Latest / Rusty's Garage / Ed Ordynski - Part 3

Transcript

Ed Ordynski - Part 3 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  Hi, it's Rusty here, gearing up for part three of my podcast with Ed Ordinsky.
• 0:23
  This has been a terrific ep.
• 0:25
  In the nearly 300 we've done so far, there are invariably takeaways for all of us, right?
• 0:30
  But Ed has been keen to share some of the secrets of his success, the things he adopted, built on, made the foundations of, that you'll need if you want to be a professional in motorsport.
• 0:41
  I'm grateful he shared those, and they...
• 0:43
  filter through the opening two parts of his fascinating story.
• 0:47
  So if you've arrived here without giving parts one or two a listen, jump back to the library and check them out.
• 0:54
  From the rally course he did with the likes of Colin Bond instructing that helped his development immensely, Corollas, Mazdas and more in those early years.
• 1:03
  winning in a Subaru RX Turbo before a special chapter with Mitsubishi, which saw him chalk up an incredible number of wins in Group N at Rally Australia and some famed events on the WRC calendar.
• 1:16
  Time for the final instalment, which includes some cool cars that he's kept in the shed too.
• 1:22
  That's coming up.
• 1:23
  Stick around for it with Ed Ordinsky.
• 1:29
  Can we come to the international success here, right?
• 1:31
  So we know about Rally Australia.
• 1:33
  You have competed and had success at what most of us would just call bucket list stuff, right?
• 1:41
  Finland, Sweden, New Zealand.
• 1:45
  Again, correct me if I don't have the numbers right.
• 1:47
  Is it nine wins on the international stage in events like that?
• 1:50
  I mean, that's...
• 1:52
  going back to the dream to piece that together, to corporately work with partners, to logistically get stuff where you need it and so on, to go and represent the brand and deliver what you, what you know is being asked of you against A-list or quality competition.
• 2:10
  I mean, that's hugely, I would imagine, rewarding thing, let alone, you know, the style of roads and Thousand Lakes
• 2:22
  It is.
• 2:22
  And, you know, it's hard to pick a favourite event, but obviously Finland ranks right up there because it's the global home of rallying, no doubt about it.
• 2:33
  Yeah, it is.
• 2:33
  And the other part to what you're saying, yes, you're doing all of these events and you're having successes and logistics and all of that.
• 2:39
  But, you know, every time you stepped up to another event, you went to a Finland, you went to a Sweden or you drove in a circuit race or you did training in China or Japan.
• 2:50
  As you know, with your own field of work, there's all of the other support things that you have to commit to as well.
• 2:57
  All the other marketing gigs you have to do, all the signings, all the corporate work that goes along with it.
• 3:04
  So your life just suddenly becomes this whirlwind of things.
• 3:07
  And I think out of Australian competitors, the two of us that knew that most would be Possum and myself.
• 3:15
  Neil as well, he would know that, but because he was running his own workshop and business and solely the Toyota world was not doing as much as I think Posse and myself, but there would be times when we would, you know, most people would know us for doing the ARC, we would do an ARC round and the next one would be in a month's time but neither of us have been home since then, you know, you've been testing in the UK and a corporate thing in China and you've been
• 3:42
  in New Zealand doing ice testing and drive days around Australia, and then you go straight to the next ARC round, you know.
• 3:49
  So your life really, it just takes off and becomes something you never imagined.
• 3:55
  And by 1995, mine was quite out of control, I have to say.
• 4:00
  Yeah, so in that year we had the ARC was a coefficient system where there were something like, I don't know, it might have been 15 or 20 events that scored.
• 4:10
  So they brought in kind of state-level rallies that scored five times points, and normal ARCs were 10, and Asia-Pacific were 15, and coefficient 15, and WRC was 20.
• 4:22
  So you could go in as many rallies as you like, but only so many counted.
• 4:26
  So the pressure was on to go in a lot of rallies, and I think we did.
• 4:29
  all the coefficient tens, the APRC and WRC, and that might have been 10 rallies in itself, and a couple of coefficient fives, so maybe 12 of those.
• 4:40
  I did Rally New Zealand.
• 4:43
  I did Thailand, I think.
• 4:47
  Did the Bathurst 1000, Sandown 500, the 12-hour at Eastern Creek with the Volvos.
• 4:53
  Is anyone helping you with this?
• 4:55
  Like all the coordination?
• 4:56
  I'm driving for teams.
• 4:59
  I'm driving for teams.
• 4:59
  But you know, you've got any one of those events has a lot of corporate gigs and stuff.
• 5:04
  I was running China Racing School five trips to China that year.
• 5:08
  I did the Thai Rallycross Championship training.
• 5:12
  You know, I'm missing a lot of stuff, but I was just, I was totally burnt out at the end of, I did Rally New Zealand if I didn't mention that as well.
• 5:22
  And that's why they've missed the big ticket.
• 5:24
  You know, amongst all of that, the Round Australia trial, 20,000 Ks, you know, three weeks on the road and all of the associated build-up testing of the cars and so on that went with that.
• 5:35
  So I didn't know my life had to change after 95.
• 5:38
  You know, I was 40 years of age at the end of 95.
• 5:43
  And, yeah, I was definitely burnt out, no doubt about it.
• 5:46
  Did you become more selective in what you did or how did you deal with that?
• 5:50
  Yeah, I went and saw Mitsubishi and said, first off, you know, we need to flip this.
• 5:55
  Like the corporate work now, it's too big for one person.
• 5:58
  And I'm at an age where, you know, if I want to stay competitive, because, you know, you do everything is to be able to go rally driving.
• 6:06
  Right.
• 6:07
  And I knew I wasn't a young person, so what have I got to do?
• 6:10
  If I want to keep driving well, I need to actually get rid of some of this other stuff.
• 6:14
  So the way my contract worked with Mitsubishi was that it was always with Mitsubishi Motors Australia, but they effectively subcontracted me to Rally Art for the driving, or indeed to Les Walkden.
• 6:28
  But I got them to flip that.
• 6:31
  If you imagine the amount of what I was paid to do those contracts was greater for the work between events than the events themselves, even though you could have just done the events themselves.
• 6:42
  But I asked them to flip it the other way round and therefore flip the time commitment the same, and they agreed, which was terrific.
• 6:50
  I was really surprised.
• 6:51
  And that was helped by...
• 6:52
  winning the Round Australia trial for Holden, you know, they signed me up effectively for a 10-year contract with it and I agreed to it, but if we flipped it the other way around so that I was free to focus more on going rallying than other stuff.
• 7:07
  So that was another big turning point in my life.
• 7:11
  And that's when I changed from driving the Les Walkden cars to driving directly for rally out, albeit in Gruban.
• 7:18
  Ben, OK, OK.
• 7:21
  Fans will be straight away going, tell me about Round Australia.
• 7:24
  Tell us a little bit about that program.
• 7:28
  A, after 20,000 Ks, you're in the record books as a winner.
• 7:35
  The King, Peter Brock, is a part of this whole deal.
• 7:37
  What was that thing like?
• 7:38
  And what was the secret to winning it?
• 7:41
  Because you look back in...
• 7:44
  in motor racing in this country in all the different forms, and it's held in such high regard.
• 7:49
  People rate that event immensely, don't they?
• 7:52
  Yeah, and again, it's another one of those that as time goes by, you think, did I really do that?
• 7:58
  How did I do that?
• 8:01
  But it's like all of the things we've spoken about today.
• 8:03
  It's a culmination of the stuff beforehand as well.
• 8:06
  So, yes, first part of your question, to be teammates with Peter Brock and Ross Dunkerton, you know, in the same cars, it's kind of like, you know...
• 8:19
  I still was...
• 8:20
  I didn't feel like an equal teammate to them as such.
• 8:22
  You didn't see yourself that way, were you?
• 8:24
  I was going with a couple of heroes.
• 8:25
  Yeah, yeah.
• 8:26
  I really looked up to both of those guys.
• 8:28
  Still do.
• 8:30
  I felt like I was the third guy in the team from that point of view.
• 8:37
  And Brock, in particular, was just incredible to work with.
• 8:41
  I mean, the work... People think Peter Brock just fronted up and did things.
• 8:44
  I drove with him twice, once in the Volvos, once in the Commodores.
• 8:48
  But I've been to a lot of corporate gigs with Mobile and Bridgestone with Peter.
• 8:52
  His preparation is second to none.
• 8:55
  He was testing and doing things with his ears pinned back and talking to me about current things in rallying and all of that kind of stuff.
• 9:02
  So we travelled together.
• 9:04
  for close to a year before the event, working with George Shepard, because they built a test house.
• 9:10
  It was a typical Holden motorsport of that era where nothing is too difficult.
• 9:14
  They knew that a two-wheel drive Commodore, you know, they'd dominated in 1979, but those days were long gone.
• 9:21
  but they were effectively fronting with the same team.
• 9:23
  A lot of the people on the staff were the same, and they were going to go with a pretty stocky standard Holden Commodore Exec 5-speed V6, and we were up against off-road four-wheel drives, heavily modified, and Evos, and so on.
• 9:38
  So I had been able to tell them that the Commodore test car was about four seconds a case slower than an Evo at its best, so a long way off the pace.
• 9:49
  So we knew we were up against it, but Holden made sure we had the best of everything else after that.
• 9:54
  And there's another one of those lessons, isn't there?
• 9:55
  The car's six or seven out of ten, but we've got everything else in line.
• 10:00
  We've built a test car.
• 10:01
  We've driven it in the outback.
• 10:04
  We've worked on the suspension.
• 10:08
  George Shepard, a brilliant preparer, so he had masterminded the 79 win.
• 10:11
  I got to work with him.
• 10:14
  So Round Australia happened really because I drove a Calibra, Holden Calibra of all things, in the Targa Tasmania for Holden.
• 10:21
  And that was just a phone call from GM saying, you know, would you like to drive that car?
• 10:26
  That's probably a bit of a story in itself.
• 10:27
  But that was really a corporate gig more than anything else.
• 10:30
  But George oversaw that car.
• 10:32
  So I got to know George then.
• 10:35
  I met up with him also at the Bathurst 12-hour race.
• 10:39
  I drove a VR4 with George Fury and Rod Jones.
• 10:43
  And...
• 10:43
  Rally Art had George put together a VR4 as well for that event, and we were quicker than the Rally Art car in qualifying and the race itself.
• 10:53
  So George, you know, you always get his attention when you're going faster than their car.
• 11:00
  So we had the Calibra thing where, you know, I just did what was asked of me, which was to get a good film of the car.
• 11:07
  made for Holden.
• 11:08
  So that was... And then George, I'm sure, followed my Group N career a bit, and he thought that for the Job for the Round Australia trial, he needed Brock, who was... And Dunkerton, because they're exceptional at doing those long-distance events and did so well in 79.
• 11:24
  But he also wanted...
• 11:27
  He thought that a Group N driver would know how to look after the car.
• 11:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:34
  And he needed someone to help develop the car as well and test it with various things.
• 11:38
  He knew that I'd been fundamental with Rally Art and with Jamie Drummond.
• 11:43
  Do you know Drummond's suspension?
• 11:45
  In that liquid-cooled suspension of the era.
• 11:46
  So those Commodores had effectively Mitsubishi Evo struts front and rear with the liquid-cooling system, you know, for the long, like you were doing huge long stages in the Outback.
• 11:57
  So liquid-cooled suspension, huge asset for us.
• 12:02
  So he knew us across a lot of the things that were required from a testing point of view.
• 12:06
  And then on top of that, the sponsors of the event were Holden Motorsport, but also Mobil and Bridgestone, typical Brock.
• 12:16
  team, but I had them on my car as well, so we actually had the sponsors on, you know, didn't hesitate in my being involved because they knew me as well.
• 12:24
  Whereas Ross's car had to run in Castrol colours and that I think that, you know, it was sad all three should have been in the mobile Holden Racing team colours, but Ross was in the Castrol car and that always makes this kind of separation in the team, but there's no doubt he was an outright on paper, was an outright winner, as indeed was Peter, but
• 12:46
  it didn't turn out that way yeah i mean it is such a uh grueling event on everybody i can recall ross telling me a story at one point about another event of it may have been a prior um around australia or something similar and and maybe the journalist uh peter mckay being left at a gate or he was hanging off the back of a boot or something i mean there's some funny stories around those events and how much is required of you isn't it
• 13:16
  Yeah, and you've got to be prepared to work on the car and do things, get yourself out of trouble, all of that.
• 13:21
  Co-driver, critical.
• 13:22
  I had Ross Runnels.
• 13:25
  I really didn't – he was one of the few people in Australian rallying I really didn't know very well at all.
• 13:31
  And it was – George made it very clear to all of us.
• 13:34
  George was like the headmaster, you know, he'd have –
• 13:37
  have a business and I want to pick the co-drivers and you go what he goes that's I put the teams together in 79 and you know he said to me Ross was the co-driver for me and he'd spoken with Ross Runnels about because Ross would have been out on long distance events as well you know so I'm sure he had some history of and he wasn't actually with Jeff Portman in the 79 event but
• 14:05
  We got on fine.
• 14:06
  It was a business arrangement, you know, the whole Holden round Australia thing, and that you were under no doubt what you had to deliver.
• 14:14
  And Ross was fantastic for that.
• 14:16
  You know, we had a job to do.
• 14:18
  It didn't matter whether we liked each – it turned out we got on fine, but it didn't matter if we liked each other, didn't.
• 14:22
  We're going to be in a car together for three weeks, so let's get on with the job and not muck about.
• 14:27
  So that is another one that you rate up there very highly, you know, and rightly so.
• 14:33
  Yeah, because it's never plain sailing.
• 14:35
  And it came about because you can trace the Holden Calibra, you can trace the 12-hour race.
• 14:43
  I also did testing with Holden Racing Team as a thank you for the Calibra drive.
• 14:48
  You know, Jeff Gretsch from HRT.
• 14:50
  How was that?
• 14:51
  It was fantastic.
• 14:53
  And, you know, he rang me.
• 14:55
  I had a win in the Rally of Melbourne, I think.
• 14:57
  or maybe just one group, one group and on Rally of Melbourne, but it was on the TV news.
• 15:01
  And he rang me to say, we're going to Calder testing.
• 15:05
  And I couldn't.
• 15:06
  I had a corporate thing I had to do.
• 15:08
  And so another year went by after the Calibra.
• 15:10
  And I was on the TV in Melbourne again.
• 15:13
  And he rang up after all that time to say, come on out again.
• 15:16
  And that was just when Craig Lowndes had started driving for them.
• 15:20
  So good.
• 15:21
  Yeah.
• 15:22
  And look, it was terrific.
• 15:24
  I drove Peter Brock's car.
• 15:25
  So that was in Thomas Mazira's car.
• 15:27
  I did testing at Calder.
• 15:30
  And I drove Brock's race car at Malala.
• 15:34
  Yeah.
• 15:37
  So that was while we were getting ready for the Round Australia trial.
• 15:41
  Holden Racing Team was about to embark on running a young lion's car, it was called at the time.
• 15:48
  I wasn't a young lion, of course.
• 15:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:50
  But Geoff thought it might be good, maybe someone more senior could drive that car.
• 15:55
  And, you know, would I be interested in doing or driving a car of theirs in Bathurst and Sandown if the opportunity arose?
• 16:03
  And I said, I would love to.
• 16:04
  And he said, we think, though, that the run-up to those events, we would need you focused on the job, not off in the Round Australia trial.
• 16:12
  Okay.
• 16:12
  Okay.
• 16:14
  And there's a dilemma, isn't it?
• 16:15
  Do you go in the Round Australia or do you go touring car racing?
• 16:19
  But, you know, I had already done a lot of work on the Round Australia trial.
• 16:24
  I mentioned it to George Shepard.
• 16:25
  I was thinking about this and he said, we'll just ask John Lindell at Holden Motorsport.
• 16:31
  And John came back and said, Holden would not let you out of your commitment to the Round Australia trial.
• 16:38
  So Jeff very graciously said, what would we need to do to still get you to just go to those races?
• 16:43
  And he organised with Bridgestone for me to drive.
• 16:48
  And they gave sponsorship to Mark Poole from South Australia, a supercar driver, for me to co-drive that car.
• 16:54
  And so I got to do the Sandown 500 and the Bathurst 1000.
• 16:58
  Excellent.
• 16:58
  Your CV is unbelievable, mate, when we go through some of these things, right?
• 17:02
  So can we circle back to rallying here now and the kind of back end of your career?
• 17:11
  Firstly, you mentioned possum born before.
• 17:13
  Among the many skills that you have,
• 17:16
  You've written for Fast Fours and Rotaries, I think for Motor Magazine and so on.
• 17:20
  And if memory serves, you wrote a really nice piece when he passed away.
• 17:24
  And crazily, he has been gone 20 years now.
• 17:28
  Yeah.
• 17:31
  It was incredibly sad that that happened, you know, because it's a close-knit sport.
• 17:35
  I think, you know, all forms of motorsport probably are, but maybe none more so than rallying.
• 17:39
  And certainly, you know, like with Possum and Neil, who I've always got on really well with, you are quite close to them.
• 17:46
  And I'd actually seen what Possum went through with Roger Freeth's death, because they were only a couple of cars up the road from us when that happened.
• 17:54
  And you just thought that happening in the manner that it did.
• 18:00
  You know, that sort of thing you go, he didn't deserve that, you know, to be just driving to his hotel and have that happen.
• 18:09
  No, astonishing.
• 18:10
  And Les and I flew over to the funeral and the response from people in New Zealand was extraordinary.
• 18:16
  Did you see any of that?
• 18:18
  You know, the streets were lined with people.
• 18:21
  And we were standing waiting to go in and there was a relatively elderly woman in the lineup next to us and we got talking to her and I said, how do you fit in with Possum?
• 18:32
  You know, you're here because you know him.
• 18:35
  She said, I do know him but only a little.
• 18:37
  You know, my car broke down in the night in one of those mountain roads somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
• 18:42
  She shouldn't have been out there driving at night.
• 18:44
  And Possum stopped and...
• 18:46
  helped her and got his guys to retrieve her car and took her home and you know you just think there's someone's life you touch you know without it was probably simple for him to do but that stays with people doesn't it you know and he was for her that was like Peter Brock stopping and helping you in the night and I'm sure Brock he would have you know it's uh it's just lovely that sort of following he had a huge following
• 19:06
  And at sort of that stage of his passing too, I mean, the championship in this country was in a really great space, wasn't it?
• 19:14
  He was ultra competitive with all of you and manufacturer representation like you detailed before.
• 19:19
  I mean, and, you know, whilst he was proud Kiwi, he was, you know, he played a very significant part in the ARC at that stage too, didn't he?
• 19:28
  Yeah, we were both competitor advisors to the Australian Rally Commission, so we used to travel together to that.
• 19:35
  Yeah, passionate about it, absolutely.
• 19:37
  And in making us... You know, Possum came to the ARC, I think, you know, because he came early with the Subaru Liberty and then left for a while and came back with Subaru Australia and doing it properly.
• 19:47
  But he came hoping to use the ARC as a springboard to restart his career into the Asia-Pacific Championship.
• 19:54
  But he soon realised that the ARC actually was incredibly strong and he made it heaps stronger.
• 20:00
  I mean, think of it, without Subaru, what would it be?
• 20:02
  It would not have been the championship it was.
• 20:06
  No, an incredible guy.
• 20:07
  He'd waited around when I had a big crash in Tassie.
• 20:11
  into a power pole, he, you know, made sure he came in with Mark Stacy and took me to the airport and made sure I was okay.
• 20:18
  And, you know, all without any requests from me or anything.
• 20:20
  He just did that of his own accord.
• 20:24
  Even having Mark Stacy, you know, Mark was my co-driver prior to Possum and he rang me up and said he wanted to ask Mark to co-drive for him because he, you know, obviously been doing an incredible job.
• 20:35
  on pace notes and Possum had changed his pace notes to be number first, number before direction and so on.
• 20:42
  So he knew Stace was really across all of that, but he didn't want to ask him if I was going to say no.
• 20:50
  You know, that's, that's a terrible blow to me.
• 20:52
  And I just, you know, he wants to take Mark to the Asia Pacific championship.
• 20:55
  And, and obviously I just thought, you know, what a great opportunity for Stace here to love that.
• 21:01
  And, um, it,
• 21:03
  It's just the way things work out, isn't it?
• 21:05
  So, of course, I didn't.
• 21:06
  But it's a mark of Possum to want to run it past the other driver first.
• 21:12
  I really appreciated that.
• 21:13
  And as it turned out, I thought, who am I going to get next?
• 21:15
  And Wayne Bell had just come back from a whole WRC program with Ian Stewart.
• 21:19
  So I got a co-driver stroke from eight rounds of the WRC.
• 21:23
  And that went through to the end of my career.
• 21:25
  That's a great window into Possum, what you've just shared there.
• 21:31
  Can I come back to the incidents in Tassie?
• 21:34
  You talked before about, you know, rear getting away on you and so on.
• 21:38
  Is that what happened in Tassie?
• 21:39
  Because I reckon I can recall being a part of maybe the 10 coverage back then.
• 21:44
  Was that 05?
• 21:44
  When was that, that Tassie incident?
• 21:46
  I think that was 2002.
• 21:48
  I beg your pardon.
• 21:48
  Sorry.
• 21:49
  Okay.
• 21:49
  So, yeah.
• 21:50
  And did that knock you around at all?
• 21:52
  Did you like, you know?
• 21:54
  Yeah, it did.
• 21:55
  And it had a slight long-term effects because I, you know, cracked my ribs in that impact.
• 22:02
  And I had rallied Japan.
• 22:04
  In fact, the Hokkaido rally, very close to it.
• 22:07
  And sports met here, said, you know,
• 22:10
  you're going to be out of action, there'll be agony.
• 22:12
  And I insisted on going to Japan because I wanted to go to that first Hokkaido, Return of Hokkaido as APRC, WRC.
• 22:21
  And I didn't do my best event there, you know, I was in pain for that.
• 22:24
  I think sixth overall, third Group N event.
• 22:27
  How did you cope with that?
• 22:28
  It was terrible.
• 22:29
  You know, mental toughness.
• 22:31
  You've just got to put it out of your mind.
• 22:32
  But, you know, the roads there get very rutted.
• 22:38
  And so in the wheel tracks, you've got a lot of that car riding out of the ruts and hitting these little concrete culverts, all of which the side support on your seat is...
• 22:46
  right into your ribs and it was the side support of my, I had a custom Recaro seat in the car and that was what actually cracked my ribs because the car went three-quarter rear and the extra narrow seat I had there actually compressed in.
• 23:02
  That was a huge impact though, you know, 100 k's an hour into a power pole sideways is a big impact.
• 23:10
  But that one, you know, all of my crashes and rollovers I would always say
• 23:14
  my own fault and most UB crashes happen when you least expect it but that one genuinely wasn't and I didn't know at the time and you know it was affecting my head a bit too you know like what could I have done there because if you there is some vision captured of that crash and it is for all the world the back end getting away from you.
• 23:34
  The car goes very sideways before the corner and I can recall it because you know it got sideways very early on and in a
• 23:42
  When you now know my driving style is rapid turn and it rotated much more than I thought.
• 23:48
  And so what did I do?
• 23:49
  I gave it 100%.
• 23:52
  And it just kept going around.
• 23:54
  And in all of that time, I probably could have done something to rescue the situation, but I didn't.
• 23:58
  Because normally when you stand on it, they actually pull the nose straight if it's set up properly.
• 24:04
  And I just buried it more and more and more.
• 24:06
  The more it was heading for the pole.
• 24:08
  and never tried to back out of it and therefore hid it.
• 24:13
  And I blamed myself, you know, for a long time.
• 24:15
  But Bob Riley's chief engineer rang me afterwards and said that when they saw the vision, you know, it looked like... And that Evo 7 used to go in, oscillate between front and rear drive because of the centre diff situation.
• 24:30
  It wasn't that, but they looked at it because it for all the world looked 100% rear drive and they took the wiring harness.
• 24:36
  That car was wrecked.
• 24:37
  They took the wiring harness out and put it into the new car that already had half built for me and went out and did some testing and the harness had been damaged during that had a small fire in the workshop.
• 24:51
  And they'd left off some shielding, and the shielding was protecting the centre diff from electronic signals, allowing the car to go 100% rear drive.
• 25:02
  And they simulated it, and they rang me and told me, you know, to be apologetic and not let it.
• 25:08
  play with your head, you know, as it can do.
• 25:10
  So with that one I go, you know, there were contributing factors there.
• 25:13
  I mean, I had no reason to be – I was actually in the lead of the rally there in front of Possum, and I knew, you know, short, bushy park stage, last corner into the final control.
• 25:24
  I just had to line it up and get over the finish.
• 25:26
  Because, you know, the car crossed the finish line in the end of the crash and still got equal fastest time.
• 25:33
  So, you know, it was –
• 25:35
  But that was a big hit, you know, biggest hit I've had, yeah, for sure.
• 25:40
  The final point in official, if you like, ARC terms, I think, was 05 is when you stop.
• 25:49
  Is that right?
• 25:50
  February 05.
• 25:50
  February 5th.
• 25:51
  So how difficult was it to make that decision?
• 25:55
  What prompted that decision?
• 25:57
  And as so often happens with athletes, I mean, you've taken such an athlete approach to this with the, you know, identifying key things that you needed to do to be a champion.
• 26:07
  Not all of them cope with making that decision well.
• 26:10
  There are often comebacks or, you know, trouble in life because they don't have that fix anymore.
• 26:17
  How did you arrive at it and how difficult was it to make that call?
• 26:23
  Well, it was taken out of my hands because Mitsubishi withdrew from motorsport globally in February 2005.
• 26:29
  So I was driving back from testing the Evos for the Alan Heafy rally out.
• 26:36
  And that was going to be Scott Pedder and myself driving together as a team.
• 26:40
  Would have been great.
• 26:40
  I was really looking forward to the...
• 26:42
  championship year in that.
• 26:44
  But I received a call personally from Rally Art Japan saying that they were withdrawing globally forthwith.
• 26:51
  Like, that's what I tried to say to the guys up there, you know, but we're all contracted, et cetera.
• 26:57
  We've got all the cars, we've got trucks, we've got everything in place, you know, and everyone's signed up newly for the... And they said, it doesn't matter, we can't be closing Pajero factories in Japan and still running in motorsports.
• 27:08
  So they closed.
• 27:09
  Rally out Italy, rally out Australia, motor support participation, you know, Spain, all of the rally out Finland, the lot all stopped on the one phone call day when everyone got stood down, so to speak.
• 27:25
  So that was a shock.
• 27:26
  And I had driven over to Wombat State Forest in Victoria, and I was driving home to SA.
• 27:33
  So I had plenty of time to think about that.
• 27:35
  And I got home and thought about it and thought, you know what, I'm close to 50.
• 27:44
  You know, maybe it's time.
• 27:45
  Would I have known when to stop?
• 27:46
  You know, maybe it's time to...
• 27:49
  not compete.
• 27:50
  Obviously, I spoke to Mitsubishi Motors Australia about it.
• 27:53
  They got calls on the same day.
• 27:55
  They actually said to me, we're not accepting it because we're putting money into your ARC program.
• 28:01
  So we'll speak to Japan.
• 28:03
  But Japan just would not.
• 28:05
  They said, even if you've got that money there, send it back to us in Japan.
• 28:10
  It's not happening.
• 28:12
  So that was it.
• 28:14
  So in a way, you know, I...
• 28:16
  I'm not sure it had occurred to me at the time.
• 28:18
  I think in hindsight I was thinking, you know, am I going to be 50 still rallying trying to win the ARC?
• 28:23
  Maybe.
• 28:24
  I still won events, you know, in the last sort of being right up the front.
• 28:28
  But I might have been one of those guys who didn't know when to stop.
• 28:31
  You know, I might have been that.
• 28:33
  Yeah, I took a break for six months really, did nothing.
• 28:38
  I was fortunate I could afford to retire by then.
• 28:42
  And, you know, from the performance driving point of view, have I missed doing the events?
• 28:50
  Probably not very much.
• 28:52
  but I've missed being part of a team.
• 28:55
  You know, you live your life.
• 28:57
  This is a really powerful thing, and I think that's what sport people miss most of all.
• 29:02
  You know, you work with a close-knit group of people day in, day out, all with a common goal, which is to get that car to win the next event.
• 29:11
  And every few weeks, you're measured against other teams of like-minded people all doing the very same thing,
• 29:19
  And it's an incredibly powerful way to live your life and everybody is pulling in the same direction and all the funders, all the sponsors.
• 29:26
  You know, you ask Pirelli, you want to learn more about the tyres and they take you to somewhere where you're shown how they're built and constructed.
• 29:36
  And, you know, everybody's on your side, aren't they?
• 29:38
  You know, to make sure that you...
• 29:40
  you can fulfil this goal you've got.
• 29:42
  And when that goes, you do feel like you're quite alone.
• 29:46
  You know, it's a whole support structure around you and a motivation to do things is taken away from you.
• 29:51
  So part of dealing with that was, you know, I did that chair at the Australian Rally Commission for 12 months.
• 29:57
  I thought that was a good way to try and give back to the sport.
• 30:00
  I always said I'd just do it 12 months because I'm not a political person, you know, in motorsports administration.
• 30:07
  But,
• 30:08
  It was surprising what cropped up, though.
• 30:10
  You know, I did those energy-efficient runs for manufacturers and things like that.
• 30:14
  But I'm not somebody to try and make a comeback or even now run a classic rally car.
• 30:21
  And I think that's because I was fired up to be a student of the sport and to study all those sorts of things we've spoken about.
• 30:30
  And you can only do that properly if you're doing it full time.
• 30:32
  And that's what kept me in the sport all that time until I was 50, was the love of that being allowed to be a student of the sport.
• 30:41
  And if you take that away and just turn up and drive a car, it's not the same.
• 30:45
  And I had a little taste of that.
• 30:46
  I drove Cody Crocker's car in the Longyu Rally of China when he couldn't make it in 2006.
• 30:52
  And that was a get on the plane, turn up, do the rally, had to deliver a top six result for the manufacturers team, finish second.
• 30:59
  You know, all of that is good, but it was just a job.
• 31:03
  You know, I didn't do testing, didn't know the car inside out, hadn't driven a Subaru for decades.
• 31:10
  The car was lovely.
• 31:12
  But, you know, you don't want to ever have it start raining and the engineers go, where do you want to go for a wet setting?
• 31:18
  And you go, I don't know, how would I know?
• 31:20
  I haven't tested in the wet.
• 31:21
  Do you want me to guess?
• 31:23
  Have you got Cody's settings?
• 31:24
  Yes, give me Cody's settings because I'm not about to start...
• 31:27
  changing the shocks and springs and stuff that are guesswork.
• 31:31
  You've got to go to...
• 31:32
  It's the whole thing about being a front-running rally driver.
• 31:34
  You know you're wet setting from testing.
• 31:36
  You don't start fiddling around with the shock settings.
• 31:39
  But it made me think, this is such an unprofessional job I'm doing here in China by not being all over the project.
• 31:45
  You know, I'm just a driver.
• 31:46
  Yeah.
• 31:48
  So, you know, that's what I've done basically nothing since then.
• 31:51
  I drove a Hyundai XL, was my last ever rally, to help promote the series.
• 31:56
  I drove in the Lithgow rally in New South Wales.
• 31:59
  Molly Taylor was in the rally in a Mitsubishi Mirage.
• 32:04
  and I had a really incredible event Ian Stewart came you know we drove it was a car owned by Hyundai and built beautifully by their in-house people so it was like a works car of a Hyundai XL they even fitted our seats and you know we did recce it was an event with recce but we got beaten by Glenn Farrant and Anna Ritson who were the Hyundai XL champions but it was neck and neck and there were like 15 or 20 XLs going for it
• 32:32
  And you have to say we had the best enjoyable time in that.
• 32:36
  It was really, really good.
• 32:38
  And, yeah, it was just a fantastic thing.
• 32:42
  Glenn sent me a couple of weeks after the event.
• 32:45
  I got a package in the mail and Glenn Farrant had posted me a T-shirt which said, I was there when Glenn beat Ed.
• 33:03
  There are some inspiring women in this sport too, like Coral Taylor, whose list of incredible talents also includes driving the team truck, something she really enjoys even if it gets stressful sometimes.
• 33:15
  He'd sat up again and said, oh, by the way, he said, don't drop the trailer wheels off the edge or you'll jackknife the truck.
• 33:23
  No pressure then.
• 33:25
  So he's gone to sleep and I am driving just into the sort of evening sunset,
• 33:31
  And I'm concentrating so hard.
• 33:34
  I'm just staring at the road and I'm checking the mirrors.
• 33:36
  And, you know, there's just room for this truck without dropping a wheel off the edge.
• 33:42
  Search for the Coral Taylor episode in the garage library once you've finished listening to Ed who has some mint classic cars in the shed.
• 33:49
  Don't lend Rusty the keys, Ed.
• 33:52
  In the final sort of phase of our conversation here, firstly, a couple of things.
• 33:58
  You have pinpointed Spencer Lowndes there, the emergence of a young rally driver and sort of helping them.
• 34:05
  I think Dean Herridge got really close to potentially working with you guys too, but he ultimately chose the Subaru path, didn't he?
• 34:12
  And Simon Evans.
• 34:13
  Yeah, crazy.
• 34:14
  Yeah, so Simon and I were hoping to be teammates.
• 34:18
  In fact, he came here where we are now to talk about it and how that could possibly work, but ultimately it never got off the ground for the sort of reasons we're talking about.
• 34:27
  It turned out well for him because he was then doing the Toyota work with Neil.
• 34:32
  And likewise, it turned out really well for Dean that he didn't go the rally out path because he ended up still now having a career with Subaru, etc.,
• 34:40
  But Dean certainly in the picture, he was at that time because of the relationship with Les Walkden.
• 34:46
  So, you know, Les has brought so many drivers through.
• 34:50
  I'm proud to say I was Les's first driver.
• 34:54
  But, you know, look at the succession.
• 34:55
  He's even had Yari Matty Latvila drive for him.
• 34:58
  So, you know, incredible array of drivers he's had.
• 35:03
  And Les spoke incredibly highly of Dean to Mitsubishi, and they used to keep an eye on him and see what he was doing.
• 35:11
  And he came to Mitsubishi Rally.
• 35:14
  I'd had a drive day to actually find a new young teammate, and Dean was right up there.
• 35:22
  You know, he was terrific.
• 35:24
  Yeah.
• 35:25
  But Spencer got the gig and because Dean had a history and with Rob with Subaru and they, I remember, you know, he said to me when I last saw them in, visited their workshop in Perth a few years back, it was such a, you know, do you go one way or, you know, which fork in the road do you take?
• 35:40
  Take.
• 35:41
  Yeah.
• 35:41
  But he made the right call.
• 35:43
  they're cheeky, those young blokes, those next generation.
• 35:45
  They tell me a little story.
• 35:47
  I can't remember if I was there for it or not, whether it was Tassie or wherever it was.
• 35:51
  Rally always has, particularly Rally Australia, used to have legendary post-event parties.
• 35:56
  There were some good get-togethers with people.
• 35:58
  But I think they offered to buy you a post-event celebratory drink, but they would buy you...
• 36:06
  a double and they'd get a single and you would would you say something along the lines oh gee this poor is this poor is on the heavier side from the bartender yeah they were doing the uh the legal way of spiking your drinks yeah cheeky aren't they they are yeah i don't know i look what happens on the rally stairs on the rally i don't know i i yeah they were i and i didn't know that until after a long time afterwards yeah
• 36:33
  It's an amazing family, isn't it?
• 36:34
  That's kind of where I'm going here because, you know, your rivals on stage, you talked about the importance of team and what have you before, but really it does have this special bond among the community, doesn't it?
• 36:50
  Yeah, it does.
• 36:51
  Even the people you, you know, I'm fortunate enough to say even the ones, you know, you can't get on with everybody.
• 36:58
  And you certainly can't be at the front of your sport and be friends with everybody, you know.
• 37:04
  But ultimately, even those you've clashed with, you know, nowadays you meet with them and it's all crazy.
• 37:10
  water under the bridge, you know, like it's, it is like that.
• 37:13
  It is like, say, it's like family to a large degree.
• 37:16
  I mean, when you were talking mind games before, you know, Possum was a master of mind games.
• 37:21
  He was always willing to try it on.
• 37:23
  Give people an example, like what?
• 37:26
  When we were both on the factory confidential Pirelli tyres, you know, and in the days you could have a, you know, a choice of all the compounds.
• 37:35
  You went on a control tyre, so you had to pick the right tread pattern construction compound and you'd arrive at a stage and you'd walk over and look at your tyres and go, well, I know that's the wrong choice.
• 37:48
  hoping that you're going to be thinking about that, you know.
• 37:53
  Or Greg Folletta.
• 37:54
  There's another one, Greg Folletta with Cody.
• 37:55
  You know, he would come up and look at the barcode or the marker on your tyre and go, do you realise one of your tyres isn't the same batch as your other three?
• 38:05
  When you're in the car waiting to go, you know.
• 38:08
  It's minor in the scheme of things, but, you know, some people would be distracted by it.
• 38:12
  Gotcha, gotcha.
• 38:13
  Let's bounce through some of the other things that you've done in moving away from professional rally life because you kept driving things, which is great.
• 38:21
  You talked about some of the – am I right in saying you are one of the first people to drive a Tesla in this country?
• 38:30
  Is that correct?
• 38:31
  Yes.
• 38:31
  Yeah, correct.
• 38:33
  I'm very confident I am.
• 38:34
  I think most motoring riders would not agree because they're going by the cars that are given to them to test drive, you know, when they come.
• 38:43
  But here in South Australia, we had a real electric car buff, privately imported Tesla.
• 38:50
  And he was very, very proud of the car.
• 38:53
  And I was writing for Eco Car magazine at the time.
• 38:57
  I'd heard about it locally and contacted him.
• 39:00
  He said he'd love to have someone come and drive it.
• 39:02
  It actually hadn't arrived at that point, so I drove it when it was absolutely brand new.
• 39:08
  So, you know, it was...
• 39:10
  I'm not sure how long it was off the boat, but pretty fresh.
• 39:13
  He'd hardly driven it himself.
• 39:15
  And, yeah, it was incredible, you know.
• 39:19
  I'm very pro-electric cars in the terms of their performance, because most people back then thought, you know, you had to have a long extension lead to drive them.
• 39:30
  And that first Tesla, which was effectively a Lotus release with the electric engine, was super fast.
• 39:36
  And you could drive it on one pedal because of the regenerative braking.
• 39:39
  So all through the Adelaide Hills and everything I was driving it.
• 39:43
  And I really embraced energy efficiency in electric cars and wrote about them.
• 39:51
  But whenever you went to a launch, and I went to quite a few of them, you would still ask that question, you know, where is an electric car in terms of being kind to the planet for its whole of life?
• 40:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 40:00
  And in that era, you know, a Prius in terms of its batteries and whole of life was worse than a Toyota Land Cruiser in the impact on the planet.
• 40:11
  So the story hasn't actually changed that much, unfortunately.
• 40:14
  You know, I think we're starting to embrace electric cars a little bit.
• 40:18
  It's not all it's cracked up to be in terms of whole of life kindness to the planet.
• 40:24
  Arguably, an ordinary hybrid is better for the planet than an electric car at this stage.
• 40:31
  The technology has to change or it has to be cleaner because, you know, in Australia everyone's going, well, everything's recyclable.
• 40:39
  An electric car's battery can be recycled nowadays, but where?
• 40:42
  You know, who is doing the recycling?
• 40:44
  They're not.
• 40:44
  You know, it hasn't.
• 40:46
  And when you really push that question, it's, well, they could be recycled, but it's not affordable yet.
• 40:50
  And it's the same with solar panels.
• 40:52
  It's the same with wind farms, isn't it?
• 40:53
  It's not all about one thing.
• 40:55
  At the moment, electric cars are really shifting away the tailpipe emissions, but it's being shifted to somewhere else.
• 41:03
  You know, that's a big issue for the world to still address.
• 41:06
  Yeah.
• 41:06
  In being open-minded about this stuff, you've also driven some hydrogen stuff.
• 41:10
  Am I right about that too?
• 41:11
  Yeah, hydrogen fuel cell Mercedes-Benz.
• 41:13
  So Mercedes is really big into hydrogen fuel cell cars.
• 41:17
  They're partners with LIND, is the name of the company, L-I-N-D-E, which are hydrogen producers, et cetera.
• 41:27
  And they, like Toyota, are still working away with hydrogen as a...
• 41:33
  a form of fuel, whether it be as a hydrogen fuel cell, effectively electric car, or hydrogen itself.
• 41:40
  And that is purely from trying to get the total emissions for the whole of life of the car, including all its components and where it's produced.
• 41:50
  I mean, this import of cars out of China in the millions is not taking into account the emissions of the factories producing them, et cetera.
• 42:00
  So Ferrari, for example, has pushed really hard for the whole of life, including the factory, because they sell high-performance cars, which are seen as high emitters, often to CEOs of companies that have to run green companies.
• 42:16
  they've taken the stance that to try and help them justify that.
• 42:19
  In other words, look after their market.
• 42:22
  They made their factory one of the greenest in the world.
• 42:25
  So everything from how the lunches are made for the employees to their employees being bussed to work to covering the factory with solar panels, et cetera, so that, yes, the car might...
• 42:37
  you know, at best do 10 litres per 100 on petrol, but its whole-of-life impact on the planet is perhaps equal to a Camry hybrid, you know.
• 42:46
  So you can see there are many directions to addressing the issue.
• 42:50
  You've come across, in mentioning Mercedes-Benz there before, you ran very successfully a program for them around, you know, working with their driver training and so on, and you met, I think, a young Peter Hackett at that stage.
• 43:02
  Did you come across Warren Luff at some point there too?
• 43:04
  Warren as well, yes.
• 43:06
  So because of the corporate work I was doing for Mitsubishi, I ran a lot of drive days.
• 43:11
  They weren't track days like high performance days as such.
• 43:13
  They were more customer experience days and dealer sales personnel training, but you were still on racetracks and you still did hot laps and...
• 43:22
  built up a really strong team, two of whom, two of the long-termers, reliable crew to every event with Peter Hackett and Warren Luff.
• 43:31
  Both exceptional instructors.
• 43:32
  Both had come from doing plenty of that sort of work.
• 43:37
  But we turned it into something a little bit different from track days, which was their forte into, you know, covering all the bases from a corporate point of view and cars being assessed by...
• 43:48
  large fleet buyers, you know, what's important to them and so on, which they embraced incredibly well.
• 43:52
  Pete, of course, has taken that whole idea and turned it to an incredible job that he does with Mercedes-Benz.
• 43:59
  But after I retired from rallying, Pete called me to see if I was free to come and do some Mercedes-Benz days because his business had grown to be doing, I think, more than 200 events a year, you know, right throughout Asia-Pacific, and he couldn't get to them all, and he thought he had it set up enough
• 44:16
  With a strong enough team of 40 instructors, many of whom were V8 supercar drivers, but he just needed someone who could oversee and pull it together and keep everyone focused on the job at hand.
• 44:27
  Because although the AMG days were track days, there was also Australia Post days with vans and young driver days and Mercedes-Benz Driving Academy days.
• 44:38
  So, you know, you had to be versatile and be goal-centred, which Pete's very good at, and make sure you kept everyone working on the same page in terms of what's the point of this day is not cutting hot laps, it's making sure that they know these vans have got all these safety features built into them.
• 44:55
  But, no, he's done incredibly well with that.
• 44:59
  I stopped largely because, you know, there's only so much of that work you want to do in your life, and I probably have reached a stage of doing it in my...
• 45:07
  50s late 50s that you know that's that's enough for me you did buy a little two-wheeler well more than one two-wheeler for yourself a trials bike i think maybe to begin with you've done a bit of riding in tasmania with mates and all sorts of stuff and and you went about the process of getting your license and learning to ride a two-wheeler at probably at a time where you were coming up against teenagers but you're i don't know what age you were when you did you enjoy all that
• 45:35
  I did.
• 45:35
  So I would have been in my mid-50s when I got my learners.
• 45:40
  Yeah, it was something I always wanted to do.
• 45:42
  I mean, I loved the idea of riding bikes, and particularly on the dirt, or adventure bikes, trail bikes.
• 45:48
  I didn't want to go competing or anything.
• 45:52
  But I also didn't want to get hurt by falling off as a beginner, so I never took it up until later in life.
• 45:57
  I know you're right.
• 46:01
  Yeah, good.
• 46:02
  Just been talking too much.
• 46:04
  Yeah, I'd never wanted to take the risk while I was competing all the time.
• 46:08
  And that's, you know, that's the onus on you is to not injure yourself and let the whole team down, you know, prior to an event.
• 46:14
  So yeah, I've got my L's.
• 46:16
  You have to go for two sessions and be observed and all that kind of thing.
• 46:20
  It's quite hard.
• 46:21
  It's the sort of training you should have to get your car licence, to be honest.
• 46:25
  and really good training outstanding training but I also knew Craig Hargey a former enduro rider for factory Yamaha team and he advised me to get a trials bike so one of those rock hoppers because generally he thought you know if you can handle doing that you can ride anything and people get hurt you know when they get into a situation where they can't actually do the skills you learn in trials riding so I went out and
• 46:52
  spent a whole day with him on his property and started he recommended the little honda crf 230 l l for a low seat bike that's my first bike um and i i rode that everywhere you know it was uh it was terrific but it was too small to carry your gear and do long trips so upgraded to a suzuki dr
• 47:14
  I think I did about 50,000 Ks between getting my license and stopping riding, you know, just before COVID, really.
• 47:25
  But I loved every minute of it.
• 47:26
  It was terrific.
• 47:27
  You know, it substituted recce for me.
• 47:29
  So, you know, a lot of drivers go recce is such a...
• 47:32
  pain.
• 47:33
  I hate recce.
• 47:34
  It's just an unnecessary evil.
• 47:36
  And my co-drafts are the same.
• 47:37
  You know, we loved recce.
• 47:38
  Like you go to these places on roads that people never get to see, you know, it's just, and you're given cars to go over those roads that are built for the job, even though you're only going slowly.
• 47:49
  And I missed that after rallying, you know, and you could do, most of the rides I organized for my friends in Tassie or from here were on old rally roads and things, you know, revisiting places that you'd only seen on rallies.
• 48:01
  One of the other things that you've done is around accident investigation for the sport.
• 48:08
  We don't need to particularly talk cases here, I don't think that's the right thing to ask you about, but maybe just about that process.
• 48:14
  Was that a confronting thing to do?
• 48:17
  Was it something that you felt that you could give back to the sport on to help better it, etc.
• 48:24
  ?
• 48:26
  Yes.
• 48:27
  On balance, yes.
• 48:29
  It's a really hard juggling act to say, did I give back to the sport in total on that?
• 48:36
  Because I don't think the changes that have been made in particular to tarmac rallying, but some elements of gravel rallying too.
• 48:45
  Tarmac rallying still got some changes, I think, that need to be made.
• 48:49
  You know, the governing body of the sport, say Motorsport Australia, or indeed the organisers of those events, they are juggling sponsorship requirements and their customers, you know, the clients who go there.
• 49:01
  So compromises have to be made purely from a safety side of doing it.
• 49:05
  I would love to see everything that I ever recommended actually in place, of course, but...
• 49:10
  And they're not.
• 49:11
  But did I contribute something to it?
• 49:13
  Yes.
• 49:14
  You know, I can clearly see changes to the events and some of them are direct recommendations that I had a hand in and some of it is other people on the team making those recommendations, including TAS police or the coroner.
• 49:27
  You know, I've worked as an advisor to Department of Justice Tasmania and an expert witness with the coroner on fatalities in Tas.
• 49:38
  So I can see, obviously, I've had a big impact on the decisions made there.
• 49:43
  And those things are, thankfully, largely in place.
• 49:47
  It's hard to get a clear direction on that because you've got...
• 49:50
  If I look at, say, let's take Tiger Tasmania, I know I can talk specifics and we mustn't, but, you know, you've got an event there nowadays that it's evolved into that maybe has 400 cars and, you know, perhaps 300 of those now are largely in tours or low-speed, I would say, events.
• 50:10
  And they're not the ones where fatality parts are.
• 50:12
  So 300 aren't your issue, but...
• 50:14
  And out of the 100, there's probably half of those competitors who are there to be in it, but they're not going to be trying to win the event or don't have big egos or trying to beat the top 10.
• 50:28
  So that prunes it down a fair bit to, say, 50.
• 50:30
  And you've got 10 or 15 who are the mat closest and the guys who have won the event, and they're not causing any drama whatsoever.
• 50:39
  And then you could probably find a specific group who should be given the closest of attention.
• 50:44
  And maybe, you know, maybe the latest recommendations from Neil Bates' Matt Selle's Gary Connolly's inquiries, the next coroner's hearing will perhaps cause that concern.
• 50:57
  group to not come to events like that anymore and maybe that's the solution i don't i'm not saying that's the solution because i haven't seen any of those things but fundamentally it's really a small group that needs to be addressed not the majority of the field um to be affected by the actions of the the ones that statistically it's not just my opinion statistically the fatalities are coming from a clearly defined group gotcha gotcha and
• 51:26
  We've talked for two hours.
• 51:27
  Our throats are a little on the dry side, but we're going to finish with a couple of good ones here.
• 51:32
  I'd like to do this for Rusty's Garage.
• 51:34
  Firstly, you've kept some cars.
• 51:36
  What have you got in the garage that you occasionally get to enjoy?
• 51:41
  Well, I have downsized a bit.
• 51:42
  So I've sold two Ford Escorts that have gone to lovely homes, had a little Lotus Twin Cam and another nice little two-door Escort.
• 51:50
  So they've gone and I've sold one of my three Datsun 1600s, which went to my neighbour's partner's son.
• 51:58
  So that's gone to a good home.
• 52:01
  But I guess pride of place is a Datsun 1600 road car that I'm only the second owner of.
• 52:07
  So I bought it in the 1970s off the original owner.
• 52:10
  How good.
• 52:11
  Yeah, it's lovely.
• 52:11
  It's a real stocky stand.
• 52:12
  I've actually got it up on stands to give it a spruce with a view to getting it.
• 52:16
  I haven't had it out for a long time.
• 52:19
  And that's in lovely condition.
• 52:20
  We'll go for a look when we finish talking.
• 52:23
  But that, you know, it's nice to have a car that you've owned for all of those years.
• 52:28
  It's done about 70,000 miles.
• 52:31
  I bought it as my road car when I was rallying a 1600, and I used it to go to work and back, but shortly after that I started getting, you know, cars provided and things like that.
• 52:42
  So I very smartly put it in the shed because it was in lovely condition.
• 52:46
  I thought one day that'll be a nice car to have.
• 52:49
  So it's been off the road since, you know, mid-1980s.
• 52:54
  But yeah, all matching numbers and it's in nice condition, nice dashboard, nice seats, everything.
• 52:59
  You know, it's a 1968 model.
• 53:01
  I bought a twin of that in the late 80s from an elderly lady because it was a twin in colour and everything of mine.
• 53:07
  I thought that would supply good parts for mine one day.
• 53:10
  So that's my other 1600.
• 53:13
  And I've got an MGB, which I've had.
• 53:15
  You've seen that, I think.
• 53:18
  I've had that for a long time, since last century.
• 53:21
  And, of course, a Mark I Mini Cooper S, which goes right back to my love of minis.
• 53:25
  I'm still a... To the magazine.
• 53:27
  It goes back to the magazine.
• 53:29
  And, you know, may I digress for a moment with just a bit on that?
• 53:34
  There's a thing that says that, you know, if you aspire to do things as a child, you actually never get to do them because time moves on and you can't do it.
• 53:41
  And I wanted to drive a Mini in the Thousand Lakes Rally and be Timo Mackenam.
• 53:45
  And, of course, I got to go to Finland, but in a VR4, not a Mini Cooper S. But I went to Finland as the current Australian Rally Champion.
• 53:53
  So how good was that?
• 53:54
  You know, I'm in Finland.
• 53:55
  And in the week before the rally, there's a Thousand Lakes Classic event, which they still have nowadays.
• 54:01
  And the cars were in the car park.
• 54:03
  And I thought, oh, I've got to go down and have a look at those.
• 54:05
  And I walked down and Timo Mackinam was there in a Cooper S. And I got to meet him.
• 54:09
  Fantastic.
• 54:10
  Keep competing in Finland myself.
• 54:12
  That's one of the highlights of my career, you know.
• 54:14
  Meant to be, meant to be little thing there I reckon.
• 54:17
  It was just, I was shocked, I didn't know he did classic railing and there he was, you know, red and white Mini Cooper S. It was just wonderful.
• 54:25
  So yeah, Cooper S really takes me back to my youth.
• 54:29
  But a Cooper S, you know, still when I drive it now, I've got a Toyota GR86 as a road car.
• 54:35
  And they're really similar.
• 54:37
  And you say, well, one's a rear-wheel drive sports car.
• 54:39
  But it's interesting, isn't it, that if you look at a car that is designed to be driven properly with motorsport heritage, they actually drive the same way.
• 54:48
  They've both got incredibly direct, pin-sharp steering, and particularly linear around the straight-ahead position, and build up the torque.
• 54:56
  And I've seen a beautiful little gear shift and great brakes.
• 55:00
  There's a lot of similarities between the two.
• 55:02
  I'd say they're the most like cars.
• 55:04
  I've had, but my Cooper S is lovely because it takes me back to reliving youth.
• 55:08
  And I've got an HG Holton Ute three on the tree drum brakes.
• 55:12
  Yeah, so I've owned that for a long time.
• 55:14
  Holton's gone.
• 55:16
  You can't let that go.
• 55:17
  That's terrific that you've kept that.
• 55:18
  Finally...
• 55:19
  The piece of road and the car over all the time, the one that you kind of look back upon with the fondest connections to.
• 55:28
  What's the – could be an event if it's not just the piece of road and the car from your career?
• 55:37
  Oh, that's a tough call, you know, with a career so varied.
• 55:41
  It's hard to call, but I guess the Helena stage at Rally Australia, you know, is because that event was so fundamental to everything I did in my career.
• 55:51
  It has to be that from Rally Australia.
• 55:53
  The Helena stage, you know, I think...
• 55:55
  even recently, in recent coverage on WRC Live or Rally TV, U.R.
• 56:00
  Kankinen listed it as one of his number one stages because it contains every element of rallying, and he's got it correct.
• 56:08
  And it was the stage that was in Rally Australia pretty much from its inception right through until when I stopped.
• 56:17
  Well, it probably was in all the WRC rounds.
• 56:19
  But...
• 56:23
  And back then, one of my philosophies was you can't always go 100% on every single stage and finish.
• 56:32
  And I mean really 100% on every stage.
• 56:34
  So at least pick one where if the chips are down and you've got to risk or go for it, at least choose the right one.
• 56:42
  So it's got to be long and it's got to be difficult and one that people all have problems with.
• 56:46
  So I picked Helena the first time I saw it and I made it my stage, if you like.
• 56:52
  And, you know, it paid back dividends every time because you would either be fighting neck and neck and then suddenly you'd take 10 seconds off somebody, you know, or you'd be behind and suddenly it's the second to last stage and you grab the lead because it's a leaner stage.
• 57:12
  really going for it on a stage when the chips are down.
• 57:14
  I don't mean like cutting everything and running all the white posts down.
• 57:18
  It's actually you need your co-driver to say, no, this is Helena.
• 57:21
  This has got to be the cleanest, tidiest, straightest drive.
• 57:25
  Let's go back to our fundamentals you've ever done in your life and really put every metre of the road perfectly together.
• 57:33
  So, Helena, I did it later in my career with Watergon Road in New South Wales, and I had three wins in the ARC in New South Wales.
• 57:47
  We're talking a piece of road here on the New South Wales central coast too, when you say Wadigan Road, aren't you?
• 57:52
  Yeah, a really fast commitment road.
• 57:55
  But it's coloured a bit because I destroyed one of Les's cars, which is in the last season I drove.
• 58:00
  Les had given me a really nice brand new Evo 7 and I was doing my 100% commitment to Wadigan Road and came unstuck badly in a situation I could have rescued but totaled a car, which you never like to do.
• 58:17
  Les had a spare one waiting because he knows it's likely to happen.
• 58:22
  But that's coloured my feeling towards Wadigan in the same – to put it in the same league as Helena, which paid off so well.
• 58:30
  But it was a beautiful – Wadigan Road is an incredible stage.
• 58:33
  Love it.
• 58:33
  Yeah.
• 58:34
  And the car?
• 58:35
  Is there one in the range of either Lancers or Galantz that is special in your mind?
• 58:41
  Maybe it's something else.
• 58:42
  Maybe it's a Datsun.
• 58:44
  I'm hard with Evos 2 and 6.
• 58:50
  So, you know, I took the double wins in Group and New Zealand and Australia with that early Evo.
• 58:59
  So that was, you know, that was fantastic for my career and to do it, you know, Kiwis love their rallying and, you know, to go and do it on their home turf.
• 59:11
  It's fantastic.
• 59:12
  And I've made so many friends in New Zealand and the New Zealand drivers of that era because they...
• 59:17
  They don't resent, you know, I know there's a lot of fun, they resent an Aussie coming, but they really know how to show their respect too.
• 59:23
  You know, it's lovely and it's reciprocated and it was a good battle over there.
• 59:28
  So Evo 2 from that point of view and a lovely car to drive.
• 59:32
  But Evo 6, I think, was the car that most suited me.
• 59:37
  I think I still worked best with that car because of being involved in its development.
• 59:42
  A lot of the development on Evo 6 was done here in Australia prior to its launch, from both a rally and road car perspective, under Bob Riley's guidance from Rally Out Australia.
• 59:54
  So all of that, getting the work to get the... had really good mechanical limited slip diffs, and getting those to work properly, get the right preloads, and the way they ramped up.
• 1:00:06
  um was it was a joy to work with you know it was terrific and murray suspension you know murray coot the mca um you know we got to test his suspension against all the european brands you know you name it they nothing was spared but murray's came up the best you know and that on the evo 6 with everything in place was just just terrific it's a great car
• 1:00:29
  You've rattled off some great names along the way in this conversation.
• 1:00:31
  Thank you.
• 1:00:32
  But particularly, you know, even at the end there with Murray, and I still see Bob Riley at the TCR events where he's working with the HMO Hyundai team now.
• 1:00:41
  Of the nearly 300 episodes I've done in this podcast, we've done something fresh today that I know...
• 1:00:47
  the audience will really appreciate.
• 1:00:49
  So from me to you and from them to you, congratulations on everything that you have achieved here.
• 1:00:56
  It's phenomenal to think that what started with a dream, but the real takeaway, Ed, has been how people, if they are serious about a career in motorsport, can...
• 1:01:08
  can achieve potentially champion status by applying themselves and in rallying terms the the key hits you've shared with us today pace noting technical knowledge working hard on your fitness the absolute importance of team building safety goal setting in particular and mental toughness thank you for sharing that today and and
• 1:01:34
  I say that with great admiration because a lot of that you have done in a self-taught manner.
• 1:01:41
  Yes, you've gone out and sourced material to arm yourself with that stuff, but they're really great takeaways for our audience.
• 1:01:50
  Well done on everything you've achieved, and I'm super pleased that, what is it now, nearly 10 years ago, you were inducted into the Australian Rally Hall of Fame.
• 1:01:59
  That was something that you richly, richly deserve.
• 1:02:02
  Thank you.
• 1:02:03
  You made it very easy.
• 1:02:04
  It's great to catch up again after all this.
• 1:02:06
  It's been so long.
• 1:02:07
  I don't know when we last spoke face-to-face, but thank you.
• 1:02:09
  It's been too long, and it's been a joy to do this from my side.
• 1:02:12
  Thank you for sharing, mate.
• 1:02:13
  Cheers.
• 1:02:14
  Thanks very much.
• 1:02:22
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:02:26
  Series editor and producer is Thomas Dullard.
• 1:02:29
  Audio production by Link Kelly.
• 1:02:31
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 1:02:36
  The Garage, that's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fuelled stories.