Latest / Rusty's Garage / Mad Mike Whiddett

Transcript

Mad Mike Whiddett · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:15
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  For this episode, I'm in New Zealand, about 70km south of Auckland, at a world-class racetrack called Hampton Downs.
• 0:36
  Enthusiasts have apartments overlooking the circuit here.
• 0:39
  There's an industry hub with all kinds of automotive businesses too.
• 0:44
  Toyota New Zealand has its race workshop here.
• 0:47
  And it's where we find the headquarters of drifting legend Mad Mike Wadette.
• 0:51
  He likes to call it the Mad Lab.
• 0:54
  The Likeable Kiwi has a wildly entertaining driving style that's earned him global recognition with millions of followers.
• 1:03
  You know, since I started this series, I've noticed a common thread that racing for many of my guests began on weekends with their dads.
• 1:12
  But in this case, it was Mad Mike's mum who helped kickstart an incredible journey.
• 1:18
  It was an awesome one.
• 1:18
  I mean, we just had a one-bedroom apartment.
• 1:21
  I had the top bunk, and Mum was down the bottom, and she was very passionate of horses.
• 1:25
  So every weekend, we're off to the farm, and I'd play with my little RC Radio Control Hornet.
• 1:31
  I remember the old-school Tamiya days, but, yeah, that and some BMX bikes and setting up planks of wood on bricks, and I just went from there.
• 1:41
  I got a little dirt bike.
• 1:42
  She brought me a little two-stroke DS80, which she had no idea how to even start, so it's...
• 1:47
  Really been self-taught since day one to figure out how to start it.
• 1:50
  And then, you know, after just progression, figure out it had a clutch and actually had gears like a gearbox.
• 1:55
  And, yeah, just progressed from there.
• 1:58
  Raced motocross in my teenage years.
• 2:02
  But, yeah, just always dreaming.
• 2:04
  I guess a kid with a big dream and some determination to I really wanted to be a world champion and get to America.
• 2:12
  Yeah.
• 2:13
  And I knew that from a very young age.
• 2:14
  My auntie had Sky TV, so she would record the Camel Supercross with Ricky Johnson, the AMA Supercross series, and I'd watch it on the VHS.
• 2:26
  And that was the dream, man, to one day make it to America.
• 2:29
  What did that bike set your mum back and whatever became of it?
• 2:34
  It was $200.
• 2:37
  Yeah, and I remember, like I say, just figuring it all out myself and then just starting to want to modify it myself as well.
• 2:46
  So, you know, like pull the muffler off and make it louder and, you know, doing all the stickers on it are awesome.
• 2:53
  used to get like the Duraceal that you'd wrap your school books with and hand cuddle my own graphics so it like looked like a newer bike and yeah, that was just my pride and joy.
• 3:03
  That's like every weekend I could hop on the spot.
• 3:06
  We didn't live on a farm, but mum had an old Ford Falcon station wagon and we'd throw it in the back and, you know, have half the bike hanging out the back and had our little dog and that was us.
• 3:17
  We'd go up to the farm and it was great fun.
• 3:20
  How old were you when you went racing for the first time?
• 3:23
  And can you remember where that first meeting was?
• 3:25
  Yeah, yeah.
• 3:25
  I was quite intimidated actually by the competition, but it was more just because of my bike.
• 3:32
  Yeah, it was my second bike.
• 3:34
  It was a little RM80, but it was like early 80s, like full drum brakes.
• 3:38
  You know, it didn't even have the seat that rised up onto the tank.
• 3:42
  And it would have been about 88, 89, yeah.
• 3:48
  It was my first race.
• 3:51
  But, yeah, it was a whole lot of fun, and I was just hooked from the – as soon as the – I mean, there wasn't even a gate drop.
• 3:57
  It was like the rubber band start, but I was just so much fun and just, like, the sound of the two strokes, the smell of the two strokes, and it just got me hooked.
• 4:07
  You say you're a little intimidated to begin with, but, mate, you were no slouch because there was, you know, a pro junior 85cc New Zealand Motocross Championship second there, I think it was.
• 4:16
  I mean –
• 4:18
  It's something you gravitated to straight away because of that love of the AMI?
• 4:22
  Yeah, definitely.
• 4:23
  Like some inspiration back then was Ricky Johnson, who's still to this day, you know, he's 54 years old, fully supported by Red Bull and races stadium trucks in the Lucas Oil off-road racing series up in the States.
• 4:36
  So those icons to me and inspiration back then are still massive inspiration for me as a driver now looking forward.
• 4:44
  But...
• 4:45
  Yeah, I had some really good results.
• 4:47
  I never once had a brand new bike.
• 4:48
  In fact, when I got second in the New Zealand Nationals, the guy that came fifth, I was on his previous, that was actually his old bike.
• 4:55
  So, yeah, it was, for me, it wasn't really about winning.
• 5:00
  I was always a bit of a show-off.
• 5:01
  And I guess not having a father around to tell me to, you know, like I may be leading a race in the last lap, you know, from watching these VHS videos and see Jeremy McGrath doing these knack-knacks on the last lap and, you know,
• 5:13
  Ricky Johnson doing the no handers and I was like oh man I want to be that guy and went up you know be leading a race and then bust a knack knack and end up slamming off losing a couple of positions but I didn't really care cross the finish line and be like all pumped the crowd are all like into it this little kid on an 85 well back then they were only 80s but um I'm
• 5:35
  For me, like, I just remember the buzz of showing up to an event and being the first 80, because the juniors would always be the first ones out on the track, but just being the first rider to hit the biggest double or the biggest tabletop or the biggest triple and watching everyone like, whoa, you know, and then, yeah, it was just such a buzz.
• 5:55
  And to do that, I didn't have to have the brand new bikes and, yeah,
• 6:00
  Yeah, that's, I guess, where after getting second in the New Zealand Nationals, it just became too expensive for my mum for the maintenance of, you know, requiring, you know, new clutch plates and new tyres and just general race prep, you know, it was expensive and hard for mum.
• 6:17
  on her budget.
• 6:18
  So yeah, I had to give up the racing side of it.
• 6:24
  And at the same time was right when I was also young and into rotaries.
• 6:29
  So that was where the passion of rotaries came from was much earlier than that actually.
• 6:34
  We had like a little family batch down Whangamatā.
• 6:36
  So you know, we're in New Zealand.
• 6:38
  Our summer holidays is Christmas time.
• 6:41
  And so we'd go away for Christmas and I just remember at a very early age of these teenagers rolling around the beaches and I was, man, those cars are so cool and figured out what they were.
• 6:53
  And yeah, so once I gave up motocross, I really put in a lot of time and just learning.
• 6:59
  how to build rotaries and building cars and pulling engines out and just the whole mechanics, you know, and again, just all really self-taught, just me and my buddies doing it with no sort of role model as a father to follow by.
• 7:11
  So just a lot of passion, you know, to go out there and have fun and just learn things.
• 7:15
  Am I right in saying that it was injuries that maybe in the end called a halt to the two-wheel career?
• 7:20
  And there were some big ones, mate, weren't there?
• 7:26
  Yeah, so we go from building the rotaries and kind of having to give up racing because of the expense to then discovering in the late 90s, early 2000s was the Crusty Demons of Dirt movement started.
• 7:38
  Right, and that's the freestyle motocross.
• 7:39
  So these Crusty Demons of Dirt DVDs and I was like...
• 7:43
  damn, this is me.
• 7:45
  This is how I'm going to get to the States.
• 7:48
  Like the dream when I was a kid to get to the States was still there the entire time.
• 7:53
  But I was like, this is going to be my key to get there.
• 7:55
  And I was very fortunate to make, well, I went out and high purchased a bike.
• 8:02
  How much?
• 8:03
  How much is due?
• 8:04
  I think I was paying like 18 bucks a week or something.
• 8:07
  And I had like 500 bucks deposit.
• 8:09
  Yeah.
• 8:10
  to get this like, it was an old clapped out Honda, it was nothing new for sure.
• 8:14
  I think, so the first freestyle motocross demo was year 2000 and it was in New Zealand, we have this huge big music festival in January, so just after New Year's called The Big Day Out.
• 8:26
  And so one of the guys I used to race with hit me up and he's like,
• 8:30
  I've heard you got a motocross bike again, you wanna come and do the first ever like freestyle motocross demo at Big Day Out.
• 8:36
  I was like, hell yeah.
• 8:37
  So I took down my bike and it was a 97 CR125.
• 8:43
  And we actually flown a few Aussie guys as well to ride just so there was a few more riders.
• 8:49
  And, yeah, they actually came and they grabbed my bike and thought it was the ghosty bike to just literally throw off the, let it go full throttle off the ramp.
• 8:56
  I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, bro, bro, bro.
• 8:58
  Like, I pay this thing off, man.
• 8:59
  This is my pride and joy.
• 9:00
  So I went out there and that event is where the name Mad Mike came from.
• 9:05
  So what you wow the audience with, what tricks?
• 9:08
  um well that was it the commentator didn't even know what they were i didn't even know what they were because like i didn't i wasn't a farm boy i didn't have anywhere to practice so i'd learn all my tricks on the day and um so the commentator just started calling me like mad mike and i hated it on the day i'm like dude you have to call me like mad mike it just sounds way too cheesy and then it just stuck you know then the fans the kids were coming oh mad mike
• 9:33
  man, you're crazy, you know, and I ended up breaking my arm and then breaking my leg.
• 9:37
  Like, you know, I was actually just after, it wasn't long after that big day out, we got invited up to a guy's 30th birthday party to, you know, he came up to us at that event and was like, dude, I've got to have you guys ride at my 30th.
• 9:52
  Just north of Auckland.
• 9:53
  And so I said, well, you need to speak to Jason.
• 9:57
  He owns all the ramps and stuff.
• 9:58
  But, yeah, I'm down.
• 9:59
  I'm there.
• 10:00
  And then it was not about money or anything at all.
• 10:03
  It wasn't even about building up a name, the brand like Mad Mike.
• 10:07
  It was just like going to events and being a bit of a show-off and being an entertainer.
• 10:12
  It was just an addiction.
• 10:15
  And, yeah, I ended up going on this 30th birthday and my bike, that old Honda, seized on the up face of the ramp and literally fell straight off the end at full pace, crashed into the DJ's van.
• 10:26
  The DJ had a van in between our jump and crashed into that.
• 10:30
  And the party hadn't even started, man.
• 10:32
  That just literally set the ramp up.
• 10:34
  And like I said, even from the early days of me being the guinea pig and being the first one to huck the big doubles or the big triples on my 80 was no different.
• 10:41
  I was always, I was the one on 125, I used to always ride a 125 because the fans thought that I was hitting the ramp twice as hard as the guys on the 250s but it's just the fact that the engines are screaming, the pitch of the two stroke 125 and yeah with the bike slamming into this DJ's van and then I flew over, did this big flip and landed on my leg and snapped my femur right up the top.
• 11:06
  And yeah, that was a horrible crash.
• 11:08
  Like my leg had folded up over my, I was literally lying on my calf.
• 11:13
  And to this day, actually, I still, left leg is still reconstructed with titanium rods and screws and bolts and, um,
• 11:21
  I've just been so active.
• 11:22
  I've never actually had it pulled out.
• 11:25
  It's one of those injuries you can actually get the rod pulled out, but then you, you know, literally the downtime, I reckon it's like a year or so before you can really put any weight on it.
• 11:33
  And I've just always been so active.
• 11:35
  I just, man, I can't stop for a year to wait for my leg to heal.
• 11:38
  And it doesn't bother me to this day, you know, so...
• 11:42
  Yeah, it was just kind of injury upon injury, chasing the stream to get to America.
• 11:46
  There was some vertebrae too, mate, wasn't there?
• 11:49
  There was some serious stuff.
• 11:50
  Yeah, well 2002 that was Vodafone X Air, which was like the New Zealand X Games.
• 11:57
  There were many riders from Australia, we had a couple of riders from the States, and all the top guys out of New Zealand.
• 12:06
  And we did really well there in 2001, 2002.
• 12:09
  Yeah, tried this trick called the sterilizer where you kind of do a huge bar hop where you jump through the handlebars and then you come back and land with your feet still over the handlebars.
• 12:17
  And if you get your transition right, because it's so steep in the landing.
• 12:21
  there's actually no impact so even though your feet are hanging over the handlebars and your butt's on the seat there's really no impact but the problem was I got a huge gust of tailwind and it blew me beyond the down ramp so I flat landed and it's 75 foot from knuckle to knuckle
• 12:37
  So I would have jumped 95 foot to dead flat.
• 12:40
  And then my back took the entire impact.
• 12:44
  Yeah, so I made the DVD, well, it wasn't even VHS back then, called Recipe for Disaster.
• 12:51
  And it was, yeah, a huge crash, compressed and fractured four vertebrae in my back.
• 12:56
  Lost all the feeling to my legs, everything from my T7 to, well, they told me I was going to be paralysed for life from a T7.
• 13:03
  at hospital so that was a big eye out there and about the same stage as this part of my life is when I met Tony so yeah she was the game changer because she saw the talent and then I was just a bit too loose with everything and she really like straightened me up to do stuff properly and professionally and um
• 13:25
  mainly around the whole car thing, you know, I was always into building these rotaries and building skid cars and that was kind of the buzz as well, was doing these like skid fest events and the foreign rotary nationals and like just going and being like really raucous and loud and obnoxious and kind of breaking a few rules.
• 13:46
  Yeah, so she really straightened me out to still doing the same thing, but just, you know, investing properly in the car and myself.
• 13:54
  Yeah, so we then started pursuing the career of drifting when we discovered that there was an actual sport for it.
• 14:02
  She's been very helpful in me setting up this interview, mate.
• 14:05
  She's terrific.
• 14:06
  I can see why, you know, she's the other part of this whole Mad Mike operation, a very important part.
• 14:12
  I want to come back to something you touched on a minute ago, and that is the love of four wheels as well, because it would be wrong to say that...
• 14:19
  that was born out of the injuries or a necessary turning point.
• 14:24
  You had it from a young age, didn't you?
• 14:25
  And was it a case of, like, scanning classifieds with mates and buying something that caught your eye cheaply and splitting the cost with them?
• 14:32
  Tell us about that.
• 14:33
  Yeah, well, it's that...
• 14:34
  When I used to ride that little DS80 I was talking about, my buddy, actually my auntie's farm, her, the neighboring family, they had another boy, David, that I used to ride with.
• 14:46
  When we were kind of like about 12, 11, 12 years old, we'd be riding our bikes and he had an older brother who had like a couple of paddock-hack Toyota crawlers and he was about 17, 18.
• 14:58
  So when he'd go off and party,
• 15:00
  we'd go and jump in the Toyota Corolla and rip it around the farm and down the race, you know, gravel roads and... What are we talking, early 70s spec, manual?
• 15:09
  Yeah, yeah, DX Corolla.
• 15:10
  So actually this car was a four-door sedan DX Corolla.
• 15:14
  We actually, we unbolted the hood and tied a big bit of rope to it and we'd like, one's driving, the other one's like trying to hang on to the hood and we'd slide around the dewy grass and...
• 15:24
  geez bounce off fence posts and but it was all learning years you know and we learned the discipline of actually sliding sideways from a very early age being rear wheel drive and um yeah it was it was a lot of fun but uh to this like
• 15:40
  I guess from driving and learning discipline always just grew.
• 15:44
  So four wheels has been there since even the age of 13.
• 15:47
  You say like scanning the classifieds, we used to have the trade and exchange here in New Zealand.
• 15:52
  So every Thursday morning, myself and my buddy Mark Tapper actually back then would –
• 16:01
  we'd be on the phone at like 5 30 in the morning like who's ever run down to the dairy you know there's no cell phones or internet or anything back then um for us so we'd be on the phone and be like oh yeah there's a toyota star out west it's like 50 or there's a mazda 626 you know over north shore for a hundred dollars and as long as it was rear wheel drive like old school you used to just be able to
• 16:23
  pick that stuff up for so cheap.
• 16:25
  And that would be us, like, well, friends would go out and waste their money on alcohol and party, and we would go buy Paddock hat cars, and we'd take them up to Woodhull Forest, and, um,
• 16:37
  yeah we used to be a little bit naughty and cut a few fences to get in but no one's in there and that was us we'd go and spend the weekend and just rip these gravel roads and just really got good at drifting and um Mark actually went on to racing competitively he raced PWRC so production world road Argentina and traveling the world doing that and um and then obviously I pursued my career in driving as well so it was just the investment and passion to you know
• 17:06
  The adrenaline of going fast and that fear element was far better than any alcohol or drug you could ever buy.
• 17:16
  That was us.
• 17:16
  That was where every penny would go into cars.
• 17:20
  Were there brushes with the boys in blue occasionally?
• 17:23
  Yeah, I would, you know, I'm not going to say no there.
• 17:25
  And I guess, yeah, I lost my license a few times when I was young.
• 17:31
  But then there was nowhere to, you know, there was no accessibility to go to a racetrack and do this sort of thing.
• 17:40
  Yeah.
• 17:42
  now i think it's so fortunate when we're here we're at hampton downs we run our grassroots days i try to do those at least once a month so open up an area where people can come and learn the skills and do it in a safe environment you know we've got fire extinguishers and safety trucks and you know the tracks are designed in a way it's sand traps and tire walls and um just try to keep people safe because man the stuff we used to do was ridiculously dangerous and now having kids myself it's
• 18:08
  Yeah, you want to make sure that they're as safe as possible and yeah, don't want to hurt anybody.
• 18:14
  Mad Mike and Rotaries seem just indelibly linked, mate.
• 18:19
  It's you.
• 18:21
  Where's that love come from?
• 18:22
  What was the attraction to it?
• 18:24
  What was the first one that caught your eye?
• 18:26
  It was a sound.
• 18:27
  And I remember the first one actually was at the farm where my mum used to go horse riding.
• 18:32
  And a guy had a...
• 18:33
  It was a 76 Mazda RX-4.
• 18:37
  I would have been seven, and I can still remember this.
• 18:40
  And it was an RX-4 Coupe.
• 18:42
  And he used to tow this... Not many people are going to believe this, but he used to actually tow a single horse float behind it.
• 18:48
  And he would tow his wife's horse around.
• 18:51
  And I just remember the note of this rotary engine was like...
• 18:55
  what the hell is the motor in that car?
• 18:58
  And, um, that was what got me hooked to then, yeah, going, um, I mentioned before about the batch down in Whangamata where we would go down and New Year's and, you know, see the kids or the teenagers hooning around and, you know, Toyota crawlers and RX3s and RX2s and with rotary engines and, um,
• 19:17
  Yeah, it was the sound and the smell and the performance, you know, that was so cheap.
• 19:20
  My first one, actually, I paid 100 bucks for an old 1970s, 1978 Mazda 323 four-door hatch with a bug eye front and the big round lights.
• 19:33
  we swapped a skateboard and a hundred bucks for a fully crashed RX-7, which had the rotary engine.
• 19:38
  And then we, you know, just figured me and the mates just figured out how to, we swapped the, you know, cable clutch, the hydraulic clutch and, you know, pull this rotary engine out of this RX-7.
• 19:48
  And before we knew it, we had this, we called it an RX 323.
• 19:52
  So a rotary powered to 33 hatchback.
• 19:54
  And this was well before I even had a license to drive on the roads.
• 19:59
  So,
• 20:01
  That was, I guess that's some of the reasons why I lost my license at an early age was just the fact of, just the passion of building cars and having fun.
• 20:10
  And I guess not having a father around to tell me I was kind of doing the wrong thing.
• 20:13
  Of course, mum said this is probably not the best thing to be doing, but I guess the freedom I had is what's really led me to where I am now.
• 20:23
  You love, and you've touched on this a little bit already, the engineering side, and clearly that's come about from these early tinkerings.
• 20:30
  What were the learnings in the beginning, in the early days with rotaries?
• 20:34
  What things that you, you know, learn that, hey, we can't really do that, or that's pushing it too far?
• 20:39
  Or did you?
• 20:41
  Yeah, I guess it wasn't until, well, we used to just, you know, build our own motors and, like, drill port them, as they call it.
• 20:46
  It's just to get the, like, lumpy idle and do whatever we could to get the performance.
• 20:50
  And rotaries are known to be, you know, many people say, oh, they're unreliable, but it's like...
• 20:56
  anything if you're doing it yourself on a limited budget and you don't really know what you're doing anything's gonna be unreliable you know and like rotaries just attract so many youngsters and that was exactly i mean yeah our cars were unreliable back then but we're literally just putting drill bits through the housings and side plates to you know make them rowdy and try to get more power out of them and um
• 21:20
  Yeah, and that was all through my teenage years.
• 21:23
  It wasn't until I met Tony when we actually, you know, she taught me about actually saving money and investing and, you know, selling a few things to, like, then purchase better things and investing in one thing at a time.
• 21:37
  So that was when we could actually start building decent motors and we were actually investing more time.
• 21:42
  I then started working, like, a lot harder, you know, to be able to fund and fuel my passion for drifting.
• 21:50
  You know, I was working at Treescape from 5.30 to 5.30, doing a 12-hour shift climbing trees, like super active physical job and dangerous.
• 22:00
  What were you doing?
• 22:01
  Lopping trees?
• 22:01
  Yeah, cutting trees down and hanging out at Heli.
• 22:04
  I got really, really good.
• 22:05
  My uncle was fortunate when I was young.
• 22:09
  My uncle, he owns Treescape and he pulled me a line, you know, when I was getting a bit of trouble.
• 22:14
  Did you say a moment ago you were hanging out at Helis doing some of this?
• 22:17
  What did you say?
• 22:18
  Oh yeah, so yeah, I got, I was just, man, the fear element of hanging out of helicopters and hanging off cranes or, you know, up these huge big 80 foot pines and cutting the trees down, like just the danger and fear element had me hooked and here I was, I'd finished a sign writing apprenticeship doing like vinyl raps and all that, but then when my uncle got me into his work,
• 22:40
  I was just hooked on the whole fear element of hanging out of helicopters and cutting trees down.
• 22:45
  And six years later, here I was still climbing trees, driving trucks, operating diggers.
• 22:54
  And we'd finished work at like 5.30.
• 22:57
  And then my uncle had his own fabricating workshop where they'd build all the trucks for Treescape.
• 23:03
  So yeah.
• 23:04
  I learnt the discipline of how to weld and mechanics, pulling gearboxes out of trucks, and it was more money for me to be able to go and do what I wanted to do, and it was more learning set.
• 23:16
  So here we are now with my own headquarters at Hampton Downs and able to do a lot of work on these cars myself.
• 23:25
  from all the fabrication and grafting and, you know, building these things, putting the motors and stuff together.
• 23:30
  I mean, we have an elite team that build our motors for –
• 23:36
  The racing, they'll come out of Pulse Performance that build our blocks, but a lot of it I'm able to do hands on.
• 23:41
  But as it went from a hobby into an actual business of this racing, it was when we started needing to employ actual experienced people.
• 23:52
  But those early years, I learned so much, you know, life skills in general.
• 23:59
  You've got a great appreciation for the history of motorsport, particularly drifting.
• 24:04
  How did the obsession start?
• 24:05
  Was it magazines, DVDs?
• 24:07
  What got you hooked on it?
• 24:09
  Yeah, magazines for sure was a big inspiration.
• 24:14
  Sorry, where I got a lot of inspiration from.
• 24:19
  Yeah, didn't have the internet.
• 24:21
  I mean, I didn't even have a mobile phone when most people had mobile phones through their teenage years.
• 24:25
  But it was, yeah, magazines, performance car magazine.
• 24:29
  Actually, still to this day, you know, we still pick up...
• 24:33
  You know, it's what I can read on the...
• 24:35
  When I find some time, I was sitting down on a plane and travelling to Japan or USA or wherever we were off to, so I still enjoy the reading side of it and looking at pictures and getting inspiration, but...
• 24:47
  I guess that was where it was from.
• 24:48
  And then the motocross side of things was the VHSs from Sky TV, obviously broadcasting the Camel Supercross, AMA Supercross series.
• 24:59
  If you had to describe drifting to someone, I mean, it is, there's a competitive element to it, but there's this wonderful artistic thing about it too, isn't there, mate, from the way you control the car, what you're expected to do.
• 25:11
  What's the way you'd best sum up the sport to perhaps a newcomer?
• 25:15
  I think like, I mean drifting is a whole other dimension of the car, like to a circuit racer once it's broken traction they're out of control and they're just hanging on.
• 25:25
  It's what they don't want to do.
• 25:26
  Yeah, where there's that whole other dimension of control of before the car actually spins out.
• 25:33
  But it's just, for me it's the most explosive, wild, craziest, most insane way to watch a car or drive a car.
• 25:43
  For me, there's three different styles of drifting that I do throughout the year.
• 25:47
  There's the competition element, which I thrive on to prove, you know, to prove we're the best driver out there and the tandem format and the showcase to the fans and showing that close proximity where we're judged on our line, speed, angle and style.
• 26:04
  So the judges give us, you know, a set line.
• 26:07
  of a course whether it's a usa you know nascar track and where they want you high up on the bank with us you know executing as much angle and speed and you know violence sort of driving and and every driver's got their own style their own character and that's what i love about drifting as well is just the all the different characters and
• 26:27
  like the personality you can actually show through a car.
• 26:30
  Like I feel like building a car and driving a car, I can show my personality through the sound and the style.
• 26:37
  So there's that side of drifting.
• 26:39
  Then there's the demo side of it, which again is totally different sort of driving style where you can kind of drive to how...
• 26:49
  the fans really want to see rather than impressing the three judges.
• 26:53
  This time you now can impress the 30,000 fans or however many fans are in the grandstands.
• 26:57
  Really accentuate stuff.
• 26:59
  Yeah, that's it.
• 26:59
  Really show what they want to see and give them their 20 bucks worth.
• 27:04
  that they've whatever they've paid to come through the gate and see what's going on.
• 27:07
  So that side is really fun.
• 27:09
  And for me, to me at a showcase drifting to, you know, we've been very fortunate to show it to Goodwood Festival at Speed and introduce it to, you know, Formula One, V8 supercars.
• 27:20
  Events and circuits have been the first to drift on,
• 27:23
  Yass Marina and actually here at Hampton Downs, the first one to lay double black lines around the track.
• 27:29
  So those two.
• 27:30
  And then, of course, there's the film shoots.
• 27:32
  So doing the Red Bull film shoots, we were able to, you know, kind of Google and search the most crazy, dangerous roads around the world and execute these amazing film clips.
• 27:42
  And that's where I can really showcase and express my style of driving and my vision of driving.
• 27:49
  what I see drifting should be.
• 27:50
  So between those, it's three very different styles.
• 27:54
  But...
• 27:56
  That's what fills up my year.
• 27:58
  He's just given you that description with the brightest smile on his face.
• 28:01
  You can sense how much he loves it.
• 28:03
  We'll get to the garage in a minute and some of the key cars for you, but I want to talk about the cockpit and the technique.
• 28:10
  For fans that are watching, it's a joy to watch some of the vids made and where you look when you're driving and the technique between pedals, brake, what are you doing and how much of that is feel from what you did as a youngster to what you described before?
• 28:25
  Yeah, so watching drifting from the outside, when you see it on TV, it looks very slow and smooth and fluent.
• 28:32
  And I think when you, well, if you see any in-car footage, you can see it's far from that.
• 28:40
  It's the total opposite, the sound, the scream, and then just the actual coordination of the drivers is absolutely insane.
• 28:47
  And I can watch in-car footage of myself and don't even realise, like, what I'm doing, and it's all just natural instinct.
• 28:53
  And I think it doesn't matter whether you're a skateboarder or a BMXer or whatever you're doing, your sport, you've got a tool, whether it's a ball or a bike, a car.
• 29:03
  For me, my tools are a steering wheel.
• 29:06
  I've got a shifter and a handbrake.
• 29:08
  A hydraulic handbrake.
• 29:09
  A hydraulic handbrake.
• 29:10
  And then I've got three pedals, a throttle, a brake, and a clutch.
• 29:15
  In between all those tools, it's really about just making that car an extension of your body.
• 29:21
  And then once you've got that, it's like you can almost just place the car and throw it as hard as you can.
• 29:27
  And you find the absolute extremes.
• 29:30
  And as a driver, I think what's the scariest part is the technology.
• 29:34
  is progressing faster than the drivers.
• 29:37
  Like, it's seriously scary to drive these cars these days with drifting as much as it looks like that we want the cars to be slippery so we can slide around the track.
• 29:46
  We're actually trying to get as much grip as possible.
• 29:48
  And if a driver, you've just got to...
• 29:51
  overcome that amount of grip.
• 29:52
  So with the suspension technology, I mean we were running these KW shocks out of Germany, which have full freeway adjustable high speed, low speed bump, rebound, everything's fully offset depending on different tracks.
• 30:04
  You know, the tire companies now are all investing in developing the most crazy sticky compounds of rubber.
• 30:14
  You know, your wheel alignments, the steering geometry, and they really are frightening vehicles to drive.
• 30:38
  when we talk about AMX 5 is 1200 horsepower to the tyres and that's literally just, it needs that much power to overcome the amount of grip.
• 30:47
  So yeah, the development of the cars is just, it's gone 10, like every year we've gone up to the States and it's just like, it progresses so, so much.
• 30:58
  The human side of that interests me then because with that growth in the development, you're obviously convincing yourself, yes, we can go further, we can go harder.
• 31:07
  Fans have asked this on social media before I came to see you today.
• 31:12
  Where is the limit, mate, in all of this?
• 31:14
  And is there one?
• 31:16
  I don't think there is a limit.
• 31:17
  I mean, like I say, the progression in all these parts and just, you know, as much as I'm a driver, and I mean, I can only drive as hard as I can drive, but every time we hop in the car, you know, the team have found out a way to get more grip or, you know, whether it's, you know, adjusting the rebound on one side to flick the car harder to get more side bite or, you know, running different shocks and spring rates and sway bars and different wheel alignments.
• 31:46
  Yeah, it really, really is crazy.
• 31:48
  And every time you think that's the limit, well, the cars just get more grip and you can swing it harder and throw it harder and execute more angle.
• 31:57
  And I mean, now some of these corners, like, you know, there's the few videos and that of the reverse entry of us doing like backwards entries.
• 32:04
  And we're literally now able to throw a car 180 degrees backwards.
• 32:08
  It speeds, you know, up to 200 kilometers, well, over 200 kilometers an hour.
• 32:12
  And the car will fully come back from...
• 32:15
  which is just like mentally I wouldn't think it's possible.
• 32:18
  When you're in the car and you're driving and you learn that platform that you're driving and just turn that into an extension of your body, it just then becomes natural instinct and it's easy.
• 32:30
  Well, I wouldn't say it's easy.
• 32:31
  It's just like you have the confidence in the car to be able to push that hard.
• 32:38
  This is Greg Rust and you're listening to Rusty's Garage.
• 32:41
  More with Mad Mike in a moment.
• 32:44
  In this series, I speak to some of the most passionate riders, drivers, designers and collectors I know, like Scott McLaughlin.
• 32:53
  The Kiwi Supercars champion is a huge talent in and out of the car.
• 32:59
  Although there have been some speed bumps along the way, like the time he and his sister crashed a new car before they were even old enough to drive.
• 33:09
  Just so happened Dad had parked this brand new club sport.
• 33:11
  It was only about three or four days old down the bottom of this hill.
• 33:14
  And little will we know, Sam's dropped the handbrake for some goddamn reason.
• 33:18
  I'll pop it into neutral.
• 33:19
  And the thing's just fired down the hill straight into the door of Dad's car.
• 33:24
  The dealership were amazing about it.
• 33:26
  There was damage on the car, damage on Dad's car.
• 33:28
  They pulled it back.
• 33:29
  It was bad.
• 33:29
  We got out of the car, ran separate directions, blamed each other.
• 33:33
  Dad was so angry though.
• 33:35
  This is the best part of the story.
• 33:36
  He was so angry that he...
• 33:39
  He put us in the car.
• 33:39
  He's like, get in the car.
• 33:41
  He's like, so angry with you.
• 33:43
  He slammed the door that hard.
• 33:45
  It popped the den out.
• 33:46
  And there's no scratches or anything.
• 33:48
  It just popped the den out.
• 33:50
  So we actually didn't get in much trouble.
• 33:52
  And the dealership were really good about it.
• 33:54
  Listen to the full episode with Scott McLaughlin here on Rusty's Garage.
• 34:05
  blow-off valve, an aftermarket part added to increase the audible noise of excess air being released from a turbocharger when the throttle is released.
• 34:13
  Common side effects can be excessive accelerating and unnecessary gear changes from the driver.
• 34:19
  So let's get to your garage because it's super impressive.
• 34:24
  What's the competitive car count now?
• 34:26
  And they're all around the world, mate, aren't they?
• 34:28
  Yeah, we have a, I mean, very fortunate now to be partnered with some of the world's biggest brands and since being partnered with Red Bull and then as of,
• 34:37
  um recent well the last five years having Mazda International like factory come on board for support has just been unreal and people ask what's your dream car well every one of my cars at that state when we built it was the pinnacle was the dream you know from the first one we were able to the wildest thing we could think of was there was no Mazdas drifting
• 35:00
  And I was like, let's get an RX-7 and make it camo.
• 35:02
  I was always known for my camouflage, and we'd just get rattle cans and paint our RX-3s and stuff.
• 35:07
  So it was like, let's get an RX-7 and do a camo and do a naturally aspirated three rotor.
• 35:13
  Like, that was the dream back then, and slam it out with all these, like, Japanese big deep dish wheels and...
• 35:20
  every progression and every generation of each car really is the dream at that point in my life.
• 35:26
  So we've got a huge fleet of, you know, pro cars and demo cars and even street cars that we build.
• 35:34
  Do I dare ask, is there a favorite among them or you can't play favorites?
• 35:38
  Yeah, I mean, they're all, you know, depending on what you're doing, whether you're doing a competition or demonstrations or video shoots, there's definitely favorites.
• 35:46
  But, you know, if I had to
• 35:49
  get rid of the entire fleet and keep one.
• 35:51
  There is for sure one that I would keep hands down as the Mad Bull, which was the original car.
• 35:57
  And I just think it's, you know, the touch and feel of that car.
• 36:03
  And it really was the car that set the name like Mad Mike and Stone in the drifting community.
• 36:10
  And that car has literally travelled the world with me so many times.
• 36:15
  It's been to, you know, the States numerous times, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia.
• 36:19
  It's been Abu Dhabi in Dubai, Japan, UK, Norway, Sweden.
• 36:24
  Like it really has been around the world and has more stamps in its passport than most humans.
• 36:30
  And now we've done this whole big tribute with that car, with my favorite car being a Mazda RX3 from the 70s and then doing the all retro throwback with the graphics.
• 36:42
  and working with Rocket Bunny to be able to design all the body kit and rotiform with the retro style wheels.
• 36:50
  And just, it really is like, if Mad Mike was a car, that's me right there.
• 37:00
  And hence why, you know, just last weekend we're up at Goodwood Festival of Speed and we're celebrating Lord March.
• 37:07
  Well, the Duke of Richmond now has 25 most memorable moments of 25 years of Goodwood Festival of Speed.
• 37:13
  And we were selected in that top 25 when we introduced drifting to the event.
• 37:18
  And that was in the Mad Bull five years ago.
• 37:21
  So the car is...
• 37:24
  wild crowds all around the world and even just the engine yes it's probably the baby of the fleet being 537 horsepower absolutely like zero torque but it's the motor that when I was young the Mazda 787B Le Mans car which won Le Mans in 1991 Le Mans then banned the Mazda rotary engine
• 37:45
  And to this day, it's still the only Japanese manufacturer to ever win a Le Mans.
• 37:48
  But for me, that is just the ultimate sounding motor is the naturally aspirated four rotor.
• 37:54
  And that's the heart that lies in Madbull.
• 37:57
  Tell me a few more of the tech specs in the car makers.
• 37:59
  Fans love it.
• 38:00
  And as you say, you've cleverly blended a bit of love for the early RX3 into the overall look of the machine, too, haven't you?
• 38:08
  Yeah, so the cosmetics of the car now, we're very fortunate to work with Keimura-san, who's a great friend out of Kyoto up in Japan.
• 38:18
  He's the owner of Rocket Bunny and to many that don't know, he actually designs and does the body kits for over 40 different companies out of Japan.
• 38:27
  So very, very talented man that we're able to...
• 38:32
  CAD design, you know, from Mazda supplying the 3D drawings of the cars, being able to load them into his program, working with Rotiform on all our wheels and then punching in the offsets and then being able to create our absolute dream look on computer.
• 38:49
  So then goes into this giant CNC machine, which then lathes out like, well, machines out a big polystyrene block, which then turns it into the negative mold and then be able to produce, you know, a vision from designing it all on computer.
• 39:06
  So there we were able to design and graft a 1970s RX-3 onto an FD, like 1992 FD RX-7 and actually make it look...
• 39:17
  like it's meant to be and fit.
• 39:20
  So we've kind of cartooned the front of the RX-3 and made it a little bit more blunt and stout and more aggressive.
• 39:27
  And that also helps it fit with the lines.
• 39:30
  But it's kind of been able to make it a bit more of a cartoon character and express my vision.
• 39:36
  Can we bounce through a couple of the others in the garage?
• 39:39
  We've talked Mad Bull.
• 39:40
  Let's talk Bad Bull based on the RX8.
• 39:43
  How different to drive?
• 39:44
  Give us a sense of the horsepower and so on.
• 39:46
  Yeah, so before we get to the specs of that car, like Bad Bull was the second car which we built once Red Bull came on board.
• 39:53
  And then at the same time getting more invites to go overseas.
• 39:58
  being here in New Zealand, we're so far away, we would lose our car for four weeks and it'd be floating across the water on a ship to head to USA or Japan or wherever it was.
• 40:10
  And there's four weeks, I can't do anything because the car's just sitting in the container.
• 40:16
  So the need came of building a second car and sat down with Red Bull then and I was like, look, what's the most important?
• 40:23
  Is it getting results or
• 40:26
  putting on a show and doing what I believe is keeping the fan engagement and doing something different.
• 40:35
  And they were totally behind my back on doing something different and executing something that no one had ever done before.
• 40:41
  So I was like, instead of building an identical RX-7 to what we already had, which would mean I'd have the best chance of winning each event if I'm hopping in that same platform, was to build –
• 40:52
  You know, pretty much what many would consider the RX-8, from Mazda going from a high-performance twin-turbo rotary RX-7 to their next production car, which was non-turbo, four-door, pretty much what most would consider your wifey's shopping sports sedan, but turning that into an absolute drift monster.
• 41:13
  So Red Bull were totally behind my back on it.
• 41:17
  We purchased an RX-8 and pulled all the factory R13B out of it, which is no more than 174 horsepower, and put a...
• 41:28
  800 horsepower, three rotor, 20B, big turbo, sequential gearbox, fully custom made our own wide body, all the steering arms, knuckles.
• 41:39
  Everything had to be self-made.
• 41:40
  We did it all in-house, you know.
• 41:43
  And that's one thing that from day one, like not having a role model has been fun in the fact that we –
• 41:51
  we are the pioneers of creating these cars and being, again, self-taught.
• 41:59
  So we'd cut and modify a steering knuckle and put it in where we couldn't ask the guy down three pit lanes or three pit garages down what steering knuckles he's using and what spring rates he's running and all the bits and pieces which make competitive drift cars.
• 42:16
  It was really like we're just figuring it out ourselves.
• 42:19
  So bad ball.
• 42:22
  was like I say, the second car and there was no one had a drift RX-8.
• 42:26
  So it was cool to just be able to develop that car to actually that on its debut season won the NZ Drift Championship.
• 42:37
  didn't finish any less than third place, so it podiumed at every event.
• 42:41
  And that was really cool to, you know, have that car created from scratch and just be, bang, competitive straight out the back to its second year, signing a deal with Red Bull and Need for Speed to be in the game and do a full season of Formula Drift, which is the pinnacle of drifting.
• 42:58
  It's the Formula One of drifting and send the car up to USA.
• 43:01
  Humble by...
• 43:03
  they've all got the the term bull woven into their their names which is cool but the name suggests something quiet and i guess you know what a lot of japanese are known for but in fact the car's the antithesis of that mate isn't it yeah humble is absolutely insane and you say about the the bull and integrated into the name of all the cars so that was from mad bull obviously the the
• 43:27
  collaboration and partnership with Mad Mike and Red Bull.
• 43:30
  So here in New Zealand we only have six characters on our license plates.
• 43:34
  On the personalised plates, yeah.
• 43:35
  So hence why the Bulls always only have one L on the end.
• 43:38
  And then yeah, Bad Bull was the RX-8 and then so we progressed through and it's always trying to think of a name for each car and it's like it was talking about before, the personality of the cars.
• 43:50
  and this was actually the easiest car to name was Humble, being the Japanese Kawarosan that builds the car for us in Japan and, you know, maintains and runs the entire maintenance and program in Japan for us.
• 44:07
  And just the Japanese in general are just the most humble people.
• 44:10
  So it was an easy name and it was really cool because the car is literally the total opposite of being Humble, being humble.
• 44:18
  Again, well over 1,000 horsepower, four-rotor, twin turbo, runs Hollinger, six-speed sequential gearbox, Winters quick change, all the KW suspension.
• 44:27
  The car is an absolute animal.
• 44:28
  So it fits having this humble license plate as such on it.
• 44:36
  What is that thing like to drive, mate?
• 44:38
  It is just – it's –
• 44:40
  I come picky is what I call it.
• 44:43
  And that's, that's perfection in Japanese.
• 44:46
  So there is, I believe like no, but I hop in that car and it's funny, I'll come in from a run and Kwaeru-san will ask,
• 44:56
  uh sumo sam what would you like to what should we change and um i'm like it's perfect it's that's so i come in from a run and i'm like i don't know what to try because it just feels it really is the ultimate extension of my body and it's a car which i don't even have to think about when i'm driving a lot of cars like
• 45:18
  the MX5 which was our world championship car the little MX5 which was crazy crazy car but the whole time though it's very competitive you're constantly fighting it it's just such a crazy automobile where humble I don't think about the car at all I'm very aggressive when I drive the car but I'm not thinking about
• 45:39
  That side of things, it's really, it's just really all natural instinct driving that car.
• 45:44
  At one with it.
• 45:44
  Come back to the MX-5 for me for a moment.
• 45:48
  Just expand on that a little bit for the fans and the work that's gone into it and what you call it.
• 45:54
  So Radbull, this was something I wanted to do was head back up to Formula Drift.
• 46:04
  I've been very fortunate to receive some pretty awesome contracts to lie on front of the table to sign to go back to Formula Drift, obviously being the pinnacle of drifting.
• 46:16
  But one to myself, I always believe in
• 46:19
  you know, the things I've represented, the passion that's lied with me since being a little grown with those rotaries.
• 46:25
  And I really wanted to go back to the States and show them what we have as a team and just the unique style out of New Zealand and our knowledge as a team to be able to piece together a world championship car.
• 46:38
  Hence why I had a five year hiatus from Formula Drift to be able to put these programs together with Mazda and Red Bull and all the partners that were on board.
• 46:48
  And that was where Project Red Bull came from.
• 46:50
  So not only going up there and competing, I wanted to showcase to my fan base, like everything that goes into building a pro drift car, everything we had learned, why we use such specific parts, like steering knuckles and why we are trying to find like, you know, certain geometry and alignments and,
• 47:08
  why we use gearboxes and need such close ratios.
• 47:11
  And it was a fun project we did with Radbull, a full YouTube series called Project Radbull.
• 47:17
  And I was able to showcase, you know, no secrets, but this is everything we know, and we're putting it into this car to take on the world's best.
• 47:26
  And the revealing shoot was a clip which we did down at Highlands.
• 47:31
  So I met Tony Quinn and wanted to drift his track, which is to this day, my favorite drift track on the planet.
• 47:39
  And I got two laps into the film shoot, of course, you know,
• 47:42
  I'm wanting to push it 100% straight out the bat, get the banger shots like straight away.
• 47:48
  And a brand new car which I had literally driven one lap around Highlands.
• 47:52
  On the second lap I went flying off the track at about 200 kilometres an hour, put myself into a tyre wall, put myself in hospital, fully knocked out, crushed liver, urinating blood and what we thought had absolutely destroyed and totaled the car.
• 48:06
  The crash we didn't show for
• 48:09
  two years actually until we released my Mad Life documentary.
• 48:13
  So the car we discovered with our knowledge, we built a very fast, violent and dangerous car, but still what I believe was a very strong platform to take to the States.
• 48:25
  So I'd got myself out of hospital, the team had finished the car, we missed the first round of the championship, but we put the car on a plane, we made it up to Atlanta for the second round,
• 48:37
  And this being my second time ever driving the car after obviously only doing those two laps and went out there and qualified fourth at the pinnacle of drifting, Formula Drift.
• 48:48
  So that was just insane, like massive goosebumps for myself, like even just talking about it because of the...
• 48:56
  the fear element in that car.
• 48:58
  But then progressive, you know, we went through that year.
• 49:01
  Every round we're in the top 16, which is, you know, it doesn't sound like much, but to be in the top 16 at that level with a car with no data, no testing,
• 49:11
  is a very credible result and testament to how amazing my team are to be able to, you know, just get the data as fast as possible, try different things with the car and get the results, to the second year competing in the car to get third overall in the World Drifting Championships.
• 49:26
  So Radbull's been still to this day the scariest thing.
• 49:32
  scariest freaking car I've ever driven and hence why we used it just not long ago to put Daniel Ricciardo in the passenger seat and let him experience what drifting is all about.
• 49:41
  You did that at Albert Park.
• 49:42
  That was quite a mission, that activation, mate, wasn't it?
• 49:45
  Because invariably in those situations, you are tight for time.
• 49:49
  You've got to kind of get it bang on quickly.
• 49:52
  And not to mention all the box ticking I would imagine you had to do to get that thing over the line.
• 49:57
  Yeah, well, that's where, you know, it's again, the professionalism on the side of our team and doing everything correct.
• 50:06
  To get Daniel Ricciardo to hop in the passenger seat is just amazing, but to be able to do it at a Formula 1 event, it was their set-up day and it was very limited.
• 50:16
  They literally gave us two laps.
• 50:18
  So they said, look, we're going to throw Daniel in, go out, do your warm-up lap, and then just give him a flying lap.
• 50:24
  And I'm like, look, I'm going to do one warm-up lap by myself.
• 50:28
  just kind of get a quick grasp as what, what, what you can do in one lap.
• 50:33
  And then I'm going to come in, give me a fresh set of tires, fresh, you know, top up the tank, strap Daniel in, and then I'll just do the one flying lap.
• 50:41
  And, um, that was what we did.
• 50:43
  We executed a pretty amazing clip considering we had one, one lap, but it just shows the production side of it for these video clips, like how many cameras and the helicopters and, um,
• 50:55
  It's just a testament to the Red Bull guys and their production crews.
• 51:00
  But, yeah, and just making sure that there's, you know, my mental focus is something which we've been working on a lot over the last couple of years with sports psychology and mental and physical, my own fitness as well, and just making sure everything is, like, 100%, so I can lay it down as perfect as I can.
• 51:22
  Was the Highlands crash in drifting terms the biggest one for you?
• 51:25
  And you talked about the mental side a moment ago.
• 51:28
  What are the learnings from that?
• 51:29
  How do you block that out?
• 51:31
  How does Mad Mike come back and be as aggressive as ever?
• 51:33
  That was the biggest crash I've had by far.
• 51:37
  I mean, we've had some pretty big crashes.
• 51:39
  But, yeah, the mindset is a huge one.
• 51:41
  And I think from 2013 when we did the crash,
• 51:46
  conquer the crown with Mad Bull racing over the crown range here in New Zealand.
• 51:51
  That was the first time I actually really felt
• 51:55
  fear, like really deep fear.
• 51:57
  Just the speed, 232 kilometers an hour, cliff drops, just absolutely zero room for error.
• 52:06
  You know, you do that on a racetrack, you slide off, exactly like what happened to Highlands.
• 52:10
  You've got sand traps, you've got tire walls.
• 52:13
  You're in a pretty safe environment where you're,
• 52:18
  you know, you slide off the road doing those sort of speeds on and doing these film shoots, it could easily be game over, not just for the car but for myself.
• 52:27
  So to block that fear element and the focus is not something I can just tell you how to do like over – it's a lot of training and it takes a lot of investment from skill set.
• 52:40
  I've been working with Hamish, who's been really, really good over the last two years with being able to get myself mentally focused.
• 52:46
  He works with many successful athletes from the All Blacks and stuff as well.
• 52:51
  So he's been huge.
• 52:54
  And then even right down to nutrition with Jake on what you eat and just –
• 52:59
  it's crazy.
• 53:00
  Like it's just like my car.
• 53:02
  If I'm running 10% boost or 10% off my boost because the fuel's not right, it's exactly the same as my human body.
• 53:10
  If your fuel's not right, the body can't work a hundred percent.
• 53:14
  So this is something I've been learning over the last couple of years and
• 53:18
  um just really wanting to invest in myself to make sure i'm the strongest athlete because i know the team are putting everything they can and to make sure we've got the strongest car so me obviously being alone in control i need to make sure i'm just as good as the car is as you and i sit here there is a cool i think it's an rx2 outside in the in the garage at hampton downs there are utes in the in the collection as well and one thing that fans would have seen on on instagram is that you've built something that you can take people for rides for haven't you
• 53:46
  Tell us about that.
• 53:47
  Yeah, so that was, you know, actually that's something else that's another side of my career and, you know, that I'm able to offer to others.
• 53:58
  And we do many charity things and work with, you know, Race for Life and, you know, stuff.
• 54:04
  Southern stars and the best thing is actually being able to put people in the passenger seat, whether it's just Joe Blog from the public or, you know, your friends, family, your sponsors, and let them experience the speed of drifting over 200 kilometres an hour and that excitement.
• 54:22
  So the thing was is that a drift car has only got two seats.
• 54:26
  You've got, you know, the guys hop out and they're like yelling to their mates like, oh, man, that was the sickest thing I've ever done.
• 54:32
  Yeah.
• 54:33
  but they can't experience it together.
• 54:34
  So that's where we built the mad cab.
• 54:36
  So we got a 1980s, uh, Mazda loose and converted 13B turbo rotary into it.
• 54:43
  Um, and the first of its kind, they have a full pro roll cage, full bucket seats in the back.
• 54:48
  So it says four bucket seats, fully harnessed, and, um, we can rip around the track, sort of four up.
• 54:54
  So it's a whole lot of fun.
• 54:56
  And, um,
• 54:57
  Yeah, we're able to use that here at Hampton Downs.
• 55:00
  We use it at all our Drift Force days, still able to get out there and play with a lot of the local guys.
• 55:05
  It's something I miss.
• 55:06
  Actually, it's competing against a lot of the New Zealand guys now.
• 55:09
  It's just such a huge schedule of international events.
• 55:13
  It's great to be able to come back and play around with the guys that I used to compete with.
• 55:18
  You've dabbled a little bit in circuit racing in recent time as well.
• 55:21
  And I spoke to Shane Van Gisbergen for this podcast, the 2016 Supercars Champion.
• 55:26
  He said, because it's the antithesis really of drag racing, of drifting rather, completely different to what you normally do.
• 55:33
  He came, was it here at Hampton Downs you did some training with him?
• 55:36
  And in what car did he put you in?
• 55:39
  Oh yes, I mean when TQ here at Hampton Downs, you know, over a casual lunch and coffee, said, oh man you should drive my frickin' McLaren.
• 55:51
  I was just like instant goosebumps, but at the same time, like if I'm going to take on this opportunity, like I do nothing by halves.
• 56:00
  So got in touch with SVG and said look man.
• 56:06
  Quinny's given me an opportunity to jump in his GT3 McLaren and race at the Hampton 101.
• 56:11
  Dude, I need to learn how to drive.
• 56:15
  Straight.
• 56:15
  Straight.
• 56:17
  So, yeah, he was keen as.
• 56:19
  He's like, yep, meet me at Hampton.
• 56:21
  On a certain day, we came down here, brought all my race suit, helmet, everything down, of course.
• 56:26
  And he shows up.
• 56:29
  The...
• 56:31
  like 100 horsepower Toyota Crawler station wagon.
• 56:35
  I'm just thinking like, what the hell?
• 56:38
  What are we meant to learn in this?
• 56:39
  I'm hopping in a GT3 McLaren.
• 56:42
  It's like half a million dollars worth of vehicle.
• 56:44
  What am I going to learn in a 100 horsepower Toyota Crawler front-wheel drive station wagon?
• 56:48
  But we ran in that till like lunchtime, and man, it was unbelievable how much I learned because –
• 56:56
  Not the fact that it was in slow motion, but just when you're playing with, in circuit racing, you're playing with tenths, you know, to beat your opponents.
• 57:04
  It was really, really good.
• 57:05
  We spent the afternoon in the Hampton Downs Rides Lamborghini Huracan, which was really, really good to get out in the Arvo and speed things up a little bit.
• 57:15
  But yeah, working with SVG was really good.
• 57:17
  I mean, he's obviously a very talented driver.
• 57:20
  What blew me away as of recent was just his ability to be able to work out the strategy, especially for, you know, GT racing and endurance racing where you're like on the run.
• 57:31
  Yeah, when we're going to pit stop, what lap we need to fuel, and what's the suspension settings and just changing the whole car.
• 57:41
  That's what really impressed me.
• 57:42
  A lot of people would just see SVG as obviously an amazing driver out there able to win races and championships, but it's far beyond the skill set of just being able to pedal a car and work out that whole strategy side of it, and that was really interesting.
• 57:56
  Yeah.
• 57:59
  That actual event, my debut in a GT3, I went out there and I qualified in the top 10.
• 58:05
  We were qualified seventh.
• 58:07
  And then we finished in the top 10 with Clark Quinn and Clark went on to win the championship that year.
• 58:14
  So it was cool to be a small part, a very small part of him winning it.
• 58:18
  Obviously, the championship was a long road, but to be in there and help get the car in the top 10 at that event was...
• 58:25
  was very humbling of myself um but then to receive another invite to go down to highlands race at highlands and then to philip island and um the most recent was at back to highlands for the final round last year and to be paired up with svg um and go out there and work with him was just amazing you know we've set the car up
• 58:49
  on qualifying day SVG was second fastest by the smallest amount and that night at dinner he decided to he was talking about changing spring rates and I'm like man the car feels like so good as it was um
• 59:05
  But he took the punt and his confidence to be able to go for a huge change actually in spring race to go out there and then instantly the next morning he was the fastest on the track and we were not far behind to then go out in the race.
• 59:18
  I jumped in the car and was able to lead 27 of the 100 laps.
• 59:24
  until, well on the 27th lap, I actually got taken out by a fellow Kiwi driver, which was unfortunate, you know, considering there was only like four or five Kiwis in the race and we were coming around to actually lap him.
• 59:36
  So a lap driver, which we had passed,
• 59:39
  and then two corners later wiped us out of the race and the car was beyond fixable as it broke the mounts off the subframe.
• 59:46
  But for my confidence level, it was awesome to know that we had the pace to be able to, you know, we battled up front with Dominic Storey who won the championship.
• 59:55
  And I think just, yeah, like I say, just the...
• 1:00:01
  the investment of time and taking on everything you know if people are investing in me i want to make sure i'm the best you know i'm a great investment for them themselves so um from all the training and watching youtube clips and you know meeting with svg and you know even greg murphy was a massive help as well and that first day man here at hampton downs i just could not believe the support from um
• 1:00:24
  from all the teams and the drivers.
• 1:00:27
  So it was really cool to give back to TQ for their massive investment and risk, of course, like putting some wild drift driver into one of his GT3s to go out there.
• 1:00:38
  And yeah, it was pretty cool.
• 1:00:41
  Like after the first qualifying session to come in and have Quinny just come up and give me a big hug and say, you fucking make me so proud.
• 1:00:50
  That was really, really cool moment.
• 1:00:51
  And yeah,
• 1:00:53
  Yeah, so it's exciting, exciting times ahead.
• 1:00:57
  Of course, I've been offered to do some more GT3 racing, but it's such a busy schedule and trying to balance drifting with racing and then, of course, the kids and Lincoln with his racing now.
• 1:01:09
  So life's a big balance.
• 1:01:12
  TQ, who you mentioned a moment ago, is Tony Quinn, owner of Hampton Downs here, and been owner of Darra Lee, VIP Pet Foods, passionate motor racing guy.
• 1:01:21
  And I can see why you and Shane get on so well, mate, because like you, he's got a deep appreciation of race history and he loves the engineering side of it.
• 1:01:31
  I wanna come back before we finish this chat on a couple of things.
• 1:01:34
  Firstly, you mentioned Goodwood Festival of Speed before.
• 1:01:37
  You've absolutely wowed them over there, mate.
• 1:01:39
  Took over the Instagram account again this year.
• 1:01:42
  And that video of you with the 360 burnout at the end, hanging out the car on the phone, not something we want kids to try at home.
• 1:01:52
  Mate, that was super cool.
• 1:01:54
  How did you pull that off?
• 1:01:56
  Oh, it's just, I don't know, just a game of just thinking like, what...
• 1:02:00
  always trying to have no leader but just think well it's a little bit different and last year we did Vaughn Gittin Jr and Chris Forsberg who are two buddies they're both very close friends up in the states they're in Drift Alliance which is a big drift crew up there and they kind of came down and we're doing their like tandem donuts together and we're in our little pocket rocket Radbull MX5 and I was like oh yeah I'll join in on the party so just sort of launched into it and we did this three up
• 1:02:27
  donut thing just went absolutely viral it was crazy it was like one of the most viewed clips from Goodwood Festival of Speed of 2017 and then so this year it's like oh what's next you know what can I do and I was like oh man you know now with Instagram and the whole live streaming is is so important and it's great for the fans I was like oh let's I'll pull out my phone and do like full live selfie mode of me ripping some donuts sitting running rodeo on the in the mad bull so
• 1:02:58
  yeah we ripped that out and um a whole lot of fun and like you say yeah just a clip that again went global and i think that's what you know with goodwood festival of speed just thinking outside the box and just showcasing what we have is drifting i said burnout before i met donut by the way and that's an amazing event what is do you know it the tie account for you because you must have smoked some ties over time
• 1:03:21
  Oh yeah, that's ridiculous.
• 1:03:23
  I think I'd smoke through in one weekend more tyres than what most people would use on their road cars in their entire lifetime.
• 1:03:31
  Yeah, I mean to give you an idea, one event is about 40 to 50 tyres and now the compounds being so soft they just burn so quick.
• 1:03:41
  But it's just all on that hunt for grip and speed.
• 1:03:45
  Result you're most proud of?
• 1:03:46
  I mean as we sit here
• 1:03:47
  in your office at Hampton Downs.
• 1:03:48
  We're surrounded by some incredible memories, mate, some great trophies, and there's still more memories I know you want to make.
• 1:03:54
  The thing you're proudest of so far.
• 1:03:57
  Oh man, that's a really, really hard one.
• 1:04:00
  I mean, we've just, like we've talked about, I've traveled to so many countries, but I think the most thing I'm proud of is just being able to represent New Zealand, to be honest, and prove to other youngsters that you don't have to have a huge budget to fulfill your dreams.
• 1:04:17
  You just need the dream, and then the passion to work hard and a bit of determination will get you to where you are.
• 1:04:24
  I mean, we've now been able to travel the world,
• 1:04:27
  from doing dream projects with Red Bull of finding the most craziest roads from here in New Zealand to South Africa and Denmark and competitions, taking on the world's best in Formula Drift and winning events all around the world to being able to drift on different tracks.
• 1:04:47
  you know they're all very very proud moments um but to be honest there's nothing brings a bigger smile to my face than seeing my 10 year old son win a race and um and his little trophy cart you know so sometimes it's the more simple things in life though just seeing my my son smile from from winning you're a good dad mate I can tell that um you're talking about Lincoln what's he racing are you a nervous sort of dad on the sidelines are you in their hands and all what are you doing
• 1:05:16
  Oh, man, nervous.
• 1:05:17
  I tell you, I get more nervous while he's on the starting grid than I am on the starting grid.
• 1:05:22
  That's absolutely true.
• 1:05:25
  But, yeah, it's just cool.
• 1:05:26
  You know, I believe, you know, as we talked about earlier, my motocross years, I never had a father or a role model to kind of,
• 1:05:33
  you know, push me through racing, it was just my own dream.
• 1:05:36
  And I remember racing with kids that their fathers are yelling at them, screaming at them and it was more like it was the father's dream for their kid to be a champion rather than the kid's dream to be a champion.
• 1:05:46
  And it's something I learnt then and something I remember now.
• 1:05:51
  So with Lincoln, it's as much as I've always wanted him to be a motocross champion or a champion at whatever.
• 1:05:57
  I've never pushed him into anything.
• 1:05:59
  He had a motocross bike at the age of two, um, and he's never once said he wanted to race motocross.
• 1:06:04
  So he's never raced motocross.
• 1:06:06
  I've never pushed him into it, said, oh, we're going to go race your bike this weekend.
• 1:06:09
  Um, he discovered the trophy cart.
• 1:06:11
  So that's what he races.
• 1:06:12
  They're like a quarter scale stadium truck.
• 1:06:15
  Um, gotta be the funnest toy for, he's been racing them since he's seven years old.
• 1:06:21
  but funnest and super safe you know he had the full roll cage neck braces all the safety gear um and they're fast and making sure I've like done everything on the car like putting myself in kind of that um crew chief mindset and making sure that the car's 100% and when something breaks down man I just feel so bad and it's just I guess it's motorsport and I've lost championships in the past because of the
• 1:06:47
  just failure in the car um and it's happened to lincoln as well so um but the biggest thing is just seeing his passion and want to race and when you see a christmas lister center that has billet flywheels and bigger carburetors and like you know just all the beadlock wheels and all that stuff um is pretty pretty cool as a father
• 1:07:09
  I knew you'd be in there helping mechanically and that you, you know, how much you love that stuff.
• 1:07:13
  You've been fiercely loyal to Mazda.
• 1:07:15
  That's clear from this discussion, mate, your passion, particularly for rotaries.
• 1:07:20
  Have you ever been tempted to go and, you know, when you've been and raced in the States and seen some of the other cars that have the muscle cars and things, have you ever been tempted?
• 1:07:27
  That's just not you.
• 1:07:29
  Well, I mentioned before about like every year about the contracts that come to our table.
• 1:07:33
  And of course, as a driver, and this is my business, our business, me and Tony as a family, and it's how I put food on the table for the kids.
• 1:07:41
  And when you look at some of these contracts, for sure, we've definitely had some very attractive offers from different manufacturers over the years.
• 1:07:49
  And...
• 1:07:50
  I don't know, it's just one of those things that you need to balance out.
• 1:07:53
  And for me, the passion that lied around Mazda has just been stronger than sometimes the dollar figures that are on these contracts to sign.
• 1:08:01
  And I believe in the partnerships as well we've formed over the years and that's more important as well than the money.
• 1:08:10
  And then now...
• 1:08:12
  you know, to turn those offers down and then now actually have the factory support from Mazda and, you know, I help live a healthy life and I'm able to do what I want to do with my kids and Tony.
• 1:08:27
  It really, I just, it all pays off, I guess.
• 1:08:30
  And man, the sound, the smell and adrenaline of racing rotaries for the fan base, there's just nothing beats it.
• 1:08:37
  Final one, I ask regularly in this series about Grail cars and I can sense in you from your garage that with each project you more or less build the next kind of Grail car.
• 1:08:47
  But what is, for fans that love what you do with the build of these machines and the things that you've created over time with all different models in the Mazda range, is there a next project and what would you like it to be?
• 1:09:02
  Oh, there's always a next project.
• 1:09:03
  I think, like, to be honest, right now I'm working on, like, three different projects, including, like, Lincoln's projects as well for his racing, and then Jet, my daughter, she's two and a half, so she wants cars that she can beat Lincoln already.
• 1:09:14
  So I think she's going to be quite competitive when she's old.
• 1:09:17
  Well, she already is very competitive.
• 1:09:20
  But, no, I mean, yeah, there's always another hill climb or another championship.
• 1:09:24
  so there's and the progression of the cars and i think like i'm very fortunate to be in this position where we can build the with the power of social media um
• 1:09:35
  and having Instagram and Facebook and having the fan base and being able to build these cars that are not just for myself, but it's for the fans.
• 1:09:43
  I mean, even Project Radbull MX5, before we even built that Formula Drift was literally we got an MX5 platform.
• 1:09:50
  We put it out on Instagram and we did a fan vote.
• 1:09:55
  Do we turn it into a Mad Mike missile, which a missile is pretty much a beta car with mismatched panels and, um,
• 1:10:03
  really just an absolute thrash car or turn it into a world championship car and take on the world's best formula drift and that was a pure van vote that went to the formula drift won the vote poll.
• 1:10:15
  and hence building a 1200 horsepower four-rotor twin turbo, the most crazy thing that we could possibly think of.
• 1:10:23
  So I know what's next, and the fans will start getting leaked of bits and pieces as we do it, but that's all part of it, you know, and part of the social media and that leverage.
• 1:10:34
  It's great fun to be able to share my passion with my fans and be able to interact them and use some of their votes and their decisions as well.
• 1:10:43
  There is a great doco on InFlight at the moment.
• 1:10:45
  If you haven't seen it, check it out.
• 1:10:47
  It's called The Mad Life.
• 1:10:48
  You really do live at full throttle, mate, and it's been an honour to chat with you.
• 1:10:52
  Congrats on everything so far.
• 1:10:53
  Awesome, yeah.
• 1:10:54
  Thank you so much for the support and, yeah, the chance to be able to have the chat and speak for fans.
• 1:11:04
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:11:09
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 1:11:12
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 1:11:22
  Listener.