Latest / Rusty's Garage / Ralph Bellamy (Part 2)

Transcript

Ralph Bellamy (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:19
G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with Aussie engineer and designer Ralph Bellamy.
0:25
Now, if you've arrived here and somehow missed part one, jump back to the garage library and give it a listen.
0:31
There are some terrific yarns in there from growing up in Eastwood in Sydney, the CSIRO and a...
0:38
growing thirst for learning and understanding all things mechanical.
0:42
The pioneering years in F1 and working in a very early, very basic wind tunnel by today's standards and discovering things with model cars in that facility that would revolutionise the aerodynamic race.
0:56
There are recollections of legendary F1 racers and pit lane figures like Bernie Eccleston and the late, great Ronnie Peterson.
1:04
If at the end of this you'd like to hear more from Aussie F1 engineers and race designers, don't forget Sam Michael and Malcolm Osler are in the Rusty's Garage Library for you to enjoy.
1:16
We begin part two of our pod with Ralph Bellamy by continuing the Lotus chapter.
1:20
What a chapter it was.
1:22
Talking about his relationship with the great Colin Chapman and if it was ever affected by that sideways move into the road car operation.
1:34
Colin knew the car was technically better than anything else, but it wasn't enough.
1:41
So he went to Cosworth and got development engines and of course they're frail.
1:48
And if you look at the record, there's a lot of DNFs there, unhappily.
1:54
So we didn't win the World Championship.
1:56
And then, of course, Colin didn't like the car because it was my car.
2:03
Okay.
2:04
And it wasn't a pretty car.
2:06
He was an engineer's car.
2:08
Okay, so as quick as he could, he built the 79.
2:16
What he should have done was stuck with the 78 front of the car back to the motor and put a different rear end on it.
2:30
to clear the area out the back of the car.
2:33
If he had put more or less something like, all he had to do was put like a 79 rear end on the 78, then it would have been a formidable car.
2:45
Because physically it was stronger.
2:47
It was a very strong car because the big difference from an engineering design point of view between the 78 and 79 was that
3:01
The 78 had three fuel tanks because there was a maximum volume for any tank back when I designed the car.
3:12
And so it had a seat tank and two tanks at the side in the wings.
3:17
And those wings were part of the fuel tank.
3:21
The bottom of the fuel tank was like monocoque.
3:25
So it was very strong.
3:30
Somehow Colin got the rules changed to allow you to have one big fuel tank.
3:38
Now having said that, that was a good step forward because if you have one big seat tank, it's much safer than having three tanks that are connected by pipes and stuff.
3:51
And two of them would be out on the side of the car.
3:55
So from a safety point of view, it was better to have one big seat tank.
4:01
And that's what every racing car has, basically every Formula car has since then.
4:08
Yeah.
4:08
Did your relationship mend with Colin?
4:12
I mean, it's a high stakes game, you know.
4:17
He was obviously angry about it at the time.
4:18
You didn't feel it was necessarily justified, and I think understandably so.
4:21
But did you patch that up over time?
4:24
No, Colin and I have always gone on well.
4:26
Yeah, yeah, no.
4:27
I mean, working at the Lotus Group was always exciting.
4:35
I mean, there was always something going on.
4:37
It was never, never dull, never dull.
4:41
And in the road car factory, there were...
4:46
some problems that needed attention.
4:49
And so I became the sort of go-to man for the problems that nobody else could sort for a year.
4:59
And then at the end of the year, Emerson rang me.
5:03
He somehow wheedled my phone number.
5:06
I mean, I didn't go to the races.
5:08
I was just living in Norfolk.
5:12
nobody ever saw me i didn't as you know i i'm very low profile yeah super low profile so low profile that most of the people in this paddock don't know think i'm bruce linton that's funny the bloke called me bruce yesterday did he
5:36
Well, you see, I've been racing with Berwick for 20 years, just for fun.
5:42
And I'm just the old grey-eyed guy there.
5:46
He's always with Berwick.
5:47
So it's got to be his father.
5:49
But my wallet's nowhere near as big as Berwick's father's wallet.
5:55
So Emerson gets your phone number and a move with your wife to Brazil happens.
6:02
This is a significant move for a project that he's embarking on.
6:07
I think if you – we'll talk a bit more about it – but if you were to sum up the chapter, it was a beautiful time of life for you, but it probably didn't yield the results that you would hope for.
6:17
Well, yeah.
6:17
I mean, I'm –
6:22
I don't plan ahead.
6:24
I don't have an objective.
6:26
Some people know where they want to go, but I'm much more flexible than that.
6:32
And so when the offer came up to go to Brazil, I thought, well, that could be fun.
6:39
I'd enjoy that.
6:41
So Ian and I went.
6:43
And we lived there.
6:45
And...
6:48
Superficially, Copasucar wanted the car built in Brazil.
6:55
and I was up for it so and they had quite a good workshop there and the Embraer aircraft factory was supportive.
7:12
You were across the road from the Interlagos circuit I think weren't you too in Sao Paulo?
7:15
Oh yeah yeah that road
7:19
My office.
7:20
Actually, we looked on Google Earth or something.
7:23
Yeah.
7:25
Just... Oh... Late last year.
7:29
I don't know how it came up.
7:30
And I think we could pick the building.
7:32
It's still there.
7:32
Wow.
7:34
And, um...
7:36
But...
7:37
So did Embraer help from an aeronautical or a... No, they just made some... Supplies.
7:43
They could supply us with air equipment.
7:44
Yes.
7:45
And stuff like that.
7:46
And they made the honeycomb panels for the chassis for me.
7:51
Okay.
7:53
Which nobody else in Brazil could have done that.
7:57
Okay.
7:58
So they were good.
8:00
And...
8:01
But...
8:03
One day, while we were there, suddenly there's a Porsche 917 appears down in the entry and so Wilson's, I've got to get this thing going.
8:20
So they get it going.
8:21
So we all go over to Interlogos and have a whiz.
8:24
Do you?
8:25
Yeah.
8:26
How was that?
8:27
Oh, mate.
8:28
Here's me in a 917.
8:31
Okay, so I'm thinking, oh, you don't have to give it full welly.
8:38
It's impressive enough.
8:39
Yeah.
8:40
No.
8:41
The thing won't run below about 4,000 revs.
8:44
Oh, okay, okay.
8:45
It's rough as.
8:47
So you've got to give it something.
8:49
Okay.
8:49
And you're sitting in this thing with a little screen, and I tell you, they go out of the pitch, round the top of the circuit there, and down the back straight with Sempello in the distance, and give it to Welly, and the bottom corner just comes shoom.
9:05
into your face like that.
9:06
So fast.
9:07
Yeah.
9:08
Oh, yeah.
9:09
So that was fun.
9:10
Amazing.
9:11
But that's... And so living in Brazil was really good.
9:16
Did you speak Portuguese?
9:18
Learned Portuguese.
9:20
Not well, and I've forgotten most of it now.
9:23
And I still use convenient phrases that are shorter than the English phrase.
9:31
Because they did.
9:36
right to the point, whereas it would take three English words, sort of thing.
9:40
So, yeah, um, the problem was that the car was fine, except I wanted to use the same wheel bearing system as Ferrari were using, which are large diameter, small section angular contact bearings.
10:02
And, um,
10:05
So...
10:07
I designed the car for that, but I just could not get them set up.
10:16
What we really needed was the bearing, somebody from SKF, or somebody to come and set them up for us.
10:23
Okay.
10:23
Which I guess is what happened with Ferrari, as you can imagine.
10:27
And so we tried to get them set up with the right amount of preload.
10:34
Okay.
10:36
couldn't do it so the rear wheels were a bit floppy and so the car didn't drive the drivers talked about it being a bit spooky to drive because you're not controlling the contact patch um it's like having buggered wheel bearings and wow and so but you know here you are you've been in brazil for a year
11:00
building this thing and so you're up to here with it and then there's a problem and everybody is trying to help you solve the problem and it just turns into chaos
11:11
The other thing is you can't go away from Formula One for a year.
11:17
Yes, yeah.
11:19
And then come back and be competitive.
11:21
Yes.
11:22
I mean, you know how fast Formula One moves.
11:24
Evolves, yeah.
11:25
And at that time, it was evolving very, very quickly.
11:28
Yeah.
11:29
And so even though I think the car would have had half a shot, but it never did so.
11:37
We alluded to it before.
11:38
It had a very clever...
11:41
side pod design didn't it why don't we talk a bit more about that because you used um uh maybe it was was i can't remember it was kevlar or whatever it was yeah but but you you came up with a good solution relative to what everyone else was was having to deal with yeah well you see they had these skirt boxes and and the skirt man
12:00
Yeah, the skirt man.
12:03
I was going to put the skirt man out of work.
12:06
So I had holes up through the side pot about a 20mm diameter.
12:13
And so I had a rail with ceramics in it, and then from that rail was a
12:23
Kevlar skirt which was attached to the body above it and these rods went up through these holes in the side of the side pod so and springs in there so it just jogged up and down and the Kevlar would have We'd have had to keep changing the Kevlar because the front of it would have got a bit torn up but it had
12:49
less inertia than a big board, but it would have been pretty good.
12:55
It would have worked well.
12:57
Along the way, when you're in your role, no doubt people come door knocking with things, whether it was Kevlar or new innovations.
13:05
Was there some stuff that people came with that just didn't work and you gave it a good try?
13:13
What about that?
13:14
I can't really think of anything.
13:18
I can remember way back when I was maybe even at Bradmore McLaren, somebody said, hey, look at this stuff.
13:25
It's carbon fibre.
13:28
they're just all carbon-fledged.
13:29
And it was just these black strands of like hair, you know, and so they just wet laid it up in a cross pattern and in a bit of fiberglass bodywork because they'd just gotten hold of some stuff from somewhere.
13:49
But
13:50
So, yeah, these things have to wait their time.
13:55
There's a time.
13:56
And materials are so important.
14:01
Materials are really important.
14:03
And just another thing, with engineering, you have to be a good engineer.
14:14
You have to be ruthlessly honest.
14:17
Okay.
14:18
You can't be... You can't bullshit.
14:21
No.
14:22
Because you work with the laws of physics and the strength of materials.
14:27
That's it.
14:29
And you can't blag them.
14:31
You can't con...
14:33
There's no hiding, is there?
14:34
No.
14:35
No.
14:36
And so if you're not... You can't be entrepreneurial with engineering.
14:44
And I think this was part of...
14:49
the arguments I used to engineering discussions I did with Colin I worked out that I would argue the toss with him down the line three times ok
15:09
And if he wouldn't see my way for the third time... Let it go.
15:16
I'd do it his way.
15:17
Right.
15:19
And...
15:20
Even if it meant proving your way was right by going the wrong route.
15:24
And the classic example of that was the Lotus gearbox.
15:28
Mm-hm.
15:33
didn't like Mike Hewland.
15:38
Mike was just a good old-fashioned British engineer and he made gearboxes which were fine but being Formula One we always used the gearbox that was really marginal for the job rather than the bigger one that would have done it on us here.
15:59
So, I got...
16:05
the job of designing a new gearbox.
16:08
So I came up with a way of doing it, which wasn't novel.
16:16
It had been done before, but nobody had done it in a Formula One gearbox before.
16:22
And so... You've probably heard of a Gogglemobile.
16:29
Yes, yes.
16:31
They have this kind of shift.
16:34
The way you select the gear is from the inside out.
16:38
Okay.
16:38
Instead of the dogs chunking this way, you have balls go outwards to engage the gear out of the shaft.
16:48
Yep.
16:48
And so you can have all the gear stacked together so the shaft is shorter and stronger.
16:52
Yeah, yeah.
16:53
And so that's roughly what the box was like.
16:56
Okay.
16:57
Anyway, um...
16:59
So I designed this box, and so...
17:01
But Colin said, we want to use the Crown Wolland pinions out of the ZF gearboxes that we had on the Lotus 49.
17:08
I said, Colin, that's going to be strong enough.
17:14
No, no, no, they're German.
17:16
I said, look, they're smaller than the Hulin one, which fails.
17:20
We're blowing Hulin pinions, we have to be careful.
17:24
No, no, they're German steel, mate.
17:26
They'd be...
17:28
that's what you've got to use.
17:29
And I went through the three times.
17:32
I said, OK, Colin.
17:34
So I made the whole, I went to get the diff in, the crown wheel in, about a millimetre bigger on diameter.
17:43
And I mean, it spaces the whole thing anyway, so you don't have any option.
17:49
So, and he said, OK, well,
17:57
go to Germany and find somebody to make this thing.
18:00
So I went to Germany and went to Getrag, and they said, oh, yeah, we know how to do this, because we didn't look out of a bill.
18:09
And so they understood straight away how this was going to work.
18:12
Okay.
18:13
And they were happy.
18:14
And they did the gear calculations and came back, the gears were fine.
18:20
And the life of the Crown One opinion was...
18:23
Nothing.
18:24
Nothing.
18:25
Wow.
18:25
And they...
18:29
I...
18:32
left Lotus and went to work for Fittipaldi and these gearboxes finally turned up on, must have been the Lotus 79 I suppose.
18:40
No good?
18:42
No good.
18:43
No good.
18:44
They'd be good gearboxes for a Formula 2 car or something.
18:47
Okay.
18:48
But I don't know where they are, I don't know what's happened to them, I've got no idea.
18:52
I sort of, after the Fittipaulay thing, a year with Morris Nunn with the Ensign, which was again unsuccessful and happily clayed an accident and hurt his back.
19:05
And so in 1980, I was just doing a bit of consulting design work for March and they said, oh, do you want to...
19:13
We'd like to engineer one of our Formula 2 cars.
19:16
And this must have been 81.
19:18
I said, yep, I'll do that.
19:23
And so I ran Christian Danner, ran his car.
19:28
good relationship with him I think don't you?
19:30
Yeah, he was a really good driver to work with and from an engineer's point of view he could tell you what was going on and that meant a lot.
19:40
I mean, I tundled through the 81 season and said okay well now we've got to make a car for next year and I said well really these things need a bit of an aero thing so
19:55
Once again, thank you Robin Hurd, he bankrolled me for a week in the Imperial College wind tunnel.
20:02
Wow.
20:03
And so I went there and I had a good go at the Formula 2 car.
20:09
And really we didn't change the car much from the 81 car, but we just put a better aero package on it.
20:16
Okay.
20:20
It won the championship and it was a good car.
20:28
But the secret was the one-piece under-tray because most of the people at that time were making an under-tray to the back of the monocoque and then another under-tray.
20:44
There might be three or four pieces make up the undertray and every join is bleeding air.
20:52
I said, no, I've got to make a one-piece undertray.
20:55
Mechanics are saying, well, can't we have a whole week?
20:56
Because we've got to get at these engine mounting bolts.
21:01
And you can do that when you're successful.
21:03
And so we won the championship.
21:06
BMW were over the moon because they were prepared to be blown away by Honda with the V6.
21:14
So then at the end of 82, Robin said, can you do the same thing for the Indy car as you did for the former two car?
21:22
I said, Robin, back to the wind tunnel.
21:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
21:28
So I went and did that, did the same thing, and came up with much more downforce than the other rubbish that they've been using.
21:40
So, and I said, oh, by the way, one piece under tray.
21:44
No, no.
21:46
IndyCar, how big it is, we've got to fly this stuff to America, you know.
21:52
One piece.
21:54
One piece.
21:58
So, the 83C was brilliant.
22:04
I went over there, Robin said, oh, Krakow are going to test the car and say, you better come with us.
22:10
So I went over to Indianapolis, I'd never been there before.
22:16
and it was in late November and it was bloody bitter and Mike Mosley drove the car and so
22:30
within a few laps and suddenly they're all high-fiving each other and everybody's happy and I'm thinking, oh, this is good.
22:35
It's nice being with happy people.
22:37
And, of course, the thing was going like shit off a shovel.
22:40
Was it?
22:40
Oh, yeah.
22:41
Yeah.
22:42
And I went back to do the 500 with one of the other teams, with Tao Fabi.
22:52
And, I mean, he was doing 208 and all the other people were hitting the wall trying to do 200.
22:58
Oh.
23:00
It was just light years.
23:03
Light years.
23:05
I mean, it was what I'd thought we should have, coming from way back, the first experiments, when I thought this has got to be something for an Indy car.
23:17
Finally, finally I got to put it on an Indy car and go and watch it.
23:22
So, yeah.
23:25
How proud are you of that?
23:26
That's a very significant moment, mate.
23:28
Yeah, yeah, it's good.
23:31
And I did the 84 and the 85.
23:34
And by that time, Adrian Newey came to work for us.
23:40
Well, right in saying, like, he's gone on to do some great things with all sorts of teams, but more recently with Red Bull, obviously.
23:45
Did you see a resume come across your desk or something?
23:48
I've got it.
23:48
You've got it.
23:49
You've got Adrian Newey's resume.
23:51
I've got his application.
23:54
I think, why have I got it?
23:56
Because I think probably Robin would have got it.
24:01
And she said, what do you think of this bloke?
24:04
What stood out for you?
24:06
Nothing much.
24:09
He'd done aerodynamics at Southampton, and I think he'd built himself a little racing car.
24:16
So hands-on, understood aero, and that sort of stood out for you, obviously.
24:19
Yeah, so he started, and we made him a track engineer with a former two team, and I ran...
24:31
I think I ran Christian, he ran Johnny Chocotto.
24:36
And so that was his introduction to motorsport.
24:43
Yeah.
24:45
And so I think about maybe 85 time, 84 maybe, Robin
24:57
hired him off to go and work with an IndyCar team in America.
25:01
Spent the year in America being the March consultant on one of the IndyCar teams.
25:10
But, yeah, so I know Adrian well.
25:14
Lovely.
25:15
And, funnily enough, the...
25:22
84 was the last of the wing cars, the last Formula 2 car.
25:29
85, we went to a flat-bottom car, a 3-litre, Formula 3000.
25:35
And so I went to the wind tunnel, and I'm looking for the sort of downforce I'd had before.
25:42
Wow.
25:45
What was wrong?
25:47
Flat bottom, your wings are gone.
25:50
The only way I could get it to work was to put a lot of rake in it.
25:58
Then the floor would chime in once you got a certain amount of rake.
26:03
But the back of the car was quite high.
26:08
because it had a heavy Yuland gearbox and Cosworth engine and stuff.
26:13
Um, and so I designed it to run like that, but most teams actually dropped it down and ran it flat.
26:21
Okay.
26:22
Um, and that's how people ran flat bottom cars for years after that.
26:30
Until, just recently, if you remember, Adrian started...
26:36
The right cars with Red Bull had become a thing, didn't it?
26:39
I'd been talking to Christian on the phone several years ago now and asking questions.
26:48
He said, ah, shit, I can't answer these silly questions.
26:53
You come to the Grand Prix next year.
26:55
I said, okay.
26:56
He said, I'll get the passes and stuff.
26:58
So I went, and that's when Adrian had started doing them.
27:02
And I bumped into him in the paddock.
27:08
And he said, you remember the 85 car?
27:11
Fantastic.
27:12
So he remembered that car and that way of, but of course, he, with the benefit of
27:24
wind tunnel his own experience and he they're obviously using vortexes and stuff to blank off this big gap which I had no way of doing you know but so yeah he made it work people that want to pursue a career on the design side or the engineering side will be listening to this chat now
27:55
No, they will.
27:56
There's people that aspire to go and have a career like that in England or America or whatever.
28:02
What's the single piece of advice you'd give them?
28:04
Because you kind of did aerodynamics on the run.
28:09
You learnt it yourself, didn't you?
28:10
I'm a mechanical engineer.
28:12
I'm a mechanical engineer.
28:13
I do nothing.
28:15
I mean, the nearest I got to aerodynamics was ocean yacht racing and setting the sails on a boat and making them work.
28:20
That's about it.
28:23
And so...
28:25
I lobbed into motor racing with Ron and motor racing development in an era when wings were evolving.
28:36
And so I was able to nibble away at it and pick up aerodynamics.
28:40
And you get all these books on World War II aerodynamics and you read it up and you've got all these funny terms and you're going, oh, Jesus.
28:47
Jesus.
28:49
You know, but, and then working with Peter, Peter Wright, you know, I mean, he explains stuff to you and from not having any idea how to run a wind tunnel, say, in, must have been what?
29:08
75 I suppose we were in the wind tunnel to five, six years later I'm the head guru at March Engineering doing wind tunnel work for them so must have learned something in the years between.
29:25
Definitely, definitely I mean it depends on where people want to go naturally but I think probably the takeaway from what you talked about with Adrian is that if you aspire down that path, be hands on but also go and maybe study aerodynamics yeah, um
29:39
Engineering is a good life.
29:41
Yes.
29:42
Because engineers are given to understand lots of things that the great unwashed have got no idea about.
29:50
It is, you know, but hopeless with money.
29:55
Can we, before we move on to a little bit of touring car stuff and to wrap up this wonderful chat, can we talk LaRousse?
30:02
Tell me about that chapter.
30:05
Okay.
30:07
I was working it for Eric Broadley, another character.
30:14
But anyway, and...
30:19
I sorted the Formula 3000 thing up for me because when Formula 3000 started, Eric used an IndyCar chassis to make his Formula 3000 car, so it was too big and heavy and gross, whereas I used a Formula 2 car and I just put a V8 on the back of a Formula 2 car
30:39
I got lured away to go and work for Eric and sort that out.
30:43
So I was basically, in 96 and 97, the former 3000 engineer.
30:55
And then suddenly he said, well, we've got to build a Formula 1 car for LaRouche.
31:03
And I said, yeah, OK.
31:06
So really we just made a big 87, former 5000 car, former 3000 car.
31:17
And it was a good little car.
31:21
And this was the first year of getting away from the turbos, so they ran a two-class fair.
31:27
I actually want to say it's late ADC we're talking, isn't it?
31:30
So, and...
31:33
It was a lovely little car.
31:36
Just nice to work with, because it responded to changes and what you wanted to do.
31:43
And if...
31:49
If I got to a track and Philippe Elio said, no, it's not handling, I think, no, he's French.
31:59
Okay.
32:00
And I'd think, okay, we're going to have to go back on the flat patch and change something, something pretty inconsequential.
32:12
But it would mean that I would go through the whole set up with them.
32:15
Okay.
32:16
And so we do the set-up again.
32:18
Back on the track.
32:21
as good as gold.
32:22
Okay.
32:23
Um, so...
32:24
They figured out pretty quickly they needed you to stick around, didn't they?
32:27
Oh, yeah, yeah.
32:29
Yeah, they had their own engineer who was superficially going to run it, and their own chief mechanic who typically thought he was going to run it as well.
32:38
And, um, but after the first test, they realised, well, this is more complicated than what we think, you know.
32:45
So, yeah, so, um, 87.
32:50
was a madhouse year.
32:52
This is a year madhouse.
32:55
I was doing all the Formula 1 races with the Roos.
32:58
I was doing all the Formula 3000 races with the March, with the Lola Works team.
33:07
I was going to America
33:09
to look after the Chevrolet IMSA car that Lola had built for.
33:19
It was run by Hendrick Motorsports.
33:21
So I didn't need a home, and I didn't need a home.
33:26
We would go to a race.
33:28
We'd get home on Monday.
33:30
We had to do the washing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
33:34
We'd be flying off somewhere else in the world to do another race.
33:39
Unreal.
33:40
Can you remember how many you chalked up that year?
33:42
No idea.
33:44
No idea.
33:45
Constantly on planes, basically.
33:47
constantly flying around the world or going to Europe or America or Japan did some races in Japan so I'm madhouse but if you like racing good good on year I mean that was yeah the only after that in
34:16
I went to work for Leighton House on their former 3000 thing.
34:23
And they raced in the Japanese series and in Europe.
34:27
And in...
34:31
In 1989, I flew to Japan and back 17 times.
34:39
Wow!
34:41
I'd fly to Japan and do a two-day tire test and fly back.
34:46
Wow!
34:49
Sometimes I'd go and I'd stay for a week or two weeks or whatever if there was a couple of events to...
34:55
But you imagine, it's 12 hours each way.
34:59
So I spent 17 days in a jumbo that year.
35:04
I hate the smell of a jumbo.
35:05
I'll bet you do.
35:07
I'll bet you do.
35:08
Tell me, while we're talking about flying, in our pre-game chat here, you said for me to ask you about flying with race drivers.
35:16
Have you got some stories about flying with race drivers?
35:18
We don't have time.
35:20
Pick one then, pick one.
35:22
Graham just flew his car, flew his plane like you drive the car.
35:27
Yeah, yeah.
35:28
And he paid no attention to the rules or anything like that.
35:32
So he went to Spain for the Spanish Grand Prix.
35:37
And he just pitched up over Madrid and said, which one would you like me to use, sort of thing.
35:41
And when he got down there, they carried him away.
35:48
Because you can't fly VFR into Spain.
35:52
You have to come in airways.
35:55
So, scruff of the neck.
35:58
Wow, how did he get out of that?
36:00
Happily, Graeme was a close personal friend of the King of Spain.
36:07
So there were no problems.
36:09
But in 1972, he's thinking, I don't want to impose on the King of Spain again.
36:15
So he said, OK, I want you to help me.
36:20
fly the plane because he had an instrument writing with one of these Florida TB okay and he had no idea so I sat in the right hand seat and I did all the radios and the beacons and stuff and we flew to Spain didn't get locked up
36:43
And it worked smooth as a gravy sandwich.
36:45
Lovely.
36:48
But another time, we're going from Hathor over to a race at Silverstone.
37:00
And so Colin said, well, you can come over with me on a plane.
37:03
So we get out to the airfield there at Hathor, because he's late.
37:07
And I there...
37:09
Next thing, Colin comes and roll around the corner, leap into the, you know, Seneca, you know, the Chieftain and the Seneca, I think it was.
37:20
So we leap into that, off we go, down the runway, all the gauges are pegged in the red.
37:27
because he hasn't warmed the thing up.
37:30
So we're off.
37:32
And then, technically, all these blokes fly on these planes.
37:36
As soon as they get the thing off the ground, they start scrabbling around looking for their maps and their paperwork.
37:41
They start scrabbling around.
37:43
Ah, where's the maps?
37:44
Ralph, where's the maps?
37:47
no maps corner oh his company pilot had obviously put the maps in the Navajo and so oh it doesn't matter he said I know the way to self-serve and he said all you've got to do is avoid the controlled area over Mildon Hall where the
38:08
They're flying everything from Blackbirds and God knows what out of there.
38:13
So, yeah, we miss Melbourne Hall.
38:16
And it's a slightly cloudy day.
38:17
The M1 will be a marker.
38:20
So keep your eye open for the M1.
38:22
So we managed to clock the M1.
38:26
And so we're thinking, OK. Because Colin knew pretty much the bearing from Hethel and so on.
38:33
And we flew on from the M1 a bit and we were thinking, Silverstone's not far west of the M1, so must be getting near Colin, have a bit of a circle around.
38:43
So we're circling around and then we spot this town down through the cloud.
38:50
What's that, he said.
38:52
And Anne's looking at it and she said, that's Brackley.
38:54
Oh, okay.
38:55
Well, where's Silverstone from Brackley?
38:57
Well, it's a few miles north, Colin.
39:00
Okay.
39:02
So then he spots another World War II airfield, which looks like one of the runways of Silverstone.
39:11
Oh, that looks like it.
39:13
We go down.
39:15
No, that's Finmere, and that's the Sunday Market, Colin.
39:20
Well, okay, where's Silverstone from Thinmear?
39:23
Oh, I think north-west, Colin.
39:26
And that's how we found Silverstone.
39:31
You live to tell the tale, though, which is great.
39:33
Oh, yeah.
39:34
And another time...
39:38
Another engineer and I from Lola were supposed to go.
39:43
Mike Thackwell was going to test a car for us for an Austrian guy at Salzburg Ring.
39:52
So I did get involved in all this stuff.
39:57
But we flew in the afternoon.
40:00
We flew to Zurich.
40:02
and stayed overnight in the airport hotel there.
40:04
Then we were supposed to meet some bloke.
40:09
called him Fred.
40:10
Supposed to meet Fred at the flight aircraft terminal so we're going in there and Fred turns up with this little high wing thing.
40:19
So we're going to fly to Salzburg from Zurich but it's a bit cloudy the weather's not too flash so uh... well it should be alright.
40:29
So up we go.
40:30
So we're basically flying east along the Alps and it's getting more cloudy
40:40
And so I looked out on the side, a bit of a break in the cloud, and this is this grey rock wall, about as far as from here to the other side of the pit road away.
40:53
So we're talking sort of 20-30 metres kind of thing?
40:55
Well a bit further than that, but far too close.
40:59
And that's the bit you can see.
41:02
You haven't hit that.
41:04
So...
41:07
Things are not looking too good.
41:08
So he calls up and he gets on to air traffic control.
41:13
And they say, OK, have you got an instrument rating?
41:17
No, but he said, I've been taking the lessons.
41:21
They said, well, don't worry.
41:23
We've got you.
41:25
We're transponding.
41:27
And you haven't hit anything yet.
41:30
So you just do what we tell you to do.
41:34
So they took us into Munich.
41:37
So we land in Munich and so we're just hanging around, have morning tea and waiting for it to clear.
41:43
And they say, oh, you can probably get to Salzburg now.
41:46
So we go over to Salzburg.
41:47
So that's the sort of stuff you get involved in.
41:53
And then, yeah, yeah.
41:55
So that's three stories.
41:57
That's enough.
42:08
Charles Leclerc just got pole position in France.
42:11
The race will be done by the time this comes out, but here's my prediction.
42:16
P1 Max Verstappen.
42:18
P2 Lewis Hamilton.
42:20
P3 Sergio Perez.
42:23
What brought about in your mind the end of the sort of serious single-seater chapter?
42:29
Did you call time?
42:31
What transpired?
42:33
I, well, I was working for Leighton House and flying to and from Japan.
42:41
And it was pretty intense.
42:45
In fact...
42:49
Akagi, who owned Leighton House, lovely man.
42:54
I met him first in that year with LaRouce, because the March, his Leighton House March was in Nick's garage to us.
43:07
And so,
43:09
at the start of practice or whatever, and I'd go out onto the pit wall to time the cars, and he'd just go out there and stand out of the way.
43:16
And we'd just exchange pleasantries and stuff.
43:18
And I used to think, Jesus, I must be standing next to one of the smartest men I'm ever going to talk to.
43:24
He's just a multi, multi, multi-millionaire.
43:29
And so then, eventually, I went to work for him.
43:34
And...
43:35
I come to realise that he's just like the rest of us.
43:39
He was a lovely bloke, an absolute raving motorsport enthusiast.
43:45
And when I would fly to Japan, I'd always have to go to his office in Tokyo to tell him all the latest squeals from Europe, what was all the latest that was happening and stuff.
43:58
And...
43:59
Then when we'd go to a race or something like that, he'd come to the race.
44:06
And...
44:07
But because of the hierarchy thing in Japan, none of them would talk to him.
44:14
And so... Because he's sort of up there.
44:18
That's a kagisan.
44:21
And so Anne and I would talk to him.
44:24
Because we didn't care.
44:26
Plus the fact that...
44:29
there's a bit of an age thing with Asians.
44:32
If you're old, you're senior.
44:34
We should have it here.
44:40
And so he kind of respected me because I was more or less his age, shall we say.
44:49
So we got on really well.
44:54
It was a successful operation that was separate from the Leighton House Formula One team.
44:59
Okay.
45:01
But he wasn't sort of happy with that because he thought that team was Robin's team.
45:08
And he told me that he wanted to start another Formula One team.
45:14
out of our organisation with me designing the car.
45:18
But unhappily he fell into financial difficulty and a bit of legal problems as well.
45:26
But anyway, we won't go there.
45:34
By the middle of 90, or late 90, it had all fallen apart.
45:39
Because the problems in Japan had come crashing down.
45:44
And so, you know my after all these years of intense activity thinking, you're gonna kill yourself mate.
45:55
Because a few engineers and people have dropped off the twig.
45:59
Okay.
46:00
And it's high pressure stuff.
46:02
So did you call it?
46:03
I called it.
46:04
Did you?
46:05
No, that's it.
46:06
I'm not going to take another engineering director's job.
46:10
I'm just going to do consultancy work and just still go racing, do track engineering, just cruise along.
46:20
Which is what I was doing basically when Frank offered me the job here.
46:25
And I was so pleased.
46:27
I always thought,
46:29
I need to go home, I want to go home.
46:33
But I thought about any job I'll get is filling supermarket shelves or something.
46:41
And then when Frank offered me a proper job, I thought, how good's this?
46:45
I said, Dan, there's no discussion here, we're off.
46:50
Talk about that Australian return in a second.
46:52
There is a little bit of touring car chapter in England, I think, isn't there, with BMW, is that right?
46:57
I'm trying to remember from a history point of view.
47:00
Was it 95?
47:00
No.
47:01
No.
47:01
I did some consulting work for Vern Chupin with the Porsches and stuff like that, which was good fun.
47:10
I mean, Vern's a lovely bloke.
47:12
A bloke.
47:12
Yeah, a nice bloke.
47:14
I need to get him on the podcast, yeah.
47:15
And, um, yeah, he would have a long career to talk about.
47:21
Um, and so, um, but no, um, Frank said... We're talking Frank Gardner here, aren't we?
47:30
Yeah.
47:30
Yeah.
47:31
Um...
47:33
On your way back, why don't you go and spend some time at motorsport in Munich and get to know the people there.
47:44
I went there in April or something and finally got out of there in October or something.
47:55
I just worked in the motorsport
47:59
drawing office there, designing stuff for them and so forth and trying to sort out some of their problems.
48:05
And then I worked for Frank in 93 and 94.
48:10
And then 95, I'd done the M3Rs for Frank.
48:15
And they were in a lot of trouble.
48:20
with the touring cars in Europe.
48:23
And so Frank said they want you to go and work for them.
48:27
So I went back another six-month stint in Munich.
48:35
But Germans don't go about their racing like the English do.
48:40
OK.
48:41
So, yeah.
48:45
But...
48:47
I enjoyed working with them.
48:50
They're nice people.
48:52
In the motorsport office, there must have been, let's say, a dozen, 15.
49:00
There was only one who wasn't totally, totally fluent in English.
49:04
Wow.
49:05
And we'd have a meeting, and they'd say, Oh, Ralph's here today, we'll have it in English.
49:10
Wow.
49:11
Just like that.
49:12
They'd just have the meaning in English.
49:14
Because I was hopeless at German.
49:16
I mean, apart from in the beer garden, I was all right.
49:22
And I spent a fair bit of time with Paul Rosher, because I knew him from Formula 2.
49:27
He used to love to come to the Formula 2 races.
49:31
We were running the BMW engines, and Paul and I got on well.
49:36
The drivers here in Australia, when you were with Frank, we're talking Tony Longhurst and people like that, aren't we?
49:41
Yeah, and Paul Morris, the major ones, yeah.
49:45
And then I did, I moved and did some consulting with Tony when he split off from Frank's organisation.
50:00
And then moved from,
50:06
did a bit with odd V8 supercar teams, never really settled in.
50:10
In some ways here, if you haven't been here and done it from... Yeah, from little, yeah.
50:22
It's just like you when you were in Europe, you've just got to be immersed in the system, don't you, is what you're saying.
50:26
Yeah, yeah.
50:27
So anyway, but, and then I fell into Linton's clutches and I just had an amazing time racing with him over the years.
50:36
It was just such good fun.
50:37
We'll finish with that in a second.
50:38
Firstly, do you still do some designing?
50:42
Do you still do some drafting by hand?
50:44
Yep.
50:45
You do?
50:45
Like what?
50:46
Well, let's just take this car.
50:50
You need a front strut installation, brake installation and all that sort of stuff.
50:57
So I draw all that.
50:58
Fantastic.
50:59
We're talking production car racing here at Bathurst, by the way, for those listening who may not be able to join it.
51:10
If you don't have somebody like me, you're aligned on what you can buy on the internet.
51:14
Okay.
51:16
Whereas I draw exactly what... You want.
51:19
...we want to get it... Get absolutely the best result.
51:25
Yeah.
51:25
Whereas what you buy off the internet is going to be a compromise.
51:30
Yeah.
51:31
Yeah.
51:31
So, I mean...
51:34
Berwick's not hard-nosed about it.
51:36
He sells the stuff that I've drawn for him to other teams.
51:42
So it's not as though it's a closed shop and nobody gets what we've got, you know.
51:47
So, yeah.
51:48
The young'uns would all be using computer-aided design now or CAD.
51:52
Did you ever play with that?
51:53
Has that ever interested you?
51:57
I'd have loved to have been able to use CAD, but by the time it came in...
52:05
I was too senior to take the time off to learn.
52:09
I mean, you'd have to go and spend a month somewhere learning to be fully functional with it.
52:18
And on top of that, to be really good.
52:23
you need to be using it all the time.
52:26
It's one of those things that it's difficult to pick up and put down.
52:31
It's not really like riding a bike, you can always do it.
52:35
There's all these icons around the screen and stuff like that, and you just gotta know
52:41
where they are and all that kind of stuff.
52:43
So I'm told Adrian still draws with a pencil.
52:47
Yes, a lot of people talk about that.
52:49
And sometimes you wish you could use CAD because you're looking for...
53:00
moving parts and whether they're going to clear each other or whether they're going to hit, you know, whether the wheel's going to hit the wishbone on lock and stuff like that.
53:09
And it's easy to solve those problems on CAD, but it's a major exercise with a pencil and paper, I can tell you.
53:17
But there's something immensely beautiful in still doing it by hand, which... Well, I mean, I drew...
53:22
some uprights and do some stuff.
53:27
I don't know whether you know Kerry Bailey and that Aston Martin.
53:31
I did all the drawing for that car.
53:33
And I drew these uprights, front and rear uprights, out of machine from Solid.
53:45
I went to...
53:48
I must have maybe picked things up or something from this workshop, and this bloke said, ''Oh, these drawings are so beautiful.''
53:55
He said, ''Can I have a... Can you let me have a copy?
53:58
I want to hang it on the wall.''
53:59
Oh, wow.
54:00
Because they just looked...
54:03
nice you know to an engineer to to see an old-fashioned drawing it's like a work of art because they don't do them anymore um and uh the guy who does a lot of machining for us on the coast barnsey
54:22
Barns is the machine ink guru.
54:24
And I've always sort of dimensioned the drawing how I would think you need it to be dimensioned.
54:36
The same way as I did 30 years ago, before CAD and all that sort of stuff.
54:42
And one day I thought, maybe, because they've got to take my drawings and put it into CAD.
54:50
That's...
54:52
unhappily what they have to do before they can... And I said to Barnes, I said, Hey, how's my dimensioning?
55:03
Would it be better if I...
55:04
I mean, you can dimension, say, from the X and the Y axis, say, and everything's just XY dimensions and stuff.
55:13
Or...
55:17
the way I do it.
55:18
I said, no.
55:19
He said, your drawings are perfect.
55:20
You just keep doing that.
55:22
It's no problem.
55:23
So, which made me happy because I didn't want to have to change my style at this stage.
55:30
Yeah.
55:31
I love it.
55:33
Working with these crazy maniacs, Berwick Linton, Tim Lay, you've talked, I mean it is just great fun.
55:41
But I mean they're properly competitive too aren't they?
55:43
Oh yeah, yeah.
55:48
The first time we came here with this car and the rear wheel fell off, which must have been 18.
55:55
That sounds right.
55:59
That was, we were leading unbeatable and the bloody rear wheel fell off.
56:03
And so for 19, mate, the pressure was on.
56:09
I never seen Berwick, that was the one time I've seen Berwick get tense and Tim was equally tense about getting it right for this year because we've got to win this year.
56:25
So that was, that's the only time that I've
56:29
I felt that there was real pressure.
56:35
Because fundamentally it's fun.
56:36
Yeah, and of course we went and won the race by a lap and a half, but that was an extraordinary race because there were only two safety cars.
56:49
for a race that long.
56:50
And so we were fast, we just disappeared and went by lap and a half.
56:54
But then there was no race in 20 last year.
56:59
It went back to a whole lot of safety cars.
57:02
And so everybody's on the lead lap.
57:06
for the last hour, and it's just a sprint.
57:09
And Shane was obviously quicker, a bit quicker than Tim, and won the race.
57:16
But, and I suspect with all these cars, it's gonna be another high safety car race.
57:23
So it turns into a five hour reliability run and a one hour sprint.
57:31
And so you just gotta be ready for the sprint.
57:34
Put yourself in a place to have a crack at that.
57:36
Last two.
57:37
Is there one car that you have the fondest attachment to?
57:42
Which one in all your time across Formula?
57:45
Well, obviously it's a load of 78.
57:49
One of the, perhaps the biggest acolyte
57:55
was somebody sent me an English motor magazine, Motorsport or something, and they had an article in there of asking designers which car they'd like to have designed.
58:16
And they asked Ron Tornack which car he would like to have designed, and he said the Lotus 78.
58:23
And I thought, well...
58:24
That's a great endorsement.
58:25
It was a great car.
58:28
And I'm just grateful to Colin for giving me the opportunity to build that car.
58:34
Yeah.
58:36
And so, yeah.
58:39
Probably hard to play favourites because there's so many good drivers that you've worked with over time.
58:44
They're differing competitors, they're differing personalities and so on.
58:49
Would it be Ronnie Peterson that you perhaps have the...
58:52
Two drivers.
58:53
Denny.
58:54
Denny Holm?
58:55
Yeah.
58:55
I worked with him in 71, and that was like after Bruce got killed.
59:00
Yes, Bruce McLaren.
59:01
He had great spatial awareness, Denny Holm, didn't he?
59:04
Yeah.
59:05
And Denny was still suffering burns from Indianapolis.
59:10
Yes, yeah.
59:11
His hands were all almost raw, had to wear special gloves under his... And he had a bit of bone sticking out there, and he'd get a... Sugar.
59:23
And so, but he felt that he had to carry the team through that, out of that hole.
59:34
Following the loss of Bruce McLaren.
59:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:37
And he was just...
59:41
lovely easy going bloke not not one of these mindless injured people that we've talked about before and I enjoyed I was really sad when I heard that he died here because he was one of the kind of guys you think you can grow old with you know and then of course Ronnie yeah yeah yeah
1:00:11
They were two really good drivers that I enjoyed working with.
1:00:16
And Christian Danner, I mean, we're still good friends and I enjoyed working with him.
1:00:22
Thank you so much for spending time and sharing.
1:00:28
I'm sure there's a gazillion other stories and I'm sure some of them probably shouldn't be on a podcast either, which is kind of actually cool in some ways.
1:00:35
Well done on the amazing contribution you have made over time, mate.
1:00:39
You are...
1:00:41
I get a sense with you that you're quietly spoken, but immensely decisive, and you've been there and played a part in some very pivotal things in motorsport, and you should be enormously, enormously proud of that.
1:00:55
Yeah.
1:00:56
The boys will be annoyed.
1:00:57
Why?
1:00:58
Because they haven't spoken about me getting locked up in Brazil.
1:01:01
Tell me about that.
1:01:02
What happened there?
1:01:06
They'd be so pissed if you don't put that in.
1:01:08
We've got to include that.
1:01:09
What happened there?
1:01:10
When I went to work for Team Lotus, I'd not been there super long.
1:01:17
And we had to go to St. Paulo for a Goodyear tyre test prior to the Grand Prix.
1:01:27
So off we go.
1:01:30
And we get to St. Paulo and in the arrivals there is a big room and there's a sort of a,
1:01:40
port-a-cabin sized room in the end, and there's a hole about this big that you put your passport through and then you shuffle by and there's a hole about that big that your passport comes out the other end.
1:01:50
Okay.
1:01:51
So I go down and shuffle down, passport.
1:01:54
Mine didn't come out.
1:01:56
Oh, my God.
1:01:57
So... Are you getting nervous?
1:01:59
Yeah.
1:02:02
When the whole room's empty, I'm only one there, next thing, these folks go...
1:02:08
by the collar no no no come this way so and they say no visa oh well what happens now well you get locked up so off I go get locked up and of course Peter was outside jumping up and down going potty because where is he so
1:02:38
Anyway, Emerson sprung me.
1:02:40
Did he?
1:02:41
Yeah, well... How did he pull that off?
1:02:42
I don't know.
1:02:44
So I got sprung that night, I think.
1:02:48
Yeah.
1:02:49
Maybe the next day.
1:02:49
I forget now.
1:02:50
Well, he was clearly a hero, so he could pull some strings.
1:02:53
Oh, yeah, yeah.
1:02:56
But the law said that I had to leave...
1:03:03
by the same airline as I arrived on as soon as possible.
1:03:08
But they managed to put it off so that I could do the tyre test.
1:03:12
And then I had to present myself back to the airport at Congonhas.
1:03:17
And they gave me a passport back.
1:03:25
And the Swiss airplanes out there, full.
1:03:31
LAUGHTER
1:03:32
all loaded up.
1:03:34
Okay?
1:03:34
So these two guys marched me out there up the steps into the plane and everybody's looking.
1:03:41
And they sit me down, turn around and everybody's looking at me like, Jesus Christ.
1:03:48
He's got to be a seriously bad egg.
1:03:53
Because in Brazil you can get away with almost anything so to be thrown out of Brazil...
1:03:59
The most unlikely criminal, hey?
1:04:02
Oh, funny as.
1:04:04
I mean, I mean... Great life experience.
1:04:07
I was younger then, and it didn't worry me.
1:04:11
I mean, I didn't, you know, you don't panic, you don't get frightened.
1:04:15
You just think, this is part of life, this is interesting, you know, what happens now?
1:04:20
And years later, you'd have a lovely, lovely time living there anyway, so amazing.
1:04:24
Yeah, yeah.
1:04:25
Well, the funny thing is, having been a shroud out once, I went there.
1:04:30
First time I left was to go to South Africa for the Grand Prix.
1:04:33
Yeah.
1:04:34
And I had to present myself to the Brazilian consulate in Pretoria to apply for another visa, having already exceeded the terms of our previous visa.
1:04:45
Oh, oh, oh.
1:04:49
So that's Brazil.
1:04:50
Amazing, amazing.
1:04:51
Thank you, mate.
1:04:52
It's been great to chat with you, and I'm sure people will love it.
1:04:55
So you better put it in otherwise.
1:04:57
I mean, when we sit having a few beers at night, the boys go over some of this stuff, and they just wet themselves laughing and all that sort of stuff.
1:05:07
Awesome.
1:05:07
Awesome.
1:05:09
Okay.
1:05:09
Thank you.
1:05:09
Pleasure.
1:05:10
Absolute pleasure.
1:05:17
Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
1:05:21
Series editor and producer is Ed Gooden.
1:05:24
Audio production by Link Kelly.
1:05:27
If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
1:05:31
The Garage.
1:05:32
It's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fuelled stories.
1:05:44
Listener.