Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jonathan Green Part 2 - Impersonations, falling into Auckland Harbour, the secret to longevity

Transcript

Jonathan Green Part 2 - Impersonations, falling into Auckland Harbour, the secret to longevity · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature episode with globetrotting motorsport commentator Jonathan Green.
• 0:25
  If you've arrived here without checking out part one, you've missed some great yarns.
• 0:30
  His huge stint working on the world's superbikes with Aussie Steve Martin, cornering Nigel Mansell for an interview in a stairwell.
• 0:40
  and the legendary motorsport connection that the Green family is very proud of.
• 0:45
  We begin part two with some fun, channeling yet another talent of his, one that the broadcast team tends to get to enjoy in the warm-ups before the show goes live.
• 0:59
  You can do impersonations very well.
• 1:02
  While we're on the two-wheel theme here, Valentino Rossi.
• 1:06
  Off you go.
• 1:09
  Ah, it's Greg, right?
• 1:11
  Greg, Greg, Greg, Ross.
• 1:12
  Ah, see, see, Australia, see.
• 1:14
  Ah, see, violin.
• 1:15
  I come, I come.
• 1:16
  I like a very big, too big, too big, too big.
• 1:19
  But for me, I'm very happy.
• 1:21
  I'm very happy with the bike.
• 1:22
  The bike is good, but sometimes, you know, the wind is very strong.
• 1:26
  The wind comes very strong.
• 1:27
  So I think to myself, ah, violin, what do we do with the wind?
• 1:30
  I say to my engineer, hey, we got the ride.
• 1:33
  So I ride.
• 1:33
  Anyway, this is good.
• 1:35
  For me, I'm very happy with it.
• 1:36
  Super, super.
• 1:38
  I love it.
• 1:38
  Let's go two wheels to four wheels now.
• 1:40
  I mean, there's some incredible things in your time there.
• 1:45
  I mean, you talked Macau before.
• 1:47
  You're involved on the Formula One side at Circuit of the Americas and all sorts, aren't you?
• 1:50
  Tell us a bit about that.
• 1:51
  Yeah, I kind of – I did – again, funny story, I followed Lee Diffie into two wheels.
• 1:59
  I followed James Allen into four wheels, same sort of serendipity thing.
• 2:04
  He got the ITV job and he was doing indie at the time and working for American TV for ESPN.
• 2:11
  And he called me up and he said, hey –
• 2:15
  I think I might get this job at ITV.
• 2:17
  And if I do, will you cover my – we're three weeks away from the Australian Grand Prix.
• 2:23
  So he's off to Formula One and this is potential for you in IndyCar?
• 2:26
  Is this what you're talking about?
• 2:27
  No, no.
• 2:27
  Well, he was doing both.
• 2:28
  He was working for ESPN in Indy.
• 2:30
  He was doing a documentary on Mansell in Indy.
• 2:32
  And he was working as the pit reporter for ESPN in Formula One.
• 2:38
  So he said, look, if I get this job as the commentator, which ironically, I was on another thing or another bid for that.
• 2:46
  But I knew my bid was my bid was weak.
• 2:50
  And James was favorite for it.
• 2:52
  But he said, look, I may not get it.
• 2:54
  And if I do, I can't, you know, I can't give up my job.
• 2:56
  I don't want to lose my job.
• 2:57
  So I don't want to quit.
• 2:58
  And I said, yeah, fine, whatever.
• 3:00
  You know, of course, great opportunity.
• 3:01
  And I kid you not, I got a call from a producer, Bonnie Riley, I'll never forget her, on the Tuesday before the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, would I be ESPN's pit reporter?
• 3:15
  And Wednesday night I was on a plane and I arrived Thursday morning and went straight to the pit.
• 3:20
  Ah.
• 3:21
  Unreal.
• 3:21
  It was amazing.
• 3:22
  So that's how I got into Formula One.
• 3:24
  But, yeah, so, and I did it for two years, and I did some remarkable years because I did Damon Hill and Jack Vilnaz, 96, 97 years.
• 3:32
  And so that, and even to the point where I was there with the microphone, with Jack, with the blonde wig on, like the rest of the teams were celebrating with him.
• 3:40
  So, yeah, I was right in the, and did every round in the pits, fire suit on, thrown out of the pits in Argentina for running, and,
• 3:49
  I was like, now what do I do?
• 3:51
  So that was kind of fun.
• 3:52
  But yeah, that's how I got back into Formula One.
• 3:54
  But after two years of that, ESPN lost the contract.
• 3:58
  And I thought that was the end of my Formula One.
• 4:01
  And like you say, that's when I went to bikes.
• 4:07
  And then eventually my parents had retired to Austin.
• 4:10
  And I was still doing World Superbikes.
• 4:12
  We're talking now 2007, 2008.
• 4:15
  And I was helping them look for a house, and I was kind of looking at Austin going, why am I living in dreary London when I do 22 countries from Qatar to Phillip Island, you know, each and every year, when I could be based here?
• 4:28
  You know, and it's much nicer than my parents are just down the road, and my sister lives in Colorado, so my whole family were in the States by this time.
• 4:35
  So I just plumped for Austin and carried on doing world superbikes.
• 4:39
  But from Austin, yeah, it was harder in some ways, but it was easier than going to Heathrow because wherever I was going, I was, you know, Japan and the far...
• 4:48
  I mean, because by then we were going to Malaysia and all sorts of places like that.
• 4:51
  So it was just as easy starting in Austin.
• 4:54
  So I started living in Austin.
• 4:56
  I'll never forget, I got this call about a year after I moved there.
• 4:59
  And I'm standing out, looking out on my balcony in Austin.
• 5:03
  I was in a high rise.
• 5:04
  And my buddy called me up from Ducati, actually.
• 5:07
  And of course, you know, they'd followed my career in Austin as well.
• 5:10
  So I was kind of, you know, Ducati's number one guy type thing, going to the showroom and, you know, doing my impersonations and holding court.
• 5:18
  and he called me up and he said hey have you heard the news i said what he goes they're building a formula one circuit in austin and i remember distinctly saying that would be i said that would be impossible the fact that i could fall out of bed to go and do my job for the first time in 30 years and not have to go 10 000 miles i was like yoohoo so i then spent the next time
• 5:43
  knocking on Circuit of the Americas door saying, Hi, I'm Jonathan Green.
• 5:46
  I'm ready.
• 5:47
  I'm ready.
• 5:47
  I'm a Duracell battery.
• 5:48
  I'm ready.
• 5:49
  I'm ready.
• 5:49
  I'm ready to go.
• 5:49
  And they said, Well, we haven't built the track yet.
• 5:52
  And I said, Yes, but I could do VR.
• 5:54
  I could do promotion.
• 5:55
  I can do anything.
• 5:56
  I could sweep the floors.
• 5:57
  So here I am.
• 5:59
  I'm still doing it.
• 5:59
  Unreal.
• 6:00
  Unreal.
• 6:01
  The reaction, I mean...
• 6:03
  Formula One going to America is not a new thing.
• 6:06
  You know, there were races in Vegas and all sorts of places in the 80s and so on.
• 6:11
  But the energy around it now when you've been to Miami, to wherever, I mean, it's huge now, isn't it?
• 6:19
  It is.
• 6:19
  And I think the bottom line is, if Bernie failed at anything, it was cracking the American market.
• 6:25
  And, you know, they did have some goes.
• 6:28
  Obviously, Indianapolis was successful for a while until the debacle of the tyres.
• 6:33
  There's been some great Grand Prixs over the years.
• 6:36
  In fact, when you look at the amount of American all the way back to Watkins Glen, it was at home for...
• 6:41
  for 20 years at Watkins Glen.
• 6:42
  But Formula One, Bernie style, never cracked the market.
• 6:46
  And I believe it was a business decision.
• 6:48
  Bernie liked to keep his money.
• 6:50
  And it was the opposite model to how American motorsport works, which is the promoter keeps the money from what he makes, whereas Bernie would charge a fee for the privilege of having his circus in town.
• 7:02
  And that is different.
• 7:05
  And it remains different.
• 7:06
  But of course, Liberty Media or an American company, they get it.
• 7:10
  Yes, they still have rights fees.
• 7:12
  But for example, in Austin, that rights fee is paid by a government-funded sports fund, which invites people like the Final Four or the Super Bowl to your town.
• 7:23
  And you pay a heavy, you know, you pay a rights fee to get the privilege.
• 7:27
  But you get, you know, the hotels, the cars, the rental cars...
• 7:32
  The economic gain, I think, in Austin for the first year was $480 million.
• 7:38
  So it's worth the $25 million you pay for the rights fee, let's say.
• 7:43
  Crazy, crazy.
• 7:44
  You do a similar thing to me around some of the coverage of the venue and things like that.
• 7:51
  But one thing that you did that caught my attention along the way with Formula One and the many different hats you've worn, mate, is F1 in cinema.
• 7:58
  Just tell me a little bit about that and endeavouring to show the sport in a different way.
• 8:05
  Well, this was the dream come true.
• 8:08
  If we go full circle and I say I love the process, this to me was just the ultimate.
• 8:13
  A, it was unheard of, i.e.
• 8:15
  nobody had done it before.
• 8:17
  B, it was a way of getting a job in Formula 1 at the highest level doing play-by-play.
• 8:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:24
  And technology-wise, it was the best of Bakersville thrown into the cinemas.
• 8:29
  And actually, we got it working.
• 8:31
  And the idea being it was to immerse yourself in Formula One.
• 8:36
  And where we made it really work was on cruise ships.
• 8:39
  Because, again, you can't take that technology.
• 8:43
  And I did 3D with Sky as well, which I really enjoyed.
• 8:45
  And that was a nightmare.
• 8:47
  But that was interesting.
• 8:49
  I couldn't reach the salt after the show.
• 8:50
  LAUGHTER
• 8:54
  But immersive TV, it was immersive TVs and you would do it in a theatre with 5.1 surround sound.
• 9:01
  I'm a big Pink Floyd man, so I love my world of sound and how you play with sound.
• 9:07
  And part of my job was to work out where to put the commentary.
• 9:12
  for it not to be not to take so in other words if you're watching a screen let's say you're in the movie theater and it happens all the time in a in a 3d movie or in a big movie screen you know a car goes from left to right like in bullet and you hear it come from the left and it zooms past and you hear it go off or the right and it goes off from the distance well we could do that we had our own mics in every at spa at all these things so the immersive thing was there but
• 9:38
  But you can't just sit and watch an hour of Formula One and have no commentary.
• 9:43
  So we started off by putting it in the same saran, but that doesn't work because then it's just like, ugh.
• 9:50
  So we ended up...
• 9:51
  kind of channeling it down where you still had all the effects around you and the noise and the crowd and and the you know we had a sort of stereo version of the cars going past and then we would bottle it down for the commentary just kind of be in the center of the screen so that you could hear it but it wasn't the focus of your immersion if that's the right word in other words you knew what was going on
• 10:16
  And you still got the excitement of the commentator, but you didn't, it wasn't distracting.
• 10:20
  Like it kind of, I mean, if you think about it, you and I both know this, you're kind of fighting with the noise a lot in motor racing.
• 10:28
  And you're kind of using your excitement because actually TV dullifies the real experience of motor racing.
• 10:34
  So our excitement is to try to let the audience know something important is happening.
• 10:39
  And this, this is life, life changing, or it could be.
• 10:42
  So hence the excitement.
• 10:43
  So yeah, I loved it.
• 10:45
  It didn't work.
• 10:46
  Yeah, but... We did it for two years.
• 10:48
  We did it for two years, and I worked with ex-Formula 1 drivers in the booth.
• 10:52
  I went to Brazil.
• 10:52
  I went to a spa.
• 10:53
  Went all around the world, and we had me and Andrew Marriott did it.
• 10:56
  David Addison did it.
• 10:57
  You know, it was really quite groundbreaking, and I really enjoyed it.
• 11:01
  You talked about, I mean, your...
• 11:03
  your trade that you learnt when you went to university and so on to become a broadcaster.
• 11:09
  But often it's what you learn hands-on and how you blend with all that beautiful sound and what the team around you are producing and so on.
• 11:18
  That becomes a little bit of an art form, that sort of stuff.
• 11:21
  Is there a Zenith moment on the four-wheel side for you, a bit like we were talking before with Steve Martin?
• 11:26
  It doesn't have to be in a broadcasting sense.
• 11:27
  It could be a race that you went to, a venue that you've been to.
• 11:32
  There's no question the first time I covered the Indy 500 properly, I would say, where I had my own camera crew.
• 11:41
  If you know Indy, you can't bring your own camera.
• 11:44
  You have to hire an IMS camera.
• 11:46
  But I had a freelancer from Indianapolis and Sky…
• 11:50
  you know, were going big on Indy.
• 11:53
  And they wanted me to... And we had several drivers, you know, at the 500 that were either like Alonso or they were British drivers like a Jack Harvey or whatever.
• 12:07
  What's his name?
• 12:09
  Not Marcus Ericsson, but the Gallagher driver from Britain who just left...
• 12:14
  Just left Formula One.
• 12:16
  Chilton.
• 12:17
  Yes, Max Chilton.
• 12:18
  So he was there.
• 12:19
  So in other words, I had a vested interest for being there for Britain.
• 12:23
  So I had a lot of interviews to do, did the media day, got to meet Doug Bowles, got to hang out, really immersed myself into the Indy 500.
• 12:32
  And I'll never forget the morning when they let the balloons off.
• 12:37
  and because it's Monaco Grand Prix that day, and I said, what time do we need to be in the circuit to sort of the guys that have been doing it for years?
• 12:45
  And they said, 5 a.m. 5 a.m., yeah.
• 12:48
  But I said, it's a three o'clock start.
• 12:51
  uh-huh.
• 12:52
  He said, they open the gates at eight, and if you're not in before that, you're not coming.
• 12:58
  I was like, oh my gosh.
• 12:59
  So I got in up at five, and actually it doesn't turn out to be too bad, because the Monaco Grand Prix starts at seven.
• 13:06
  So you get in early, watch Monaco.
• 13:09
  Excuse me.
• 13:10
  You watch Monaco and then you get ready.
• 13:12
  But I'll never forget those balloons going off in the morning.
• 13:16
  And Doug Bowles told me that he lies, some mornings he lies underneath the balloons before they go off.
• 13:21
  Like I said, I really was inside baseball on that one because I was finding out all these idiosyncrasies.
• 13:27
  And since I've been working with his son, Connor Daly, I say his son, his stepson, Connor Daly.
• 13:32
  Derek Daly's son got to meet him there too I do I do Las Vegas Formula One with Connor so you know there's some really nice crossovers there but yeah the Indy 500 when you when you see them come down the start finish in front of 350,000 people I don't think there's anything that compares there's just nothing
• 13:52
  Unreal.
• 13:54
  It surpasses motor racing.
• 13:56
  It's a spectacle that is life-changing in that respect.
• 13:59
  Is there anything that, I mean, a rally through China to Tiananmen Square, more than two decades of Macau Grand Prix, F1, World Superbike, I mean, the list of things that you've...
• 14:13
  You've done – there's WEC that we haven't even talked about, for example.
• 14:16
  I mean, is there something that remains unticked for you that you would really like to have a crack at?
• 14:24
  Yeah.
• 14:25
  I'd like to do the Olympics.
• 14:26
  Would you?
• 14:27
  And I'd like to do a sport in the Olympics that suits – like Lee's doing with Luge because he suits it.
• 14:34
  I think more of us should do the Olympics because I think –
• 14:38
  that are chops for some of the...
• 14:42
  I mean, his coverage of the 100 metres last year was sublime.
• 14:46
  Because you've got 10 seconds, and you've got to get it all in.
• 14:51
  And you've got to do motor racing in 10 seconds is what you've got to do.
• 14:56
  Yeah, I would love to do something like that.
• 14:59
  I think America's Cup was amazing because I remember saying to the guy, I don't know a thing about sailing.
• 15:04
  He goes, no, but we want the energy you bring to motor racing to be like that.
• 15:09
  And now when you see it, it really is motor racing.
• 15:12
  They call them drivers now.
• 15:13
  There's a reason for that.
• 15:14
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:15
  So, no, I think Olympics would be a crowning thing or a World Cup soccer.
• 15:19
  Cool.
• 15:20
  One of the things that commenced our conversation here and that we get to enjoy over summer when we catch up is the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship.
• 15:28
  Five straight weeks.
• 15:29
  It is the pinnacle of things as far as the Kiwi motorsport calendar is concerned, the Kiwi summer of racing.
• 15:36
  And it ends with the New Zealand Grand Prix.
• 15:39
  Can I come to a little bit of discussion around that?
• 15:44
  A little funny moment from your time in New Zealand.
• 15:47
  People can find on YouTube a wonderful moment of you at the Auckland Harbour, walking along, doing a piece to camera.
• 15:57
  What happens next, Jonathan?
• 15:59
  What was that all about?
• 16:00
  Take us back to that day.
• 16:01
  It was my first year.
• 16:03
  It was 2012, and I was...
• 16:06
  Full of it.
• 16:08
  I thought, this is great.
• 16:09
  I was working for the hedges.
• 16:11
  It was so cool.
• 16:12
  You're at the Viaduct.
• 16:13
  Beautiful day.
• 16:14
  They send me down there.
• 16:15
  Hey, can you?
• 16:17
  The better, they were like, hey, all the supercar drivers are here.
• 16:20
  And I spent the day with all these supercar drivers.
• 16:22
  I met Scotty McLaughlin, who was just making a name for himself, a full jandle, like a whole story.
• 16:27
  They filled me in with all the biz on what to say, who to interview.
• 16:32
  Courtney was there.
• 16:33
  I mean, it was awesome, right?
• 16:35
  And so we went to a winery, we went to Waiheke, we went, you know, oh, what a day.
• 16:41
  And then the final part of the day was that we were going to take all the supercar guys on the old America's gut boat.
• 16:48
  So I was like, oh, this is great.
• 16:50
  And I just started my own company, Speed City.
• 16:52
  And I was like, oh, right, I'll make sure that we cover this, you know, and I'll put it out on YouTube and this will give us lots of numbers.
• 16:59
  Um, so, and cause it's motor racing meets sailing.
• 17:01
  And I was like, oh, this is good.
• 17:02
  And YouTube was just coming into its own.
• 17:04
  And so social media, I was like, I'm back in, boss back in America was like, you've got to do this and you've got to send it to me and we'll put it on Twitter.
• 17:11
  It's a new thing.
• 17:12
  And I was like, okay, you know.
• 17:14
  So, you know, here I go.
• 17:16
  I've got a Speed City shirt on, and James Dunlop, who worked with us this weekend, was the cameraman.
• 17:23
  And off we went.
• 17:24
  And sure enough, I said, right, I'm going to do a piece to camera introducing it before we get on the boat.
• 17:30
  So they're all untying the boat and getting the sails up, and the supercar guys are getting their vests on and all the rest of it.
• 17:38
  And I do my piece to camera.
• 17:39
  Well, lo and behold, I made the 6 o'clock news.
• 17:46
  Because right in the middle of my piece to camera, and you can look at it on YouTube, Jonathan Green falls in the sea, I fell in with Harvard.
• 17:53
  Now, I actually wasn't mic'd up, which is rare, actually.
• 17:56
  I was using the camera mic.
• 17:58
  Yeah.
• 17:58
  But I disappeared for about four seconds, but then left out and carried on.
• 18:03
  Which, you know, true pro.
• 18:05
  But to suffice to say, I went back home in my hotel room to hear, Today...
• 18:13
  International Motorsport commentator took a splash in the harbour.
• 18:19
  At which point my only relative in New Zealand, who I haven't met at this point, called my mother and said, Is your son's name Jonathan?
• 18:26
  I think he's just been on the six o'clock news here in New Zealand, in New Plymouth.
• 18:31
  Fame at last.
• 18:32
  We're gonna go fast.
• 18:33
  If we're gonna go on a yacht, get some V8 boys.
• 18:36
  And that's who's coming with me.
• 18:40
  Oh, shit.
• 18:45
  You alright?
• 18:46
  You alright?
• 18:46
  You alright?
• 18:47
  Is that part of the plan?
• 18:49
  Whatever you do, if you're gonna start off this journey, do not throw yourself in bloody water before you go in.
• 18:55
  Because that's not as funny as it seems.
• 19:07
  JG reminds us in this bod, that he worked with superbike star Aaron Slight on his book, charting the Kiwi's humble beginnings, to fighting back from a ruptured blood vessel on the brain.
• 19:19
  The fatigue and the tiredness was immense.
• 19:22
  I can remember getting out of hospital in Australia and I stayed in a B&B just around the corner from the hospital.
• 19:27
  And we walked up to the Hume Highway, I think it was, to a coffee shop.
• 19:30
  We're in Sydney here.
• 19:31
  This is Royal North Shore.
• 19:32
  I'll take it.
• 19:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:34
  And we walk up to this coffee shop and I get there and I said to him, I can't even be here.
• 19:38
  The noise is immense.
• 19:42
  Rusty spoke at length with Aaron back in 2020.
• 19:45
  It's an incredibly candid chat.
• 19:47
  Hunt for it in our library once Jonathan wraps up here.
• 19:52
  CT Frock has been, you know, this beautiful thing you've been involved with for more than a decade.
• 19:58
  In that time, man, you have seen some guns come through there that have gone on to... And you get to see them in that phase where it's...
• 20:09
  One of the first proper glimpses into the talent that they've got and where they might be headed.
• 20:14
  So, you know, Lando Norris, Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, and then we're only talking kind of the Formula One direction here.
• 20:23
  There are those that go the American route and so on.
• 20:27
  It's really good in that regard, isn't it?
• 20:30
  Yeah, there's no question.
• 20:31
  Both Macau and more importantly, City Front.
• 20:33
  Macau is different because it's a weekend that is just, you know, the hardest track in the world.
• 20:38
  This is different because it's the most intense five weeks that any driver will ever go through.
• 20:43
  It is a boot camp.
• 20:45
  Yeah.
• 20:45
  It's like joining the Marines for racing driving in that you are downloading information.
• 20:50
  You are working with an engineer for some of them coming from Formula Four.
• 20:54
  They've never worked with a data engineer or sat in front of a computer for two hours after each and every session.
• 21:01
  They're doing, you know, each weekend they're doing two test sessions, three practices, two qualifiers, three races.
• 21:08
  It is, I'm sure, Sunday night you just want to collapse.
• 21:13
  But it really does tell us who follow it and who commentate on it whether…
• 21:18
  Who's got the metal?
• 21:19
  Who's got the metal?
• 21:20
  We saw it perfectly this year with Arvid Lindblad.
• 21:23
  He has the metal.
• 21:24
  We saw it perfectly with actually Tsunoda.
• 21:26
  And we all kind of went, oh, he came as a big Red Bull, dream of Honda, you know, next big thing.
• 21:33
  But he didn't cut it.
• 21:35
  And we all said, and when everybody was going, oh, you know, oh...
• 21:39
  is Tsunoda going to do a second year of Formula One?
• 21:41
  I was like, no, something needs to happen.
• 21:42
  We saw the start of this at Toyota.
• 21:45
  He was good.
• 21:46
  He was fast, always, always very, very fast.
• 21:49
  He just wasn't the complete package.
• 21:51
  He wasn't working as hard as some of the others.
• 21:54
  And thankfully, it was Tost, Franz Tost, who took him out of Milton Keynes.
• 21:59
  He was sharing an apartment with...
• 22:04
  Liam Lawson at the time.
• 22:05
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:05
  But he was eating fish and chips and doing a typical British, you know, going down the pub.
• 22:09
  And as you would, what else are you going to do with Milton Keynes?
• 22:13
  And so they took him out of that, got him a trainer, and made him the Formula One driver he is now, and I think he's very special now.
• 22:19
  But that's why I use that example not to have a go at him, but to say we saw that when he was racing against Colopinto and against Liam Lawson and Igor Fraga here in New Zealand.
• 22:31
  So we saw the potential, but he didn't have what it really took at that time.
• 22:36
  Whereas Lando did, Vashore does and did, you know, Vashore.
• 22:44
  Charlie Wurtz absolutely did.
• 22:47
  You know, you get to see the real pros.
• 22:50
  And also, you get to see them before they're anybody.
• 22:53
  So they're interested in talking to you.
• 22:55
  And I've been very, I'm sure you have the same experience, but whenever I do Formula One and I bump into a Guangy Jo, they're like, ah!
• 23:01
  hey, New Zealand, you know.
• 23:02
  Yeah, it's terrific in that regard.
• 23:04
  And they do actually form a bit of a bond often, you know, at the pinnacle end of things, NASCAR, F1, whatever, there's barriers up, you've got rivals and off you go.
• 23:12
  But at this stage, they're still young kids and they're all enjoying five weeks on the road together, which is awesome.
• 23:18
  I'm glad you alluded to the engineering side there a moment ago too because, I mean, when you look at...
• 23:24
  the caliber of people that are working with these young drivers from Stephen Giles, who's been with McLaren, Gary Orton, who runs Kiwi Motorsport and has seen all sorts of different people come through there over the years.
• 23:37
  Bruin Beasley at EmTech and then then M2 with with Mark Pilcher and Patrick Maury and so on.
• 23:45
  And the younger ones that they bring in to to learn and work with them from both New Zealand and overseas.
• 23:50
  I mean, it is tremendous, isn't it?
• 23:52
  No question.
• 23:53
  Funnily enough, Dave Hadjus has been working on some interviews with people like Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans about looking at the 20 years of the Castrol Toyota Racing Series.
• 24:06
  And to a man, Mitch particularly, said that they have worked with many engineers over the years, but no one has put better input into their lives and into their racing than Stephen Giles.
• 24:18
  Which, coming from a...
• 24:20
  A guy like Mitch Evans, who's right at the top of his game, has been a world champion in his own right, and Will Brown, who was the first to say winning the Grand Prix with Stephen Giles is so special because I worked with him in F4.
• 24:34
  And that goes across for Gary Orton, who's run Randall, to his success in TRS, and obviously M2, who've got a litany of great, great drivers that have come through their...
• 24:50
  system if you will and this is truly you know it's such a unique five weeks because the learning in that time is the difference between making it and breaking it in in my opinion um i remember telling one of the drivers look if you come down i can't tell you whether you're going to be successful or not but you'll know afterwards whether you want to spend half a million again
• 25:12
  because it's a lot of money is motor racing, and five weeks will sort out the men from the boys or the girls from the boys or whatever you want to call it, but it certainly will tell you whether you're on the right path or not.
• 25:24
  This summer was one of the special ones for different reasons.
• 25:28
  Firstly, you mentioned Arvid Lindblad there a moment ago.
• 25:31
  17 years of age, meteoric rise, Red Bull Junior.
• 25:35
  And he dominated not all, but most of the feature races this summer.
• 25:40
  He's now got enough points, as we talked about in the podcast a week or so ago, for a super license.
• 25:46
  This is someone with a proper level of talent that we'll be talking about in years to come, isn't it?
• 25:51
  No question about it.
• 25:52
  I mean, I always think that when you arrive as a Formula One junior, whether it be Ferrari Academy, as was the case with Marcus Armstrong, or whether it be Red Bull like Tsunoda, Vichor before him,
• 26:07
  And now, Arvid Limblad.
• 26:08
  It's a double-edged sword because the expectation is so high.
• 26:12
  And I mean, you know, Helmut Marko, he's just as rough on the young kids as he is on his new kid, Lawson, in that he demands so much.
• 26:22
  He's already told Lawson that he needs to be within 0.3 of Verstappen and the season hasn't started.
• 26:27
  And yet he told Arvid Lindblad, you go down to New Zealand and you get the right amount of points.
• 26:32
  I want you back in 25 with the full 40.
• 26:36
  He has done that.
• 26:37
  He has achieved, he has ticked that box.
• 26:39
  But I wouldn't sleep so calmly if, you know, if around one when this kid from New Zealand suddenly wins the first race and we saw his annoyance that things weren't going perfectly.
• 26:52
  It's the world they're in.
• 26:53
  And, yeah, he is a special driver.
• 26:57
  You can see why Red Bull have picked him, and you can see that he is so totally focused, so totally dedicated.
• 27:05
  Stephen tried on, and you did, and I did, well, on several occasions to try to learn a little bit more.
• 27:11
  I asked him about his hobbies in my interview with him, and he said, I don't really have any hobbies.
• 27:15
  And I said, well, what about trading?
• 27:17
  And he goes, well...
• 27:18
  Yeah, but I'm more...
• 27:22
  It was just blinkered, blinkered, racing, racing, racing, racing.
• 27:25
  He even admitted he doesn't like doing the Sims, but he knows he has to.
• 27:29
  Has to.
• 27:30
  An Aussie wins the New Zealand Grand Prix for the first time in 50 years.
• 27:35
  It was awesome to get a bit of supercar involvement.
• 27:38
  Even Brock Feeney getting that pole position with hardly any single-seater experience.
• 27:42
  That was mighty, wasn't it?
• 27:44
  I think, I mean, we're only a day past it, and I'm already starting to see the gigantuan story that that sits in both Australian, New Zealand, Antipodean, Tasman series history.
• 27:59
  That will be a turning point.
• 28:03
  Let's say this kind of racing goes on in New Zealand for another 20 years.
• 28:08
  Hmm.
• 28:09
  The 20th year will be a huge turning point when this guy put his reputation on the line when he didn't have to.
• 28:18
  He could be sitting on a beach in Sydney.
• 28:20
  And yet, he risked it all and came through brilliantly.
• 28:25
  So, yeah, I think the gravitas of that victory is going to be a huge motor racing footnote for this part of the world, for sure.
• 28:33
  If not around the world.
• 28:34
  Definitely.
• 28:35
  When you think that Van Gisbergen was watching, when you think that Max Pappas was watching, when you think that all of these people who appreciate motor racing at its finest tuned in to watch that,
• 28:45
  it's a special moment.
• 28:47
  I reckon it'll have a knock-on effect for next year's championship too, and hopefully we can encourage a few more supercars, guys, even if it's for a round or two, to come over and play.
• 28:54
  It'd be nice to see a Thomas Randall, who you mentioned before, back in.
• 28:57
  A couple to finish.
• 28:59
  You mentioned about Texas being home.
• 29:02
  You have a four-legged child, and your four-legged child recognises your voice.
• 29:10
  What happens when you're on the TV and away from home?
• 29:14
  He tunes in.
• 29:16
  So tell people firstly, we're talking Black Lab, I think, are we not?
• 29:19
  He's a Black Lab called Murphy.
• 29:21
  Yes.
• 29:21
  And he, you know, I mean, like most good dogs, his nose is very good, but his ears are even better.
• 29:30
  And he knows my voice.
• 29:31
  He totally knows my voice.
• 29:32
  And the first time I think my parents, you know, like a lot of retirees have a little snug that they sit in and watch TV.
• 29:39
  And it's kind of like it's impolite because there's no room for anybody else.
• 29:43
  So if you're a guest there, you're on the floor.
• 29:47
  So I sit with the dog on the floor, but I came on the TV and my dad was like, oh, look.
• 29:51
  And he looked up and he could hear me.
• 29:52
  He was like looking at the TV and he could see the picture.
• 29:56
  And so he went out behind, you know, he went out the door behind the TV to go find me.
• 30:06
  I love it.
• 30:06
  In closing, life in the United States means that you're involved in Trans Am and all sorts of things.
• 30:12
  Just tell us a bit about what you're doing when you're not down under for the five weeks straight.
• 30:16
  Well, my main thing now, ironically, is Formula One again, because I started this company called Speed City and we've now done...
• 30:25
  Well, we did it right from the start, from 2012, when the Circuit of the Americas came to be.
• 30:31
  So I became the voice of the circuit, and at Cota, I do...
• 30:36
  Motor GP starting next month.
• 30:39
  I do IndyCar when it came.
• 30:42
  NASCAR is going to be there.
• 30:44
  WEC and Formula One.
• 30:47
  And so that's only five events.
• 30:48
  So it's not a job.
• 30:49
  But then we on the radio do each and every Formula One event for Sirius XM, which is the satellite radio station nationwide.
• 30:58
  And it's in all the rental cars.
• 30:59
  So it's kind of unique because it's people who are driving
• 31:03
  and maybe a gearhead, and they tune in to the Australian Grand Prix while they're driving their truck or driving their RV around the country.
• 31:10
  So as you can imagine, it's a subscription of about 35 million people, so it's a really good, candid audience.
• 31:15
  And I don't mean that 35 people are tuning in for that, but it's got all the sports.
• 31:20
  And as you know, America loves its radio and loves its sports.
• 31:23
  So NFL, NBA, all of it's on there, including Formula One.
• 31:29
  So, yeah, that's my main gig.
• 31:31
  And I've been doing Trans Am for the last eight years, which I've really enjoyed and feel very privileged, something Lee Diffie did as well.
• 31:37
  But if you want to talk about being at the heart of or the grassroots of American racing, it's the supercars of America.
• 31:47
  If NASCAR is the Formula One of American racing, you know, in terms of audience, then Trans Am is the grassroots of that.
• 31:57
  And a lot of young drivers now are getting through the NASCAR ranks.
• 32:01
  Funnily enough, McLachlan and...
• 32:05
  and Shane drove with Connor Zilich who's just 17 at Daytona and he's one of our exports he's one of our he came in took pole position on his 16th birthday which I commentated on and went who the heck is this and so yeah it's been a real it's very similar to the Toyota series is that you get to see this talent before it's
• 32:26
  Fully right.
• 32:27
  When you and I are recording this, I can see you, obviously, right?
• 32:30
  People are listening to this.
• 32:31
  So I could see you counting on your fingers there a minute ago, and you showed me on your hand you have a MotoGP-style hand, don't you?
• 32:38
  You've lost.
• 32:39
  What happened there?
• 32:41
  Chastity belt.
• 32:41
  No.
• 32:44
  It's been very useful.
• 32:45
  I'll take about two and a half pints, please.
• 32:50
  How did that happen?
• 32:51
  Truth be known.
• 32:52
  Yes.
• 32:52
  I was four years old.
• 32:54
  I was racing.
• 32:56
  poo sticks.
• 32:57
  What's that?
• 32:58
  In other words, if you know Winnie the Pooh... Oh, okay, okay.
• 33:01
  Well, we didn't have a river and I didn't have a bear.
• 33:04
  I had my sister.
• 33:04
  She was eight.
• 33:05
  I was four.
• 33:06
  And we had a manhole cover.
• 33:07
  The real thing is... Yeah, the real thing is a bit more tragic.
• 33:11
  She lived with a manhole cover, but she was a little girl.
• 33:14
  I put the sticks down and she unfortunately couldn't hold the manhole cover.
• 33:21
  So here we are thinking it's a MotoGP or a two-wheel style story.
• 33:25
  I shouldn't get a better story like Mick Dillon, we stuffed my finger in his chain.
• 33:31
  To finish, to finish.
• 33:32
  What do you think is the beautiful secret of your diverse array of things that you've done, the longevity that you've had?
• 33:40
  I watch you in action when we're doing the Toyota stuff, and in addition to the TV broadcast, you're making content for different things, you're enjoying mucking around with YouTube, and...
• 33:50
  You know, I think it's very important for people like you and I at our age who still thoroughly enjoy the broadcasting process and clearly love our motorsport to play with that new content too, those new spaces.
• 34:02
  Yeah.
• 34:03
  You know, a bit like yourself, I just love to throw myself at it.
• 34:06
  I'm a gadget guy.
• 34:07
  I love the new cameras.
• 34:09
  I've been playing around with this Osmo.
• 34:10
  I've just bought the Ray-Ban ones, which I haven't really used this season, but I will next.
• 34:15
  And they've got the camera in them.
• 34:16
  Excellent.
• 34:17
  Yeah.
• 34:18
  You know, I just love all the – again, like I said, I love the process.
• 34:22
  I don't care whether I have four followers or 85,000 followers.
• 34:26
  You know, I'm not a look-what-I-did-today kind of guy, but I love making content and being part of making content and learning.
• 34:34
  I mean, Scrambler, who made our highlights shows this year –
• 34:38
  you know, have been teaching me a lot about editing and about how to speed things up, how to slow things down, how to take a slow-mo and turn it into something else.
• 34:45
  And, you know, I just love that.
• 34:47
  And while I don't pretend I want to be an editor or whatever, I just like to learn more and more.
• 34:52
  And I think, you know, if you're asking an advice question, but my advice is just, you know, throw yourself at it 100%.
• 34:59
  Don't just say, okay, your job is, your career asks you, you've just got to go to the pit lane and do this.
• 35:03
  Like yourself, do it all.
• 35:05
  Do it all.
• 35:05
  Volunteer to do it all.
• 35:07
  Well done, mate.
• 35:07
  Best piece of advice to wrap things up.
• 35:11
  That's wonderful.
• 35:11
  Thank you for spending a moment and talking with us about your career.
• 35:14
  A moment?
• 35:15
  It's been pretty.
• 35:15
  I know, I know.
• 35:17
  We've had a fantastic summer together.
• 35:18
  You're about to fly out tonight.
• 35:20
  We'll let you go and do that.
• 35:20
  Emma's going to throw me out in a minute.
• 35:22
  I know, I know.
• 35:22
  And I owe you one in the books.
• 35:24
  We'll talk for your pod and for things like that in the weeks and months ahead.
• 35:29
  And I'm serious about that.
• 35:30
  Definitely serious about that.
• 35:39
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 35:43
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 35:48
  The Garage, that's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fuelled stories.
• 35:53
  The Garage.