Latest / Rusty's Garage / Hayden Paddon - Part 1

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Hayden Paddon - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  For this episode, I'm in Rotorua, Rota Vegas, as some affectionately call it, on the North Island of New Zealand.
• 0:34
  I'm here for an end-of-season speedway event that Steve Williams, the former caddy for Tiger Woods, who's also worked with Aussies like Greg Norman, Adam Scott and Jason Day...
• 0:45
  has organised for charity in stock cars.
• 0:48
  Steve loves it, and he's roped in all sorts of motorsport identities, including Hayden Padden, the Kiwi rally star, who's just wrapped up the European title, the first non-Euro ever to win it.
• 1:02
  Hayden's story is remarkable.
• 1:04
  Through goal-setting and a relentless pursuit, he has made his way from...
• 1:09
  a humble family in a small town in the Canterbury region on the South Island, all the way to the World Rally Championship.
• 1:17
  He's chalked up a swag of New Zealand titles, pioneered an all-electric rally car, which we'll discuss a bit later, driven the odd classic, and opened a motorsport business called Padden Racing Group out of the stunning Highlands facility in Cromwell.
• 1:33
  There's a small...
• 1:35
  clever can-do group there that have genuinely showed the other side of the planet what we're capable of in the Tasman.
• 1:43
  Now we worked together on an event recently geared to the motorsport industry and trying to bring in new fans.
• 1:50
  Hayden effectively took it to a major football stadium and used the surrounding precinct to showcase everything from the technology that university students were engineering from the ground up,
• 2:03
  to his team's fleet of awesome machines.
• 2:07
  That's where I got the idea for this podcast from.
• 2:09
  The first time that Hayden will properly stop after a massive year is basically when Christmas is upon us.
• 2:17
  You would think on a fun speedway event like this, he would take the chance to ease off the throttle.
• 2:24
  Not Hayden.
• 2:27
  Welcome.
• 2:28
  You've just been for a run.
• 2:30
  Do you enjoy the fitness and is running the main part of your fitness?
• 2:34
  Well, yeah, I'm all sweaty and hot at the moment.
• 2:36
  So, yeah, good way to start.
• 2:38
  But this part of the season for us is always a good chance to get back into shape.
• 2:42
  So I spend three months of the summer going pretty hard at it, trying to get back in shape.
• 2:45
  So this year I'm on April.
• 2:47
  But, yeah, running, you can take your shoes no matter where you're in the world and no matter what hotel you're in.
• 2:50
  You can go for a run.
• 2:51
  Situational training, when you talk to most motorsport people, is the preferred thing, right?
• 2:56
  And it's not easily done when it comes to, you know, finding a piece of forest where you can test and so on.
• 3:02
  Have you found something that even closely, you know, helps that isn't in the car?
• 3:09
  Not so much.
• 3:09
  That's why rallying, probably of all motorsports, is probably the format that is so experience-driven.
• 3:17
  You can't go out and practice a lot.
• 3:18
  You've got to spend time in the car, and the only way you can do that is by doing rallies.
• 3:22
  The only thing that's maybe close is, I'd say, is maybe mountain biking, because you're out in single trials.
• 3:27
  You're reading the road.
• 3:28
  You're reading the grip.
• 3:30
  You don't want to fall off the bike, so same sort of thing.
• 3:32
  So that's probably the most similar comparison we can get from a training perspective.
• 3:35
  This whole thing started because your dad was basically a late bloomer and got into rallying.
• 3:41
  That had a profound effect on you as a young bloke, didn't it?
• 3:45
  And was a powerful driver of where you've ultimately ended up today.
• 3:49
  It's all I've been brought up around.
• 3:51
  Dad started rallying before I was born.
• 3:52
  He got hooked when he went and watched the Group B cars at Rallying Zealand in the 80s.
• 3:56
  What are we talking there?
• 3:57
  We're talking Audis and Peugeots.
• 3:58
  Yeah, the Audis, the Group Bs.
• 4:00
  Walter Rol and people like that.
• 4:01
  Who was it?
• 4:01
  Exactly.
• 4:01
  So, yeah, the late 80s, I think Ari might have been even driving some of them at that time.
• 4:05
  So, yeah, it must have been about 84, 85.
• 4:08
  And then he went home and decided he won a Datsun 1200, went out and started rallying himself.
• 4:11
  So he had no pathway within the family.
• 4:15
  So he sort of, I guess, laid down that groundwork.
• 4:17
  And then...
• 4:18
  As soon as I was born, that's what I was brought up around, like these photos of me at rallies when I'm in my nappies when I'm one or two years old.
• 4:24
  And that's all I even remember is going along to rallies with Dad on the weekends.
• 4:27
  And then, of course, he got me.
• 4:28
  Well, we grew up on a farm, so you're out driving in the paddock when you're two years old.
• 4:32
  And, of course, he's building your little go-karts when you're two or three.
• 4:34
  So I didn't really have any choice.
• 4:37
  But obviously, it's what I loved.
• 4:39
  And, you know, Dad never forced me into anything.
• 4:41
  He could see it's what I enjoyed doing.
• 4:44
  Even little things around the house, you know, the Matchbox toys, it wasn't enough just playing with them on the floor.
• 4:49
  I had to tip out all the pot plant dirt in the lounge and then I'd use it as my gravel or dirt road.
• 4:53
  So, yeah, it was pretty much basically drilled into me from a pretty young age.
• 4:56
  The first cart had a chainsaw engine.
• 4:59
  Is that right?
• 4:59
  Yeah, go-kart, chainsaw engine.
• 5:01
  It didn't last long because they used to give me a one-lap head start because it wasn't very fast, and this is when I was six years old, and then by the end of the second lap, they'd all pass me already.
• 5:09
  So Dad, I think, got a bit demoralized about that more so than myself.
• 5:13
  I probably didn't understand what was going on, so I think I did two races with that, and then after that, I was given a 90cc engine, so a bit of an upgrade.
• 5:20
  Clearly, when you got to almost your teens, I think you were about 12, you had quite a conversation with him and he was very good.
• 5:25
  I think he's even still a very good business sort of sounding block or board rather for you now.
• 5:31
  But even at that almost pre-teen age, he said to you, how are you going to fund this?
• 5:37
  How are you going to bolt together a business case for this, didn't he?
• 5:42
  And you learned to go around to local businesses where you're from and try and stitch together a supporter program.
• 5:49
  Yeah, well there was probably two key decisions at that time actually, because my first three years of go-karting was in grass karts, so it was what we had in our local South Canterbury area, so you're out in the dirt and paddocks and bits and pieces going sideways.
• 6:02
  But then the next step up from that is we actually went to your cadet class, so your formula racing, and we did a lot of it at Cars Road, which was obviously a lot more like circuit racing, qualifying and everything.
• 6:12
  So after all that, obviously I experienced the circuit racing and I guess the rally, so I had a go-kart and Dad gave me a decision.
• 6:18
  He said, well, look, do you want to go circuit racing or do you want to go rallying?
• 6:20
  And he actually made me sit around on that for six months before we bought my first car.
• 6:26
  For me, the decision was pretty quick.
• 6:27
  I wanted to go rallying because that was what I was brought up around.
• 6:30
  But there was a decision-making process there.
• 6:32
  And then, of course, once we sold the go-kart, I had actually two pet cows that I sold.
• 6:38
  And I got $500 for them, and the $500 for my pet cows is what then brought me my first car, which was a Mini, so a 1982 Leyland Mini.
• 6:47
  So poor old Jumbo and Harold, I'm sure they made a good dinner somewhere.
• 6:51
  Whatever happened to Jumbo and Harold, though?
• 6:53
  Yeah, I'd rather not think about it, to be honest, but they funded the start of my motorsport career, if you like, so be it there.
• 6:59
  Like you say, then we had to work out how to fund it.
• 7:02
  I was pretty naive at the beginning, thinking I could work three jobs, and tried that for a while.
• 7:07
  didn't really work, especially when you're minimal wages.
• 7:09
  We're talking paper rounds and things like that.
• 7:10
  Yeah, it was always the four o'clock paper run in the morning.
• 7:12
  And then when you weren't at school during the day, the school holiday, you worked with Dad's farm machinery business and then the fish and chip shop at nighttime.
• 7:19
  And then after that was during the season on a potato harvester till one or two in the morning.
• 7:24
  So you're just working nonstop.
• 7:25
  And that was, I guess, the old school way that Dad used to do things.
• 7:29
  And that's what sort of got drilled into me is if you want something, you got to work for it.
• 7:33
  But obviously I found out that wasn't quite enough to fund the motorsport campaign.
• 7:36
  So I went out around our local town in Geraldine and started this campaign and businesses put in $100 each and we put stickers all over the car and we do car washes and promotions in town and that was my introduction to sponsors really from the age of 13 and to this day that's probably one of the biggest part of my job is actually working with sponsors and
• 7:54
  I've been doing that for 23 years now, so that's quite scary.
• 7:58
  You quite enjoy that commercial side of it, didn't you?
• 8:01
  Were you an outgoing kid or was this quite a different thing that you had to extend yourself on, learn to do?
• 8:08
  I'm not an outgoing person at all.
• 8:10
  I'm actually personally a major introvert.
• 8:13
  Even now, I like keeping to my own, but within the sport, I've learned to become an extrovert.
• 8:19
  Because in the sport, you have to promote yourself, you have to push yourself.
• 8:22
  I remember doing my first TV interview when I was 15 at Ashley Forest and I was, I could feel my blood shaking, I could feel my body shaking, I couldn't even spit out two words.
• 8:31
  Public speaking I absolutely hated, but then three things like the Motorsport Academy in New Zealand and like anything in life and it's the same with our driving, just the more you did it, the easier it become.
• 8:42
  But outside the motorsport world, I'm very much a very individual person.
• 8:46
  We want to get to it maybe a little bit further in this conversation here, but you are very driven about the notion of almost doing a little of what Bruce McLaren did in the 60s and having a New Zealand presence, perhaps at WRC or in rallying globally.
• 9:07
  that maybe even extends beyond your own driving career, that it's the Silver Fern or it's the Padden logo and so on that has this strong presence.
• 9:15
  That's a big driver for you, isn't it?
• 9:17
  Oh, 100%.
• 9:18
  I want to be in the sport for life and obviously I'll keep driving for as long as I can and it might become more of a hobby rather than a profession.
• 9:24
  But regardless, I still want to be involved whether it's leading a team and you've got other drivers involved.
• 9:29
  And naturally, I know that's where it's going to progress to sooner rather than later, probably.
• 9:33
  I'm not getting any younger.
• 9:35
  But to do that, you've got to set yourself up.
• 9:37
  You've got to have a platform to work off.
• 9:38
  It's not just about having a fast car and a fast driver.
• 9:41
  You've got to have a team that's got a point of difference, projects that've got a point of difference.
• 9:44
  And then if opportunities come up, you've already got to look at…
• 9:48
  M Sport or Pro Drive or any of those teams in Europe, okay, yeah, it's in Europe.
• 9:51
  New Zealand, it's a little bit harder, but they got approached by manufacturers to run motorsport programs.
• 9:55
  And, you know, long term, I'd like to set ourselves up that we can put ourselves in a place where we can run professional motorsport programs for a manufacturer or a big commercial partner or whatever it may be.
• 10:05
  Excellent.
• 10:06
  So the first proper rally, was it in Dad's Corolla?
• 10:10
  What was that?
• 10:11
  What were you in?
• 10:11
  Yeah, it was in Dad's Corolla.
• 10:14
  Two weeks after I just barrel rolled my Mini and I ended up in hospital.
• 10:17
  So Dad still gave me the keys to his car after I just had my first big crash, but with the lunar plates on.
• 10:23
  So that was Hamna Rally in North Canterbury when I was 15.
• 10:25
  Because the thing about this country, I'm an Aussie boy originally, but you can, as a younger person, get these motorsport opportunities sooner than you ordinarily would.
• 10:35
  Get a chance to do it on the road.
• 10:36
  Obviously you can get a motorsport license when you're 12 in New Zealand, so you can do your closed road events, autocrosses, motor carers, and then once you've got a driver's license, which back then was 15, now it's obviously 16, as long as you had the lunar plates on, which didn't, the lunar plates didn't really match the look of a race car, but it was a forking point.
• 10:52
  But then yeah, you could start railing then.
• 10:53
  Did it come easy to you?
• 10:55
  Oh, it was definitely getting chucked in the deep end because I hadn't done a lot on gravel up until that point.
• 10:58
  Most of it was sort of all in paddocks.
• 11:01
  So getting out on the gravel road and reading the road.
• 11:03
  And at that stage, there was no pace notes.
• 11:05
  It was just doing all the rallies blind.
• 11:06
  And of course, you know, going from the Mini to my dad's AE101, that was a big step.
• 11:11
  And that felt like a WRC car for a 15-year-old.
• 11:14
  So, of course, you didn't want to prang it or...
• 11:16
  or do anything silly, so yeah, you took it a little bit easy.
• 11:18
  Just before we move on here, you're a proud Hyundai guy now, but you do have a soft spot for minis, don't you?
• 11:26
  Some would say it's a sick obsession.
• 11:27
  So what have you got?
• 11:30
  I've got three classic minis in the shed.
• 11:31
  I've got a pickup ute, which is quite rare, so I've brought that out from the UK.
• 11:36
  And then got a later model 95 classic mini.
• 11:39
  So that's all the fuel injected ones and they're just nice and comfortable to drive.
• 11:42
  And then a ERA turbo mini.
• 11:44
  So there's one of 500 of those in the world.
• 11:47
  And then I've actually still got my original race car, which is an 82 Leyland.
• 11:50
  But as I said, I rolled that.
• 11:51
  Yeah.
• 11:52
  and I've been meaning to rebuild it since I was 14 years old.
• 11:56
  22 years later, I still haven't got around to rebuilding it, but I've still got all the parts.
• 11:59
  So one day when I've got some time, we'll bring that back to life.
• 12:02
  You and I are talking days out from Christmas, and I think you told me at a function we were at together recently, your first proper day to kind of put your feet up, not that you're that kind of person anyway, is basically going to be Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, isn't it?
• 12:14
  You just have not stopped.
• 12:16
  this year?
• 12:16
  Oh, it's been a mega busy year this year.
• 12:18
  But to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.
• 12:20
  There's an element that maybe I got a little bit burnt out in those latter rallies just from the travel and jet lag and bits and pieces and as I say, my health went a bit downhill.
• 12:28
  But other than that, I'm not complaining.
• 12:30
  I love it.
• 12:31
  I love being busy.
• 12:31
  I love traveling around all the time.
• 12:33
  I put it on myself.
• 12:34
  At the end of the day, I do my own schedule in terms of the plan and what we're going to commit to.
• 12:38
  I'm not very good at saying no, so that doesn't help.
• 12:41
  But hey, I wouldn't have it any other way.
• 12:43
  Somewhere here, coming back to the timeline, you, with your dad's blessing, I think, sell the Corolla, don't you?
• 12:51
  And then you move to an Evo, a Mitsubishi Evo.
• 12:55
  Tell me about that process and what you were wanting to embark on.
• 12:58
  Was it just at that stage, I want to be New Zealand champion?
• 13:01
  Was it just purely pursuing something that you clearly had a love or passion for?
• 13:07
  What was the objective then?
• 13:08
  At that young age, it was purely a passion of mine.
• 13:13
  I had a goal of being a world champion from watching Colin McRae.
• 13:15
  You are a goal setter, aren't you?
• 13:16
  You are a big goal setter.
• 13:17
  Yeah, but I guess at that stage, you didn't know what the process was to get there.
• 13:20
  So it was literally just a dream at that stage, and it was doing something for me that was a hobby and a sport.
• 13:25
  If anything, it was actually...
• 13:27
  Without going too deep, it was actually a release for me because school and childhood was actually a very bad time for me through the family and then through the school.
• 13:36
  I hated everything.
• 13:37
  I hated life.
• 13:38
  But motorsport gave me the light at the end of the tunnel.
• 13:40
  So every weekend, it was like, okay, that's all I'm looking forward to.
• 13:43
  And that's all that's keeping me going.
• 13:45
  You had quite a distance to go to school, and correct me if I'm wrong here, maybe we're probably getting a bit personal, but it was a split scenario with mum and dad, so it was a challenge for you all.
• 13:52
  Yeah, it was shared custody between different towns.
• 13:54
  I was in Geraldine on the weekends and Timaru during the weekdays.
• 13:58
  You didn't have any friends.
• 13:59
  You were always sort of separated, so I was on my own.
• 14:01
  But as I say, motorsport was my release.
• 14:03
  That's all I lived for, and it's what kept me going and kept me on the straight and narrow.
• 14:07
  So, yeah, no, obviously...
• 14:10
  From there on in, when Dad went and brought the Evo 4, I actually initially thought he was buying it for him to drive.
• 14:15
  I never in my mind thought I'd be driving an Evo 4.
• 14:18
  I think I was 17, 18 at the time.
• 14:20
  And then once he brought it, the first event, he chucked me the keys, and I couldn't believe it.
• 14:24
  And again, going from a Corolla to an Evo 4.
• 14:26
  I remember driving around the back streets of Gildan for the first time and hanging on for dear life.
• 14:30
  I was like, holy hell, how's this got so much?
• 14:32
  I'd never driven a car so fast, threw out a horsepower, four-drive turbo.
• 14:37
  But yeah, that was a dream come true.
• 14:39
  The one thing I never knew at the time, Dad was an awesome driver and I actually did a little bit of co-driving with him before I started driving.
• 14:46
  And I actually fell in love with that co-driving aspect.
• 14:48
  Did you?
• 14:49
  At that time, yes.
• 14:50
  Now, no, I hate co-driving.
• 14:51
  But before I was driving, and especially beside Dad, he was actually a very good driver.
• 14:56
  very flamboyant shall we say, but he was actually a very, very good driver.
• 15:01
  And I loved sitting beside him and co-driving.
• 15:03
  We had probably more crashes and what we did finishes.
• 15:06
  But then once I started driving, there was no way I'd step back.
• 15:08
  But once he handed me over the keys to his crawler in I think 2002,
• 15:13
  he's never been back in a rally car since.
• 15:15
  Is that right?
• 15:15
  So, um, yeah, it's been a journey for both him and I, he's been a bigger part of this.
• 15:20
  He's actually enjoyed, um, helping me and being part of it with me along the journey.
• 15:23
  And that's why it hasn't been just me.
• 15:25
  It's been the two of us going at it.
• 15:28
  I've had this conversation with Harry Bates very recently.
• 15:30
  He co-drove, I think for his dad very early in his career as well.
• 15:34
  You say you wouldn't do it now, but does it give you an appreciation for what John Kennard does for you?
• 15:39
  And, and, and does that sort of help the whole, um,
• 15:43
  thing to come together and work yeah well obviously i couldn't do what john does uh and like he's the ultimate professional i think he's one of the best co-drivers in the world and lucky to have him for now 18 years um and yeah i think both john and i we have full respect for what each other does um i had to sit in the car in indonesia three or four weeks ago to do some driver training actually um in a hyundai rally too and i only did two runs um
• 16:08
  but I was absolutely packing myself.
• 16:11
  I just was hanging on.
• 16:12
  It just felt like it was out of control and it just felt a lot faster as well from that side of the car and I hated it.
• 16:18
  And to think that the co-drivers are like, John, okay, I'm sure they get used to it, but they're actually doing it with their head down as well and they're not looking most of the time with the road going.
• 16:26
  So...
• 16:27
  John or any co-driver might have to have complete trust and faith in us as drivers to be comfortable doing what they're doing.
• 16:34
  He's an amazing guy.
• 16:35
  There's a couple of cool stats about him.
• 16:37
  I mean, you guys won the European Rally Championship this year, which I think is an amazing thing.
• 16:41
  First non-Europeans to achieve the feat.
• 16:45
  And you told me at this function...
• 16:47
  What is he now?
• 16:48
  He's now the oldest?
• 16:50
  I think he's the oldest FIA winning champion of any sort, maybe.
• 16:56
  That's amazing.
• 16:57
  Because he's 60.
• 16:58
  I better not get this wrong.
• 17:01
  I think he's 64.
• 17:03
  I think he's getting his gold card next year, if I'm correct.
• 17:06
  So you might start seeing him on the public buses.
• 17:08
  He's a good fellow.
• 17:09
  When you won the WRC event too a few years back now, I mean, that I think at the time made him the oldest.
• 17:15
  Still is.
• 17:16
  He's still the oldest winning co-driver of WRC rally.
• 17:19
  And by quite some margin, by like 10 or 12 years or something as well.
• 17:23
  So yeah, that one will probably be a hard record for anyone to beat.
• 17:26
  We are ducking all over the place here.
• 17:28
  Let's come back a little bit.
• 17:29
  What transpires from Evo to Hayden Padden, competitive individual, I can do this, I want to make this my pursuit?
• 17:41
  Were you thinking of, I don't know, while you're at school and not necessarily enjoying it, were you thinking of I might go and do accountancy or marketing or something or was Rally only the ever-eventure?
• 17:51
  I was actually thinking in the last couple of years to go to uni to do business and marketing papers.
• 17:58
  But once I got my driver's license at high school, I found myself out driving the back roads more than what I was at class.
• 18:04
  Escaping.
• 18:05
  Escaping.
• 18:05
  So you can't do that as easily nowadays as what we used to back then.
• 18:10
  But yeah, pretty quick.
• 18:11
  figured that was a waste of time for me going to uni.
• 18:13
  I just wanted to drive.
• 18:14
  So out of school, got my first job working for a motorbike shop in Gildene as a parts person.
• 18:19
  Worked there for a year or so, but then I needed a lot of time off for motorsports, and then I started working for Dad for a couple of years with his farm machinery business.
• 18:27
  But, yeah, probably the transition was actually when we got that EVO4 because we started doing more rallies in the South Island.
• 18:31
  I think the first rally we did, we got third in the South Island.
• 18:35
  Later in the year we did a round of the national championship with the same car and we were third overall on a stage up against the front running national guys.
• 18:41
  And it was at that point I was starting to think, wow, this is actually something that I think I can do.
• 18:46
  And I actually remember the prize given at Nelson Rally that year.
• 18:49
  talking to some people and they'd ask, what's your goals and whatnot?
• 18:52
  And I remember saying then about being a world rally champion was my goal.
• 18:56
  And there was one particular person at the bar and I won't mention their names, but I remember them saying, oh, no, that's not realistic.
• 19:01
  You need more realistic goals than that.
• 19:03
  And that was something that always stuck with me.
• 19:04
  It's like, I'm going to prove you wrong.
• 19:05
  I think I can do it.
• 19:07
  Yeah, that's where the goal setting sort of come in place.
• 19:10
  But it almost very quickly become unraveled as well because also in that same year, at the end of the year, we had an accident where the car went on fire and burnt to the ground and we completely lost the whole car.
• 19:22
  Yeah.
• 19:23
  You know, we were in a wealthy family.
• 19:24
  That was a $30,000 car down the drain.
• 19:27
  And at that point, I actually remember sitting in bed for a day after it, feeling sorry for myself, thinking it's actually over before it's even started.
• 19:34
  What are we talking to you, 2004, 2005 or something?
• 19:36
  2005, yeah.
• 19:37
  So, yeah, that was a massive blow.
• 19:39
  It was...
• 19:41
  It's not often you have a car completely destroyed from fire.
• 19:44
  From quite a small accident as well, it wasn't a big accident.
• 19:47
  It's obviously because the car was sitting on its side afterwards.
• 19:50
  There was no bringing it back, but it was our local South Canterbury region that got in behind us.
• 19:55
  And like a day later, they called us in the Timaru for a meeting.
• 19:57
  And there was three or four businessmen who sat down and said, look, we like what you guys are doing.
• 20:02
  We think that there's some potential.
• 20:05
  We need to get you back in a rally car.
• 20:06
  So...
• 20:07
  Yeah, they went out and did fundraising, we did fundraising dinners, a whole lot of people within the New Zealand motorsport community got behind us with parts or cars or money or whatever it may be and then that along with a new sponsor which luckily for us was a finance company, we were actually able to get back out the following year in the F08 and debut in the New Zealand Championships.
• 20:28
  It's amazing how that transpired because at the time we thought this was the end, but as it actually turned out, looking back on it, if that accident didn't happen, we wouldn't have been in the New Zealand Championship in 2006.
• 20:36
  Of course, you don't wish for those things to happen, but just the way it all progressed as she worked out to be an opportunity.
• 20:52
  Neil Bates Motorsport is building some world class machines just like Hayden.
• 20:57
  But, on the other side of the ditch, the multiple Australian champion is in the Rusty's Garage Library too.
• 21:03
  His memories of driving a WRC car are incredibly vivid, despite being more than 20 years on.
• 21:10
  You can hear about Neil's adventures as a co-driver in supercars in that three part episode too.
• 21:16
  When you look at torque, they had 800 odd newton metres of torque, which was V8 supercar torque figures.
• 21:23
  And I remember the first time I drove a V8 supercar, I sort of accelerated and thought it had good power.
• 21:32
  Not like a real rally car.
• 21:33
  I wasn't blown away.
• 21:34
  And I also thought the braking was pretty crap when you compared it to a world rally car.
• 21:41
  The grunt of that WRC car sounds mind-blowing.
• 21:45
  No wonder Hayden is hooked.
• 21:48
  You are among the different things that you use in analogies in discussion with young kids or corporations and so on.
• 21:57
  I mean, you talk about that whole notion of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and so on.
• 22:00
  So the fire was one element of it.
• 22:02
  You went very close to winning a title one year and you missed out by a point or two, didn't you?
• 22:06
  And that hardened the resolve for the following year, didn't it?
• 22:10
  Yeah, but also goal planning was quite important then.
• 22:13
  So we started the New Zealand Championship in 2006, and we had, at this stage, and particularly after the Motorsport Academy, the goal setting became very important for me, not only season by season, but rally by rally, stage by stage.
• 22:24
  Someone help you with that?
• 22:25
  Who guided you with that?
• 22:27
  My dad obviously had a bit of a guidance in that but as I say the Motorsport Academy was able to help me refine it and how to break it down and set realistic goals is actually very important.
• 22:35
  Particularly for myself, I'm a very competitive person.
• 22:38
  I hate losing and that was even from a young age one of my memories which is my dad.
• 22:42
  Maybe not a healthy memory, but I remember when I was doing grass carts when I was seven or eight, coming off the track into the pits, and I can still visualize it.
• 22:49
  I was in my full-face helmet with a whole lot of tears and crying my eyes out and put the helmet up at the end, and Dad said, what's wrong?
• 22:55
  And I go, I didn't win.
• 22:57
  He goes, yeah, but you finished second.
• 22:58
  And here I am, ball of my eyes, at a funder second.
• 23:00
  And so right from that, but that never come from dad, the family or anything.
• 23:03
  This come from watching all the rally videos.
• 23:05
  And of course, all you're doing is you're watching winners.
• 23:08
  Yes.
• 23:08
  Of course, you wanted to be a winner.
• 23:09
  So that's why goal setting later on has become so important because you can't always win.
• 23:13
  And if you meet your goals, that can actually feel like winning, whatever that goal might be, top 10, top five, whatever.
• 23:18
  So going back to your original question, we actually had a three-year plan to win the New Zealand Championship.
• 23:23
  So 2006, 2007, 2008.
• 23:25
  We missed out on the championship by one point in 2007, but because we met all the goals of that year, it actually was a blessing in disguise because not only did it make, we didn't fail, we got closer than what we expected, and because we got so close, it drove me to work even harder to try and win the championship within our goal planning for the following year, which we were able to do.
• 23:46
  I want to come back to more of that because we're clearly on the upward trajectory here.
• 23:50
  But one thing I heard you talk about somewhere was you're not, correct me if I don't word this right, but you're not necessarily a believer in natural talent as we define it, so to speak.
• 24:03
  You know, your talent has come about through a lot of hard work, but also being in a situational relationship.
• 24:11
  regularly on dirt, regularly in cars, regularly, and you therefore hone that.
• 24:15
  So if I, I guess if I wanted to be a, I don't know, motivational speaker or something, I'd have to go out and practice research and do that stuff.
• 24:23
  And you're a believer that that natural talent comes from that, doesn't it, so to speak?
• 24:29
  It is an element of both.
• 24:30
  You need a bit of natural talent because obviously I started driving from a young age.
• 24:34
  But to be successful in anything, I think it comes with hard work.
• 24:37
  If you've got the basis of the talent and the skill to do something, then I think you can make that skill into something extraordinary to be excellent in your field if you work hard and if you're passionate about it.
• 24:47
  Probably the biggest factors.
• 24:49
  I'd say…
• 24:50
  Throughout my whole motorsport career and it's something I've always sort of prided myself on and it's maybe a little bit unique, but I've never been the one to go out and go hell for leather straight away.
• 24:58
  And I guess this comes from the early days because I used to fix my own car.
• 25:02
  I used to have to pay for my own car and I never wanted to damage it.
• 25:05
  I didn't have the money to damage it.
• 25:07
  I always had this mindset of, okay, let's not damage it.
• 25:09
  Let's be sensible about this.
• 25:10
  Let's gradually build up.
• 25:12
  And throughout my whole rally career, I was always about, okay, I'm not going to go nuts in the first stage or first rally.
• 25:17
  Let's just gradually build up, get the momentum.
• 25:19
  Even the same now, like this weekend with the Speedway thing.
• 25:22
  Yeah.
• 25:22
  I'm just trying to build my way into it.
• 25:24
  Whereas a lot of young guys, they go hell for leather straight off the bat, they end up crashing, they're in trees, the damage bills are out the window, and they lose motivation for it, and they lose finances for it.
• 25:35
  So I've always had a different sort of approach in that respect, and it's a slower way, but for me,
• 25:40
  It works and you just got to be patient and believe in the process.
• 25:42
  You're still pretty handy getting on the grass, moving past Murph last night.
• 25:45
  That's another story.
• 25:46
  Well done.
• 25:48
  Opportunity.
• 25:48
  Opportunity knocks.
• 25:49
  Window is open.
• 25:50
  Exactly.
• 25:50
  Window is open.
• 25:51
  Exactly.
• 25:52
  While we're on the sort of broader take of things there, in rallying, I once did a day with Simon Evans at Target Tasmania with Toyota Australia.
• 26:06
  They put me through a bit of co-driver training.
• 26:08
  Simon drove.
• 26:09
  I was terrible at it, mate.
• 26:11
  But I learned a lot.
• 26:12
  I learned a lot about in those rare moments where it all comes together and the notes beautifully complement what the driver is doing, that's a joyous thing.
• 26:22
  I reckon that happened for a microsecond on the day.
• 26:26
  Where I'm going with this is, you know, you get into that rhythm, that flow or whatever.
• 26:33
  Yeah.
• 26:36
  You must want for that or aim for that, but when you get it,
• 26:43
  getting it each time doesn't necessarily go back to how you got it the last time.
• 26:46
  Does that make any sense at all?
• 26:47
  100%.
• 26:48
  It's all about being in the zone and that flow effect.
• 26:51
  We had the purest form of the zone, Rally Argentina in 2016 when we won on that last stage.
• 26:58
  And what I guess triggered that was actually anger through an altercation that we had with Seb Ogier the night before.
• 27:05
  And obviously Seb was chasing us down again to the last stage and he closed the gap for two seconds.
• 27:10
  Everyone thought, including myself, that he was going to go past us.
• 27:13
  But I went back to that night before thinking, there's no way this guy's going to beat us.
• 27:17
  And it just triggered this anger inside that I'm not an angry person.
• 27:21
  And in that stage, just everything clicked.
• 27:24
  I...
• 27:26
  It was the most easiest stage I've ever done.
• 27:29
  It felt smooth.
• 27:30
  And when you would go back and review the videos, it was one of the roughest stages we did of the year.
• 27:34
  You can see the driving was absolutely on point and basically drove the stage of our life.
• 27:39
  But obviously since that day,
• 27:41
  I've been back in the zone again, but it's different zones and different flows, and I've been triggered in different ways.
• 27:46
  Like I used to go back and particularly with the trainers we were working with in that sort of 2016, 2017 era is go back and try and replicate that Argentina stage, and we tried to bring the anger format into it, and it didn't work in the same way again.
• 27:58
  It's a very unique, and it's the same in all professional sport.
• 28:02
  The absolute legions of any sport, they know how to turn that switch on quite regularly, and it's pretty hard to find that switch.
• 28:09
  I think you told me in the events post that win, which was so significant in your career, that chasing that or yearning for that almost led to accidents or incidents, basically, didn't it?
• 28:21
  Trying to replicate it, trying to find it.
• 28:22
  Yeah, I've become impatient basically.
• 28:25
  Once we won that first one, I wanted more.
• 28:27
  And I believe we missed out on two or three other wins, which is obviously a little bit of regret in that, that I was trying to push and trying to make it happen too much.
• 28:37
  But hey, I think now, and that's why I think I'm driving as good now, even though I'm a bit older than ever, is because I've become a bit wiser to all that.
• 28:45
  You've sort of learned from some of those, I guess, harsh lessons and letting it naturally happen.
• 28:49
  And if it's not your day, you just have to take it on the chin sometimes and just accept that you can't have a good rally every single time.
• 28:56
  So, yeah.
• 28:57
  But a few lessons.
• 28:57
  Great advice for young listeners to the pod and to everyone who's tuning in.
• 29:02
  I'm sliding up and down the Hayden Patton timeline scale here, so apologies.
• 29:07
  Go with me.
• 29:08
  The car that you talked about before, I think you said it was an Evo 8, which...
• 29:12
  did you somewhere here, I reckon you got to contest Rally New Zealand for the first time at about this stage of your career, is that right?
• 29:19
  Yes.
• 29:19
  What colour was that car?
• 29:21
  Green.
• 29:21
  Green.
• 29:22
  Everything was green back then.
• 29:23
  Can I have a little high five here?
• 29:24
  You know why?
• 29:25
  I've just put together today, there was a media day for that event.
• 29:29
  I came from Australia for Channel 10 to cover some stuff.
• 29:33
  I was just at Mystery Creek.
• 29:34
  And you took me for a ride.
• 29:35
  Oh, did you come with us?
• 29:36
  I went for a ride with you that day.
• 29:38
  There you go.
• 29:38
  They were going to put me somewhere and they go, you were going to be there.
• 29:40
  go with this young guy.
• 29:41
  He's got some, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 29:42
  And I was like, oh, that sounds awesome.
• 29:44
  And so you took me for a ride way back when, and we've since gone for other rides, which is cool.
• 29:49
  What was that exposure like to world level, and what did that do to this goal-setting kid that wanted to ultimately get to that level?
• 29:56
  Oh, it was obviously a game changer.
• 29:57
  Competing on a WRC rally was always a dream.
• 30:00
  You know, all your heroes were there, the WRC teams.
• 30:03
  Sort of, I guess, eyes wide open type moment.
• 30:05
  So for sure, it put more pressure on and it wasn't probably your best performance when you're in that arena for the first time.
• 30:11
  And I think at the time, we were fighting for a New Zealand championship as well.
• 30:14
  So no, it definitely just, I guess, fueled...
• 30:17
  feel the obsession to want to get to the WRC overseas even more and I think later that year in 2007 or 8 we went over and did the UK a rally in Wales Rally GB for the first time so that was our first international rally and that was an even bigger eye opener because not only was it the fact that it was a WRC rally there's just so many more spectators, the roads were completely different, it was in their winter so it was fog and mud and ice and everything and that you'd never really see here so that was after that because at that time we were sort of
• 30:47
  leading a lot of New Zealand rallies and sort of near the front.
• 30:50
  We went over to the Wales Rally GB rally and we were nowhere near the pace.
• 30:53
  We were just like back into the top 10 within the group N cars and that was probably a reality check for me to go, okay, actually, we've got a lot of work to do.
• 31:01
  So that probably put things in perspective a bit more.
• 31:04
  Group N, for people listening, was production spec, basically.
• 31:07
  Especially Subarus.
• 31:08
  And I can remember that era.
• 31:10
  I mean, there were lots of cars that would contest that series.
• 31:13
  And as you rightly point out, fiercely competitive too, wasn't it?
• 31:17
  It was an international formula that most national championships around the world utilize.
• 31:21
  And then, of course, it was a support category championship in the WRC.
• 31:25
  Very similar to what the Rally 2 is now.
• 31:27
  Okay, Rally 2 is a step up from production cars.
• 31:30
  But now you see a lot of Rally 2 cars all around the world in national championships, WIC, everything.
• 31:34
  So it's the same sort of formula.
• 31:36
  You would get there.
• 31:37
  You would have success in that class against the very best in the world.
• 31:41
  What did that mean to you?
• 31:43
  Yeah, and the Production World Championship, yeah, it took a couple of years.
• 31:45
  Obviously, the first step was winning that Prally Star Driver Scholarship, which got us over there.
• 31:50
  We would have never have gotten to the European scene without that scholarship.
• 31:53
  That was effectively worth a million dollars to us.
• 31:55
  So that was our stepping stone.
• 31:57
  And we knew that year was about embracing and just experiencing the rallies for the first time and, again, taking that sort of slowly, slowly approach and just not, there was no point standing on the side of the road after the first stage and learning nothing.
• 32:08
  We needed to be finishing all the rallies.
• 32:09
  And then at the end of the year, we had to do the funding battle
• 32:12
  to get back for 2011 to fund it ourselves.
• 32:14
  So then we had to find a million dollars ourselves.
• 32:16
  And that was a very, that was the biggest part.
• 32:19
  The next three years, four years in the support categories, our biggest battle was funding.
• 32:24
  And we had to find $4 million over three years to do all those support categories.
• 32:28
  And 100% of that funding come out of New Zealand.
• 32:31
  Majority of it come through a shareholding scheme in the same way that Scott Dixon and Brendan Hartley, all those guys have set up businesses.
• 32:38
  We did the same.
• 32:38
  I think we had about 68 shareholders involved.
• 32:41
  um and yeah it was the funding was the biggest battle but of course 2011 to go out in the first year of funding ourselves and win the production board championship uh was a dream come true yeah we went out and won four rallies in a row we won the championship with two runs to go in australia across the ditch so we had a whole lot of kiwis over i think we had 100 people over there with us as well so that was definitely pretty cool and of course at that time when you're winning rallies it made it easier for the funding side as well because more people wanted to get on board
• 33:05
  The following year wasn't so easy result-wise.
• 33:07
  We started having a few technical dramas, and that's when the funding started getting a lot harder as well.
• 33:12
  But yeah, 2011 to win a World Championship, I guess, put us on the map within the WRC community.
• 33:17
  It was about building on that in terms of, ultimately, we needed to be in a factory team in the WRC, but that was still a long way away.
• 33:22
  So how was Shy Hayden Padden going into, I don't know, Guildtrap Group or wherever you were going to and convincing 60 or so partners to get involved in going overseas?
• 33:34
  I guess by that stage I'm 26-ish or 25, so I've been sort of trying to sell myself to sponsors for 10 or 12 years by this stage.
• 33:42
  So it's becoming a little bit more natural.
• 33:45
  By all means not easy, but yeah, absolutely.
• 33:47
  at the end of the day, you know this is for me, because it is my life, it's never just been a sport or hobby.
• 33:52
  You are willing to dig deep.
• 33:53
  You have to knock down the barriers.
• 33:55
  You have to knock down the walls because, quite simply, I've got no other option.
• 33:58
  Like, what else am I going to do?
• 33:59
  Even at that age, rallying was always going to do.
• 34:01
  So you just had to get over your discomfort or your –
• 34:04
  your fears and just go talk to people.
• 34:06
  And yeah, Girltrap Group, obviously they come on board in 2012 when we went to the Skoda for the first time.
• 34:11
  So obviously, yeah, there were some big decisions made there because after we won the production world championship, Subaru actually made us an offer to be a factory driver for 2012, fully funded, running basically the same car in the same class, but obviously pretty integrated with the manufacturer.
• 34:28
  We turned that offer down because we didn't feel at this stage we were obviously very focused on being the WRC and at that stage Subaru had no WRC2 car and they had no WRC1 car so we saw no progression pathway So we turned down a million dollar deal to go fund the million dollars ourselves to go drive the Skoda in that WRC2 category
• 34:48
  because we thought that was a progression that we needed to do.
• 34:51
  And as it turned out, it was the right decision, but that was a massive risk.
• 34:55
  And when funding was so difficult for us, to then turn that off was a big call.
• 35:01
  So yeah, tough one.
• 35:11
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with rally star Hayden Padden, but there is still so much more to tackle, more stages of his career, if you like, to cover, if we use a rally analogy.
• 35:23
  There is a part two, all ready for you to fire up, in our Rusty's Garage Library right now.
• 35:29
  You can head there whenever you feel like it.
• 35:31
  Hope you're enjoying the break over the festive season.
• 35:34
  From our team to yours, Merry Christmas, and all the very best for 2024.