Latest / Rusty's Garage / Craig Baird (Part 2)

Transcript

Craig Baird (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here, getting set for part two of my podcast with Kiwi racer Craig Baird.
• 0:25
  If you haven't heard the first instalment, head back to the library and give it a listen.
• 0:28
  There's some fabulous yarns in there on his early years, waking up the neighbours, cutting laps of the block, racing carts built by his dad, and a true love of the history of motorsport, particularly in New Zealand.
• 0:41
  We start part two by continuing a chat on the chance to drive some priceless machines.
• 0:46
  During his time with Ford, he was earmarked on a rainy day in the UK to drive one of Jackie Stewart's F1 cars and a legendary machine from the Le Mans 24 Hour.
• 0:57
  We were doing a ride day when I was doing British touring cars.
• 1:01
  So I thought it was just going to really be a ride day in the Mondeos.
• 1:05
  And we got there and it was absolutely pouring down with rain.
• 1:07
  But we were hoping it was sort of going to dry and bits and pieces.
• 1:10
  And we had some executives from Ford Germany and they said, hey, what we what we have to do
• 1:17
  we need to sit in these other two cars to make sure we sort of fit in and just get a feel of how to start them in bits and pieces.
• 1:23
  So I went into this marquee and there was, um, Jackie Stewart's world championship Tyrrell and the GT 44 GT 40 that Graham Hill, um, raced at Le Mans.
• 1:39
  So these were two cars I was going to drive.
• 1:42
  Um,
• 1:44
  Sadly, with the way the weather was, there's no way they were putting Jackie Stewart's tail onto the track, which I was probably very pleased about deep down.
• 1:54
  But I did end up taking some of the Ford executives with the GD40 around Silverstone and pouring rain.
• 2:00
  And I remember it was all fogged up, very old school, you know.
• 2:02
  I don't know if they had changed the tyres in 20 years.
• 2:05
  And I was sort of getting bolted in and I just, I shouldn't have really said it, but I said to the guy, if I did shunt the thing, what would it be worth?
• 2:14
  He looked, he just looked at me with horror, with horror.
• 2:18
  He said, you realize this car is absolutely irreplaceable.
• 2:22
  I sort of just squashed back down into the seat and thought about what I'd just said.
• 2:26
  But that's when men were men, you know, that driving that car in those conditions, I thought,
• 2:34
  we're pretty spoiled.
• 2:36
  You mentioned both Brett Riley and Bathurst 1994, your first appearance there.
• 2:42
  You guys, I think finished just outside the top 10.
• 2:44
  What did you make of going to the mountain for the first time?
• 2:47
  And that was in an early period of a kind of good association for you with BMW, wasn't it?
• 2:52
  Yeah, it was.
• 2:53
  I remember going there, I was just completely lost.
• 2:57
  I hadn't done a lot of stuff in a touring car anyway.
• 3:00
  And you come from Pukekohe and you think you know everything and then all of a sudden you get dropped in at Bathurst.
• 3:07
  Well, Bathurst was even different back then in that era, it was still pretty dangerous.
• 3:17
  I just remember being totally lost.
• 3:18
  Unlike today, I remember when I learned the Singapore street track when I was racing Carrera Cup, I went to Van Gisburgh and said, you've got to come around and just learn the track here.
• 3:28
  And it was so easy to learn a track, not to master it, but to know what's coming up.
• 3:34
  And I think that's the difference now.
• 3:35
  We see commentators clearly say, you know, that's amazing to see a guy just never been to Bathurst before and bang, you know, third lap, he's on the money.
• 3:45
  That's the simulator.
• 3:47
  You know what I mean?
• 3:47
  The simulator, they're so good, they're so real.
• 3:50
  Our cars are so good.
• 3:51
  Our cars are probably too easy to drive nowadays, especially GT cars.
• 3:55
  Supercar, you'll never see anyone just arrive and get on the money straight away.
• 3:59
  They will struggle.
• 4:00
  But a GT car, it's an extension of their arm in Europe.
• 4:04
  They come out here, they already know the track on the simulators, and it's a different era.
• 4:10
  There was certainly no simulator.
• 4:13
  You had some time in different parts of the world with BMW.
• 4:17
  I want to get your recollections of South Africa and quite a big shunt for you.
• 4:23
  Both Andy and Tim reminded me of that.
• 4:27
  Yeah.
• 4:28
  I've been very fortunate in my career.
• 4:30
  I haven't had a lot of big shunts, but we were racing at Cape Town.
• 4:36
  Yeah, massive, massive accident.
• 4:38
  And I still look at photos of the accident, and everyone else does too.
• 4:43
  Like, I'm talking about a super-touring BMW that is built extremely well that ends up with,
• 4:49
  no doors, no wheels, no engine, no diff, broke the seat out of it.
• 4:56
  And I hopped out with a slightly bruised foot.
• 4:59
  I think three hours later, I went for a beer with Paul Sepponich at the pub in town.
• 5:06
  But the bad part of that was it was an accident no one really meant to happen.
• 5:10
  It's just that there was a bridge, a Goodyear bridge going across the top of the track and there was three wide.
• 5:16
  I was very, very good friends with Julian Bailey in England and South Africa.
• 5:22
  We were like two brothers.
• 5:24
  And I remember a left-hand drive car and I remember him looking at me
• 5:30
  trying to give me room, but the car to his right, never knew I had the overlap as well.
• 5:36
  So it was Gilles de Villiers in the Nissan and he was just crowding, crowding, and Julian actually lifted off the throttle to try and get out of the accident.
• 5:46
  But the lift off the throttle was enough to spare the Nissan across course.
• 5:49
  I never saw it coming.
• 5:51
  So as it collected me, I went straight into the bridge.
• 5:54
  In that era, instead of the armco going through, the bridge was obviously a bit shorter than the track.
• 6:00
  So the armco came out, went under the bridge and then back in.
• 6:04
  So I hit the thing head on.
• 6:07
  Don't really know what speed it was.
• 6:08
  But anyway, I remember the first part of the accident and I thought how big it had just been.
• 6:15
  And just as I came to rest in the middle of the straight, but about 200 meters down, I sort of thought, I think I've got away with this.
• 6:24
  And then I looked out the window, left-hand drive, and here comes an Audi.
• 6:29
  full steam ahead.
• 6:30
  So next minute I'm off for the next accident.
• 6:32
  So now I've had two accidents in the matter of 200 meters.
• 6:36
  So the first one was hard enough, but the second one, just like anything, I guess the second impact broke things like the seat out.
• 6:45
  The seat belts actually cut through the back of the seat.
• 6:47
  There was all sorts of stuff, but yeah, I was lucky enough to,
• 6:51
  to walk away and it is what it is.
• 6:55
  Some days you're lucky that we've all lost mates in race cars and stuff and you just, I guess we draw our ticket maybe, I'm not sure.
• 7:05
  Those super touring BMWs were amazing and your path and mine would cross in the sort of mid to back end of the 90s, if you will, when they were running a third car at times in Australia.
• 7:16
  Jeff Brabham and Paul Morris, who's been on the podcast as well, you were part of that.
• 7:21
  You and Paul would cross the line first at Bathurst.
• 7:26
  It was a short-lived journey.
• 7:28
  celebration and I would imagine, mate, missing out on winning that race still wounds you, does it?
• 7:35
  Oh, it does, because without doubt if the second car, if the Brabham-Brabham car had the finished second, BMW would afford it, but they didn't really want any bad press on it, so we were lambs to the slaughter.
• 7:48
  Look, it was stupid what we did, without doubt, because Paul and I, Paul had been brilliant that weekend.
• 7:56
  We had worked...
• 7:57
  basically all year, not only on my fitness, his fitness, I think Paul was like 80 kilos then.
• 8:05
  He put everything into that and he was, Paul's one of the guys that is, people either love him or hate him, but what he can do, he can wheel any sort of car, any day and do it very, very well.
• 8:17
  And he took it to the Europeans in qualifying.
• 8:20
  We had made a decision very early that it was Paul's car,
• 8:26
  I was his wingman for the day and, or for the weekend.
• 8:30
  He was on top of his game and he threw it on pole.
• 8:34
  I gave all the Europeans with all the bits and pieces, all the latest gear.
• 8:39
  I'm not saying, and we had good gear, no doubt about it.
• 8:42
  But I don't think the BMW was the fastest race car, but was it the fastest qualifying car?
• 8:50
  Probably not, but he dragged that thing, absolutely dragged it.
• 8:55
  We had that race basically won all day.
• 8:58
  We should have done the last pit stop.
• 9:01
  I guess we were concerned that we may have lost time doing a driver change, but we wouldn't have, because Paul and I had, I think we were down, like I kid you not, because don't forget, we only, we had no steering wheels through it, like just no wings on seats, nothing.
• 9:15
  We were in and out of that thing 10 or 12 seconds easily, and I mean easily.
• 9:20
  So we should have swapped, but I guess,
• 9:23
  BMW really, they looked at the rule.
• 9:26
  No one driver can drive continuously for more than a period of three and a half hours.
• 9:32
  I did three hours 58, but their argument was that when you pit, you no longer are driving the car if you've got no wheels on the car through pit stops and fuel and bits and pieces.
• 9:43
  So they probably would have won that argument.
• 9:45
  I have no bones about that.
• 9:47
  You can't drive a car with no wheels on it.
• 9:50
  I wasn't driving it at that time.
• 9:52
  So it was...
• 9:53
  Interpretation, as we all do in motorsport, we interpret rules.
• 9:57
  We tend to try and read between the lines, not what's actually in the lines, but that was a decision that cost Paul and ideally.
• 10:05
  So you can, it'll never happen for me, but you can imagine how happy I was when I saw, you know, and he's always been a mate of mine,
• 10:15
  We've boxed each other up and we'll throw shit at each other, but Paul and I are really good mates and always have been, so I was pretty emotional for him that day because I thought he was like I was.
• 10:27
  I thought he'll never raise that trophy, but he did.
• 10:30
  He won it with Jazz and, as I say, I was as happy for him that day as he was for himself.
• 10:37
  Very cool.
• 10:38
  About this time in that sort of 97 period, I would imagine the phone must have rung again from Dick Bennett's to not repay a favour, but I guess it feels a little bit like that.
• 10:49
  He'd made a promise to you kind of years prior, hadn't he?
• 10:51
  And there was an opportunity that turned up to drive the Ford Mondeo in the British Touring Car Championship at a zenith period, Beardo, for those cars.
• 10:59
  I mean, the development, the work that the factory teams were doing, it was incredible, wasn't it?
• 11:04
  Yeah, well, Bathurst certainly didn't do us any harm to get that phone call because we had sort of boxed with Frank Beeler that last part of that race and he had nothing for us.
• 11:21
  So, yeah, anyway, the phone did ring and it was an opportunity.
• 11:25
  Radisic was moving forward.
• 11:28
  he was moving to Peugeot.
• 11:30
  So there was an opening at Ford.
• 11:32
  Dick Bennett's West Area Racing was still running the Mondeo program.
• 11:36
  There was another part of that as well with Adrian Reynard building that car, that Mondeo for that year was a Reynard built car.
• 11:48
  So I went over for a test.
• 11:52
  It was quite a difficult test because
• 11:56
  It was a really cold, cold day.
• 11:59
  It was raining.
• 12:00
  There were different changing weather conditions in bits and pieces, but there was half a dozen different drivers there.
• 12:06
  And anyway, we all had to do race runs, qualifying runs, all sorts of things, starts, just general go through everything.
• 12:16
  We were there for a couple of days.
• 12:18
  And then I came back.
• 12:20
  I came back to Australia.
• 12:22
  I was living here on the Gold Coast and...
• 12:25
  Yeah, fortunate enough that I could have got that call between Ford, Reinhardt and West Sarri Racing.
• 12:33
  And I have no doubt that Dick Bennett was pushing my barrow very hard.
• 12:38
  But at the end of the day, I still got to see all the race run times.
• 12:41
  And I wasn't the quickest in qualifying trim.
• 12:45
  But I was in a race run, true.
• 12:46
  So my race pace was better, but I'd probably done more touring car stuff at that time too.
• 12:54
  So there was, you know, people like Jordy Genet that were heading to Formula One and missed out on F1 seats, so he was in.
• 13:00
  So there's all sorts of people, people probably,
• 13:04
  braver or in an opportunity to put more on the line than me in some parts of that test.
• 13:10
  But yeah, anyway, I did that season, which was a great experience, but it was a tough one because it was the first front wheel drive touring car, it was the first touring car Raynard had ever built.
• 13:23
  So we did struggle a little bit there.
• 13:25
  There was some things that probably weren't right on the car.
• 13:28
  And you hear it when people come to this part of the world,
• 13:34
  Every time, you know...
• 13:36
  Alex Premar, he gets down here for the first year.
• 13:38
  He would be one of the best drivers in the world, but he struggles from race meeting to race meeting in a supercar because it's a car he's not used to.
• 13:46
  It's circuits he's not used to.
• 13:47
  You're just not in your own sandpit.
• 13:49
  So it was a tough year, but again, I was, I had a fantastic teammate in Will Hoy, which unfortunately passed away.
• 14:01
  But Will was the gentleman of our sport and
• 14:04
  He was the one that really got me...
• 14:07
  I was accepted into the old boys club with Derek Warwick and John Clelland and these guys just solely because of Will.
• 14:16
  And so we'd go to a race meeting.
• 14:18
  We stayed at the best places, the old manor houses with a golf course attached and we would have dinner at night all together and Richard Rydell was a good mate of mine.
• 14:29
  We used to play a lot of golf together.
• 14:31
  So between...
• 14:32
  sort of the, it was a little bit different.
• 14:35
  We're just such good friends and we enjoyed each other's company every night having dinner.
• 14:42
  It was sort of really different.
• 14:43
  So for a young guy and to be accepted, and I still see, you know, obviously guys like Derek Warwick and that all turn up with Roland Dane at a racetrack and, you know, it's just nice to have got to,
• 14:57
  have respect not only for them, but the other way around.
• 15:00
  And I had a pretty special teammate that year for certain rounds in Nigel Mansell.
• 15:06
  So I got to hear that era of F1, you know, turbocharged, big horsepower cars.
• 15:16
  I got to hear some pretty special war stories filling in a day at the racetrack with Nigel.
• 15:24
  About this time, supercars in Australia is really starting to take off.
• 15:29
  I think you paired with Stevie Johnson at one stage, didn't you?
• 15:33
  The pair of you had raced together.
• 15:35
  Yeah, my first supercar Baptist was Steve Johnson.
• 15:38
  We finished fourth in the Shell Falcon.
• 15:42
  And then in 2000, you'd get a great opportunity with the legendary Stone Brothers, mate.
• 15:47
  It seemed on paper like the ultimate Kiwi combination.
• 15:51
  I was there at the opening round at Phillip Island.
• 15:55
  You know, it looks straight away like it would be a great success story.
• 15:59
  But it was, I guess, maybe for both sides, perhaps made unfulfilled, wasn't it?
• 16:04
  Oh, very much so.
• 16:05
  I always felt like I let them down a little bit.
• 16:07
  In what way?
• 16:08
  I...
• 16:10
  Well, probably one of the most intelligent guys I've ever come across in Paul Sefrinich.
• 16:15
  And he's been a fantastic engineer for so many people.
• 16:20
  He's very hard.
• 16:22
  He's very straight.
• 16:24
  He's very South African.
• 16:25
  You know where you stand with him.
• 16:27
  He was my engineer in South Africa, and we'd had success there over a period of a couple of years.
• 16:34
  I had so much faith in him, I brought him back to work with me.
• 16:37
  I just felt that the Super Tourers probably had a lot to offer the V8 Falcon.
• 16:45
  He came quite late.
• 16:47
  We were at Phillip Island.
• 16:48
  We turned up.
• 16:49
  Yep, we won a race straight out of the box, very much on a Jason Bright set-up and a June Stone set-up, I suppose.
• 16:58
  And then we...
• 17:00
  re-engineered it and I wouldn't say for the worst because I think over a period of time what they learned and what they how to think outside the the square as and Paul's very good at that but I lost confidence not not in him as an engineer because if we'd stayed together in a supercar for a couple of years we would have I firmly believe we would have dominated but we
• 17:26
  So he was trying to change my driving style, which I had to do.
• 17:29
  And I found that very hard to do because I'd always driven a car that was, needed mid corner speed.
• 17:36
  Everything for me was mid corner speed.
• 17:37
  Clear the brakes, just have big balls, roll it in there and hope you come out the other side.
• 17:43
  Well, the supercar is completely opposite.
• 17:45
  You know, I'd compare data with my teammate at that time.
• 17:49
  They say, you know, Longhurst is,
• 17:52
  12 kilometres an hour slower than you in this hip.
• 17:55
  And I said, well, that's a joke.
• 17:57
  You know, I'll be quicker.
• 17:58
  But just the way you drive a supercar, and I never got my head around it completely.
• 18:02
  So the combination of SEPI doing certain things and trying to make the supercar better, trying to change my... And that's why I say I probably let them down.
• 18:12
  I didn't maybe adapt enough.
• 18:14
  I don't know.
• 18:15
  I just...
• 18:16
  I never really shone in a supercar.
• 18:19
  I could never slow the things down and I, Ambrose replaced me.
• 18:24
  And I used to look at the, and I understand why Ross and Jimmy had their houses on the line.
• 18:30
  I fully understand.
• 18:31
  And if I was running the business, I would have made the same decisions they did.
• 18:35
  They needed to make change.
• 18:39
  And I had a two-year contract with them and I felt so bad.
• 18:42
  I didn't even hold Ross or Jimmy accountable for it.
• 18:45
  They said, look, it's just not working.
• 18:47
  And I said to them, it's not working.
• 18:51
  I don't know if it's me.
• 18:52
  I don't know if it's the car.
• 18:53
  I'm confused.
• 18:54
  And you just get to a point and you just, you need to, you need to.
• 18:58
  walk away so I didn't hold them to try and pay me out or do anything and I'm still very very good friends with Ross and Jimmy to this day the amount of respect I have for them is just second to none in fact I've got friends of mine that racing some some classic cars in in New Zealand and said oh Beto can you come and drive it can you tune it up can you do this I said well I'll do it but on one account
• 19:23
  that you buy Jimmy Stone a ticket and he comes with us.
• 19:27
  So that's how much respect I have for...
• 19:31
  It's great to have the rocket scientist with you sometimes, but even in today's, you need a street fighter.
• 19:41
  You need a guy that can just pick something up, bend it, make it happen, and get you through the weekend.
• 19:49
  And that's very much...
• 19:51
  Ross and Jimmy, and I love the way they ran their business.
• 19:56
  Ross was upstairs and he would do his thing and Jimmy was down the bottom doing his thing.
• 20:02
  And I guess that's why Stone Brothers Racing works so well is they knew their own strengths and they never seemed to trip over each other.
• 20:13
  You still managed to drive for lots of different teams, even in endurance trims and some great outfits along the way, Bardo.
• 20:20
  I mean, the one that I want to, and fans often ask about, though, is Peter Brock.
• 20:26
  And you, at a time the pair of you were together where it was, you know, really the...
• 20:32
  you know, the end of the serious aspect of his racing career.
• 20:35
  And I would imagine for you that was a little difficult because everyone knew and loved this man who was, you know, Herculean behind the wheel, the things that he was able to do.
• 20:49
  And he still held, even in the very latter part of his career, that immense self-belief, even if it didn't come in terms of results or competitiveness, did it?
• 21:00
  Oh, absolutely.
• 21:01
  Like, for Peter to jump back in the supercar and try and do that Bathurst was probably not the right thing.
• 21:10
  Like, I'm 50 this year, there's no way I'm going to jump in a supercar and go back to Bathurst.
• 21:17
  He was older than that.
• 21:20
  But dead set, he thought he was going to wheel that thing onto pole.
• 21:25
  Everyone thought a red Commodore with Brock on the side of it would be an HRT car.
• 21:31
  It was the old auto pro car that Cameron McConville raced.
• 21:37
  Um,
• 21:39
  Ronnie Harrop was there, did a lot of work and tried to get the car better.
• 21:44
  And to be fair, sometimes it wasn't that bad.
• 21:47
  But, yeah, when you get back onto the Brock thing, yeah, his self-belief was unbelievable.
• 21:54
  You know, even when they said, oh, he's going to do Bathurst, there was humming and hawing whether he was going to do it or not.
• 22:01
  And he did a test at Winton and we sort of...
• 22:04
  I thought, oof, he's a bit off the money, as you'd expect.
• 22:09
  He goes, don't worry about me.
• 22:10
  He goes, the fans want to see me and I'll get up to Bathurst and I'll lift it and I'll be all right.
• 22:14
  But I think that he probably bit off more than he could chew there.
• 22:18
  But he gave back to the sport, I suppose, the cues, his work ethic towards fans.
• 22:25
  I know we all hear it, but when you're actually there, because I'd nudge him and say, come on, mate, we're going to go.
• 22:29
  We're going to have dinner.
• 22:31
  Yes, mate, you don't go until the queue's finished.
• 22:36
  Well, most guys in supercars are used to a queue of 30 people.
• 22:40
  He had 500 people.
• 22:41
  He's there at 9 o'clock at night signing all sorts of weird things, the things people would ask him to sign I won't get into.
• 22:48
  But he would not leave.
• 22:51
  They ran out of merchandising.
• 22:54
  We hadn't even got to the weekend.
• 22:55
  They'd run out of merchandising.
• 22:56
  They were trying to send trucks in.
• 22:58
  He had that much on his plate.
• 23:00
  Yeah, so it was a pleasure to work with him and drive for him for that year.
• 23:07
  But as I say, he probably never should have stepped back in.
• 23:12
  And I remember even at the end, we said, just park the thing, mate.
• 23:16
  Like it's half buggered, you know, like we're not going anywhere, it's done.
• 23:21
  And he said, no, no, the fans have come to see me.
• 23:23
  So he still wheeled the thing around there.
• 23:25
  And I kid you not, there's photos of him still trying to get his elbow up on the side of the door, those sorts of things.
• 23:33
  But he certainly put a huge amount, not only into the sport, but his work ethic.
• 23:41
  You can see where Craig Lowndes got it from.
• 23:44
  Anyone that's guided by Brock through that era and –
• 23:50
  as he did with Lowndes, you can see why Lowndes is exactly the same.
• 23:55
  Gives the fans.
• 23:56
  David Reynolds, Dan Gaunt.
• 23:58
  I mean, you've given back too.
• 23:59
  And one of the first that you gave significant help to in that way was Jason Richards, wasn't it?
• 24:04
  Yeah, I did.
• 24:05
  I probably started Jason's career.
• 24:08
  His mum and dad, just beautiful people, were putting everything into his Formula Ford campaign, had no money, were in a shitty little tent,
• 24:17
  and I remember watching him at Invercargill and then I was talking to Jason, I went over and I was racing for BMW then, um, and the factory and sort of traveling overseas.
• 24:26
  And I, I had this, there was just something, another good mate of ours, Shane Drake.
• 24:32
  Um, I think Shane might've won the championship, the Formula Ford championship that year.
• 24:36
  I can't quite remember if Jason won it or he won it, but Shane was very good, but Jason really showed him up.
• 24:43
  And in, in,
• 24:45
  different aspects and I thought for a guy with no money and is like Shane had people behind him that kind of knew what they were doing, we were looking over the other side sometimes and you go, poor Jason Richards, but you know, he's winning races and stuff.
• 24:59
  And I actually went to Lyle Williamson way back then and said, I think we should, because we were building two new cars for New Zealand for the Touring Car Championship.
• 25:08
  And I said, why don't we run a junior program?
• 25:11
  because Jason was never going to survive just on the family funding and moving through.
• 25:18
  So it's such a shame he's not here with us, because he'd tell you every part of that story.
• 25:25
  And I pushed so hard to make, because I was also looking at moving off with South Africa and bits and pieces.
• 25:33
  So, yeah, I did do that.
• 25:36
  And something I am proud of because,
• 25:39
  like most race drivers, we were pretty good at thinking of ourselves, but I've always, you know, even when guys in New Zealand were looking for a career cup driver and that I'd jostle things around or jostle things around for, for Dan Gaunt to come across to our team.
• 25:56
  Um, Dave Reynolds, you know, I was racing career cup here.
• 25:59
  He was winning races against me here.
• 26:02
  Most people would say, Oh, you're mad if you go and get the guy that's beating you in Australia.
• 26:06
  But we're,
• 26:07
  We had one spare seat in New Zealand, with Triple X Motorsport.
• 26:12
  I said, Beato, you know Career Cup better than anyone, like who would you put in?
• 26:17
  And I said, well, the quickest guy at the moment, I reckon probably anywhere in the world, or as quick as anyone anywhere in the world, is Dave Reynolds.
• 26:25
  So they said, well, get a hold of him and see if he'll come over.
• 26:29
  And poor Dave, he's a young kid, a little bit nervy in bits and pieces, but applied himself really well.
• 26:37
  And, you know, we've had guys crash cars down there looking for drivers and I'll ring up guys like Alex Davis and they'll say, hey mate, I can get you in here, come down.
• 26:46
  So yeah, I've always tried to help.
• 26:49
  But look, I've been helped plenty in my time by plenty of people, plenty of good people.
• 26:54
  You know, if you get a, on a show like this, if you, it would take you three days to get through everyone that actually helped you.
• 27:01
  There's so many people that, it's not until you actually start talking on,
• 27:07
  your podcast, things start triggering in your mind about people that have helped and where you'd be without them.
• 27:14
  So it's always hard to bundle them all up and thank them all, I guess.
• 27:33
  The GT40F it was launched by Ford Motor Company to win long distance sports car races against Ferrari, like the Le Mans 24-hour.
• 27:42
  The Mark 1, Mark 2, and Mark 3 variants were designed and built in England based upon the British Lola Mark 6.
• 27:49
  Only the Mark 4 model was designed and built in the United States.
• 27:53
  The range was powered by a series of American built Ford V8 engines modified for racing.
• 28:00
  You brought up Porsche.
• 28:01
  What an unbelievable chapter for you.
• 28:04
  You've driven successfully so many different iterations of the Carrera Cup car, succeeded in Australia, did the same in New Zealand.
• 28:13
  I've seen you do it in Asia at the Singapore Grand Prix and you've competed in other parts of the world as well.
• 28:19
  What is the correct term?
• 28:21
  It's something like winningest Carrera Cup driver in history or something, and it's an amazing feat.
• 28:28
  Yeah, I think I didn't realise any of that.
• 28:30
  I was at Porsche Awards night in Germany and they introduced me onto stage and it was sort of all a bit of a surprise.
• 28:38
  I didn't really know it was happening, but I'd won more races in the Porsche brand than anyone else in the world.
• 28:46
  And it sort of floored me a little bit at the time that, A, they had acknowledged that.
• 28:51
  You sort of...
• 28:54
  People will say, oh yeah, but it's easy to win races in New Zealand, Carrera Cup or whatever.
• 28:59
  I'll tell you now, the guys that I used to have to beat in a race in New Zealand was so hard, so it was just ruthless racing.
• 29:08
  Um, and, and no different in Australia to win Carrera Cup races here is hard.
• 29:16
  Um, they're a hard car to drive, um.
• 29:19
  you know, and not take, Lowndes is probably one of our best touring car drivers we've ever seen in this country, but he rocked up to the Grand Prix and decided to race a Carrera Cup car.
• 29:31
  And when he put his hand up to do that, I kinda, to a few of my closest friends, I'd never have, I almost felt like ringing him up and saying, mate, that's gonna be a big ask.
• 29:43
  Without a lot of miles, a lot of testing and really feeling that car,
• 29:49
  you're gonna find that very difficult.
• 29:51
  And I think if you were to ask him that same question, that's exactly how it was.
• 29:56
  I just suited those cars.
• 29:58
  It was always like driving a single seater for me.
• 30:02
  So what I explained to you about the supercar and how I never really mastered slowing it down to speed up.
• 30:10
  The Porsche, the career cup car, the harder I drove it, the more out of control I felt on the thing.
• 30:17
  the more reward I got from the car.
• 30:19
  And I guess I stepped away from Carrera Cup for the simple reason, the modern car came in with paddle shift and they just changed it.
• 30:29
  It was harder, the harder you drove and the less it rewarded you.
• 30:33
  And I think you could see that, even guys like Nick Perkett, really, really fast guys, but when they drove the 997, it took them a year or so to master it.
• 30:43
  When they did, they mastered it very, very well.
• 30:46
  But you could never just jump in and turn them on to the 10 tenths.
• 30:51
  Whereas the new Cup car, I think is a little nicer, a little bit easier to drive.
• 30:58
  So your expectation, you just drive them and it sort of rewards you for not
• 31:05
  overdriving so it's probably easier to find a limit in them.
• 31:09
  All the championship wins, all the race wins, all the seasons, which iteration of the Cup car is your favourite and why?
• 31:17
  I definitely had 997.
• 31:19
  A 996 was always difficult because you had a basically road car gearbox in them.
• 31:25
  Sequential, yeah you just...
• 31:30
  You could actually, I drove the thing more chattering away in the rear and not many people liked it, but you could just keep winding rear bias to it till you just, you know, I just drove it like a go-kart really, just chattered the rears and people quite often say, oh, you know, which is the best year, which is the best championship.
• 31:51
  I had one race, Bleakermolen, Jerome Bleakermolen, who was two times Super Cup.
• 31:58
  And Jamie Blakey said, oh, we need to get someone out, you know, just to trigger a bit of spark at Bathurst.
• 32:05
  And I said, why don't you get the Super Cup champion?
• 32:08
  Like if you're going to get someone, get the best bloke in the world.
• 32:12
  So they did a deal with him and he ended up being my teammate.
• 32:14
  They said, do you think it'd be all right if he comes in and shares all your data and everything else?
• 32:18
  And I was trying to.
• 32:20
  hoped that I'd have a massive advantage over him just because he might set his car up different or not have good data or whatever it was.
• 32:28
  Well, anyway, he came in and opened up the book and took everything in mind, put it on his car.
• 32:32
  He was an absolute gentleman to deal with.
• 32:35
  And that Sunday morning race was the best race I've ever had.
• 32:40
  I was so adamant on beating him that we cleared the field by 10 or 12 seconds.
• 32:46
  Every lap was either a lap record to him or myself.
• 32:51
  I would have rather been the thing than lose it, even to the point on the first practice, we did the first practice and we all had to use old tires, just part of Career Cup rules, but because his car never had tires with it, they said they would give him a green set of tires.
• 33:07
  I said, if he runs green tires,
• 33:09
  I'm refusing to even go out the next practice.
• 33:11
  So I never practiced the second practice because I didn't want people to think in Germany, here's the Super Cup guy and he was quick, straight out, straight away he was quick.
• 33:21
  I didn't want him to just go straight in the car and go P1 on a green tyre because that part of the story never gets back to Germany.
• 33:28
  They just go, oh, Australia's not as competitive as what we thought.
• 33:31
  So I said to Carl Batson,
• 33:34
  I said, I'm parking it, mate.
• 33:36
  He said, you can't park it.
• 33:37
  You know, you've got to get every lap around this place.
• 33:39
  I said, mate, don't worry about the rest of the weekend.
• 33:41
  I'm not letting the Germans think that this bloke's beating me in a practice session.
• 33:44
  He won't beat me all weekend.
• 33:46
  And that's how Adam and Dye were.
• 33:48
  And I'm never really cocky like that, but I was so wound up.
• 33:51
  I was in a great place with not only my car, my team, my group of sponsors.
• 33:57
  You know, Mark Sini was looking after us.
• 33:59
  And I had a really good...
• 34:04
  crew around me and when I talk about the sponsor and everything I could have crashed that car and they would have bought another one overnight to make sure I went back out and you know what I mean I was just they had full commitment and that was one of those weekends that everything just clicked
• 34:15
  Motor racing's a brutal game.
• 34:17
  You're a tough bastard.
• 34:18
  I've always known that about you, but you've had losses to deal with along the way, mate.
• 34:25
  Firstly, I can vividly recall talking to you at Bathurst when Mark Porter had a crash in the Super 2 race up there and I tried to offer a little glimmer of hope, but you knew, mate, you knew that was
• 34:43
  one that was going to be difficult for him to come back from, didn't you?
• 34:46
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:47
  I don't know why you kind of sometimes see things or things happen or you get gut feelings.
• 34:52
  And that's probably the first time that I'd lost a real mate.
• 35:02
  And that's why I think it's so special when you look back to the Jackie Stuarts and how much they tried to do for the sport because
• 35:11
  I did some drive days with Jackie at Silverstone and he said to me, he said, we used to actually think when we left a driver's briefing, he said we would almost, it wasn't said, but he said, we'd look around the room and you pretty much knew one of the blokes wasn't going to be at the next driver's briefing.
• 35:29
  So I guess that pushed through all those years to try and make things safe.
• 35:34
  And if you actually,
• 35:36
  If you took Mark's car now and had the same accident, you'd probably have a different result because we just keep evolving technology and safety.
• 35:44
  And that's the sad part, but look, Mark died doing what he loved doing.
• 35:50
  He was a great bloke.
• 35:53
  That's, you know, the be all on the indoor wasn't actually racing for Mark.
• 35:59
  He loved racing.
• 36:00
  But, you know, he had business commitments and a lot of other things going on in his life.
• 36:04
  He didn't have to race, but he was very passionate about it.
• 36:08
  I teamed up with him one year at Bathurst, and I raced Trans Am a lot against him in New Zealand.
• 36:14
  But anyway, it's a chapter, and you try and...
• 36:20
  Block it out the best you can, I suppose.
• 36:22
  And you just got to move on.
• 36:24
  Was it the same for you with Sean Edwards, mate?
• 36:27
  I don't know that we need to analyse what happened with the crash.
• 36:30
  That's probably been well reported.
• 36:31
  But, you know, he was the son of Guy Edwards from memory who helped Nicky Louder at the scene of his crash, the near-fatal crash at the Nürburgring.
• 36:40
  How hard was that one for you?
• 36:42
  I guess the hardest part was not only was the fact that I had done the same for him as I'd done with Bleakamong, tried to get him to race at Bathurst that year and then that didn't work out money-wise and
• 36:54
  I had done a deal with some other people just to try and do some driver training and they said, look, we will pay him.
• 37:01
  If he still wants to come down, we'd still like to do a day at Queensland Raceway and spoke to him on the phone.
• 37:06
  I said, mate, obviously the Bathurst thing's not happening.
• 37:09
  He was having to go to, I think, Abu Dhabi or Dubai to do some Super Cup testing.
• 37:14
  He said, mate, I'm heading that way anyway.
• 37:17
  I'll come down and I'll still do those days.
• 37:19
  I had some personal dramas in my life at that time, especially that day and that over that weekend.
• 37:27
  And, and for whatever reason I had never, I was spending, I would normally get to the track on a drive day and I'm a very articulate person.
• 37:36
  I would normally get there, put a race bag in, get dressed, get ready, introduce myself to customers, clients, whatever.
• 37:45
  And it was quite a big drive day with a lot of different cars and,
• 37:49
  we were going to drive some of their cars and they were going to drive and we were going to instruct.
• 37:52
  So it was very clear.
• 37:55
  It was one of my old cup cars and I was asked if I could jump in the passenger seat.
• 37:59
  It was as simple as that and I wasn't ready.
• 38:01
  And sadly, or however you put it, Sean put his hand up and said, hey, buddy, I know you've got a few dramas going on at the moment.
• 38:12
  I'm all dressed.
• 38:13
  I'll jump in and go.
• 38:14
  And that's the last time I spoke to him.
• 38:16
  Far out.
• 38:18
  Sliding doors moment, mate.
• 38:20
  Absolutely, so you know, people, that's, I don't know, you gotta say that people say, oh there's karma in life, there's this in life, there's that.
• 38:29
  I think sometimes, I said it before, I think you draw a number when you're born maybe, and it wasn't my day.
• 38:38
  Couple of final ones.
• 38:39
  Firstly, Luca, your son, has been having the odd steer of a go-kart.
• 38:44
  Are you a good go-kart dad?
• 38:46
  Will we see another generation Baird racing?
• 38:49
  Look, I would love him to do it.
• 38:50
  Do I think... My honest summary of Luca in a kart, I think he's...
• 38:59
  He could probably point the thing in the right direction and do the right speed, but to have the pure mongrel in him to actually
• 39:06
  be a racer, I don't think that's him.
• 39:10
  He's just not that character.
• 39:12
  I can look at someone and I'll go, yeah, he's absolute mongrel enough.
• 39:17
  You've got to have the combination of things.
• 39:21
  And from my point of view, I guess you've got to look at funding in motorsport.
• 39:27
  I think there's dads there spending tens of thousands of dollars just in go-karts.
• 39:32
  Well, that's just the start.
• 39:33
  Then you've got to move to the next level.
• 39:35
  Then you've got to move to the next level.
• 39:36
  And what reality is, I've seen too many try and fail and it's a hard game.
• 39:45
  And he didn't want to do it from when he was seven.
• 39:49
  That would be a different story.
• 39:51
  He wants to do it, I think, now.
• 39:53
  And he may do, just at a club level, but I think to actually throw him in there and expect him to come out the other side as a Formula 1 driver, I don't think he expects that either.
• 40:03
  You've got beautiful kids, mate.
• 40:05
  Let's hope he enjoys pulling on the helmet and having fun, whatever he does with it.
• 40:09
  Krompo describes it as poacher turned gamekeeper.
• 40:12
  You joke, send a thief to catch a thief.
• 40:16
  You are now the driving standards advisor in supercars.
• 40:19
  Some might say that's the dark side, but how have you found that whole role and the overriding feeling, I'm gonna pump your tires a little bit here, the overriding feeling among the constituents is that it's the best it's been, well done.
• 40:32
  Yeah, well, I've had a few of the drivers say that.
• 40:37
  You're never gonna get it perfect.
• 40:39
  That's, there's no ref can jump on the field.
• 40:43
  I think the easiest way to sum this up
• 40:45
  is if you ref a rugby game, there's one ball and you're looking at that one ball all the time.
• 40:54
  Yes, there's a lot of players, but you're looking at the action where that ball is.
• 40:57
  If you take a Bathurst, you've got 161 laps with 25 cars rolling around, you've got 24 corners, you've got all this going on.
• 41:07
  You can't see everything all of the time.
• 41:10
  And sometimes something will happen, whether it's a
• 41:14
  an onboard camera, I might be reviewing something.
• 41:17
  You just can't see it all.
• 41:18
  We're very fortunate now with Hawkeye that we're getting to that point where we can.
• 41:23
  But if I have something that's 50-50, I will introduce something that you've got to be wholly or predominantly to blame.
• 41:30
  If there's a 50-50 thing, I don't think we need a hanging just for the sake of a hanging.
• 41:35
  So I've been very open with the guys.
• 41:37
  I want to race on format.
• 41:39
  Some people will say you don't need a ref.
• 41:41
  Could you imagine our sport if there was no rules with no ref?
• 41:46
  A, all the teams would be broke after two weekends.
• 41:49
  There'd be a lot of injuries.
• 41:51
  It just couldn't happen.
• 41:52
  So it's easy for people to laugh and joke and say, we don't need it.
• 41:55
  Just bring the beef back, get on with it.
• 41:59
  In this era, people are accountable, and it starts with, I guess, my boss in Tim Schenken.
• 42:06
  Someone's got to be accountable.
• 42:09
  Everyone's got a duty of care.
• 42:11
  So we've got to play it with a fairly straight back.
• 42:13
  Yep, we want some good hard racing, and I'm all for that.
• 42:18
  But I'm certainly not.
• 42:19
  I'm actually on the driver's side more so, and people don't understand this,
• 42:24
  I would rather not give a penalty.
• 42:26
  I always try and let them get on with their own game.
• 42:30
  But if someone's clearly gained an advantage from contact, you've got to reverse the positions or a penalty may apply.
• 42:40
  It's as simple as that.
• 42:42
  So I can have a decision that's absolutely clear in anyone up and down the pit lane's mind.
• 42:50
  Once the forums open up,
• 42:52
  and people at home have their, they've watched it once from one angle, and I've done it before, where you sit at home and you go, yeah, that's exactly that.
• 43:00
  That's what it is.
• 43:02
  And then you'd get Hawkeye saying, well, have a look from this angle.
• 43:04
  We've got a helicopter shot.
• 43:06
  Man, I never even got to TV.
• 43:07
  Have a look at the onboard.
• 43:09
  Have a look at this.
• 43:10
  Oh, but have a look at the data.
• 43:11
  He actually blips the throttle to make sure he gets them.
• 43:13
  So you get all these things.
• 43:14
  So it may not look right at home sometimes,
• 43:19
  but the tools we have to try and work out who's right and who's wrong are very, very good.
• 43:25
  But as I say, you've got generally in the sport, we've got blue hats and we've got red hats.
• 43:29
  No matter what happens, we can't keep everyone happy, but I know I can go up and down the pit lane.
• 43:36
  I talk to all the drivers.
• 43:38
  My office is always open.
• 43:40
  I can have a beer with any one of them.
• 43:43
  We all laugh, joke, have a bit of banter.
• 43:45
  You know, sometimes I'll,
• 43:48
  I'll watch something on TV and you see inside a garage, someone will say, it's so easy.
• 43:54
  It's just, this is what the result is.
• 43:57
  Why isn't the penalty given in the race?
• 43:59
  Why?
• 43:59
  It only takes someone like, and it might be an assistant race director or the race director, just to say, hey, did you notice?
• 44:07
  Yep, it looks like so-and-so spared him in the door, but I don't think that spun him.
• 44:13
  I think he's been hit from behind.
• 44:14
  There's another element to it.
• 44:16
  So for me, I would rather post-race something I'm not sure about.
• 44:20
  We want it played within the...
• 44:23
  within the whistles is that is our briefs from our CEO.
• 44:27
  Sean Seamer is very adamant.
• 44:29
  We don't want results changed after the event.
• 44:32
  We try and do things in race, but if I'm not sure, some things may look very, very simple on TV.
• 44:41
  When you've got eight different angles of it and you need an onboard or you need some data, just park it.
• 44:47
  Because once I've hung someone, it's very hard to pump a bit of oxygen back into them.
• 44:51
  Once you've had the hanging, it's done.
• 44:54
  So as much as we can do it in race at the moment, there's the odd one where you've just got to hold off just in case.
• 45:01
  You in those hearings, I would imagine, are quite good at cutting through the spin because there's some great salesmen in our game who might go and sell their case, so to speak, in those moments.
• 45:09
  That's what they've got to do.
• 45:10
  And you've been continuing to do it.
• 45:12
  We've got to point out, too, during this whole COVID-19 period with E-Series, haven't you?
• 45:17
  Yeah, I have.
• 45:18
  Look, I'll laugh a little bit when I say about the E-Series.
• 45:21
  I was a little bit sceptical of the whole thing.
• 45:24
  Look, it is a game that...
• 45:29
  But I think we're very lucky to have a platform or a product or a sport that we can actually put to air that people will say to me, I actually thought it was the real thing.
• 45:39
  You've only got to look at the time and effort that the drivers are putting into it, the concentration levels, the sweat that's pouring off the brow when they're actually driving the things.
• 45:47
  And I've spent some time on the simulator just to appreciate how bad I am and how well they're going.
• 45:55
  But I've copped a bit of grief in social media and that.
• 45:57
  You've just got to, sometimes I try and fight it or try and justify it.
• 46:02
  There's things that will happen in the virtual world and there's been net coding and things that have happened.
• 46:08
  I can only adjudicate on what I see.
• 46:11
  I've got people that are following someone on board on Twitch.
• 46:14
  Well, I'm not on Twitch.
• 46:16
  I'm just looking at a feed online.
• 46:18
  through Fox.
• 46:20
  So if it's not replayed or it's not seen, you might see it on another platform.
• 46:25
  But if, you know, the drivers are all pretty good.
• 46:30
  I thought the Kostecki banter with me was gold.
• 46:34
  He goes, Beto, we've got a binya.
• 46:36
  I thought absolutely gold.
• 46:38
  Everyone took it to heart, said, yeah, Beto's got to be binned, this, that, and McLaughlin says, well, you're a bit hard on me earlier in the race.
• 46:45
  I reckon you owe me one.
• 46:47
  Look, we can only do what we can do.
• 46:49
  We're all having a bit of fun.
• 46:50
  It's some tough times for a lot of people out there.
• 46:53
  And I think if we can get on and get through the next few months and complete our E-Series, I reckon we're a really lucky sport to be able to actually simulate it as close as we can.
• 47:04
  Well done, mate.
• 47:04
  Don't change that banter because I reckon that's a part of what makes it.
• 47:08
  That's so important and it keeps it in perspective about the fact that it is E-Series competition.
• 47:12
  And it doesn't matter.
• 47:13
  what sport you go to you're gonna get vocal fans so don't blow that stuff off don't worry let's finish with a couple of key things firstly car that you go to sleep and dream about the race car which one from all your time all the things you've driven
• 47:27
  Look, if I could bring a car back, my last championship winning 997, if I could have that down there, I was very fortunate with that car.
• 47:36
  So if I could park that in the garage and have it in the old colours and stuff, I'd like it.
• 47:40
  It's not the best car.
• 47:42
  It's not the most expensive car, but it's something that's very associated with Beardo.
• 47:48
  Any resto projects, road car, whatever in the garage, any plans for one if there's not?
• 47:53
  No, I don't.
• 47:53
  I spend a fair bit of time on my Harley.
• 47:55
  I've owned one bike for a long time, spent a lot of money on it, and I tinker away on that.
• 48:00
  Good mate of my Max Twiggy's just decided to strip his bike and start spending some more money.
• 48:05
  So I think that's the next stage.
• 48:08
  I just tinker away on the bike.
• 48:11
  I don't have the budget for the proper car I probably would like to restore.
• 48:15
  I look at some people's restoration programs and think, jeez,
• 48:19
  But, yeah, I'm a pretty passionate Harley rider, so I'll probably spend a few more dollars on that if we get through the COVID crisis.
• 48:27
  You turned 50 this year.
• 48:29
  We're only a couple of days apart in hitting that milestone, actually.
• 48:33
  Are you still planning to drive race cars when the opportunity arises?
• 48:37
  Yeah, I enjoy, Scott Taylor's been very, very good to me over the last few years.
• 48:45
  So he's got the AMG Mercedes.
• 48:48
  When there's a two-driver race or the split races at the Grand Prix, etc., I jump into that, still do that, still enjoy it.
• 48:55
  And I guess even if you ask guys like Van Gisbergen and that, he said to me when we did Bathurst together, he said, I thought I was actually going to pace you.
• 49:02
  But at the test day, you know, we were punching on there sort of pound for pound.
• 49:07
  Yep, he outdid me at the end by a little bit.
• 49:09
  But he goes, mate, I was a little bit surprised at the speed.
• 49:13
  And then we went to...
• 49:15
  Like the Grand Prix last time there was with Fisher Keller.
• 49:18
  He was in the Ferrari and the two of us cleared the field and took off.
• 49:22
  And I had two wins, one in the dry, one in the wet.
• 49:25
  So I'm not saying I'm going to be world champion, but I can still spin a car when I need to and get some time out of it.
• 49:33
  But I don't want to go and try and take over from...
• 49:38
  Verstappen or Wincarp or anyone else out there congratulations on everything it's been fantastic to have this chat with you you and I have shared a desk covering Formula 1 at one stage there's been some fantastic parties with our buddy Darrell Beattie where I think one evening you and Andy McElroy may have pulled on the lucky strike racing overalls couple of deep breaths couple of
• 50:02
  Well done.
• 50:03
  I've loved the chat about cars and it's superb to think that a young man that hustled go-karts from four or five years of age has gone on to do those things.
• 50:12
  Congratulations.
• 50:13
  Thanks mate.
• 50:18
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 50:22
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 50:25
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 50:28
  I'm Greg Rust.
• 50:29
  Enjoy the drive, but drive safely.