Latest / Rusty's Garage / The Motorsport Brief | Young Aussie Taylor Gill flying under the radar

Transcript

The Motorsport Brief | Young Aussie Taylor Gill flying under the radar · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:04
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief, an epp in response to a few requests from you on social media to get a young driver on who is literally flying under the radar.
• 0:15
  G'day everyone, Rusty here in the garage.
• 0:17
  Taylor Gill will join us shortly and if you're saying, who's that?
• 0:20
  Check out the Junior World Rally Championship.
• 0:22
  This young guy is leading with one round to go and it's a good story.
• 0:27
  So we thought we'd get him on to have a chat about it.
• 0:29
  Have you caught our latest feature ep?
• 0:31
  It's very funny and not just for motorcycle racing fans.
• 0:35
  Mr. Superbike, Robbie Phyllis joined us for two hours.
• 0:38
  We in fact went to a workshop in Albury around some cool old race bikes that he's
• 0:43
  campaigned over the years, breaking 49 bones, brain hemorrhages and more than 200 crashes that he had during his career.
• 0:52
  But winning against some great names in the formative years of the Australian Superbike Championship and making it to the world stage...
• 0:59
  but kind of before WSBK really took off.
• 1:03
  Those wins in Europe at legendary tracks like Spa saw him earn plenty of respect.
• 1:09
  He was a great mate of the late Peter Brock too.
• 1:12
  And Johnny Harvey used to run strategy for him at two-wheel endurance classics.
• 1:16
  I hadn't heard that before.
• 1:18
  And he shares a yarn about Larry Perkins throwing his leg over a Suzuki Katana and cutting some laps.
• 1:24
  We also talk about the absolute chaos that he caused in Japan over the years and helping to develop a cutting edge bike for Daytona.
• 1:32
  Search for Robbie Phyllis in our library when you have some time.
• 1:36
  I'm in the home studio for this one.
• 1:37
  My guest is overseas where he's been doing the hard yards, clearly with the ambition of trying to make it to the top of the WRC, the World Rally Championship.
• 1:46
  I visited him on the central coast of New South Wales some years ago and you could tell
• 1:51
  even then how much love he had for it a genuine deep family passion but stitching a program like this together is a huge undertaking but i love seeing people making it happen who walk the talk taylor welcome it's great to get you on the pod
• 2:07
  Yeah, thanks Rusty, it's great to be on here.
• 2:09
  Hey, my brain is fried.
• 2:10
  Was that pre-COVID before you went overseas?
• 2:14
  When was that catch-up that we did?
• 2:16
  Just about pre-COVID.
• 2:17
  Must have been getting towards the end of 2019 when I was pushing towards Rally Australia.
• 2:22
  It was supposed to be my first rally in that year, so right at the end of the year.
• 2:26
  And obviously it was cancelled with the bushfires.
• 2:27
  But yeah, obviously you and I did a sort of half-day media training and I still carry a lot of those things today.
• 2:34
  So...
• 2:35
  Full credit to you, mate.
• 2:36
  You've taken it and well and truly built on it and you're doing some great things.
• 2:41
  Carding background for you.
• 2:42
  There are title wins there, but probably worth telling people listening and maybe even hearing and meeting you for the first time that rallying really is in your family, isn't it?
• 2:51
  Yeah, it is.
• 2:52
  I mean, my dad always rallied at a sort of club level, you know, back in the 90s and early 2000s before I was sort of born.
• 2:59
  But also he lived for a period of time in a little town called Pukekohe in New Zealand, which is where the, I guess, late great Possum born was from.
• 3:07
  So, yeah, there's a bit of a tie in there.
• 3:09
  And hence my middle name is actually Possum after the great man himself.
• 3:13
  So, yeah, it's certainly in the blood, that's for sure.
• 3:16
  Your dad, I think, has jumped on Facebook today and had a bit of fun because did his drive to win come the day after his dad, quote unquote, a washed up has been, who never was, took 25 seconds out of him on a 21 kilometre stage in the same car on the same day?
• 3:32
  True or false?
• 3:36
  I mean, I wish I could say it's false, but it is a true fact.
• 3:38
  So, yeah, I try to sort of hide that a little bit, but that's his big claim to fame.
• 3:44
  So, yeah, he's always reminding me of that.
• 3:46
  We'll circle back to some of those Facebook comments very shortly.
• 3:51
  just in the merge, if you like, from your karting background and then kind of into rally, the natural step is things like autocross and rally sprints and so on.
• 4:00
  Am I right?
• 4:01
  Was there some sort of dispensation for you as a young teenager to get the tick on a licence to be able to do that kind of stuff?
• 4:07
  Yeah.
• 4:08
  So it was pretty straightforward with doing karting crosses, autocrosses, rally sprints basically.
• 4:12
  But the rule, at least as it was back then in New South Wales, was that you had to have your P plates to start rallying because you need the licence to drive on the road.
• 4:21
  Actually, fortunately, we got dispensation that I was able to start rallying on a learner's permit.
• 4:25
  So we had to jump through a few hoops.
• 4:27
  Obviously, you know, it was a bit of back and forth with Motorsport Australia.
• 4:30
  And then, yeah, in the end, they granted us the dispensation, which unfortunately we didn't get to use that much because of COVID.
• 4:35
  But still, I got to do two or three rallies with learner plates on the car.
• 4:40
  So I had made some cool photos, I'm sure.
• 4:42
  Worth telling people a little bit about some of the results for you in that period, right?
• 4:48
  And you can tell me if I don't have the dates or ages right here.
• 4:52
  I think at age 13, you win the New South Wales Junior State Carnacross Series, 14...
• 4:58
  approximately youngest person to win a round of the New South Wales State Rally Sprint Series.
• 5:03
  And then you become the youngest person to win Production Cup in the history of the Australian Rally Championship.
• 5:09
  Was there ever a plan B or this is all you ever wanted to do?
• 5:13
  No.
• 5:14
  It's pretty much all I've ever wanted to do.
• 5:16
  So, yeah, certainly, I mean, since I started racing go-karts at the age of seven, it's always been pushing towards this.
• 5:21
  And, of course, you know, people have asked along the way, you know, what's your plan B or what would you do otherwise?
• 5:27
  And, I mean, I'm sure I could go back to that.
• 5:29
  I was working as an apprentice mechanic for a few years in Australia a couple of years ago.
• 5:33
  So, I mean, I'm sure I could go back to that.
• 5:35
  But it's really I would much, much rather be driving cars as a profession.
• 5:39
  So, yeah, it's certainly been there.
• 5:41
  Everything has been pushing towards that.
• 5:43
  That's not a wasted skill, though, I would imagine.
• 5:45
  That apprenticeship, no matter how far you got through it, given what you do and given some of the remote places when things can go wrong, you do have to be pretty resourceful, pretty handy in that regard, don't you?
• 5:56
  Yeah, exactly.
• 5:57
  It's been a massive help, and I think it just helps with the –
• 6:00
  understanding of how the car's working and what's happening underneath you especially when we do these really rough rallies like you know greece is probably the roughest one we go to and it's quite often that things are breaking or you know parts start to fail and that sort of thing because the nature of the rally is just so rough so it also just gives me the confidence that you know when i lift the car up and take the wheel off i sort of know what i'm looking at and you know what's what's happening there so yeah it has been helpful in that way
• 6:26
  So you get this opportunity with Motorsport Australia as a wildcard or as our representative for Rally Star.
• 6:33
  And this is the FIA's Rally Development Initiative.
• 6:36
  Tell people a little bit more about it and how important that moment was for you to be selected.
• 6:44
  Yeah, massively.
• 6:45
  I mean, that was absolutely pivotal for my career.
• 6:49
  If I didn't have the rally start opportunity, then I would have basically no chance of making a career in Europe and to be over here rallying.
• 6:55
  But yeah, basically I saw the program online and thought, okay, this looks quite cool and how do we sort of get involved?
• 7:02
  And then one day I basically got a phone call asking...
• 7:05
  okay, we want to put you forward to be the wild card to go to the Asia-Pacific final because they ran basically a final selection in every continent, more or less.
• 7:15
  So, yeah, I had to do a few little interviews and that sort of thing with some people around, I guess, a bit of a board that were picking the wild card.
• 7:22
  And then, yeah, eventually I got selected.
• 7:24
  And there was quite a few Australians that went over to the final in the...
• 7:28
  It was in India, actually, this Asia-Pacific final.
• 7:30
  And it was basically a three-day shootout.
• 7:32
  We drove cross-carts from Tiernan Avil's company.
• 7:36
  Yeah, three days we did fitness testing.
• 7:38
  We did a beat test running on the racetrack in 40 degrees.
• 7:41
  It was absolute hell, but that was what we had to do.
• 7:45
  We did, you know, reaction tests.
• 7:46
  We did interviews, all the standard sort of things you would do, and, of course, the driving as well.
• 7:51
  And then, yeah, basically at the end of the three days, I was picked as the Asia-Pacific final winner and, yeah, joined the program along with the European winner and Africa and so on and so on.
• 8:02
  So, yeah, there was a pool of about 7,000 people that had sort of applied to be in the program and go to the finals and that sort of thing.
• 8:09
  And in the end, they picked six and now we're basically down to three.
• 8:12
  That program gives you a – it's a word we often dive for, I know, but it gives you a pathway, doesn't it?
• 8:19
  That's actually the great thing about what the FIA slash the World Rally Championship are doing here is that it integrates you into the system.
• 8:27
  It helps with training and starts that process to see if you can cut the mustard.
• 8:34
  Yeah, exactly.
• 8:35
  It gives you the perfect stepping stone to kind of launch into the World Championship.
• 8:38
  And it's done really the right way because all the drivers that have been picked have been picked there because we don't have the big financial backing to just pay to go overseas.
• 8:47
  We have to really work and earn our stripes and earn our place there.
• 8:52
  And if we want to be winning, we have to be working hard to make it happen.
• 8:55
  So it's been really great for that because, you know, I –
• 8:59
  I can put down all the success I have now or a lot of the success down to the program and how it's taught us how hard we have to work and all the specific things that people don't often think about when it comes to rallying.
• 9:11
  How has it changed you in terms of being an athlete and maybe working with different co-drivers over time?
• 9:19
  Maybe there's been some finesse around the system that you use, for example, and so on.
• 9:26
  Yeah, we've had lots of great coaches, especially when we started with the program.
• 9:29
  We did the first season in 2023.
• 9:31
  Basically, it was called a training season.
• 9:34
  So the goal was to do those six rallies and learn.
• 9:37
  It wasn't about winning.
• 9:39
  It wasn't about setting the fastest stage.
• 9:40
  Of course, that's all important and it still matters, but it was like we all made lots of mistakes across all the rallies, and it was about picking those mistakes out, learning from them, so that when we went to the World Championship,
• 9:53
  we weren't making all these silly mistakes, amateur mistakes on the run when you're trying to prove yourself in the WRC.
• 10:00
  So, yeah, it's been really great.
• 10:02
  We worked with a few different guys who have helped a lot on the driving side because obviously that's most important.
• 10:08
  And then, yeah, also we've worked with some great co-drivers who have helped not only myself but Dan's progression as well who's been co-driving for me for a few years now.
• 10:16
  And, yeah, just everyone as a unit has always been pulling in the right direction.
• 10:21
  The commercial side then becomes super important to stay there, to keep this going.
• 10:26
  You're wearing, for those listening to the pod that aren't watching the video at the moment, I mean, you've got backing from Shannon's who've supported us on the podcast over time, but there are others as well.
• 10:36
  How have you gone learning that side?
• 10:38
  And do you feel like you're better in that domain now?
• 10:41
  Yeah.
• 10:42
  Yeah, it's certainly better than when I started, that's for sure, but it's still not easy.
• 10:46
  And, of course, getting the sponsors, getting the partners on board is a crucial part of the job, I suppose.
• 10:54
  Of course, I'd prefer to be driving the cars every day and not have to think about that, but that's part of it.
• 10:59
  And also, it is enjoyable when...
• 11:02
  Especially now this year, we've got lots of guys on board, lots of people supporting like Shannon, who you mentioned.
• 11:09
  Also, Richard Olton and Shamrock Allridge have been a big supporter of me over the last few years and lots of others.
• 11:14
  So, yeah, it's really great.
• 11:16
  We also have this Taylor Gill Supporters Club that we started last year, which has been really great for, I guess, general fans to support as well.
• 11:23
  So, yeah, it's a key part of my career and staying over here, like you say.
• 11:29
  People can go to your website, your socials, and find out more about that supporters club.
• 11:33
  Get on board and support him.
• 11:34
  Taylor, can we get you to stick around just for a little bit longer?
• 11:36
  Yes, of course.
• 11:37
  Cool.
• 11:38
  Part two of our conversation with the Junior World Rally Championship leader continues right after this.
• 11:46
  For this edition of the Motorsport Brief, we're spending a bit of time with Taylor Gill.
• 11:49
  Thank you to the fans as well.
• 11:50
  A few of you messaged in some questions, and it's really because of you reminding me that Taylor is boxing away at the world level here, that we should be making a bit more noise on his progress.
• 12:00
  So let's get back to the chat on this.
• 12:02
  You are talking to us from Finland.
• 12:05
  Rally heaven.
• 12:06
  Are you enjoying that?
• 12:07
  Do you get homesick?
• 12:08
  Are you firmly entrenched there now?
• 12:10
  Yeah, I really love it here.
• 12:12
  Both Dan and myself live here in the same apartment, so it's really like a rally hub here.
• 12:16
  You know, we have a whiteboard in the living room where we write down all rallying stuff, everything we need to remember and all the info for the upcoming events and so on and so on.
• 12:25
  So it's really good and it really feels like home.
• 12:27
  I mean, obviously, I love going back to Australia.
• 12:29
  I've been back for the last couple of summers and I'm going back also in a couple of weeks for a year.
• 12:34
  for a couple of weeks so yeah of course i enjoy going home but in a weird way when i fly back to finland it feels like flying home because ultimately this is where my life is is based is where i have an apartment i have a car i have job i have everything is here so so yeah i i really really love a little bit cold in the winter time but we can push past that
• 12:54
  We'll talk more about the opportunity when you come back shortly.
• 12:57
  Can we just focus on the Junior World Rally Championship here, the specification of the cars that you run, how you feel now that you've had a couple of years at that?
• 13:07
  And it feels like you're really starting to come into your own here, Taylor.
• 13:11
  Yeah, definitely.
• 13:12
  And I would say we're starting to feel pretty comfortable, I guess, within the championship.
• 13:17
  Of course, we're leading the championship now going into the last round, and it's been a really great season and consistent season from our side.
• 13:23
  So yeah, two first places and then two second places.
• 13:26
  So it's been really, really nice that way.
• 13:28
  And we feel now really comfortable with the car.
• 13:31
  We know the surroundings.
• 13:32
  We know the championship.
• 13:33
  We know the way you
• 13:35
  We have quite a good, broad understanding of everything that's involved with trying to win the championship.
• 13:40
  So, yeah, we've been trying to put all that into practice this season.
• 13:43
  It is a compact or a condensed season.
• 13:45
  You talked about Greece there before, but, I mean, experience at Sweden, Portugal, Finland, of course, where you are.
• 13:52
  I mean, the most satisfying thing must be the fact that you have to be consistent, basically.
• 13:59
  That is so imperative, isn't it?
• 14:01
  Yeah, exactly, and consistent across a range of rallies because all the rallies are just so totally different to each other.
• 14:08
  Of course, Sweden on snow is massively unique.
• 14:11
  It's certainly its own rally.
• 14:12
  And then, okay, Portugal and Greece are both kind of technical gravel rallies, but Greece is just so much rougher than Portugal.
• 14:20
  Portugal is still like 80% of it is a performance-based event.
• 14:24
  Greece is pretty much just survival from the start to finish.
• 14:28
  I mean, you...
• 14:29
  You do maybe 10% or 20% of the rally at proper driving speed, pushing and really committing.
• 14:35
  Everything else is just trying to get around the rocks and that sort of thing.
• 14:38
  And then obviously Finland is pure speed and then we finish in Central Europe, which is on tarmac.
• 14:43
  So it's really diverse.
• 14:44
  Tell us about that.
• 14:45
  One round to go.
• 14:46
  It's happening on the weekend after the Bathurst 1000.
• 14:49
  I think if I've got the calendar dates right, just preview the European rally for us and how you're going to go about this.
• 14:55
  Yeah, basically, it's relatively new event into the World Rally Championship.
• 14:59
  It's only been run twice before, so there's not so many resources about the rally.
• 15:04
  From what I can see, I mean, I've done a little bit of research already and the roads look really nice.
• 15:08
  It's basically the rally split with stages in the Czech Republic, stages in Austria and stages in Germany.
• 15:13
  So that gives its own diversity within the one event, you know, because obviously the three different countries have three slightly different landscapes and slightly different stages.
• 15:22
  So, yeah, it'll be a tricky rally and...
• 15:26
  I guess it's in the autumn time, so it can be quite wet, quite muddy, lots of cuts and mud and grass and leaves getting pulled onto the road.
• 15:33
  So, yeah, when you come like we are normally, car fishy on the road or something like that, it can be just full mud basically.
• 15:39
  So, yeah, it's a tarmac rally, but sometimes you don't feel like there's much tarmac underneath you.
• 15:44
  So, yeah, it'll be a tricky rally.
• 15:46
  And we have, I believe, a 14-point lead in the championship season.
• 15:51
  or 16-point lead, but the more important lead is when you consider the drop rounds, basically we have a five-point lead, and then the last round is double points, plus you get a point per stage win.
• 16:01
  So it's quite a complicated system, and it's still very open for, I think there's maybe five drivers that are mathematically in contention, but...
• 16:08
  Of course, we have the best chance because we're leading.
• 16:10
  And then this Swedish kid who we've been fighting all year is right behind us.
• 16:14
  So it'll be a big fight, that's sure.
• 16:16
  Go well.
• 16:16
  Go well with that.
• 16:17
  Now, you alluded to Richie Dalton before, Shamrock.
• 16:20
  You get the chance to try in the weeks slash months ahead.
• 16:25
  You're handed something a bit more powerful back home in New South Wales.
• 16:30
  Tell people about that.
• 16:31
  Have you driven this car before and what we can expect?
• 16:35
  Yeah, it's a big thanks to Richie.
• 16:36
  He's given me the opportunity and the keys to his Yaris AP4 to do the Naruma Forest Rally.
• 16:42
  So, yeah, that'll be a really, really cool opportunity.
• 16:45
  I've driven the car twice, actually.
• 16:47
  I drove it once right before I went to Europe, just at a speedway track in Vega, and the car was still owned by the Bates boys.
• 16:55
  So, basically, Neil gave me the opportunity to drive the car because I'd never driven a left-hand drive car.
• 17:00
  And I was going to be going to Europe, and obviously everything's left-hand drive over there.
• 17:03
  So he gave me the opportunity to do a few sort of laps there and just get a feel for it.
• 17:07
  And then, yeah, late last year also, Richie rang me and said, hey, I'm going testing in Canberra next week, and come down and you can do a few laps in the car.
• 17:15
  So I did about 30 Ks there as well.
• 17:17
  So I have a little bit of experience with the car, but yeah, when we get there and go flat out first stage of the rally, then I'm sure it'll be quite the learning curve.
• 17:24
  Do you think you could twist Richie's arm for an appearance maybe at the final round of the ARC in Tassie?
• 17:30
  Oh, that'd be good.
• 17:31
  But I think he's also got his eyes on it.
• 17:34
  So, yeah, it'd be cool.
• 17:37
  Righto.
• 17:37
  What's the next step for you in, you know, in 2026 and even beyond?
• 17:41
  Obviously, your immediate focus is what you just talked about there before around European rally and, you know, endeavouring to seal this championship.
• 17:47
  What's the next immediate goal?
• 17:50
  Yeah, basically, of course, trying to win the championship.
• 17:53
  And then the next step from that is trying to be in the WRC2 category with the Rally 2 car.
• 17:58
  That's what we're sort of pushing towards.
• 18:00
  And it's quite a pivotal time, basically, because the prize for winning the junior championship, I would get six rallies then with M Sport, with the Rally 2 Fiesta.
• 18:09
  next year in the World Championship.
• 18:11
  If I don't win the championship, then I don't get the prize and then I'm more or less left with nothing.
• 18:16
  So, yeah, I guess it all comes down to this one rally.
• 18:20
  Of course, there's a few options and we're trying to have some conversations and build some other options on the table, but the full focus is on trying to win the championship and get this program with MSP.
• 18:29
  Okay, before we let you go, and we hope this all lines up nicely for you there, mate, can we bounce through a couple of questions that have popped through on social media, if you don't mind?
• 18:37
  One from Matthew Sosomenko, who says, for any aspiring person that wants to go to the next level of sport, what tips or strategies would you suggest to make that happen?
• 18:47
  I mean, the obvious answer is just driving.
• 18:50
  I mean, it's so crucial.
• 18:51
  And I think people probably still underestimate how important seat time is.
• 18:55
  I mean, this year I calculated the other day that I've spent, I think, maybe 42 days of the year.
• 19:00
  I've driven a rally car on 42 days of the year.
• 19:03
  That's awesome when you consider how short the championship is.
• 19:05
  That's good.
• 19:06
  Yeah, exactly.
• 19:08
  And you compare that with, say, if you're doing the Australian Championship, you might only drive a car for 15 days of the year, 20 days of the year or something like that.
• 19:15
  Also, I look last year, I did six rallies in Europe and we're fighting against guys that were doing 10, 11, 12 events this year.
• 19:22
  I'm on track to do 10 rallies in a year and all of a sudden now we're leading the championship.
• 19:27
  So it shows just how crucial it is.
• 19:30
  So it's still an underestimated thing, I would say.
• 19:33
  Michael Ryan, how important does he think that working at rally school, that extra seat time, given you were just alluding to that, what you're doing in 25, that extra seat time with rally school, has that helped a little?
• 19:43
  Yeah, it has helped a little bit.
• 19:45
  Thanks for that one, Mick.
• 19:46
  But yeah, actually I would say the bigger help comes from having to teach the driving and put the driving into words is probably, because then it makes me think, especially when I was younger, it made me think a lot more about the driving instead of kind of just doing it naturally.
• 20:02
  I was also then thinking a bit more about my techniques and that sort of thing.
• 20:05
  So it has been helpful, that's for sure.
• 20:07
  Now, Matt Sydenham has asked a couple of questions in here.
• 20:10
  Specifically, can you win the 2025 FIA Junior World Rally Championship?
• 20:15
  And where do you competitively kind of see yourself in five years' time?
• 20:20
  Can we win the championship?
• 20:21
  Yes, absolutely.
• 20:22
  That's obviously the plan.
• 20:25
  In five years' time, I would like to say that we're in the top category, whatever that looks like, because it's a bit of an unknown at the moment with the Rally 1 cars shifting out at the end of 26.
• 20:35
  But, yeah, basically in five years' time, I'd like to say that we're in the World Championship in the top level and there permanently.
• 20:41
  The great man Brendan Reeves has chimed in.
• 20:43
  How hard was it trying to get started in the sport when kind of COVID was around and impacting all of us, events being cancelled and so on?
• 20:50
  And then the extension to that question from him, how much has sim work helped you for rallying?
• 20:57
  Yeah, I mean, the first part of the question, it was quite tricky, especially basically 2020 was supposed to be my first season of rallying and we had plenty of rallies planned.
• 21:06
  We wanted to do New South Wales Championship events and one or two national rounds and that sort of thing.
• 21:11
  And it just kept getting wiped away under us, you know, and it was really
• 21:14
  difficult for me as well because I was getting so excited to finally start rallying and we'd enter events and then that's it gone and then I'd enter the next one and that's it gone so it was tricky you know that period we missed a lot of seat time from 2020 to 2021 I only did five rallies basically so you know in a period where I could probably could have done 10 at least across the two years so yeah that was not easy I guess the second part of the question the sim racing
• 21:41
  I mean, maybe it's a little bit controversial, but to be honest, I've never really used sim racing.
• 21:44
  I don't have a simulator here with me in Finland.
• 21:46
  I played a lot when I was younger, but it was just for fun with mates, spend more time crashing into each other playing rallycross than actually trying to rally.
• 21:55
  So, yeah, I mean, it's been there for me, but it's never something that I've relied on.
• 22:01
  Pure miles is the – or seat time, as you said before, is so valuable.
• 22:06
  Philip Walters, to finish here, what's more demanding, the physical or mental side of rallying, in your opinion?
• 22:11
  Oh, that's a good question.
• 22:14
  It depends a little bit on the rally, but mental, I would say, is far more demanding.
• 22:20
  Of course, some rallies like Greece, it's 40 degrees, super long days, so that's physically – it's very, very tough.
• 22:26
  But –
• 22:27
  I mean, you can be as tough as you like physically.
• 22:29
  If you're not tough mentally, that'll still knock you down sort of thing.
• 22:32
  So, yeah, I mean, it's such a – everyone knows that motorsport is a lot in the head and I feel like rallying is massively like that as well.
• 22:40
  So, yeah, there's always a lot going on.
• 22:41
  So, yeah, for me, ultimately, my final answer would be that mentally it's more demanding.
• 22:47
  Are you sort of self-taught and self-hardened in that regard then?
• 22:51
  Or has there been through the Rally Star program people that have, you know, given you a bit of, you know, guidance around mental toughness and so on?
• 23:00
  Not necessarily through the Rally Star program, but I've been working now about 18 months with a sports psychologist who's local in Newcastle.
• 23:08
  And that helped massively.
• 23:09
  Probably I underestimated it.
• 23:12
  as how much of a help that was going to be.
• 23:13
  And it was sort of prompted by, I guess, one mistake or one thing that was happening with me mentally that I couldn't seem to overcome and it became a theme and a theme.
• 23:22
  And then so I started to work with a sports psychologist and we sort of solved that.
• 23:27
  But then naturally it's also just built me to be mentally tougher.
• 23:31
  And, yeah, I feel like now it's probably quite a strength, my mental look on the events and then how I can cope with the events.
• 23:38
  So, yeah, hopefully that plays into our favour as well in the last round.
• 23:41
  Great stuff, mate.
• 23:42
  This has been a fabulous introduction for people to who you are.
• 23:46
  And I think what's very clear here is that you are not afraid, whether it's that kind of mental fitness, let's call it that, and seeking guidance or advice on that, or, you know, there's lots of good people, both, I would imagine, I mean, you look at the names that have come through the Junior World Rally Championship.
• 24:02
  I mean, you talked about Thierry there before, I mean, Elfin Evans, there's some great names that have come through that.
• 24:08
  And I, you know, you've got some good people in your corner back in Australia, haven't you?
• 24:11
  you yeah exactly i'm really fortunate to have great people around me both in australia and now in finland and and europe as well and i mean for me that's absolutely paramount and i've probably seen that more become more important in the last sort of year or two when i'm competing against you know lots of different guys in the junior championship and
• 24:29
  of course, without naming names, some of them I'd probably say don't have maybe such great guidance around them and you can really see the effects of that.
• 24:37
  So, yeah, for me, it's super important to have, you know, good people that I can really trust and trust their input and trust their advice around me because ultimately it also takes less of the kind of spiralling thoughts out of my head.
• 24:49
  So, yeah, it's really, really good.
• 24:51
  Awesome stuff.
• 24:52
  Great to get you on for a conversation today.
• 24:55
  Go well with The Decider and thank you for being an inspiration for younger competitors that perhaps want to do what you're doing and showing them the importance of being the complete package.
• 25:06
  Go well.
• 25:07
  Yeah, thanks, mate.
• 25:08
  Appreciate it.
• 25:10
  If you're into rallying, we had Scott Pedder on for a feature episode recently.
• 25:14
  He talks about driving an Erebus supercar as well and the history of the Pedder suspension business in a milestone year for the company.
• 25:22
  You might also like to hear the story of the ARC promoter,
• 25:25
  Adrian Coppin.
• 25:26
  He's a good storyteller.
• 25:28
  In terms of short casts, Ava and Agnostiata stopped by the studio in recent months, one of the Aussies in the F1 Academy.
• 25:35
  So that got me thinking after Taylor Gill today, is there someone like Ava or Taylor that you think we should speak to on the pod?
• 25:42
  Could
• 25:42
  on the engineering or team side of motorsport.
• 25:45
  Another emerging story, perhaps.
• 25:47
  Let me know.
• 25:48
  Australian Rally Championship is back in action this weekend with the Gippsland Rally in Victoria.
• 25:54
  Can they catch Hayden Padden?
• 25:56
  F1 returns next week from the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
• 26:00
  First of the supercars in Duros is next month at the Bend in South Australia with the 500.
• 26:05
  And then it is all about the build-up to Bathurst.
• 26:08
  That is it for today.
• 26:09
  We'll catch you next time.
• 26:10
  Bye for now.