Latest / Rusty's Garage / Ryan Story (Part 1)

Transcript

Ryan Story (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:18
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  I'm in hotel quarantine in Auckland for this episode after working on the Bathurst 1000 coverage and my guest is at home in Brisbane with borders making it a little tricky for him to attend the great race.
• 0:39
  Otherwise we would have recorded this one face to face while at Mount Panorama.
• 0:44
  Ryan's story is a fascinating yarn, a driving force in the resurgence of Dick Johnson racing after it very nearly went to the wall a decade ago.
• 0:54
  Now Ryan and the legend DJ are celebrating 10 years working together, which included an unforgettable chapter with automotive icon Roger Penske and star driver Scott McLaughlin.
• 1:05
  Ryan is a machine.
• 1:07
  It's not uncommon to get late night emails from him, such as the passion for supercars and DJR.
• 1:14
  He's a numbers man whose data analytics have been successfully used in politics, helping the campaigns of prime ministers and presidents in many countries.
• 1:23
  He's got a new book coming out in 2022, and I'm pleased we could share a little of the story's story.
• 1:29
  We even have a laugh as he does some impersonations and voiceover demos.
• 1:33
  That's a side you won't have heard from him before.
• 1:36
  From his early years in South Australia, turning a fascination with computers into an entrepreneurial business, well, most of us would have been flipping burgers after school or doing paper runs, and some chance moments that led to a move into motorsport to help his hero.
• 1:53
  Yes, we'll talk about that Bathurst and Roger Penske's withdrawal from the sport and the team.
• 1:59
  DJR still has that Penske way, but is powering on its own course again with a new front line including the experienced Will Davison and one of the next big things in Anton Di Pasquale who has well and truly arrived.
• 2:14
  We begin with a world first for the team, going carbon neutral and showing others how it's done.
• 2:21
  It is fantastic to finally get you on this, mate.
• 2:23
  I want to start, if I can, with some groundbreaking news for you guys in the lead up to Bathurst that I know you are hugely proud of.
• 2:32
  And it's a really significant thing for global motor racing.
• 2:36
  Kick off by telling us about that.
• 2:38
  Well, first of all, Greg, thank you so much for having me on.
• 2:42
  I think we originally planned on doing a recording a couple of years ago, but for whatever reason, you've had better options between now and then, and I completely understand.
• 2:52
  But Dick Johnson Racing is the first carbon-neutral race team in supercars.
• 2:59
  and is the first team outside of Europe to have achieved the FIA three-star environmental accreditation.
• 3:06
  So basically what it means is that, first of all, we look to reduce our emissions and do everything we can that way, and understand and know exactly where those emissions are emitted from.
• 3:18
  And then we've planted trees to offset the carbon that we can't completely eliminate.
• 3:23
  And then we've also invested in renewable energy projects in emerging economies in places like India and in other remote regions in particular, where chances are they haven't ever had electricity before to again offset the carbon that we can't completely eliminate.
• 3:39
  And we anticipate a reduction from 2020 being our first year, which we're certified carbon neutral for.
• 3:45
  We're anticipating a reduction of almost
• 3:47
  20% emissions this year just based on the changes we've made online.
• 3:51
  So for us to keep doing what we love, for us to keep going racing, this is the sort of thing we need to do and it doesn't affect our results on track.
• 3:59
  It just changes the way we go about our business in the background.
• 4:01
  But most of all, I mean, we're racers.
• 4:03
  We love our V8s and we want to be able to keep doing it.
• 4:06
  And to be able to do it in a sustainable way, we have to take steps like this.
• 4:11
  You've sort of headed down that path, Ryan.
• 4:13
  How important is that step in your mind, not just ethically, but even for the sport, for young followers of our game?
• 4:20
  Well, I think it's so important.
• 4:21
  I mean, when you look at the key demographics of those who follow supercars, and supercars track that over time.
• 4:28
  They work with Jember and Futures, and we, our team, we work with Nielsen.
• 4:33
  And DJR alone, just in Australia, has 1.25 million fans.
• 4:39
  But the reality is, is that the bulk of the fan base skews a little older and male.
• 4:44
  And the way for us to win back the younger fans is through initiatives like Gen 3.
• 4:47
  I mean, those cars looked sensational at Bathurst.
• 4:50
  They really did.
• 4:50
  And they sounded great too.
• 4:52
  But by also taking steps to take responsibility for our actions so that we're not seen as a bunch of gas guzzlers.
• 4:59
  And we're fortunate through using the E85 race fuel that we use, it burns significantly cleaner than a normal pump fuel would.
• 5:08
  So the bulk of our emissions come from Scope 3 in particular and Scope 1 diesel and some other fuels of that nature.
• 5:16
  And people can go to environment.djr.com.au.
• 5:21
  That's where everything's published, all of our resources.
• 5:23
  Everything's completely open and transparent.
• 5:29
  Because part of the journey too has been explaining, well, what does it mean to be net zero?
• 5:33
  What does it mean to come off of the back of COP26 isn't enough?
• 5:38
  When people think of carbon neutral and net zero, they don't necessarily immediately think of a race team.
• 5:42
  So there's been a process of educating our supporters and showing them and being completely transparent with them so that they can see and really understand what it is that we're doing.
• 5:53
  I want to talk more about Gen 3 with you a little bit later.
• 5:56
  Can I rewind the clock just based on how far you've come, what you've just spoken about?
• 6:01
  You are a long way from regional South Australia.
• 6:05
  What was early life like for you growing up in Yorktown?
• 6:10
  Well, Rusty, you've been to Yorktown.
• 6:12
  So it's unique that the pair of us have been to the place.
• 6:17
  And it was a couple of years ago we flew from Adelaide to Yorktown, which is a pretty short flight just over the water there.
• 6:26
  And Rusty, you were kind enough to do a piece for television where we bought the
• 6:31
  race team and Scott and Fabian are drivers at the time and Dick and Jill Johnson to Yorktown for a community event to raise money and funds for community groups.
• 6:41
  But I had a fairly humble upbringing on a farm and started my own business when I was super young.
• 6:48
  I was about 12 and a certified verified nerd.
• 6:51
  I still got the card in my wallet to prove it.
• 6:53
  I was building computers at the age of 12 and selling them to my teachers.
• 6:56
  I mean, it was the greatest reward of all time.
• 7:02
  of business from there and was fortunate enough even before I moved to Adelaide to go to uni that I had a reasonable business behind me and then that turned into a passion for politics and my two great passions in life are motorsport and politics and I count my lucky stars that I've had the good fortune to have had careers in both.
• 7:27
  But I started early in politics, just as I did in business, and was very fortunate to have done quite a few different things in both of those realms.
• 7:35
  On that business side, you were a very early adopter in the computing space.
• 7:40
  Am I right in saying that you would go to, you know, maybe farms, people's houses, get them set up and organised in that regard?
• 7:47
  And does that business maybe in some sense still exist even today?
• 7:51
  It still does.
• 7:53
  But I officially retired from politics and sold
• 7:57
  the last of my IT businesses in February of this year.
• 8:01
  So that was 20 years of politics for me.
• 8:04
  And in actual fact, Dick and I celebrate 10 years in this coming week of being partners in racing and
• 8:12
  partners in business.
• 8:13
  So we've got anniversaries everywhere.
• 8:15
  40 years since the 81 Bathurst win, 10 years with DJ and myself, and 20 years since I've retired from politics and all of the rest of it.
• 8:24
  But that's pretty much exactly how it happened.
• 8:26
  As a 12-year-old kid living on a farm, we're fortunate.
• 8:31
  My family owned a passenger service that ran from Adelaide to Yorktown Daily, so the computers would often come on the bus of an evening.
• 8:40
  And then the next day, the farmer or the farmer's wife or whoever had purchased the computer would drive out to our farm, pick me up, pick up the computer, head out to their place, set it all up, get them going, usually set up Microsoft Office, get their printer running and...
• 8:56
  Yeah, this was – and again, I was – as a 12-year-old, you would easily have mistaken me for being eight.
• 9:01
  I was a bit of a late bloomer.
• 9:02
  So it was quite a – I can imagine it was quite a scene, this kid making a reasonable amount of money selling a couple hundred computers a year.
• 9:13
  Getting driven around from farm to farm and house to house around the place.
• 9:16
  It would have been – it must have been quite – it must have looked quite ridiculous in some respects.
• 9:22
  Does that entrepreneurial side come from your dad, mate?
• 9:25
  Without question, he's the best engineer I've ever known.
• 9:29
  So we grew up, he was born on Eyre Peninsula, which is to the west of York Peninsula, which is where I grew up.
• 9:35
  He grew up in a place called Cow, and he wanted to be a farmer his whole life and ultimately married a farmer's daughter.
• 9:41
  But he worked for the Bank of Adelaide and ANZ Bank out of school and he was quite a smart, savvy guy.
• 9:49
  And when he took over the farm, he made a point of leasing it at full market rates.
• 9:54
  In fact, above market rates, he didn't want a family discount or anything.
• 9:57
  That's just the integrity of the bloke.
• 9:58
  I mean, he's my hero in many respects.
• 10:00
  I wish I was more like him.
• 10:02
  But particularly through the course of my childhood, my early childhood, he juggled and made things work.
• 10:09
  And I don't know how he managed to do it, but he did.
• 10:12
  And like so many families, we were a week to week type case.
• 10:16
  And where his engineering talents and I suppose the entrepreneurial side really came out was that in many instances we made our own.
• 10:25
  Well, Dad made our own farm machinery because we couldn't afford to buy the genuine thing.
• 10:30
  So he would make his own prickle chains and make his own air seeders and make his own boom sprays and things like that, which is almost unheard of now.
• 10:39
  But I think that that certainly sparked a fire in me for sure, no question.
• 10:44
  And he subsequently ran other businesses and started other businesses.
• 10:47
  And my parents are both fortunately retired.
• 10:49
  Now, my old man's the most frustrated retired bloke on the planet.
• 10:52
  But they've earned it.
• 10:55
  And I really do marvel.
• 10:58
  And I think it's funny.
• 10:59
  I think it's only when you get older and you have your own life perspective that you can look back at the sacrifices.
• 11:06
  all of the things that they did to really create opportunities for you and there isn't there isn't anything I've achieved in life that I can't credit my parents for.
• 11:16
  What were the cars in the family driveway back then as a as a young bloke and what are the the earliest memories you have of going to places like Malala for racing?
• 11:26
  So the first car I remember as having was a four-door XA Falcon, and that thing was an absolute monster.
• 11:36
  That was a hell of a car.
• 11:37
  And my best friend's family, they had a 351 GT two-ball hard top.
• 11:44
  So there were these beautiful Falcons everywhere and we then upgraded to an EA Falcon.
• 11:50
  So I was indoctrinated early.
• 11:52
  I was a bluebud from day one.
• 11:54
  But what also helped that is that my maternal auntie, who lives in Yorktown still, works for the local Ford dealership Murdoch Motors and she's worked there for 48 years.
• 12:06
  And on her anniversary this year, I had Andrew Burkitt, the president and CEO of Ford Australia
• 12:11
  Zealand cooler, which really made her day.
• 12:13
  That's fantastic.
• 12:15
  It was preordained.
• 12:16
  I was going to be a blue bud before, I think even prior to conception, there was no question that I was going to be a Ford man.
• 12:26
  You've talked about the computing side, Ryan.
• 12:29
  I mean, clearly you were good at math at school as well.
• 12:32
  I mean, when did the whole...
• 12:36
  push into sort of data and analytics really start to accelerate for you, if you'll pardon the pun.
• 12:42
  I think if you were to ask any of my teachers, and I'm friends with a lot of them, and a lot of them, I'm lucky, Rusty, and again, I've had some health issues and the years help you reflect upon things, I suppose.
• 12:57
  But I played lawn bowls as a kid, and I played lawn bowls as a kid at eight, nine, ten years old with people who were in World War II.
• 13:05
  And I always used to be conscious of the God's ratio, as they say, to a lot of people.
• 13:12
  two eyes, two ears, one mouth, so basically shut up and listen.
• 13:16
  I used to just marvel and revel in these stories from these amazing people.
• 13:22
  And same with my teachers.
• 13:23
  They'd probably tell you I was a lazy student, which is true because I was focusing on business and all these other extracurricular activities.
• 13:29
  I mean, my extracurricular list was a mile long, my academics not so flash, particularly in those early days.
• 13:35
  But when I think about it and look back,
• 13:38
  I think that taking the approach that I did and having that ability to interact with these incredible people who had lived such amazing lives really did help shape me.
• 13:49
  Particularly then when it later came to me employing people within my own businesses, just the importance of looking after people and having a greater appreciation of their problems, knowing that a happy home for those folks...
• 14:05
  them as productive as they can be at work.
• 14:08
  So ensuring that you understand what happens when they leave the office and understand what's going on in their life and with their family and all those sorts of things and make things as accommodating and make things as easy as possible for them.
• 14:20
  I think a lot of that stems from, I suppose, that early upbringing in particular.
• 14:25
  I think you shared this with my colleague Aaron Noonan as well.
• 14:29
  I hate bullying, particularly in the world we live in now, cyberbullying, I'm very, very against.
• 14:34
  But I think you described to him that you faced a little of it in a real world sense growing up.
• 14:41
  But I love the way you framed this, Ryan, because it almost –
• 14:46
  hardened you a little bit and you took it and grew from it.
• 14:52
  Does that make sense?
• 14:52
  I don't like it.
• 14:53
  I don't subscribe to it.
• 14:54
  But if anything, you channeled from that, didn't you?
• 14:57
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:59
  I don't condone bullying at all online.
• 15:02
  Anything, yeah.
• 15:03
  You know, physical, via various social media channels, by anything.
• 15:07
  But, you know, I copped a hell of a lot of criticism online after Bathurst in 2019.
• 15:15
  And, you know, there'll be a time and a place where I'll be able to tell the story and much of it's in the Stewart's report anyway.
• 15:21
  But, yeah, I really copped it then and that...
• 15:27
  That got to me a lot and I wasn't as strong as what I wish I had have been, but that was fairly overwhelming.
• 15:35
  But as a kid, yeah, I got bullied, I got pushed around a bit.
• 15:38
  The occasional sort of glasses broken and things of that nature, but it toughened me up in a way that I'm not sure anything else could have.
• 15:46
  It left calluses and scars that made me tougher and made me stronger, particularly when it came to life in politics and then life in business because it's hard, it's hard yakka.
• 15:58
  You really do need to have that inner mongrel to be successful in some of those arenas.
• 16:04
  And I do think that being the nerd and getting bullied and picked on and all those things, I think that helped, I really do.
• 16:11
  And again, not to condone it, but I think that the calluses that came from that have been a major part of the fully formed Ryan story.
• 16:21
  Was it the RS500 Sierra?
• 16:25
  Was it the Falcon?
• 16:26
  What was the Dick Johnson poster that had pride of place on the wall?
• 16:30
  Well, in actual fact, it was the 1990...
• 16:38
  1994 EB Falcon.
• 16:42
  So that's the first race at Malala that I remember actually going to.
• 16:47
  And I believe it was the first race I attended.
• 16:49
  So I absolutely adore Sierras, but they were well before my time.
• 16:55
  It's only due to YouTube and having friends in high places with
• 17:02
  illegally uploaded copies of the old... That is very good.
• 17:07
  I'll get you to do more of that later.
• 17:09
  That is very good.
• 17:13
  The old Mike Raymond, Neil Crompton and Mark Osler and the Red Jacket specials, just seeing some of those races, they were just sensational, just unbelievable.
• 17:23
  But rusted on fan and the first races I remember were really from probably 1994 onwards.
• 17:28
  Did you meet him at that first race that you went to?
• 17:31
  When did you first meet Dick Johnson?
• 17:33
  And were you sort of daunted, in awe, unable to talk to him?
• 17:37
  How did that all go?
• 17:38
  It was quite interesting.
• 17:39
  So, again, I was a fairly precocious kid in a lot of ways.
• 17:43
  So it was 1997 when I met him.
• 17:45
  So I remember it was the first year that the team and Ford had started racing the EL Falcon, and the Shell Helix EL livery is by far,
• 17:56
  Far my favourite livery.
• 17:58
  In fact, when Richard Poole from Apex Replicas, he made a replica of it a few years ago, I think I scared the life out of him with all sorts of threats and seeking assurances that the thing had to be able...
• 18:11
  absolutely perfect because that's my ultimate, that's my favourite of all the DJR cars.
• 18:16
  Despite the fact it didn't win a Bathurst or a championship or any of those things, I just think it looked amazing and lines up with my memories of being an absolute fanatic watcher of the series.
• 18:26
  But there's no question that that's my
• 18:29
  I suppose that would be my all-time favourite.
• 18:35
  But yes, that was the first time I met him was in 1997.
• 18:38
  And the way it played out was that back in the day, and this was typical of that period, of course, the pit lane was pit lane and you had your sheds out the back and the DJR, the Shell Helix Racing Transporter was parked
• 18:57
  And as a kid, and again, as I mentioned, I was a late bloomer, so I was fairly short, I could see underneath between the Prime Mover and the B trailer, semi-trailer, I could see underneath and see Dick's legs, John Bowers' legs and a sitted David Siegel, who was doing the...
• 19:13
  media and all the comms for DJR at the time and I was with my old man and I said Dad, Dick Johnson is over there let's go I'm going to go I'm going to go under there and I snuck under and Dad came with me and Dad was more nervous than what I was he couldn't speak
• 19:30
  And I just went straight up to Digger and just said, I'm a huge fan.
• 19:35
  You've been my hero since I was a kid.
• 19:36
  I'd love to have a photo.
• 19:37
  Could you please sign an autograph if it's not too much trouble?
• 19:40
  I'm really sorry for coming in under the trailer here.
• 19:44
  And he was obliging, as he always is.
• 19:47
  And he signed a poster for me and had a photo taken with him.
• 19:50
  And, yeah, that was the first time I officially met him.
• 19:53
  But as I said, I reckon my old man was more nervous than what I was.
• 19:57
  I love it.
• 19:58
  Did you get your licence first go?
• 20:00
  What was the car you got your licence on?
• 20:02
  And when you ventured off to uni, what did you study?
• 20:04
  I did not get it first go.
• 20:06
  Brian, story.
• 20:07
  I will attest to that.
• 20:09
  So, again, I was a bit more front than Meyer and thought, you know what, bugger it, I'm just going to do the test.
• 20:16
  I'm going to smash it first go.
• 20:18
  I'm not even going to study.
• 20:19
  I'm just going to go and do it.
• 20:21
  And of course that didn't work out.
• 20:24
  So then went and did the logbook in South Australia and got a clean bill of health with the logbook.
• 20:30
  And to be honest, I think that doing it that way actually made me a better driver because it meant that I got to go through a process of really understanding the road rules.
• 20:40
  So I think that I ended up being a better driver as a consequence of being a bit of a big-headed, egotistical idiot, thinking, oh,
• 20:53
  the written test passed that first time, I mean the physical test for my P's.
• 20:57
  So yeah, so failed, thought I'd get there, failed.
• 21:00
  I don't want to tell you what my first car was, but I'll tell you the second car.
• 21:03
  The second car was a Ford Telstar gear and the thing was an absolute weapon.
• 21:09
  It was ahead of its time, so it was equivalent to the Mazda 626.
• 21:13
  There's a little front engine thing with a little two litre motor.
• 21:17
  It revved all day and let me tell you, I classed that as my official first car and that was it in a bit for me.
• 21:26
  And then when I went to uni, I studied economics and arts initially and then did a Master of Science, also a PhD and a Master of Engineering.
• 21:40
  So, again, I was simply overqualified to do any real job.
• 21:46
  Hence, I co-own and run a race team.
• 21:49
  But you must have, I mean, even sort of in high school and even in the transition to uni, the love of politics and so on, the whole idea of analysis, working with data as a kind of campaign tool, that was something you became...
• 22:03
  very good at and when did that aspect of your life just just um you know sort of shift into top gear ryan that the the political side became um occupation really
• 22:16
  I was officially paid as a campaigner when I was still at high school.
• 22:19
  So I was 15 years old.
• 22:22
  Wow.
• 22:22
  When I was, when I, when I, so, so I was volunteering long before then.
• 22:27
  But when I was 15, I was paid.
• 22:29
  I was a deputy campaign manager and worked as a professional political operative from that period up until February.
• 22:37
  Yeah.
• 22:37
  So basically, that side of life has been, I mean, that's a big part of my life.
• 22:43
  And what drove that, as I mentioned, was a passion for politics more than anything else and a real passion for campaigning and advocacy and trying to get the right outcomes for people and try and see the best outcomes for people and help people, particularly through my years at uni when I was...
• 23:00
  I worked in electorate offices in particular.
• 23:03
  I took a great interest in helping individual constituents as well as the broader campaign aspect of life, working with the individual state divisions and the federal secretariat.
• 23:15
  But the thing that really triggered it for me, Rusty, to be honest, is I just had a knack for numbers and had a knack for being able to process spreadsheets and data just in my head really, really quickly.
• 23:28
  So just to give you an example,
• 23:35
  South Australia for pre-selections, they brought in place a plebiscite where every member who lived within an electorate would vote for the candidate to represent the party at that seat.
• 23:48
  And I was able to scroll through a list of, in some instances, a thousand names and compare it to the electoral roll of, say, 20,000.
• 23:57
  I could do it all visually as well as through matching, through SQL commands and various other things.
• 24:05
  And it was really then when I thought, I think there's something in this.
• 24:10
  And it was really from there that I got into what's now known as big data and thinking about how to use data to really drill down and understand what people need and really build a business around using that commercially and then from a political perspective
• 24:33
  targeting and reaching the right people with the right message, and that we actually have a firmer and better understanding of the policy directions and
• 24:46
  the seat, the country, whatever the case may be.
• 24:48
  So I think I was a bit of an early adopter in that sense.
• 24:51
  And some of the terms that are used around these things now were not around at the time.
• 24:57
  But that's something that I'm particularly proud of that in particular.
• 25:02
  And some of those technologies are still licensed to this day, which is how I can afford to own a race team, Rusty.
• 25:08
  Yeah, that's fascinating, Ryan.
• 25:11
  I find it absolutely fascinating.
• 25:14
  Then I would imagine, you know, when we see these election night TV specials and so on, everyone's sitting around the table predicting what might happen, you clearly can see the trends very early on, mate, and you know which way things are going.
• 25:26
  So I will get, there's no question I will get shot by people when they hear this, particular people.
• 25:36
  two particular examples.
• 25:39
  So in 2010 and in 2013, the Coalition campaign victory celebration was at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney.
• 25:53
  had been cleared out, there was no beds and no furniture in it, had a boardroom table.
• 25:57
  And in that room was myself, the Deputy Federal Director, senior campaign operatives, maybe as many as eight in total, in addition to the opposition leader, the opposition leader's Chief of Staff and maybe one or two others.
• 26:15
  On both occasions, Joe Hockey was present, John and Jeanette Howard were present.
• 26:23
  was to predict the results based on the booths as the returns were coming in from the Electoral Commission and call the seats before they were called by Anthony Green on the ABC or before they were called on a TV network.
• 26:36
  And the principal reason for that was so we could provide rapid response.
• 26:40
  So if
• 26:47
  of TV broadcasts, they had messages and lines set ready to go.
• 26:52
  But it also meant we were ahead of the game in understanding what the results would be.
• 26:56
  And in the case of 2010, when it was a home parliament, it meant that we were able to prepare what that scenario ultimately looked like in the Monday morning quarterbacking that happened on the Sunday as it happened the day following the
• 27:12
  part of briefing Brian Lognane of when he did the Sunday program after the 2010 election, when he did the interview with Laurie Oakes.
• 27:20
  I remember being, it was myself and one other who briefed him on that.
• 27:23
  And that was quite a unique moment and one that I'll remember for a long time.
• 27:28
  But those key election nights are probably among two of my favourites.
• 27:34
  There have been a couple in the States that have been special events.
• 27:38
  But I've never been at the, I suppose, at the precipice and at the pinnacle of Everest like I was in those two instances in 2010 and 2013.
• 27:48
  In some of the...
• 27:49
  In election night in 2006...
• 27:57
  gubernatorial campaigns election night party.
• 28:00
  That was pretty cool and pretty amazing.
• 28:03
  And there was some pretty, I mean, when Arnold Schwarzenegger's the governor, there's Arnold is the governor that you've got all sorts of people who turn up for that party.
• 28:14
  So that was a hell of an experience too.
• 28:17
  But yeah, some of those have been really memorable, really memorable.
• 28:23
  I'm glad you've alluded to the American side of things.
• 28:26
  And I know you might, you don't always openly talk about the side of politics necessarily.
• 28:33
  But I know from having been in your office there at DJR, I've seen, you know, photos of presidents and personal letters from prime ministers and so on.
• 28:41
  And it's taken you all around the world from America, I think New Zealand as well, hasn't it, this line of work?
• 28:47
  Yeah, that's absolutely right.
• 28:48
  And it's been fundamentally the same thing.
• 28:51
  It's been targeting, campaigning, and that's principally been my role.
• 28:58
  I mean, initially in the United States, we set up software that ran in 21 call centers.
• 29:04
  Back in 2006, this is before you had caddy over web type interfaces where you have a computer-aided telephone interview.
• 29:16
  It was basically a time where...
• 29:20
  And basically, those sorts of sophisticated data collection, it was just simply out of budget.
• 29:28
  So I developed a software system that was similar to the Australian maths competition and the University of New South Wales maths, technology and science competitions that I competed in at school,
• 29:37
  where basically it would be fill in the box.
• 29:40
  So whoever was making the calls in the call centres was able to simply scribble in A, B, C or D based on the response and we'd utilise optical character recognition to then scan in those results and collate that data.
• 29:52
  So I always tried to be a little bit ahead of the game but try and spot trends in different areas of the vast field of technology in terms of how people were utilising data and also from my own experience as...
• 30:06
  and being the ruthless pragmatist I am, try and work out, well, how could we use this for that and how can this work well and make this better?
• 30:15
  So I really enjoyed that.
• 30:16
  It was a really, just a really exciting, it always felt exciting, especially when coming up with something new and being able to back test it and then being able to put something in the field that valises
• 30:34
  or whatever the direct mail piece has been or the targeted social media piece has been.
• 30:39
  Just the rewarding feeling of having that validation is exceptional.
• 30:46
  The presidential election in 2016 and in 2012 are predicted all bar one state in both of those.
• 30:57
  with my final reports to those campaigns.
• 30:59
  I was pretty pleased with that.
• 31:01
  That's remarkable.
• 31:02
  Not an easy thing to do.
• 31:04
  I can tell you the 2016 report, I prefaced it by saying, Hillary will win, but this is what the data is saying.
• 31:11
  So it's the first time in my whole life I haven't trusted my own data.
• 31:16
  But that's, again, it's interesting to be able to have these experiences and how it
• 31:25
  who we are as people, that those individual experiences, all of the things that encompass a life, they're all part of a journey that gets you to where you are.
• 31:34
  I even think of someone like you and I remember back in the days of watching Dick Johnson and John Bauer in those Shell Helix EL Falcons, there's a young Gregory Rust in his 10 motorsport RPM overalls on in pit lane interviewing everyone.
• 31:52
  You know, you've had a wonderful journey in broadcasting and in life and where it's taken you as well.
• 31:57
  And you're the ultimate professional.
• 31:58
  And I think that in some respects, and I think everyone can relate, that we are who we are as a consequence and as a direct result of the journey that we've taken.
• 32:10
  Thank you.
• 32:21
  Have you ever heard Ryan Story tell a story?
• 32:24
  I heard a story by Ryan Story where he was talking about a house with two levels.
• 32:29
  It was a double story Ryan Story story.
• 32:33
  I want to move to motor racing shortly, but we'll wrap the political part up if we can by just saying, I mean, you've talked about moving perhaps away from that.
• 32:44
  Clearly, you're still passionate about it.
• 32:46
  Is it just that the demands of those two things is too hard to juggle?
• 32:50
  And what was the sort of the rationale behind sort of moving away from that aspect of the business?
• 32:56
  Well, I can be perfect.
• 32:58
  I've never openly stated this before, but in...
• 33:04
  So if we wind the clock back to 2020, prior to Bathurst, there were three scenarios on the table for us.
• 33:12
  Because at that point in time, we weren't Dick Johnson Racing, we were Dick Johnson Racing Team Penske.
• 33:17
  Penske, yeah.
• 33:18
  And Penske had been hit hard, but with COVID.
• 33:22
  And it was a question of, would we continue as DJR Team Penske?
• 33:27
  Would Dick and I effectively buy out the team?
• 33:32
  or would we shut the race team down?
• 33:35
  And we'd negotiated, well, I'd negotiated with Roger and with Tim to a position that would be quite advantageous to the staff in the event that we shut down.
• 33:47
  And that was, I first thought,
• 33:54
  racing, but Dick was absolutely adamant that he wanted to continue.
• 33:58
  So in the meantime, I put my name down to be considered for the position of chair of the Australian Motor Racing Commission, thinking that that would be my motorsport outlet if I was no longer a co-owner or running a supercar team.
• 34:16
  But then we made a decision on Tuesday after Bathurst that Dick and I would take over the
• 34:23
  And in the space of 48 hours,
• 34:25
  we renewed all of our partners, signed two new drivers, and effectively from a standing start, got a race team back up and running and got a business back up and running in such a short period.
• 34:40
  And again, it was an outcome that wasn't necessarily the one that I was planning for in my head.
• 34:45
  So that's, I suppose, what led me to consolidate some of my other business interests and to step back from others so that I could focus more on the race
• 35:01
  And I think that with the sale of supercars from Archer Capital to the TLA TGI
• 35:13
  really, really excites me.
• 35:15
  And Gen 3 excites me too.
• 35:16
  I know there's a lot of work to do.
• 35:18
  I mean, it's no, I mean, I think when no one's kidding themselves, when you have a prototype first hit the track, it's no different to when the car of the future prototype hit the track and when the next gen NASCAR prototypes hit the track, we've got the next eight to nine
• 35:33
  nine months to develop these cars and to iron out any bugs and make sure that we've got 25 or 26 of them ready to go on the grid at Newcastle in 2023.
• 35:45
  But these are the things that excite me.
• 35:47
  And to be able to be the first carbon neutral supercars team, to be able to focus on strategic projects and let the real racers in our team give them opportunities
• 35:58
  that are simply created by me stepping back from some of those roles.
• 36:02
  So a perfect example is someone like Perry Capper, who's our chief engineer.
• 36:06
  He's been the key point man for us on Gen 3 rather than it being me.
• 36:13
  And that's led to a significant uplift in his position and also in his scope of works and given him growth because he's got tremendous runway.
• 36:25
  And the same goes for Ben Croke, who's our team principal, and for Josh Silcock, who's our team manager now.
• 36:32
  By me stepping into the executive chairman role and stepping back, being not at arm's length, but stepping back from being completely hands-on with the operations of the race team, has meant that we can give others people deserving of an opportunity to step up that very opportunity.
• 36:50
  That 48 hours must have been, I mean, it's not uncommon for me to get emails from you very late at night.
• 36:55
  I know how hard you work, mate.
• 36:56
  That 48 hours must have been remarkable.
• 37:00
  Can I get a sense of, I mean, was it just purely DJ's determination to keep going that...
• 37:09
  you know made you do that and how close did you in your own mind go to no this is the perfect you know finale checkered flag this could be the right time to exit how close did you get to that
• 37:22
  Well, that was my perspective.
• 37:24
  We were in a position where we had the ability to look after all of the stuff, which was the number one priority for me.
• 37:34
  And then in terms of legacy, to end your 40th season with a championship, a team's championship, a driver's championship, I thought it was a fitting end in a lot of respects.
• 37:46
  But DJ's drive was the catalyst, pure and simple.
• 37:51
  And we had the support of our partner base to continue as well because they believed in us and they continue to believe in us.
• 37:58
  We're very fortunate to have, if you look at, we don't talk about our partners as sponsors per se.
• 38:06
  You know, they're not just stickers on the car.
• 38:08
  I mean, again, I know a lot of this is lip service, but in our case,
• 38:14
  But if you look at one of our race cars, they're all blue chip companies.
• 38:18
  They're all high end.
• 38:20
  They're all at the very pinnacle of their particular industries.
• 38:24
  And they're like family.
• 38:25
  The key people are like family.
• 38:26
  So the opportunity to have their support.
• 38:30
  And knowing that we would still be able to look after our staff, which again is the number one priority as far as I'm concerned, meant that DJ's drive was enough to put his thumb on the scales in that instance was enough.
• 38:46
  And we made it happen.
• 38:48
  Unreal.
• 38:49
  The politics and life in politics, how much did it prep you for the politics of pit lane?
• 38:54
  Because we can, you know,
• 38:57
  That is our Achilles heel sometimes.
• 38:59
  Sometimes we get a bit of that.
• 39:01
  It is.
• 39:02
  And a two-part question here because I would imagine the data and analytics has probably had a huge amount of benefits for your partners, for your sponsors in ways that you can show the delivery of results and more to them in those partnerships.
• 39:16
  Yeah.
• 39:17
  Yes, and we're doing more and more in that space now because I've got a bit more time to be able to devote to it, which has been important.
• 39:24
  But there's a couple of partners in particular as it relates to the business.
• 39:32
  as well, but we've generated since 2015 over $100 million of business to business opportunities simply between our partner network, which is a huge number.
• 39:44
  So that's basically one partner buying goods from another.
• 39:47
  It's over $100 million in that space of time.
• 39:50
  So I'm super proud of that.
• 39:52
  And that's down to analytics and making connection, but it's also the human connection.
• 39:56
  I mean, every race team has a commercial department and a bunch of people trying to get sponsors and partners and a bunch of people looking after them.
• 40:03
  In our case, we simply have all of our staff focused 100% on looking after our partners.
• 40:09
  I think we're the only team to have that set up and that's completely by design.
• 40:14
  So we outsource the sales element of our partnerships to a third party who's closely integrated with the team so that we can have a higher level of service for the partners that we
• 40:25
  And that's a big part of the key to our success because without partners, you can't go motor racing.
• 40:31
  Yep.
• 40:32
  You talked before.
• 40:34
  And forgive me, I will just say there is absolutely 100% more politics in motorsport and in pit lane than in politics.
• 40:43
  That's a big statement.
• 40:44
  I stand by.
• 40:45
  But it's true.
• 40:46
  It's true.
• 40:47
  One of the best outcomes with the sale from Archer, I look at the sale of Formula One.
• 40:55
  So when Liberty bought Formula One, the car,
• 40:59
  marketing rights from Formula One, and the Formula One management company from CPC Capital Partners, Liberty bought it from CPC Capital Partners.
• 41:08
  Anyway, the point is all of the F1 teams at the time were given the opportunity to buy in.
• 41:14
  Now, am I smarter than Stefano Domenicali, who was team principal of Ferrari at the time?
• 41:18
  Probably not.
• 41:19
  Am I smarter than Christian Horner?
• 41:20
  Probably not.
• 41:21
  Am I smarter than Toto Wolff, who I think was at Williams at the time?
• 41:24
  Probably not.
• 41:25
  Guess what?
• 41:25
  Not one team bought in.
• 41:27
  So I think that the outcome of TGI buying the team share of the supercars business is probably going to help that political aspect in a lot of respects and be better for the sport.
• 41:41
  I really believe that.
• 41:42
  I want to get very shortly to your first sort of business dealings with Dick Johnson, but it's something that you've shared separately, I know, and you felt like back around maybe 2010, you had, you know, some good fronts.
• 41:59
  I think you talk about it being almost like an arrogance, and maybe motor racing has changed that about you.
• 42:05
  How much has it changed the Ryan story that was the entrepreneurial sort of,
• 42:11
  go-getter and now you're the business person that's, you know, resuscitated with others, a very important race team in our landscape and taken it to great heights, mate.
• 42:24
  And that requires a certain sort of, you know, skill in a personal sense, doesn't it?
• 42:32
  I always considered myself as the second fiddle, the person behind the scenes who was effectively the 2IC, who was given the commands and would make things happen.
• 42:43
  And that was basically the role that I had in politics for many years.
• 42:47
  And it was where I felt most comfortable.
• 42:49
  I mean, even in my own businesses, I had people who were doing the leadership side.
• 42:53
  I had the ideas and would come up with the strategy and the direction.
• 42:57
  But I would have others help me execute it.
• 43:01
  But what motorsport did for me more than anything is that coming in from the outside,
• 43:10
  It's funny still, even to this day, when you do pit tours and things like that, often a question that someone who may have been following racing their whole life asks, what do you do between races?
• 43:21
  They don't understand that we strip the cars down and manufacture new parts and basically from the time that our B double gets back to Stapleton from wherever it's been, the work kicks off and it doesn't stop until the cars are ready to get loaded back into the truck to go to the next race.
• 43:37
  And I think, and I was one of those people.
• 43:39
  I never had a full appreciation of it.
• 43:41
  And when I first was involved with the team, what I couldn't believe was the capacity of the people within it, intelligence, the, the, the just, and, and, and just the fundamental work ethic.
• 43:53
  It was just nothing short of extraordinary.
• 43:56
  And when I was talking, I remember, I remember particularly in 2020,
• 44:01
  which was the first year where I went to all of the events I remember telling a lot of my political mates I said I said every race weekend's like an election it's like a whole election in one weekend that same adrenaline rush even when you finish 10th that same adrenaline rush is there for the whole time that you're at the circuit from getting on the plane heading heading to whichever mate nearest regional central or nearest capital city the race is in to the drive to the track to getting
• 44:30
  I did the track walk with the drivers and all the engineers.
• 44:32
  That was a big part of it.
• 44:34
  And it really built things up.
• 44:35
  And it was – it had the exact same feeling as an election campaign and as an election night.
• 44:42
  And it really – it just – it was quite something for me.
• 44:47
  It still gets me going even to this day.
• 44:49
  I've only been to one event this season, which is really unfortunate.
• 44:53
  But –
• 44:56
  The heartbreak pulse, the adrenaline got going.
• 44:59
  I was at a racetrack and we were at war, we were ready to go.
• 45:03
  And we won a race that weekend too, which was pretty good.
• 45:06
  So I think that that's a big part of it.
• 45:09
  But motor racing has changed me so much.
• 45:11
  And a big element of that is that in the political world, and we've read a lot about the culture in politics over
• 45:23
  And I must admit, I never witnessed anything like what has been described by others.
• 45:34
  I saw some inappropriate language used at a federal level from time to time.
• 45:40
  This was, and again, this is 10, 15 years ago now, but I never saw the level of behaviour that has been reported since and appalled by it.
• 45:49
  But in politics there was a good-natured ribbing, there was good-natured and friendly use of colourful language on a fairly regular occurrence.
• 46:05
  In fact, it wasn't George Carlin who taught me the seven dirty words.
• 46:09
  It was a senior cabinet minister.
• 46:16
  So I basically, when I went to DJI, I had that same sort of bravado and you mentioned it before.
• 46:22
  And I've said it before, I had an ego you couldn't pole vault over.
• 46:27
  I was operating at a very high level, as Mark Scaife would say, and was...
• 46:31
  winning elections and being involved at the highest level and was a bit of an arrogant prick, to say the least, and turned up at DJR, immediately recognised the potential of the people and the capability of the people and had to learn on the run how to lead, how to lead this group of people who saw me as a complete outsider and didn't know me from Adam.
• 46:56
  So part of it was developing a trust relationship
• 47:00
  Dick in particular, the Johnson family and that exists to this day where DJ and I have no secrets so even through the initial phases of us being in partnership with the race team in some of the darkest days and in the really tough times, I didn't sugarcoat anything with him, I was completely open and transparent with him and the same goes with the staff, I always made sure that I was accessible and that the management was accessible and learned pretty quickly on the run that
• 47:32
  The folks working within the team, and I think this is the nature in most businesses, but this was the catalyst for me and I think has changed me as a person, I think made me a better person.
• 47:41
  And I think that if I was to start a new business tomorrow, I think I'd be more successful at it as a consequence.
• 47:47
  But at the end of the day, you're not important.
• 47:54
  As a leader, your staff need to know that you have control of the will and that you have a plan, you have a vision, and that you can execute and that you're a person of your word.
• 48:06
  But your job first and foremost, even above that, is to understand their needs and aspirations, understand their career objectives, understand their home life situation, understand the working dynamic within the organisation, understand what work they take home with them.
• 48:24
  and really have a full picture of their life, but have no expectation whatsoever of them understanding the pressures and the stresses that come from running the business.
• 48:36
  And like I said, I learned that the hard way.
• 48:37
  And I think that's been the secret to our success has been that being the catalyst of change in terms of how I lead and to his eternal credit.
• 48:46
  And I've said it to Tim Sindrick a number of times, he was a big part of that.
• 48:51
  I remember after the Adelaide 500 in 2015, the first event as DJR Team Penske, Marcus was in the shootout.
• 49:00
  So we thought we had an okay weekend.
• 49:02
  There was glimpses of potential.
• 49:05
  But we got back to Stapleton that weekend and TC gave me a complete reading of the riot act, of all of the things that we needed to improve and all the things that needed to be better.
• 49:20
  And he was right about everything he said.
• 49:22
  And likewise, similarly with Roger, and I know Dick said this a couple of times before, there have been things that have, for example, running one car only in 2015, we didn't think it was the right move at the time.
• 49:33
  It was absolutely the right move for us to have a growth trajectory that would lead to winning three successive championships with Scotty.
• 49:40
  Basically, everything those folks said was right, and I was able to learn a lot from them.
• 49:45
  And likewise, with their Australian leadership and also the leadership of some of our major partners, seeing how they embrace that same approach of putting people first and still having a firm grasp of the requirements of the business
• 50:02
  I suppose cocooning and isolating the staff from perhaps some of the challenges of the business, but ensuring that at all times their needs and aspirations are met and that you have a firm understanding of what it is that they need.
• 50:15
  And like I said, that was the wake up call for me and I think made me a better leader.
• 50:19
  But there's still, I can assure you, there's still plenty of room for improvement.
• 50:30
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with the executive chairman of Dick Johnson Racing, Ryan Storey.
• 50:35
  Part two is in the Rusty's Garage Library and there for you to enjoy right now.
• 50:40
  From the difficult conversation that almost closed the doors to a chance meeting that led to Roger Penske buying into the team.
• 50:48
  Plus Bathurst 2019.
• 50:50
  Ryan opens up on this subject like never before.
• 50:53
  Not to reignite discussion, but to put some context around it with the benefit of time.
• 50:59
  that, some incredible philanthropic work and a whole lot more.
• 51:03
  Listener
• 51:17
  The thing I'm gutted about most of all is that I was going to go, the original email from you, Rusty, had me going to the House of M's.
• 51:24
  And the last time I went to the House of M's was back in my political days when I used to do the radio ads and the robocall ads.
• 51:30
  And I remember at the old Melbourne studio back in 2007, the great John Winston Howard was there at the same time as me.
• 51:41
  So you had Ryan Story doing these.
• 51:43
  A vote for Rowan Ramsey.
• 51:44
  A vote for the Coalition and the John Howard's team.
• 51:48
  And then in the studio next door, you've got my name is John Howard.
• 51:52
  I'm the Prime Minister of Australia.
• 51:54
  Please vote for Trish Draper in Bacon.
• 51:57
  She's part of the Coalition's team to protect, secure, and build Australia's future.
• 52:05
  Spoken by me, John Howard.
• 52:08
  Authorised by B-Logway Liberal Party.
• 52:11
  This is fantastic, mate.
• 52:13
  I used to do hundreds of these.
• 52:15
  Hundreds of them.
• 52:17
  So you do the country voice is more like this, but the city voice is more like this.
• 52:22
  It's exciting.
• 52:23
  Everything's great.