spend time, you know, as he grew up learning about the business.
• 14:22
  He spent time seeing me outside of the car doing business.
• 14:25
  He spent time with me in the racing.
• 14:28
  So it's hard sometimes to differentiate between the two.
• 14:32
  get together on the weekend for a Barbie.
• 14:34
  You know, you're talking about business and work.
• 14:36
  So you've just got to try and find that happy balance.
• 14:39
  I've got two grandsons now.
• 14:40
  Lovely.
• 14:41
  Beckham, six, and Madden, three.
• 14:43
  So the interesting thing is that sort of reignited.
• 14:47
  You know, I had achieved a lot in business to the point, and the boys were okay to...
• 14:52
  take that on and progress.
• 14:54
  But once they came along, it gave me another like, let's go again.
• 14:57
  Like, let's go.
• 14:58
  Let's build something for them.
• 14:59
  So it's been really good.
• 15:01
  And they love the business and they love coming and looking at the big trucks and seeing Grove on the scene.
• 15:06
  So yeah, it's a really family-orientated business.
• 15:09
  Cool.
• 15:09
  Before we get to the motorsport chapter, you've sort of ventured there a little already.
• 15:13
  Where to...
• 15:14
  for Grove from here?
• 15:16
  Are there things happening?
• 15:18
  I mean, you said that you don't like to stand still.
• 15:20
  Is there other stuff that you would like to get into beyond all the stuff you've outlined?
• 15:24
  Yeah, well, I speak to my managers a lot about this.
• 15:27
  You know, for me and the way I'm built, business that...
• 15:32
  sort of started to stagnate, I sort of lose interest in and they don't.
• 15:35
  I just want to keep growing my businesses and keep going.
• 15:38
  We do a lot of property stuff, which I really like because my oldest son, Jaden, he loves that stuff.
• 15:43
  He builds all of our properties nationally.
• 15:46
  So I enjoy that.
• 15:47
  And I think for me, it's just more about just continuing to challenge.
• 15:52
  Prior to motorsport,
• 15:54
  I kept a very low profile in the business community and in business, I just would work and do my thing.
• 16:00
  I sort of, the business profile grew a bit, you know, when I got into supercars for obvious reasons, but we still really liked the low key approach.
• 16:08
  I'm pretty big on the low key and you just got to keep working hard and then just try and enjoy it with your family.
• 16:14
  So maybe, you know, the sport by nature creates a bit of limelight, but in essence, you prefer to just, you know, keep it low key, so to speak.
• 16:24
  Oh, very much so.
• 16:25
  Yeah, I'm a very low-key type of guy, and people might see that different because things pop up, you know, comments I make, but that's just because that's the nature of the supercar racing business.
• 16:35
  But outside of that, yeah, I kept a super low profile.
• 16:38
  Can we come to, this blows me away that this is nearly 20 years ago now, right?
• 16:43
  For a time, James Henderson at DSEG looked after me.
• 16:47
  He's managed people like Murph, Garth Tander, Ricky Ponting, and more there, and,
• 16:52
  He was part of that whole Tasman group back in 2007.
• 16:55
  And I can recall a little bit of support there from Grove and even, I think, a major sponsorship at Orrin Park.
• 17:04
  Tell me more about that.
• 17:05
  Is that kind of the first foray for the business and for you to sponsor something in motorsport?
• 17:09
  Is that what happened there?
• 17:10
  Yeah, it was definitely the first foray.
• 17:11
  I mean, with Murph, you know, that was something that we sort of had followed him.
• 17:16
  So there was an opportunity there.
• 17:18
  Timmy Miles, uh, I became super, uh, you know, good friends with him.
• 17:22
  Got to race with him.
• 17:24
  Got to race a lot with him and we would talk a lot off track about business.
• 17:28
  You know, he'd run things past me and I'd run things past him.
• 17:30
  So we sort of, uh, created a strong relationship and even Nick Ryan that was there that had come, you know, then went to, to, to Kelly racing.
• 17:39
  So that sort of started the connection, uh, back to Kelly racing.
• 17:42
  I think there's a crazy alignment of planets there because, I mean, you know, Nick obviously was around the Kelly side of things.
• 17:48
  Before we come to that and your own team, did you follow motorsport as a kid?
• 17:53
  You talked about, you know, idolizing Greg Norman and so on.
• 17:57
  The first taster from what I can gather from a driving perspective came via Max Twig.
• 18:03
  Is this true?
• 18:03
  What transpires there?
• 18:05
  Yeah.
• 18:06
  Yeah, well, I was really busy working.
• 18:07
  I'm probably mid to late 30s in age.
• 18:11
  And I was friends with Max Twig.
• 18:14
  And I went to the Grand Prix to watch him.
• 18:16
  And I saw him race Carrera Cup.
• 18:18
  And I said to him, I wouldn't mind having a go at this.
• 18:20
  And he said, well, we're doing a test at Winton.
• 18:22
  So I drove a cup car up there.
• 18:24
  And things turned out okay.
• 18:25
  So I started racing.
• 18:27
  And I think, yeah, I'm heading towards 400 races now worldwide that I've done.
• 18:33
  And just love it.
• 18:34
  Just expand on that little Winton story briefly.
• 18:36
  From what I can loosely understand from Brenton, it was like you did that, you loved it, and within a heartbeat, there's a car maybe in the back of Max's workshop or something.
• 18:46
  It was pretty quick.
• 18:46
  Is that right?
• 18:47
  Yeah, well, actually, Sven Burkhart, I brought his car.
• 18:51
  Okay.
• 18:52
  He was selling his car.
• 18:53
  So straight away, I brought one, and we just tested and tested and drove and drove, and I really loved it, and I really sort of adapted to it.
• 19:01
  Wow.
• 19:02
  It was, you know, it felt really natural.
• 19:04
  Even the first time I ever got in, it was sitting on the left-hand side in a cup car and they're quite hard to drive.
• 19:10
  But it felt really natural from the first laps I did.
• 19:12
  So, yeah, it just sort of worked out.
• 19:14
  You know, were you hooked?
• 19:16
  And who helps in, I mean, that's a huge thing to dive in.
• 19:19
  the deep end.
• 19:20
  So who helps you grow as a driver or help you progress in that sense?
• 19:26
  And were you at a stage in the business where you could allow yourself a pastime like that?
• 19:30
  Maybe you hadn't had much in the way of time off with family, growth of the business and so on to indulge in something.
• 19:37
  That's what drove it.
• 19:38
  What drove it was I just would work all the time.
• 19:41
  If it was either family, you know, I was lucky.
• 19:44
  I could always go to all the kids' events at school because, you know, I ran my own business so I could do my, you know, have my own time off.
• 19:50
  But if it wasn't with them, I worked.
• 19:52
  And there was no real me time.
• 19:54
  So that's when we started to race.
• 19:56
  Max rang me for a couple of years and then we developed into our own team and then it sort of grew from there.
• 20:01
  Doing motorsport with Brenton, because you've touched on that before, you've really enjoyed those moments.
• 20:06
  I was even reminded by Panda, Paul Reardon, who works with you guys now and has done with Dick Johnson Racing, Motorsport Australia and so on in a comms and commercial capacity.
• 20:17
  He's got this cool video of you and Brenton kind of like, like hugging each other post the success you enjoyed in the motorsport games, which happened kind of just before the pandemic.
• 20:28
  Didn't it?
• 20:28
  That was a pretty, almost maybe, you know, a peak moment for, for you both.
• 20:32
  Well, it was, we went over and did the world games.
• 20:35
  Uh, it was in Italy, uh, one of the circuits in Italy.
• 20:37
  Uh,
• 20:38
  And had all the top teams there.
• 20:40
  And they're all professional drivers and amateur drivers.
• 20:44
  They come together to become the world champions in the world games.
• 20:48
  So Brenton and I went over and did it together.
• 20:50
  And we came third outright against every country in the world.
• 20:54
  And it was just, it was so special to achieve that with your son.
• 20:59
  And then to follow onto that, I mean, the biggest, I mean, that was fantastic to do that.
• 21:02
  But to do Le Mans with him, Le Mans 24 hour with your son,
• 21:07
  Um, yeah, that's something I'll cherish the rest of my life.
• 21:09
  That's great.
• 21:10
  Is that, is that among the Zenith moments for you?
• 21:13
  I mean, Bathurst is obviously a huge highlight as a, as a team owner, but I mean, to go to a legendary race like that, to do it with family, I mean, to just even be on the damn grid of that race is a massive achievement.
• 21:24
  Oh, definitely.
• 21:25
  I mean, I can't remember the numbers.
• 21:27
  There's not many father and sons that have done it.
• 21:30
  Excellent.
• 21:30
  And there's very, very few father and sons that have actually finished the race.
• 21:34
  Okay.
• 21:34
  I mean, we finished the race, I think, 15th in the GT3 class.
• 21:39
  Yep.
• 21:39
  And 24 hours, I mean, just getting through it.
• 21:41
  But to achieve that and, you know, we got a third at Abu Dhabi 12-hour this year together and we've won a few Bathurst 12 hours in category together.
• 21:54
  So we've done a lot together and it's really good to race with your son and it's trying to get that age gap right where I'm still fast enough and still okay and, you know, he's...
• 22:06
  He's still happy to do it with his dad.
• 22:07
  That's the key.
• 22:08
  He says to ask you, he says to ask you about the first time you did the 12 hour.
• 22:13
  And I think he was drafted in to be like driver assist or something or other.
• 22:17
  And what happened there?
• 22:19
  Yeah, I remember it was really, really hot.
• 22:21
  That was about 38 degrees and the car blows out, you know, 20 degrees.
• 22:25
  So it's about 58.
• 22:26
  And yeah, he had to come around and put the ice in the ice bucket and give me a drink.
• 22:32
  And he forgot both those jobs.
• 22:34
  And they decided to double stint me.
• 22:36
  So to say that I was hallucinating would be an understatement because it got that hot in the car.
• 22:42
  I hadn't drunk for, you know, an hour.
• 22:44
  The cool suit was actually pumping hot water through, which makes it worse.
• 22:48
  Worse, yeah.
• 22:49
  And, yeah, that was a pretty horrific time.
• 22:51
  So he nearly got the sack.
• 22:52
  Did he?
• 22:52
  Yeah.
• 22:53
  That's massive, relatively speaking, from...
• 22:57
  having a drive of one of Twiggy's cars to a thing like that does seem like a relatively short space of time.
• 23:04
  What were the learnings from the driving side for you and who helped shape you as a racer?
• 23:10
  Because in the same way that you've grown your business and I would imagine learned different things from different people and applied yourself, I'm assuming you did the same thing behind the wheel.
• 23:19
  Yeah, I learned from a lot of people.
• 23:21
  I mean, early days, Scotty McLaughlin helped me a lot.
• 23:23
  Earl Bamber, he had a massive impact because we brought him out to do a pro-am.
• 23:28
  He came and raced with me, and then he really took me under his wing from that point, and he taught me an enormous amount.
• 23:34
  And then-
• 23:35
  Back then I was teaching Brenton.
• 23:36
  He didn't want to race.
• 23:37
  And at about 16, he said, listen, I wouldn't mind.
• 23:39
  So we got him into a Porsche and got him racing.
• 23:42
  And I was always faster than him.
• 23:43
  And then all of a sudden overnight he was faster.
• 23:45
  I mean, he just, he really accelerated.
• 23:47
  And he has an unbelievably good motorsport brain.
• 23:50
  Like his IQ in motorsport is outstanding from data.
• 23:53
  Around data and things.
• 23:54
  Yeah, data and setup and feel.
• 23:56
  And he can look at something and he can say it.
• 23:58
  And we get that with, I mean, Jules Gounon's made that comment, um,
• 24:03
  And also Earl Bamber have always said his intellect is exceptional from a racing perspective.
• 24:08
  And then he started to coach me.
• 24:10
  So we would do a session and we'd look at data and he'd actually sit down and help me.
• 24:15
  Amazing.
• 24:16
  I mean, you've firstly sparked a couple of things there.
• 24:20
  Firstly…
• 24:21
  the likes of a Scott McLaughlin.
• 24:22
  I spoke to him briefly for this.
• 24:24
  I'll see if I can find the quote here for you.
• 24:27
  He goes, he came into motor racing later than most, but like his business, he's a perfectionist and he never cuts corners.
• 24:34
  So I guess I always knew at some point that they would succeed as team owners.
• 24:38
  That's pretty cool.
• 24:39
  What, what, how did the connection with him come about?
• 24:41
  I think it was early days at GRM or something.
• 24:43
  How did you guys know each other?
• 24:44
  Yeah, we sort of had a connection there through a mate of mine, Peter.
• 24:47
  And at the time, Scott knew Peter well through karting.
• 24:51
  And we sort of helped him out early days and we started to sponsor his helmet.
• 24:55
  And, and he's just such a great kid.
• 24:57
  Yeah.
• 24:57
  And he really helped me.
• 24:58
  And, and we did a 12 hour together.
• 25:00
  There was, uh, there was Earl Bamber, Scotty McLaughlin and myself.
• 25:05
  Uh, and we did a 12 hour and a cup car.
• 25:07
  Yeah.
• 25:07
  And we won by a lot.
• 25:08
  I think it was like nearly four laps.
• 25:10
  It was amazing amount.
• 25:12
  And to watch those two, they, they both drove completely different the way their styles were, but they were exactly the same lap time.
• 25:18
  But I learned a lot from them and, and Scott always would help me.
• 25:22
  And even when he was racing, he used to ring me a lot and we used to chat about things outside of racing and yeah, he's, he's a great kid.
• 25:28
  Very good.
• 25:28
  I shouldn't call him a kid.
• 25:29
  No, I know that.
• 25:30
  But I mean, you've known him since he was a young age.
• 25:33
  Super talented too.
• 25:33
  And to see what he's doing now is tremendous.
• 25:37
  Can I come to Antoine Di Pasquale?
• 25:38
  Because he was literally sitting in the seat that you are in only a handful of weeks ago for a chat in here.
• 25:43
  And as we meandered in the conversation, he said one day, like he's focused very much on the supercar side of things at the moment.
• 25:50
  But he said, one day I'd love to do more international races and I'd love to do it with the Gros because I enjoyed that.
• 25:55
  And his connection with you runs a little deeper than some of those international races.
• 26:00
  I think he was groomsman for Brenton and stuff like that, wasn't he?
• 26:04
  I mean, tell me a little bit about him.
• 26:05
  Yeah, he's another great – I call these people kids and that's shown my age, but he's another super kid.
• 26:10
  I mean, comes from a great family.
• 26:13
  And him and Brenton are super close.
• 26:15
  He was in Brenton's wedding.
• 26:16
  They spent a lot of time together.
• 26:19
  And we took him overseas to do some races with us because, you know, we're very, very serious in our racing overseas.
• 26:25
  But as soon as we get out of the car, we like to go and have a beer and just enjoy ourselves.
• 26:29
  So you always want to make sure you're doing it with people.
• 26:31
  that are good people.
• 26:32
  And I would love to do more racing with him.
• 26:34
  Nice.
• 26:35
  He's a great kid.
• 26:36
  A great operator too.
• 26:37
  Can I come to just, you know, the brutality of the game?
• 26:42
  I mean, it's addictive in so many ways.
• 26:44
  You enjoy the driving, what it's like at the very edge and so on.
• 26:48
  But it can bite.
• 26:50
  And it did that for you at Bathurst about 18 months ago, mate, didn't it?
• 26:54
  You may not want to, but what happened that day?
• 26:57
  What are the recollections of that?
• 27:00
  And are you back to kind of 100% and so on?
• 27:04
  Yeah, listen, that was a crazy accident.
• 27:07
  It just wasn't unexpected.
• 27:09
  Kenny Haboul, who's a good friend of mine, prior to that, the year before at Spa, he crashed and broke his back.
• 27:18
  And I remember driving past because we were practicing at the same time and he was laying on the ground and it was a terrible moment to not know how he was going.
• 27:27
  Going, yeah.
• 27:28
  He just came down the inside.
• 27:29
  You know, I'd opened the corner up.
• 27:34
  I'd spoken to Jules and he said, you know, across the top there, you want to really open that corner up as you get to the top before you come down the S's and it just helps you get the car stable.
• 27:44
  So I think Kenny had thought, well, he's opening up to let me through because he was quite on my tail.
• 27:49
  He was chasing me and it was just a mistake where he just thought that I'd opened it up, but I hadn't.
• 27:56
  So we only had very light contact.
• 27:58
  But the ramifications were huge.
• 28:00
  I mean, the impact was incredible.
• 28:03
  The pain is, I've never experienced in my life pain like that ever.
• 28:07
  They put me on the tube and it just didn't work.
• 28:10
  Yeah, so it just couldn't get rid of the pain.
• 28:12
  So I broke my back.
• 28:14
  Um...
• 28:14
  Very lucky where the bone didn't break apart.
• 28:18
  So I've mended perfect and, listen, I'm probably an inch shorter, but outside of that, I have no pain.
• 28:24
  It has no impact on me.
• 28:26
  It's mended and it's really good.
• 28:28
  That's good.
• 28:29
  Did you contemplate, you know, like, is that a little wake up moment or not really?
• 28:32
  You love it as much as ever.
• 28:33
  Did you sort of think, oh, maybe I might ease off and only do selected events or did it change?
• 28:38
  your outlook on racing at all from a personal perspective?
• 28:40
  No, I remember laying in the hospital in Orange and they were trying to work out whether maybe you have surgery, maybe not have surgery.
• 28:46
  And I was just laying there thinking, it's 14 weeks to Le Mans, 24 hour.
• 28:50
  How do I get there?
• 28:53
  And then they told me that the FIA suspend your license because it's a major thing and you can't get that unless you get signed off by the surgeon.
• 28:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:00
  Um, so then everything was about what I had to do to get back.
• 29:04
  So on the Monday morning, I went straight off the painkillers and I put up with it.
• 29:08
  It was, it was extremely painful, but what it would do is it would help me repair because all I could think about was Le Mans.
• 29:16
  It helped me repair because if you sit in a certain way and you've got painkillers and it's affecting your back, you keep sitting there, but without the painkillers, it's
• 29:25
  I had to adapt and find ways where it didn't hurt me, which helped with the repair process.
• 29:30
  So we did that, got signed off.
• 29:32
  I think it was 11 weeks and five days.
• 29:36
  I flew out.
• 29:37
  I got signed off Wednesday morning.
• 29:39
  I think it was Wednesday morning.
• 29:40
  I flew out Wednesday night to, uh, uh,
• 29:43
  Portugal, uh, jumped into a race car that weekend, which was a GT3 car.
• 29:48
  We did GT world challenge.
• 29:50
  Maybe we port them out here or something or other.
• 29:51
  Yeah.
• 29:51
  Sorry.
• 29:51
  Yeah.
• 29:52
  Port them out.
• 29:52
  Yeah.
• 29:53
  So we did that.
• 29:54
  So I didn't have time to think about it.
• 29:56
  The doctor had said, listen, if, if you crash pretty badly in the next 12 months, you're going to have a problem.
• 30:02
  Okay.
• 30:03
  Um, but yeah, we did that.
• 30:04
  And then we went the week after that, we went to Spa of all place, hardest track in the world and did a world endurance race just to get used to the hyper cars and get rid of it.
• 30:13
  And then a couple of weeks later we were at Le Mans.
• 30:15
  Amazing.
• 30:16
  That's an incredible story.
• 30:17
  Yeah.
• 30:18
  It was, uh, the wife didn't like it.
• 30:21
  I was going to say, she was pretty keen for me to hang the helmet up, but, uh, she supported me through it and yeah, we're back racing.
• 30:29
  That's it for part one of my feature episode with Stephen Grove.
• 30:32
  Hope you're enjoying it.
• 30:33
  The good news is we are not done yet.
• 30:35
  Within 24 hours of us releasing part one, you will find a part two all loaded up in the garage library and ready for you to enjoy.
• 30:43
  And there is a strong supercars...
• 30:45
  focus in that one the advent of what we now know as penwright racing what made them do it the growth that they have enjoyed some of the losses in the engineering group along the way reflections of the drivers what that bathurst win meant and what the future holds for them as well and some thoughts on the current state of play in supercars it's all ahead here on rusty's garage