Latest / Rusty's Garage / Victor Bray (part 2)

Transcript

Victor Bray (part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  Hey, this is Rusty.
• 0:28
  Welcome to the second instalment of my chat with Victor Bray.
• 0:32
  If you haven't listened to the first part with the drag racing icon, be sure to check it out so you're up to speed.
• 0:38
  We recorded among the trophies and memorabilia at Victor's workshop here in Queensland with his dogs wandering in and out of the office.
• 0:46
  On the other side of the wall are the team's race cars in their bays being worked on by his son Ben and members of the team.
• 0:52
  There's a relaxed feel about the place.
• 0:54
  The Braes are just good people.
• 0:56
  Oh, and a collector is turning up later, hoping to sell Victor another car, so we'd better get back into it.
• 1:02
  To kick off part two, I asked him about how the tomato farmer from Queensland learned to become a showman.
• 1:08
  You are a bloody good showman, mate.
• 1:11
  You understand that in this sport how important the fans are.
• 1:16
  And I want to cover a couple of bounds here.
• 1:19
  Nathan Prendergast is a friend of mine.
• 1:22
  He's the boss of Supercars Television these days.
• 1:24
  And he can fondly recall being a little tacker at the Summer Nats, probably with his dad.
• 1:30
  Kevin, who's been running racetracks around the country, and he can recall you doing the biggest skid of all time, the biggest burnout of all time, and he was like, wow, who is this guy?
• 1:42
  Aside from that, I've watched you.
• 1:46
  I've been fortunate enough, I think it was at Western Sydney, to stand right near the Christmas tree and watch you take off down the lane and...
• 1:56
  pull a big burnout because it wound the fans up before the run.
• 2:01
  And then finally, mate, in this long-winded question that I'm asking here, I sense in you a bit of a Peter Brock.
• 2:07
  You don't like leaving any fan without an autograph or a chat or you'll stick around as long as possible.
• 2:16
  How did the tomato farmer become that character and did it come easy to you?
• 2:21
  Yeah.
• 2:23
  In the, like, not in the very beginning, but in, I did a lot of work with Feetal Rock.
• 2:29
  I did a lot of charity stuff with him and a lot of talks with him and stuff like that.
• 2:34
  And that's where I sort of cemented it, I suppose, the need for the fans.
• 2:37
  I always loved the fans.
• 2:39
  Right from day one, I knew they were more bread and butter.
• 2:41
  And I was really a fan.
• 2:42
  I wasn't my own fan, but I was a fan of everybody else.
• 2:45
  that raced.
• 2:46
  And I'll just never forget one day with Peter, we were both doing a signing for the Brisbane Hot Rod Show.
• 2:54
  And so we're sitting there side by side and, you know, I got a couple of hundred people in my line, you know, and, you know, waiting.
• 3:02
  And I remember Brock, he's went four city blocks, right?
• 3:05
  So I'm thinking to myself...
• 3:09
  I never ran out of people to sign, but he had people waiting hours, you know what I mean?
• 3:12
  And every single one of them was like the only one he was going to talk to that day, you know?
• 3:18
  The way he treated them and talked to them and what he wrote for them.
• 3:21
  And, you know, I always did a bit of that.
• 3:23
  I always wanted to know...
• 3:24
  You know, where do you go to school, what do you do and that sort of thing.
• 3:27
  And he was the same, you know, and that sort of cemented what I was doing.
• 3:30
  But in the early days, that burnout that you're talking about, it's still on videos on Gooby.
• 3:34
  You can Google that up.
• 3:35
  And what it was, this might take away from it a little bit, but I just, Graham Mason had just rolled his dragster down the quarter mile at Exurve's Paradise.
• 3:45
  And I bought the motor out of it.
• 3:46
  So me and Marie, instead of giving all the old tomato hatches to the Italians, we started picking them and selling them to the Italians for $3 a box, all the items to make juices and make sauce out of it.
• 3:55
  And I slowly, Graham let me pay the motor off, so I slowly bought the motor, supercharged small-block Chevy it was.
• 4:00
  I'd only had nightless engines in that car up until this.
• 4:03
  This is the old original black car.
• 4:05
  And so I used to go to the summernats all the time and have fun, you know, and just drive around.
• 4:08
  I was one of the freaking idiots down there.
• 4:11
  And...
• 4:12
  We had the burnouts and they said we're going to do some burnouts this year.
• 4:16
  And I said, oh, yeah, it sounds good.
• 4:18
  I've done a couple of burnouts in my time.
• 4:21
  So we get in there and I just had the big supercharged motor in it.
• 4:24
  I hadn't done nothing with it.
• 4:25
  I drove it in the summer nights a few times.
• 4:26
  That's all I'd done with it and hadn't done nothing with it.
• 4:28
  And it had like 1,100 horsepower.
• 4:30
  The most horsepower I'd ever dealt with was probably 400 or 500.
• 4:33
  So anyway, Mick Athord was down there and he was sort of teaching me how to do it.
• 4:36
  And he says to me on the start line, he goes, I'm sitting there and I've got –
• 4:41
  Thousands of people, tens of thousands of those sides, protected by hay veils.
• 4:45
  It is a crazy mega event.
• 4:47
  It is.
• 4:48
  And a big long straight, they've got a camera up the front there, right?
• 4:50
  And he says to me, okay, so just get out there and just flatten it in low gear, right?
• 4:55
  And when the red light comes on, what do you think it's going to?
• 4:58
  I just shift gears, there's two-speed power gliding.
• 5:00
  I said, oh, okay.
• 5:01
  So I get out there and I start doing the vertical, low belt brakes.
• 5:04
  Well, so I pushed it back in the corner.
• 5:06
  I thought, I'm never going to get another blower belt, you know.
• 5:09
  Where to get a blower belt from?
• 5:10
  Anyway, some guy jumps the fence and says, you need another belt, mate.
• 5:14
  So I go full line of my car.
• 5:16
  He runs over, rips his belt off his car, rings it back, just happened to be the right one, whacked it on the car, went out there.
• 5:21
  So Mick says again, he's at the window.
• 5:22
  You can see in the video, Mick at the window, walk up and he leans in and he says, righto.
• 5:26
  He says, don't forget, just low gear, flatten it,
• 5:29
  And when the shift light comes on and you think it's gone too far, just shift the gears.
• 5:33
  That's what I did.
• 5:34
  And did the biggest muth and burn-out you've ever seen in your life.
• 5:37
  And I didn't know at the time.
• 5:39
  I couldn't stop down the other end.
• 5:40
  I had a few of the locals jumping out of the way because I couldn't stop the thing at the other end.
• 5:45
  But who would have thought?
• 5:47
  You know, who would have thought?
• 5:48
  Up until then, the biggest burnouts I've seen were done by Wayne Varber at the Summonats in, I think it was the year before.
• 5:55
  And that's where I thought, oh, yeah, Wayne, I can run for his money here, you know, and, oh, yeah, it's a pretty serious burnout.
• 6:00
  And so I still look at it today.
• 6:02
  I still don't think I've done one as good.
• 6:04
  I might have done one as good at Eastern Creek one day when I was mad at the car, you know.
• 6:08
  But other than that, and it was done out of...
• 6:12
  Naivety, that one.
• 6:13
  The first one was just, yeah, just like Mick said, just flatten it and flatten and shift gear.
• 6:19
  And just another thing, we're down at the 92 Nationals at Cold of Hark.
• 6:24
  Another time Mick just said flatten it, right?
• 6:26
  And he said, I'm sitting on the start line.
• 6:27
  I was racing Donna Sillsmore.
• 6:28
  It was the final of Superstock.
• 6:31
  And he said, righto, he said, look, I've changed the front end of it and I've hotted the engine up a bit, right?
• 6:35
  Now, you've got this race one.
• 6:37
  You've just got to remember it's probably going to carry the wheels, right?
• 6:40
  So just flatten it, and if you lose the horizon, just shift the gear, okay?
• 6:45
  And I said, yeah, righto.
• 6:48
  So I flattened it, right?
• 6:50
  And I started climbing.
• 6:53
  I lost the horizon, shift the gear, flip straight over backwards.
• 6:57
  Thanks, Mick.
• 6:58
  Good job.
• 6:58
  That video's on video at the moment too, everywhere.
• 7:03
  So that gets looked at a lot.
• 7:04
  Yeah, so thanks, Mick, for your advice.
• 7:08
  Let's talk the commercialisation of Victor Bray, the racer.
• 7:12
  I spoke to Sue Dilger from Castrol for this.
• 7:14
  She reckons you have had, mate, some of the longest commercial associations in the history of Australian sport.
• 7:21
  You're very good at it.
• 7:23
  I know that you can take your cars to mining towns and hold court with miners and happily be in your blue shirt.
• 7:32
  just shooting the breeze with them.
• 7:34
  And then a day later, you could be in a corporate office in Sydney somewhere in a suit stitching a deal together.
• 7:42
  I know that is something that you're very good at.
• 7:45
  But it didn't always start that way, did it, mate?
• 7:47
  She reckons she can recall, you know, kids with no undies running around, hot dog rabbits on blowers.
• 7:54
  It changed a lot over time, didn't it?
• 7:58
  Yeah, it did.
• 7:58
  I mean, I never thought I was going to be a drag racer.
• 8:00
  You know, like I said, I used to work on my car and my old Chevy and used to have a lot of fun doing it, you know, and, you know, slowly build it up with the help from Feet Smith and Dennis at D3 Autos.
• 8:10
  Without them, I probably never would have got going because I just didn't have the money or anything.
• 8:15
  They allowed me to run an account there.
• 8:19
  So that's all I was doing, just do this, carb you one day, maybe some this, a bit of nitrous.
• 8:23
  One of the things I used to have nitrous oxide, well, Dad had a, you know, there wasn't a lot of money floating around the farm and Dad had an account at VAC at the time.
• 8:32
  Okay.
• 8:33
  And I used to book all my nitrous oxide on it.
• 8:35
  And he used to look at it and he used to go, what's this stuff here, nitrous oxide?
• 8:39
  What did you tell him?
• 8:40
  I didn't buy any nitrous oxide.
• 8:41
  And I said, oh, Dad, that's what I use in the car.
• 8:46
  How come it used 40 bottles?
• 8:49
  So anyway, he was good with it and he used to be happy for me to do it.
• 8:54
  Not happy for me to do it.
• 8:55
  He used to let me do it.
• 8:57
  I think the fact that you've stayed true to who you are has actually resonated in a lot of places, mate, from boardrooms to the ordinary man.
• 9:05
  Yeah, well, like I said, I'm a fan of everything, of drag racing and of the people that drag race, and I just love doing what they do.
• 9:14
  And the only opportunity I got is to have sponsors, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it at all.
• 9:18
  And to interact with the fans, that's one of the things I really love.
• 9:22
  That's one of the things I've missed since I had the cancer operation is because I don't talk exactly the same as I used to and I struggled for a long time to talk properly.
• 9:32
  and, yeah, just looks and that, that I suffer at the moment.
• 9:36
  I, you know, don't interact with the fans probably as much as I do.
• 9:40
  I still do, but not as much as I used.
• 9:42
  I used to just love it.
• 9:43
  I used to sit on the ropes there for hours and hours just chatting with them, you know what I mean?
• 9:47
  And probably don't do it.
• 9:48
  I think it's, I'm a lot, I think I'll be a lot better from now on, you know.
• 9:51
  I think I've had some good things happen in the last, some operations I've had recently.
• 9:55
  But, yeah, 1998, 1988, I should say, a guy called Will Sleckenhorst who was a, um,
• 10:02
  Big fellow who was a rep for Castrol come and saw me and said, they told me you're doing all right at the drags and that.
• 10:09
  And I said, yeah, I'm doing okay.
• 10:10
  So he said, so I wouldn't mind, you know, do you want interested in putting a sticker on the car for some oil product?
• 10:16
  And I said, oh, yeah, that'd be great, you know.
• 10:19
  Well, that's where it started.
• 10:19
  And over the next few years, it grew into something pretty serious.
• 10:23
  In them days, you know, basically –
• 10:26
  When I was street racing, I was working for 80 bucks a week on the farm and earning $1,500 a week in racing.
• 10:33
  And then when that sort of happened, all of a sudden, you know, I'm getting tens of thousands of dollars.
• 10:42
  can afford to actually race my car.
• 10:43
  So it was something I really wanted to pursue.
• 10:46
  And I did for the next, however long that's been, 88 till 2019.
• 10:49
  You know, it's something that I pursued my whole life because I could see that, I remember a story years ago, John Force in the United States and, um,
• 11:00
  And Gary Dencham, I remember a conversation they had that they made public was Gary Dencham was a schoolteacher and John Force was a truck driver.
• 11:09
  And John Force said, Gary Dencham said, oh, jeez, I need a few more parts.
• 11:14
  I'm going to put a few more hours in at school in the next few months and see how you're going.
• 11:17
  John Force said, I'm going to give up my truck driver to drive and go and sell cars on the corner or something and feel.
• 11:24
  I'm going to find myself a sponsor.
• 11:25
  That's how I'm going to go drag racing.
• 11:27
  Well, now Gary Denship is still a school teacher and John Force is a multi-million dollar drag racer.
• 11:32
  So, you know, motor racing is an opportunity to advertise products into the public.
• 11:37
  That's what it is.
• 11:38
  It's a great thing, especially products that are related to motor racing and motor cars and automotive and stuff.
• 11:44
  And, you know, I've met some fantastic people inside these companies and you do have to, it's changed a lot over the years.
• 11:50
  Once upon a time you can get a sticker on your car for, you know, advertising as a sticker on your car.
• 11:55
  And I had this chat with Larry Perkins once
• 11:57
  That changed randomly at the time I was associated with Castrol and Larry and everyone was there.
• 12:02
  It turned into if you don't become a part of their business and get a good solid return that they can leverage, you're not going to be there much longer.
• 12:11
  And that's Larry's smarts in that area sort of got me thinking, yeah, that's right, I've got to start –
• 12:19
  visiting their customers and I've got to start going there.
• 12:21
  I've got to, you know, still interact with the fans as much as I did, but I really do have to be a part of their business.
• 12:27
  And nowadays, if you're not returning four or five times the money they're giving you, you ain't going to be there because nowadays it's business to business and that's all there is to it, you know.
• 12:39
  It's tougher now than it was back then.
• 12:42
  And I think, you know, that's something that I suppose is a lot harder to do than what originally was.
• 12:48
  Over time, you've talked about seeing the benchmark keep dropping down and being blown away by, you know, didn't think you'd ever get to that marker and so on.
• 12:59
  The Holy Grail in relatively recent time has been chasing that five second.
• 13:06
  You were able to do it, I think, at the Perth Motorplex.
• 13:09
  But the path...
• 13:10
  to that was tough, mate.
• 13:12
  It had effectively been a bit of a, correct me if I'm wrong here, a bit of a drought for you.
• 13:15
  Zap, I think, had done it in 2007.
• 13:17
  But November 2012, Golden States event in Perth, first five second, and then you went on to win the final against your arch rival, John Zapier.
• 13:28
  I mean, that was an amazing moment in your career.
• 13:31
  It was, man.
• 13:31
  Yeah, it was.
• 13:32
  Zat ran a five well before anybody else.
• 13:35
  And then the United States ran them first.
• 13:38
  They ran a couple over there.
• 13:39
  Zat was right up there with them, that's for sure.
• 13:42
  He ran the first five.
• 13:43
  And then there was a lot of it.
• 13:45
  They sort of flowed into flow a bit after that.
• 13:48
  That's sort of the way that's.
• 13:48
  Why was it so hard for you to get to, mate?
• 13:50
  What happened there?
• 13:51
  Well, then he ran 6.02, and I ran a 6.02.
• 13:56
  about two years before Zach went to five and then it just went away.
• 14:00
  It's just the tune-ups come and go.
• 14:02
  I mean, drag race is something you've got to really keep your eye on.
• 14:05
  I suppose...
• 14:06
  I look at drag racing a lot more as fun than chasing the things.
• 14:09
  It's nice when you get them.
• 14:11
  You know, in the first one I got.
• 14:12
  So you weren't obsessed with it?
• 14:13
  I wasn't obsessed with a five, no.
• 14:15
  I would have loved to have run one.
• 14:16
  So would Vinny have loved to have run.
• 14:17
  I think he ran, I think Vinny ran a string of 601s and six 00s.
• 14:21
  So close to a five.
• 14:22
  Yeah.
• 14:22
  But years ago, when me and Les Winner were having a bit of a battle on who was going to be the first to run a six, I think it was, back at the time.
• 14:30
  And I ran, it was over 40 six 00s.
• 14:36
  Right?
• 14:37
  And there's 601, 600, 602, 606, 605, all this.
• 14:42
  No, that was not six.
• 14:43
  It was seven.
• 14:44
  7-00, 7-00, 7-00, 7-00.
• 14:47
  Let's get a laugh out of this.
• 14:49
  And it just went on and on.
• 14:51
  He was in the seven ones and seven twos.
• 14:54
  And I'm thinking this is going to just happen one day for me, you know.
• 14:57
  Then one day he goes 699.
• 14:59
  He beat me to it.
• 15:00
  And I'd run, I think it was 46 or 47, something like that, 6.0-somethings that I'd run leading up to it.
• 15:07
  That pretty much belted me chasing things.
• 15:10
  You know, that was just too hard.
• 15:12
  Because I used to do everything to try and get that last little bit.
• 15:15
  I just couldn't get it, you know.
• 15:16
  And that's the same with me and Benny were trying to run that first five.
• 15:20
  You know, we ran a lot of 6.01s and stuff like that.
• 15:22
  And long before anyone else was going that fast.
• 15:24
  And Zap come along and did it.
• 15:26
  And that's just the way it goes.
• 15:28
  That's the beauty of drag racing, mate.
• 15:29
  The beauty of drag racing, exactly.
• 15:30
  And if those numbers that we've just rattled off for you sound a little foreign because you're perhaps into another area of automotive or another area of racing, it's the barrier, the six- or seven-second barrier, whatever it may have been, over the quarter mile.
• 15:45
  I mean, that is, even just to comprehend that, mate, for the style of car you race, I know they pull some incredible horsepower, but that is just to stop and fathom that, that it's all over in that period of time, the distance you cover...
• 15:55
  The rate with which you get to 100, I mean, it's mind-boggling, isn't it?
• 16:00
  Yeah, it's crazy, and that's the beauty of it.
• 16:02
  I think the way that sport's gone lately, the big gains, say in the early 2000s to the mid-2000s, the big gains were new superchargers, better superchargers.
• 16:13
  and better magnetos, better electronics and stuff like that.
• 16:18
  Now the last, say, four or five years, the big gains have been chassis.
• 16:22
  And people learn about chassis, chassis getting better, learning more about chassis.
• 16:26
  Like each door slammer that you see out there has got nearly $40,000 or $50,000 worth of shock doors on it.
• 16:32
  You know, so you have to have them all around.
• 16:34
  You've got to have what you've got to have.
• 16:36
  And to keep up with the rest of the guys, the knowledge that they have on four links, the knowledge a lot of guys pick up from the US and, you know, travelling there and getting buying US cars that are ready to go, you know, is a lot of where the ETs never come from.
• 16:49
  But, yeah, the cars are so fast.
• 16:51
  Like I said, after I had a break and got back in it, I thought to myself, wow, I'm never going to catch up with these guys.
• 16:56
  But, you know, it's good.
• 16:57
  I'm starting to really enjoy it again now because it's running the 580s.
• 16:59
  And I think my old car, see, my car's an older car too, and I run a whole different type of rear suspension than them.
• 17:05
  They do have an advantage in the suspension area in some areas, but I still believe that I have an advantage in other areas, you know.
• 17:11
  I think my stuff's more stable than theirs, and their stuff's just a little bit quicker in the 60 foot than mine.
• 17:17
  After 60 foot, there's no difference in the two cars.
• 17:19
  But it was good the other day when I went down there and I left the start line.
• 17:23
  Vinnie hopped a ride up and we went down the start line and I hopped up.
• 17:27
  I do the engines.
• 17:28
  Vinnie does all the transmissions and stuff and the four links and stuff.
• 17:31
  And we hopped her up and went out there and the thing drove out and from 60 foot to about, you know, 300 foot, the front wheels were a good foot and a half in the air.
• 17:39
  So, you know, we make changes to keep them on the ground because that's pretty dangerous stuff.
• 17:45
  It just shows that the car's still got it in.
• 17:48
  I think Murray built this car for me in 2002, so it's 17 years old.
• 17:53
  It's good that you bring Murray up.
• 17:55
  Let's talk about him because you've got some good long-term people that you've had wonderful relationships with along the way, and from a car building, a chassis point of view, he's been a real important part of the framework of Victor Bray and racing, hasn't he?
• 18:10
  Murray's been a big part of the framework of door slammer racing in the world.
• 18:13
  Some of the stuff that he's did, he built a car, or me and him, I paid for it, but he built a car for Scotty Cannon when Scotty Cannon was a five-time American Pro Mod champion.
• 18:24
  And he comes to, I brought him over to Australia, got friends, and I brought him over to Australia.
• 18:28
  and he'd come and raced over here for a whole season in the car, and then he liked the car, so he took it back to America.
• 18:33
  Well, it's got the same rear end that mine's got.
• 18:35
  It's called a swing-arm rear end, which is basically a ladder bar that's been beefed up in all torsional directions.
• 18:41
  And a lot of people don't like them, just say, you know, they've crap, that's held history and stuff, you know.
• 18:45
  Well, him over there won another championship in that.
• 18:47
  And then he sold it, and it's actually been used as a nitro-methane Vernon door slammer since for the reason that it's stable.
• 18:54
  It's stable down the racetrack.
• 18:58
  Four-link cars usually don't have the diff square in the car, and they don't have even the wheelie bars, the two wheelie bars at the back aren't the same height off the ground.
• 19:08
  And that's all so their car goes straight when they leave the start line, you know, because they use a very high-tech engineering base.
• 19:19
  So when you get down the other end of the racetrack, the rear end isn't even in the car, you know what I mean?
• 19:24
  Twisted or it's a six, yeah.
• 19:25
  Yeah, doesn't bother them 90% of the time.
• 19:28
  But when my car's down the other end, it's dead even all the way around.
• 19:32
  So, you know, it's two different things, you know.
• 19:35
  And they believe their way's right, and I'm going to start developing.
• 19:39
  I've seen some good stuff in this car now that we're really hotting it up.
• 19:41
  So I'll just have a crap.
• 19:43
  Everyone used to run ladder bars once, and this is just a hopped up ladder bar, you know.
• 19:46
  Wow.
• 19:47
  I want to tell a funny story if you're up for it.
• 19:50
  It's possibly a bit of a frightening tale as well, but it's a great one because you've talked about buying other cars and acquiring them over the years.
• 20:01
  Your lovely wife, Marie, has been a mainstay with you, mate, at every race and by your side as you've battled cancer and all sorts of things.
• 20:09
  You went to Mexico once to buy a car for her that you had your eye on.
• 20:15
  Share with me what you can because I think you thought that, you know, putting a bit of cash in the back pocket and crossing the border would be just like going from Queensland to New South Wales and picking up a car you'd seen on Gumtree or in the Trading Post or whatever, didn't you?
• 20:29
  Yeah.
• 20:30
  Yeah, it's another day that the naivety of Victor Ray showed very greatly.
• 20:34
  Now, we were at the Pomona swap meet.
• 20:36
  Pomona swap meet at the drag strip there at the fairgrounds.
• 20:39
  They have a big swap meet there every few months.
• 20:42
  So we're there, and it was me and Marie and Troy Critchley, and we're walking around looking at all the cars, and what had happened earlier, Marie had a 1958 Chevy here in Australia.
• 20:52
  It had a big sunroof in it, a really beautiful car it was.
• 20:55
  I needed some parts to go drag racing, so I sold it.
• 20:57
  Did you pilfer?
• 20:58
  for it no way you sold it did you I sold it I sold it that wasn't as bad as the time I sold the kids TV to go drag racing yeah yeah things happen but um Ben still tells me today I'm an arsehole for doing that laughing
• 21:13
  I bought him another one a few months down the track.
• 21:15
  We had a little one.
• 21:17
  Anyway, so we – anyway, I said to Maria, I look, love, thanks for that, and I'll buy you another one one day, you know, buy you another one day, somewhere down the track.
• 21:27
  Anyway, so we walk along the swap meet, and we see this 58 Chevy two-door Impala sitting there with a seven-inch top roof and airbags, right?
• 21:36
  Actually, hydraulics, not airbags.
• 21:38
  It's got actually hydraulics on it, and all these Mexicans sitting around it, you know?
• 21:42
  They were drinking tequila.
• 21:45
  Looked like somewhere you wouldn't sort of walk up and say anything to you.
• 21:47
  So anyway, they're all sitting around.
• 21:50
  And I walked up to the car and I looked inside it and it had all, well, they called it, you know, the fin cushion and that on there.
• 21:56
  It looked pretty cool.
• 21:57
  Everything was pretty nice about it.
• 21:59
  Anyway, Marie turns around.
• 22:00
  We weren't there for 10 minutes looking at the car.
• 22:03
  And Marie turned around and said, you know that time you said, one day you're going to buy me another 58 Chevy?
• 22:09
  And she had this look in her eye and she said, today's the day and that's the car.
• 22:15
  And I thought, oh, Jesus, I better get a hold of this.
• 22:17
  So I looked at it and I looked at it and the guys weren't in a state for me to talk to them at the time.
• 22:24
  They were very young.
• 22:26
  very intoxicated and looked pretty dangerous and it was a like it was a it was a gang car it had a gang thing in the back window oh yeah and it did have a four sales sign on it they took the gang thing out and all that when they bought it so anyway so I we walked around a little bit more and Marie's there going go get that car go get that car go get that car I want that car and so that was all it was to all and so I went around the
• 22:50
  I went back there later on and I said to the young bloke there, and it was just a young kid there, probably 12 or 13 years old, and everyone else is sleeping on the ground, you know, and they obviously drink too much.
• 23:01
  This is probably 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
• 23:05
  And I walked up to the young kid and I said...
• 23:08
  can you, do you speak English?
• 23:10
  And he said, oh, a little, you know, a little bit.
• 23:12
  I understand it, but don't speak too much and all that.
• 23:16
  So I said, oh, yeah, I just, this car's for sale.
• 23:17
  And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uncle, whatever, you know.
• 23:21
  Jose's car's for sale, you know.
• 23:23
  And I said, oh, yeah.
• 23:25
  I said, I'd just like to have a chat with him about it.
• 23:28
  He goes, oh, no, don't make Jose up now.
• 23:31
  Yeah.
• 23:32
  No, no, you can't wake him up.
• 23:34
  Don't wake him up.
• 23:34
  He'll fight.
• 23:36
  And that was it.
• 23:36
  And I thought, oh, okay.
• 23:38
  And he looked like he would too.
• 23:40
  And so that was sort of it.
• 23:41
  And I sort of said, well, we'll have to just sort of hang around and see what happens.
• 23:44
  And the young kid actually gave me a bit of paper that I didn't understand what he had on.
• 23:50
  He had big numbers and stuff on it.
• 23:53
  But I did notice on the truck tilt tray that had it on, the tilt tray that was on, I noticed that it had a junkyard thing written on the side of it.
• 24:00
  So I just said, I remember that, Marie, right?
• 24:03
  And that's it.
• 24:04
  We get walking around.
• 24:05
  Anyway, probably half an hour later, I see that driving at the gate.
• 24:09
  Gone.
• 24:09
  Gone.
• 24:10
  Missed it.
• 24:11
  You know?
• 24:11
  And avoid, avoid was I in trouble.
• 24:14
  You know?
• 24:14
  And...
• 24:16
  and they just they were asleep and then I was just woke up and gone I don't know how it went how it happened someone else took it I don't know what happened because there's no way in the world they could have woke up and gone just gone like that but anyway that was the end of that so the next day we jump in a high car and we're short and trying to find this junkyard okay so we're down over the border in Mexico and we're going to all these junkyards guys coming out with machine guns and dogs you couldn't jump over you know and we're asking where's this place you know and um
• 24:45
  they weren't all that hospital.
• 24:47
  There wasn't a lot of hospital there.
• 24:49
  No, they were pretty angry men for some reason.
• 24:52
  And they were all top shops, you know, that's what they were.
• 24:54
  Because this car had been made in a top shop.
• 24:57
  That's why it had so much chrome on it and so much modification.
• 25:01
  Yeah, because it's not even made in a top shop.
• 25:02
  That's what they do there, and that's what the low rider thing started.
• 25:05
  Anyway, so we go around there.
• 25:06
  Anyway, one guy ended up telling us, oh, yeah, I fear down there.
• 25:10
  So we went there, and we drove in there, and it was a...
• 25:15
  The guy there said, oh, no, the car's not here.
• 25:16
  It belongs to such and such.
• 25:18
  Renardo was his name.
• 25:19
  Riccardo was his name.
• 25:20
  And he says, you go here, here, here.
• 25:23
  It was number something rather EE Street because the government, the American government in all their glory had given them this great big housing development, right?
• 25:33
  And it went A Street, V Street, C Street, D Street, E Street.
• 25:37
  And when it got down to Z Street, it went AA Street, VV Street.
• 25:40
  There was thousands of houses there, all dirt floors and stuff, you know what I mean?
• 25:44
  And I wouldn't call them slums, but I'd call them, you know, cars were inverting the street the night before, still smouldering and all sorts of shit going on there.
• 25:52
  So me and Troy, Troy's dancing around like an idiot, you know, thinking, ah, this was fun.
• 25:58
  And there's ladies going to bingo.
• 26:00
  Like, it wasn't like it was, you know.
• 26:02
  that bad, but it certainly wasn't one of the nice places to be, I suppose.
• 26:05
  Anyway, so we finally got this house and I seen the car at the backyard and I thought, oh, you beauty, we found it.
• 26:11
  So I go inside and I said, oh,
• 26:13
  I talked to a young son and the boy had said, yeah, yeah, that's him, Dad, that's him, Dad.
• 26:17
  And then so I go in there and they sort of half spoke English, you know, and there just happened to be this Japanese guy there at the same time trying to buy the car.
• 26:23
  He must have seen it at the thing too.
• 26:26
  So we're sitting there and we're just chatting away and, you know, we were really uncomfortable, you know.
• 26:33
  These guys, they had two guns each in case one didn't work.
• 26:38
  You know what I mean?
• 26:39
  They all had them.
• 26:39
  They've not openly got them.
• 26:41
  They're not letting them hide them.
• 26:42
  There's probably six or seven of them there.
• 26:45
  So I was just chatting away, talking to them about the car, how much you want.
• 26:48
  What do you want, $10,000 or something for it?
• 26:50
  And I said, I'd give you $9,500 for it.
• 26:52
  And then the Jap guy said, I'll give you $9,500 for it.
• 26:55
  And they're getting huddled a bit together.
• 26:57
  And one of the things, they come back and they just said, what?
• 27:02
  Australian, you've got to sell it to the Australian.
• 27:04
  And then I said, oh yeah, cool.
• 27:06
  And the other jack guy goes, yeah, you want to sell it to me?
• 27:08
  He says, you're Von Verlharbour.
• 27:12
  What, 50 years later?
• 27:13
  Yeah, so that was that.
• 27:14
  He was gone.
• 27:15
  And he got pissed off.
• 27:16
  So then I got the car and I just said, oh, I've got to do this.
• 27:19
  pay you a deposit, he wanted to pay you now for it.
• 27:22
  And his eyes lit up and he said, what do you mean?
• 27:24
  I said, I do want to, he said, what do you mean paying me now?
• 27:26
  I'm not taking a cheque, mate.
• 27:28
  A cash only.
• 27:29
  I said, yeah, no worries, I've got to do it.
• 27:30
  And he just freaked out.
• 27:32
  They all ripped their guns out and they're looking around and they, I thought I was gone.
• 27:36
  I thought they were going to shoot the three of us, take the money, drag us outside.
• 27:39
  And that was the end of it, right?
• 27:40
  And I thought it was all over.
• 27:42
  And...
• 27:43
  And they said, they started abusing me.
• 27:46
  They just started abusing the hell out of me.
• 27:48
  And they said, what are you doing?
• 27:49
  What are you doing?
• 27:50
  You've got $10,000 US cash on you.
• 27:51
  I said, yeah.
• 27:51
  And he goes, oh, you idiot.
• 27:53
  He said, get outside and get me.
• 27:55
  Get taking me.
• 27:56
  He's huddled him and running.
• 27:58
  We didn't know what the hell was going on.
• 27:59
  Took us out straight outside, chucked us in the car and just drove us straight back over the border.
• 28:02
  We followed him, you know, over the border.
• 28:04
  And he just said, don't you ever come here with that sort of money.
• 28:07
  He said, there's 100 people within 50 metres of us that would shoot the whole lot of us just to take the money off your dead body.
• 28:14
  So I figured then we might not have been in the right place.
• 28:17
  Anyway, so when we got over the border and the guy said, I'll deliver it to such and such an address, he gave me an address.
• 28:23
  Anyway, next couple of days, we went up there when he said to be there and here's the car, they brought it up, I paid in the cash and then we owned it.
• 28:42
  Funny car is a type of drag racing vehicle characterized by having tilt-up fiberglass or carbon fiber automotive bodies over a custom fabricated chassis.
• 28:51
  This gives them an appearance vaguely approximating manufacturer's showroom models.
• 28:56
  They also have the engine placed in front of the driver as opposed to dragsters which place it behind the driver.
• 29:02
  You brought up a couple of rivalries, so let's bounce through some of them.
• 29:06
  We'll start with John Zapier.
• 29:07
  It's been an enduring rivalry, mate, very different to you.
• 29:11
  We talked about the fact that he was the first with that five-second pass, and he was obsessed with beating your records and things, wasn't he?
• 29:19
  Is that a fair assist?
• 29:21
  Yeah, John's a very competitive guy.
• 29:22
  No matter who's got the records, he wants them back.
• 29:24
  He was the first to run a seven.
• 29:27
  I think he was the first to run...
• 29:29
  I think he was the first to run a six in Australia.
• 29:34
  He lives on the other side of the country.
• 29:36
  He was first to run a five.
• 29:38
  He was first to break a lot of barriers.
• 29:39
  And that's what he aims at.
• 29:40
  That's what he wants to do.
• 29:40
  He wants his name in the record books everywhere he can get him in the record books.
• 29:43
  That's his goal.
• 29:45
  He loves winning.
• 29:45
  He's got a good team, good strong team.
• 29:48
  And he's a pretty aggressive young fella.
• 29:51
  You know, he likes things done the way he wants them done and he makes that point very clear to everybody that works for him, you know, and it obviously works for him.
• 30:00
  You know, he's got a lot of processes in place that he likes.
• 30:02
  But, yeah, me and John, I can remember racing him over at –
• 30:07
  over in Perth.
• 30:08
  I always got on pretty good in Perth with the crowds over there.
• 30:11
  And then with an American, Wayne, Wayne so-and-so rather, come over with a, a Ford Thunderbird drag door slam and match-raised zap over there in Perth.
• 30:22
  And as he was coming up the return, they threw full vehicle cans at him
• 30:25
  Yeah, threw things at him because he had, he must have said something on the start line about, you know, I'm going to beat this guy low, low, low.
• 30:31
  They started running Zap down and they just love Zap over there down, especially down at the old racetrack down there at Mandurah.
• 30:38
  But they, yeah, threw beer cans at him and, yeah.
• 30:41
  I always just got on good with the fans over there, you know, because we always went over there, we went over there an awful lot in them days.
• 30:46
  But John would, he would be able to put a racetrack that was, it was a little bit rough of itchemen and never got prepared like they do prepare them nowadays.
• 30:54
  And Zat would, he'd hit the wall three times on the way and he wouldn't care.
• 30:57
  He'd go over the center line, wheel stand up, down, that's where he learned how to drive.
• 31:01
  That's why he's like he is, you know.
• 31:03
  He learned how to drive on a racetrack and learned how to drive fast on a racetrack that most people wouldn't have been able to get a car down there.
• 31:09
  And we raced him a lot and, well,
• 31:11
  I remember one day there, after he beat me in the final, he had his car back on the tilt tray and he said, can I borrow your two doors off your car?
• 31:20
  I said, why is that?
• 31:21
  And he stuck the two doors up on the tilt tray and took pictures of it.
• 31:25
  He had something for his little photo album.
• 31:27
  But, yeah, no, John's a very competitive person.
• 31:29
  I've had a lot of run-ins with him over the years, you know, me and him.
• 31:32
  Expand on that.
• 31:33
  Expand on the intensity of the rivalry.
• 31:36
  Oh, well, one incident down at Cold of Heart.
• 31:40
  See, John's always been in front and he does, what he did, John and Brett Stevens got no-tex allowed in Door Slammer, which I was really against because they do have an ECU in them and you're trusting the owners and the drivers and the tuners to not use them.
• 31:57
  which isn't something that a race pack... Race packs don't have that in them.
• 32:00
  You know, race packs in the United States, they weren't allowed to use MoTeX back then.
• 32:06
  And I was just right against them bringing it in, and John was all for bringing them in.
• 32:09
  And so he had... And then all of a sudden, his performances start picking up, you know, probably more than likely because he had a lot more data, more so than doing anything wrong, I would say, at this stage, looking back on it.
• 32:20
  But I was against it, you know.
• 32:21
  So we had a lot of clashes there.
• 32:24
  And...
• 32:25
  Does it mellow with time, mate?
• 32:26
  Does the rivalry mellow with time or not?
• 32:29
  Oh, no, I hadn't talked to John.
• 32:30
  I talked to John on the phone probably only a week ago now for the first time in a couple of years.
• 32:34
  Did you?
• 32:34
  Yeah.
• 32:40
  We had some issues to sort out some new stuff that's getting let out.
• 32:43
  Actually, it's the next step.
• 32:45
  If going from race pack to a no-tech is 10 points, they've brought out a thing called a fuel tech, which is another step again.
• 32:53
  So if race pack to no-tech is 10 points...
• 32:56
  low tech to raise perhaps 200 points.
• 32:59
  It's the vest of the vest of the vest of the vest of technology today.
• 33:04
  And everybody's using it and it's making people go faster.
• 33:07
  And we're just having a – some guys want to use it in door slammer and we'll probably have to have a vote soon to see whether they're going to let in or not, you know.
• 33:14
  And so he was bringing me up about that and –
• 33:17
  He always takes the opportunity to – a lot of people don't realise John's got a photographic memory and he doesn't miss anything.
• 33:26
  You ask him, I raced you back in Cold of Hark, John, and when you did this, I went this and you went that, and he goes, that's not how you did it.
• 33:34
  You only went a 617 at 226 and I went 604 and I beat you the other end by three car lengths.
• 33:42
  And that's how he is.
• 33:43
  He can recall every run he's ever done and everywhere, because he can see it.
• 33:49
  He has a photographic memory.
• 33:50
  It's amazing, yeah.
• 33:53
  And he can recall every bit of data, every tune-up, main jets he used to use, whatever he had in.
• 33:58
  He just knows everything about that car, your car, and everyone else's car.
• 34:03
  It is.
• 34:03
  It's incredible.
• 34:04
  Motor racing is built on the characters.
• 34:08
  So I'm pleased that you've spoken, but I love the rivalry story.
• 34:11
  You brought up Brett Stevens there.
• 34:14
  When he was a part of it, mate, how heavy was that rivalry between the pair of you and how did you feel about it?
• 34:20
  But Rhett Stevens, me and Rhett Stevens were great mates for 10 years and used to go to the Sun and Nats together and used to do a lot of stuff together.
• 34:28
  Rhett always enjoyed a drink and sometimes we'd have a bit of an argument or something or we'd turn over at home full of piss and I'd have to run him back home again or something like that.
• 34:35
  And that was okay, but then...
• 34:37
  Along come drag racing, you know, I convinced him to buy a door slammer, which most people still bag me for today, saying that it's all my fault.
• 34:44
  And he, Red had an enormous ego, you know, like he said, he just loved...
• 34:50
  centre of a town, he just loved it, you know what I mean?
• 34:54
  And he had his motorbikes and I've got to say, I've never seen anyone ride a motorbike as good as he rides a motorbike or tunes a motorbike.
• 35:00
  He was fantastic at it.
• 35:01
  And then when he started driving door slams and funny cars, he was fantastic at that too.
• 35:07
  He was a great door slammer driver and a great funny car driver.
• 35:10
  He was an excellent team manager.
• 35:11
  I thought he was a bit strict.
• 35:13
  You know, and he wasn't there for friends.
• 35:15
  He was there to get success.
• 35:17
  And he had a lot of people that, you know, worked for him.
• 35:20
  And what happened was...
• 35:22
  We could talk outside the racetrack, and as soon as we drove through that gate, he just turned into a different person, you know, to me.
• 35:28
  He wanted to be everything that I sort of was up until that stage, you know, and I kept explaining to him, you've actually passed me, Brett, you know, you've got more cars, you've got everything going for you, and...
• 35:43
  And, uh, yeah, like just one instance years ago, we're down in Sydney and, uh, we still, we always sort of talked and never, never really got on for the last 10 years or so.
• 35:53
  And we're down in Sydney and, uh,
• 35:56
  Rhett comes into our tent and he's had a couple of drinks and we'd had a couple of drinks and he puts his arm around Marie and Ben and a couple of the crew guys and he goes, I want a truce here, you know, and this is no good.
• 36:09
  I'm not liking not being your friend, you know, all the rest of it.
• 36:12
  And I said, yeah, okay.
• 36:12
  He says, I'm happy with that.
• 36:14
  And he said, so he said, all I just want to know, I said, you know, what's going wrong between us?
• 36:20
  And I said, oh, I don't want to bring that up, Rhett.
• 36:23
  You just get angry with me, you know, and that.
• 36:25
  And he says...
• 36:27
  And he said, oh, look, I just think, you know, he just kept making, he made me say it, right?
• 36:30
  And he said, I just think, you know, you're a bit self-centered and stuff, and you don't sort of, you know, let other people do what they want to do and that sort of stuff.
• 36:39
  And probably a little bit more than that.
• 36:40
  I probably said a bit more than that.
• 36:41
  And then he looked at me, stared at me.
• 36:43
  I thought he was going to get angry and hit me, right?
• 36:45
  And he says, see, I can't get a straight answer out of you.
• 36:51
  He was a funny guy.
• 36:52
  It's a shame that he got tied up in what he got tied up in because he was a stage there.
• 36:58
  He could have been the best thing that happened to drag racing, mate.
• 37:01
  Rivalry, but in a good way, is also in-house because your son goes racing, does some enormously good things.
• 37:10
  How proud were you when he first started racing, Ben?
• 37:13
  And separate to that, mate, when he had the big crash as well, how much did that worry you and knock you around?
• 37:19
  Yeah.
• 37:19
  Yeah, well, obviously the crash was of great concern.
• 37:22
  I was in the fits at this.
• 37:23
  I usually go out and watch his runs, but I just... 2013.
• 37:26
  Was it 2013?
• 37:26
  I'm trying to remember the year.
• 37:27
  Yeah, I'm not sure when that was.
• 37:29
  He would certainly remember.
• 37:30
  Yeah, it was Winton announced 2013.
• 37:32
  Yeah, and he's raced his turbo car.
• 37:35
  And the car just did an instant right turn, about 160, 170 mile an hour.
• 37:40
  And because it turned so sharp, it rolled off onto the roof.
• 37:43
  And the roof, it come down on the roof on the top of the guardrail.
• 37:46
  And that's about as bad as an accident gets.
• 37:49
  You know, the streetway guys, a lot of guys have had permanent brain damage from that type of accident in sprint cars because they tend to want to fly up in the air and land on the roof.
• 37:58
  Anyway, so I ran down the racetrack.
• 38:00
  I saw it on the TV.
• 38:01
  I was watching it on the screen, and then I'd seen it happen.
• 38:04
  I thought that's because then he went – then actually spun round and round and went down through the lights.
• 38:08
  He was right down the bottom end of the track.
• 38:10
  I ran down there as fast as I could, jumped in the buggy, rode down there, and he was laying beside the car at the time, and they were checking him out.
• 38:17
  I said, I said, you all right, you all right, you all right?
• 38:18
  He said, I've got a really sore back.
• 38:19
  Yeah.
• 38:20
  and they end up having a three or four fractured vert array in his back.
• 38:24
  And that was because he hit vertically upside down on the car.
• 38:27
  You know, there's really nothing that's going to stop that.
• 38:29
  That's the car's not built for that.
• 38:31
  Drag cars aren't built for that kind of accident.
• 38:34
  Sprint cars are, but drag cars are not built for that kind of accident where you come down on the roof because it's just so unlikely.
• 38:40
  And anyway, he was out for months and months and months, and luckily,
• 38:45
  When he got to hospital, they found out he had, I think it was four fractured vertebrae, but one had fractured into his spinal cord.
• 38:53
  And that's the one they were really concerned about.
• 38:56
  And that's why they immobilised him for a few days until the initial healing had started in case some spinal fluid were leaking through the crack.
• 39:05
  You know, like it was really...
• 39:07
  really concerning, yeah.
• 39:08
  And what happened on that accident was in them days, you ran shock absorbers that had a mechanical...
• 39:16
  because all our shock absorbers are adjustable, you know, and they're adjustable.
• 39:20
  You can turn them off on the run, so you leave them real tight early and then at a certain place on the track, you loosen them up so the thing goes through all the bumps or whatever else that happens down the track.
• 39:28
  But early, you want them nearly locked up.
• 39:30
  And then there was a mechanical part in the top of the gearbox.
• 39:32
  They had two little gears in there that turned, you know, you hit them electrically and it turned and changed the setting.
• 39:39
  Well, one of the gears stripped.
• 39:41
  So you get down the racetrack and as he shifted the gear, the shock he broke and the thing broke.
• 39:49
  So that one shock he dropped straight to nothing and that's why the other shock he was still steering it, just turning straight right.
• 39:54
  You couldn't think of a worse situation.
• 39:57
  And then what happened to that car?
• 39:59
  And luckily the roof, all the var work, because they're not built for that, comes straight down on top of him and the var work was useless because it's just not meant to do it.
• 40:07
  It's not designed to do that.
• 40:09
  And he was very, very lucky on that one.
• 40:11
  That was the second time he broke his vac, actually.
• 40:12
  He broke his vac here in the workshop one day, and I sold a Buick, I was delivering, I sold a Buick Century, and I was delivering it down to Sydney to Graham Cowans.
• 40:22
  And it was loading on the tailgate of the truck.
• 40:25
  The tailgate got to the very top, then was in the car, and the shaft broke, snapped, and it's kind of slamming down to the ground, and he fractured three vertebrae there.
• 40:33
  Luckily, three different ones than what he hurt when he had the accident.
• 40:35
  So he's actually had two broken vacs so far, so...
• 40:38
  Did you or Marie in the wake of the race crash contemplate stopping?
• 40:43
  Did it knock you around or was it always a case of he wanted to get back and you were okay with that?
• 40:47
  Yeah, he wanted to get back.
• 40:48
  Look, if he wanted to stop, I was happy to stop then and there.
• 40:51
  I thought to myself, no, two broke, that's it.
• 40:54
  I'm not going to get out again.
• 40:57
  As soon as he could walk over to the workshop, he was fixing cars again, getting ready to go again.
• 41:01
  I mean, I need to get out there.
• 41:02
  He says, yeah, I want to do this, I want to do that.
• 41:04
  I'm thinking you can't go, you've got to get doctor's clearances and all the rest of it.
• 41:07
  And as far as the accident side of drag racing, I've always said there's two parts of drag racing.
• 41:14
  It's the cost of it and it's the danger of it is the issues that if it wasn't for those two things, who wouldn't do it?
• 41:20
  You know, it's the greatest thing in the world, you know.
• 41:23
  The speed and the acceleration and the fun that you have and the camaraderie and the rivalries and everything, it's just nothing.
• 41:30
  It's like living a dream, you know.
• 41:31
  But the two downsides are, you know, the cost of the sport is expensive and the danger that's inherently involved in the sport.
• 41:39
  You know, you've seen some marvellous things over the years.
• 41:41
  People have, like Sam Fennick, you see some horrific accidents that you think, you know, you don't want to hear the outcome once you see the accident happen.
• 41:49
  because you know it's not going to be good.
• 41:51
  Next when he's walking down the track going, damn it.
• 41:54
  And then you see the other side of the coin where –
• 41:57
  I won't mention their name, but in Australian drag racing, a guy just slammed the wall once in Colder Park and then spent the rest of his life in a vegetative state, you know.
• 42:09
  And then even worse, you know, people get killed.
• 42:12
  It's just horrendous, you know what I mean?
• 42:14
  It's just so random on what happens in a motor racing accident, especially at 200 mile an hour or 250 mile an hour.
• 42:22
  And look at Phil Lamartina in Top Fuel.
• 42:25
  He's doing 320 mile an hour, mile an hour through the lights.
• 42:29
  The car bends in half, snaps, shoots 25 feet in the air, right?
• 42:34
  Drives down the racetrack.
• 42:35
  None of it's even on the track.
• 42:37
  It's all floating around in the middle of nowhere.
• 42:39
  Lands, bends up, hits the wall again, floats up, slides to a stop.
• 42:43
  Phil gets out.
• 42:44
  You've got to saw it.
• 42:44
  You've got to damage his back badly.
• 42:46
  He gets out and goes, God damn it.
• 42:49
  You know what I mean?
• 42:49
  You would not think in a million years that he would have walked away from that accident, but he did.
• 42:53
  He walked away, and there's a lot of top-field accidents that you would swear with Lion Lou, the person who was not going to walk away from them, they just walk away from them.
• 43:01
  Then it's the other way.
• 43:02
  You see someone just tap the wall or something, and next minute they're seriously injured, you know?
• 43:07
  So that's the two sides of drag racing and talking about Benny's accidents, you know?
• 43:12
  Years ago, I had a run in down at Colter Park.
• 43:15
  We had a car show down there, actually, and I was doing burnouts down there, and I had a bit of an issue, and I ran into the crowd.
• 43:21
  Not as bad as Troy Crickley did in the US, where he killed a lot of people, but, you know, there'd be people around today that would still remember that, that were involved in that.
• 43:30
  That sort of thing.
• 43:31
  And, you know, we've hit a few walls, Gladstone and down at Willow Bank one day and stuff like that.
• 43:36
  But, you know, seeing an accident like Vans and seeing a lot of accidents that have happened, that is the two issues.
• 43:41
  I've always said that the cost and the danger is the bad part of it all.
• 43:47
  Now, as far as seeing Venny come racing, Ven was my crew chief when he was 14 years old.
• 43:54
  He knew how to tune a car.
• 43:55
  When Ven was nine years old, he could pull a junior dragster motor apart, put it back together, change the cam timing and tune it and go out there and race.
• 44:03
  You know what I mean?
• 44:04
  He was right into it.
• 44:06
  He's always been a bit of a brat.
• 44:08
  He'd be in the workshop here and he'd be here.
• 44:11
  This workshop wasn't as big as it was then.
• 44:13
  And he'd move the truck, you know, 10-year-old kid jumping in the truck and drive the truck out of the way, open the door so he could do burnouts in his junior dragster inside the shed here, you know, stuff like that.
• 44:22
  We were out at the Calbar at the burnout show out there one day and I've got my burnout car sitting there.
• 44:28
  And I did a big burn-out show, and then I was at the crowd, at the fence, yeah, yeah, yeah, at the fence like you do.
• 44:36
  And next when I hear the burn-out car, I start doing burn-outs again.
• 44:39
  He's been in there when he was 14 years old.
• 44:42
  Stole my burn-out car.
• 44:44
  And, yeah, so, yeah, he had a lot to do early in his life, a lot to do with motor racing engines.
• 44:50
  And, yeah, he would fill in engines by the time he was 15 in door slammer engines.
• 44:54
  And so then I started putting a lot of stuff aside.
• 44:58
  The old Cusso, we've still got the Cusso.
• 45:00
  It's down the back there.
• 45:01
  And I said, oh, you know, you can use that if you want.
• 45:03
  And then he started piecing together old VLOX, getting them repaired over Jack Brothers and a couple of old heads and stuff like that.
• 45:08
  And so when he turned 17...
• 45:11
  Just before he turned 17, he said, I want to go racing as soon as I can.
• 45:13
  So I said, okay, got to get a licence first and all the rest of it.
• 45:17
  So he got the cusso going and, you know, he put a good old clutch and an old gearbox and everything.
• 45:25
  He got it all going, right?
• 45:26
  We were out at Willowbank and he's 17 years and two months old.
• 45:29
  He'd already run one race where he'd run a couple of runs down the racetrack.
• 45:33
  and against Debbie Reid, put him out, and he sort of, you know, first run.
• 45:37
  So we're at the winner, this was the winner nationals, right?
• 45:39
  Biggest meeting of the year.
• 45:41
  I'd contested it 16 times and never won it.
• 45:44
  It was the only race in Australia I'd never won.
• 45:47
  So I give him the pep talk, you know, I'll look, Benny, come and race, you know, there's a lot of good guys here this year and, you know, there's 20 cars and the likelihood of you, the old Cusso, you know, qualifying is very unlikely.
• 45:59
  So just be happy to get out there, do your qualifying and then, you know, give me a hand on my car, you know, from that day on.
• 46:05
  He goes, yeah, yeah, no worries, you know, he's always pretty perky, but we get out there, right?
• 46:09
  Okay.
• 46:10
  So the only...
• 46:11
  I had never not qualified for a race in my life.
• 46:14
  I'd qualified for every race I'd ever contested, and I'd never won the winner nationals.
• 46:18
  Well, you can bet I didn't qualify for that race.
• 46:22
  He did.
• 46:24
  He qualified number eight.
• 46:26
  And not only did he qualify number eight, he won the frigging thing.
• 46:30
  So he had now won the winner nationals before I won the winner nationals in a car that was going a second slower than everybody just by being sharp on the lights.
• 46:39
  And he won the event and we're talking later in the event.
• 46:43
  He said, you know, you're saying how hard it is to win the winner nationals.
• 46:46
  He said, it's not that hard.
• 46:49
  So I made a sticker up and put it on the back of the car, world's fastest smartass.
• 46:52
  It's still there today.
• 46:55
  I love it.
• 46:55
  Let's deal, mate, with the cancer.
• 46:58
  Mm.
• 47:00
  Just around the time of your 60th birthday in 2017, you are diagnosed with a fairly aggressive form of skin cancer.
• 47:09
  How serious was the prognosis?
• 47:11
  And you've had to endure a lot of treatment, a fairly heavy operation that I think was like 15 hours.
• 47:19
  Just tell us if you're comfortable with it a bit more about that.
• 47:23
  Oh, yeah.
• 47:24
  I don't like talking about it, but I mean, it's not that I don't like talking about it.
• 47:28
  I don't like remembering it because it was pretty nasty times.
• 47:30
  But I had an issue of a squamous cell carcinoma in the right-hand cheek.
• 47:38
  I could feel something not right about it, so I was going to a specialist, skin specialist.
• 47:43
  I went, I thought, nah, something's not right here, so I went to another doctor, found out it was something very serious.
• 47:48
  I went to a series of doctors that were specialised in excising cancers from head and neck cancers and to...
• 47:58
  to the worst possible thing was they all said it was inofferable and couldn't be done.
• 48:05
  Did they give you a time frame, mate?
• 48:07
  What did they say?
• 48:07
  No, they didn't really give me a time frame.
• 48:09
  I think it's something that they would have radiated the hell out of and tried to give you as much time, but I didn't really understand it.
• 48:18
  At the time, it was traumatic.
• 48:20
  I'm there going, oh, no, it can't be inofferable.
• 48:22
  I don't feel bad.
• 48:23
  Things are bad.
• 48:24
  Anyway, so I ended up going into the Royal Brisbane Hospital
• 48:28
  I went to a radiologist to get that radiation to try and make it smaller or make it last longer.
• 48:37
  The scare is always that it's gone somewhere else in your body.
• 48:40
  Obviously, that's what the screw is.
• 48:41
  And the melanomas, there's basically three types of skin cancer.
• 48:46
  There's a lot more, but there's three base ones.
• 48:47
  There's the melanoma, then there's the squamous cell carcinoma, then there's the vasal cell carcinoma.
• 48:53
  And the melanoma is really the bad one.
• 48:55
  That's the one that, you know, a lot of people can't escape.
• 48:58
  And then the one I had was squamous cell.
• 48:59
  That's the next worst one.
• 49:00
  The vasal cell is probably the least damaging of the three, although none of them are nice.
• 49:08
  So squamous cell can actually go and spread through your body, you know, and that's what we're hoping hasn't happened.
• 49:14
  Yeah.
• 49:16
  I ended up going to the radiologist.
• 49:17
  He said that, you know, this is pointless, what you're trying to do here, you know, and all these doctors said that's inoperable.
• 49:23
  So go to this head and neck clinic at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.
• 49:26
  So I go to the head and neck clinic at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and a series of doctors come and visit you.
• 49:30
  They've already viewed all your scans.
• 49:32
  You go and get every scan they can possibly do and then these doctors come and visit you one of the time, in their own time, mind you, and they donate their time and then they all go and sit in the room and work out if they can help you.
• 49:44
  And a lot of the doctors, they said, oh, we don't think this, we think that.
• 49:48
  I wasn't there at the time, but I got a rough outline of what happened.
• 49:51
  There's one guy that was travelling through Australia at the time.
• 49:56
  He's actually an American guy who lives in England, and he trains doctors in head and neck excision.
• 50:01
  So he's a specialist.
• 50:02
  And he said, look, I'm going to make a mess here, but I'm willing to have a shot at it.
• 50:08
  I think I can help you.
• 50:10
  So, you know, we agreed on it and off we went.
• 50:13
  And it was a 15-hour operation, I think nine or ten doctors in there, specialists in all different areas, because I had to remove bone, muscle.
• 50:21
  I had to sacrifice all my facial nerves.
• 50:23
  So I got like half palsy in half my face now.
• 50:28
  And I had a lot of issues, a lot of things since, you know, I think.
• 50:32
  I don't know how many operations I've had at 10, 12.
• 50:35
  I don't know how many it is.
• 50:36
  You know, facial reconstruction and stuff afterwards.
• 50:39
  Had a lot of operations while I was in hospital because they did the vein excision and then they had to do some other stuff ready for the radiation.
• 50:46
  But then I had 30 days radiation in a row.
• 50:51
  You have weekends off and then you have the five days during the week and they zap you and the worst part of that is they strap your head with a mesh...
• 51:00
  that thing onto the radio, onto the machine before they put you in the radio.
• 51:04
  So you can't move your lips, can't move your nose in about 40 minutes a time.
• 51:09
  But the whole thing is that when you're going through all this whole process, you see people 10 times worse off than you.
• 51:16
  So you don't feel bad, you feel like a sook by whinging about it because these people are going through a hell of a lot more than you're going through.
• 51:23
  Even though you're going through an awful lot, there's people up there going through a hell of a lot more.
• 51:28
  So it sort of evens things out a little bit, I suppose.
• 51:31
  So the original operation...
• 51:34
  It made a real mess.
• 51:35
  You know, when I first came out of the operation, I wouldn't dare show pictures of that.
• 51:40
  That was horrific.
• 51:41
  I had what they called a free flap where they cut the cancer out so you had a great big hole on the side of your face.
• 51:47
  And like I said, they took out bone and muscle and everything they could take out of there.
• 51:50
  They had to give up their old nerve there.
• 51:53
  And...
• 51:54
  So they cut a big chunk of your leg out and they stitch it in there.
• 51:57
  And it's called a free flap because it comes from somewhere.
• 52:00
  They can also take one from your back of your shoulders and twist it around so the blood supply stays there.
• 52:04
  But they didn't have that option, so they had to cut, find out somewhere they had a lot of appropriate blood vessels and take it out of your leg and then put it in there and stitch all the blood vessels back together.
• 52:13
  That's what took the time, you know, the micro surgeries and stuff.
• 52:16
  And then you just go and...
• 52:18
  That's it.
• 52:18
  You go back to the room and stay there for a few months and they service you and had a few issues with a bit of infection and stuff, which is pretty nasty stuff.
• 52:26
  But at the end of the day, it seems to have got me back home again anyway, back in the race car.
• 52:32
  When I was laying in the hospital, I thought I'd never get in a race car again.
• 52:35
  Although that was all long gone.
• 52:36
  So it's a pretty nasty old thing.
• 52:39
  Cancer doesn't care who it gets, where it gets you.
• 52:41
  It just makes no sense.
• 52:42
  But I certainly, there is some upsides, I suppose.
• 52:45
  I've had a lot of people since...
• 52:48
  come up to me and a couple in particular where their wives have come and thanked me because what they did they used my situation and how I looked there for a long time and how I look now their husbands had some issues with their little cancers on their face and they said I'll get round to it I'll get round to it so they've gone and they've gone
• 53:05
  have a look at Victor, get the hell down there now, or there's going to be trouble, you know.
• 53:10
  And they've gone down there and found out, you know, they were in a serious situation, but catchable, you know.
• 53:16
  And I've had dozens of people walk up to me at the racetrack and just say, oh, when we heard about your deal, we went straight down and got checked, and, you know, we found this and they found that, and, you know, thanks for this and thanks for that.
• 53:26
  So, you know, there is that side of it, you know.
• 53:29
  I feel like you're sort of helping some people a little bit, but I would still rather it didn't happen to me.
• 53:34
  But it's a really, pretty rough going and we're still, we're not at the end of the road yet, wouldn't we?
• 53:41
  I know, mate, that you, I can tell that the changes that it has made to you quite understandably, you know, affect how you feel perhaps publicly.
• 53:52
  But on behalf of all fans, mate, I know they love talking to you.
• 53:55
  I know they love seeing you at the racetrack.
• 53:58
  Rob Oberg and I spoke a little bit in the build-up to this.
• 54:01
  He did a wonderful interview with you prior to your return 12 months later at the Winter Nats in 2018, and it went off virally, mate.
• 54:10
  People were delighted to hear from you.
• 54:13
  Did that give you the confidence to get back in the car, knowing that there was that love from fans and things like that?
• 54:18
  And how much, how much after all you had been through, did being back behind the wheel mean to you?
• 54:25
  How much of a buzz did it give you?
• 54:27
  Oh, yeah, that day at the Willow Bank was pretty awesome for me.
• 54:29
  And it's like, I still love talking to the fans and that, you know.
• 54:33
  I know I look a lot different and I talk a bit different.
• 54:36
  But, you know, at the racetrack, it is different, you know.
• 54:40
  Like, you're still talking to the fans.
• 54:42
  I don't feel different myself, you know.
• 54:44
  It's a lot of... You shouldn't, mate.
• 54:46
  You shouldn't.
• 54:46
  It's a lot of...
• 54:49
  I'm still on painkillers and all the rest of the crap that goes with it all, you know, but that stuff affects you.
• 54:55
  It affects your daily stuff, you know.
• 54:57
  When you hit the racetrack, I love talking to fans.
• 54:58
  They don't treat me any different at all, not at all.
• 55:00
  And, you know, a lot of people have always asked a question, you know, and I don't mind telling them what's going on.
• 55:06
  And, you know, a lot of people come up and, you know, see me at the track and just say, oh, yeah, like I'm suffering cancer at the moment myself, and we have a little chat for a while, you know, about it and stuff.
• 55:16
  And I think...
• 55:19
  That day at the racetrack, I was very tentative of getting back in the car.
• 55:23
  I thought to myself, you know, because I said I thought I would never get back in the race car again.
• 55:27
  You know, I thought I'd be lucky just to be able to drive a street car down the road for a while there.
• 55:34
  So I get back in the car, I do the run.
• 55:36
  Anyway, they were still stomping the stands and screaming and yelling when I got out of the car down the other end of the racetrack.
• 55:42
  And then when I went back and saw all the videos of what they were doing and like standing ovation and all that, that's crazy, you know.
• 55:49
  I knew then I wanted to...
• 55:51
  Well, I did want to get back in the car anyway, but I knew that I wanted to get back in the car for the fans and I wanted to race again.
• 55:56
  So I've really...
• 55:57
  It's not easy for me now to get in that car.
• 55:59
  I used to get in the car and race just as easy as getting in your street car and driving down the road, you know, and it's not that easy anymore, you know.
• 56:07
  It's a little bit daunting.
• 56:08
  I'm getting better at it and, you know, hopefully I can get better.
• 56:11
  I want to get back to the top.
• 56:12
  I'd really like to win another... At least win another race, if not...
• 56:16
  This year I come fourth or fifth in the championship, so...
• 56:19
  I would like to get higher than that even next year and see I go.
• 56:23
  But we're chasing a sponsor at the moment.
• 56:25
  If we get one, we're going to go hard at it.
• 56:27
  We're not going to mess around.
• 56:29
  And Benny's got his fire in his belly now, and I'm ready to go again.
• 56:33
  And I feel a lot better now than I did when I first got back in the car at Willowang.
• 56:37
  And I feel a lot more confident in the car as well, because I was very tentative that day.
• 56:41
  I thought to myself, I just want the car to go properly and go down the racetrack and stop at the other end.
• 56:46
  That's all I wanted to do.
• 56:46
  I was having to go how fast it went.
• 56:49
  And it actually went to 6.30 or something like that, you know, which to me felt like a 4.50.
• 56:54
  And it was good.
• 56:56
  And then the fan response for the rest of that night was just overwhelming and phenomenal.
• 57:00
  And, you know, the emails and the text and all the Twitters and Facebook stuff, I was coughing.
• 57:06
  And, you know, everything was positive.
• 57:08
  It didn't get one bad one.
• 57:09
  So, yeah, look, I've always sort of raced for the fans because that's the way I do, you know, and...
• 57:16
  And I still race with the fans probably now more than ever.
• 57:18
  And I just hope I can give them another three years or more.
• 57:21
  I'd like to go, hey, this guy's in the States running and racing in the late 80s.
• 57:25
  Not that I think – not that I have any intention to do on that, but I'd love to get another three years minimum and maybe even a little bit after that in lower classes or something, you know.
• 57:34
  But we'll just wait and see.
• 57:37
  You know, I'm sort of guided by doctors and health at the moment.
• 57:39
  So –
• 57:41
  Don't worry, I'll push him.
• 57:42
  When I told the doctor what I'd do and I said, you know, will I be able to drive again?
• 57:45
  He goes, no, you'll be able to drive, all right.
• 57:47
  And I said, oh, yeah.
• 57:48
  I said, so you're happy to sign that off?
• 57:51
  And he said, sign what off?
• 57:52
  And I said, oh, you know, sign off to the sanctioning body for the race car.
• 57:56
  He goes, what do you drive?
• 57:59
  And I said, drive a five-second, 400-kilometer-air door slammer.
• 58:06
  He goes, you do what?
• 58:08
  And I said, don't.
• 58:08
  He goes, oh, I don't know.
• 58:10
  He said, you shouldn't be doing that anyway.
• 58:13
  But they signed me off.
• 58:14
  They signed me off and they lowered my medication.
• 58:17
  I got a medication regime around the events so that I lower down to virtually nothing while I'm actually racing and then I get back up afterwards.
• 58:27
  Everyone's been a great help.
• 58:28
  IHRA and Andrew have been a great help to help me get through that part of it and get licensed to drive again because it's something that I take is pretty savage.
• 58:39
  And, yeah, everyone's been great for that.
• 58:42
  Everyone's been good.
• 58:43
  Keep doing it.
• 58:43
  Not just for the fans, for you too.
• 58:45
  I know you get a buzz out of it.
• 58:47
  I want to finish, mate, this wonderful chat that we've had.
• 58:49
  Thank you.
• 58:50
  By recapping something that Australian Story did, they did a wonderful feature on you a few years back, and there's a line of voiceover in there that Robert Oberg reminded me about.
• 58:59
  I think it goes something like,
• 59:02
  After winning six championships, the ABC reckoned that your proudest achievement was your best tomatoes at the Royal National Show four years running.
• 59:13
  Right.
• 59:14
  I would think, mate, after this chat from six championships to world records to fastest passenger rides.
• 59:22
  I mean, there's all sorts of things that you've achieved along the way, mate.
• 59:25
  And to see you here today, knowing what you've battled and the fact that you're still doing it.
• 59:30
  I think I love the tomato yarn, but I reckon there's other stuff that you should be equally proud of.
• 59:35
  Oh yeah, I'm very proud of my family, that's for sure.
• 59:38
  My mum and dad, they were fantastic.
• 59:42
  They had a fantastic childhood and worked hard.
• 59:45
  I always had a work ethic.
• 59:46
  My dad made sure we worked hard our whole lives and that's how it worked.
• 59:50
  Still today, that's why I like working and enjoy working and that's why I got back and worked straight away.
• 59:54
  Doctors
• 59:55
  You know, you're going to have to have two years off.
• 59:57
  And I'm thinking, yeah, right, they walk out the door and go, what's he know?
• 1:00:01
  But, yeah, you know, very proud of Vanny started racing, that's for sure.
• 1:00:05
  I'm proud of my two grandkids racing and proud of Jack and Josh and all my grandkids.
• 1:00:09
  They're all doing what they want to do, and I just want them all to be happy, you know.
• 1:00:12
  Marie's been great over the years.
• 1:00:13
  So the family's probably, as everyone would say, they're the most important thing in life.
• 1:00:17
  But as far as their tomatoes go...
• 1:00:20
  I'm a tomato farmer that goes drag racer.
• 1:00:22
  I'm not a drag racer that grows tomatoes.
• 1:00:24
  And I still grow tomatoes by the way.
• 1:00:26
  And I've got a hydrophonic outfit here in the work.
• 1:00:29
  I kept enough ground when I'm sold the property, and I've got a hydrophonic farm just out the back here.
• 1:00:34
  You're a proper geneticist.
• 1:00:35
  You understand how to make really good ones.
• 1:00:37
  I'm told, mate, is that right?
• 1:00:38
  We actually, when Dad passed away in 2000 and I was away racing, I left and went full-time racing in 1998 and Dad told me to piss off and go get Dad in his system, you know.
• 1:00:49
  I think that's in the Australian story too.
• 1:00:51
  I think it says that in there.
• 1:00:52
  He'll go.
• 1:00:53
  He'll be back.
• 1:00:58
  some of my brothers and sisters took over the farm, well, they actually lost the variety.
• 1:01:01
  And so I searched high and low for it ever, and it's a variety called Summer Taste.
• 1:01:09
  It's actually called Rondelay.
• 1:01:10
  We named it after my dad, and his name was Ronald.
• 1:01:14
  And so anyway, I was looking for this variety called, the Yates got it and called it Summer Taste.
• 1:01:18
  And so they're selling it all around the place.
• 1:01:21
  Anyway, so I'm looking everywhere for it.
• 1:01:23
  Couldn't find it.
• 1:01:23
  High and low.
• 1:01:24
  I'm stopping at every little mom and dad shop, everywhere I travel to, everywhere all over Australia, down south, everywhere.
• 1:01:30
  Sydney Racetrack, they've got a big tomato farms all behind that.
• 1:01:33
  And couldn't find it anywhere.
• 1:01:35
  I was up at Gimfy one day at Helltown Hot Rods up there.
• 1:01:38
  Had a charity day.
• 1:01:39
  So I was up there and I decided to drive home through Kilcoy.
• 1:01:42
  And I was only 57.
• 1:01:44
  So I drove out there.
• 1:01:46
  We were all down the road and I'd stopped with all the mum and dad, little shops on the side of the road, little fruit shops.
• 1:01:50
  And I stopped at this one fruit shop and I walked in.
• 1:01:52
  I instantly recognised the tomatoes.
• 1:01:55
  I thought, I said... That's it.
• 1:01:57
  I had a friend of mine with me, a big barley, and he says, I looked at that and I looked down, I picked one up and I looked at it and I turned it...
• 1:02:03
  I can just... Because I've grown tomatoes me a lot, I can just recognise that.
• 1:02:07
  I said...
• 1:02:09
  I said to the guy, can I try one of these?
• 1:02:11
  He goes, yeah, they were seconds.
• 1:02:12
  These were seconds sitting in the boxes for cheap.
• 1:02:14
  So I grabbed one, I split it open, I teased it, and I said, hell, these are summer tastes, right?
• 1:02:19
  And I said to the guy, I said, oh, yeah, no, I don't think I'll have any.
• 1:02:22
  He said, they don't seem to taste too good, you know.
• 1:02:24
  They're a bit sour.
• 1:02:26
  And he looked at me and he said, well, that's bullshit.
• 1:02:28
  He said, that variety, we've been keeping that variety ourselves on and off for the last 12, 15 years.
• 1:02:35
  Yeah.
• 1:02:36
  And I said, longer I think it was.
• 1:02:37
  And I said, oh, yeah.
• 1:02:39
  And he said, me and a mate are the only two that I got.
• 1:02:41
  Everyone else lost it.
• 1:02:42
  And I said, oh, what's it called?
• 1:02:43
  He said, oh, Summer Taste.
• 1:02:44
  I said, I have two boxes, thanks.
• 1:02:47
  Mate, thank you.
• 1:02:49
  I really look forward to coming back and having another walk around the workshop here.
• 1:02:53
  All the dogs are named after legendary races, which I think is super cool.
• 1:02:57
  And I want to hear, mate, when I do come back for maybe another Rusty's Garage about some of the resto projects.
• 1:03:03
  You've got plenty of them to work on and I know that will keep you busy.
• 1:03:07
  So go get them.
• 1:03:07
  Mate, love the restoration stuff, love the drag race and love the fans, love the family.
• 1:03:11
  And I'm very, very fortunate at this time in my life to actually be here to only enjoy it.
• 1:03:20
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:03:24
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 1:03:28
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 1:03:37
  Listener.