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Transcript

Max Wilson - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:19
G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature-length pod with Max Wilson.
0:24
If you've just jumped in, this is the second stint.
0:27
Make sure you check out part one, which is already in the Rusty's Garage library for you to enjoy.
0:33
From the TV work that he's doing now in Brazil covering Formula One, to the birthday present that changed his life as a kid.
0:41
The A-list names that he raced against in the junior formula in Brazil and how it helped him immensely.
0:47
Some sliding doors moments with Michael Schumacher's manager, Vili Weber, for example.
0:52
Advice from Christian Danner about driving those wild DTM cars.
0:57
And how sitting beside a random passenger on a flight to Europe opened the door to the ITC.
1:03
turning down Porsche and a Le Mans drive to focus on Formula One and much more.
1:09
The supercars chapter of his career and more is coming up in this one as we rejoin the conversation now.
1:15
Hope you enjoy it.
1:19
You make a decision clearly on the basis of, you know, trying to fuel that competitive desire to go and spend a bit of time in Champ Car.
1:28
Tell us how that came about.
1:30
And there were moments, there were glimpses there, Max, weren't there?
1:33
I think you were leading races at one point.
1:34
There was a fourth place finish and so on.
1:36
So, I mean, that was a great chapter for that class of cars as well.
1:41
That was awesome.
1:42
Actually, I ended up going to Indy cars like this.
1:46
At the end of 1999, I got an offer to be part of another shootout for Minardi to become a Minardi driver.
1:56
Yeah.
1:56
And I was part of the shootout with another guy.
1:59
And after the shootout, you know, Jim Carlin Minardi, he gave me a SMX.
2:03
He's going to be racing for us next year.
2:05
And one thing that happened on the same day that was testing the car, Fernando Lozso, the very first time he drove an F1 car was that same car on the same day I was testing.
2:15
Wow.
2:16
Because Alonso, that was 1999.
2:19
And on that year, he was sort of in a Spanish championship of Formula Nissan or something.
2:26
And as a price, he won two laps in a Formula One car, which was Minardi.
2:33
So anyway, I did this test and after the test, I said to me, okay, we picked two.
2:37
We're going to be racing for us next year.
2:40
So for me, it was like a lottery, you know, tickets.
2:43
I said, that's awesome.
2:44
So he sent me the contract and everything.
2:47
And that day I became in my mind and because of, he told me F1 driver for the 2000 season.
2:56
A couple of weeks later, he called me back.
2:58
I was in Brazil already.
2:59
That happened in the same year.
3:01
He said, Max, another driver with a lot of money showed up here, which his name is Gaston Mazican.
3:07
He's from Argentina.
3:09
He has a big sponsorship, so I cannot keep you.
3:11
So I'm sorry.
3:12
And, uh.
3:13
gold.
3:14
So when that happened was, see, I was out of a job because I thought I was going to race F1.
3:21
I had some other opportunities to be still doing F2s or F3000, even with McLaren team that invited me, gave me an offer to do F3000 and be part of the McLaren team as well.
3:34
So I turned that down because of Nardi.
3:36
But anyway,
3:38
When that thing happened, the first six months of the year 2000, I didn't do much at all.
3:44
And then I got an invitation to go to America to
3:48
be part of an IndyCar team, which was just starting to, on that year, testing, and they were going to race in the following year.
3:57
When I got this invitation, I said, yeah, for sure, let's do it.
3:59
So I moved to England, to America, and I tested for this team in the second part of the year, 2000, to be racing in the following year.
4:09
So when came the 2001 season, just before it started, this guy used to end the team.
4:17
He called me, Sam X, you're not part of the team anymore because I got another driver with a big sponsorship and you're out.
4:26
And I said, man, not again.
4:28
Two years in a row, I was just about to do something.
4:30
One time was an F1 gig.
4:32
Second time was an IndyCar gig.
4:35
The same thing happened.
4:36
And this guy that joined his team, which became a friend of mine, which is Oriel Servia.
4:41
Servia, yeah, yeah.
4:42
Oriel, back in the day, he was sponsored by Telephonic, which is a big telecom from Spain.
4:48
So anyway, when he told me that, that was out of the team...
4:52
I called my manager in America.
4:54
I had the manager back then.
4:55
And he said, Max, did he send you a fax?
4:58
No, that was back to the fax days.
5:01
You know, saying that you're out of the team.
5:02
I said, no, he didn't send me anything.
5:05
And then he told me, you got to go because the following day, there was a three season appearance in Fontana, California for all the teams.
5:15
And my manager said, Max, if you don't show up, he going to say that he terminated contract with you because he didn't.
5:21
So you got to go there.
5:23
And I told him, but man, he told me I'm out of the team.
5:26
So why do I go to Fontana for nothing?
5:29
But anyway, he told me to go, I went to Fontana.
5:32
So I turned up in Fontana.
5:33
When I landed in California, in Los Angeles, I called my father.
5:38
And my dad told me, the fax just arrived.
5:41
I was in the plane.
5:43
This son of a gun sent me a fax while I was flying.
5:47
So anyways, I got there in California.
5:49
I had a friend of mine that picked me up in the airport in LA.
5:53
And then I said to him, I said, you know what?
5:55
Take me to Fontana.
5:56
I want to go there.
5:57
So I went to the racetrack knowing that I didn't have a job anymore.
6:02
I was walking around the track, you know, media turning up for all the teams and drivers, and I was laughing.
6:09
And we'll see, because I was there, I was walking around, and then a guy just turned up and said, Hey, nice to meet you.
6:15
My name is...
6:16
Larry Brooks, I never met this guy before.
6:19
And he said, Max, I heard you are out of this team and we are putting a team together.
6:24
So I'd like to know if you're interested to talk about driving for us.
6:28
And I said, yeah, let's talk.
6:30
And then I went to this meeting with him and his partner, which was the guy that was actually bringing the money to the table to put this team together.
6:37
So I met those two guys and then we talked.
6:39
But they were also talking to other drivers that were already doing champ cars back in the day.
6:46
And I talked to, I thought to myself, okay, they were not going to pick me.
6:50
I never raced this thing before.
6:51
You know, they're talking to drivers that had a lot more experience than me.
6:55
So they told me they were doing great to take the decision the following day.
6:59
So the following day, I'll never forget, I was playing racquetball with this friend of mine, and then my phone rang, and they were calling me SMX, made our decision, and you're going to be our driver.
7:12
So I ended up driving for them, I got season, and that was 2001 season.
7:18
This team, they only had one car.
7:21
The car was from the year before, 2000, and the car also had a Mercedes engine, which now Mercedes had pulled out of chain cars the year before.
7:32
So we had an engine which now development, we had a car from the previous season.
7:37
But for me, it was something, you know, it was an opportunity.
7:40
So I raced for those guys, you know, on that year.
7:44
And there were races that I led, you know, a couple of races.
7:48
I finished fourth, as you just mentioned before.
7:50
And then like after maybe a dozen races, they came to me and said, listen, Max,
7:55
I had a contract for one year.
7:56
Hey, they wanted to extend the contract with me.
8:00
At the same time, Rusty, there were other teams coming to me offering, you know, opportunities for the following year.
8:08
But when this team, you know, they offered me an extension of the contract, even knowing that that team was the smallest one, I thought to myself, okay, those guys gave me the opportunity.
8:20
So I'm not walking away from that.
8:22
So I sign a deal to keep on going with them.
8:26
They turned out, I turned down all the other opportunities.
8:29
I thanked everybody.
8:31
And then maybe three, four months later, the team went broke and they didn't keep on going, which was good because that took me to Australia.
8:42
So before we start the supercars chapter, what was the champ car thing like to drive?
8:46
And I mean, back then, what are we talking?
8:47
Probably Daria Franchitti, Paul Tracy, and there were some great names in that class, weren't there?
8:53
All those guys, including Alex Zanardi.
8:56
Yeah.
8:57
Which, you know, I had a funny story with Zanardi because actually Zanardi was one of, actually Zanardi and his manager were the two guys that sort of started my opportunity in America.
9:09
Because in 1999, when I was still with Williams, that was the year that Zanardi became a Williams driver.
9:17
He joined the Williams.
9:18
And then in the very first time I met Zanardi, I couldn't believe how nice guy he was.
9:26
And he was so friendly and everything.
9:28
And I was telling him that I wanted to go to America because I knew Rusty, especially at Williams.
9:36
once they hired lunardi and they just had hired ralph schumacher you know those guys had i don't know two three year contract i was that i was testing for a couple of years i knew that was not going to have an opportunity there and at the same time for me back in late 90s early 2000 champ car was more fun it was more racing you know more opportunities
9:57
So I ended up going because of Alex, you know, to during the 1999 season, I went to America three times.
10:05
That's how this opportunity for me happened to go to America.
10:09
But the funny thing about Zernari was there was one race at Cleveland, which was an airport racetrack.
10:16
That race I was leading.
10:18
And I was leading a race.
10:20
And then when I came to the pits, a guy from Ganassi, which is a friend of mine, Bruno Jean-Pierre, which used to drive to Ganassi.
10:28
He crashed going to the pits.
10:30
And his car stopped it right on my pit bay.
10:33
So when I came to the pits, I couldn't stop because there was no parking for me there.
10:39
So I didn't sort of have drive-thru.
10:41
And luckily, I made back the pizza gun because of fuel.
10:44
So anyway, when that happened, I went to first, sort of to last.
10:47
You know, my race was over.
10:49
When I went back to the track,
10:52
I was right behind Zanardi and I just loved that guy.
10:56
That guy was so, so nice and everything.
10:58
And that's in racing, not very good because I was straight off, you know- Rivals.
11:02
Afraid to try to move.
11:03
Yeah, yeah.
11:04
I move on here because I was more careful than I should be.
11:08
So being so much more careful, I ended up crashing on him.
11:11
So I crashed on him and,
11:14
Because with the crash, he had a flat tire and everything.
11:18
So I was so sad because I grabbed my GTs racing and everything.
11:22
So that was awful.
11:24
But that's how I ended up going to the champ cars.
11:26
And the car itself was more fun for me to drive in an F1.
11:30
They used to have nearly a thousand horsepower.
11:32
Crazy.
11:33
The cars were very close as far as competitiveness.
11:37
And American way back in the day was totally different than the European way, especially the F1 Awe, which in the late 90s and early 2000s, everybody was really stuck up and that doesn't really fit my style.
11:52
So America was a lot more laid back.
11:54
Nobody thought they were the king of the hills and things like these are better than the other people because they are in a foreign sort of thing.
12:02
So I liked America better than than Europe back in the day.
12:05
So that's how I ended up going to America.
12:08
And I love the cars.
12:10
Cars were more drivable in the F1 cars, even back then.
12:16
They were more like in a rail.
12:17
You know, the car was really that much downforce.
12:21
So the car was so fast, but it could not play with the car so much.
12:25
In the car, it could still play with them.
12:26
So it was more fun to drive than F1 cars.
12:29
Awesome.
12:30
And we adopted you as an Aussie.
12:32
You liked America and I think you loved Australia even more.
12:35
How did that first kind of opportunity come about to go supercars racing?
12:40
What attracted you to it and so on?
12:45
One time in November of 2001, when the team was just about to close the doors, the team I was driving for, I got a friend of mine.
12:53
He got married in November of 2001.
12:56
And I was one of his best men.
12:58
So I had to come to Brazil for the wedding.
13:01
So I stayed here for about a week.
13:03
And one time during that week, I stayed with my parents when I came to Brazil, you know, back in the day.
13:11
So when I got to my parents' place, my dad came to me and said, listen, Max, a German guy called you and asked you,
13:19
to give him a ring.
13:21
And I said, but who?
13:22
He said, I don't know.
13:23
I said, but who is this guy?
13:24
I don't know.
13:25
So the first thing was, was my dad, because he lived in Germany, he can't speak German.
13:30
So that was the first part of the lucky side of it.
13:34
So anyway, when I saw the number that my dad took note for me, I remember the area code 61.
13:40
And I was like, man, 61, where the hell is this place?
13:44
So I called this number
13:47
Not even knowing our country that was.
13:50
So this guy, you know, I answered the phone.
13:52
His name is Alex.
13:53
He said, he's from Max.
13:54
My name is Alex with that German accent.
13:57
And I didn't know him.
13:58
And he said, Max, I know you from the F3000.
14:03
I used to be an engineer for one of the teams that were in F3000.
14:07
And after F3000, I worked in a DTRT for Mercedes for a few years and everything.
14:13
But now I'm in a championship, which is even better than DTM.
14:18
And I was like, okay, but what championship is it?
14:22
And he goes, V8 supercars.
14:25
And Rusty, back then, I'm talking about late 2001, I knew almost nothing about V8 supercars.
14:33
The only thing I knew about V8 was when I first drove the F3000, it was back in 1997.
14:41
And there was a kid that I never heard of, a Nazi guy called Craig Lowndes.
14:46
And he drove in the F3000, I see him here.
14:49
And I heard of Craig Lowndes.
14:52
And back to the day when I live in the American Speed Channel, which they had races or anything, there were some footage of V8 supercars, but that's not as much as I know about the V8 supercars.
15:04
And he was like, man, this thing is awesome.
15:06
This championship is so good and everything.
15:10
And he said, why don't you come over here and have a look and talk to us with the team and everything.
15:16
And where's Steve?
15:17
I said, okay, I will do it.
15:19
Like he was in the shopping scene next to my gun here.
15:24
And then he hung up, I rang up and following day was with a couple of mates of mine, they were talking about whatever.
15:32
And then I said, next week I'm going to Australia.
15:36
And this guy looked at me like.
15:38
We're going to be in Australia.
15:39
I said, ah, I received this phone call from this guy and everything.
15:42
And you were like, do you know this guy?
15:44
Do you know if he even exists or what's the deal?
15:48
And I was like, man, you're right.
15:50
I called this guy back in Australia.
15:52
I said, listen, can you talk over the phone?
15:55
Because Australia isn't that close to Brazil.
15:57
And he goes like, Max, I think he can talk, but I think you should come over here and look in our
16:02
See for yourself.
16:03
See for yourself.
16:04
See for yourself.
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And I was like, you know what?
16:06
I go.
16:07
So I jumped in the plane.
16:08
Halfway through the journey, I was like, man, if there's nobody there, they're going to be really upset about it.
16:14
It took me 30 hours to get to Australia.
16:17
So anyway, I got to Australia and the guy was there.
16:20
So that was the first part, which was really important.
16:23
And I actually didn't know him.
16:25
He was an Austrian guy, which used to work on that year for John Briggs.
16:29
John Briggs.
16:30
Briggs Motorsports.
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So when I landed in Australia, I was, I so wanted to go to a hotel, to have a shower, to rest a little bit.
16:38
And he took me straight to the race team.
16:41
in Brisbane.
16:43
And I met John Briggs, which he was saying nice to me.
16:46
We were there for another hour.
16:47
But when I got there, we were still
16:50
I was so impressed about the team itself, everything they had and the infrastructure and everything.
16:58
I was like, man, this thing is a lot bigger than the IndyCar team that I drive in America.
17:03
So after an hour talking to John Boogues, which I never had seen the guy before, he called one of the mechanics and goes, oh, take Max to take a rest.
17:14
So this guy put me in the car,
17:16
And drove me, you know, for about 15, 20 minutes.
17:20
And then he drives into a property and he stopped right in front of big house.
17:26
And he goes like, I go like, what's this place?
17:31
And he goes, that's John Green's house.
17:33
And they were like, what am I doing here?
17:37
Because I thought you were going to take me to a hometown.
17:39
And he goes, no, you're going to stay over here.
17:41
I mean, I was like, man, 30 hours long.
17:44
I'd never seen these people before.
17:46
So anyway, I took my luggage and everything.
17:50
And I walked into John Loxbury's house and his wife was there, which I never had seen before.
17:55
Nicky.
17:56
And I was rusty.
17:58
I'm a kind of a shy person.
17:59
Yes.
18:00
Imagine me walking to somebody's house I'd never seen before, cross a planet.
18:06
I was like, man, that's not very good, but whatever.
18:08
Whatever.
18:08
So I walked in there, you know, big feeling like, you know, all shy and everything.
18:13
And I started to talk to Nikki Briggs.
18:15
And she's such a nice lady.
18:17
And I was talking to her for a few hours.
18:18
And then three, four hours later, John turned up.
18:22
And then Rusty was the very beginning for me why I ended up going to Australia.
18:29
Because when I met John and Nikki, and I spent a couple of days with them.
18:34
And then the third day I was there, John came to me and said, listen.
18:38
One of our drivers invited us to go for a boat ride.
18:44
And I said, okay, let's do it.
18:46
And then they took me to Sanctuary Cove from Brisbane and all the way to the Sanctuary Cove, John goes like, oh man, this guy, you know, he raised for, he's going to raise for me.
18:55
He won Bathurst last year and his family is the wealthiest family in Queensland.
19:03
And I said, oh, good for him.
19:05
And this guy was telling Longhurst, but.
19:09
Man, when John told me that this family was the wealthiest family in Queensland, I was like, man, that has to be a playboy, like a guy like this, man, up his nose and everything.
19:23
And then once I got there...
19:25
Tony was there and Carrie Longvress was there and their kids.
19:30
And Tony was, you know Tony, such a nice guy, so down to earth.
19:35
And I was like, man, these people in Australia, they're different.
19:38
And I ended up meeting some Tony's friends, some John Briggs friends, and Rusty.
19:45
Make a long story short, I stayed there on this trip maybe six days.
19:50
And again, I go to the part when I drove the car as well, but right at the beginning, I was so impressed with the Australian people, you know, the Australian way of being, you know, and I just fell in love with you guys because...
20:06
Australia, the people are so nice in general.
20:08
For sure, you know, there are bad and good people all over the world.
20:10
But as far as, you know, percentage, let's say, people in Australia are just amazing.
20:16
They are so kind and so down to earth.
20:19
Tony, for instance, he was a guy that was a middleman, but he used to go surfing with mechanics.
20:25
The mechanics stayed at his place.
20:28
And that doesn't happen in many places.
20:30
In Brazil, that doesn't happen at all.
20:32
You know, that was so new to me and so nice.
20:35
And so I just fell in love with the people.
20:39
And that's why when you ran me to do this chat, and that's why I still have friends in Australia up to this day.
20:46
I left Australia 15 years ago, and I still have very close friends even to this day because you guys are just the best people in the world, and I just fell in love with you.
20:57
And on the same trip, John Briggs, he asked me to, if I wanted to drive a car to see how it feels.
21:05
And I didn't go there to drive anything.
21:07
I didn't even take my gear or anything.
21:10
And I was like, when he offered me to do that, I was like, man, I just drove a DTM once in my life.
21:17
At the beginning, it was very embarrassing.
21:19
I don't want to embarrass myself once again.
21:20
And this time you sit in the wrong side of the car on top of it.
21:25
When I thought to myself, you know what?
21:27
I made all this trip here.
21:29
Let's see what happens.
21:31
And then they took me to Willowbank.
21:33
And back in the day, John Briggs had three cars.
21:38
He had already two drivers signed up.
21:39
It was Tony Longhurst and Sam Woods, which became a good friend of mine as well.
21:44
And the other car didn't have a driver still.
21:46
So I remember Tony Longhurst, he had a ute, which I never had seen a ute before.
21:54
So he took me to a couple of laps at Willow Bank on his ute.
21:58
He showed me which gear the corners were and more or less where the bridge
22:01
points were.
22:02
And then Tony did a few laps and Simon did a few laps.
22:07
And I remember Simon and Tony, they did about 13, 113.2.
22:13
And that was my turn to do a few laps.
22:15
And then I jumped in the car and I think the track was a little bit cleaner because I have done a few laps before.
22:20
And my very first lap was a 13.2.
22:24
And then about half a dozen laps later, I did a 12.6 or 12.7.
22:29
And, you know, the changing of the gear was strange for me because it was left hand side and everything.
22:35
And after that, two laps, John Briggs wanted to sign me right on the spar, you know.
22:41
And I told John, I said, listen, John, I knew that he had more drivers to be testing.
22:47
Even some drivers from Europe that invited over to be, to have a test and everything.
22:51
I said, listen, John.
22:53
You have some other drivers to test.
22:56
I'm also talking, you know, still with a couple of teams in America.
22:59
So you do what you have to do.
23:01
I'm going to still talk to this team in America.
23:04
So whenever you test everybody and they're going to have some news from America, we can talk again.
23:11
So about a couple of weeks later, he called me back and I was in Brazil already.
23:15
He said, Max, we tested everybody that we had to test.
23:19
And so how are things on your side?
23:23
And on my side, back then I wanted to do IndyCars.
23:28
But IndyCars in 2001 was like now dropping because of the all IRL and everything was happening.
23:36
Penske was getting out of the championship.
23:39
So I had some possibilities, but I had nothing really done.
23:44
Concrete.
23:46
Concrete.
23:47
And I thought to myself, you know what?
23:49
This guy is offering me a game in Australia.
23:52
You know, I go to Australia for one year because you know, and he still work in America in IndyCar thing.
23:59
And so I'm gonna take it.
24:00
So I said to John, okay, I will do it.
24:02
So I went to Australia in 2003 and ended up staying there for about six years.
24:08
And that was one of the best part of my life.
24:21
From one dude, to another.
24:23
Paul Morris was once described as a dirty dangerous dude.
24:27
He is the straight talking racer who now uses that experience to coach the next generation.
24:32
To be honest, the kids or the young drivers, and I say drivers because I mean men and women, you know, the car doesn't know if it's got a female or a male driving it.
24:41
So a driver's a driver in my books.
24:44
So the drivers coming through now that are coming through karting and at such a young age, it just amazes me how good they are and how they understand.
24:56
Paul Morris has had a long-standing career in Australian motorsport.
24:59
He's also in the garage library discussing supercars, formula Ford and more.
25:04
Check out the dude.
25:06
Alright back to the dude.
25:07
Sorry, that's a bit confusing.
25:10
Let's keep rolling.
25:13
Just coming back to the supercars chapter for you, how wildly different – I mean, you talked about the gear shift being – oh, that's obvious, right?
25:21
But how wildly different was it to anything else you had raced before?
25:25
And then when you started racing them, did it open your eyes?
25:28
I mean, like you knew of Craig Lowndes and you'd heard a little bit about supercars and so on, but all of a sudden you start to realize how competitive, how intense –
25:38
And that was when the sport was in a really golden period, Max, when you were there.
25:42
I mean, it was tough, wasn't it?
25:44
It was really tough.
25:44
Actually, there were a couple of drivers that I heard of when I first started.
25:49
Craig Lowndes, that I mentioned to you before, and Paul Radzic, because when I was in Europe, Paul Radzic was doing BTCC, which was very strong.
25:58
And before I had done my deal with John to start this gig in Australia, I was looking to some
26:05
info about the Stratton Championship Supercars.
26:08
And I remember that in 2001 or 2000 or thereabouts, I remember that Paul Radzic, he finished, I don't know, maybe 11th or 15th or not very good in the V8.
26:22
And as I mentioned to you before, competing for me, it's something for whatever reason, it attracts me big time.
26:29
And I want to compete, always wanted and still do to this day, to compete in the toughest places I can find.
26:37
And I knew that Paul Radzic was a great driver because he even won the world championship back in the BTCC and everything.
26:44
And I thought to myself, this guy is that good and he's not in the top 10.
26:49
This championship has to be really good.
26:51
So that was very attractive to me.
26:54
But I remember this first race in Adelaide.
26:57
I qualified, I think in sixth or fifth or fourth or thereabouts.
27:02
And one thing for me that was kind of, I didn't know where I was talking as far as Australian, competing in Australia.
27:10
Uh, I don't know before that, but when I was there, I was the only non Australian or New Zealander.
27:18
there where I was competing full-time in Australia.
27:21
So when I got there, I thought to myself, are those guys gonna give me a hard time because I'm outsider kind of thing?
27:29
And then in the very first race in Adelaide, I started on P6 and then when the race started, man, so many guns crashing into me.
27:38
And I was like, man, those guys are trying to intimidate me or they don't like me for whatever reason.
27:45
I wasn't scared, I was pissed.
27:47
You know, I knew a car.
27:50
And I was like, man, they didn't appreciate what those guys had done to me.
27:53
Somebody spun me off or something like this.
27:56
And then I got a funny story about the beginning.
27:59
I think the second or third round was in the field of Parliament.
28:05
And then I started somewhere, I topped on somewhere.
28:09
And that was on the first lap, there was a crash or something happened.
28:12
There was a red flag.
28:14
the red flag of the race in the very beginning.
28:16
And then when we were driving back to the grade because of the red flag, this guy was, you know, hitting my car from behind and I was in the mirror, like during the red flag, this guy tapped me three, four times, you know, during the driving back to the grade.
28:31
When I stopped on the grade, I'm a very calm person, but that really upset me.
28:36
So I jumped out of the car and I went to this guy, which was Gath Dender.
28:41
And I opened his door and I started to scream at him and shout and swear at him, you son of a gun.
28:50
And he was listening to me and he told me to whatever and I was... And then the race was just about to start again.
28:57
So we started the race, the race was on.
28:59
And I remember that there were like 45 cars back in the day.
29:04
I didn't know anybody.
29:05
So when I just, you know, memorized, that's the valvian car, Garth Panger.
29:12
But the problem was there were two valve linders.
29:15
And then a couple of races later in Orem Park, the race started.
29:21
I started in the top 10 again somewhere.
29:23
And there was a big confusion.
29:25
And then the next thing I realized, there was a valve in the car just in front of me.
29:29
And I said, man, that's the day we did justice.
29:34
But I was like, man, which one of them, you know, is it Garth Thander or the other guy, which I didn't know the guy was Bargwana.
29:41
Jason Bargwana.
29:42
And I was like, man, there is a 50-50 chance of being the right guy.
29:47
So I just went for it and bang, took him off and went off with him and that big crash.
29:53
And I looked, that was Bargs and Bargs.
29:58
And Boris, Bruce was the most likable person that I could have met on the grid.
30:05
When I first started, you know, people were so high and low on things like this, but Boris, you know, he was hugging me, kissing me.
30:12
He was so nice to me, but I didn't even know he drove a velvet car.
30:16
You know, I just found out when I took him off for thinking that was Gus Dander.
30:20
I said, man, that was so sorry.
30:22
I thought it was somebody else.
30:23
And I tried to explain to him.
30:28
But very early, I also realized that at first I thought everybody were against me.
30:34
But then I realized that everybody were against everybody.
30:37
They were crashing into each other.
30:39
And the last thing that I had at the very beginning, the first season was, remember Canberra?
30:46
Yes.
30:47
The racetrack?
30:47
Yeah.
30:48
And I went to Canberra.
30:50
The Canberra track was, first of all, it was very narrow.
30:53
And the camera was very cold.
30:55
And I remember cold going out of the pits, such an air track and my tires are cold.
31:03
So I couldn't get out of the way.
31:05
And then Ego was behind me.
31:08
And it turned out that I sort of blocked him without any intention because I didn't have where to go.
31:14
The tires were free, I had no grip at all.
31:16
So anyway.
31:17
He passed and swerved his car into my car.
31:21
And I didn't know Russell Eagle at all.
31:23
But because I was there, I knew that, ah, there is a guy called Enforcer.
31:28
You know, the guy is the bad guy.
31:31
And I was like, no, that's my favorite one to get a problem with.
31:35
So once I realized that I was Russell,
31:38
And what he did wasn't necessary.
31:41
You know, I didn't mean to upset his rap or anything.
31:44
So when I stopped in the pitch, I went to his garage.
31:48
And I was ready to fuck him up.
31:49
Sorry, the language.
31:53
And I was like, I was still in that phase.
31:55
Okay, if these guys are trying to intimidate me, I better, you know.
31:58
Step up.
31:59
Tell them that I don't feel intimidated by them.
32:03
And then I was just about to.
32:06
take care of business but people just you know separated us and about six months later i realized that uh actually that was the way that races were in australia and rusty in a very short period of time as i mentioned to you i was kind of worried if people were going to treat me differently because i wasn't straddling or kiwi or anything
32:28
But it turned out that people were just so nice to me, all of them, including Eagle and everyone.
32:35
And I made so many friends within the drivers like, you know, Omar, the Caddy brothers, you know, which were so nice to me.
32:45
And of course, Tony Longhurst and Simon Wills and Dean Cano and...
32:50
Frosty and so many other drivers that, uh, Greg Berg and, and so many other drivers that, uh, I race against.
32:57
And, uh, I just can say thank you to all of you guys who be so nice to me on my, on my gig in the strata.
33:06
Now, Paul Morris and I have spoken in the lead up to this, and he reminded me of a bit of a scary moment for you two guys.
33:16
So you flew in a helicopter from Sydney to the Gold Coast, and I think you had to refuel in Coffs Harbour.
33:24
That's right.
33:25
Now, I need to preface this story by saying on the day, Paul did an amazing job.
33:31
He followed all the procedures and he resolved the situation really calmly and worked with the helicopter distributors and the authorities and so on.
33:43
And you guys are still here to tell the story, which is great.
33:46
But Max, that must have scared the hell out of you.
33:49
Tell us what happened that day.
33:52
Actually, you're very precise about talking about what Paul Morris did in the show.
33:57
The only thing that I should have done that day was kicking one of the helicopter while you're still flying.
34:05
Because then what happened was the day before that day, Paul called me and said, listen, Max, I just got to take an helicopter, a chopper in Sydney, and we're going to fly back to Australia.
34:19
So...
34:21
Would you like to come with me?
34:23
And I said, listen, Paul, I appreciate the offer, but I don't like flying helicopters.
34:26
You don't?
34:27
I'm scared of that.
34:27
You don't?
34:28
No.
34:29
Damn it.
34:29
And he was like, come on, don't be, you know, like, let's do it, blah, blah, blah.
34:33
Let's try to push me to do it.
34:36
And okay, so that's you.
34:37
So we took a flight, a plane ride to Sydney.
34:42
We slept there.
34:43
And then the following day, we went to do...
34:47
to get this new helicopter.
34:49
And the guy that was delivering the helicopter to Paul was like when you go by a car.
34:53
They show you the dashboard and whatever.
34:57
So after an hour or so, we took off from Sydney.
35:00
So we flew, I was kind of scared because I'm scared of helicopters.
35:03
So we stopped in Cobbs Harbor to refill.
35:08
And back, you know, that was a couple of hours later, so it was more relaxed.
35:12
And then we took off again.
35:13
I was sitting in the left-hand side of the chopper, Paul in the right-hand center, and we were talking all over the radio because I have talking, you know, on the radio and we were talking about something and he goes like, shit.
35:27
So what happened?
35:29
He goes, this, I think it's called a collective or whatever, it's stuck.
35:34
You know, this thing has to go up and down.
35:35
It's just going up, it's not going down.
35:38
And the very first thing I asked him was like, okay, can you land this thing like this?
35:42
And he goes, no, we cannot land it because to land this thing, you're going to move this stick downwards and it's not going downwards.
35:51
And then Paul grabbed the manual.
35:53
And the manual was like, you know, maybe 50,000 pages.
35:57
And he gave it to me.
36:00
And I was like, man, if I'm going to die today, what am I reading this thing?
36:05
He gave it to me.
36:06
I was not to look, you know, where the manual is when they saw it.
36:10
And by the time I found something, we were long dead.
36:13
I was thinking to myself.
36:15
And then Paul started to talk with this radio, with the tower, control tower, cyber, saying, okay, we've got a situation here.
36:22
We're going to fly back there and you're going to have to do a crash landing.
36:26
And I was like, man, crash landing doesn't sound a good thing.
36:29
And in the meantime, Rusty, I was like, because we were flying over the ocean, I was thinking to myself, okay, when they get close to the ocean, I'm going to open the door and jump in the water because...
36:41
I think, you know, that's where some possibility.
36:45
You might survive.
36:48
And, uh, and Paul was talking over to the tower and they were already preparing the, the, the track for us to land because Paul, when this thing doesn't go down, that stick that he was controlling, you're going to have to land the chopper during like 200 miles an hour or 200 kilometers an hour.
37:04
You cannot slow the thing down if you don't move that thing downwards because change the, the.
37:09
angle of the blades or whatever.
37:12
And then we were talking to the radio, and then the lucky part was, Paul, as you mentioned, he stayed calm.
37:19
And then there was another guy flying a chopper nearby, and he was listening to our conversation, I mean, to our Paul and the towers conversation.
37:26
And he goes like, Paul, what's going on there?
37:28
And he goes, ah, this thing is jammed, it's not going down.
37:32
And this guy and the other chopper say, how is the control on the other side where I was sitting?
37:38
And where I was sitting rusty, there was no stick, but there were the bitch put the stick on and Paul reached his hand over there.
37:47
And then he grabs myself, which was just that.
37:53
It fell out of your pocket?
37:55
No, I put it there when I sat in the chopper.
38:00
And it jammed it.
38:01
It jammed it so he couldn't lower it.
38:03
Jammed it.
38:04
Yeah, because when you move one side, the other side moves with it.
38:07
You know, both sides of both seats have the same controls.
38:10
So when Paul grabbed myself and then I think back was back working again.
38:16
Rusty, I didn't know if I tried, if I laughed.
38:20
And Paul was looking at me like, you know, I thought he was going to put me out of the upper thousand feet of this.
38:30
So we kept our trip.
38:32
So we landed on his house on the Gold Coast.
38:37
When I got out of the chopper, I could twist the ground like a pulp.
38:41
And I said, man, I don't see this scene no more.
38:44
But that was a scary moment.
38:46
Well done.
38:46
The whole thing took about maybe 15 minutes, but felt like took a day.
38:51
That was so scary.
38:53
It ended well.
38:54
That's the most important thing.
38:55
Hey, let's bounce around a little bit about supercars here because I'd like to talk Brazilian stock cars with you as well.
39:01
Just quickly, there were some moments of beauty along the way.
39:04
I mean, I can remember you being – I can remember, I think, emceeing a podium at Sydney Motorsport Park when you were with Dick Johnson Racing, for example, and you were there.
39:14
What were the kind of moments that stand out for you in the supercars chapter that you feel sort of proudest of?
39:20
First, I think, you know, to be quite honest, when I think about Australian supercar for me, I have a mixed feelings because I just loved it.
39:29
It was a great part of my career and great part of my life.
39:33
But at the same time, I feel like unfinished business.
39:37
Because I stayed there for about six seasons and I didn't reach any close,
39:47
to where I wanted to reach in the V8 supercars.
39:51
I wanted to fight for wins and championships and things like this and didn't happen.
39:56
And I truly believed and still believe to this day that that could have happened, but for whatever reasons, or some things that happened along the way that didn't.
40:08
I had some sweet and sour taste in my mouth because of that, despite I loved it.
40:14
But I would say that the greatest thing that I'm more proud of, there are a couple of things.
40:21
In the first year I raced in 2002 with Briggs, I've never been to any of the tracks that we raced apart from Winnowbank.
40:32
And back then, I think there were 12 or 13 rounds on that season.
40:37
And I qualified in the top 10.
40:39
If there were 12 rounds, I qualified 11 times.
40:42
We're...
40:43
13 I qualified 12 times.
40:44
Race tracks I've ever been with in a very strong, you know, landscape, like the VH was great as far as competitiveness and drivers.
40:53
Pretty impressive, mate.
40:53
Pretty impressive.
40:55
That was the thing that, and I think RECISO also brings to me where we started this chat today.
41:04
Uh, I, I tried so hard, you know, I tried to compress, I tried to get results, perhaps sometimes harder than I should.
41:13
And, uh, but that's, I think why I qualified, you know, most of, almost a hundred percent.
41:18
in the top 10, which was difficult back in the day to do that.
41:21
So that's, you know, as far as in track is concerned, that's probably the thing that I was more proud of.
41:28
But the thing which I think is the most important for me is mainly I'm a racing car driver, but more, most important, I'm a person.
41:38
And I think, you know, all the friendships that I made in Australia, the way that people treat me, and the friendship that I made
41:47
with my competitors and the friends that still have to be like yourself, for example.
41:52
I think that's the thing for me that's the most important because racing, you know, I love racing.
41:57
It's a very important part of my life.
41:59
But there are things that I stick forever, you know, friendship and things that I lived in Australia with people, the friends I made, that's the most important thing for me, not
42:10
The motor sport industry, which takes on the VH car drivers, the teams and mechanics, the guys like Michael Massey, Troy Bundy, which, you know, they used to work for Vesco, which are still friends of yourself, Daryl.
42:23
Mick Doohan, you know Mick?
42:26
I still talk to Mick from time to time.
42:27
Mick was such an amazing story with Mick, but a funny one about Mick was,
42:34
And I remember that, say 2007, I applied for a residency in Australia in immigration.
42:40
Yeah.
42:41
And, uh, you have to cure up a form now and you're still at the form, you're gonna add points to your, you know, application.
42:49
And there was a part where you had to bring a couple of letters from a couple of citizens from Australia.
42:56
References, yeah.
42:57
References.
42:58
And I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to take one from Tony Longhurst.
43:03
And I went to Mick Duran and Rusty, the writer that Mick Duran wrote about me,
43:10
Not even my mother never wrote those things about me.
43:13
I was like, man, I'm sort of embarrassed to take this thing to immigration because he was so nice to me.
43:19
And Nick, you know, talking about Australian people, you know, Mick is a legend.
43:24
I was a big fan of Mick even before I thought I was going to go to Australia someday.
43:29
And when I met Mick Doohan, you know,
43:31
I met him in a party after the Melbourne Grand Prix in 2002, which was my second race, I think.
43:37
And then at this party, you know, somebody introduced me to Mick, and he goes, oh, where do you live?
43:41
I said, I live in Cirrus Paradise.
43:43
And he goes, oh, I live just, you know, nearby.
43:46
And he gave me his phone number.
43:49
I gave him my phone number.
43:51
And I was like, no, I was like, no, I'm seeing God, because Mick was, you know, for me, was such a legend.
43:57
And then I thought, I'm never going to call this guy.
44:00
I have nothing to say.
44:01
Hmm.
44:02
Hmm.
44:02
And then a couple of days later, he run me and he goes, Hey, Max, are you doing?
44:07
I said, I'm doing good.
44:08
And he goes, what are you doing tomorrow?
44:11
And I said, nothing.
44:12
And he said, okay, so meet me somewhere.
44:15
So anyway, I started to hang out with Mick and the very first time is where I was like, you know,
44:21
tense because that was Mick Doerrman.
44:24
But then I realized that Mick was a good example of man, that guy's a legend, but so down to work.
44:30
So, so easy going.
44:32
He's not like I'm a legend or a superstar or anything, despite that he is.
44:37
So this is the part, the part, uh, received that from me I'm most proud of because racing is part of my life.
44:45
You do that for a period of time, but those things that you build along the way, They're forever, Max.
44:51
They're forever, aren't they?
44:52
Yeah, exactly.
44:53
That's the most important.
44:55
In wrapping up the supercars thing, so I think we probably need to make the point that some things were circumstantial, Max, that were beyond your control.
45:02
I mean, I think if memory serves me right.
45:05
the agreement or the situation that you had with, with Triple Eight ended a year early.
45:10
You talked before about WPS and so on, but you did have, I mean, talking of friends there before, Luciano Berti had introduced you to Greg Siddle, to Pee Wee, and he kind of helped you in, in the background to navigate a lot of that stuff, didn't he?
45:24
He was a great part of my career.
45:26
My, my, my sting in Australia.
45:28
He's also a guy that still talk today.
45:31
And he was like, uh, greatly now Pee Wee,
45:34
He was a lot more than a manager.
45:37
He was a friend.
45:38
He was kind of a father figure to me.
45:40
And the PeeWee did this thing to me that never hadn't happened before.
45:44
It never happened since.
45:46
When I sat with PeeWee.
45:47
to make our deal as far as, you know, he's going to look after my interest in Australia, being my sort of manager.
45:54
And never forget, we were in Sydney, you know, we had coffee and we were talking about, you know, doing something together.
46:00
And then he made his proposal as far as, you know, what the deal should be.
46:05
And he goes, Max, and I don't need a contract with you.
46:08
I don't need a piece of paper because each are happy together, you stick together, each are not happy together, you go separate ways.
46:15
And that to me was never happened before and never happened since.
46:18
Now the guy do with me just by word.
46:22
And that shows me, showed me a lot about period that day.
46:26
And that guy, he was so nice to me.
46:29
And, uh, there were some hiccups along the way, you know, you mentioned about the triple eight situation and things that happened, which were a bit confusing.
46:38
And he was always by my side, always did the right thing to me and, uh, and friendship and the.
46:45
I was so thankful and grateful to him because he was like a father to me, you know, in Australia.
46:50
So I just love this guy.
46:52
And, uh, I, I didn't mention many names about people that I love in Australia because it's such a long list and they don't want to let everybody else.
47:02
But since you brought up Peewee, that guy is just like a father to me.
47:07
I love the man and, uh.
47:09
Peewee is a kind of a guy that I just wished I hadn't met him earlier, you know, not because only to meet such a nice guy prior to that, to my Australian state, but also Peewee, if I hadn't met Peewee early in my career, I think my career could be a little bit different because he had a lot of knowledge.
47:29
He knows how to handle a lot of situations and on top of that, and most importantly, he's just an amazing person.
47:39
He's been on the podcast in recent weeks and I was reminded about how many people he's worked with along the way, Max.
47:46
And he's a bit different to other driver managers.
47:49
He's just a man of great integrity.
47:51
And as you say, he's got such a wealth of knowledge.
47:53
Was it hard to leave Aussie?
47:55
And was it the lure of going home to Brazil and the chance to maybe compete in the stock cars, which are huge?
48:02
I mean, Mark Winterbottom's been over there and raced them on occasion and so on.
48:06
Was it hard to leave Australia?
48:07
And were you excited about starting something new back at home finally?
48:11
No, it was hard to leave Australia.
48:13
And I still miss Australia these days.
48:15
Now, it's one of those things where I see if I could spend a bit of time there, a bit of time here would be- Perfect.
48:19
Ultimate, you know, perfect.
48:22
But I still live, it was hard to live Australia because of, I had such a great time there.
48:28
I met so many amazing people there, but also I had, I had and I still have amazing people here as well.
48:35
And so for me, I felt was the right moment for me to go back and keep on going in my life, my career over here.
48:45
And once I got here, a couple of years later, I became a father.
48:49
So my son is now 13.
48:52
And so now for me, Ostrata is a place where I'm going to go back very soon for a holiday to see my friends, to see you guys, to go to a V8 route, to see, you know, to be part of it again, perhaps do a drills race, you know, sometime in the future, I had so many people inviting me, the Caddy brothers.
49:12
Larkama and BJR and so many guys invited me to go over to Australia but because of the stock cars and the broadcasting I also work at the Porsche Cup in Brazil so my weekends are pretty much all taken all year long so I couldn't never do it but even though if I never been back to race again I may be going back to holiday and see my friends like shit
49:34
you do win the Brazilian stock car title, Max.
49:38
So in a kind of bookend racing career sense in some ways, I mean, that must have been enormously special.
49:45
That was mainly because it was my first year in the series.
49:49
And when I first started in the stock cars, there were so many great drivers, drivers that had been in F1 and Indy cars and everything, that struggled when they got to the stock cars.
50:00
But that was also the rest of the year that my son was born, which was 2010.
50:05
So that was a very special year, you know, mainly because of my son.
50:09
Well, I'm going to say something now that's not just saying because I'm talking to you, but it's very much true.
50:16
Part of the championship that I won in 2010 and part of the success I had in the stock cars over here in Brazil, which I did for 11 years and luckily always running among the top, part of that success is...
50:32
because of the VH in Australia, because that was such a learning experience for me.
50:38
And being part of for about six seasons in probably the toughest and the hardest championship
50:47
of touring cars in the world, you know, that taught me so many things that was and still is very useful, you know, in my racing career still.
50:55
So for sure, you know, part of the championship, the 2010 championships and the victories and the good results that I achieved in Brazil, part of that success is because of the VA Superstars.
51:06
Tell people a little bit about them.
51:08
Frosty's spoken about it in Australia and so on.
51:11
What is that class of racing line?
51:14
How different is it to supercars, for example, and maybe a little bit of the tech in the cars?
51:20
I would say the biggest differences between here and Australia, at least when I was there, I'm not sure how the rules are today in the V8 supercars.
51:28
First off, the engines are the same for everyone.
51:32
It's a spec engine, so there is no difference between the engines.
51:36
The cars themselves are exactly the same.
51:39
It's made in Brazil.
51:40
There are some parts from Europe, but the cars are the same.
51:43
It's not like in Australia that, you know, 888 and built their own car.
51:47
Yes.
51:48
And other teams have done the same thing.
51:51
So therefore, the series become a lot more, a lot cheaper because of that.
51:57
And in some ways more competitive because the cars, the good cars and the bad cars are more leveled up.
52:03
Gotcha.
52:04
Than in Australia when, you know, the good cars, you know, were so much better than the team, the smaller teams, let's say.
52:11
And...
52:13
And the drivers, which is similar to the Australian V8s, because they do that for so many years, they become so good in that particular car that the series itself is very competitive.
52:27
So, for instance, when Frosty came over here to do the sort of endurance races here,
52:35
happened to him what happened to a lot of people that come to Brazil, which is very similar when people go to Australia, they struggle.
52:43
to do well because it's so competitive.
52:46
Like there was a time in the stock cars that there were six or seven former F1 drivers that were doing cold driving here, like Jack Villeneuve among others.
52:57
And they struggled, not because they are not good drivers, they're great drivers, but it's very competitive.
53:01
It's very tough to do well.
53:03
But I would say the biggest differences are pretty much,
53:07
the equipment's more level, the fuel is more level playing field than Australia used to be.
53:13
I'm not too sure how the playing field in Australia is today, but I think that's the biggest difference.
53:18
And also, as far as the driving is concerned, Australia, the V8, when I drove the V8, was a car that had a lot more horsepower
53:29
than down for them, you know, grip, for instance.
53:33
And the stock car is a car that doesn't have that much horsepower.
53:36
We have about 500 horsepower, but the grip level is higher than the V8.
53:42
So it's a car that you can carry more speed through the corners.
53:46
And you have to because you don't have as much horsepower as the V8, which, you know, back then you used to have almost 700 horsepower.
53:53
So, but they are still both, they're good fun to drive and they're both very competitive.
53:58
Yeah.
53:58
In wrapping this up, is your son racing?
54:02
A little birdie tells me he may have a go-kart and maybe there is a next generation Wilson.
54:07
Tell us about that.
54:11
Racing, my son is racing.
54:12
My son is 13 and he started only a couple of years ago.
54:17
And he's doing well, you know, he's learning very fast.
54:20
He's doing a category where kids that drive with him, they have started when they were five, six, seven years old.
54:28
And my son started when he was 11.
54:30
So he started a lot later than those kids.
54:34
So he's still in the catch up and catching up in the process part of it, which is hard, but he's doing good.
54:41
You know, the last race, he finished fifth among, you know, 35 cars, drivers.
54:47
So he's doing well.
54:48
And he's also, for me, Rusty, to be quite honest, as a father, if you ask me,
54:54
You wish your son is going to be a racing car driver.
54:58
I don't have that desire.
55:00
I want my son to be a good person, to be happy.
55:03
And I think, you know, sport in general and motor sport specifically, I think is a great school of life.
55:11
You know, you learn so many things in motor sport, they can apply, you can apply for the rest of your life, any area of your life.
55:19
In the personal side, you should become a
55:22
business man or if you become on labor, whatever you do in your life.
55:26
I think, you know, motor sport is sport in general, but motor sport helps you to a lot of things for your life.
55:33
And that's where I'm focusing on.
55:35
I want him to learn things for his life.
55:38
And if on top of that, he becomes a professional racing car driver, time to tell.
55:44
You know, I don't have that expectation.
55:47
I just let things go and see what happens, but he's solving it.
55:50
You are a beautiful human being, mate.
55:52
You haven't changed a bit.
55:53
I have nearly worn out your voice in this hour, 45 minutes of conversation.
55:57
Thank you so much, Max, to walk down memory lane on not just the supercars component, which we all have quite fond memories of, but other things in your career that people...
56:08
in our part of the world may not know about your time around F1 and Champ Car and some of the learnings for you as you climbed the ladder and made a career of it.
56:18
Well done.
56:19
Good luck with the broadcasting.
56:21
Keep powering there, mate.
56:22
And it's been fantastic to get you on for a chat.
56:24
Thank you so much.
56:25
I appreciate your invitation again, Rusty.
56:27
I'm so grateful and thankful for being part of this chat with you.
56:31
And let's do that again in the future.
56:33
And it's a compromise.
56:35
I'm going to go to Australia in the near future.
56:37
I'm going to let you know you're going to catch up over there and have lots of conversations.
56:41
We call Derek and Mick and Tony Longhurst and Jude Norris and everybody to have some fun together, right?
56:47
Thank you so much for having me here today.
56:49
And I'll talk to you soon, my friend.
56:51
Big love, mate.
56:51
I look forward to that.
56:52
Thank you.
56:53
Take care, mate.
56:53
Love you.
56:54
Bye-bye.
57:01
Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
57:05
Series editor and producer is Thomas Dullard.
57:09
Audio production by Link Kelly.
57:11
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57:16
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