Latest / Rusty's Garage / Adrian Coppin | Part 2 - A fire, a phone call & new beginnings

Transcript

Adrian Coppin | Part 2 - A fire, a phone call & new beginnings · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:18
G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my latest feature episode with the driving force on the management side of the Australian Rally Championship, Adrian Coppin.
0:27
If you're at the stage start here and haven't given part one a listen, jump back and hit the start button on that first.
0:33
It gives you a sense of his background and true passion for the sport and why the two have ended up aligning on the promoter and administration side after a pretty decent crack as a competitor.
0:45
You'll hear about some of the cars, the connections, the quest to conquer the best Australian roads, as well as a few good ones on the international scene too.
0:53
This second part is quality listening as well, and more on the business side, how he ended up steering the series, so to speak, and lending his logistics and coordinating talents to circuit racing as well.
1:07
Here we go.
1:10
So this is about 2014 that we're getting towards now, is that right?
1:15
Yeah.
1:15
Once you've – it's a bit of a decent break.
1:17
Citroen, we're talking.
1:18
Just take us there.
1:20
Yeah.
1:20
So this was – so 2013 it was in Ford and it was going right.
1:23
We did a full campaign, like first time I did Forest Rally and did the ball bearing gravel and –
1:29
What was that like?
1:31
I remember, again, Dino telling me, like, oh, mate, you don't understand, like, it's real super.
1:35
I was like, oh, yeah, it's going to be that bad.
1:37
And, yeah, sure enough, I remember doing recco and holy dooly.
1:40
But it was cool.
1:41
And that was – it was a cool era for the ARC too because, like, I was racing, you know, Brendo was in the Mazda, like, Simon –
1:48
Brendan Reeves.
1:49
Yeah.
1:50
Simon was there in the Subaru, then there was the Honda team, there was Scott.
1:55
There was some really good fast guys, Tom Wilde and the Cleo.
1:59
It was really good.
2:00
And I kept punching around, I was sort of being consistent because again, I was still so green and learning, but top fives.
2:09
really enjoying it and just again becoming part of that bigger ARC family.
2:13
So it was a cool time and ironically I was about, I feel like it was like mid-year June, July and the phone rang and it was Ron Kremen.
2:24
So Ron was the guy that initially helped John buy that STFiesta and Ron was still in the Middle East.
2:32
So Ron was the guy that unfortunately is not with us anymore but he was...
2:36
working for Shake Khaled Al-Khazemi doing the motorsport program for Abu Dhabi Racing.
2:41
So basically, Ron was the guy that got to spend all the money from Abu Dhabi Racing and decided whether they were going to go and put the Shake in the M Sport team or the Citroen team or whatever it was going to be.
2:52
And part of that, they were doing a junior program in the Middle East running at the time the DS3.
2:58
So, the two-wheel drives.
3:00
So, they were sponsoring the naming rights partner of the World Rally Team in the DS3 World Rally cars.
3:06
And then they had this junior program in the Middle East running the two-wheel drive DS3s.
3:10
And Ron, being an Australian, said, you know, I want to basically had an idea that he wanted to sort of with the ARC sort of go into a drive.
3:17
And there was, you know, Renault was there and we had some Honda.
3:20
He's like, I want to do this with Citroën in Australia and sort of give back to where he started his career.
3:26
So, he rang me.
3:29
Literally, like that's how it started.
3:30
He rang and was like, I want to do a, this is what I want to do.
3:35
it's all moving really fast.
3:36
I want you to be part of the team.
3:37
What do you reckon?
3:39
And it was about two o'clock on a Wednesday.
3:42
He's like, but in classic Ron fashion, he was always in and out of the Middle East.
3:47
He's like, but I'm going to the Middle East on the weekend.
3:51
So you have to give us an answer.
3:52
It wasn't so much an answer, but he's like, I want to discuss this.
3:55
And I was landscaping, was going gangbusters.
3:57
I was doing the forward thing.
3:58
It was all going pretty cool.
3:59
I was like...
4:00
right i remember i rang tim my coder at the time um i said what do you reckon and so tim like well let's just let's yeah let's go and explore and spoke to to mum and tim's like oh yeah so i jumped in the car finished work landscape and jumped in the car went and met him at the rudy hill rsl because he was in newcastle we had a bit of a chat and ultimately pretty much there and then landed on yeah let's let's try and make this happen like taking the next steps
4:22
And at that time, he'd also then said that he wanted the other car to be with Tony Sullins.
4:28
So, Tony Sullins had won Targa.
4:30
Two-car team.
4:32
So, a few months ticked away and we sort of went back and forth.
4:35
And basically, we had the ultimatum with Citroen.
4:37
We're going to give us a budget to run the cars or buy the cars.
4:43
Is there a yarn here around you signing and something funny around the signing or have I got that wrong?
4:46
I can't remember.
4:47
Yeah.
4:48
No, well, basically, yeah, all that happened is, I remember we all decided, well, it would be better if we bought the cars.
4:52
Okay.
4:53
Because we owned the asset then.
4:54
Ironically, that was probably the saving grace.
4:57
So we got a budget from Citroën and we had, yeah, it was all like, we had the trucks, the two, we had a big semi-trailer, which was Tony's.
5:04
We had the Ridge, it was ours, all paying up team.
5:06
Citroën Australia was born, two-car team, Citroën support, fibre tech medical, like it was, yeah, the whole box and dice, full factory, factory support, suits, the whole thing.
5:16
shooting how old are you here so 25 that's what yeah so i'd gone yeah like this whole career sort of progression had gone really fast but i felt the pressure i was like this is you know i need to i need to deliver uh and and sort of yeah took it then i sort of took it to the seaside stopped landscaping i was like this is a year i need to really focus on this and try and make it what things are you doing beyond the car and the car and the car and the car and the car and the car
5:41
So I had a personal trainer.
5:43
I was training.
5:44
Neil Bates was really helping with my pace notes and sort of had through that whole phase.
5:49
Was just doing everything I could.
5:50
I was running the team because it sort of took serious.
5:52
There was lots of media commitments and stuff with Citroën.
5:54
So Tony sort of, you know, had other businesses.
5:57
So I was the, I guess, the pin-up poster boy, so to speak.
6:00
So I was doing dealer conferences and speaking and, you know, all that stuff which just opened my mind.
6:05
You know, I was dragging the card and putting it on display here.
6:07
And, you know, there was, you know, lots of media commitments with Citroën and, you
6:10
It was awesome.
6:11
So you're going into this, though, although it's a commercial responsibility, if you will, around this, you're also sort of a bit blinkers off around opportunities.
6:21
Is that what you're sort of seeing around things that you could do?
6:24
Yeah, basically, because I sort of, we had the budget, we committed, we knew we were doing the whole season, like it was close to, well, it was basically a factory effort, like Citroen said, that's your money.
6:34
And then we obviously, if we came short, if we crashed it or whatever, it was obviously our car, but that was, yeah, so that was our responsibility.
6:39
But yeah, just sort of everything, and I'd started then getting a few personal sponsor deals and...
6:44
really sort of just trying to build that whole business and sort of make it into something that it was.
6:49
So I had 12 months, just all I did was, and I just drove as much as I could.
6:54
I was lucky there that, you know,
6:55
Neil was real supportive and any chance I could to he'd said you need to need to drive so I remember doing track days at Wakefield Park and driver training opportunities and stuff and skid pans and stuff just to to get as much bumming seat time as I could.
7:09
And in addition to the domestic stuff is international things starting to happen as well?
7:14
Yeah so I did that rally with Molly in Croatia which was a train wreck because it was tarmac rally and I remember I had 2k into testing like
7:22
It was a crash in the leader.
7:23
Yeah, so they go over there and it was about to see fire for Tim and I.
7:26
So Tim had been my co-driver since he did a couple of rallies in the XL and then the STPS to the four days.
7:33
So he's on the sharp trajectory too.
7:35
Yeah, so we're all sort of building up to this.
7:37
And he'd done a lot of state rallies and stuff and one ACT rally series and stuff.
7:41
But we're both sort of building up to this.
7:43
And we went to Europe and did Croatia and it was just...
7:46
Yeah, it was surreal, but just probably went into underprepared, I guess, probably because of the situation.
7:50
It was like it was born off the back of the raffle.
7:54
Molly was competing then.
7:56
That was the year that she won the European female drivers' championship.
8:00
She just partnered up with Seb Marshall.
8:01
And I remember getting there and I remember Tim joking.
8:03
I was like, I've got nothing on Seb.
8:04
Like, Seb's a pro.
8:07
Yeah, we did the best we could, but yeah, it was tarmac rally.
8:09
I'd never done tarmac rallying.
8:10
I'd done a bit of circuit racing, but yeah, cut corner on testing, like the second run backwards into a stone wall, like breaking cars.
8:17
I was like, oh, great.
8:18
What do we do here?
8:19
The team was awesome.
8:20
We fixed it.
8:21
We went down to a racetrack just to get some time and cut some laps at a racetrack.
8:25
But it was enough.
8:26
I thought, this is cool.
8:27
Like this stuff in Europe is just a cut above what we do.
8:30
And that was the European Championship.
8:33
So I hustled real hard that following year, which is when I was with Citroën, to try and put a deal together to go back.
8:40
There were some trips to sort of WRC events or something in this place?
8:42
Yeah, well, because of the Citroën connection, there was – and Ron's obviously tied up with the WRC team.
8:47
So, yeah, I went and did – like, I think I did like six or seven trips to Europe that year as well.
8:52
So I was over and back and –
8:55
It was also the year that Abu Dhabi sort of had that last rah, I guess, with the Citroën support.
9:04
You meet Chris Meek here somewhere too?
9:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:07
So that's when Chris was sort of just looking at the Citroën team there.
9:10
So I met him and I was just meeting all these people and it was surreal and Ron was really helpful with that, but I was just putting myself over as much as I could.
9:19
I went over to...
9:21
at WRC in Poland just to meet the team before I did Germany.
9:25
You did that with Dale Moskowitz?
9:26
Yeah, I went with Dale.
9:27
So I did Germany with Dale.
9:28
But it was just, yeah, just trying to... And obviously Dale had come off the back of, you know, being really, really regular in the WRC.
9:35
So I chose to take Dale to Germany just to learn.
9:39
And that was an amazing experience and just learned so much from that one rally with Dale.
9:44
But it was the full WRC experience.
9:45
Like it was a proper WRC event, whereas the other one had been a European event.
9:50
in the vineyards around Germany.
9:52
Did you stop to soak that up?
9:53
That's pretty amazing.
9:54
Yeah, I did.
9:54
Yeah, it was cool.
9:56
It was very cool.
9:56
And I look back now and there's often photos come up in my memories and it was something I still remember.
10:01
I remember we had a moment and we went off and did the classic through the vineyards and grapes coming in through the roof vent and stuff.
10:07
But yeah, it was that.
10:09
And it was the first time that Hyundai had won the round of the World Rally Championship.
10:14
So yeah, there's lots of those sort of special memories there.
10:18
you know trips to mSport and meeting Malcolm Wilson and tests at Sweet Lamb in the UK all that sort of stuff so yeah it was a pretty pretty cool couple of years how hard is it to then keep stitching stuff together for I don't know maybe more international stuff do you say I need to focus back on Australia where are you here in that whole process yeah
10:39
Well, so we sort of got to Rally Australia that year when that was again, Coffs.
10:45
And unfortunately, so I had a really good year here in Australia.
10:48
Like I was regularly podiuming the seconds, thirds, and never won a round.
10:51
I was one stage and that sort of stuff, but never actually won a round.
10:55
So I did really well.
10:57
And, you know, the first person you're going to beat when you go around is your teammate.
11:01
So I sort of had the measure on Tony that year, which was great.
11:06
But...
11:08
basically got dropped um yeah ron had decided that yeah and with citroen that they wanted to win um probably tony had a bit more invested with trucks and all that sort of stuff um so yeah essentially yeah yeah it was pretty brutal it was pretty brutal um and that was that was the end of it really so yeah how do you bounce from that then
11:31
Well, luckily, we made that decision to buy the car.
11:35
That was the saving grace, ultimately.
11:36
So I was like... And again, I'm just stubborn anyone knows me.
11:41
I'm just stubborn.
11:42
I wasn't going to let that.
11:43
So I was like, no, you know what?
11:44
Stuff this.
11:45
You want to drop me, basically?
11:46
I'll show you.
11:48
I'll show you.
11:49
So we'd been running our own innate motorsport team through this whole period, running the cars ourselves.
11:54
We had a little workshop in Canberra.
11:58
But I think...
12:00
I probably was too busy doing a lot of that team logistics management stuff, all the stuff for Citroën plus the stuff to Europe.
12:06
I probably didn't concentrate enough on just rocking up and driving and being a driver.
12:10
Gotcha.
12:11
And the pace notes and all that sort of stuff.
12:12
And I probably learnt from doing that round with Germany that my pace notes was probably what was holding me back the most.
12:18
Mm-hmm.
12:19
So, like every driver generally, I think has to have this conversation at some point.
12:24
Unfortunately, I made the call to sort of – I wrapped up the team in terms of we were – I decided I wasn't going to go and run the team ourselves and approach Neil Bates and said, I want you to run my car next year.
12:37
And I made also the tough decision to find a new co-driver.
12:41
So, Tim and I parted ways after –
12:44
what would have been four or five years?
12:46
And yeah, partnered up with Aaron Kelly.
12:49
Who co-drove with you for some time?
12:51
Yeah.
12:52
So to have a crack in 2014 in our own Citroën.
12:56
So there was still the Citroën team with Eli and Tony, but we had the third car.
13:02
Neil ran it for me.
13:06
And basically, I had to go back.
13:08
I was still in the workshop a bit and packing trucks and stuff.
13:12
But, yeah, I just didn't have to worry about booking accommodation and travel and sorting out all the logistics and stuff that go with it.
13:19
Had Aaron and we just gave it a real red hot crack and Aaron and I clicked straight away.
13:26
And I think just...
13:28
Yeah, it was just a fresh start.
13:29
I had the sort of the grip between me and just went out and, yeah, had a solid season.
13:34
Again, leading rallies.
13:35
I can remember I was beating Simon in Perth on day one and I pushed it and I ultimately threw it off the road.
13:44
But I think that extra pace had sort of come and I just sort of, you know, just was focusing so much on the driving and had a whole year with, you know, Neil Bates Motorsport running the car there.
13:54
Again, it was back to hustling and finding sponsorship and stuff.
13:56
Mm-hmm.
13:58
But yeah, and in the middle of all that, I'd sort of started to, I guess, identify that there was an opportunity to continue to work in the sport because I was, you know, I'd do a little bit obviously with running our own ARC in Canberra, but I had a few other people doing, I was doing some driver training, some coaching, done some stuff with some manufacturers for some drive days.
14:17
I was like, you know what, maybe you can build something out of this and do a little bit more.
14:21
So I sort of started focusing on that in between because, yeah, I'd sort of,
14:25
took the gamble to close the landscape business only 12 months earlier so i had to sort of make something work you you in the the hookup with neil to get him to do some stuff for you i think a year later do you get in the s2000 car a year later with some backing from castrol have i got the years right there is it roughly 2016 yeah so we'd run a couple years with neil and the citroen and again just got faster and better and did some more rallies and
14:51
actually landed on it so the rules had changed so they announced i'm going to go back to four wheel drive so we had this two wheel drive um so the rules sort of changed up there and in 2015 we still ran the citroen but i'd actually bought a np corolla off which was one of those prototype corollas that neil had built um because i need i'd never driven a four wheel drive car so i'd just been driving two wheel drive car the corolla was the only rear wheel drive car i did four rallies in it and then just driven front wheel drive that whole time
15:16
But with the change coming to four-wheel drive, this came out really cheap.
15:20
I bought it because we knew we were sort of going to go four-wheel drive rallying.
15:25
And yeah, 2016 was – Harry had just come on the scene, was running a little two-wheel drive rally.
15:32
Tell us about that.
15:33
But 2016 was sort of the first year that Harry did the ARC and we had the dual S2000s, I guess.
15:39
So I guess it was, you could, I look back on it now, it's probably almost the start of, I guess, what Reignite a Toyota's, I guess, investment, involvement in the championship.
15:46
So we ran these couple of S2000s, we'd sort of, you know, we'd refurb the truck to take both cars and, you know, essentially run a two car team.
15:55
So yeah, Harry's first season, we were teammates.
15:57
And unfortunately, that year, those S2000s were temperamental and I did three engines by no one's fault.
16:05
They just strung and died.
16:07
So, we had a real patchy season.
16:09
So, we basically sort of, I think, after Queensland, we pulled out and we then just came back for Rally Australia with the Castrol support.
16:18
Mm-hmm.
16:19
I did Rally Australia and was leading the rally on Friday and then the fuel pump.
16:24
So it was a real struggle that year.
16:27
It was probably bittersweet.
16:29
But, you know, I had lots of other things going on in life.
16:31
Like obviously I'd met Jill.
16:34
There is a rally connection there.
16:35
Yeah, there is, yeah.
16:37
And so I was like, you know, this is time.
16:39
And I started doing a bit of work for Rally Australia then as well.
16:41
So this was sort of this transition into event management.
16:44
I was comfortable.
16:45
So, yeah, basically 2016 was that sort of...
16:48
Last year, what I thought anyway was going to be sort of the last year rallying at that level because it was just getting harder.
16:54
Like, you know, the temps, it was sort of going through a bit of a lull then commercially.
16:58
Did you draw like a formal line in the sand or you just sort of thought that –
17:03
might drop away for a little while.
17:04
I think it just dropped away.
17:05
It was a tough year.
17:07
It was an expensive year because we were paying for everything ourselves, a couple of engines and stuff.
17:11
I was sort of using – I'd seen it in supercars, the model to sort of use different sponsors from round to round.
17:17
Yep.
17:17
So, you know, had different liveries on the car and sold each event.
17:20
So I can't hire for the first one.
17:22
Then I had a Doma Hotels.
17:24
Castrol was in there, I think.
17:26
So, yeah, we had different partners on there for each different event to sort of try and sell a event rather than selling a whole championship.
17:32
You hustled.
17:33
You hustled because people can find it on YouTube.
17:35
You took my colleague, Abby Gelme, for a run in one of the Eastern Creek rally sprints, basically.
17:43
And she ended up working.
17:44
We crossed paths with her years later in Speed Series where she was hosting and so on.
17:49
So, I mean, you clearly...
17:52
endeavouring to maximise that for the backers in all sorts of different ways, weren't you?
17:55
Yeah, definitely, yeah.
17:56
I was always trying to do whatever I could to give back to the sponsors because they were ultimately paying a lot of the bills or big portions of it.
18:05
And I was probably one of the only ones really that was able to find sort of commercial money to sort of pay for the majority of it.
18:12
I still had good family support and, you know, it was – But not an open ticket.
18:16
But it wasn't an open ticket, no.
18:17
And I guess that last year was sort of the real winding down of that.
18:22
We'd all sort of made luck with it.
18:23
It's been great.
18:23
It's been a great few years, but the championship was struggling, so trying to get a sponsor and convince a sponsor that it was a worthy investment was a challenge.
18:31
You talked Brindabella Car Club before and a few other things.
18:35
So clearly the administrative phase, if you like, has more than started and has perhaps...
18:43
burbling away with things you're doing with an eight and what on, what not rather, is this the point where you start to really focus a bit on that or what, and how, what doors open or what doors did you open at that point basically?
18:58
Yeah, it was very much 2016 was a big year.
19:00
So I'd actually started doing a part-time contract with Rally Australia.
19:04
So being basically their business development manager.
19:07
So Rally Australia had a rough couple of years where the WRC was the main game, the priority obviously, but it had sort of dropped the ball in terms of looking after the national competitors and they'd had, you know, cancelled stages on the national competitors.
19:20
So there was a bit of a falling out.
19:21
Yeah.
19:23
Wayne Kenny, who was the course of Rally Australia from 2015 onwards, sort of said, you know, I want you to come on board in 2016 and sort of be that champion, I guess, of Rally Australia for the national competitors and sort of, you know, talk to, you know, convince them that it's good and tell us what we need to do better to look after the national competitors because, yes, we're a WRC.
19:43
It only brings, you know, 15, 20 cars.
19:46
We need the...
19:47
that the everybody else yeah so that's what it is I had a bit of a part time contract so I was doing some trips to coughs that was then going back to all that stuff I did with dad like I was part of setting the course setting the stages and just sort of evolved and look in hindsight I was getting paid nowhere near enough for what I was doing but I loved it it didn't feel like work
20:03
But it morphed into an operations manager role, basically, didn't it?
20:06
Yeah, it did, yeah.
20:09
So 2017 to 19, maybe?
20:10
Yep, yep.
20:11
So 2016, Jill and I found out we were pregnant with Izzy and decided to move from Canberra back to, well, I guess for Jill back to Queensland.
20:23
So it was at the end of, I feel like it was the end of, it might have been early 2017.
20:27
Yeah, it was.
20:29
You had an interview with Triple Eight beforehand, maybe with Jess Dane, ironically, did you?
20:33
Yeah, yeah.
20:33
Well, I had to get a job.
20:34
So I was like, we're moving to Queensland and I was like, I need to get a real job now, but like this motorsport stuff's cool and I'd been too long out of landscaping.
20:41
I was like, I don't want to go landscaping in Queensland.
20:44
And there was a team coordinator role, I think it might have been, a triple eight advertised.
20:50
PG, Paul, had actually helped sort of near Roland and sort of said, oh, maybe you should give this guy a call.
20:56
So Jess rang and said, oh, you know, Paul Govers told me to give you a buzz and you might be interested in this job.
21:02
You know, what's, you know, have your chance.
21:03
She's like, oh, yeah, that's cool.
21:04
So she's like, can you come for an interview?
21:05
I was like, okay.
21:06
So I jumped on a plane, flopped to Brisbane, had an interview with Jess, thought I did okay.
21:13
Lo and behold, I reminded her a few years later that that wasn't actually the case.
21:16
But...
21:18
Yeah, had the interview and I felt pretty good about it.
21:21
And I was sitting on the tarmac in Brisbane Airport to leave after that interview.
21:26
And Wayne Kenny rang me and he said, and he knew I was going, he knew I was moving to Queensland.
21:30
We sort of tried to make something happen, but didn't work.
21:33
Couldn't sort of make it work because I obviously needed like some proper money because I was about to become a dad and thought I need to get a bit serious in life here.
21:40
Definitely the rally days are gone.
21:43
And we couldn't really make it work.
21:44
So I was like, oh, I went for this new job.
21:45
And I thought, surely I'll find something in Queensland, like, you know, motorsport.
21:48
And to be fair, I didn't really have a plan.
21:53
And he rang me.
21:53
I was sitting on the tarmac back in Wainery.
21:55
I was like, oh, I was like, hey, mate, how you going?
21:56
He's like, I've made it work.
21:58
Here's the offer.
21:59
What do you reckon?
21:59
Because I know you don't take a triple eight job, basically.
22:01
I was like, all right, done.
22:03
So I'd said yes.
22:05
on the tarmac to a job with Rally Australia and I was flying back to Canberra knowing that I went to Brisbane for one job, didn't get it and got off another.
22:15
And, yeah, we moved up to Brisbane about four weeks later and started working for Rally Australia full-time.
22:22
Little birdie tells me the Triple Eight may have come back on more than one occasion, though.
22:26
Is this true?
22:27
Well, yeah, so Jess, I still remember Jess rang me then.
22:29
I'd already said yes, and I hadn't had the balls enough to ring and say, oh, by the way, I don't want the job anymore.
22:36
But she rang and said, she's like, oh, look, unfortunately, on this time, you haven't been on since we're going somewhere else.
22:43
And I was like, oh, okay.
22:44
That's okay.
22:47
And I said, well, yeah, that was fine and had the job at Rally Australia.
22:50
But then obviously, yeah, like fast forward a couple more years later and Jess was part of our TV talent lineup.
22:55
And yeah, Jess and I stitched together the first SVG deal in the Skoda rallying.
23:01
So yeah, it was kind of, you know, did 360.
23:03
Excellent.
23:04
Michael Smith, who you would cross paths with as well at Motorsport Australia, who's now, I think, you know, working internationally in motorsport,
23:12
I think he reminded us of a yarn around... Was it something to do with APRC in Canberra and maybe the cancellation of it?
23:23
But he recognised your skill.
23:25
And it led to this sort of...
23:29
maybe you're on the road together or something rather than there's a conversation around recognising your talent in this space.
23:34
Yeah, so the APRC was in Queensland and it was being run up there and it was Motorsport Australia had become the promoter.
23:42
So this was 2017 and I'd just moved to Brisbane and Mike and he was up there and...
23:47
Basically, they got the budget and Mike couldn't work it out and sort of thought, you know, I need someone to give us some advice on this.
23:52
You know, is this going to really sort of stack up because, you know, basically it was showing a big loss.
23:56
And Mike rang me and said, can you do some, you know, do some work for us?
24:00
Yeah.
24:00
And I said, yeah, sure, no worries.
24:01
So, we had a bit of a look into it.
24:04
I guess it's ironically now because basically I looked at it and I was like, it doesn't stack up, it doesn't work.
24:08
There was some government money, some contracts and it just wasn't going to happen.
24:12
So basically they decided that they were going to pull the pin on it.
24:16
And the APRC was all butt dead.
24:18
There was no cars coming but the contracts were very stringent on the government funding was how many X amount of bed nights will be delivered and stuff, which was near impossible to deliver.
24:29
So I guess, yeah, I just sort of gave advice that I don't think it's viable, but, you know, it's obviously there's implications with government, FIA, or so on and so forth.
24:36
So we did a bit more work and Mike had to come up and deliver the news to Tourism and Events Queensland and the club and all that sort of stuff.
24:44
Even though Motorsport Australia was the promoter, like there was obviously lots of stakeholders invested.
24:48
So he flew in.
24:50
I picked him up from the airport, we drove to sunny coast, we had the meeting and driving back, he said, you know, you're good at this, like you've got a future and if you ever want to, you know, let's stay in touch, we should talk.
25:06
He said, I just don't have any opportunities now, but if something comes up.
25:09
And then, yeah, that was a couple of years.
25:12
And then, yeah, I ended up working for him for almost five years.
25:15
With all sorts of hats, which we'll come to.
25:18
There is a little tease, though.
25:19
In sort of the period of 2019, you get the taste again, shall we say, with a Skoda, with a connection to Optus.
25:30
And you get the first R5 car to compete in the country.
25:34
Almost, but yes.
25:35
Almost.
25:35
Almost.
25:36
Well, yeah, Eli again stole my thunder in that one.
25:40
So, yeah, I was at Rally Australia, done a couple of years, and part of that was it turned into a bit of a sponsorship role as well as the operations manager.
25:47
So I was sort of wearing a few different hats and loving it.
25:49
It was full-time.
25:50
I was living my dream because I was still then involved, and I was involved at the upper echelon.
25:54
That's a great lesson for some people here about, you know, like lots of people chase the driver or competitor dream.
26:01
but I'm not in your league as a driver, mate.
26:03
I was a crap go-kart when I was younger.
26:05
But I'm a huge believer in you can find another way to be involved in the game if you apply yourself and make a career out of it.
26:13
And clearly you're doing that.
26:15
Yeah, it was fantastic.
26:16
I was commuting to Coffs once a fortnight, you know,
26:23
but and doing two or three days there and it was it was tough you know because we had we had Izzy and she was premature so there was you know I still remember she was in hospital and I was having to go down but it was it was you know I had to do it because it was sort of this was the new career path and
26:39
And it was great because I went back to Europe again.
26:44
I was part of FIA meetings and stuff with all the other organizers.
26:47
You know, lots of our TV were coming out and doing recce.
26:50
I was doing stuff with some of the drivers.
26:51
Like it was fantastic.
26:54
And I did a deal with, this is the time we had the super special stage down at the jetty.
27:00
And I'd sold a sponsorship deal to Optus.
27:03
For the berm.
27:05
And they loved it.
27:05
So they had ROI.
27:06
They thought it was great.
27:07
They did some engagement and had an activation with the local dealers.
27:10
And they sold.
27:11
And long story short, they loved it.
27:13
They said, we want to do more of this.
27:14
But, you know, what's the Australian Championship?
27:16
Like, how can we do this domestically, you know?
27:18
And I guess the dealer in me sort of said, oh, there's not going to be an opportunity here.
27:24
So I was like, oh.
27:24
So, first and foremost, I made sure that I renewed them for Rally Australia for 2018.
27:28
Do the right thing there.
27:29
Do the right thing there.
27:30
So, I sort of that in.
27:31
And then I was transparent.
27:32
I said to Wayne, I was like, they want to do some more rallying, like, you know, doing some stuff in the ARC.
27:36
They want a car, like, but I reckon I could do a deal here.
27:38
Like, what do you... Yeah.
27:39
He was like, yeah, like, our deal was done.
27:41
So...
27:41
Knock as a fan.
27:42
Yeah.
27:42
So, it was all... Yeah.
27:43
So, I was like, oh, so I basically, to long story short, I was like, well, I've spoken to Lane at Race Talk and he had the Peugeot AP4.
27:54
I was like, oh, well, and then we'd started to see the AP4 regulations.
27:59
Toyota had the first gen Yaris.
28:01
I was like, well, that's sort of what she got to be in.
28:05
So I spoke to Lane.
28:06
Lane was like, yeah, we'd be keen to sort of see it do some more ARCs.
28:10
So I went over and did a test.
28:12
Righto, let's do it.
28:13
So I had three rounds with Optus.
28:16
That was sort of locked in.
28:18
And yeah, ironically, the biggest restriction that held us back was I wanted to...
28:24
So the championship was pretty dire straight commercially.
28:28
But I wanted to do... Like the broadcast was pretty limited and I wanted to do live streaming with Optus.
28:33
And that was showing their 4G regional capability.
28:36
That was the big sell.
28:39
And probably being a bit naive, I sort of said, yeah, we can do it.
28:43
And ironically now, all the media that do the ARC will probably laugh at this story.
28:48
I went to do it.
28:49
And at the time, Mike Smith and Paul Reardon were like, well, hold on a second.
28:54
You can't do this because the commercial rights are ours and the broadcast rights are ours.
28:57
I was like, yeah, but the championship stuff.
28:59
I remember having this conversation.
29:00
I was like, surely not.
29:02
But you're up there.
29:03
Yeah, but that was the reality of it.
29:04
And ironically, I appreciate it now.
29:06
So, it sort of fell over.
29:08
I'd lined up a friend, a good friend of Jill's.
29:11
Her husband, Jeff, had a drone company and we sort of like...
29:15
This is quite groundbreaking at that stage.
29:17
Yeah, so we sort of started like...
29:18
I'd had my own media team because we had to do this.
29:21
Like this was the pitch, was the live stream to show the 4G capability.
29:24
Knowing what I know now, it probably would have failed dismally.
29:29
So, we had to then do a little post-produce stuff and long story short, Optus sort of got some value out of it.
29:34
But...
29:35
just as on the eve of doing the first round in ballarat lane that lane and race talk had lost the aprc mrf deal so they had these two scotas that were meant to go and didn't go uh and lane's like well what do you reckon about for wa that we run a skoda and i was like done like because i had the budget like had this budget and he's like but i'd like this again because he's like no we did a deal he's like this good for us it's good for everyone it's good for the championship drive a
30:01
No worries.
30:01
So, yeah, I was on the eve and it was literally, I reckon, about two weeks before the rally.
30:06
So, entries had just closed and Eli somehow stitched a deal together to run the second Skoda.
30:13
So, ironically, he stitched me out of the Citroën deal.
30:16
He was stitching out of me still on my thunder to drive me the first person to run an R5 car in Australia.
30:20
But yeah, we ran a couple of rallies together then.
30:23
So I did WA in the Skoda with Optus and we did Canberra.
30:28
And then, yeah, I loved that car.
30:31
It still is the most amazing car I ever drove.
30:34
So, probably much as the Jill's disgust, just stitched a bit of a deal together and Innate basically paid to go down and do Tassie because it was the first round of Rally Tass.
30:42
And that was it.
30:43
That was that because I couldn't do anymore because Rally Australia was coming and I had to work.
30:48
But yeah, that was the last proper hurrah.
30:51
While you're talking, that must have been tough, by the way, last proper hurrah.
30:55
Was that a difficult thing to say?
30:58
What is it?
30:59
No, it wasn't actually.
31:01
Yeah, people often ask me that, like, do you miss it?
31:03
And I was like, I don't.
31:04
I think because I still see everyone, like I'm still part of the family and I see everyone.
31:08
So it's not quite cold turkey.
31:10
Yeah, yeah.
31:11
I think come the time when I don't do an ARC round again or I don't see everyone, that'll be different.
31:17
And Jill's probably dreading that day.
31:19
But, yeah, it's still okay at the moment.
31:23
I don't even have an itch to drive apart from maybe doing an Alpine or something.
31:26
Okay.
31:27
For now, for now.
31:37
The first ever guest in Rusty's library was another rally driver, Molly Taylor.
31:42
What you might not know is that Molly has since been back by popular demand, where she talked about the creation of the Mad Garage with her partner, Dan.
31:51
It will do motorsport stuff, but it can also do just general car projects.
31:54
And we've got an old Brumby that we're going to do some stuff with.
31:58
So, yeah, it's really cool to have this thing that we can both add in from a creative and presenting and all that side.
32:04
He's so good at that.
32:07
Search for Molly Taylor the next chapter in the Rusty's Garage library and check out the Mad Garage too.
32:13
She is mad, but in a good way.
32:15
One of those rally maniacs that just lives and breathes it.
32:18
Sound familiar?
32:19
Back to Adrian Coppin with Rusty now.
32:24
Somewhere, maybe even a little bit fast-forwarded here, you get offered a job from Motorsport Australia, the governing body, but it comes during a sort of...
32:35
Let's call it an emergency in an event sense, basically, doesn't it?
32:38
And you got a call from quite high up in the executive and a very short window to maybe make a decision, didn't you?
32:44
Yeah, so it was 2019, so the bushfire year.
32:47
We knew Rally Australia wasn't coming back.
32:50
We had been announced that New Zealand were getting it in 2020 and we were already looking at other options because we'd been pretty much told that we need to find a new home for Rally Australia because we had outgrown coughs.
33:00
You couldn't get accommodation in there.
33:02
You couldn't...
33:03
It was getting harder and harder to get that engagement from people to come to COFs because you couldn't get accommodation.
33:09
The teams were screaming for, you know, we need to be close to a metro.
33:12
WRC saying we want a capital city.
33:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:14
So all that.
33:15
So we knew it was done.
33:16
So...
33:18
Midway through that year, Andrew Papp, who was the president of Most of the Trades at the time, had said basically sort of, we need to keep you, Adrian, because a lot of the full-time staff were local to COFs.
33:31
He was like, but we need to keep you because you're the future of Rally Australia.
33:34
You've got all the IP.
33:35
We need to get it going.
33:37
I was like, well, great.
33:38
So long story short, he'd sort of said to Yuge.
33:42
Eugenia Rocker.
33:43
Eugenia Rocker.
33:44
And to Mark, like, we need to find something for Adrian to keep him, you know,
33:48
Basically, it's a contract.
33:48
So we got him to sort of start working on Rally Australia moving forward because Andrew Papadolfos was a massive supporter of Rally Australia.
33:55
Loved it.
33:56
So he basically, I guess you could say, told Huge to find me a job.
34:03
And Rally Australia has been to the ground.
34:04
Like, I don't think anyone really appreciated how bad it was.
34:06
Like, it was pretty – like, I remember moving accommodation three times because we kept moving into the fire zone.
34:11
There was embers in the ground.
34:12
Interstate, some people may not have realised or appreciated.
34:14
Yeah.
34:15
Yeah.
34:15
And I remember it was the Tuesday of Rally.
34:18
I was walked out of the office.
34:19
There was smoke.
34:19
There was – you know, we're trying to rejig the rally and find enough distance to keep it alive.
34:25
that international drivers were sort of going, what's going on here, the teams.
34:29
I remember we were moving the World Rally cast to the Middle East with sprinklers.
34:32
It was real bad.
34:33
But I don't think anyone else, you knew the bushfires were on, but it was impacting.
34:37
And Yuge rings me and he's in classic Yuge fashion.
34:40
Adrian, I've been told to give you a job.
34:43
Now I need you to tell me, bye Friday, give me a resume, what are you going to do?
34:47
And I was like, right, Yuge, there's a bit going on here.
34:49
I know you've got a lot going on, but we're setting budgets and this is what's got it done.
34:53
Okay.
34:54
And sure enough, I did.
34:55
So I sort of sent him a resume and basically said, you know, I can help, you know, doing this, that.
34:59
And, you know, obviously a lot of the focus was on keeping Rally Australia going.
35:03
And we'd already done some recce stuff down around Bathurst and all that sort of thing.
35:07
And I guess, yeah, then supporting on the ARC and sort of said, you know, try and maybe bring a different perspective of the next competitor to rebuild the ARC.
35:15
And yeah, and then that was COVID.
35:17
So I started in 2020 at Motorsport Australia as a contractor.
35:21
Amazing.
35:22
I know the pandemic is in there, right?
35:24
But the scope for the job changes pretty significantly.
35:29
I mean-
35:30
Shannon's Speed Series, you basically become the operational boss there, overseeing the off-road championship, maybe even further down the track, I don't know the timings here, secretary of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix.
35:44
Yeah, yeah, all that was, it was a pretty cool period, like, and, you know...
35:50
Everyone always talks, oh, anti-cams this and that.
35:53
And it was actually cool to be a part of that.
35:55
Like it was a really cool time to be at Most of Australia.
35:58
It was a really good bunch of people that I worked with and some are still there, some are not.
36:02
But it was a great organization to be a part of and it was a really, really fun time.
36:07
It was a really challenging time through COVID.
36:09
So I started.
36:10
as a contractor and then COVID came.
36:13
And then just before COVID, luckily, I'd sort of decided that I was taking a bigger scope because Mike rang me and said, oh, a guy that runs Shannon's has left.
36:23
Do you want to give a circuit racing a go?
36:25
I was like, sure.
36:27
Like, how hard can it be?
36:30
And yes, I started, so I took over from Toby running the Shannon Speed Series and that's when I sort of became full-time.
36:35
I was like for us, again, young family, it's like that's just a good choice, solid income or whatever.
36:43
And luckily that was the case because then COVID came and we kept working.
36:48
Job keep and all that sort of stuff.
36:50
And, yeah, ultimately I sort of, yeah, end up becoming general manager of events and then as I left I was general manager of motorsport.
36:58
I mean, I'm not using the right turn of phrase here.
37:01
I was going to say cast your eye over it.
37:02
It's far more significant than that.
37:04
But, I mean, you would like category management contracts for Porsche for things like that, wouldn't you?
37:09
Yeah, so all that.
37:10
So I basically became, you know, Mike's 2IC.
37:12
So Mike had said if I was going to get you by bus, you'll be the logical choice to...
37:17
to fill in my shoes so I sort of I learned all that stuff from Mike you know Mike was was great and took me under his wing and so you know all of the CRAs the category management agreements category rights agreements I was on all the commissions um you know yeah endless meetings and like don't I don't think anyone really could appreciate how much Mike Smith did for motorsports in this country uh like he was across everything and
37:39
And yeah, taught me a lot.
37:41
And yeah, I was doing everything.
37:43
So, you know, I was just basically, you know, shadowing Mike everywhere I could.
37:47
And that ultimately led to me becoming the secretary of the event last year for the Grand Prix because Mike was fortunate enough and got picked up by Saudi Arabia.
37:56
But I'd been following Mike for three years through that.
37:58
And it was a seamless transition for the Grand Prix last year.
38:03
But yeah, it was basically ended up with a team of four people in the motorsport team and ran...
38:09
ran Shannon's Speed Series through that era where ARG sort of came in and JV'd with us and TCR was on the rise, Trans Am, obviously all that era.
38:18
That was me.
38:19
I sort of took over Speed Series and started all that there and to where it is now even with what SRO are doing.
38:26
I used very early in our conversation here the word building block, right, like another building block for you.
38:31
So in the timeline that we have covered here, you leave Motorsport Australia...
38:35
last year to focus on innate event group yours jill's um i think paul gover wrote at the time about the the significance of that moment right in in your move and what you were doing and you alluded to it i think there a moment ago too about had you not been working on a project about hopefully bringing the wrc back to australia maybe a ceremonial start in sydney and maybe basing it in bathurst or something had that been in the works
39:00
Yeah, so that was back in 2019, 2020.
39:03
So, you know, we'd been told that we'll get the WRC back in 2021.
39:06
It was going to New Zealand for 2020.
39:08
So I was, yeah, very much, we were doing reckeys down to Bathurst, trying to work out how we'd put a rally together.
39:13
We have, there is a rally on the shelf in Bathurst for a WRC round.
39:16
Council was supportive.
39:18
We obviously needed to secure the funds from Destination NSW, but that was supportive.
39:22
But COVID basically killed that.
39:23
Like I generally believe had COVID not come, we would have had a WRC in Bathurst in 2021.
39:27
Wow.
39:28
Wow.
39:29
Some people have talked about like year on, year off New Zealand and so on.
39:33
It is very hard for a place like Bathurst or Destinations New South Wales and so on to – I would have thought – you'd want the regularity of the event, would you not?
39:42
Year on, year off is hard to – It wouldn't have worked because it's a big beast.
39:48
And you've got – we had six or seven full-time staff when we were in COFs.
39:54
You can't not –
39:57
have those people doing anything for the year there is work to do but it's not full-time work so you know and sponsors don't want to sort of what do they do for the year oh that's back on again now yeah exactly so it just wouldn't work that you uh and jill in addition to australian rally championship which we're going to focus on in a second just to finish this right you now have i think adelaide 500 you mentioned about sro before with gt racing i mean so you're
40:23
This move, and I know Nate's been around for a little while now, I mean, you're more than off and running.
40:29
You've shifted up a few gears already, haven't you?
40:32
Yeah, yeah.
40:32
We took the gamble, I guess, last year.
40:34
It was sort of – so, yeah, I guess Motorsport Australia decided to step out of the events.
40:39
They were the promoter of Speed Series.
40:40
They were the promoter of the ARC.
40:42
Still are the Australian Off-Road Championship.
40:45
But it's what Jill and I have done for so long.
40:48
Like, Jill comes from a corporate events background.
40:51
We actually met because she was my sponsor when I was in the Citroën.
40:54
Sorry, in the S2000.
40:55
So, yeah, she actually met through a rally.
40:58
Who is this guy?
40:59
Yeah, I know.
41:00
She's probably regretting that deal now.
41:04
You know, she was just sponsoring me and, you know,
41:07
nine years later she's she's owner of the australian rally championship but um yeah we she she comes from events background i'd become you know turn driver turned into this events game so it was sort of you know when izzy was born you know jew had left that corporate sort of event world from being in hotels and stuff it was just wasn't you know to go back and be a full-time mom and have lived that life she was very successful and
41:30
in there, but it just wasn't possible.
41:31
So we said, well, let's give this, let's rebrand Unite Motorsport to Unite Motorsport and Events.
41:37
Are you yin and yang, the pair of you, what you bring to the table on this thing?
41:40
Yeah, definitely.
41:41
She's far more thorough and detailed.
41:44
I've always won with the crazy ideas and the, you know.
41:46
And she, yeah, innate wouldn't be what it is now without her, honestly.
41:50
You know, it's been a hell of a journey.
41:53
But, yeah, she's the opposite of me in terms of we complement each other so well.
41:58
And she brings a different perspective to it too.
42:00
Like, you know, I guess I'm always...
42:02
the passion comes out in some of the stories.
42:03
Yeah, they're not the things that I want to do.
42:05
Whereas Jill's able to always take this sort of measure back and almost from an outside perspective, coming into the sport with a different lens, she's able to sort of offer a different view.
42:13
And, yeah, as much as I hate, I'll say, bang, yeah, you're up.
42:17
And, yeah, we should do this.
42:18
So let's do it that way or whatever it might be.
42:20
You weren't a complete stranger to the ARC in a managerial sense.
42:23
I mean, we've detailed your WRC or Australian round background, what you've done with Motorsport Australia and so on.
42:31
But in year one, as innate, right, live stream coverage with good numbers, Hayden Patton coming to play in this country, good mix of cars and names at the pointy end.
42:42
I mean, I feel like, again, to use that term building block, that's a damn good start.
42:47
That's lots of positives there.
42:49
Yeah, definitely.
42:50
Like, it's probably the craziest gamble we've taken, taking on the championship.
42:54
It all came about, obviously, because Motorsport Australia didn't want to play in this space.
43:00
So we sort of, you know, we said that we let's do this.
43:04
Probably...
43:05
stupidly it's probably not the smartest business decision I guess initially because you know it was built on driven on passion stuff but I generally believe this this this championship has been building you know the last few years you know there's been a lot of great people that have been a part of that particularly the most what Australia's we've we tried some crazy things and you know particularly around live streaming and stuff but us I believed that was the the way we need to do it Australia loves live sport and consumes live sport and you know if we want to be
43:34
seen on the same footsteps as, you know, we are a national championship.
43:37
There aren't many national championships in Australia.
43:38
You know, Supercars is one, you know, the Australian Road Championship is another one, Australian Off-Road Championships.
43:43
So we are one of, you know, only three real national championships and we, you know, we need to, you know, to live by that and live through that and doing live streaming, live broadcasting, I thought was important.
43:54
And I guess...
43:55
Yeah, I tried it myself.
43:57
I only get shut down by Mike and Panda.
44:00
But you never lost the dream.
44:02
Yeah, but I managed to convince.
44:03
I still remember too when I was at Mostport Australia and I said to Panda and to Rob, I was like, let's do live stream.
44:08
And Panda was a bit like, you know, he was a little bit risk-averse to us.
44:12
But I finally convinced him and we did a year of power stage and there was cable and I think I reckon I aged poor Rob James by about 10 years.
44:20
But we tried it.
44:21
It worked in the end, but it was a challenge.
44:24
I've learned so much in that side of things too.
44:27
Which helps now.
44:28
Yeah, which helps now.
44:29
But yeah, now we're doing this new concept and doing live coverage and we've had two rounds now and the numbers are really showing.
44:35
We had 43,000 people watch the forest rally.
44:39
That's good.
44:40
You know, only six weeks ago.
44:41
So, and yourself, you know, brought you back into the sport and you do a great job, the right thing for us.
44:46
I'm enjoying it, mate.
44:47
I'm enjoying it.
44:47
Look down the road for me, pardon the pun.
44:49
What's on the wish list for this?
44:51
You call it two years, five years.
44:53
What sort of things have you thought about that you'd like to see happen?
44:57
Continue the growth.
44:58
I guess the biggest thing we wanted to do was to increase the, I guess, competitor experience.
45:03
So, I guess that's been the biggest thing, you know.
45:08
You've got to remember the championship's made up.
45:10
We are the promoter of the championship, but then we have six individual event promoters or stakeholders.
45:15
That you work with.
45:16
We work with.
45:16
So we have the car club.
45:17
So when we go to Queensland, we have the Brisbane Sporting Car Club.
45:20
When we go to Canberra, it's the Brindleby Motorsport Club.
45:22
And then we've got some private promoters, Andrew Roseman in Victoria and Andrew and...
45:27
Michael in South Australia.
45:28
So we've got different levels of those engagements and they're then event deliverables.
45:33
So for us, it's trying to make the events consistent in what they offer the customers, which is ultimately the competitors, and then obviously what we offer the fans because at the end of the day, we go into the forest and do amazing things in the forest for people to watch.
45:49
And I guess it's trying to take a bit of that.
45:51
We are...
45:52
you know, we are a sport, but we're also providing entertainment.
45:55
And, you know, supercars do that very well.
45:56
They are an entertainment prospect as well as a sport.
45:58
And I think we need to sort of lean into that a lot more and, you know, elevate the fan experience both at the event in terms of watching the cars, but also, you know, through the broadcast.
46:08
Gotcha.
46:09
As well as then, you know, making things viable for the competitors to, you know, continue to show up, you know, six times a year.
46:17
Yeah.
46:18
So that's the focus initially was to try and sort of, I guess, tidy some of those things up and increase on that.
46:24
For sure, you know, another manufacturer or two would be nice.
46:28
Quietly confident that's possible.
46:31
Good.
46:33
You know, what Hayden's brought to the championship this year has been huge, some competition and, you know.
46:37
The boys won't mind me saying this, but it's been good because the Toyota dominance makes it hard sometimes.
46:46
But at the end of the day, the boys... Last year, there was eight different types of cars.
46:54
The boys did the best job.
46:55
And when I say Harry and Lewis, they're on the same car.
46:59
So that's nothing taking away from them.
47:00
But it's been great to have Scott join the championship last year, Hayden joined the championship this year.
47:06
Even we had the Maguires last year.
47:08
There's been lots of different depths of people being able to take it to the fight and winning stages.
47:13
And we saw that in WA.
47:14
We had three different event winners on one day, which I don't think had happened in 12 years.
47:19
So the competition is maintaining that competition is an integral part, but we've got to be commercially relevant and viable for that to happen.
47:28
Dino was on the pod recently.
47:30
You rally people are always good at wearing different hats.
47:33
He's involved in a Subaru one-make series.
47:37
you know we've got taylor gill overseas at the moment um you know is there a want perhaps to try and unearth the next star to come through the australian scene maybe and help promote them help them take that step and then even a one make series within you know like what subaru is doing here i mean are those sort of things important to to where you're going no they definitely are you
48:00
We look back to when I guess I took over the championship under Motorsport Australia and I sort of restructured the way we do cups and stuff and brought back the junior cup and the two-wheel drive cup.
48:10
But that first couple of years, the junior cup was quite successful.
48:16
There was some new talent coming through there and I noticed some guys and that was then even filtered into the production cup.
48:22
But we need to do a better job of making that viable take that next step.
48:27
And I think a lot of the leading teams can play a pivotal role in that.
48:31
And there's some ideas around about how we do that now.
48:34
Can we sort of build something there?
48:35
But it's even at the point where I'm sort of wondering, do we need to...
48:39
do we need to scrap the way we're doing the junior championship for next year, basically put it on shelf, there is no junior championship, and really work on rebuilding something to come back in 2027 because it's important.
48:49
Taylor's doing fantastic things.
48:52
But at the moment, I don't think anyone could actually say who that next person, the next Taylor Gill is.
48:56
So put, again, a building block in place to maybe work toward that.
49:00
I said in the introduction to this podcast that what little I know of you, you don't strike me as this...
49:07
massive grandstanding out outspoken leader how would you best describe your your your approach if if you will um and how difficult is it finding a balance that that serves the sport well because invariably it is filled with lots of type a personalities and people that have views on what they think should be done and you you
49:31
try to look after and appease all those people that's not easy at times is it no it isn't and and what's actually been really good is the work that i'm doing with sro this year so with the new promoters of speed series like i actually look and see there's some synergies between gt racing with the pro-am structure do you to potentially what how we could do here in rallying and i guess i'm one of the few people that can sort of i guess is like now you know lucky enough to sort of see both sides see how circuit racing's done and
49:56
and then see what we can do to bring that to rallying.
49:58
But I think we're always going to have the upper echelon.
50:01
We're always going to have one or two people or five people vying for those outright.
50:06
But I guess you could call those the pros, but then we're always still going to have the amateurs, the mum and dad races, the girls that are...
50:16
doing everything they can to pull a budget together to do a championship.
50:20
And unfortunately, by nature of Australia, it's a national championship which has got logistics, you know, crossing the country to the Nullarbor, up here to Queensland, you know, boat trip to Tasmania.
50:30
So I guess trying to sort of work with everybody and I guess I think that's where I've done okay.
50:37
Like everyone can generally ring me and have a conversation and give me an idea and a thought and I can tell them that, you know,
50:43
why some of the struggles are, and I often get it from the competitors.
50:46
I still don't think people really understand the structure completely that there is, you know, some of the calls that we get, Jill and I are being, oh, we need this or the event is that or whatever.
50:55
So, can you change this?
50:56
It's like, well, no, that's not us.
50:57
That's the event.
50:58
Gotcha.
50:58
So, you know, we still sort of, we are the Australian Championship, but we don't run the events.
51:04
Like, we only do this piece.
51:06
We bring the circus and, you know, we're obviously,
51:08
The investment issue is being uplifting that experience in the service park and, you know, what you see when you come in there.
51:13
But that's where it stops the sporting stuff is the event and the club.
51:17
So trying to, I guess, you know, it's been really good because I got the rapport with the competitors to say, well, you know, this is actually why it's done like this.
51:24
Because, you know, every competitor, oh, you should do this or, you know, what about it?
51:28
shortening that well you can't do that and we know well because because this person here you know why don't you go down that road well there's a there's an angry resident here or the police won't let us or it's too fast or you know we've got to we've got to get back here because the council needs us needs the rally to come back but that rapport you have with them helps diffuse 100 yeah so just i guess telling them the full picture but then on the other side of it i can sit on our meetings with our event promoters and say well
51:52
As a competitor, I'm paying $500 to do testing and it starts at 8 o'clock.
51:56
It starts at 8 o'clock.
51:57
I'm paying for a premium service here.
52:01
We need to deliver a premium service.
52:03
So I think it's been – I'm very lucky that I can now see two sides to it and sort of, I guess, articulate both and advocate for both.
52:10
Again, that's serving you well, I think, that competitor background.
52:13
To wrap this up, fast forward to 2035.
52:16
What would you like to look back and say that –
52:21
innate me whatever we've contributed to make that mark on the sport what would you like to think that would be in 10 years time
52:30
A free-to-air broadcast deal and at least another manufacturer consistently competing in the championship is probably our biggest ambitions at the moment.
52:41
And I think if we can achieve that, I think that will leave a good legacy on the championship because I'd like to think that in another 10 years' time, we can look back.
52:50
I look back and everyone talks about the golden days.
52:54
The early 2000s, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toyota, that was the good year because those manufacturers were tipping in big money and they were tipping in big money to the broadcast.
53:02
And this is all the things that you don't understand.
53:05
It's a different year I was there.
53:06
So that was why everyone talks about, oh, the coverage was so good, but there was some proper money.
53:10
Like doing what we do with broadcast, it's challenging.
53:13
And then we look back at the, I guess the other era would have been the Scott Petrie era.
53:17
Like Scott did amazing things.
53:19
commercially with the championship we had you know we had lots of different manufacturers involved in a good broadcast so i think i'd like to think that we can be another one of those those eras where everyone looks back and goes oh well you know when when gill and adrian ran the championship we had you know a couple of manufacturers and we were on you know free to air tv and those sort of things
53:36
Love to think that that happens.
53:37
Your young bloke, Henry, can do an impersonation of some YouTube clips of what Dad might have done, landing his car back on two wheels and things like that.
53:47
Will you get a little something when time permits in the garage to maybe go and do the Alpine?
53:52
And if so, what?
53:55
I would love to do the Alpine.
53:57
It's probably the only... Jill is watching, she's over your shoulder.
54:02
No, I would and I think it's Blind Rally.
54:05
So, you know, anyone that knows me well knows that I hate a Blind Rally because last time I did a Blind Rally I rode a car.
54:10
She showed me the photo over dinner.
54:13
But I would probably Dustin 1600.
54:15
Nice.
54:16
It's something I think resonates well with that sort of – I remember watching Dad compete in 1600.
54:23
It's probably not the best pick, but I do know where one is, but it's not really an option at the moment.
54:29
But, yeah, I think definitely the Alpine is probably the –
54:32
It would probably be the last event that I want to do that I'd be like, you know what, that's been a pretty cool career because I haven't actually technically retired because I never actually said I retired.
54:40
I just moved sideways.
54:42
We've clarified that in this discussion.
54:45
I've loved charting your story, mate, and what you now bring to the side that you're playing in.
54:52
Go well with that.
54:54
Congrats on everything you've achieved so far and I look forward to seeing what the next 10 years brings.
54:58
Thanks for having me, Russ.
54:59
You appreciate it.
54:59
Awesome, mate.
55:00
Thank you.
55:07
Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
55:12
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55:17
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