Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jack Perkins - Part 2

Transcript

Jack Perkins - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:20
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with Jack Perkins.
• 0:24
  If you've arrived here, you'll find two blokes seated around an oil drum converted to a bar table, surrounded by all sorts of cool memorabilia, and in the loft above, some race cars on hoists.
• 0:37
  But you've missed some great chat about his grandfather's racing exploits and how he honours his memory.
• 0:44
  A little bit of family farm life and why he enjoys it so much.
• 0:48
  What it's like growing up in the supercars paddock and hanging out in the commentary box.
• 0:53
  The piece of advice the late, great Barry Sheen gave him.
• 0:57
  And we also reminisce about his dad's time in Formula One as well.
• 1:02
  So jump back to part one and check that out if you haven't already.
• 1:05
  We begin part two with something a little different to most of the feature pods we've done.
• 1:10
  I'll walk around the workshop here to check out some of the cars that are literally pieces of art.
• 1:19
  This is a little bit of a departure from the kind of standard format, but with good reason, because there's a couple of cool cars here that you get to work on on a regular basis.
• 1:29
  You've kindly pulled the covers back on the 22 that you shared with James Courtney, very famously on the Gold Coast.
• 1:36
  It lives here, pride of place.
• 1:39
  It does.
• 1:40
  I never thought I'd be a race car owner, Rusty, but when I won that race with James because I've been big on car histories and finding them and watching people pay too much money for them and things later in life, I always thought, Christ, it would be pretty cool to own that thing.
• 1:53
  And I remember ringing up Adrian Burgess at the time around the race team at the end of the year and I said, how much would that car be?
• 2:01
  Oh, $750.
• 2:02
  Oh, yeah.
• 2:03
  It was stiff.
• 2:05
  And then another year went past and I said, oh, is that car for sale?
• 2:08
  And the price dropped a bit.
• 2:09
  Okay.
• 2:10
  And then another year went past and then Adrian departed and then another year went past and we're five years down the track.
• 2:15
  So you're taking a ticket to this is going the right way for me.
• 2:19
  And then I got it at a good time when...
• 2:21
  And I don't mean this in a rude way or in a derogatory fashion, but when Walkinshaw lost Mega Fuels as a sponsor midway through the season, I think they were keen to sell the car.
• 2:32
  So I got it then without an engine, and we had to finish off a bit of the rest though.
• 2:35
  But yeah, and then I got it, and it was in its livery, and that's why I leave a cover on it because it's fluoro orange and the fluoro...
• 2:42
  fades in the sunlight.
• 2:45
  So, yeah, and then I got it, found an engine, sort of negotiated later, got the engine in, got some Wilkinshaw parts off Gary Rogers because they didn't have the Wilkinshaw tacks on them.
• 2:58
  And got the car finished off and we ran it at Phillip Island and I got to put dad in it.
• 3:01
  So for him to drive one of my cars and I've driven a few of his, it was pretty cool.
• 3:05
  Now, you are a massive fan of authenticity, right?
• 3:07
  And I'm told you track down, I think this is from your excellent chat with Noons that we talked about in the podcast here.
• 3:13
  You tracked down the original engine but it was pretty worse for wear.
• 3:17
  Is that right?
• 3:18
  Yes.
• 3:18
  The engine in this that we won on the Gold Coast was Walkinshaw engine number 50.
• 3:23
  And it was actually James and my race engine Bathurst 2018.
• 3:28
  It blew up on lap 30.
• 3:31
  And so I thought, well, I need matching numbers.
• 3:33
  It's just not right to me without it.
• 3:34
  So I've got engine 36 in it now, and I've got 50 up in my engine shop here.
• 3:40
  Coffee table or something.
• 3:41
  One day I'll fix it.
• 3:43
  One day I'll fix it.
• 3:44
  I've been slowly stealing stuff out of Walkinshaw's rubbish bin to build it.
• 3:48
  Who is that guy late at night?
• 3:50
  Yeah, and they've been good.
• 3:52
  I bought some cylinder heads and I'll slowly piece it together over time because now they're a bit redundant and I'll get the right engine in this one day.
• 3:58
  Awesome.
• 3:58
  Some great memories of various points in your career, which we've touched on in the discussion here.
• 4:05
  Just quickly, there is another Castrol car here up on the hoist.
• 4:08
  I think it's – what are you talking here in terms of its restoration?
• 4:13
  It looks fairly close to complete, is it?
• 4:15
  Yeah, so last year we finished the 93 car and this is a 94 car, both VP Commodores.
• 4:21
  And the whole idea was to restore two cars at the same time, make it a bit more efficient because this is actually for a private collector who has been an excellent supporter of mine and my business.
• 4:31
  And I had to sort of, that they were just going along together nicely.
• 4:36
  But last year Bathurst was a 30 years for 93 car.
• 4:39
  So I kind of had the tools down on the 94 car to get the 93 one for the anniversary.
• 4:44
  So this one's getting very close now.
• 4:46
  I'm just waiting for our original Sparky to come down from Queensland to help me finish off some engine wiring because this is the first year that the Perkins team ran the Chevy engine instead of the Holden.
• 4:55
  So it looks the same from the outside, but it's quite different technically, Rusty.
• 4:58
  But I've just got some finishing touches to do, and then I'm hoping to have it on track and have it finished before mid-year.
• 5:04
  So I've got to keep the pressure on because it's been sitting around too long.
• 5:08
  I started these two VPs before I met my wife, and now I'm married with two kids.
• 5:13
  You've been with them longer.
• 5:15
  Now, the work, the attention to detail is amazing.
• 5:19
  And there's no kind of copy stuff that you've got offshore.
• 5:22
  It's about keeping what you either fabricated at the time and even some of the people that your dad worked with at the time doing some of that stuff.
• 5:30
  Yeah, I've annoyed that many people who used to work for Dad and, you know, photos, magazines, all the journos and photographers.
• 5:38
  To restore a car, you kind of need so much information and photos on the track are one thing, but you see like this has got the bonnet up.
• 5:43
  There's no photos of this car with the bonnet up.
• 5:45
  So I want to try and find out what color the rocker covers were.
• 5:48
  They're blue at the moment, but I've got red and gold ones sitting on the shelf until someone can find me a bloody photo.
• 5:52
  The rocker covers are worth about four grand each, so I've got some money sitting there.
• 5:56
  And then the things like air filter colours and specifications and radiator cap colours, just so many little tricky things that I am a bit anal.
• 6:04
  And I'll show you one big thing I was really anal on is the paintwork.
• 6:07
  Now, when I was a kid, we were just on the driver's door with all these Castrol stripes, trying to paint a visual here because I know we're on a podcast.
• 6:14
  But I remember cleaning this car and feeling the edge of that paintwork.
• 6:18
  If you painted that today with the current technology, you wouldn't do that.
• 6:21
  You'd feel that.
• 6:23
  just as it used to be so i couldn't produce that car without those edges because it wouldn't feel right so we painted it you put the white down then you have to mask it and put the red over the top and the green over the top and it's so labor intensive but for me it had to be right and that's what i remember it was right so that's just the little bit on the outside that you've seen so times that by a million on all the little jobs inside and uh yeah it's been a labor of love
• 6:47
  I love that you do that and you go to those links.
• 6:50
  And you have a bit of community that helps you here too because you've gone to Facebook.
• 6:54
  There's a great following of that.
• 6:56
  And they've been helpful along the way, the groups, haven't they?
• 6:59
  Mate, Facebook's been awesome.
• 7:01
  And what I wanted to do was just kind of like put a letter up on a community notice board.
• 7:06
  But you couldn't do that these days because of digital media and social media.
• 7:12
  So yeah, I started a Facebook group.
• 7:14
  It's now got over 30,000 followers.
• 7:16
  And if I need something, it's not for being lazy.
• 7:18
  It's just people want to help you.
• 7:20
  Yeah.
• 7:21
  You know, we've bought lots of parts.
• 7:22
  People have donated bits and pieces.
• 7:24
  But finding new old stock Holden bits has been my mantra.
• 7:27
  I'm not putting aftermarket Chinese accessories in there.
• 7:30
  Like the glass is original Pilkington glass.
• 7:32
  The headlights are original Holden bits and pieces.
• 7:35
  So we refurb everything.
• 7:36
  But it didn't race with an aftermarket Chinese window.
• 7:39
  So why would I put another one in there because it looked right?
• 7:42
  So just that's been the mantra throughout.
• 7:44
  And, yeah, the people on Facebook have been awesome and interesting.
• 7:47
  Yeah, I've turned this into a bit of a business.
• 7:50
  It was going to just be a hobby, but now it's my job.
• 7:52
  Just as we wrap up the conversation here in the workshop, which looks, as you'd expect, immaculate, there is all sorts of memorabilia from various aspects of your career and people that you've raced with, respect and so on in supercars that is around us here.
• 8:08
  Is there one that hasn't been restored?
• 8:10
  Is there a car on the wish list, or have you pretty much started to get through them, and what does that mean next for this business?
• 8:16
  Yeah, there's a few cars out there.
• 8:18
  I mean, I'm helping some other people restore their own cars.
• 8:21
  So there's a good fella by the name of John Alcorn in the central coast of New South Wales.
• 8:24
  You remember the Alcare air conditioning?
• 8:26
  Yeah, I sure do.
• 8:27
  That actually takes me back to the very early days of commentary for me at places like Orrin Park and so on.
• 8:32
  And I think for memory, they had a sports sedan to begin with, and then they moved to a Perkins Commodore and supercars.
• 8:37
  That's it.
• 8:38
  And guys like Bob Tindall were involved.
• 8:40
  So John, funnily enough, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, he's done well in business and he wanted to buy his Alcare car back.
• 8:47
  So we sort of found one of the cars that had half of one car in it and half of another, so he bought both of them.
• 8:53
  And then we're like, well, you're –
• 8:54
  kind of actually should buy this one as well.
• 8:56
  It's got some old parts in it.
• 8:57
  So he ended up with these sort of all these cars to try and get all the bits out of them to make them original.
• 9:02
  So he made his Alcare car dead on original.
• 9:04
  It was perfect.
• 9:05
  But then he had another body shell, which was the Diet Coke Paul Morris Commodore.
• 9:09
  Oh, wow.
• 9:09
  So he's fixed that and restoring that, which is a VP.
• 9:11
  So we've been making parts for them.
• 9:13
  And I've seen photos of it.
• 9:14
  It looks trick, like Diet Coke.
• 9:16
  everything.
• 9:16
  I've helped John a lot and he's a ripper fella.
• 9:18
  And he's also got Chassis 29, which is a VR Commodore that dad ran in 96 and the one they converted back to a VP for Bathurst.
• 9:26
  And he was going to convert it back to VP, but then he goes, well, you blokes are bringing out VPs.
• 9:29
  I might as well bring out a VR.
• 9:31
  So he's doing it as a dad won a shallow Australian touring car championship round at Phillip Island in 96.
• 9:37
  So we've had to build that up from a roll cage body show as well.
• 9:41
  So we've helped him with those.
• 9:42
  And they're going to be online similar time as this.
• 9:44
  So we've done exhaust systems, oil tanks, all sorts of fabrication work.
• 9:48
  So John's been a tremendous customer of ours.
• 9:51
  And we help guys that are running their cars.
• 9:52
  I've got a couple of cars running in Perth.
• 9:54
  But to answer your question, well, there's another car, the Bob Jones Tiemonts VL.
• 9:58
  We've been helping this guy actually.
• 10:00
  Dave owns that car as well.
• 10:01
  We've been helping him with his car restoration.
• 10:04
  But, yeah, there's a couple more I've sort of got our eye on, but...
• 10:07
  you know, since COVID, the market's inflated.
• 10:09
  So people kind of want post-restored prices for pre-restored cars.
• 10:13
  It's a bit like trying to get in the house market, to be honest.
• 10:16
  So we're just biding our time there.
• 10:17
  But there's a few people sniffing around that have got the money to do it.
• 10:21
  And we might try and help them do that.
• 10:23
  What?
• 10:23
  What inspired you to start doing this stuff?
• 10:25
  I mean, you've always had a love for it, an eye for it.
• 10:29
  The knowledge bank or like you'd know where to find the key stuff.
• 10:33
  As I said before, you love the authenticity.
• 10:36
  What made you go down this path?
• 10:37
  Well, I don't know.
• 10:38
  I just always loved it.
• 10:40
  And I kind of always liked the history and looking at it and know the numbers, the chassis numbers and the engine numbers.
• 10:45
  I feel like a bit like Aaron Noon and I kind of know a lot, but not about other teams, more so our own stuff.
• 10:51
  And just preserving the history, Rusty, I think.
• 10:54
  I never thought I'd be back here doing it as a business, but I just was lucky.
• 10:59
  I came back, I was working as a sign writer and I came back to give dad a hand to move out of the factories and he was just throwing everything in the bin.
• 11:05
  So people were like, what are you doing?
• 11:07
  And so I started pulling stuff out of the bin and just reintegrating with the customers and the car owners.
• 11:12
  because they built 49 cars and 198 engines.
• 11:16
  So there's over 200 customers there.
• 11:18
  And, yeah, I just like to preserve the history, and I'm proud of, obviously, everything that Dad set up with the business.
• 11:24
  Along the way, I mean, from, what are we talking, VK through to the last of the Jack Daniels cars.
• 11:30
  I mean, you just talked about how many there and so on.
• 11:33
  Have you driven kind of every iteration of a Commodore he raced or that Perkins Engineering has built?
• 11:40
  No, the earliest I've driven is a VN, the Alf Barbegallo Castrol VN.
• 11:45
  So that Bob Jane one we spoke about before, the VL, you haven't driven yet.
• 11:48
  Is that right?
• 11:48
  No, not yet.
• 11:49
  As we speak today, it hasn't hit the circuit yet in its restoration.
• 11:54
  So that's chassis 10.
• 11:55
  The Alf Barbegallo VN is number 15.
• 11:59
  So I've driven nothing short of 15, as in chassis number 1 and 2, 3, 4, 5.
• 12:04
  Chassis 2 is what...
• 12:06
  Valtteri Bottas has run at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, which by the time this goes to air, that would have ran.
• 12:11
  So that's possibly the only supercar or touring car that's had three Formula 1 drivers driven it.
• 12:16
  Unreal.
• 12:17
  Which is cool.
• 12:18
  So, yeah, I'd love to get behind the wheel of some of those really early ones.
• 12:21
  And then obviously the later ones, I've driven most of the eras, not all the cars per se, but most of the eras and the models and whatnot.
• 12:27
  So...
• 12:27
  Finally, in wrapping up this, we could talk like this for ages, just standing beside the cars by the hoist here.
• 12:34
  You got to drive a very special one at Topor recently.
• 12:38
  Supercars are going to be at Topor in April, probably not long after we release this.
• 12:43
  It's got a special story.
• 12:45
  You've spent a long period of time restoring it.
• 12:48
  What was that thing like to steer?
• 12:49
  And just share a bit more of its restoration story.
• 12:52
  Yeah, well, we're standing next to the 94 car now and the 93 car, you know, I got that car back in 2016 and it was a basket case.
• 13:02
  It was still running around in Victorian sports sedans and, you know, people think you could just slap the cash flow stickers on it and it's done.
• 13:07
  But it literally took, yeah, what, six, seven years, eight years to do and to drive it was obviously really cool.
• 13:15
  But I also didn't want to damage it or dirty it or scratch it or...
• 13:21
  you know, miss a gear or so I was cruising around at 7.10.
• 13:24
  It's like Murph's like come up to me after the first session.
• 13:26
  He's like, is everything okay?
• 13:27
  I'm like, yeah, it is, brother.
• 13:28
  But I don't want to, you know, I've done too much work on this to, you know, have something go wrong.
• 13:35
  And, you know, the wheels are 30 years old.
• 13:36
  So if something goes remiss with one of those wheels, yeah, you just don't want to look like an idiot.
• 13:41
  But it was very enjoyable.
• 13:43
  And, you know, I don't want to drive it everywhere and every day because that's not what –
• 13:48
  you should be doing with those old cars but the one thing i'd love to do is get it to goodwood and um make that happen yeah we'll try and make that happen cool i mean what were you at the time maybe nine years of age how old would you have been um well i'm an 86 model so i was um seven yeah seven crazy so we're talking your dad and and the late greg hansford famously winning at the mountain in 93 very special
• 14:10
  Yeah, and I would love to have a bit more time and get Greg's kids involved as well.
• 14:15
  I've always sent them photos of both these cars.
• 14:18
  And the car owner for this 94 one, it actually ran once as car number nine, the Winfield Triple Challenge with Hansford on the window.
• 14:25
  And we've got those stickers cut for a rainy day where we might do something with Greg's kids, which is a testament to Dave Gardner who owns the car.
• 14:33
  But yeah, you can't always remember, you can't forget that Bathurst is always two drivers and Greg is a very equal part.
• 14:39
  of Dad's Bathurst success in those years.
• 14:41
  Thank you, mate.
• 14:42
  I'd love the little factory workshop tour here.
• 14:45
  The audience will love that too.
• 14:46
  Let's get back to the combo, hi?
• 14:47
  Beautiful, mate.
• 14:52
  I'm going to jump around a little bit here because the 2006 Bathurst scenario, firstly...
• 15:00
  we'll get to diabetes, but you were crook with a cold at Sandown.
• 15:05
  More to that story unfolds in between time.
• 15:07
  When you get to Malala, the development series race in between time, you've figured out something's not right.
• 15:12
  You've been to hospital and know that you have diabetes and so on.
• 15:16
  And when we get to Bathurst,
• 15:18
  Brock has passed away.
• 15:19
  There is this unbelievable celebration of his life, lots of stuff going on with that.
• 15:27
  Mark Porter has an accident in the development series.
• 15:29
  It was a massive, massive weekend that –
• 15:33
  And then at the start of the race, you're involved in a shunt with Scafie.
• 15:38
  It's high profile because of who he is, where the car had qualified at the time, and so on, mate.
• 15:44
  And over time, people would kind of learn your side of that story and that it wasn't necessarily your fault.
• 15:52
  But media at the time, I think, looked at the star being taken out in what was just an accident, really, wasn't it?
• 15:59
  Yeah.
• 16:03
  I shouldn't say funny is not the right word, but, um, you know, I was probably so caught up in my own stuff with my own health and my own racing, racing, both development series and the main game that the kind of Brock stuff, I didn't get too caught up in because I was just, you know, this was my first Bathurst, man.
• 16:18
  Like I was kind of,
• 16:20
  I had no energy or concentration left to do anything other than what I was doing.
• 16:25
  But you were on double duty though, weren't you?
• 16:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:27
  And I probably kind of looking back on it, you don't realize how much that kind of Mark Porter and even Ashley Cooper in 2008, how much that –
• 16:39
  Kind of knocks you around and, you know, dad pulled Shane and I aside.
• 16:43
  Shane Price, who was my teammate, who I was teammates with in the development series, but also sharing the car with on Sunday.
• 16:48
  He said, mate, you can't think about any of that, you know.
• 16:51
  You've got so many thoughts going through your head.
• 16:54
  I still today, you know, think about it, especially with kids.
• 16:59
  But you can lose your life.
• 17:01
  You literally, in the Porter scenario, you –
• 17:05
  kind of swerved.
• 17:06
  His engine was gone.
• 17:07
  I think you even got a bit of oil on the windshield, didn't you?
• 17:09
  And then it's what unfolded with the cars behind.
• 17:11
  Yeah.
• 17:12
  So I had to give, you know, evidence in a later hearing and all that sort of stuff.
• 17:18
  It's a long time ago now, but, yeah, you know, I think I missed Mark's car and then two cars, three cars later got him, which is a shit thing to say.
• 17:30
  No, but, yeah.
• 17:31
  Yeah.
• 17:32
  You're just recounting.
• 17:32
  Yeah.
• 17:34
  Yeah.
• 17:35
  So I guess, you know, it kind of, it made us just, I don't know, you just start thinking about the wrong stuff.
• 17:43
  But then Saturdays, right.
• 17:45
  Cause I stalled in Friday's race and that's why I was a bit further in the pack.
• 17:50
  Sunday, Saturday's race, the race two, cause race one was on the Friday.
• 17:53
  Um, I just got back on the horse and finished third.
• 17:57
  Got drove up from 12th on the grid and Shane was second and we, you know, could have easily won that race together.
• 18:04
  And that's exactly what it was.
• 18:06
  It was just getting back on the horse.
• 18:08
  But then the 1,000, you know, kind of – we tossed a coin at Sandown.
• 18:14
  I would qualify there and Shane would start there.
• 18:17
  And then Shane was going to qualify Bathurst and I would start.
• 18:19
  It was just a no-brainer.
• 18:20
  Just a – no one got a preferential treatment.
• 18:24
  which was in, you know, driving for dad's team.
• 18:25
  People always think the sun's going to get, but I, I can guarantee you, I never got a preferential treatment because, you know, Shane was later on the following year getting, you know, new attires.
• 18:35
  And anyway, that's, that's another story.
• 18:37
  But, um, so you start the race.
• 18:40
  And I remember kind of getting out of Anthony Tratt's way in the second toll car.
• 18:46
  You got Nathan pretty beside him, is that right?
• 18:47
  Yeah.
• 18:47
  And I thought, I don't need to have a crash on the first lap, so I just got out of that.
• 18:51
  I could have put Tratt in the fence because he's kind of run me off the road.
• 18:54
  So I'm pressing on, grabbing gears, and he pop over to the crest, and it's just a car there.
• 18:57
  And yeah, Nathan's gone.
• 19:00
  I kept going, and I just stopped, hit the car.
• 19:01
  And I got on the radio and said, sorry, guys, I've just hit Jim Richards.
• 19:05
  Never thought the pole sitter was going to be back with me.
• 19:07
  It was only when I got back to the garage that I realized it was Scaife.
• 19:12
  And I was like, oh, shivers.
• 19:13
  You know, I walked down there and apologized to him because, you know, I felt responsible.
• 19:18
  But especially having then spent some time with the same team and people that have mechanically seen the clutch, the car was never –
• 19:25
  Garth Tander told you later, didn't he, that he was never going to finish the race.
• 19:29
  Even guys like Robbie Starr and Anthony McDonald that were working on the car or working in the team, I've asked them because I can't let anything go.
• 19:38
  And they said, well, we were done.
• 19:41
  We were never finishing that race, which was probably and still is a bitter pill for some of those guys to swallow.
• 19:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:48
  Um, but that makes me feel a bit better because yeah, I mean, I, I was racing with diabetes and not telling anyone as well.
• 19:57
  And then I thought, oh.
• 19:59
  That side of things could get a bit tricky, you know, legally, which we're probably free to talk about now.
• 20:05
  But, yeah, I just overthink everything, you know, it's probably my biggest detriment.
• 20:10
  But, yeah, to be out that early in the race, it was just shocking because we robbed ourselves of so many laps.
• 20:17
  And there's a funny part of that story.
• 20:18
  Is the triple M one?
• 20:20
  Yeah.
• 20:20
  No, no.
• 20:21
  I was going to say, Richo on Triple M defended you, mate, too, didn't he?
• 20:25
  Yeah, and Richo's been so good to me, not in that instance alone.
• 20:30
  I mean, he lent me a go-kart engine when he was still driving for dad as a practice engine and, you know, drove me to a few race meetings.
• 20:37
  Richo's just a ripper fellow and done a lot for me.
• 20:41
  But we were actually, Shane and I were in the truck.
• 20:44
  The race is on.
• 20:46
  as in we're out of the race, but the race is going.
• 20:49
  I was sitting there in my driving suit and we're sponsored by Jack Daniels.
• 20:52
  And in, in the front, in the front of the truck, there's a fridge full of Jack Daniels.
• 20:58
  And, uh, so it's 1130 in the morning.
• 21:00
  Shane goes, well, should we have a can?
• 21:05
  We're not doing anything else.
• 21:06
  So I've had a can and I thought I've had a mouthful.
• 21:11
  I said, shit, what if they fix it?
• 21:14
  Shane goes, I'll drive.
• 21:19
  Wasn't it good?
• 21:20
  And then I had a few more mouthfuls.
• 21:22
  I thought, shit, imagine if they fixed it.
• 21:24
  What are we going to do?
• 21:25
  What would we have done?
• 21:26
  But, you know, three hours later, we'd had about 10 of them and we're in the corporate box.
• 21:32
  Anyway, and I don't mean that as a bad story to Shane because Shane's a good fella.
• 21:38
  But I just remember that old drive.
• 21:41
  Imagine getting out in your first bath.
• 21:43
  You've got half a can of Jack Daniels.
• 21:46
  Anyway, it didn't happen, so no one needs to worry about that.
• 21:50
  Has, you know, time heals a lot of things.
• 21:52
  Scaife was probably upset at the time about, you know, bowing out of that race, such a significant race and so on.
• 21:57
  Is it okay with you guys now?
• 21:59
  Yeah, I mean, I've never asked him, but I work with him in the broadcast now and,
• 22:04
  I've got a lot of respect for Mark, you know, as a kid growing up, watching him race and everything.
• 22:09
  So, yeah, I mean, I hope there's no issues.
• 22:12
  He certainly, you know, talks to me and everything and sends me a few horse racing tips every now and again.
• 22:16
  So I don't know if they win actually now that I think about it.
• 22:19
  But, no, Scaife's a good guy.
• 22:21
  Like I said, a true champion of the sport and nothing but respect there.
• 22:26
  We'll come back to some of the other aspects of your racing career in a second.
• 22:29
  Let's talk diabetes because you've gone on their rides.
• 22:32
  So you live with it.
• 22:34
  You're a great champion, I think, of sports, people, and races, being able to continue to do what they do.
• 22:41
  When you were first told, they told you you would never race again, didn't they?
• 22:45
  And I've never named the doctor, so I won't.
• 22:48
  But he said to me, because Dad was in the hospital with me,
• 22:52
  And, uh, I didn't know much about it.
• 22:54
  Like I said, my only experience was Grant Steers as a kid, but I just, you know, when, when you're an eight year old kid and someone's got diabetes, you don't think much of it.
• 23:01
  You know, they're not on crutches, you know, they're fine visually.
• 23:06
  Um, yeah.
• 23:07
  So he recognized dad and presented a document that had a CAMS letterhead and it said, and it was 100%, and I think it could still be true to this day, Rusty.
• 23:17
  It says you can't compete with type 1 diabetes, you can't compete in motor racing events longer than 20 minutes.
• 23:24
  So...
• 23:26
  I look back now at everything I've done since and think, well, this may never have happened racing-wise.
• 23:34
  Gold Coast 2015.
• 23:34
  Or anything, you know.
• 23:37
  Bathurst crashing into Sky.
• 23:38
  If I had have just said, okay.
• 23:41
  I'll tick that box.
• 23:42
  I'll accept that this guy is telling me I'm done.
• 23:46
  Yeah, I wouldn't have, you know, memories and trophies and posters.
• 23:50
  And I hate using the word career because I don't feel like I've had a successful career compared to others that have had more successful careers.
• 23:58
  But, yeah, I guess for me it was not taking that no as an answer.
• 24:02
  My drive to want to race was far superior than a doctor telling me, no, you can't.
• 24:07
  So you kind of circumnavigate the system, right?
• 24:10
  That's a nice way of saying it.
• 24:12
  And you immerse yourself in learning about it.
• 24:16
  How do I test myself?
• 24:18
  How do I live with this?
• 24:19
  How do I ensure that I am absolutely fit to deliver in a race car sense, don't you?
• 24:25
  And you press on, even though this doctor's told you this, and the learnings from that would ultimately challenge the system, challenge the way that we license and deal with this.
• 24:36
  Is that right?
• 24:36
  Yeah.
• 24:37
  And it's a lot easier now based on the technology that it's around, but to paint the picture back then, you used to basically have to prick your finger, draw some blood, put it into a, like a bit of an analog-y sort of meter, wait five seconds, and it would tell you what your blood glucose level was.
• 24:52
  So I kind of figured out, well, that's useless.
• 24:54
  I need to know one before that and one after it and see where it's going.
• 24:59
  So on a race weekend, I could prick my finger 30 times.
• 25:02
  Just I wanted to know.
• 25:03
  It's like I wanted to know where's it going.
• 25:05
  And I relate it to oil pressure or, you know, fuel gauges and things.
• 25:09
  You know, one measurement's not enough.
• 25:12
  It's a collection of data.
• 25:13
  So it was day one or day two in hospital.
• 25:16
  I grabbed a notepad.
• 25:18
  And, you know, like they, I look back on it now and I think sometimes the medical team, you know, they go about it the wrong way.
• 25:23
  They give me a milo and then I watch my blood glucose just go through the roof and then they're like, oh, you've got to have an injection for that.
• 25:29
  I'm like, why didn't you tell me that?
• 25:31
  Yeah.
• 25:31
  And then I drop really low because I've had too much injection.
• 25:33
  My blood glucose goes really low.
• 25:35
  And instead of giving me jelly beans, which I've got some on the table here because I carry them everywhere, they're giving me marmalade satchels.
• 25:42
  And I'm thinking, what's all this about?
• 25:43
  So I sort of straight away realized I'm going to have to figure this out myself.
• 25:48
  So you're quietly in the back of the truck and you're testing, checking yourself, et cetera, et cetera here, aren't you?
• 25:53
  And by and large, most people didn't know.
• 25:56
  No.
• 25:56
  And that was probably ultimately what got me.
• 25:58
  I'd go out for dinner and, you know, you're trying to be a 19, 20-year-old kid.
• 26:02
  Every time a meal would rock up, I'd go to the toilet, I'd check my blood, I'd have myself an injection.
• 26:06
  And it was Tim Slate.
• 26:08
  He goes –
• 26:09
  One time he just goes, why do you keep getting up every time a bloody dinner gets here?
• 26:13
  And it's like, I don't know what to tell you.
• 26:16
  You know, maybe it's just timing.
• 26:19
  So things like that at that age, it just got too much.
• 26:21
  But ultimately, like you say, I didn't take it lightly.
• 26:25
  I wasn't just racing just for shits and giggles.
• 26:28
  I knew not only did I have to take care of myself, but I needed to take care of the other competitors I was racing against.
• 26:33
  Because if I lost control of the car, yeah.
• 26:36
  In that instance, you need to respect everyone else's health and well-being, and the same with spectators and crew members.
• 26:42
  I'm not just there because Larry's son should be allowed to race.
• 26:48
  It's earn new stripes.
• 26:51
  So I learned a routine, a regime, just heavy discipline.
• 26:55
  I didn't go out and drink a lot of booze and all that sort of stuff.
• 27:00
  You did triathlons and all sorts, mate, didn't you?
• 27:02
  Yeah.
• 27:02
  So I just needed to push and work out what was going on to know what I needed to do to go racing.
• 27:08
  And I look back on it now and I speak to a lot of kids and their parents with type 1.
• 27:14
  And I always bring back my motivation for car racing.
• 27:16
  And I think, well, some people aren't as fortunate to have that motivation.
• 27:20
  Might be their age or their upbringing or whatever.
• 27:23
  But if you can find something that motivates you in life, you're going to have no barrier or no obstacle.
• 27:30
  So, yeah, it got too much for me just living that life of secrecy.
• 27:33
  But, yeah, when I went back to get my CAMS license after going public with the condition.
• 27:37
  What did you do?
• 27:37
  It was Bahrain?
• 27:39
  I was flying home, you know, 15 hour flight.
• 27:43
  I'm done.
• 27:44
  Yeah.
• 27:45
  I'm not enjoying this, you know, um, we're not that competitive.
• 27:49
  Um, I just, yeah, you know, weight on your shoulders, you know, I'm not looking for sympathy or anything, but it was just how it was.
• 27:56
  But then when, yeah, when I, so, you know, to get my CAMHS license that year in 07, it says, do you have diabetes?
• 28:02
  And I'll just tick the no box.
• 28:04
  And because I had this idea in my head, well, what if Craig Lowndes is doing this?
• 28:09
  Or Mark Scaife, you know, what if?
• 28:10
  You just don't know.
• 28:11
  You don't know what you don't know.
• 28:13
  And so, yeah, 2008, I ticked the box that says yes, and they go, oh, shit, I don't think you can race.
• 28:19
  And it's like, well, hang on, I can.
• 28:20
  I've shown how you can do it.
• 28:22
  And I spent a lot of time in deliberation with some medical staff and team, and now I can.
• 28:29
  And I've helped a lot of people, you know.
• 28:30
  At the time, I had pilots who were doing class action lawsuits about being able to fly commercial airliners, writing to me and people kind of reaching out and, you know, other older race car drivers, people.
• 28:43
  One fellow, I forget his name, might have been Dick Howe or someone like that.
• 28:46
  He said, oh, man, they haven't let me race for three or four years, you know.
• 28:49
  I'm going to go racing now.
• 28:50
  I was like, well, hang on a minute.
• 28:51
  Like, you've actually...
• 28:53
  It's not taken lightly.
• 28:54
  It's not something I just took lightly.
• 28:56
  It was heavy discipline, good management.
• 28:59
  You've got to have your wits about you.
• 29:00
  And, yeah, I haven't had any issues in the race car, but, you know, it's not going to be the deciding factor for me stopping racing, but it will certainly have an influence at some stage because I need to make sure that I'm preserving my health moving forward.
• 29:14
  So two questions here that spring to mind.
• 29:17
  Firstly, monitoring as you go because the tech keeps improving and you like that tech, right?
• 29:21
  You immerse yourself in learning about it.
• 29:23
  I mean there's some cool things that can either send messages to phones and watches and whatever else which I imagine probably help you on the run.
• 29:30
  There's probably things around what you drink when you're in the car and so on.
• 29:33
  And on a personal level, mate, I mean, I think immediately of you have a great relationship with Greg Murphy.
• 29:39
  His two boys, Cormac and Ronan, who are ripper boys, they both have it and they've been able to go motor racing.
• 29:46
  So you have clearly helped people to continue to do what you love, even though they are living with this.
• 29:54
  Yeah, and it's funny because I joke with Murph because he'd never wanted to do the go-karting thing and I said, I made this hard for you, haven't I?
• 30:01
  Because he could have had an easy out clause there.
• 30:04
  But no, I feel like I'm not going to take the credit for it, but certainly I didn't take no for an answer.
• 30:14
  And a lot of the parents and kids that I meet, they think that kind of diabetes is something that's going to stop and ruin their life.
• 30:20
  Yeah.
• 30:21
  And it's not.
• 30:22
  It doesn't.
• 30:23
  You know, I can't go to the servo and just eat lollies for fun.
• 30:27
  And I don't eat a lot of ice cream anymore.
• 30:29
  But I'm still doing everything I want to do.
• 30:32
  And then for me, I look at it like this.
• 30:36
  If I was to walk into the children's hospital now, there's so many people worse off than me.
• 30:40
  Yes.
• 30:41
  Yes.
• 30:42
  What have I got to complain about?
• 30:43
  And yeah, the technology's got a lot better.
• 30:46
  I wear a glucose monitor on one side and I've got an insulin pump here on the other side and those things, I mean, they've swollen up my guts, that I feel like I've got
• 30:56
  two little tennis balls hanging off the side of my stomach.
• 30:58
  But they've all made things a lot easier for me.
• 31:01
  And I mean, I'm training hard, if not harder than I ever have, just to stay fit for a couple of races a year now because I need to keep the physical activity going on just to see what my diabetes does.
• 31:12
  It's changed a lot over time.
• 31:14
  You know, my body's changing.
• 31:16
  Things change.
• 31:18
  You know, diabetes has complications later in life.
• 31:20
  I'm hoping to minimize those.
• 31:22
  So you've always got to be mindful that you've got to look after yourself.
• 31:25
  Yeah.
• 31:26
  Dealing with that and looking back on the entirety of your career, which has had spikes and troughs and so on, were there dark moments, mate, where you thought, maybe this is, maybe I'm not going to keep going as a racing driver.
• 31:40
  Back when you're doing development series, back when you're working for Paul Morris doing signage on the race car and you still got opportunities and so on.
• 31:46
  But I mean, there must have been those times where you wondered how long the career would go for.
• 31:51
  Yeah.
• 31:52
  I mean, I had a lot of times where, I mean, I wouldn't say I threatened to give it away, but sometimes that was going to be the only scenario.
• 32:00
  Um, you know, that instance where I sort of came public with my condition as a type one diabetic, I was fully prepared that that could be it at that point.
• 32:10
  You know, it could be if, if, if people weren't willing to listen or understand that things could move on, then, you know, it could have been said and done at that point in time.
• 32:19
  And I was, I was prepared for that.
• 32:21
  Um, but then I, you know, I worked away and I got back into the main game in 2009, but I had a wretched year with, with the Cali racing team and, you know, that could have been it as well.
• 32:31
  I, you know, I, I don't feel like that opportunity in hindsight, I wouldn't have taken that opportunity now.
• 32:37
  Um, but basically, you know, sort of being told you're not good enough and shows on show, you know, out the door to the family sort of team was, was tough ones for, um, well,
• 32:48
  Well, maybe this is it now.
• 32:50
  But then you rebuild and got a co-drive with Stone Brothers in 2010 with Slady.
• 32:58
  And I get great satisfaction in that Phil Byland.
• 33:02
  We finished fifth.
• 33:03
  I qualified Todd Kelly a couple of years after he told me he wasn't going to make it or sort of thing.
• 33:07
  I mean, not having a dig at Todd, but that was just the facts.
• 33:10
  Um, but you just, every drive, every time you wanted to do something, it was, can you bring any money?
• 33:16
  Have you got sponsors?
• 33:16
  So you sort of, you get disheartened with that.
• 33:19
  And I mean, I've, I've, you know, I'm, I'm very happy with life at the moment, but it hasn't been as kind to me, you know, as others that have made money or, or had success.
• 33:30
  Um, and it's probably at the, at the detriment of, um,
• 33:34
  yeah, of kind of financial success.
• 33:36
  But I can look back now and just be so proud of not just winning the race, but just everything I've done.
• 33:44
  Like I joke to myself, oh, I've got the diabetic lap record there.
• 33:48
  I finished third at Bathurst.
• 33:49
  Well, no, my diabetes has finished better than third.
• 33:52
  I'd love to win that race.
• 33:54
  My opportunities are going to be getting shorter and shorter.
• 33:56
  But –
• 33:57
  it's just something that I can be just proud of, just determination.
• 34:01
  It's, you know, some other people might not think it's a great story or, you know, you haven't solved war and peace, but in my life, it's something I'm satisfied with.
• 34:10
  I'm a huge believer in, from an advice standpoint that a setback
• 34:16
  handled the right way can actually be really the making of you in some respects, right?
• 34:21
  So, I mean, you did that.
• 34:22
  You went back to the development series.
• 34:23
  You've relaunched on more than one occasion and so on.
• 34:25
  I mean, that to me, in the satisfaction that you've just described, powering back through and what you have achieved in those highs, that's, I think, immensely rewarding because you can...
• 34:40
  you can just harness that moment, not worry about what's happened in the past and through that hard graft that you've hustled for things along the way.
• 34:50
  Roland Dane helped you quietly in the background at one point and so on.
• 34:53
  I mean, those are the things that I think help shape and make you really, aren't they?
• 34:57
  Yeah, and I guess you just learn over time that those kind of relationships is what accounts for everything.
• 35:03
  If you don't have the checkbook to do it, to just buy a drive, people give you a go because you're a good bloke or you have a bit of fun with them.
• 35:12
  I guess the one thing I am probably as proud as the diabetes stuff, but also it killed me that I was racing for Dad's team.
• 35:20
  I never really wanted to do that.
• 35:21
  I felt like there was more circumstance kind of helping him out, some other stuff that went on behind the scenes.
• 35:28
  I'm so proud of everything I've achieved beyond driving for dad's team, sort of after that Kelly racing years, because I didn't have much success in those first few years there.
• 35:38
  And people just, you know, you're always, oh, you're only there because you're driving with your dad and whatever.
• 35:43
  And I just hated it.
• 35:44
  I hated it.
• 35:44
  I didn't want to be that guy or that kid.
• 35:47
  You know, as a kid, I wanted to race for Holden Racing Team.
• 35:49
  I didn't want to race for Dad's team.
• 35:50
  I wanted to earn my stripes and do this and do that.
• 35:52
  And I can be so proud of everything.
• 35:55
  Every dollar I've made from driving a race car has come from someone other than my dad.
• 35:59
  You know, I might have got, you know, 250 bucks a week there at one stage.
• 36:03
  I was never getting 500 grand a year, I can promise you.
• 36:06
  I mean, I think the first full-time year I was on 40 grand driving the Jack Daniels Commodore.
• 36:10
  But I still thought I was pretty good getting paid to drive a race car.
• 36:18
  I'm just proud of driving for Gary Rogers I remember where I was he was probably one of the first guys to properly pay me to drive a race car I was at the footy and he rang me he goes righto you got the drive I said oh cool I can't remember what the money was I said oh Gary that's just awesome he goes none of the soap opera mate we'll just see you on Monday sort of thing and hung up
• 36:35
  I'm like, oh, shit, man.
• 36:36
  Every phone call I have with him is exactly like this.
• 36:39
  Super short, beautiful, but super short, aren't they?
• 36:41
  Right, Gregory, we'll see you next week.
• 36:43
  And I mean, I love it.
• 36:45
  Like, to this day, I've got a great relationship with Gary and Barry, but Barry rang me the other day, he goes, hey, Jack, I'm just at lunch with someone.
• 36:51
  What was that bloke's name?
• 36:52
  And I go, right, he goes, right on, mate, I'll see you later.
• 36:55
  It's like they're all –
• 36:56
  That's very good, by the way.
• 36:58
  It's not personal.
• 36:59
  It's Gary, and I love Gary.
• 37:01
  Another fellow that, you know, I talk about my grandfather not getting the accolades in motorsport.
• 37:06
  I mean, Gary Rogers is another guy.
• 37:08
  You know, most other people are off buying boats or holiday houses, and he's invested in car racing.
• 37:14
  He's just a ripper, and I speak to him to this day.
• 37:16
  But, yeah, I look back, and he was the first guy to pay me to drive a race car.
• 37:19
  And then I got to drive a Scott McLaughlin with him and those sorts of things, you know.
• 37:24
  All that was without my old man.
• 37:25
  You know, and every time I drove for those kind of guys, they'd have a story about that.
• 37:30
  Oh, your old man was this.
• 37:32
  Brad Jones, I drove with them in the COVID Bathurst because I lost my bloody ride with the Milwaukee team, the only team to fold.
• 37:39
  So I'd end up driving with Jack Smith and Brad Jones is telling me this story.
• 37:42
  Oh, you know, your old man, bloody.
• 37:43
  I was testing the car of his at Malalana, Mr. Gear, and he sat me down with a spare gearbox in the garage and made me change gears.
• 37:50
  And I think, oh, yeah.
• 37:52
  That sounds about right.
• 37:53
  Yeah, it sounds about right.
• 37:54
  But equally, I said, well, it doesn't have much to do with me, you know.
• 37:57
  But, yeah, it's funny.
• 37:58
  They've always got a story or a jibe or whatever.
• 38:01
  And same, you know, driving for Ross Stone, you know, I think people think that, you know, sometimes when you're involved with your dad, you're this or you're that, and people inform their own opinion.
• 38:10
  And, you know, I've had Ross and his wife die out here at our place for dinner.
• 38:14
  Great people.
• 38:15
  Just people, you know, we grew up as sort of arch rivals, and they think you're just a snotty-nosed little kid,
• 38:20
  actually not a bad dude.
• 38:21
  And you think, oh, I think you're not a bad dude as well.
• 38:23
  Exactly.
• 38:24
  You get to drive for Ferrari, HRT.
• 38:27
  You get ultimately when he comes back from his injury to enjoy that success.
• 38:31
  A couple of surfboards on the Gold Coast.
• 38:33
  I would imagine that was a pretty decent party afterwards.
• 38:35
  Some crook Frank the Tank on the roof.
• 38:39
  Was there a little bit of a moment there where you went,
• 38:41
  To that doctor, hey, who says I couldn't do it?
• 38:44
  Yeah, correct.
• 38:44
  Finger up.
• 38:45
  I mean, he's doing his job.
• 38:47
  He's a doctor.
• 38:47
  I get that right.
• 38:49
  But to be told that the lifelong thing, you'd grown up in the paddock with the grises, with the brocks, with the water.
• 38:55
  This is your life.
• 38:56
  To be told, I'm not going to be able to motor race anymore.
• 38:59
  And then to be able to enjoy what is one of the Adelaide, Gold Coast, Sandown, Bathurst.
• 39:05
  I mean, they're up there.
• 39:05
  That's pretty special.
• 39:06
  And you were commentating.
• 39:07
  Yeah, I mean, Krompo.
• 39:10
  And I must admit, once a year or once every two years, I'll flick it on and I'll watch it.
• 39:16
  And you, yourself, commentator and Krompo.
• 39:19
  And why I've referenced that is Neil says something towards the end, you know, it's a moment he's worked his whole life.
• 39:28
  And that's it.
• 39:28
  That's true, mate.
• 39:29
  That's true.
• 39:30
  I feel pretty good.
• 39:31
  Yeah, it is.
• 39:32
  Like you say, like it may not have ever happened, mate.
• 39:36
  But it is really cool.
• 39:39
  And, yeah, I'd love to have that feeling again.
• 39:43
  But if not, like you've seen here, I've got the race suit and a couple of the front pages of the paper and the car and whatnot and surfboard up there.
• 39:50
  Yeah, I can be proud of that.
• 40:01
  The famous Holden Racing Team, which features on Jack's CV, is now known as Walkinshaw and Retty United.
• 40:08
  Ryan Walkinshaw has joined Rusty for both shortcuts and a feature episode where he talked about retaining good ties with James Courtney even after making a big change to HRT's driver line-up.
• 40:20
  like always, you're going to have a little bit of friction when those sort of situations occur, when it really happens.
• 40:25
  But by the end of the season, we're all hugging and crying and grabbing each other in the last race in Newcastle and all that sort of thing.
• 40:32
  So I've known James ever since I've been, ever since I took over the business.
• 40:35
  So I've been pretty close to him for a while and we'll continue to stay friends.
• 40:41
  And he's a good guy, but I think we both knew that we needed a change.
• 40:46
  Jack talks about reuniting with his good mate JC for the Enduros and his own future driving plans.
• 40:52
  That's coming up.
• 40:54
  One day I'll get an invite to go on location with Rusty instead of just being trapped in the console.
• 41:01
  You're back with JC for the Enduros this year.
• 41:03
  How good, you and your mate.
• 41:05
  How did that come together and what a great opportunity to kind of reunite and bring a bit of that magic again?
• 41:11
  I mean, it's funny because had it not have been for...
• 41:16
  couple of things.
• 41:17
  Um, we probably would never have actually split up.
• 41:20
  Um, he was going off in the team Sydney path.
• 41:23
  Um, after we just done five years together, four years together, five years together.
• 41:27
  after 29 and I didn't think much of the Team Sydney path.
• 41:31
  I just didn't rate the opportunity.
• 41:34
  So I went and done a deal with Phil Munday and Will Davison, which I thought, you know, no disrespect to James, but this would be great as well.
• 41:43
  Built a great relationship with James, one of my closest friends today.
• 41:46
  And then that deal fell apart.
• 41:50
  because Milwaukee pulled the pin, but then entered Boost Mobile and James Courtney into that car.
• 41:55
  I thought, this is an absolute shoo-in.
• 41:57
  We're back on here.
• 41:58
  And James was the same.
• 41:59
  Everyone was like, yep, this is perfect.
• 42:02
  I went down to Tickford and did the seat fit for him because he was in Queensland.
• 42:05
  I'm like, yep, we're on.
• 42:08
  Didn't happen.
• 42:09
  Didn't happen.
• 42:10
  Um, you know, I'm not going to give anyone any airtime over it, but it just didn't happen.
• 42:15
  James was disappointed.
• 42:16
  I was disappointed.
• 42:17
  So long story short, sort of every year since James always like tried to get me on board.
• 42:21
  And then I ended up with a great home at Erebus, uh, with Will Brown and, you know, we shared great, not, not trophy success, but we were competitive.
• 42:30
  We were successful.
• 42:30
  We were in with a chance of winning races.
• 42:32
  Um.
• 42:33
  And I enjoyed it.
• 42:35
  And every year James would ring me, right?
• 42:36
  I can't.
• 42:36
  What are we going to do?
• 42:37
  We get to get back together.
• 42:38
  And then the sort of Erebus thing just sort of ran its course after three years.
• 42:43
  And funnily enough, something I didn't touch on with my grandpa was that he, one of those cars that he was driving, John Blanchard Sr., Tim's grandfather, was his mechanic.
• 42:54
  Wow.
• 42:54
  So full circle and a great motor racing family.
• 43:00
  James was obviously very encouraging.
• 43:01
  The sponsor, Snow River Caravans, were keen for me to join.
• 43:05
  And it was just a matter of chatting with Tim and I liked what they were setting up.
• 43:09
  You know, they're like Gary Rogers.
• 43:11
  They're heavily invested in motor racing.
• 43:13
  They could have a nice big boat somewhere or a nice big flash holiday house somewhere, but they don't.
• 43:17
  They want to go car racing.
• 43:18
  And the business of motor racing.
• 43:19
  Yeah, and they're not there to make up the numbers, you know.
• 43:23
  Unfortunately, someone's always got to finish off the podium and quite often it can be the same team, but they're built in.
• 43:30
  Then they've got two cars now and James – it was all a no-brainer for me.
• 43:34
  And I dare say Blanchard Racing Team will be the last team I drive for.
• 43:38
  Okay.
• 43:38
  Mate, that's a big statement.
• 43:40
  So do you put a timeline on that or what's your thinking?
• 43:45
  Well, the thing for me, Rusty, is I've been a part-time co-driver since 2015, so it's approaching 10 years.
• 43:51
  And there's guys that have come in and there'll be more and more coming through.
• 43:56
  You're Tim Slades.
• 43:58
  We've recently had like Lee Holdsworth, Michael Caruso, Garth Tander.
• 44:03
  And ultimately, they're just – Musical chairs.
• 44:06
  Yeah.
• 44:06
  But I'm also not there.
• 44:08
  I don't want to occupy a seat for the fun of it.
• 44:10
  I don't just go to Bathurst to tick off the start, the great race start, and have a bit of a wave to the crowd.
• 44:15
  I'm there to win.
• 44:18
  Sure, James Courtney and I aren't going to be favourites this year.
• 44:20
  I get that.
• 44:22
  But James is a hell of a race car driver and a couple of things go our way.
• 44:25
  We could be quite competitive.
• 44:27
  And that's the kind of race that lends itself to that stuff, isn't it?
• 44:29
  But the day I think that, hey, if we go home happy to be finished 19th, what am I doing?
• 44:38
  And I look at dad race two, he was 53.
• 44:40
  I'm not going to be able to make 53.
• 44:43
  But I guess I look at 40, the age of 40 as a timeline, but I don't –
• 44:48
  The car doesn't know how old you are.
• 44:51
  And actually a lot of people go, what do you think about driving a Ford this year?
• 44:54
  I go, well, I can't see the badge from the steering wheel.
• 44:57
  And the steering wheel doesn't know how young or old I am.
• 45:00
  You got a lot of Ford fans that day with the Scaife incident.
• 45:03
  I did.
• 45:03
  I didn't mention that.
• 45:04
  I got lifelong Ford fans.
• 45:06
  So they're all pretty happy that I'm back in the Ford.
• 45:08
  You know, mum's family is heavily Ford.
• 45:10
  One of my cousins the other day said, oh, we can cheer for you again now.
• 45:13
  I'm like, oh, great.
• 45:15
  but yeah I don't know I just I don't want to occupy a seat that a young bloke deserves and like I said I want to be competitive you know James has probably only got a year or two left in him as well
• 45:28
  the hardest thing is just that outright qualifying speed, which I feel like was always a bit of a struggle for me.
• 45:34
  Um, and then the race pace is okay.
• 45:36
  So, you know, if the phone keeps ringing, which it sort of does, you, you know, you, you, you can, you feel like you're qualified to go again, but I want to call it before it's too late.
• 45:46
  That's one thing Gary Rogers always said to me, don't go too long.
• 45:49
  Okay.
• 45:50
  But what I'm taking away from this is between both you and Jay, so you're going to have a fair swing at it before that does happen.
• 45:55
  Yeah.
• 45:56
  And like, it's funny, mate, I've had, this is my ninth one year co-driving deal.
• 46:00
  Crazy.
• 46:01
  One year at a time.
• 46:02
  Never had the stability to know I've got a job the second year.
• 46:04
  You just got to perform.
• 46:05
  You got to perform.
• 46:06
  You're getting paid, you got to perform.
• 46:07
  And I did five years at Walk and Shores.
• 46:09
  They all go through a heavy debriefing process and look at your lap times.
• 46:14
  And like I said, I've...
• 46:15
  I get asked back, um, I think last year on the co-driver timesheets is probably just dropped to about eighth or ninth or something like that in pace wise over the race meeting.
• 46:25
  But like I did 63 lap triple stint on my own.
• 46:28
  I didn't get out of the car once.
• 46:29
  So for whatever reason, I've often gone better in the second stint when I jump back in the car, know the conditions, kind of understand the race car and just, you know, you, you just go better.
• 46:39
  FPR had mapped out co-driver performances at one point, hadn't they?
• 46:42
  And they knew you were pretty handy in that period, didn't they?
• 46:45
  Yeah, and that's where I got the main game drive with Charlie in 2014 when I was co-driving with McLaughlin in 13.
• 46:51
  I was P2 co-driver at Bathurst and Sandown behind Dumberell, I think.
• 46:56
  Um, and those guys, you know, they look at, there's so many things to look at.
• 46:59
  You can't just look at the fastest lap.
• 47:01
  You can't look at the stint length.
• 47:03
  You need to do a standard deviation of data.
• 47:05
  So you pick, you delete the fastest five laps and you delete the fast, the five slowest laps and you work out what the average pace is.
• 47:12
  And that's all the data that the spectators don't see.
• 47:14
  And it's funny.
• 47:15
  I goes copping a bit of flack on social media last year when we announced the Courtney thing, someone saying, oh, he's done.
• 47:22
  And I've.
• 47:22
  Yeah.
• 47:23
  I screenshotted the data from Sandown 500 co-driver analysis, P1, wink up, P2, me.
• 47:30
  I said, am I done?
• 47:31
  Am I?
• 47:31
  Excellent.
• 47:32
  And P3, you know, whoever it was.
• 47:34
  You know, that one hot day doesn't make a summer, but it's, if I wasn't there, I wouldn't be here.
• 47:40
  Yeah.
• 47:40
  And I mean, I come back to, you know, I love the passion on social media.
• 47:46
  I genuinely do.
• 47:47
  Right.
• 47:47
  But, but you've got to.
• 47:48
  live it and understand it.
• 47:49
  I'm not living it.
• 47:50
  I'm getting to observe it and see what you do, right?
• 47:52
  But in order to have that kind of opinion, you've got to be able to qualify it.
• 47:58
  And I don't mind.
• 47:58
  Like if I've crashed, yep, yep, Jack's an idiot.
• 48:01
  He's a crasher.
• 48:03
  But if you haven't and you've got facts to prove otherwise, geez, you've got to be brave.
• 48:06
  Like I wouldn't – I mean I might have had a few jobs at politicians on social media but other than that, I think I keep it pretty straight back there.
• 48:16
  A couple here as we get towards the chequered flag of this great episode, mate.
• 48:20
  Thank you very much for coming on.
• 48:22
  It's been way overdue.
• 48:23
  Firstly, you have been, I reckon, for like 20 years now, this kind of mainstay of the development series, right?
• 48:30
  It's been probably key in what you've just talked about, about keeping that co-drive, the longevity and getting the phone calls for that stuff.
• 48:36
  Will you keep doing that?
• 48:37
  Where are you at from a DVS kind of standpoint?
• 48:40
  Is that a bit hard?
• 48:41
  Yeah, I'll do a couple of races this year.
• 48:45
  So we brought – I've been really lucky to get involved with Shoreham Partners.
• 48:51
  There's a guy that runs at Earl Evans and I joke with him.
• 48:55
  I wish I met him 20 years ago.
• 48:57
  But we get along really well.
• 48:59
  We've become great friends and they love to be involved in motorsport –
• 49:05
  Ironman, charity stuff.
• 49:08
  Great fit for you.
• 49:09
  Yeah, and Cronulla.
• 49:10
  So they love that.
• 49:11
  That's the sort of what they do.
• 49:12
  So we resonate with the charity stuff and the motor racing.
• 49:18
  So, yeah, we're going to do – we've done a lot of retro.
• 49:21
  He loves retro, celebrating the history of the sport.
• 49:24
  So I come to him with an idea and he goes, yeah, so we did the Marlboro HDT car in DVS.
• 49:29
  We did the 93 Tribute last year.
• 49:31
  And this year we're doing a Peter Janssen.
• 49:34
  Awesome.
• 49:34
  So we put delivery on a Gen 3 Mustang already because it went to the Shannon-Extine Classic, which they had a car on display.
• 49:41
  So we're hoping to have that on a Blanchard Racing Super 2 car for probably Townsville and or Sandown.
• 49:46
  Okay.
• 49:47
  That's our plan.
• 49:48
  We've just got to dot the i's across the t's.
• 49:50
  Why I've always done development series, Rusty, is it's the cars.
• 49:56
  It's what you're racing at Bathurst.
• 49:57
  Mm-hmm.
• 49:58
  My dream was always to – I did it in the first year.
• 50:02
  I raced for dad's team in Super 2 and the same car was what we ran in the main game.
• 50:07
  And then Paul Dumbrell did it as well at Eagleston Motorsport with a triple eight customer car and then you jump in Jamie Winker.
• 50:13
  Match fit.
• 50:13
  Good to go.
• 50:14
  Steering was in the same spot.
• 50:15
  The throttle pedals, the same distance in terms of zero to 100% throttle, the same travel.
• 50:21
  Last year, the Gen 3 car back to the Erebus Super 2 car, I was just like, wow, this is so different on the same weekend at Bathurst.
• 50:31
  It was just unbelievable.
• 50:32
  Yeah.
• 50:33
  And then I thought, well, why would I bother racing Carrera Cup when I'm on the other side of the car?
• 50:38
  You know, it's like kicking with your left foot and then having to go with your right foot.
• 50:41
  I just – I thought, well, I don't know if it's just I'm getting older, but I find that a bit trickier.
• 50:45
  And then I think, well, why would I – no disrespect to like TCR, but I don't need to go and learn how to drive front wheel drive car.
• 50:51
  How's that going to help me win Bathurst 1000?
• 50:53
  I mean, it's going to help keep me match fit, but I don't need the skill set, you know, so I'm kind of –
• 50:57
  I shouldn't say I've got the wrong attitude, but I just don't want that skill set at this stage of my life.
• 51:03
  Look at Trans Am, same thing, left-hand drive, the baggy tire, go, that's going to keep me match fit, but do I want that cloud of my driving style changing?
• 51:11
  So I just always think Super 2.
• 51:13
  Um, and I've worked incredibly hard over the years, you know, big thanks to a lot of the people that have helped me along the way, whether it be Ben and Rachel Eggleston, because again, I've never been able to walk in with a checkbook, go right.
• 51:23
  How much do you guys want?
• 51:24
  It's always been right.
• 51:25
  I better, I'll steal, you know, at Walkinshaw's, I would have stole bonnets and headlights and, you know, you pay for crash damage with slabs of beer and, you know,
• 51:33
  It's crime and corruption, but you make it happen.
• 51:35
  Happen, yeah.
• 51:35
  But, I mean, you have to – that is – for the kids that are listening here, among the many lessons that you're offering today, right, that hustle is so important.
• 51:43
  You have to – I mean, Crompo uses that line about the school or the university of motor racing, right, but all that stuff.
• 51:49
  from walking into John Crennan's office with a briefcase and stuff.
• 51:53
  I mean, you have to learn that.
• 51:55
  You've got to be multi-skilled in what you bring to the table here, don't you?
• 51:58
  Yeah, and one thing I've told it a little bit recently, so I hope I'm not a stuck record, but one thing Dad told me real young.
• 52:05
  He said, when I went to Bernie Eccleston and asked for a Formula One drive, I didn't have my Dad with me.
• 52:12
  And the reality of that is, Rusty, all the kids these days, especially the ones that have got family funding, you know, mum and dad go and do the deals.
• 52:19
  And the kid doesn't understand then the crash damage side of it.
• 52:22
  And you look at Super 2 now, it's a bit of a disaster because I don't think – none of the kids are working on the cars.
• 52:27
  None of the kids are paying for damage out of their own pocket.
• 52:30
  My first – my second year development series in 2008, I did the whole season on one set of headlights and one front bumper bar.
• 52:37
  Because I was working on the car.
• 52:40
  And that's the mantra.
• 52:41
  I think people talk about how do we fix it.
• 52:44
  That's my opinion.
• 52:44
  I haven't kind of voiced it to the hilltops.
• 52:46
  But I just feel like when you know how much damage costs, you don't drive into a crash.
• 52:51
  And especially then if your parents are there just to pick up the pieces or you've got a big sponsor or whatever.
• 52:56
  Not to mention the message that it sends to a team, like a quality team owner too.
• 52:59
  If you're walking in and stand on your own two feet, that sends a big message, doesn't it?
• 53:03
  A hundred percent.
• 53:04
  And just do your deals, show a bit of grunt, a bit of initiative and be prepared to roll your sleeves up.
• 53:11
  You have done some time with Murph in New Zealand recently
• 53:15
  in the super touring category, which was a lot of fun.
• 53:18
  I know.
• 53:18
  And I think you got to have beers afterwards and so on.
• 53:21
  It was a great, great series.
• 53:23
  I look over your shoulder immediately now and I see a photo of the late, great Peter Brock and your dad with the Porsche at Le Mans, the T-Mart's car and so on.
• 53:32
  Is there something, you know, you've given us maybe a little timeframe here, but are there other things that you'd like to have a little crack at and tick before you're kind of done?
• 53:39
  Well, yeah.
• 53:40
  Quickly, talking about the New Zealand stuff with Murph, that was so much fun.
• 53:45
  But my dream as a kid was to race Bathurst with Dad and win Bathurst together.
• 53:48
  Never happened.
• 53:49
  So racing with Murph in the 51 was a very cool thing to do, second to not being able to drive with Dad.
• 53:55
  I got to do Bathurst twice with Russell Ingle.
• 53:58
  So that was ticking that box.
• 53:59
  But, man, I've tried a lot of years to try and do some NASCAR stuff.
• 54:03
  Oh, right.
• 54:04
  You know, written to teams and, you know, trying to do a road course.
• 54:08
  But just the same thing.
• 54:09
  It's just always a lot of money.
• 54:10
  It's U.S. dollars.
• 54:12
  I think the cheapest one I got down to was $70,000 U.S. to go and do the truck race in Canada.
• 54:17
  Okay.
• 54:18
  70,000 US is still a hell of a lot of money.
• 54:21
  For one race.
• 54:21
  I don't have it.
• 54:22
  I don't have it.
• 54:24
  I've always tried to do lots of stuff, tried to do Bathurst 12 hours and GTs, but I just ultimately don't have the money.
• 54:30
  And then as time goes on, you don't get the experience driving the cars and so on.
• 54:35
  But yeah, I mean, I'd love to have done more racing.
• 54:38
  You know, people often say, oh, you know, why didn't you do that?
• 54:41
  Well, well,
• 54:42
  Well, I wasn't sitting at home because I chose to.
• 54:44
  That's just what happens.
• 54:47
  So, yeah, I mean, I would love to have done more.
• 54:49
  I would love to have done more.
• 54:50
  But once I give it up, it'll be it.
• 54:53
  I mean, I could probably drive a couple of these old rockets at, you know, speed events and demos and stuff.
• 54:58
  But if once I give it away, it'll be all over.
• 55:01
  Okay.
• 55:02
  That's big.
• 55:03
  That's a big statement that you've just made.
• 55:05
  And I hope you go okay with that because I think Murph and even Richo in post-race life have really enjoyed that classic, that retro, that historic scene because of a couple of things.
• 55:17
  A, they love the old cars, and B, it gives them a bit of a buzz again.
• 55:20
  You got to enjoy that all of you together in Topol recently, which is hopefully that keeps that spark.
• 55:26
  I'd love to see you get to drive that
• 55:31
  What about
• 55:33
  the opportunity to drive with your dad, but not, not together.
• 55:36
  I know that's something you would love to have done in a, you know, 1000 cents.
• 55:39
  Your TV work did give you a fabulous opportunity with network 10.
• 55:43
  You came forth with a story idea for RPM, that legendary show.
• 55:47
  You got to go to Sydney motorsport park and a couple of cool cars.
• 55:49
  He got to kind of sample the newer style of machine.
• 55:52
  Didn't you know that was pretty special.
• 55:54
  Yeah, that was, I mean, obviously to swap cars with dad was really cool.
• 55:58
  I would wish we had, have had more time on the track and could have maybe done it without the cameras there.
• 56:02
  Yeah.
• 56:04
  That would be pretty wild.
• 56:05
  Yeah, but it was cool, you know, not only for the audience to sort of hear what he thought of the current car, but just the whole idea of it was great.
• 56:13
  But I don't know.
• 56:17
  I've often thought, well, you know, what if we got something together and did a wild card and dad got fit for a year and got raced together?
• 56:24
  What's the point?
• 56:25
  You know, he's in his 70s.
• 56:26
  It'd be great to do, but I'd think, shit, his driver changes would be slow because he's getting old and you'd have to go and race bloody four Super 2 races or something to get his license probably.
• 56:36
  And I think, well, it'd be great and we'd probably sell some T-shirts or whatever else, but what's the point, right?
• 56:41
  Motor racing for me, I kind of –
• 56:44
  I want to be competitive.
• 56:46
  So I do enjoy the old racing, but I just prefer to drive them, not race the old cars, you know.
• 56:53
  So I love going to the events where it's just not a race.
• 56:56
  You're not banging doors.
• 56:57
  It's just to drive the car around and wave to the crowd and get your fix.
• 57:02
  I think another area where I'd probably comfortably keep doing would be some ride days.
• 57:06
  I watched Crompton do that with HRT.
• 57:09
  He gets a huge buzz out of that.
• 57:10
  Yeah.
• 57:11
  And I feel like, oh, that's all I'd want.
• 57:12
  Just go and get a fix in something, drive the car.
• 57:15
  I don't need to be in the race, but, you know, I might end up doing something with a team where I can do some, you know, Q and A's with the drivers and turn up for a ride day and help them out and do some stuff and get a drive.
• 57:25
  But yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily think about it a lot, but for me, once it's done, I think I'm, yeah, I think I will be done.
• 57:33
  Um, and I'd love my kids to see me race, but, uh, no, I don't, I don't think it'll happen.
• 57:39
  They're young.
• 57:40
  You're a proud dad.
• 57:40
  Do they sort of, you know, is Emmy sort of starting to get a sense of what dad does and what's that like?
• 57:45
  Well, I don't know.
• 57:46
  Like sometimes Emmy's four and Mason's 17 months now.
• 57:50
  Um, he's got this little car thing that he jumps in and he can cruise along with his feet.
• 57:55
  He just loves it.
• 57:56
  And I go, shit.
• 57:56
  And Tara's like, yeah, we're in trouble.
• 57:59
  But I don't know, what else do you get them at that age?
• 58:01
  It seems like every kid's got one.
• 58:03
  They don't end up trying to be a Formula One driver.
• 58:05
  But Emmy had a sportsman's, sportsmen and women's day at kindergarten last year.
• 58:12
  It's like, you know, everyone's turned up in the soccer jerseys and footy and cricket.
• 58:16
  I said, what do you want to do, Emmy?
• 58:17
  What do you want to do?
• 58:17
  She's like, oh, you know, what about racing?
• 58:20
  I said, what do you want to do?
• 58:21
  You want to take one of my helmets or you want to take one of dad's helmets?
• 58:24
  She goes, gar-gar's.
• 58:26
  Oh, man.
• 58:27
  That's what they call him.
• 58:28
  That's what they call him.
• 58:28
  Because she couldn't say granddad properly.
• 58:30
  So it was like gaga.
• 58:32
  So we call grandpa gaga.
• 58:34
  Love it.
• 58:35
  So we found a t-shirt that we could kind of make her fit.
• 58:37
  And she walked in with grandpa's helmet.
• 58:40
  I thought that was pretty cool.
• 58:41
  Yeah, definitely.
• 58:42
  You talked about, you know, in the little offering of advice as we get to the end here for some youngsters.
• 58:49
  Was it your dad or someone else that told you, make your fastest lap, your last lap?
• 58:54
  Just explain that.
• 58:55
  Yeah.
• 58:56
  Yeah, it's funny because I don't often hear it from a lot of people and I see a lot of people do driver training and whatever else and I watch people help people in Super 2 now.
• 59:05
  Dad just always said,
• 59:08
  If you try and go too fast early on in a session or a race, you'll crash.
• 59:12
  And it happened to me multiple times.
• 59:15
  It just says, you know, line and length.
• 59:17
  And there's just no benefit of crashing at the start if you're not fast.
• 59:23
  You know, like you just run it down, go quicker, last lap, make it your fastest, come in.
• 59:29
  Because in the next lap you might try and go too fast and then you'll crash.
• 59:32
  So it's something I say to a lot of kids, especially when they get in supercars for the first time.
• 59:36
  Like, you know, the problem is when I was a kid, they just hid the lap times off the dash and you just drove around and there was no lap time pressure.
• 59:43
  But now everyone's, you know, oh, the dash is there and let's look at the data and all these young engineers, they've got no idea how to coach a young kid in the development stage.
• 59:53
  So I just feel like, yeah, sometimes just that, you know, I'll never forget the first, one of the first test days I did in the Formula Ford, we went to Malala and dad goes, go and spin it.
• 1:00:02
  So what do you mean?
• 1:00:03
  He goes, well, you only find the limit when you spin.
• 1:00:06
  He goes, go and spin the car because you need to learn how to spin.
• 1:00:10
  So there I'm trying to spin the car.
• 1:00:12
  And you learn, okay, well, that's.
• 1:00:14
  The limit.
• 1:00:14
  Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  The limit.
• 1:00:15
  Oh, shit, I can go faster.
• 1:00:16
  So turn one at Malala, you can just whip her in there and then there's all this bitumen runoff.
• 1:00:20
  So I'm like, oh, God, I actually wasn't going through there fast at all.
• 1:00:24
  So I kept trying to go faster and faster and faster until I spun.
• 1:00:26
  I'm like, well, there you go.
• 1:00:28
  He goes, well, you've just got to come back a bit from that.
• 1:00:31
  So, and the same thing now, you know, if you're a young bloke and you spin a car, you get reefed out and you won't get invited back to a test day.
• 1:00:38
  And that's, I feel so hard for some of those kids, you know, because money creates opportunity if you don't get the money, but you get the opportunity if you lock a tire and you end up on, you get known for the kid that ran off the road.
• 1:00:48
  It's hard.
• 1:00:49
  It's bloody hard for kids these days, man.
• 1:00:51
  Great tip for them, mate.
• 1:00:53
  Well done on what you're doing in TV land as well.
• 1:00:56
  I mean, to think that,
• 1:00:57
  You did – we started this by talking about the pod with Howie.
• 1:01:00
  We were kind of coming back there.
• 1:01:01
  You got to do MotoGP with him and with Daz, and that was a great, great period.
• 1:01:05
  Bit of Formula One with 10.
• 1:01:07
  You're doing some great stuff with 7 now.
• 1:01:08
  So I think beyond the couple of years to come, we're going to focus obviously on the enduro stuff, mate.
• 1:01:13
  Enjoy that TV.
• 1:01:15
  side of things and what you bring well done on what you're doing around the whole restoration project i mean it's it's a labor of love but what you create is just beautiful and i'm so pleased that some of the cars that i can very fondly remember are exactly as they were back in those those days um and go get them with uh with jc mate in in those uh those coming enduros thank you very much for for chatting with us today
• 1:01:40
  Thank you, mate.
• 1:01:41
  And thank you and your old mates at 10 for teaching me how to do TV, whether it be Diff, Osler, Barry, and yourself.
• 1:01:48
  I learned from you, blokes.
• 1:01:51
  This is cool.
• 1:01:52
  You have some VHSs downstairs that you showed me today, and I'm now quietly shitting myself because I think they're all the preamble that we used to do before we came on live at different places.
• 1:02:02
  Osler would pull voices.
• 1:02:04
  He would do these kind of big
• 1:02:05
  deep voiceover things and Baz would get the cameraman to pan left and do this.
• 1:02:09
  We weren't on air, but we were kind of warming up and it was just so much fun.
• 1:02:13
  I mean, that was the great takeaway for you.
• 1:02:15
  You probably walked in and thought, holy hell, I mean, these guys, is this even a proper job because of the fun?
• 1:02:21
  And that was really Baz made.
• 1:02:23
  Baz was big on injecting the fun in the whole deal.
• 1:02:26
  Yeah, and I know you were wrapping up, but you're right.
• 1:02:28
  It was awesome.
• 1:02:29
  And it's funny, the other day, mate, I rang Shannon's insurance to cancel an insurance policy on something, and there's Mark.
• 1:02:35
  I was like, yes.
• 1:02:36
  On the, you know, welcome to Shannon.
• 1:02:38
  I'm like, wow, that's unbelievable.
• 1:02:41
  Takes me back.
• 1:02:41
  Yeah, I'm like, that's Mark Oslo.
• 1:02:43
  I'm like, how good's that?
• 1:02:45
  Voices of your youth, mate.
• 1:02:46
  And there you go.
• 1:02:47
  And you made a 20-plus year career in the game, mate.
• 1:02:51
  Well done, and enjoy the chapter to come.
• 1:02:54
  Thanks, mate.
• 1:02:55
  Cheers.
• 1:03:02
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:03:06
  Series editor and producer is Thomas Dallard.
• 1:03:09
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• 1:03:12
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• 1:03:16
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