Latest / Rusty's Garage / The Motorsport Brief: Milestone man Mark 'Frosty' Winterbottom Previews the Supercars in Perth

Transcript

The Motorsport Brief: Milestone man Mark 'Frosty' Winterbottom Previews the Supercars in Perth · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
• 0:06
  It's Monday the 24th of April 2023.
• 0:08
  It is race week for supercars as the sport heads west for round three at Wanneroo, the Perth Supersprint.
• 0:16
  And one of the stars, a Bathurst winner and former series champion is about to chalk up a very special milestone.
• 0:26
  Hi, everybody.
• 0:27
  Greg Rust with you for another edition of our Rusty's Garage shortcast.
• 0:31
  Tomorrow, we release the latest of our traditional long-form eps that I know you love.
• 0:35
  They're out now every fortnight, in fact.
• 0:37
  And the latest edition is Michael Pickens, speed car star with 10 New Zealand titles to his name.
• 0:43
  He's always a fierce competitor for the Aussies and welcomed regularly when he crosses the ditch.
• 0:48
  Very handy in a sprint car too.
• 0:49
  And he's wowed them in the US at places like Chili Bowl.
• 0:53
  So keep an eye out for notifications on that.
• 0:55
  Pico's release will be hot off the back of 1996 F1 world champion turned broadcaster Damon Hill and James Small, the Aussie crew chief.
• 1:05
  who made it to NASCAR.
• 1:07
  Awesome story, that one, of a racer who could have made a career as a driver but turned his engineering nous into a successful role on the other side of pit wall.
• 1:17
  And James was actually part of a special Bathurst win in 2013 for today's guest.
• 1:23
  Mark Winterbottom, it is great to get you on, mate.
• 1:26
  Welcome.
• 1:27
  Yeah, thank you.
• 1:28
  And good job with Smalley.
• 1:30
  I listened to that podcast and you got the most out of him.
• 1:34
  You know, he's a very passionate individual and one of the best in the business.
• 1:38
  And that was a good podcast, mate.
• 1:40
  You did a really good job with that.
• 1:42
  Yeah, that's very kind of you to say.
• 1:43
  He fondly recounts that win between you, Stephen Richards, the crew, the car.
• 1:48
  It was almost like he had a feeling for the great race that day.
• 1:52
  Was it similar for you, Frosty?
• 1:54
  Yeah, he's an incredible engineer, you know, and being an ex-driver like he is, he –
• 2:02
  He just gets it, you know, so he knows the right things to say at the right time and what to say because he treats you like how, you know, how he wanted to be told or the thought process going through it.
• 2:14
  So, yeah, it was good.
• 2:16
  We were very confident, you know, leading in even that whole year.
• 2:19
  We were dominant that whole year and...
• 2:21
  Probably should have won the championship, to be fair, but we had lots of real nut dramas and all those things that went with it.
• 2:28
  Got to the point where Smalley threw his laptop in Texas and smashed it.
• 2:32
  And that was like the wake-up call of, hey, you know, his passion.
• 2:37
  He didn't hide any of his passion.
• 2:39
  And, yeah, come Bathurst, you know, it's not just one day.
• 2:42
  It's the build-up to it.
• 2:43
  And, yeah, we were pretty confident.
• 2:45
  Like, you're never too confident at Bathurst, but...
• 2:48
  You know, when you're in the race and you've got a guy calling the shots like Smalley, we're in a pretty good place.
• 2:52
  And then throwing Richo, who's, you know, one of the Bathurst greats, just giving you the good vibe and the feedback, you know, we're in good shape.
• 3:01
  So it's never guaranteed, but it was, yeah, it was feeling like a good day.
• 3:06
  When you look back on that race, I mean, there was a little bit of a tough start, some pressure from Jamie Wincup.
• 3:11
  That victory for you must have been one to savour, and not, Mark, just because it was your first win of the great race.
• 3:18
  You had to kind of earn it, didn't you?
• 3:19
  Yeah, I started, and we were on the front row, and I think I did a buddy hop.
• 3:24
  It was almost like oil plates all over again, and buddy hopped off the line.
• 3:28
  And I remember just going, oh, my goodness, we've got a car to win this, and I can't even rev it and get off the line.
• 3:34
  But...
• 3:35
  But, yeah, to win it the way we did, you know, like you have to fight and earn it and the competitors didn't fail, you know.
• 3:42
  You were out there having to battle lap after lap, you know, almost with the same guy, Winkup, and, you know, we were within a second for the last 66 laps.
• 3:52
  So we had to fight one of the best teams that's, you know, the last decade.
• 3:57
  But I don't know, it just felt like we were in control even though it doesn't
• 4:00
  I don't know, Bathurst could throw everything at you.
• 4:02
  We were in control, really, I thought.
• 4:04
  Even with the bad start, it was like, no stress, chuck Richo in, we'll be right, get back in the race and we'll find our feet.
• 4:10
  And, yeah, it was just one of those days.
• 4:12
  I've never felt like that comfortable.
• 4:15
  Probably 07 was the only other time I felt that we had the race in the bag under control.
• 4:21
  But, you know, good people around you at that race definitely –
• 4:25
  I don't know, just calms everything and they make the right calls and pressure situations and, yeah, it was a really good day and almost perfect, which is very rare for Bathurst.
• 4:35
  600 races, Mark.
• 4:37
  Bloody hell.
• 4:38
  That will put you in a very special club alongside Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander.
• 4:43
  Have you paused, mate, to soak that in and is there some sort of plan with Charlie and the team or whatever to celebrate the milestone?
• 4:51
  Yeah.
• 4:52
  It's a great milestone.
• 4:53
  I think Charlie's plan is to get three wins in Perth.
• 4:56
  That's how he'd like to celebrate it, as we all would.
• 5:00
  But, you know, it's a great achievement.
• 5:01
  Like I think in a sport that getting into it's really tough.
• 5:05
  You know what it's like, Rusty.
• 5:06
  Getting in, you know, you've got to beg, borrow, steal, literally knock on everyone's door to get an opportunity.
• 5:12
  But once you're in there, you're not safe.
• 5:13
  You've got to get in.
• 5:14
  You've got to deliver week in, week out because, you know,
• 5:16
  One bad year out, a bad year is game over.
• 5:21
  And it's been a great achievement, I guess, to have team owners and sponsors and people buy your merchandise.
• 5:29
  And the support I've had has been fantastic.
• 5:32
  So, yeah, it's a big number.
• 5:35
  I don't know.
• 5:36
  I look forward, not backwards.
• 5:37
  That's the hard part.
• 5:38
  So, it's an elite club that you're in with only two others who were great to the sport.
• 5:45
  But I'd rather have 600 wins than 600 races.
• 5:48
  So, coming to Perth, I'm sure there's, you know, for one moment, you sit back and reflect it.
• 5:55
  But as soon as the light goes out, it's, yeah, it's game on, you know.
• 6:00
  And I want to get a win.
• 6:01
  I want to get a win for Charlie.
• 6:02
  I want to get
• 6:03
  And yeah, hopefully Perth's the place we can do it.
• 6:06
  Cool.
• 6:06
  We'll reflect on Wanneroo in a moment.
• 6:08
  Cool yarn by James Pavey on the supercar site in recent days.
• 6:12
  It might have been 600 straight races had it not been for that damn great at the Shanghai Circuit when we all toured there early in your career in 2005.
• 6:23
  That must have felt like a bomb going off when that thing punctured the floor.
• 6:28
  How vivid are your recollections of that even today?
• 6:32
  It was pretty scary.
• 6:33
  You don't think anything's going to hurt you from underneath the car.
• 6:37
  You think big crash at Bathurst, rollovers, you watch the highlight reels and there's big crashes, but a grate coming through the bottom and it missed that little region or large region or whatever you want to call it, Rusty, by about 10.
• 6:54
  By about 20 centimetres, you know, it was pretty scary.
• 6:57
  When you look at how, you know, it sheared a roll cage in half.
• 7:01
  That's how much force went through it and sliced the car in half.
• 7:05
  But not only that being scary, the motorbike trip from where the car was back to the pits was one hell of a ride too, you know, holding on to...
• 7:16
  The Chinese Valentino Rossi on the way back.
• 7:20
  Man, that was a scary ride too.
• 7:21
  So all in all, it was a bit going on.
• 7:24
  But then I think Sunday we went and bought some fake handbags and Bintan singlets and whatever it was at the market.
• 7:30
  So if you're going to do it, probably China was the place to do it.
• 7:33
  But it was, you know, you laugh about it now, but it was actually pretty close.
• 7:37
  It was one of those freak accidents that could have turned pretty nasty.
• 7:41
  Yeah, I have fond, I'm showing my age here, but I have fond memories made of drivers like Dean Canto and you as young carters at places like Lithgow, for example.
• 7:53
  Very humble upbringing for you in Western Sydney.
• 7:56
  Then to be there and to see you, that once young racer, Mark, win the big prize in 2015, the Supercars title, how much...
• 8:07
  looking back on it all, did you kind of have to overcome to achieve that?
• 8:11
  And were there roadblocks along the way?
• 8:14
  How big were those roadblocks?
• 8:15
  Oh, it's tough.
• 8:17
  I guess motorsport, the easiest way to get in is money.
• 8:20
  There's no doubt about it because a test day costs money or you can go buy your own car and run it.
• 8:27
  It's very tough.
• 8:28
  But in karting, we were lucky that I had some great support there with Jim Morton who's passed away a few years ago now, but he was a great supporter.
• 8:39
  I had good people around me and when you're racing at the time, you're just racing week in, week out.
• 8:46
  you know, thinking it's the biggest race of your life, you know, whether it's at Lithgow or all the places.
• 8:51
  But how funny it is that you end up banging doors with the same people you raced in karting week in, week out.
• 8:58
  You know, the Wing Cups, the Davos, the Canos, Caruso.
• 9:01
  It's like I could roll off.
• 9:03
  All of them.
• 9:03
  And they, you know, we all made it.
• 9:05
  So there was something about that group and generation, I think, of carters that some had money, some didn't.
• 9:11
  But we all had to fight just to win a go-kart race against each other.
• 9:15
  It was a really, really tough time in karting.
• 9:18
  Just a tough group of people.
• 9:19
  So major strong, but...
• 9:22
  But also right place, right time for me.
• 9:25
  I was lucky that I think Holden had the Young Lions program and Ford, I think the youngest driver was Ambrose at about 28 or something.
• 9:33
  So they had a lot of older drivers and Holden was seeing the Young Lions as a bit of a program.
• 9:39
  So Ford needed someone and right place, right time and won the Kart Stars and Ford.
• 9:45
  Mike Ballant, who was another very influential person to help open some doors for me, and then Mark Roworth and Ross Stone and Howard Marsden, you know, the list goes on.
• 9:54
  So, very lucky, but it's a grind, you know.
• 9:58
  There's so many times you have the phone next to you and you think it's going to ring and it's not the person you want it to be, you know.
• 10:05
  So, it's very, very tough.
• 10:06
  But like I said before, getting in is tough and staying there is just as tough, you know.
• 10:10
  Yeah.
• 10:11
  You finally get the opportunity and it's game on.
• 10:14
  That's when you've got to make the most of it.
• 10:15
  Maybe it's the Western Sydney upbringing, but I know you're ultra passionate about supercars, mate.
• 10:19
  You love it.
• 10:20
  Are there or is there another form of racing you might like to have a crack at or maybe an event like a Le Mans 24 Hour?
• 10:27
  Are there little things like that in the back of your mind that you'd love to have a shot at?
• 10:31
  It's funny, you know, supercars is, I think, I love it because of the competition and I think we're sport for drivers here.
• 10:38
  You know, I think Australia and New Zealand have the best drivers in the world and it's not until you go other places like Brazil and you race XF1 guys and stuff and...
• 10:49
  without sounding arrogant, they're a lot easier to beat than what our guys are here.
• 10:53
  You know, it's really, really tough here.
• 10:55
  So, you know, Le Mans and all that doesn't interest me.
• 10:58
  I don't really – I hate balance of performance and just being in the right car.
• 11:04
  I like working my backside off and recruiting the right people and making the car –
• 11:11
  as fast as possible and that's what gets me going.
• 11:13
  But, you know, Speedway is something I grew up with as a young kid and, you know, that's really cool.
• 11:20
  I think, you know, if you could have a heap of money and just a toy that you wanted to go and drive with no external pressure or anything, Speedway would be pretty cool.
• 11:29
  But other than that, Brazil stock cars.
• 11:32
  Like I actually come close in 19 to doing a deal to go race over there.
• 11:36
  But they don't do contracts, they do handshakes and they don't do,
• 11:41
  bank transfers they do cash so um it wasn't it probably wasn't um the smartest moves uh to do but um that that's really cool as well 45 cars covered by half a second same thing as supercars um cutthroat super competitive so um if it was a bit more uh what would you call it legit um in in some of the transfers in contracts and that's something in the future i'd like to do as well
• 12:09
  Cool.
• 12:09
  Some good drivers in that field, some real good names.
• 12:15
  You still have a youthfulness about you.
• 12:18
  Damn you, Frosty.
• 12:19
  You're all in with your racing, I know, mate, for as long as you can keep doing it.
• 12:25
  Have you ever contemplated what next?
• 12:29
  Is there a line at some point where you think, oh, maybe I'll scale back then or call time around then
• 12:38
  You know what, if you do what you do well and do it well, then this is my focus.
• 12:44
  You know, like I work my backside off every day, you know, training hard to make sure that power steering fails or it's hot or something happens in the car that you're ready to go.
• 12:56
  You know, I don't live and breathe.
• 12:58
  I don't come home and have a car in the garage that I have to work on.
• 13:01
  I don't need my motorsport fix when I come home, but I work really hard.
• 13:05
  So when I do go and race,
• 13:06
  I'm ready to go with no excuses, no nothing.
• 13:09
  So, you know, I'm still super motivated.
• 13:12
  Like literally, you know, if I have a really busy day, I'll still come home, I'll smash the gym work because I don't skip the hard stuff at home.
• 13:20
  So I'm not – it's not like you're not motivated to do well, you know.
• 13:23
  Like I'm still –
• 13:25
  I think, hungrier than ever because every year you do it, there's a new challenge.
• 13:29
  And, you know, I've been lucky enough to win Bathurst and the championship, but Charlie doesn't give rats about that.
• 13:36
  I wasn't with him.
• 13:36
  So, you know, he employed me to win with him.
• 13:40
  And I've got a lot of respect for Charlie, you know, and that's until I can win a championship for him, Bathurst for him, then my previous results mean nothing.
• 13:49
  So, yeah.
• 13:51
  I'm super motivated, but what happens after happens after.
• 13:55
  But if you win races, you keep getting employed and that's the focus.
• 13:58
  I love the sport and these new Gen 3 cars have given me a massive newborn enthusiasm because they're really cool to drive, they're really hard to drive and...
• 14:09
  It feels like a new category.
• 14:11
  Since you brought up Gen 3, can we go with that?
• 14:14
  Some have suggested that those who kind of have muscle memory for the older cars that's deeply ingrained have taken or may take longer to adapt.
• 14:24
  It doesn't sound like that's a thing for you.
• 14:26
  Not really.
• 14:27
  Is that right?
• 14:27
  It's funny, you know, you think, you know, you drive a car a certain way and stuff like that, but then you jump in and you so quickly adapt.
• 14:36
  But I think that's also my upbringing.
• 14:38
  You know, like I never, I didn't always have the newest gear in some aspects.
• 14:42
  You know, you had to, whatever you drove, whether it was a Peewee 50 or I drove a Honda Odyssey on the dirt, I drove a go-kart on the dirt, I drove a go-kart.
• 14:51
  at CIK level, I've driven Clubman on some of the hardest tires.
• 14:54
  You know, like you had to be very versatile.
• 14:56
  And even on weekends at GoCars, we would drive, you know, International, which was the stickiest tire.
• 15:02
  And then you'd race J's, which was the slowest engine, the hardest tire.
• 15:06
  So I think your whole life, and, you know, this goes for your Wink-Ups and Davos and Caruso's.
• 15:12
  And back in that day, you had to drive multiple categories on the same day, completely different stuff like that.
• 15:18
  So I think...
• 15:19
  I don't know, muscle memory is good, but these cars, they still brake at the same sort of marker.
• 15:25
  So when you go to Waterloo or you go to Newcastle, you're still braking it around the same marker, but what happens between that brake zone and the apex is a little bit different and what happens between the apex and the exit is a bit different.
• 15:38
  So I think they're similar but so different to drive, which sounds crazy, but...
• 15:45
  Yeah, I don't think muscle memory has ever been, you know, one for me.
• 15:49
  I feel like you just, you know, you do your research, you watch footage and stuff and that's what educates you more than muscle memory as such.
• 15:57
  But, yeah, they feel very different but they do have similarities which –
• 16:02
  I don't know.
• 16:03
  It's a bad way to explain it, but they move around a lot.
• 16:06
  The throttle's a bit different, but, you know, week to week, cars are different anyway, you know, with setups and stuff like that.
• 16:12
  So, yeah, it's been good.
• 16:14
  I think the car's really good.
• 16:15
  It's a lot of fun to drive.
• 16:16
  Cool.
• 16:16
  Looking ahead to Wanneroo, you mentioned that a moment ago.
• 16:19
  Actually, you know, from a numbers point of view, very happy hunting ground.
• 16:22
  Yeah.
• 16:23
  for you, mate.
• 16:24
  I think you've finished all 43 starts there since your first, you know, supercars visit back in 04.
• 16:30
  And most wins of anyone currently in the field.
• 16:34
  What is it about that place?
• 16:35
  It's been good.
• 16:37
  It is one of my better tracks.
• 16:38
  So it's actually nice to celebrate a milestone at a track that you actually go decent at.
• 16:43
  So...
• 16:45
  I don't know.
• 16:45
  I think it's been good for Tickford, you know, and I was there for 13 years.
• 16:48
  So obviously, you know, it was a very good track for the Tickford cars.
• 16:51
  And yeah, I had a lot of success there.
• 16:55
  I think we clean swept once, maybe twice there, 08 and 15, I think.
• 17:01
  I won two and then Chazzy won on the Sunday, I think.
• 17:03
  So as a team, we've cleaned swept there quite a few times.
• 17:05
  So yeah.
• 17:07
  Yeah, it's funny.
• 17:08
  Six corners and all that sort of stuff, but it's worked.
• 17:11
  I think I won there in 16 as well with the race.
• 17:14
  So, yeah, it's been a good track.
• 17:18
  I don't know why, but often when the car suits the track, you think it's a good track, you know, and then you go back there in a car that doesn't suit it and you're like –
• 17:26
  what happened, I'm good here, what happened, you know.
• 17:28
  And then a bogey track becomes a good one.
• 17:32
  But, yeah, it's a good track.
• 17:33
  I love Barbagel.
• 17:33
  I think it's got so much character and it's very, very tough.
• 17:37
  So I love that track.
• 17:39
  You're a proud dad nowadays, I know.
• 17:41
  Is there likely to be a next generation Winterbottom racer, do we think?
• 17:46
  Well, they actually went out the other day, the two boys.
• 17:49
  Did they?
• 17:50
  Yeah, Oliver's 12 and Austin's 10.
• 17:53
  Fantastic.
• 17:54
  So they went out the other day and they got a lot of bruises on their ribs and all the things that karting does.
• 18:02
  And Oliver's like, I'd rather tackle blokes in AFL, Dad.
• 18:05
  So that was good.
• 18:06
  So that saved me a bit of money.
• 18:08
  And then...
• 18:09
  And then Austin goes, oh, I'd rather play rep basketball.
• 18:12
  So that saved me money.
• 18:13
  So I've got a three-and-a-half-year-old that's next, and I reckon he's the mad one.
• 18:19
  So yeah, what I say is going to cost a fortune in the future, I think.
• 18:27
  I love to wrap these things up with a look at other results from home and abroad.
• 18:31
  Are you an F1 fan?
• 18:34
  I think you mentioned Speedway there before.
• 18:35
  Is there anything else you watch from the world of motorsport?
• 18:38
  Yeah, I like watching Formula 1.
• 18:41
  I like watching it.
• 18:42
  It's the pinnacle of what we do, but it's also something that I feel is so far away from what we do in supercars.
• 18:50
  You know, I think you race your teammate and that's it.
• 18:52
  You know, I feel like in Formula 1 it's race your teammate, you beat him, you win a world championship if you're in the best car.
• 18:57
  But I do love watching it because the glitz, the glamour and, you know, and then guys like Ricciardo and even Piastri,
• 19:05
  He's two doors up from our holiday house here, so I see him a little bit up here.
• 19:08
  Fantastic.
• 19:11
  And even IndyCar now, watching guys that, you know, McLaughlin and Power and those guys, as soon as you have someone that you can have a connection with, you soon love that series, you know.
• 19:20
  I wasn't into IndyCar, but the last two years, I'm really into that.
• 19:25
  I reckon that's really jumped in categories to watch.
• 19:28
  So you've got to know someone, I think, to have...
• 19:32
  In any sport, you know someone, you have personal interest.
• 19:35
  And yeah, IndyCars probably jumped up to number one for me after Supercars.
• 19:39
  Cool.
• 19:40
  We are looking forward to the month of May and the Indy 500.
• 19:43
  Before then, though, you are off to Perth for the next round of Supercars.
• 19:47
  Go well there.
• 19:48
  Congrats, my friend.
• 19:50
  Soak up the moment in WA.
• 19:51
  And we're looking forward to a longer chat down the track with you.
• 19:55
  Lots of fans message us on the podcast and ask, can we sit down at some stage?
• 19:59
  And we'll do that.
• 20:00
  when we both got a bit more time.
• 20:01
  Thank you very much.
• 20:02
  Thanks mate, no worries.
• 20:05
  An incredible finishing rate.
• 20:07
  That's been one of the hallmarks of Frosty's career when you look back on it in supercars, something like 95%.
• 20:13
  And he's chalked up 38 race wins so far, but based on that conversation, he is absolutely determined to add to that tally.
• 20:23
  Would be very cool to see him get some more.
• 20:25
  Now, Mark mentioned IndyCar.
• 20:28
  Congrats to Kyle Kirkwood on winning the latest round at Long Beach in California, working with Fabric,
• 20:34
  Former driver Brian Hurta, too.
• 20:36
  Hurta raced for Chip Ganassi, AJ Foyt, Andretti Green, and he won the Indy Lights series for Tasman Motorsports.
• 20:44
  So nice that he's paired again with another Indy Lights graduate.
• 20:47
  Hurta, as strategist, helped Kyle get that breakthrough victory, and it was an Andretti 1-2 with former F1 driver Romain Grosjean home second.
• 20:57
  Will Power sixth, Scott McLaughlin tenth.
• 21:00
  Ahead of the World Rally Championship Round in Croatia, organisers announced they'll retire the number 42 following the tragic passing of Craig Breen in that testing accident.
• 21:10
  The outpouring of messages from all areas of motorsport showed just how loved Breen is and how much his infectious passion for the sport is going to be missed.
• 21:23
  thoughts are with family friends the hyundai team and all of those in service park and finally keep the faith that's kind of the message despite sliding out while in podium contention in texas jack miller has indicated all the right ingredients are there for a race win for he and ktm in moto gp the two-wheel series the premier series of motorcycle racing heads to jerez in spain this
• 21:50
  That is it for another edition of the Motorsport Brief.
• 21:52
  If there's a topic you want us to tackle, hit us up on socials or if there's a guest suggestion for our regular long-form episodes, you can do the same.
• 22:02
  Thanks to all of you who have messaged lately with ideas for both.
• 22:06
  They are all pretty much on the list.
• 22:08
  We will catch you next week, everyone.
• 22:10
  Bye for now.