Latest / Rusty's Garage / Glenn Seton

Transcript

Glenn Seton · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  The sport of supercars has been divided along brand lines for decades.
• 0:33
  The passion, especially for Ford or Holden, runs deep among its fans.
• 0:38
  There's been other makes.
• 0:39
  Glenn Seaton rose to prominence with Nissan, flirted with the red side, Holden, but is perhaps best known for his achievements with the Blue Oval, Ford.
• 0:49
  Racing for this supercars hall of famer runs in the family.
• 0:53
  His dad is a Bathurst winner.
• 0:54
  His son Aaron is now following in their footsteps.
• 0:57
  For Glenn, the early influences were the cars of a golden era in Australian racing.
• 1:04
  There was no doubt.
• 1:05
  I was around the pits of Bathurst when the GDHOs were around.
• 1:08
  My dad actually drove for Ford those years with Frank Gibson in the GDHO days while Moffat was in the lead car.
• 1:14
  So, yeah, that era of Bathurst was very rewarding.
• 1:20
  I suppose it drove me to want to do what I did in the end, which is to be a professional race driver.
• 1:26
  But there were so many things.
• 1:28
  Amaru days, we spent a lot of time in Amaru with the Sun 7 series and the Better Break series of the Capris and the 3-litre series.
• 1:35
  So just those days were very different to today because it was like it was amateurish back then, but it was semi-professional.
• 1:44
  And it was very enjoyable to be involved, where now it's just such a business and everyone is so much under pressure.
• 1:51
  The enjoyment's not quite there as good as it was back then.
• 1:54
  So I do always look back on those days of those early days in the 70s of Bathurst.
• 1:59
  And probably then when the A9Xs came through and the big hardtop Falcons, I never forget all those sort of days and the racing that was on in them days.
• 2:07
  And those guys had to look after everything throughout the 1,000-kilometre race to get to the end, where today she's just a full-on 1,000-kilometre sprint race.
• 2:14
  So, yeah, there's a lot of fond memories of the years.
• 2:17
  And I was actually in the pits in 65, not remembering myself because I was five months old.
• 2:22
  But there's pictures of me sitting in the back of the Cortina that my dad won Bathurst in with a reef around my, which I've got at home.
• 2:29
  So I've been going to the racetracks for a hell of a long while.
• 2:33
  Let's talk about some of the racetracks that now sadly are gone.
• 2:36
  You mentioned Amaru there a moment ago.
• 2:38
  That was in Sydney's north-west.
• 2:40
  Orrin Park, which holds fond memories for you, Sydney's south-west, they're gone now.
• 2:43
  They're all housing or lifestyle blocks, aren't they?
• 2:46
  Absolutely, and Orrin Park and Amaru were very fond to me because that was my backyard.
• 2:50
  That's where I did all my craft in car racing, was spending a lot of time in Amaru and Orrin Park.
• 2:54
  Oh, yeah.
• 2:55
  My first go-karts racing was Oran Park.
• 2:57
  That was my home track, so I did most of my career there.
• 3:00
  My first opportunity in driving a touring car, which is my dad's Capri, was at Oran Park.
• 3:05
  A great circuit that I got a lot of success at as well over the years and also Amaru.
• 3:11
  But also, I remember Warwick Farm, that was before I raced.
• 3:16
  And naturally, that was behind our back door.
• 3:18
  We lived in Moorbank, which is right behind Warwick Farm.
• 3:21
  So those sort of tracks went.
• 3:22
  And then over probably the last 10 years of on and off went past Catalina, where my dad did a lot of his racing with FJ Holdens in those days.
• 3:31
  And that's still there today.
• 3:32
  That's still heritage listed today as a racetrack there.
• 3:36
  And just to see that track would have been really exhilarating to race on because it's very undulating, very high-speed, fast corners and a few slow ones, but it would have been really good to be able to have the opportunity to race around that one back in them days.
• 3:47
  Catalina's a lovely little place, mate, tucked up the back there of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.
• 3:51
  And as you say, you can still find it if you go looking for it.
• 3:55
  A great little racetrack with some wonderful history there.
• 3:58
  Come back for me to...
• 4:00
  The kind of rite of passage, most dads with their kids love teaching them a little bit about how to back down the driveway or something like that when they're younger before they can have a licence.
• 4:11
  But you were around race cars with your dad.
• 4:12
  Were you doing that sort of stuff when he was preparing race cars?
• 4:15
  Were you able to start them and maybe move them, things like that?
• 4:18
  Uh, not really at home because our place was such a small little block and we had a little workshop out the back so you couldn't get to do it much.
• 4:25
  But Dad got me my first Paddy Basher, which was actually a Morris 1100 of all things.
• 4:32
  And a friend of ours, which is Donnie Smith, who drove with my dad, had a...
• 4:35
  had a truck yard, which was enough room around that to actually mark his son, and he had a 1,500 Morris, and I had 1,100, that we used to scream around that place there at New Truck Spare, as the place is called.
• 4:49
  What did you do, a little carna-cross kind of layout and go roaring around?
• 4:52
  Absolutely.
• 4:53
  He was into importing second-hand diff housings and all that for trucks and gearbox and all that.
• 4:58
  And they'll spread everywhere in this paddock area.
• 4:59
  And we'll drive around those things.
• 5:01
  Sometimes we hit them, I tell you.
• 5:02
  So there was probably a few bent diff housings that were sold out to some of the truck blokes that we'd actually crashed into and bent.
• 5:07
  But, yeah, that was main opportunities I got to sort of do that sort of stuff before I ever got into a car at all, to be able to run around in Paddy Basher and do those things in a little Morris 1100.
• 5:20
  Were you harassing your dad?
• 5:21
  You mentioned before about karts and getting into it, that obsession, I guess, became competition when you were about 14.
• 5:28
  What are the early memories?
• 5:29
  What was the first kart and where did you go racing for the first time?
• 5:32
  Definitely, all I wanted to do was go racing.
• 5:35
  There was no doubt about that.
• 5:36
  I actually started off in motorbikes when I was seven and never raced but did a lot of motocross stuff.
• 5:42
  Got to the point where we went to Canberra to race on flat track one and it rained out.
• 5:47
  Bearbound Park?
• 5:47
  Where were you?
• 5:48
  That's right.
• 5:48
  Exactly right.
• 5:50
  I remember a kid there then that was racing just before we were going to race there and before it rained out and a kid called Phil Sargent and he's a well known name of motocross and flat track and that in the past and I was so impressed how good he was and I wanted to do it.
• 6:05
  But then the karting opportunity came up because naturally being in cars, my dad and if we're going to go motor racing we really need to do it on four wheels and so the karting day started at Oram Park, it was my first ever.
• 6:17
  Went out there, no one was on the track, nothing.
• 6:20
  We had the track to ourselves and I never forget the opportunities at the age of 14 to run around that go-kart track there and a lot of fond memories for the karting.
• 6:30
  My first go-kart ever was called a zip kart.
• 6:32
  It was actually, to tell you a story on that, it was funny because my dad did a demonstration karting thing at Granville back when the Granville go-kart track was going.
• 6:41
  So that was back...
• 6:42
  years before and a guy called Kenny Mitchell lent him his go-kart and my dad actually hit the fence and bent all the frame and everything so he had to replace the frame for him so that frame that zip go-kart my dad once I got to 14 uh straightened it all up because my dad's a panel beater by trade so he knew how to straighten things and that was actually my first go-kart that I raced at Oran Park and raced for my first 12 months until um my first bought go-kart that we raced was DAPS which were a very well-known go-kart back then but uh there was a
• 7:09
  There's a really great dear friend of mine who was really great for me for karting, which is called Kenny Mitchell.
• 7:15
  He actually helped a lot of kids out, Mark Winterbombe, James Courtney, all those sort of guys.
• 7:20
  So he took me a lot of places and taught me a lot of stuff.
• 7:24
  And sort of after the first 12 months, I sort of got into doing all the kart stuff myself, and he just used to take me along.
• 7:30
  So...
• 7:32
  That's probably where I learnt my technical trade from, was actually just doing all the stuff myself and learning of what changes and what made things happen.
• 7:40
  Clearly you enjoy that and you still do, mate, don't you?
• 7:42
  I do.
• 7:42
  That's probably always been my passion, that sort of learning of what makes a car go fast and what makes a car tick.
• 7:50
  So that was probably what...
• 7:52
  made me get into being in my own race team too because it gave me a lot of freedom to be able to do that sort of stuff test whenever we wanted back in them days and try things and learn a lot from that trades because i'm but
• 8:03
  I've actually got no ticket as any trade at all.
• 8:06
  I learned everything from just go motor racing.
• 8:09
  So, no, I look back on a lot of fond memories of motorsport and it's brought me a lot of reward for sure.
• 8:16
  The transition from karts to the Capri that you mentioned before where you got your licence, your CAMS or Confederation of Australian Motorsport licence, we'll get to that story in a moment, but...
• 8:27
  What was the discussion?
• 8:28
  What was the, in your mind, I mean, that's a big step, to try and chase the Australian Touring Car Championship, to try and break into that.
• 8:34
  What was the back story?
• 8:36
  Actually, in karting, I'd just moved to seniors at 17, and I had a really bad accident at Oran Park where...
• 8:42
  A guy called John Bazzaro, what we called over those days, fed me a wheel and sent me into the concrete wall before he came up onto the straight.
• 8:49
  And I hit my head on the wall and paralysed one side of my body.
• 8:52
  And my dad, after it had come good, said, we're not going karting anymore, we're going car racing.
• 8:57
  And...
• 8:58
  At the time, he had the yellow Capri, which we've still got in the family.
• 9:01
  He's still got that today, which last raced in 84, which was me at Surface Paradise.
• 9:06
  There's another track that's gone, Surface Paradise.
• 9:08
  So I got the opportunity.
• 9:10
  We went to Oran Park, did my licence in it there, and that really set the goal to chasing my touring car career, really, because we looked at it based on touring cars or open wheelers because, naturally, it was just sort of the end of...
• 9:25
  I suppose the Formula 5000 thing was just come to an end and it was quite a popular category and then didn't really know what was going to happen from there.
• 9:32
  But touring cars were so popular here and also was really the only way you could actually earn a living if you were successful or be professional in motorsport in Australia.
• 9:43
  My dad had the Capri and we went to Oran Park, got my licence, and then basically spent that first year in 82 doing some of the rounds of the championship to get miles.
• 9:52
  And also my dad built me a little escort sports sedan that we had, a little 1600 Escort, to do more miles everywhere else, Amaru and places like that, to get my licence, to get my signatures to be able to go to Bathurst in 83.
• 10:05
  So we spent the end of 82... October 82 was actually when I...
• 10:09
  Drove the Capri the first time.
• 10:10
  And then for 83, early 83, we spent the time getting the licence.
• 10:13
  And then the big dream was to go to Bathurst together as father and son.
• 10:18
  And that was 83.
• 10:19
  And I'll never forget the opportunity of first ever doing the laps around there.
• 10:23
  Because naturally, as a kid being there behind the scenes with all the iconic Moffat's, Brock's, my dad, the Gibsons and all that, being around in those HO days, and remember the iconic Bathurst.
• 10:35
  in the pits, and then having the opportunity to go there as a kid at 18 and get the opportunity to race not only at Bathurst but also with my father was something that was probably something I'll never forget in my life because it was really the start of my career.
• 10:50
  Tell me about your first impressions of Bathurst.
• 10:53
  A young fella, 18, it's the dream for Aaron, for all these young blokes now that want to go and race touring cars, to be there...
• 11:00
  Great circumstances.
• 11:01
  It was.
• 11:02
  And I suppose the most frightening thing of that day was when I first got the laps to go out there, it was raining.
• 11:08
  So I've turned up at Bathurst, never done a lap there.
• 11:11
  I've been there in the pits all those years and learnt all about the iconic Bathurst.
• 11:17
  Then I got sent out on a set of wets that my dad had for five years.
• 11:21
  Oh, no.
• 11:22
  And I've come in after five laps and I said, oh, Dad, these wets aren't real good.
• 11:27
  And he said, get out, give me a drive.
• 11:29
  They're right, they'll be fine, they're nothing.
• 11:31
  He went out and did out the pit and come straight back in and he didn't say it to me but he said to the boys, he's right, they are really bad.
• 11:38
  So that was my iconic bit.
• 11:40
  Just remember being in the pits, being down at that low altitude, you didn't actually realise how high the mountain went up and up through, how steep it was going up the cutting and out as a kid because most of the time you're spending out the back of the pits, playing around with your mates, doing silly things while your dads are racing cars.
• 11:56
  So you spend most of the time down the bottom.
• 11:58
  And back in them days you don't go up the top because it was too dangerous to the spectators up there.
• 12:02
  But...
• 12:03
  Yeah, just being at that first opportunity, running up the hill on five-year-old wets, slippery as hell, and just remembering seeing all these places over the side of the mountain where cars had gone in the past.
• 12:14
  My dad went over the mountain on going up to BP Cutting.
• 12:21
  He went off to the right there and down in the trees.
• 12:24
  So just looking at that stuff and just seeing how blind all the corners were and...
• 12:30
  how exhilarating it would have been for all those guys just doing lap after lap and the enjoyment they've got out of it.
• 12:35
  As Brock always said, every year you go to Baths, you learn something about it, regardless if you've been there for 20 or 30 years.
• 12:41
  And that's definitely true.
• 12:43
  After spending so much time there over my life, that's definitely true.
• 12:46
  And it's a place that even today, if the opportunities come, which...
• 12:51
  usually do um i always try and make sure i'm in something empathistic but in a support category or whatever because it's just an iconic place it's just really enjoyable and it's it's real commitment stuff circuit daunting place but captivating for all sorts of reasons excellent that you've the family has kept the capri made tell our listeners a little bit more about it what's have you had to do a full restoration on it what's it like a little bit of the background in terms of its mechanical something
• 13:17
  It's amazing Rusty because it's actually as it finished in 84, the yellow Capri, as it finished in 84, still with the same engine in it, I locked up the gearbox at Service Paradise in a 250km race which is a bit of a history of those things you used to do.
• 13:35
  And all it's done is put a gearbox bag in it, and my dad's done a few parade things since 84.
• 13:40
  So it's in pristine condition for that sort of car, for that era and how old it is.
• 13:46
  And hopefully one day I'll have it myself and then hand it on to Aaron.
• 13:51
  I'll never sell something like that.
• 13:53
  I just want to keep that in the family.
• 13:54
  And I wanted to get Aaron in it so they've had three generations.
• 13:58
  It's actually the car that Scafie got his licence in at Oran Park as well.
• 14:00
  Fantastic.
• 14:01
  because our dads are very good friends of each other.
• 14:04
  So Mark got his licence into the Oral Park two years after me because Mark's two years younger than me.
• 14:09
  So it's got a lot of memory in that car for sure.
• 14:12
  The car itself, a little extension to the story before we move on to your career.
• 14:16
  Back then when you got your, you talked about Mark Scaife and yourself getting your CAMS licence, you had to do an observation test, didn't you?
• 14:22
  And they watched you in action.
• 14:24
  Am I right in saying that not only did you get the sign-off, you won the race that they observed you into, is that right?
• 14:30
  That's exactly right.
• 14:31
  They actually put you in a pretend race with a bunch of other guys that are going for lies as well.
• 14:35
  And probably looking at all the rest of the cars around, I had the best weapon out there, so if I didn't win I was going to be pretty embarrassing to be honest.
• 14:43
  But no, yeah, it was a good day that I remember that.
• 14:46
  And I think Scaifey did the same when he went out two years later and did the same.
• 14:50
  So yeah, it's got a lot of memories that car and a lot of memories for the family.
• 14:54
  Then in 84, an opportunity comes up with Freddie Gibson with Nissan.
• 15:00
  Were you a young bloke with a briefcase knocking on the door?
• 15:02
  Were they approaching you?
• 15:04
  How did that all sort of kick off?
• 15:06
  Well, naturally, Fred and my dad drove together in the Ford team and they're very good friends.
• 15:10
  So the actual first opportunity came up was to drive with Christine in the Exa, which they called the electric rat back then because it had 300 horsepower, weighed nothing, and it was like driving a light switch, I'll tell you.
• 15:22
  And to drive with Christine in 84 at Bathurst.
• 15:24
  So I got the opportunity to go there and...
• 15:26
  We actually nearly made the top 10.
• 15:28
  The car ran out of fuel on the last flying lap when I was getting a tow by George and the bluebird he was.
• 15:34
  So I nearly made the top 10, and so that sort of opened up an opportunity to have a drive of the bluebird that year at Baskerville.
• 15:40
  They had an event over there called the Big Bangers, which they took six...
• 15:43
  And that was the last year of Group CC, so they took six cars to Baskerville just to put on a show down there, which was myself, Harrington, Stevie Masterton, Gricey was there.
• 15:56
  They had six guys.
• 15:59
  So I got the opportunity to drive the Bluebird down there, and we qualified on pole in the Bluebird down there in that race.
• 16:04
  So that's when Howard Marsden was running the Nissan team back then.
• 16:07
  And then, naturally, Fred got the opportunity to take over from Howard because Howard went back into the factory for the car design side of it, and they needed someone to run the Nissan racing team.
• 16:18
  So that's when Fred come along in 1985 to actually take over running Nissan Motorsport and then become Gibson Motorsport later.
• 16:25
  But...
• 16:27
  At the time, they were just building Skylines for the new Group A series, which Group A started in 1985, and he didn't have any engine builders.
• 16:34
  So my dad was an engine builder and I was at the same time working from dad building engines, and naturally because of the friendship, and also driving in 1984 at Bathurst with Christine.
• 16:43
  that opened up the opportunity for us to move down to Melbourne to do the engines, but not only that, for me to do some of the development driving and then do some opportunities to actually phase in to be a part of the factory Nissan team.
• 16:55
  So that's how it opened up.
• 16:57
  It had nothing to do with coming along with briefcases, because we had nothing.
• 17:02
  But it just came along through friendships, which most of them do, and opened up an avenue to be a part of that team.
• 17:09
  And from there, it was Restless History.
• 17:11
  You mentioned basketball there before too.
• 17:12
  Another great old circuit in Tasmania.
• 17:14
  So Freddie Gibson, some good funding with the team.
• 17:18
  Teammates like Georgie Fury.
• 17:19
  Great chapter, mate.
• 17:20
  Wasn't it?
• 17:20
  Wasn't it?
• 17:21
  I was brilliant.
• 17:23
  The relationship with George and I was fantastic through those years.
• 17:26
  He taught me a lot.
• 17:29
  And his ability as a race driver was as good as any, I've got to say.
• 17:34
  I've raced against a lot of guys, and George in his day was very, very good.
• 17:37
  Made him so good in your opinion.
• 17:39
  I think his rallying background is definitely... And then he spent quite a few years on asphalt after the rally background.
• 17:46
  So he had all that all-round car control ability.
• 17:51
  And that's where it come from.
• 17:53
  And he was a hardcore racer.
• 17:55
  George wanted to win races, and that's what he went out there and did most of the time whenever he had the equipment under him that didn't fail.
• 18:01
  George was always at the front.
• 18:03
  So to learn from him was...
• 18:06
  was pretty special and I learned a lot from George, absolutely.
• 18:09
  In that period, people can find these clips either on DVDs or on YouTube.
• 18:15
  Mike Raymond would ultimately coin the phrase, the baby-faced assassin.
• 18:20
  You were the baby-faced assassin.
• 18:21
  How did you feel about that?
• 18:22
  Did you own it?
• 18:23
  Did you hate it?
• 18:24
  What did you think about that?
• 18:26
  I suppose back then you hate it because at those ages of 20, you want to be 40 because all the legends of Brox Johnson and all that are 40 and they've made it in motor racing.
• 18:39
  Here's this young 20-year-old who wants to be 40 and he's being called the baby-faced assassin.
• 18:44
  No, I grab that sort of stuff of open arms because that's the sort of stuff that makes people remember you as a racer.
• 18:51
  There's so many things that Mike said over the years through that.
• 18:55
  It's just stuck with me.
• 18:56
  And I suppose people do remind me a lot of is the 87 Bathurst in the Wet.
• 19:02
  That's constantly brought up today.
• 19:05
  That's how people remember all that.
• 19:06
  So all those little things of...
• 19:09
  Bathurst 95 breaking down, six laps to go.
• 19:13
  People say, oh, it was so heartbreaking, blah, blah, blah.
• 19:15
  Totally agree.
• 19:17
  I'd love to have won that race, but I'll tell you what, what came out of it, I suppose, showed my personality of how you deal with that sort of adversity and people think of you of that.
• 19:28
  And so...
• 19:29
  Even though there's a negative of losing the race, there's a lot of positives that come out of that sort of stuff too and depending on how you deal with it and how you approach those things that happen to you in your life.
• 19:40
  No, I look back on it.
• 19:42
  I certainly wouldn't change anything that I've done for sure.
• 19:44
  I love the fact that Mike's always had this great sense of show.
• 19:47
  So to give you that nickname, I think, is... Yeah.
• 19:50
  is tremendous.
• 19:52
  You talked about 87 there.
• 19:53
  Let's discuss that moment at Bathurst.
• 19:57
  You're in the Nissan.
• 19:58
  It's wet.
• 19:59
  The onboard shows these crazy, skaty moments.
• 20:02
  Even Mike has, you know, skips a beat.
• 20:04
  His heart kind of skips a beat, worried about you maybe hitting the wall.
• 20:08
  Was that luck?
• 20:09
  Was it skill?
• 20:10
  What was that whole thing like?
• 20:12
  It looks sketchy across the top, mate.
• 20:13
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:14
  like if I look back on it now Rusty it was crazy it was silly um but when you're 22 we'd already we're already three quarters away through my stint which was on dry uh dry tires and it was they were already hot so when that sort of drizzle comes down you're in a rhythm of of what's going on every lap after every corner you come up to you just actually naturally just happens for you so you drive to the level of the grip of what you feel at the time and and
• 20:42
  I actually felt very comfortable in it.
• 20:44
  It was only ever one point in that lapse that were raining that I was out there that actually got a bit sketchy for me.
• 20:51
  It was actually coming down Conrad over the first hump.
• 20:54
  It got away on me and we actually ended up with two wheels in the grass.
• 20:57
  And that's when I actually went, whoops, I'm in a bit of trouble here.
• 21:02
  But it actually coaxed it back, got it back.
• 21:04
  And actually at the time, Fred's on the radio trying to tell me to slow down because we'll...
• 21:10
  We had all that.
• 21:11
  That was the world championship year, so there were some good operators there.
• 21:14
  And I just kept coming across all these guys and going, why are they going so slow?
• 21:18
  Just get on with it, guys.
• 21:19
  Get on with it.
• 21:19
  So I passed a lot of the BMs from the factory cars, and even the Texaco Scareers weren't even going fast at the time.
• 21:25
  I remember that.
• 21:26
  So I suppose it's just one of those things that when you feel comfortable doing something and you feel inside your...
• 21:34
  ability that you can keep that off the fence you just keep doing it and that's what it was but like i say if i look back on it now i go i couldn't do that now because i suppose over the years you get older and you get more fear in you and you have a family and lots of things circumstances change the view of and you have a few big crashes which i have over the years you change your approach to those sort of situations but up till then i hadn't had a big crash
• 21:57
  So I got all over.
• 21:59
  87 was a great year for you, mate.
• 22:01
  Second in the championship to Jimmy Richards, it went right down to the wire.
• 22:05
  I mean, when you look back on it, that's...
• 22:08
  I mean, you won the championship, and we'll get to that, twice.
• 22:11
  But that was a standout year for you too, 87, wasn't it?
• 22:13
  It was, really.
• 22:14
  And we also nearly won Bathurst that year.
• 22:16
  I'll tell you the circumstance.
• 22:17
  Johnny Bauer and I drove together.
• 22:19
  We had great pace together.
• 22:21
  And what happened is...
• 22:24
  Halfway through the race, it was actually the year of the World Championship, and what they had that year as a rule for safety cars was two safety cars.
• 22:31
  So they had one at the top of the hill and one at the bottom.
• 22:33
  So split the field in half of each one.
• 22:37
  But what the rules were is when the safety car...
• 22:40
  on the first lap out, they closed the pit lane.
• 22:43
  And the problem is we'd already pitted before the safety car boards and safety car came out to do our scheduled pit stop.
• 22:49
  And as we left the pit lane, they closed the pit lane.
• 22:52
  So we lost a whole lap sitting at pit lane.
• 22:55
  So that's where we lost the lap on Brock that year.
• 23:00
  That's, we could have won balance that year, but still finished second.
• 23:03
  Like, finished second in the championship against guys like Jimmy Richards and that, and that was a great tussle all year with Jimmy.
• 23:09
  And a lot of the guys, like George, same.
• 23:11
  George just had a couple of mechanical problems that year that sort of hurt his results a little bit.
• 23:17
  But going down to that last race at Oran Park, and we were ding-donging to the end.
• 23:21
  and it sort of just started drizzle which the little m3 was probably a little bit nicer and when it sort of got to that condition and just jimmy started just catch me back catch me back we're getting near the end we had a touch and that wasn't at the end of the day that's just racing to me um but the thing ended up blowing a turbo before the end of the race anyway so it wasn't going to happen jimmy won it anyway fair and square
• 23:42
  Tell me a little bit more about the car, because there'll be fans listening to this one a bit more.
• 23:46
  I mean, this is pre-HR31.
• 23:48
  What are we talking here?
• 23:48
  It's DR30RS, wasn't it?
• 23:50
  That's right, DR30.
• 23:51
  So it was a four-cylinder version of the Skyline, two-door.
• 23:55
  Had no aerodynamic aids on it, so it was like a brick.
• 23:58
  It was a bit like the Volvo, to be honest.
• 24:01
  It didn't particularly handle very nicely, because it had a...
• 24:08
  Didn't have a rack and pinion front steering in it, so it was all over the place.
• 24:11
  It was like driving an old Falcon.
• 24:12
  You're chasing it down the road.
• 24:14
  So they were hard cars to drive, but I didn't realise that because that was my first real professional race car, so I just thought they were all like this until Johnny Bauer came along and went, man, these are the hardest.
• 24:27
  These are the worst car I've ever driven in my life.
• 24:29
  And then you start to go, oh.
• 24:31
  What does he complain about?
• 24:32
  This is all I know.
• 24:33
  This is fine.
• 24:34
  So it was actually looking on it.
• 24:36
  It was probably actually really good for me because you get to drive something that was such a handful to drive because they had reasonable power for their day.
• 24:43
  They had around 60 horsepower, around 70 horsepower, a bit over 1,000 kilo.
• 24:49
  And in that early Group A days, it was actually quite good sort of car combination.
• 24:56
  So that's why it was so competitive.
• 24:57
  But it taught me some things of how to drive a car when it's really a handful.
• 25:01
  And then when I got into something good, it was like a dream.
• 25:06
  I look back on it, it's very fond memories, and particularly being with Fred.
• 25:11
  Fred was very, very good to me and very good to the family, and I really appreciate the opportunity Fred gave myself and also Mark's go for the end of the day because Mark, naturally, the seat and scape...
• 25:24
  Friendship goes back years and years and years with Dads and also with Mark and I.
• 25:28
  And we sort of, Mark moved to Melbourne to live with us for six months, to be a part of the race team and to grow what he's got into now.
• 25:38
  Was he a good flatmate?
• 25:39
  Was he tidy?
• 25:40
  We had some really good times together, to be honest.
• 25:42
  Because Mark will always tell you when...
• 25:45
  occasionally we went out and let our hair down in town and that and mark will tell you that um we used to have a little bit to drink we weren't alcoholics we just had a little bit we just had a bit of fun but mark would always tell you that my shoes would get drunker than my than my body because i'd spill more on my shoes than i would get in my mouth and that's why i looked drunk but it was actually my shoes were drunk
• 26:08
  So Park's got some good stories on our nights out for sure.
• 26:12
  So you enjoy rattling off those yarns.
• 26:14
  That's a story for another time.
• 26:16
  You moved to start your own team, mate.
• 26:18
  This is huge.
• 26:19
  And it's a move to the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth, which last year, 2017, we celebrated 30 years of that race car.
• 26:28
  Remarkable.
• 26:29
  And you were reunited with one of your cars last year at Phillip Island.
• 26:32
  Tell me about...
• 26:34
  the decision to start your own team and where you first acquired those Sierras from?
• 26:38
  Yeah.
• 26:39
  Well, what happened is at the end of 88, Nissan no longer wanted to be associated with cigarettes, which was naturally they were sponsored by Peter Jackson the days that I was there.
• 26:50
  So Ken Potter, who was the marketing manager of Philip Morris at the time, Peter Jackson, approached my dad and me about setting up our own race team and running
• 27:02
  a Sierra really or a Commodore at the time we were actually looking maybe running a Commodore How serious did you get in terms of the look at the top?
• 27:09
  Pretty serious about it but when you looked at the we looked at based on the Sierra was more that it was almost impossible to beat the Sierra at the time and that's when we went out in 89 and set up the race team on our own with support from Philip Morris so that was a pretty tough year the first year we bought all our cars engines, everything From England or whereabouts?
• 27:31
  Yeah, we bought the components like a body shells.
• 27:34
  Well, Donnie Smith was naturally would import a lot of parts from England because of his truck business and all that.
• 27:41
  So he brought in some body shells for us, which you could buy motorsport body shells for him, and all the engine bits.
• 27:46
  And we bought our first engine management system from Andy Rouse.
• 27:51
  So we've sort of pieced all that together.
• 27:52
  Yeah.
• 27:53
  The main reason we went down that road instead of buying a car is because we didn't have a lot of sponsorship.
• 27:57
  We had enough to probably do a reasonable job that year, but we didn't have enough to actually buy a car and then go racing, which Brock did through buying his anti-rouse car.
• 28:06
  So that was probably a mistake that we did because it took us a little while to understand the management system on a Sierra engine.
• 28:14
  Such hand grenades when you didn't have them right.
• 28:17
  They were very good when you had that management system or the fuel management system right, the ECU, and fueling it right and the boost and all that side of it.
• 28:25
  But we hurt a few engines that first year.
• 28:27
  And then we were also involved in the really bad accident at Lakeside in 89, which when Andy...
• 28:33
  Andrew and Mediki and anyway another competitor that come together under the bridge and as they hit the fence coming under the bridge at Lakeside they bounced back out and there was an ex-car coming through and took the whole front off our Sierra so that was our first year of setting up a race team, building a whole new car and everything and actually wrote that car off.
• 28:51
  So we had to start again after that Lakeside round which was only three rounds into the championship to build another new car.
• 28:58
  So that year and the first year we actually built three cars in that first 89 years so
• 29:02
  That sort of was a really big struggle.
• 29:05
  But then 1990, we started to really come on well.
• 29:09
  We actually ended up winning the endurance championship in 1990, which was three rounds, Eastern Creek, Sandown and Bathurst.
• 29:16
  And we won Sandown 500 that year with George Fury, actually.
• 29:20
  George came across and drove with me.
• 29:22
  So, yeah, we started to have some really good rewards.
• 29:27
  in 90s when the 3DR started to come along, which was the car that was... None of us were ever going to beat when you've got four-wheel drive and so much power and that.
• 29:34
  So it's sort of obsoleted this year overnight.
• 29:37
  So we've picked the car that we thought we were going to be competitive for the next three years and be really potentially successful with.
• 29:44
  And we sort of got dunced with it 12 months or 18 months after setting up the race team in the Sierra.
• 29:50
  But as in the Sierras, we were very competitive in the end.
• 29:53
  We were very reliable.
• 29:54
  We had cars that were matching the Shell guys in the end until, naturally, 1993 when the supercars come along.
• 30:01
  That was a big change.
• 30:03
  I think Neil Crompton once famously described the GT-Rs as like a bigger tennis racket at the time.
• 30:08
  It was probably a good description.
• 30:09
  Just give me your first impressions of driving that Sierra.
• 30:12
  The word you used a moment ago was hand grenade.
• 30:16
  When you first drove it, what did you think?
• 30:18
  It was frightening.
• 30:19
  What they are is because it just gives your viewers a sample of what they are.
• 30:24
  They're like a car that's like a...
• 30:28
  a modern day Corolla on the road off boost, off the turbo and then when it comes on turbo it's like driving a Ferrari so it sort of had, and it was like a light switch it was either off with 100 horsepower or 600 horsepower on so with little tiny tyres that are only 10 inch wide which are basically what your road car comes with today so trying to manage that sort of power and the delivery of power through those little tyres was quite a difficult thing to do so
• 30:59
  I was happy once I drove my first supercar, which was in 92 when we built our first Falcon.
• 31:04
  And we took both cars to Philobineland for the first time.
• 31:08
  And I remember hopping out of the Sierra and thought, oh, the car felt really good today.
• 31:12
  And then I hopped in the Falcon for the first ever time.
• 31:14
  The first ever car we built with all the aero it had on it, like as in the under trays and had wings on them in them days when we first built them.
• 31:22
  I could not believe the difference.
• 31:23
  And the normally aspirated, the way it delivered its power.
• 31:25
  It was so much easier to drive.
• 31:26
  And I thought, how good is this?
• 31:29
  And I never wanted to go back to the Sierra.
• 31:30
  I had to finish a few more rounds in the Sierra, and I was hating it, I'll tell you, until we actually turned up at Sandown 500 in 92 to run the 500 in the Falcon for the first time.
• 31:42
  So that just gives you an example of how, well, the Nissan was bad.
• 31:48
  The Sierra was a little bit better than the Nissan.
• 31:50
  But the Falcon was a long way better than the Sierra.
• 31:52
  So that gives you an example of how hard they were to drive and how bad they were.
• 31:57
  I reckon I've had this conversation with John Bowe.
• 31:59
  I think he said that he had to unlearn some habits from the Sierra when he moved to the supercar.
• 32:05
  Was it the same for you and what were those habits?
• 32:07
  It probably wasn't for me.
• 32:09
  The biggest thing was you had to pick up the throttle early enough, but I was a left foot breaker, so you could sort of carry the brake and the throttle together to keep the thing on boost.
• 32:19
  That was the big thing.
• 32:19
  So traditionally, because I've always been a left foot breaker, it didn't sort of take me much to adapt across.
• 32:26
  But it was naturally the, probably the aero side of the later, when they went to supercars was the thing they'd get a little bit more used to because I didn't do a lot of aero racing with cars.
• 32:37
  I had an opportunity twice to run a Formula 2, which we did really well in, but that was all the aero I ever drove on a car.
• 32:42
  So I wasn't really, didn't really know what to expect.
• 32:45
  But it just, to be honest, the aero just made the car so much easier to drive and so much more pleasurable to drive.
• 32:51
  We'll get to the supercars in a second.
• 32:53
  You mentioned before about the end of the Sierra chapter.
• 32:57
  I mean, when you guys first got them, when Dick Johnson first got them, the Euros were seen as the benchmark.
• 33:03
  But the development we did here in Australia was world-class, mate.
• 33:08
  Totally.
• 33:09
  Whenever they came out here later in the years, and like Eggenberger came out with the...
• 33:16
  When the years when Moffat ran the ANZ car with Klaus Niedzwitz out here, our cars were as competitive as them.
• 33:23
  If not, they were probably a bit stronger in a straight line, to be honest.
• 33:25
  So, no, the technology and the development done here in Australia with the Aussies...
• 33:34
  You don't go look at supercars today.
• 33:36
  There's probably no one worldwide that could do as good a job as the Aussies are doing here now anyway.
• 33:41
  I suppose half of them come from England anyway now these days that are in supercars.
• 33:45
  But, no, there's so much.
• 33:49
  And I suppose the difference is between Europe to here...
• 33:53
  We've, over the years of motorsport, and I suppose it starts from the 60s, 70s, 80s, everyone that owned a race car did everything themselves.
• 34:02
  They did all the development themselves.
• 34:04
  They did all the building of the cars and whatever.
• 34:06
  In Europe, there seems even more of a...
• 34:08
  situation where you're a designated gearbox man or a designated engine man or you're a designated transmission man that there wasn't one person that sort of could do all that where the Australian motorsport has sort of promoted that because I suppose because we've got small numbers here we don't have the finances here that's how we've ended up learning to go motor racing is to do it all ourselves
• 34:28
  So the sport moves to a V8 formula and it's been a huge success story.
• 34:34
  And you were there at the very beginning.
• 34:35
  What were the learnings when you built that first Falcon and what was it like to drive?
• 34:41
  Well, it was actually interesting building the first one because the rules were being made on the run.
• 34:46
  So we're building the first Falcon of... Because there was areas of the Falcon that naturally as a road car, when you get a road car body shell, there was stuff you just... You couldn't fit wheels under them.
• 34:55
  You couldn't...
• 34:56
  you couldn't get the travel in the back because the tire shaft would hit the floor all that sort of stuff to build it into a race car so there was a lot of freedoms being made and the Commodore was already racing out there so they already had a car that was this is basically what we want as a as a platform for V8 supercars or V8 touring cars they were calling in back them days but then the Ford come along and you couldn't really make it a race car too much so you had to change all those areas wheel tubs in the back so there was really no rules so the first car we built
• 35:25
  Well, sort of given a, this is what's really going to happen, this is what we want.
• 35:29
  So that's why Dick went away to build his car, which was pretty well not much of a Falcon inside, to be honest.
• 35:35
  That's why I got scrapped.
• 35:36
  And my car was sort of more towards what a Commodore was, as in Group A days, but with a few modifications.
• 35:43
  So the first car we built, we had to move a few things to be able to make wheel clearances and tail shaft clearances and over-the-top diff clearances, because they don't have a nine-inch diff in them, standard Falcon or any of that sort of stuff.
• 35:54
  And then when it got going, naturally there was only two cars running.
• 35:58
  So there was only ours and also HRT running.
• 36:02
  So by the time you got to the end of the year, the rules kept changing all the time.
• 36:06
  Oh, no, you can't do that.
• 36:07
  Oh, no, you can't do this.
• 36:08
  So our first car got scrapped, same as Dix did.
• 36:11
  I suppose I scrapped it a bit at the Grand Prix at the last round.
• 36:14
  I fenced it.
• 36:15
  So I didn't have to repair it.
• 36:17
  So we ended up building two brand-new cars for the start of 93 to the proper spec rules that they were... Because, like I said, they're making the rules on the run.
• 36:24
  But we all knew that it was going to be a...
• 36:28
  the right direction because naturally we came through the year of and we spoke about before the HOs and all that that's what Australian motorsport or touring car racing was built on it was built on the rivalry Ford and Holden it was a no-brainer when we went to V8 touring cars back then before it became named supercars that this is what the public wanted to see in the group A days at the end we'll see
• 36:51
  I don't want to see 8,000 people at races.
• 36:53
  There's no one going to watch them.
• 36:55
  They couldn't recognise what a Sierra was.
• 36:57
  They couldn't recognise because they didn't sell them here.
• 36:59
  Sure, they were identified because of globally, but not in Australia.
• 37:05
  So when the Ford versus Holden, Falcon versus Commodore was put all together, and Mike was heavily involved in that, Peter Gillitzer from Ford, Nachi Holden, trying to remember who the guy was involved then, and Larry was involved in all that,
• 37:21
  It was just what people really remembered motorsport as, and that was pretty well a no-brainer to be able to bring that back and know that that was going to be successful.
• 37:30
  And the format of the rules was set, so it was reasonably cost containment.
• 37:34
  They had really strong components that you're never going to break them.
• 37:37
  So it made them actually a really good race car, and quite a cost-effective race car.
• 37:40
  Initial outlay was a little bit expensive to build, but it's like any race car.
• 37:43
  If you spend the money to build it properly in the first place, the running costs are very cheap, and that's what they were back then.
• 37:49
  It was quite a...
• 37:50
  a cost-effective car to go racing you mentioned larry larry perkins he's another one that i'll add to my podcast listed at some point 1993 was a super year for you mate you win your first championship a decade after starting in it what did that mean to you to the family give us a sense of
• 38:09
  Yeah, it was an interesting one.
• 38:11
  Probably the downside, if I talk about the downside first, was I won it sitting in the gravel trap at Wanneroo Park down in Colb Corner.
• 38:20
  I'm trying to think.
• 38:21
  John Bauer was running second in the championship.
• 38:23
  I think he had a mechanical problem that weekend, so I actually won the championship sitting in the gravel trap.
• 38:29
  So that was a bit... How do you win a championship sitting in the gravel trap?
• 38:33
  But anyway, it was...
• 38:36
  It was all benefit of the year that we spent building the car the year before.
• 38:43
  And I suppose also the years of doing all the technical side of it myself.
• 38:49
  And being involved in all that side of it that got us on top of our car quicker because I knew what this is going to do, that's going to do.
• 38:56
  And I got to drive the changes we did, or I did, shock absorbers or springs or blah, all that sort of stuff, geometry and that, to be able to get on top of it.
• 39:06
  I look back on my career...
• 39:08
  And this is talking about probably the similar thing.
• 39:11
  There's two guys that were probably my hardest competitors when I look back on it now.
• 39:15
  And I bring this up quite a lot.
• 39:18
  And they were very good in those areas, which is the technical part of the cars, which is John Bauer and Mark Scaife.
• 39:23
  They were my biggest challengers.
• 39:25
  They were always at the front because they knew what they wanted from the car.
• 39:27
  And that's where I sort of worked on all my career is that side of it.
• 39:30
  So it made it easier in 93 to make a car from all the time we spent in 92 to actually be quite a competitive and really good car.
• 39:38
  So, yeah, that was a really rewarding year.
• 39:41
  And actually, it's the ultimate goal you chase as a race driver to be...
• 39:48
  Win the championship or the biggest championship in your country and to win that that year was very rewarding and something that will always go down as a very, very fun memory.
• 40:00
  And owning my own race team and engineering my own race car.
• 40:04
  So to have those sort of factors in it as well was pretty good.
• 40:07
  You've etched a very special place in the record books because of that, mate.
• 40:11
  Indeed, very special.
• 40:12
  The current spec supercars are very different now, aren't they?
• 40:15
  I mean, what are we talking, 630 horsepower, sequential gearbox.
• 40:19
  You had an H pattern back then.
• 40:20
  What kind of horsepower numbers were you getting from the Falcon?
• 40:23
  Our first ever engine we built had 530.
• 40:25
  530.
• 40:26
  So at Bathurst in 92, when we went there and we ran in the top 10 shootout, right up until the Saturday morning, we ran 530 horsepower.
• 40:38
  We had the next stage of our engine, which was 560.
• 40:42
  And we put that in for qualifying and for top 10.
• 40:45
  And that made us two seconds a lap, 30 horsepower.
• 40:52
  when I look back, yeah, that's the sort of power.
• 40:54
  So we're talking 560 and you're talking 630 now.
• 40:58
  So even though you look at the numbers for so many years, it hasn't come a long way, but it is a lot when you're only a little five-litre engine.
• 41:05
  It's restricted to 7,500 RPM.
• 41:09
  It's a controlled compression ratio.
• 41:11
  It's all those factors.
• 41:13
  See, you wouldn't think you could make that much more out of them over the years, but just technology has definitely made a big difference moving forward.
• 41:21
  You go a couple of years on in 97 and you win the championship.
• 41:25
  again, mate, again in a car of your own construction, your own engineering, your own team.
• 41:30
  I mean, it's a huge feat, mate.
• 41:31
  And when you look at the era now, it's just not something that I think we'll potentially see again.
• 41:37
  It won't because it's... And that's, in the end, why I sold my race team because I knew the riding on the wall for a driver, team owner...
• 41:47
  was come to an end because the pressures of the commercial side of the business, the demand, the cost of the sports acceleration was happening and that all become because of basically we ended up with a lot more TV.
• 42:02
  Channel 10 came along, gives a lot more TV, so then sponsors come along and want a lot more value out of it and give you more money.
• 42:09
  So the pressures are on.
• 42:11
  So to try and manage a race team, engineer a race car, drive the race car,
• 42:16
  to the guys that have got more money than you, that have got engineers specified just doing engineering work, you've got drivers that are just drivers that are told basically off the computer how to drive a car, it was where I started to thought,
• 42:33
  I'm out of my depth here now, I need to move on.
• 42:35
  And so, yeah, to look back on 97, six personnel is all we had that year, because that was after the cigarette era where we had two cars and we had reasonable money to being Ford Credit and having very little money.
• 42:47
  Scaling back to a single car team with six people, running against people like HR2 who had a huge outfit.
• 42:54
  And to come along and win the championship that year was hugely... That was probably more rewarding than 93, to be honest.
• 43:01
  Six people.
• 43:02
  I mean, you look now, some of the big teams have got 40, 50 people at every round.
• 43:06
  That's incredible.
• 43:07
  That's exactly right.
• 43:08
  And that was sort of just the...
• 43:10
  the changeover from 7 to 10 when a lot more commercial TV was, or available time was there and that's where the changeover I knew from then on that it's going to get harder from here and to do what I was doing was near impossible but hey that was that would be my most memorable championship for sure
• 43:31
  Sadly, and you've touched on this before, and I think you've compartmentalised it really well, you know, the Bathurst record book shows some runner-up finishes, and you went so, so, so close in, I think it was 95.
• 43:43
  How do you feel about that now all these years on?
• 43:46
  And, you know, your dad did it, obviously.
• 43:47
  It would have been great to tick that box.
• 43:49
  Sadly, it wasn't to be.
• 43:51
  Does it eat you?
• 43:53
  Don't worry about it now?
• 43:54
  No, I don't.
• 43:55
  Actually, at the end of the day, you look at it based on, yep, you'd love a Bathurst win, there's no doubt.
• 44:00
  And people do say to me, would you give up a championship of Bathurst?
• 44:02
  No, I wouldn't.
• 44:03
  Because it's actually harder to win a championship because you've got more races and more opportunities to bugger up, I suppose, throughout the year.
• 44:12
  This is Greg Rust and you're listening to Rusty's Garage.
• 44:15
  More with Glenn Seaton in a moment.
• 44:19
  In this series, I speak to some of the supercars legends like Greg Murphy, who recounted what it was like working with the late, great Peter Brock.
• 44:28
  You know, you'd sit there and wait for Brock.
• 44:30
  You'd be leaving for two hours, trying to get out of the car park or driving out for two hours because every time someone saw him, they'd stop and he'd chat, chat, and you'd be in the back seat.
• 44:39
  He's going, nah, I'm on.
• 44:41
  Because no one wanted my autograph.
• 44:43
  Listen to the full episode with Greg Murphy and his trunk load of stories from a career behind the wheel here on Rusty's Garage.
• 44:58
  In 30 metres, your destination is on your left.
• 45:01
  Eastern Creek Racetrack.
• 45:03
  Please select race mode on your dashboard and proceed to the starting grid.
• 45:08
  95, mate.
• 45:08
  You went tantalisingly close to winning it.
• 45:13
  What are your recollections of that day and how do you feel about it now?
• 45:17
  Well, it was a fairly big day because it's based on more history than anything.
• 45:21
  So just to give you an example, it was 1995.
• 45:24
  It was 30 years since my father won Bathurst.
• 45:27
  I was age 30.
• 45:28
  My car number was 30.
• 45:30
  So the Bathurst City Council and ARDC put up an incentive of $30,000 if I won the race or...
• 45:37
  take home the actual Cortina my dad won Bathurst in.
• 45:41
  They actually found it, which Brian Gilding had, and restored it to exactly what it was on the 1965 Bathurst win.
• 45:48
  What an incentive.
• 45:49
  That's right.
• 45:50
  So to get...
• 45:52
  that situation looking back on it now and look at it as the family side of it and it was also the last year of cigarette advertising so after Bathurst basically I think we had one more race to go or whatever it was we had no more sponsorship so that's why I didn't know where I was going so to get that close to winning the race of all those history stuff behind and
• 46:16
  Yep, it was gut-wrenching, there was no doubt.
• 46:19
  And we also had a situation through the week, because originally Gricey was going to drive with me that year, and he actually crashed my car in practice.
• 46:28
  And I swapped, and he was struggling a bit for pace, so I swapped him with David Parsons to hop in with me.
• 46:34
  So there was a little bit of aggro between Gricey and Jonesy with the second car and all that, through the Phil Morris thing a little bit.
• 46:43
  So there was a lot going on that year.
• 46:46
  So, yeah, looking back on it now, it was a pretty big moment in my career with what happened.
• 46:53
  But, like I say, I still look back on the opportunities I've had in the sport, and I just take the positives from that and not the negatives from losing that race.
• 47:03
  Because...
• 47:05
  If I look on it in two ways, one, yeah, I lost a race and it probably would have made a reasonable difference of where we're going future-wise, which if you look back on now, it probably didn't.
• 47:14
  But what it did do, people saw what happened.
• 47:19
  They were coming along for the ride with me on the day and they had what happened.
• 47:24
  Everyone saw it and they always bring that up of...
• 47:27
  how they just about cried too on what happened.
• 47:30
  Because a lot of the Holden fans would come up and say, look, I'm a Holden supporter, but I would have loved you as a board driver to win that race.
• 47:37
  So that was the positive side of it that came out of it, to be honest.
• 47:43
  That was pretty rewarding.
• 47:45
  You had some, I mean, you talked about Alan Jones there before the 1980 Formula One world champion.
• 47:50
  When you look through the list, mate, you've had some incredible teammates during your career.
• 47:54
  Some of them have been good friends as well.
• 47:55
  I mean, Neil Crompton's another one.
• 47:57
  Is there a, it's probably hard to play favourites, but is there a standout that you really enjoyed working with?
• 48:02
  And George Fury, who would it be?
• 48:03
  You know what, see, I can't really say there was one that you can stand out with.
• 48:07
  There's a lot of great friends.
• 48:08
  Like you say, Neil was fantastic at race with Neil those years.
• 48:12
  He put so much effort in behind the scenes and in the car.
• 48:16
  He was an awesome enduro driver to drive with.
• 48:18
  He was fast at Bathurst every year.
• 48:21
  Then you look at Lowndes, we finished twice on the podium there, second twice in two years in a row in 2003 and 2004.
• 48:29
  Then he'd say, like George Fury, to race with him.
• 48:31
  And so they're all really, really high-caliber drivers and high-caliber people to be associated with.
• 48:37
  So it's really lucky.
• 48:40
  Greg Hansel was my co-driver one year.
• 48:42
  He's not around today.
• 48:43
  So there's another icon that was a part of it as well.
• 48:45
  So, no, I could never name one person because they're all great people and really great co-drivers and really enjoyable to be team partners with.
• 48:58
  When I look back, you've driven some great cars during your career, mate.
• 49:01
  Is there one that you cherish?
• 49:05
  Maybe you've kept it, maybe you haven't, but is there a race car that holds a soft spot in Glen Sleetan's heart?
• 49:10
  Definitely 97.
• 49:12
  Yeah, it was my favourite car to drive.
• 49:15
  But if you drove it today compared to the modern day stuff, you go, God, how bad's this?
• 49:19
  But back in the 97, it just seemed to be effortless to drive, that car.
• 49:24
  And it's still around.
• 49:25
  A good friend of mine actually owns it.
• 49:26
  He actually keeps it in a little room that he's made under his house, that car.
• 49:30
  And he brings it out occasionally to Muscle Car Masters and they have a bit of a steer of it.
• 49:34
  So that car brings me a lot of fond memories because of the
• 49:41
  I suppose, as we said earlier about the very small team, small numbers, what we did with that car, winning a championship, and the Ford Credit Colour was a good looking car as well.
• 49:52
  Was it a hard drug to give up, Glenn?
• 49:54
  I mean, it's such a competitive sport now, such a professional sport now.
• 49:59
  You went through a pretty special era of growth with it and had some great success along the way.
• 50:04
  Was it hard to stop the professional sport?
• 50:06
  She was asked this question recently at a function, and I answered it this way of, and this is true,
• 50:13
  When you're at a level of a professional sportsman and you've done as much as you can do and you're no longer competitive because your reasons, because your ability's not quite there anymore maybe or your fear just a little bit kicks in a bit more or whatever, you know when it's time to give up.
• 50:33
  And a lot of people, when that happens, can't move away from the sport because of exactly like you say, it's almost like feeling like a drug that you're hooked to.
• 50:42
  I've been really lucky with Aaron with the racing because I've got to be able to be a part of the sport and part of a dream with my son.
• 50:52
  So that sort of stopped me from going into that withdrawal of the sport because I was able to put the focus onto him going racing and being a part of that.
• 51:02
  And that's been hugely rewarding because we've spent since he was seven till now motor racing.
• 51:08
  We spent a lot of weekends together.
• 51:12
  And including with my daughter involved and all that sort of stuff too.
• 51:14
  So yes, it could have been, but no, it wasn't because I focused in another area of which I highly have had so much enjoyment and excitement out of, which is my kids and go motor racing with them.
• 51:30
  And you're continuing to, because as you and I sit here in an hour or two, you'll be engineering the car for your son.
• 51:36
  I can sense how proud you are of him, mate, and the way he really applies himself, not just in the car, but outside it as well.
• 51:42
  Yeah, he's a beautiful soul, in and out.
• 51:49
  And I just hope that I can help him get to where he wants to be.
• 51:53
  He'll do everything he can in that regard, mate.
• 51:55
  It's a different era now.
• 51:56
  It's a tough era.
• 51:57
  I mean, every chapter of touring car racing comes with its challenges.
• 52:02
  I mean, you talked before about going through the end of the tobacco era and things like that.
• 52:08
  It's not an easy road to walk, is it, mate?
• 52:10
  No, it was definitely easier when I was younger, there's no doubt.
• 52:15
  I suppose I came through exactly at the right time when the sport was having that little bit of change from the older sort of race drivers that were still around to being the younger ones coming through.
• 52:26
  So I suppose in one way Fred gave me the opportunity to start that happening in motorsport for the younger guys coming in.
• 52:35
  So I looked on it and the opportunities were probably a little bit easier because it wasn't a checkbook you had to walk in with back then.
• 52:43
  Now the business is commercial.
• 52:47
  All the teams rely on funding to go racing.
• 52:49
  So they need money.
• 52:50
  So the only way you can get into it is...
• 52:53
  to get the opportunities to show your wares is usually bringing on a bit of money to be able to do it.
• 52:58
  So that makes it much harder for all the young guys that are around today to try and become professional racers in Australia.
• 53:06
  We're such a small population, and we've only got so much money hanging around, and there's a hell of a lot of good talent out there.
• 53:12
  Try to find...
• 53:14
  Okay, to do a development series these days, it's $500,000 to $600,000 to do seven races.
• 53:19
  It's a pretty tall ask, and that's what you've sort of got to look for.
• 53:23
  Without having a lot of family money, it's almost impossible for a young guy to make it through.
• 53:28
  I was very lucky in the right circumstances in an era when the change was happening.
• 53:35
  Is he hands-on, and does he enjoy the technical side of it as much as you do?
• 53:40
  Yes, there's no doubt that he listens to what's going on and we work really good together in...
• 53:46
  He comes in, what's it doing, mate?
• 53:48
  Doing this, okay, we'll do this, we'll do this.
• 53:50
  And I explain to him what we're doing in every change we're doing so he can learn that, yep, geez, that feels and that's what's happening.
• 53:57
  Naturally, he works at DJI Penske on the workshop floor, which is really good for him because he's learning all the building and the cars and what goes into a professional race team, which he couldn't get any better than being a part of that.
• 54:10
  And they've really looked after him really well to give him that opportunity to be able to do that.
• 54:16
  He definitely puts a lot of effort in behind the scenes to try and make it.
• 54:21
  He definitely dreams of wanting to be there.
• 54:26
  And I'm doing my best to try and help him through that and through the hard times and the good times when he gets it.
• 54:32
  So I'm with Aaron Seaton, Glenn's son here.
• 54:37
  Do you feel like you've always wanted to follow in Dad's footsteps?
• 54:41
  How big an influence has he been on you?
• 54:43
  Yeah, definitely.
• 54:44
  Dad's been a massive influence on me.
• 54:46
  Since I was little, I've been around motor racing, and it's all I've ever known, really.
• 54:50
  It's where I get my enjoyment out of is the competing side, and I really enjoy learning off him and being around most of it.
• 54:58
  you're a young fella you can creep me on your age in a moment i think i'm 20 i'm yet you're 20 i'm i'm twice your age you're half mine sometimes young blokes at that age don't always have a great relationship with their dad they kind of go through this period of you want to do it your way he wants to do it his but i sense you guys have a really good bond particularly when it comes to the racing is that is that val is that right
• 55:19
  Yeah, definitely.
• 55:20
  Dad and I have shared a very close bond ever since I was seven and then even younger racing karts.
• 55:27
  And yeah, we've been pretty close and we've done it all through together and just sort of learning off and getting all the experience and just developing as a driver.
• 55:34
  It's been awesome to work with him and just the amount of knowledge that he can pass over is just incredible.
• 55:40
  What were the early recollections of his racing for you and the things that are close to your heart that perhaps inspired you?
• 55:46
  To be honest I don't really remember too much of Dad's racing from main game supercars.
• 55:51
  I was a bit young to remember it all.
• 55:55
  So yeah, it's more my memories of when he was an endurance driver is my biggest memories of him.
• 56:01
  When you got started, was he a nervous Dad on the sidelines?
• 56:04
  Was he sort of sitting back letting you do your thing?
• 56:06
  Was he hands on?
• 56:07
  What was he like?
• 56:08
  He's definitely hands-on.
• 56:09
  He's always loved the technical side of go-karts and car racing.
• 56:12
  Just keep on improving the cart or car and just keep on improving every lap.
• 56:19
  He's definitely been very hard on me, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
• 56:21
  I've been able to develop a lot more as a driver that way.
• 56:24
  He's walked a very important road in his career, mate, to go on and have the success that he did.
• 56:30
  What are the things that he can perhaps teach you outside the car as well about the business of motorsport and how to navigate that?
• 56:36
  That's not easy.
• 56:37
  Yeah, definitely.
• 56:38
  It's the hardest part about motorsport now is...
• 56:42
  Having the crowd around to have you on your good days and your bad days, obviously you need to present yourself very well every time you hop in and out the car, and that's what he's teaching me, and that's hopefully how I can go in the future.
• 56:56
  Where would you like this to go, mate?
• 56:58
  The dream, I guess, is supercars and things like that.
• 57:02
  I mean, to be the third generation of Seatons to reach the Australian Touring Car Championship would be a huge story, mate, wouldn't it?
• 57:08
  Yeah, definitely.
• 57:09
  It'd be massive and it's where hopefully I can be in the future.
• 57:12
  I'll definitely be striving towards it the next few years and see what happens.
• 57:16
  Just keep improving as a driver, keep getting experience in different types of cars and just developing a lot more as a driver and see where I end up.
• 57:23
  We're here at Queensland Raceway for this chat.
• 57:25
  You're racing.
• 57:26
  He's engineering, am I right?
• 57:28
  Does he talk to you on the radio?
• 57:30
  What sort of things do you discuss in terms of setup of the car?
• 57:32
  What's that like?
• 57:33
  Yeah, no, it's awesome to have Dad here engineering the car.
• 57:36
  Obviously, we've shared a close bond over the years, so we can communicate very well with what the car is doing to help improve the car, and it's been awesome having him here this weekend and also throughout my career.
• 57:47
  Just...
• 57:48
  Yeah, being able to, he knows what I like from a car and we can just sort of chat about it and he knows exactly what to fix.
• 57:56
  And yeah, we just go out and try it.
• 57:57
  No, it's working well at the moment.
• 57:59
  Are you one of those hands-on guys yourself?
• 58:01
  Have you enjoyed the mechanical aspect of racing and got your teeth into that?
• 58:04
  Yeah, definitely, and a lot more recently I've been learning a lot more.
• 58:07
  I've been working at DJR Timpensky, so it's been awesome to learn from one of the top teams as well as my dad and just about what the current supercars are like to work with and just get a lot more mechanical knowledge from them.
• 58:20
  Is there a takeout thing from his career or perhaps one piece of advice that he's given you that really sticks in your mind?
• 58:27
  It's just always have fun, obviously.
• 58:29
  When you're doing what you love, you've just got to remember through the highs and lows that you've always got to have fun and get enjoyment out of what you do for a living.
• 58:36
  Go get them.
• 58:36
  Nice to catch up.
• 58:37
  Thank you.
• 58:41
  I want to ask you about something that you spoke to our friend and colleague, the historian, the V8 sleuth Aaron Noonan about before.
• 58:49
  You said earlier in our chat about crashes and there was one in testing at Phillip Island in 2000 which was a biggie for you and one judging by the article that you said took quite a toll.
• 59:00
  Just tell us about that.
• 59:02
  Yeah, it was actually Phillip Island in September 2000 it was.
• 59:06
  And just to give a bit of a heads up on what actually happened that morning.
• 59:11
  So it was only us and HRT there testing.
• 59:13
  Naturally, we were testing for the enduro races.
• 59:15
  Wayne Gardner was driving with us in that year in the team.
• 59:20
  So he was giving him some miles as well.
• 59:21
  What were you in, the AU Falcon, I think?
• 59:23
  Yeah, that's right.
• 59:24
  So it was the Ford Tickford Racing AU Falcon.
• 59:27
  So I just hopped into the second car, which Wayne had been out in the morning, and it had been raining, and it just started to get two dry tracks coming sort of around to come onto the straight.
• 59:38
  And I just got slightly out of them tracks on slick tyres, and it just straight into the grass.
• 59:42
  And back then, they didn't have the gravel traps they've got now or the tyres against the earth bank, and it just...
• 59:48
  The speedy coming onto the straight there is...
• 59:51
  probably a vicinity of 200, minimum speed in the middle of going to be 200km an hour, 210km an hour, and it just got off those tracks and onto the grass, and naturally with slick tyres, with the weight of the cars and the momentum they get on wet grass, it just instantly slid straight across and straight at the bank, and it hit the right rear quarter and sort of side panel, and bounced, well, I don't remember it once I hit the bank because it knocked me out, and...
• 1:00:17
  The guy said it bounced 15 metres in the air and swung around and landed back on its feet.
• 1:00:22
  And so the next thing I remember when I got pulled out of the car was laying on the ground and sort of come to and on my back was a massive amount of pain coming from my back thinking I broke my back and that.
• 1:00:34
  And luckily Wayne was there at the time, Gardner, and naturally he'd had so many crashes on bikes he was probably knowing what I was going through and he was sort of taking me through it all and that.
• 1:00:44
  airlifted out of there and to spend a week in Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and I've got to say that crash I probably never recovered from because it sort of really rattled me.
• 1:00:59
  I suppose I'm a person that
• 1:01:02
  When those sort of things are put in place or those things happen to you, you then start to think about death.
• 1:01:08
  And those things, once you're a race driver and you start to think about those things all the time or when you get under another situation when the race is wet again and you're in that wet condition, you're thinking about those things.
• 1:01:20
  So I probably struggled from then on in the wet, definitely.
• 1:01:24
  But it sort of changed my...
• 1:01:27
  direction in my feeling of driving race cars anymore from that time on I'd have to say.
• 1:01:32
  You still even now have immersed yourself in the in the technical side of it a number of the guys that are in the Touring Car Masters have benefited from the work that you've done setup wise suspension wise do you enjoy that side of it and is that in addition to working with your son Aaron is that one of the main focuses for Glenn Seaton now that's?
• 1:01:49
  Yeah, there's no doubt.
• 1:01:50
  I get a huge reward out of seeing those guys go forward and the smiles that comes on those guys' faces when we make changes and they actually go a lot faster.
• 1:01:59
  I look at...
• 1:02:01
  My experience in driving race cars is all about making it easy to drive and making it so it's not scaring you.
• 1:02:09
  So when you make these little changes to these guys, they go... And at the end of the day, they're businessmen trying to just have a bit of fun on race weekends and go racing.
• 1:02:17
  90% of these cars are too powerful for them, too out of control for them.
• 1:02:20
  So they're scared of everywhere they go.
• 1:02:22
  So if you can make that easier for them...
• 1:02:25
  their experience is much more enjoyed.
• 1:02:26
  So I really get a buzz out of watching them guys hop out of the car and go, wow, that's great.
• 1:02:31
  That car feels really good now.
• 1:02:32
  I'm really enjoying going motor racing.
• 1:02:36
  So that's why I do that side of it behind the scenes, because I actually get a huge reward myself out of seeing those guys' faces and the enjoyment they get.
• 1:02:45
  In this series, I often talk to people about a Grail car, a special car.
• 1:02:49
  Earlier in the chat, we talked about the Capri, the car that you shared with your dad, how special it is to the family.
• 1:02:56
  Is that the one for you in some respects, not just the supercar we covered before, the 97 one?
• 1:03:02
  Tell us a bit more about the Capri
• 1:03:05
  you know, some of its tech specs and why it retains that special place for you.
• 1:03:10
  Well, naturally, anyone that followed my dad's career, he was a Capri guru, if you want to call it.
• 1:03:18
  He tried to naturally make it in the sort of upper level, uh, outright cars and the expense for him was, because at the end of the day he was, he worked for himself and whatever he made he'd go racing with.
• 1:03:30
  So the next best thing for him was to run as a class car, because naturally back in the early, like the Group C days and all those early Falcon and Tirana days and all that, it was all based on class cars and also outright cars.
• 1:03:46
  Based on the Capri, he had a lot of success.
• 1:03:49
  1975 was his first year in Capri's.
• 1:03:51
  He actually nearly ran third.
• 1:03:52
  He was running third outright when it lost a wheel at the top of the mountain in 75, sorry.
• 1:03:58
  75 was his first year.
• 1:03:59
  So then he'd become the Capri guru of Amaru and all those places where they'd have the three-litre series.
• 1:04:04
  He'd win a lot of races, and most of the time win the three-litre class of baddest.
• 1:04:08
  So there's a lot of history there for Capris in the families.
• 1:04:11
  And this last, the yellow car, which is my first car and his last, was the start of my career in touring cars and it was the end of his career in touring cars because that was his last car.
• 1:04:23
  So it was...
• 1:04:26
  It's a 1980s spec Ford Capri, hatchback Capri.
• 1:04:30
  They never sold them here in Australia.
• 1:04:32
  They were brought in from England.
• 1:04:33
  Naturally, he brought it in as a body shell and built it up as a race car.
• 1:04:37
  It was built for the 3-litre series, which they produced around 220 horsepower.
• 1:04:41
  230 was a really good engine.
• 1:04:43
  So that was about the sort of spec it was.
• 1:04:46
  It actually had all the flared guards and the big wheels and all that that you were allowed in groups seeing them days.
• 1:04:51
  And...
• 1:04:52
  So him and Donnie Smith used to race for years in the enduro races together, and then naturally that was the last car he built, and then we drove together in 83.
• 1:05:03
  So it's very important to the family because of the history of my dad with Capris.
• 1:05:07
  It's my first ever car.
• 1:05:09
  It's his last ever car.
• 1:05:11
  It's the car that Scafie got his license in.
• 1:05:14
  And to keep that car in the family is really, really important, and it's...
• 1:05:19
  and I want to like I say I'd like to to get that at some stage it's in pristine condition as in based in 84 when it finished never doing touched up in paint jobs never done nothing it's still the same engine it's just bizarre um
• 1:05:34
  So to be able to sort of keep that in the family is really important because it's a long legacy for the Seton family, the Capris.
• 1:05:41
  A couple of ones to finish with.
• 1:05:44
  If Glen Seton had an unlimited budget today, what cars, what motorbikes, whatever would you have in the garage?
• 1:05:49
  What would you do?
• 1:05:50
  You know what, this is going to sound really, really strange, Rusty.
• 1:05:55
  I'm actually not a material man at all.
• 1:05:57
  I actually enjoy just getting out in life and just...
• 1:06:03
  having a bit of fun.
• 1:06:05
  I don't have to have a Ferrari.
• 1:06:07
  I don't have to have a Ducati.
• 1:06:08
  I don't have to have all that sort of stuff.
• 1:06:10
  Like, I love a look of Ferraris.
• 1:06:12
  I love these Ducatis and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:06:14
  But would that make me happy if I had them sitting in my garage?
• 1:06:17
  Maybe a little bit, but does it change my life?
• 1:06:19
  No.
• 1:06:20
  So I probably look at more on what I could do for my family, for my kids and that, what I could do to help them than me have all the Ferraris and have the Ducatis and all that.
• 1:06:31
  In some ways, that actually doesn't surprise me, knowing a bit about you.
• 1:06:34
  Righto, road rules that drive you mad.
• 1:06:36
  Are there any?
• 1:06:36
  Are you a calm guy on the road?
• 1:06:38
  What are you like?
• 1:06:39
  I can get frustrated, there's no doubt about that.
• 1:06:41
  So people that sit in the right-hand lane, in the fast lane, and do under the speed limit drives me nuts.
• 1:06:48
  But most of it, because I've got the opportunity to be able to get my racing enjoyment and frustration on the racetrack, I'm actually quite calm on the road of driving around at not speed pace.
• 1:07:00
  Are you listening to music?
• 1:07:02
  What do you, AM radio, what do you listen to when you're roaring around on the streets?
• 1:07:07
  No, it's usually whatever's on the radio usually at the time, so it can be anything of the local music.
• 1:07:13
  Like my music-wise is like Cold Chisels and Pink and Pink Floyd and all those sort of old stuff.
• 1:07:22
  Well, Pink's not old stuff, but I love all that sort of Cold Chisel.
• 1:07:27
  It brings me back from my childhood, the Aussie Crawls, the...
• 1:07:32
  All those just I love listening to.
• 1:07:34
  It's been fantastic to sit and talk with you, mate.
• 1:07:37
  Congratulations on a stellar career.
• 1:07:41
  25 years of professional racing, two titles, 40 race wins, a swag of round victories, more than 50 podiums, and you're in...
• 1:07:50
  the 200 club, more than 200 race starts and fittingly, fittingly in the Supercars Hall of Fame.
• 1:07:55
  Congratulations mate and we wish you all the very best with Aaron.
• 1:07:58
  We know that he's got, he's a chip off the old block and that third generation story is one that we look forward to reading more about.
• 1:08:04
  Yeah, thanks Rusty but I'll tell you what, I couldn't do it without my family and I couldn't do it without the support of the fans that have backed me all my years because I've tried to give...
• 1:08:15
  as much as I can back to them away from the race car.
• 1:08:19
  And they're the sort of people that have made us as race drivers to what we are today, and I couldn't do it without those people.
• 1:08:25
  And thank you to all them that will be listening to your show and have followed my career.
• 1:08:31
  I was very grateful.
• 1:08:38
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:08:42
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 1:08:46
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 1:08:55
  Listener.