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Transcript

Paul Morris · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  Today I'm on the Gold Coast catching up with Paul Morris for what he likes to call bench racing.
• 0:33
  A couple of blokes talking cars, motorsport and good times.
• 0:38
  Ideally it would have taken place in the old school bar filled with cool race memorabilia at his Norwell Motorplex driver training facility located halfway between Surface Paradise and Brisbane.
• 0:50
  But it's early morning so I've met him at his place and he's made me a cup of tea instead.
• 0:54
  I'm on the Gold Coast.
• 0:55
  you'll hear a bit of a different side to the man once described as Dirty Dangerous Dude.
• 1:00
  Not soft as Marshmello, mind you.
• 1:03
  He doesn't do scripted stuff and prefers to speak his mind.
• 1:06
  That old Days of Thunder movie line about Rubbins Racin is Paul's style, and he's now doing some world-class coaching of the next generation.
• 1:15
  I began by asking where that nickname Dude actually came from.
• 1:20
  I'd been to America in my...
• 1:23
  early 20s and it was a very popular saying back then.
• 1:27
  So when I came back from America for a week's holiday, I just started calling everyone Dude.
• 1:32
  So then I got the nickname Dude and then it really stuck when myself and Jeff Full got on the podium at...
• 1:40
  in the 1600 class in 1991 and Fully and me got up there and went, hey dudes, and that's how it stuck.
• 1:49
  Amazing.
• 1:50
  So you're racing, I mean, you've touched on the success there at Bathurst and we'll cover that in the chat, but I mean, you've done some vastly different forms of racing over a massive career, mate.
• 2:01
  What sparked the interest in it though?
• 2:03
  And can you tell me, did your dad, Terry, race at all or was there an involvement from that side?
• 2:08
  Yeah, he's always been...
• 2:10
  into racing and he was one of the founding members of the Gippsland Car Club where the Morwell Hill Climb was.
• 2:18
  So him and his mates built that.
• 2:20
  So my earliest memories of going there is like a four or five-year-old being at the Hill Climb, being very involved in running it like you would in a club atmosphere.
• 2:30
  And Dad was the club champion at all disciplines.
• 2:33
  He was a pretty accomplished racer.
• 2:35
  Then he...
• 2:37
  Built and bought this Zefska sports car that he raced before I was born.
• 2:42
  That car, my godfather still has that car and it still runs.
• 2:45
  So that's an Oscar-bodied car, tube-franced chassis with a supercharged Zephyr engine in it.
• 2:53
  that car's sort of still in the family.
• 2:55
  And period correct?
• 2:56
  Yeah, period correct.
• 2:57
  So my godfather, Russell Budge, when they were building the car at the time, mum and dad were living in a garage in someone's house in a street in more of Victoria, and Russell was the kid three doors down, the 12-year-old kid that helped them build the car.
• 3:11
  So he now has that car.
• 3:12
  So maybe it'll be Nash's one day.
• 3:16
  We'll talk about Nash later on.
• 3:17
  Hey...
• 3:18
  My first recollections of you racing is in the Gemini series, which we'll talk about in a second.
• 3:23
  But I'm led to believe, in fact, it was an EH Holden that you ran at the Gold Coast Speedway, not all that far from where we're recording this chat.
• 3:32
  Is that true?
• 3:33
  And give us some more of the specs on the EH and how it all went.
• 3:37
  Yeah, it was a big thing at the time.
• 3:40
  They called them bombers in Queensland, so you had someone sitting beside you as well.
• 3:46
  I was just left school.
• 3:49
  I was working as a boat fitter at Stessel Boats.
• 3:53
  The guys that were working there at the time raced bombers, so I was like, oh, this is fantastic.
• 4:00
  So I started going along with them and being the guy sitting in the left seat.
• 4:05
  What did you do in that role?
• 4:06
  Yeah.
• 4:07
  Well, first of all, I was the only guy on a Series 2 Land Rover with a holding engine in it, and I was the only guy that had a car that could tow the car trailer, so...
• 4:19
  Well, to start with, I think we'd do two or three trips to the track because it was ten minutes to the track from Southport where the cars were.
• 4:27
  And then naturally I just thought, well, I've got to get my own car and build up an EH Holden.
• 4:35
  I think it owed me about $200 and I raced that thing for two years.
• 4:39
  Yeah, it was great.
• 4:40
  So Speedway, which actually you would come back to in your later life anyway with some sprint car racing, what was the kind of horsepower, six-cylinder engine?
• 4:47
  Obviously, the EH was an iconic Holden too, wasn't it?
• 4:50
  Yeah, so standard street saloons it was, stock motor.
• 4:54
  So you were racing EHs, HR Holdens, some guys in Falcons, a few Valiants, you know, whatever.
• 4:59
  Rubbins racing?
• 5:01
  Yeah, there was plenty of that going on.
• 5:03
  And you'd just work on the car all week and try and get it fixed and ready again to go and race the next Saturday night.
• 5:09
  That's sort of what we did, work on the cars at night and get ready all Saturday and then race Saturday night.
• 5:15
  And then that was our week for a long time.
• 5:18
  And it was a fantastic way to grow up here on the Gold Coast because most people I know had a bomber.
• 5:25
  That's what you did on a Saturday night.
• 5:27
  So some guys even just drove them to the track.
• 5:29
  Did that mechanical experience kind of lay the foundations for you, serve you well even to this day?
• 5:34
  Yeah, it did.
• 5:35
  I was always messing around in the shed and parts and parts, you know, you used to find those things lying on the road.
• 5:41
  You'd be driving along and someone had abandoned one so that'd be your next race car, you know.
• 5:47
  Tell me about the move into the Gemini series, because that was so popular here in Queensland.
• 5:53
  As I said before, it's my earliest recollections of you.
• 5:56
  What shape Gemini was it?
• 5:57
  Coop or four-door?
• 5:58
  TX, TC?
• 6:00
  What was it?
• 6:00
  I mean, they're only a little 1.6-litre Isuzu-powered thing.
• 6:04
  Yeah, the first one I had was a four-door.
• 6:08
  I reckon...
• 6:10
  I'm trying to think.
• 6:11
  It was an ad in the Gold Coast Bulletin, and I was sitting there with Dad, and he saw it, and he said, oh, let's go and buy that.
• 6:17
  So at that stage, our business had started to get a little bit better.
• 6:24
  We'd started our mail-order business, and I'd crossed over from working at Stessel Boats to working with Dad in the mail-order business.
• 6:31
  So that's what we did.
• 6:33
  We went and bought the Gemini.
• 6:34
  Was it an existing race car?
• 6:36
  Yeah, it was an existing race car, and it was...
• 6:40
  It was probably a bit of a shitbox.
• 6:42
  We didn't know what we were buying, but we bought it, and I went and raced, and I think I come mid-12th or 13th in the first race, and then I crashed it in the next practice.
• 6:52
  It was wet, and I was hot-dogging out there at the thing and showing off in the wet in practice and shoved the thing in the fence, so then we had to build another one.
• 7:01
  What were the skills that you learned from that?
• 7:03
  Because, I mean, I think they came out stock with, like, 75 horsepower.
• 7:07
  They weren't a hugely powerful thing, but there was just masses of them when you raced.
• 7:12
  How did you get the edge in the end?
• 7:14
  I mean, you won Rookie of the Year in your first season, I think, didn't you?
• 7:17
  Yeah, I did.
• 7:19
  That come to pass, well, basically you just bolted a roll cage in the thing, an aluminium cage you bolted in the car, you buffed the tyres and away you went.
• 7:28
  So it was very simple racing.
• 7:29
  You could buy a Gemini road car there for between $5,000 and $1,000, so $500,000, get yourself a car and go race.
• 7:37
  And that's why there was masses of them.
• 7:40
  But then we sort of realised that we didn't have the skill set and Troy Dunstan was running up front and I knew Troy because I raced with his brother at the Speedway.
• 7:54
  So Troy was a bit older than me.
• 7:56
  And we went to Troy and we were busy flat out with our business and said, how about we do a deal, I'll buy all the parts and you build the cars.
• 8:04
  So that's how that relationship started.
• 8:07
  Work-wise back then, as you said, you kind of moved into the family business.
• 8:10
  What sort of role were you?
• 8:11
  Marketing and things like that?
• 8:12
  What was the job and what was the daily drive that Paul Morris had back then?
• 8:15
  Oh, I still think I had that Land Rover.
• 8:18
  That old Land Rover.
• 8:19
  And we started off a business selling cigarettes mail order.
• 8:24
  So in Queensland, there was no state tax on cigarettes.
• 8:27
  And if you remember back then, there was all these trucks getting pinged for moving truckloads of cigarettes across the border.
• 8:35
  But Dad found this loophole in the Australian Constitution that there was free trade between the states.
• 8:41
  if it was to the end user.
• 8:43
  So he just put a little ad in Australasian Post back then about that size of a matchbox and said, cheap cigarettes, buy them cheap in Queensland or something, use your constitutional rights.
• 8:56
  And then I would come in and pack those cigarettes and send them off to the users at night.
• 8:59
  And within a year, we had probably 50 people working for us.
• 9:03
  And then that mail order business morphed into something pretty big with different products.
• 9:10
  The skills you learn in that sort of marketing sense, mate, did that help you, you know, as your racing career in Iron Folt?
• 9:16
  Yeah, probably more later in life, like when we were...
• 9:21
  My racing career got better the more money we made, so obviously it gobbles a heap of money going racing, but then business is going good, let's get a Formula Ford and then to the stage where I could get into a touring car.
• 9:34
  Tell me about the Formula Ford chapter.
• 9:36
  I mean, anyone, when you look back through their careers, and it's often been spoken about on the podcast, everyone has a crack at Formula Ford, and it's such a great proving ground in some respects, isn't it?
• 9:48
  Oh, it's the ultimate, I think.
• 9:50
  You're in a car with no aero, it's got mechanical grip, but it teaches you everything.
• 9:54
  It teaches you spring rates, roll bars, tyre pressures, brake bias...
• 10:01
  Pretty simple thing to work on.
• 10:02
  I still think you could probably go and win that championship with your dad on a trail.
• 10:06
  The last guy to really do that and run up the front without a proper team was probably Will Power, but I remember Will Power rocking up with his dad with the car on a trailer behind the Commodore road car, and he could run up front.
• 10:19
  That was the beauty of it.
• 10:20
  But, yeah, and the friends and the people you meet and still got great relationships from people back then.
• 10:25
  Did I see a bit of chat on socials between you and Shane Van Gisbergen?
• 10:29
  Because Shane's actually just acquired his car back.
• 10:32
  Have you done the same?
• 10:33
  Have you kept a car from your history in Formula Ford?
• 10:36
  What is it?
• 10:36
  And tell us more about it.
• 10:37
  It's a 91 Van Diemen.
• 10:38
  So it was the last car I owned.
• 10:40
  And that, I think it went through four owners.
• 10:42
  And Nigel Barclay, remember Nigel, was our team manager at the time.
• 10:46
  He acquired the car back probably 10 years ago.
• 10:49
  and raced it and then when he left and went and moved back to New Zealand he said oh I'll just leave that there and Ash can have it so that was sitting there and actually raced it at Bathurst at the six hour meeting this year.
• 11:01
  That's cool what's that thing like around the mountain what's it can you pull sort of you know early 200s what sort of top speeds would you get out of it on Conrock?
• 11:08
  Yeah, early 200s.
• 11:11
  I actually hadn't driven that car since 1991 until I got to Bathurst.
• 11:15
  I did a couple of laps around North just to make sure I could still fit in it, which I could, which was the joke of the race meeting.
• 11:22
  But I slotted straight in the thing and, yeah, I had a ball.
• 11:25
  But the biggest thing I noticed was the last time I drove it, which was all those years ago, I didn't really know...
• 11:32
  I could drive, but I didn't really know how I could drive.
• 11:34
  You know, I could drive fast and...
• 11:38
  and be up the front and win races, but I didn't know how I did it.
• 11:40
  And going back to that car after so many years of racing, it really highlighted to me what a fantastic car it is for learning driver technique.
• 11:50
  We talked about the term period correct before.
• 11:52
  Have you done a similar thing with that car?
• 11:54
  Are lots of things as you had it back in the day?
• 11:57
  Yeah, it's as is.
• 11:58
  So nothing much has changed.
• 12:00
  No one's bastardised it, so it's just sitting there as it was.
• 12:03
  Amazing.
• 12:04
  You touched on the debut at Bathurst in 91 before in that little Toyota Corolla with Jeff Full.
• 12:08
  You guys won Class C. Was that literally your first experience here or what did you do in the lead up to that success on debut at the mountain?
• 12:17
  We did sand down as well.
• 12:20
  So I remember Jeff had the car and I think he couldn't afford to...
• 12:25
  rebuild the motor or something like that.
• 12:27
  So we did some deal where we rebuilt the motor, chucked in a few bucks each.
• 12:33
  And this is a pretty funny story.
• 12:34
  It went to Bathurst.
• 12:37
  We tossed a coin to see who was going to start the race because we were going to do half each.
• 12:41
  That's how much we really didn't know.
• 12:43
  But anyway, we had a great day and we beat the factory Toyota team by about three laps and had an awesome time.
• 12:50
  And I remember being in Dad's office, like on the Monday morning we'd come back and he's going to have a look at this.
• 12:55
  And there's a full-page ad in every paper in Australia because we used to get all the clippings from our mail order business to see who was advertising what.
• 13:03
  It was Toyota's advertised Toyota wins Bathurst.
• 13:07
  So...
• 13:08
  We've just got straight on the phone and then I think we ended up getting 60 or 70 grand out of them because we were going to sue them for ripping off our victory.
• 13:18
  So we actually made money out of it.
• 13:20
  That little car, I mean, it was at a point at Bathurst where there were multiple classes in the field.
• 13:26
  So you would have been up against Godzillas, Nissan GTRs, RS500, Sierra Cosworths.
• 13:31
  So the speed differential would have been quite big.
• 13:34
  And this is your first run at the mountain.
• 13:36
  What was all that like?
• 13:37
  It was pretty good.
• 13:38
  The car was, obviously, you did a fair bit of looking in your mirror and you just moved out of the way and did what you had to do.
• 13:45
  So, you know, there was a lot of amateurs back in the race back then, so there was a fair few people, like, even in outright cars, that were struggling to do the lap times we were.
• 13:55
  So, yeah, it wasn't a big deal back then.
• 13:57
  It was nothing like you see at the 12-hour this year where you've got all the Europeans fighter pilots in there trying to rip your doors off every five seconds, so...
• 14:05
  If memory serves, it was a little coupe.
• 14:07
  It was a sprinter, wasn't it?
• 14:08
  Yeah, Levin.
• 14:10
  Yeah, Levin.
• 14:11
  So you just gas it?
• 14:12
  No, you didn't back off across the top?
• 14:14
  What did you do?
• 14:16
  Yeah, you rolled off the throttle a bit.
• 14:17
  You know, it was a grip.
• 14:19
  For the power it had, it probably had about enough grip.
• 14:21
  And to me, it was just like driving a Formula 4 with more grip and more power.
• 14:26
  Yeah.
• 14:26
  Did that sort of whet the appetite for you?
• 14:28
  I mean, to race at Bathurst and what sort of impression did that leave on you?
• 14:34
  Yeah, I had a great time.
• 14:35
  We had a good time.
• 14:36
  We went out every night and didn't get much sleep.
• 14:40
  I think we slept beside the car that night in our sleeping bags because we thought someone was going to sabotage it and fully had all these weird traditions about Bathurst.
• 14:49
  Like what?
• 14:51
  Well, that was one of them, sleeping by the car, and he nicknamed it Batgirl.
• 14:54
  And he was the one that probably really got me hooked on the whole Bathurst thing because it meant sort of more to him than it did to me.
• 15:02
  And once he took me there and showed me what it was all about, that was sort of what lit the fire for sure.
• 15:08
  It then leads to an opportunity for you at BMW, mate, to work with the late legend in Frank Gardner, an Australian, for those that don't know, that raced in Formula One, an amazing career in touring car and sports car racing.
• 15:23
  What are your memories of the first time you met him?
• 15:27
  And I still, in you now, see a lot of his influence to this day.
• 15:31
  Is that a fair assessment?
• 15:32
  Yes.
• 15:33
  Yeah, like Frank was a pretty unique character.
• 15:36
  So we'd often be on the same flight flying back to the Gold Coast and Dad and Frank hit it up and they were looking for a junior driver and...
• 15:49
  I think the first time I really met him was at Amaru Park.
• 15:54
  It was a Coca-Cola Formula Ford round, and he was there with Ron Meacham.
• 15:58
  Yes.
• 15:58
  And Pete Gagan was there as well.
• 16:00
  Anyway, I ended up winning the race, and by a fair convincing margin, I think that sealed the deal, and it was just a matter of...
• 16:08
  how much money we had to pay to get the ride, you know, which Frank was always like, righto, you're going to pay to do the first season.
• 16:16
  I'm not going to pay you the second season, and if you're any good, I'll start paying you, which I thought, okay, that's a pretty good deal.
• 16:22
  So that's how it started, but he just didn't...
• 16:28
  You knew where you stood with Frank.
• 16:29
  He told you exactly what you wanted to do, and if you didn't do it, you knew about it.
• 16:33
  So the first time I really knew he was serious, we went testing one day and he told me to do something like change gears at 4,532 revs or something.
• 16:46
  And I didn't do it.
• 16:47
  He just told me to get out of the car and go home.
• 16:50
  So that's how it was with him.
• 16:52
  So he didn't want the engine changed at that rev limit.
• 16:55
  He just wanted to see if I was listening.
• 16:57
  So you knew where you stood pretty quickly.
• 16:59
  Is that a good way for you to learn to work with someone like that?
• 17:02
  Do you sort of find you gel with someone who has that style?
• 17:07
  Yeah, it was the way I was brought up anyway, you know.
• 17:09
  It's sort of, that's what you do, son.
• 17:11
  Okay.
• 17:12
  So that's sort of the way I was brought up with my dad and even the school I went to and things like that.
• 17:18
  So it wasn't a shock to me to be treated like that.
• 17:23
  But he was pretty hard.
• 17:24
  He was pretty hard.
• 17:25
  I saw him shove Craig Baird's helmet through the dash at a BMW once at Oran Park.
• 17:29
  That was pretty funny.
• 17:31
  What caused that?
• 17:32
  It was actually the same thing.
• 17:33
  So they'd come over in 94, Craig Baird and Brett Riley had come over to drive one of the cars at Bathurst as the Kiwi team.
• 17:42
  And Craig had gone out on his run and he said, oh, don't go over 7,305 revs or something.
• 17:47
  And then by that time they had the recall and the dash.
• 17:51
  It had a digital dash in it.
• 17:53
  Craig's come in and he's just looked in the car and grabbed him by the helmet and started smashing his helmet into the dash saying, look at that son do as I say or something and that was it with him too
• 18:08
  Was Beardot probably more worried about the good helmet, the Hollywood helmet?
• 18:12
  Yeah, I think he was shocked, mate, but he got the message across.
• 18:15
  Lots of good life lessons in all of that from the great man.
• 18:18
  Is there one that sort of stands out for you?
• 18:20
  What's the, either from a driving point of view or maybe an advice point of view, what was the standout thing that Frank taught you all those years ago?
• 18:30
  It's probably the driving technique and it's...
• 18:35
  What we used to do, before we'd go testing, he'd make me drive a road car or wouldn't let me in the race car.
• 18:41
  If we went to Amarie Park, he'd have a BMW road car there and I'd have to drive around in the car with him for probably about an hour until he was happy that I was driving the road car properly.
• 18:53
  And then he had this build-up and it kept going and he kept teaching me these things and I didn't really know what was going on until the first race.
• 19:01
  We went and had the first race at Amory Park and there was a bit of build-up to it.
• 19:08
  And he basically said, this is what's going to happen now.
• 19:12
  And you're going to go here.
• 19:13
  Tony Longhance is going to take off.
• 19:14
  Alan Jones is going to go like that, but he'll blow his tyres off.
• 19:18
  You'll come back through.
• 19:19
  You'll keep doing this lap time.
• 19:20
  You'll pass him about lap five.
• 19:22
  Then you'll catch Tony because he'll go like a rabbit because that's what he's going to do.
• 19:26
  And he had this plan and he said, and I'm like, oh, okay.
• 19:28
  So I just went and did the race exactly as he asked me to and I end up coming fourth or something in the race.
• 19:35
  And I'm like, shit, this old bloke knows what he's talking about.
• 19:41
  So that was it for me.
• 19:44
  He had his weird things that, you know, sometimes you go, that can't be correct.
• 19:48
  But I just followed what he said, and most of the time it just panned out.
• 19:52
  So not one thing.
• 19:53
  It was probably that driving philosophy, and it's still with me today, and it still works.
• 20:00
  Great human being.
• 20:01
  Yeah.
• 20:02
  1992 BMWs.
• 20:03
  I mean, they were giant killers, weren't they, mate?
• 20:05
  What are your memories of those cars?
• 20:07
  What were they like to drive and...
• 20:10
  You know, was there a little bit of an art to them?
• 20:13
  Oh, yeah.
• 20:14
  Like you had to hum the thing along.
• 20:17
  But braking, like if you could master the brakes in those cars and really maximise the braking, you'd make a lot of lap time and be able to pass a lot of guys, you know.
• 20:28
  So that was the key to it for sure.
• 20:30
  Did that braking come easily, that technique?
• 20:33
  Yeah, well, it did because he'd laid the foundation in the road car.
• 20:36
  This is how you do it.
• 20:38
  Yeah, and what it taught me was if I couldn't,
• 20:42
  Now, master that technique of braking and learning how to load the front tyre properly in a car with no grip, how could I do it in a car with maximum amount of grip, which those things had a lot of grip.
• 20:52
  So, yeah, it all started to make sense towards the end of 92.
• 20:57
  You look back over that chapter, mate, and the...
• 21:00
  You know, some great local drivers that were a part of the mix, but some unbelievable, some gun internationals that would filter through.
• 21:06
  Steve Soper, Joe Winklehock, Johnny Cicotto.
• 21:09
  You mentioned Alan Jones before.
• 21:11
  I mean, that was a star-studded line-up, wasn't it?
• 21:14
  It was pretty cool.
• 21:15
  So AJ was my team-mate at that time.
• 21:19
  I was the junior driver.
• 21:20
  I think he left about halfway through the year and went off with Glen Seton.
• 21:26
  But AJ was awesome to me as a young guy, mate.
• 21:29
  In what one?
• 21:31
  He just took me under his wing and said, you know, he was a cool racing driver and he knew all the quirks and he knew what bar to go to and what birds to chase and all that.
• 21:39
  You know, he just, you go here, mate, you do that.
• 21:42
  And then that winter, don't put your race suit on at the racetrack, mate.
• 21:45
  Come out of the hotel with your race suit on so you don't get cold at the track because you don't want to get...
• 21:50
  There's no motorhome or nothing there.
• 21:51
  We've only got some trailer and it's going to be cold.
• 21:53
  So he just had all that stuff and that six months I spent with him was probably...
• 21:59
  laid the foundation for me to help younger people i think the way the way that he shared and helped you as a young racer is what you're now doing in some respect sure he was um incredible incredible um just to to share all that information and have a good time doing it you sort of at the time i didn't know i was learning but look looking back on it was like oh yeah he did a fair bit for me
• 22:21
  From memory, you appeared in 92, mate, with Denny Holm, the likeable Kiwi who was the 1967 Formula One world champion.
• 22:28
  He tragically died of a heart attack.
• 22:32
  He loved that race.
• 22:35
  Maybe it's a bit difficult to talk about, but what are your recollections of that race?
• 22:39
  Yeah, I remember everything.
• 22:40
  I remember it was raining and Danny was hauling the mail.
• 22:45
  He was, like, quick, obviously, you know, all that experience.
• 22:50
  And Frank was a bit reluctant to stick me in.
• 22:53
  He's like, Danny's doing a good job.
• 22:54
  We're going to double stint him.
• 22:55
  I'm like, cool with me, mate.
• 22:56
  It's pretty wet out there.
• 22:59
  And anyway, he was about to come in.
• 23:02
  Campbell Little was actually running the car at the time.
• 23:05
  So Campbell was there and he said, Denny's saying he's coming in, he can't see.
• 23:10
  So we all got ready and then he just never came in.
• 23:16
  Frank knew straight away.
• 23:18
  I reckon he knew straight away what was happening.
• 23:20
  And then when the ambulance didn't,
• 23:24
  wasn't very quick or rushing and he basically pulled us and said, oh, that'll be the end of him.
• 23:31
  That's Denny gone.
• 23:33
  And then a confirmation comes through and he said, right, we're racing on, that's what we're going to do, that's what he would have wanted, press on.
• 23:42
  So one of his mates gone.
• 23:44
  But the polarising thing I remember, and it...
• 23:48
  I can still see it right now.
• 23:50
  Chikoto jumps out of the car.
• 23:51
  So Johnny Chikoto's driving with Tony and he walks up to Frank and goes, where's Denny in his accent?
• 23:59
  Where's Denny?
• 24:00
  And he goes, oh, he's dead.
• 24:03
  And Chikoto goes, what?
• 24:04
  And he goes, dead, D-E-A-D, dead, and just walked off.
• 24:07
  That was it.
• 24:11
  Yeah, that happened and that was it.
• 24:16
  I suppose Frank was just used to his mates going that way and got to press on, yeah.
• 24:24
  In the description you gave there a minute ago, it's probably hard to know, but the issue of him with the blurred vision, I mean, it was pouring rain that day.
• 24:34
  It was a crazy, crazy race.
• 24:35
  Jimmy Richards, you know, crashing at Forest Elbow and then all that stuff on the podium that would happen later on.
• 24:40
  But you feel as though that was actually linked to what he was going through physically at the time.
• 24:45
  Yeah, when you look back, yeah, he was obviously starting to have a pump failure, you know, halfway down Conrod and was obviously having the heart attack and then had enough skill to just ease her over to the side of the road, park her up on the side of the wall and get out of everyone's home and just go the way he wanted to go, I reckon.
• 25:05
  I reckon that was what it was.
• 25:06
  Yeah.
• 25:08
  Approaching the mid-90s, the Australian Super Touring Championship starts to take off.
• 25:13
  Two-litre racing globally at the time was going gangbusters, wasn't it?
• 25:17
  You would become the king of that, mate, with four titles.
• 25:21
  Flashpoint for many people listening to the podcast will be 1994 at Winton.
• 25:26
  you and your then teammate Tony Longhurst came together.
• 25:29
  He was seething.
• 25:30
  He got out and started throwing punches.
• 25:33
  I can remember Darrell Eastlake, late Darrell Eastlake, hitting the rev limiter in the commentary, bit of biff.
• 25:38
  What happened from your side and what were you thinking as it's all unfolding?
• 25:43
  Well, it sort of started brewing a bit.
• 25:47
  bit earlier on because I'd been promoted probably a year earlier than I should have.
• 25:52
  So we went, I was meant to be the junior, Alan Jones left, right?
• 25:57
  So I got pushed into the Enduros after we went to Wellington and we went to Pukakoe and we did the Sandown 500 and I drove with Tony.
• 26:07
  And I remember I was probably a lot closer to him on lap time than he thought.
• 26:10
  we were going to beat.
• 26:12
  And by the end of that campaign, I was right there with him.
• 26:14
  So when we fired out the next year with the two leader cars, I'd started hosing him.
• 26:20
  And he had to work really hard to stay with him.
• 26:23
  So me and him, all through that year, I'd raced him and he'd raced me harder than anyone had ever raced anyone before.
• 26:30
  Like, we were into it.
• 26:31
  The teams didn't talk to each other.
• 26:33
  He was keeping secrets about his car.
• 26:35
  You know, and Tony was shrewd.
• 26:37
  He'd go back to the workshop at night and any good parts would go on his car.
• 26:40
  Then I had, so he had Lee Guyer on his car and I had Greg Wooster on my car.
• 26:45
  So it was into team rivalry.
• 26:46
  It was super fierce.
• 26:48
  And that's just the boiling point of it.
• 26:50
  We'd come round the corner.
• 26:51
  He'd given me one to try and move me out of the way.
• 26:52
  I stood my ground.
• 26:53
  We locked wheels and entered in the fence.
• 26:55
  And then he just flipped out.
• 26:57
  But I remember his words.
• 26:58
  He's, Paul, you're a f***er.
• 27:00
  You've got them f***ed all our cars.
• 27:01
  I don't know, can you say that?
• 27:02
  You just did.
• 27:04
  It's like...
• 27:04
  Yeah, and he was steaming and slamming me through the thing and I'm just looking up and he can go, man, this guy's lost his shit.
• 27:11
  Anyway.
• 27:11
  It is almost, you can actually see your eyes through the helmet.
• 27:14
  If people look at it on YouTube and find it, it is almost a look of surprise from him.
• 27:17
  It's like, what the hell?
• 27:18
  He snapped, hasn't he?
• 27:19
  Yeah, he just flipped out and then it was all cool.
• 27:23
  And then, again, Tony was good to me and that rivalry made me really competitive and...
• 27:34
  Within 10 minutes after it, it was all cool.
• 27:36
  I think I actually went into the stewards' room because they were into him for the assault and all that.
• 27:41
  I think you got a 10-gram fine, but I rolled in there and tried to get him off it, but it didn't work.
• 27:45
  I was going to say, how long did it take to resolve it?
• 27:49
  Did you go some way to sort of quelling it, or was he already over it by the time you got to that point of chatting about it?
• 27:55
  Oh, Frank was there, so it got sorted out pretty quick.
• 28:00
  The series ran until the early 2000s, mate.
• 28:03
  Some really cool cars came through there.
• 28:05
  The BMWs that you ran, which we'll talk about in a second.
• 28:07
  The Audi Quattros, which were fierce rivals.
• 28:10
  Looking back on that chapter now, I loved it.
• 28:13
  I played a little, you know, a small part in a commentary sense for a while there.
• 28:17
  Yeah.
• 28:18
  What was it from your side that ultimately saw it not keep going or not continue?
• 28:24
  Was it the cost of the cars globally, the way the V8 formula was resonating here?
• 28:28
  Why didn't kind of super touring survive in your opinion?
• 28:31
  Oh, it was two things.
• 28:32
  Obviously you had massive competitions from supercars.
• 28:37
  And then the cars just got too technical and too expensive.
• 28:40
  So the manufacturers brought it on themselves and...
• 28:44
  You can see a bit of parallel there, the way supercars are going now, you know, how they started off to what they are now.
• 28:50
  They're just, if someone doesn't draw a line in the sand soon, they'll have no one to race against.
• 28:56
  We'll chat about your show with the Enforcer a little bit later on and some of that stuff about making racing great again.
• 29:03
  I know you're very passionate about that.
• 29:05
  Is there a BMW in that super-touring era that you've got a soft spot for?
• 29:09
  Have you kept it?
• 29:10
  And why has it got such fond memories for you?
• 29:13
  No, so all those cars were owned by BMW, and what...
• 29:18
  So we never really owned any.
• 29:21
  So I don't know where they are and what they got.
• 29:23
  And when the team demised, BMW Australia just sold up all the assets, and the car that I actually drove...
• 29:32
  in 99, Steph Zelnick owned it.
• 29:34
  But that was the Brabham Bathurst winning car.
• 29:38
  And then I took that to Macau and raced it in the Australian Championship as a privateer.
• 29:44
  And I don't know where Steph sold that car, so he would have sold it back to Europe somewhere, to someone, but that was a 96 car with the 97 updates.
• 29:54
  It was pretty cool.
• 29:55
  It had some stuff on it that,
• 29:57
  that was pretty amazing, carbon fibre prop shafts, and it actually had a pendulum under the dash that worked like ABS.
• 30:06
  So, yeah, it would swing and then take the braking force off the inside wheel, so that's why you could brake so late and bomb the thing into the corner, which no one ever...
• 30:19
  It wasn't legal, but no one ever found it.
• 30:24
  That's a good little revelation there.
• 30:25
  I love it.
• 30:26
  Owen Kelly said to me for the bit of prep for this podcast, he drove one late in the game with you guys, and he still says they were one of the most fun cars he's ever driven.
• 30:36
  He said they were just dynamite.
• 30:38
  Did it leave you with it?
• 30:38
  Because you've driven some incredible things over the course of your career.
• 30:41
  Do you have the same sort of feeling about it?
• 30:43
  Yeah, you could hustle the car.
• 30:44
  It was rear-wheel drive, which is great.
• 30:46
  Everyone likes a rear-wheel drive car.
• 30:47
  It had enough horsepower to get you into trouble and get you out of trouble.
• 30:52
  And...
• 30:54
  the tyres that we're running on were spectacular.
• 30:57
  When they had those Michelin Kevlar tyres on...
• 31:01
  They'd send them out from Europe and they'd send a Frenchman with them and he wouldn't let him out of his sight.
• 31:06
  So towards the end of that 97 championship, we were getting special tyres for every race.
• 31:12
  They were coming up with a new development and the guy would just send them out, come with a little froggy bloke, and he wouldn't let him out of his sight.
• 31:19
  How intense did the battle get with Bray Jones and the Audi camp during that?
• 31:23
  It was almost out of zenith at that point, wasn't it?
• 31:25
  You know, 96, 97, 98.
• 31:28
  Yeah, it was.
• 31:29
  Like, Brad Jones and I raced each other flat out for four years and hardly put a mark on each other's car.
• 31:37
  So I think that's a fair bit to do with how nimble the cars were and just the respect we had for each other.
• 31:44
  Yeah, so I think it came down to the wire that that championship, it must have been 96th.
• 31:51
  And everyone had sent new cars out, like a new BMW arrived for me and a brand new BMW, Audi got air freighted out for Brad, like they were throwing dough at it.
• 32:00
  And it rained on the grid and he got the jump and I just couldn't get past him.
• 32:03
  But I didn't once think about putting a bumper on him.
• 32:06
  I had that much respect for him.
• 32:08
  So these days I probably would have just moved the bloke out of the way.
• 32:11
  But Brad never moved me out of the way and I'd never move him out of the way.
• 32:14
  We just raced hard.
• 32:15
  A little side story for a second, which I love.
• 32:18
  You did help the commentary career of our mate Lee Diffie.
• 32:22
  He's just become the first Aussie to call the Indy 500, which I think is mega, just mega huge.
• 32:27
  Tell us the story about Iron Dude.
• 32:31
  And was he commentating from a couch at your place?
• 32:34
  Tell us that one.
• 32:35
  No, I actually got the picture.
• 32:36
  So I used to have this party every year called the Dudes Acres Christmas Extravaganza.
• 32:44
  And we used to have the Dudes Acres 500, which was a car race.
• 32:47
  And the 500 meant that the car couldn't be worth more than 500 bucks.
• 32:52
  And there was a claimer rule.
• 32:53
  So if you rolled up with something that was a bit hot, someone could buy it off you for 500.
• 32:59
  And then we had an Iron Dude competition, which was a dirt bike, a jet ski, and a horse.
• 33:06
  LAUGHTER
• 33:08
  So I'd met Diff a couple of times with Daryl.
• 33:12
  He rolls up to the party and we always had a commentary vehicle that we used as a courtesy car.
• 33:17
  What did that look like?
• 33:19
  Well, this year I think it was like a bongo van that we painted up with safari stripes on it.
• 33:26
  And it had a big Blues Brothers type speaker on the roof and a PA system.
• 33:33
  the Iron Dude comp starts and Diff just gets on the microphone and starts commentating this race.
• 33:38
  And I go, this guy's bloody good, isn't he?
• 33:41
  You know, and he commentated the whole thing and everyone was cheering him.
• 33:44
  And then they were having...
• 33:49
  The Super Touring stuff was post-produced.
• 33:51
  It wasn't live.
• 33:52
  So that's why it always looked so good on TV as well.
• 33:55
  And they were looking for someone to do the commentary.
• 33:57
  And I said to Pete at it, and I said, mate, you've got to give this guy a go.
• 34:01
  And so they messed him around a bit.
• 34:03
  They flew him down to Sydney.
• 34:04
  And anyway, he finally got in the booth and let loose on the call.
• 34:07
  And the rest is history.
• 34:08
  The rest is history.
• 34:10
  He just did a great job.
• 34:11
  And he went on to be who he is now.
• 34:15
  And it's amazing.
• 34:17
  But you never forget, he called me before the Indy 500.
• 34:19
  He was about to go on air.
• 34:21
  And he called me and said, thanks very much to you and your dad and everyone involved.
• 34:25
  I would never have been here without you guys.
• 34:27
  So...
• 34:28
  He never forgets, mate.
• 34:29
  He's a good guy.
• 34:29
  It's the mark of the bloke, absolute mark of the bloke, and he's worked bloody hard to get where he is.
• 34:33
  I love that back story.
• 34:35
  In the middle of the 90s there too, mate, you did start playing with V8s.
• 34:41
  There were the Diet Coke Commodores, I should say.
• 34:45
  They were Larry Perkins built cars, if they were, to begin with, and how much help did you get, and how did that whole thing come about?
• 34:51
  It came about because I remember it was playing this day.
• 34:57
  Frank was dead set.
• 34:58
  We're not going V8 racing.
• 35:01
  Why was he so against it?
• 35:02
  I don't know.
• 35:02
  I don't know what it was.
• 35:04
  But then Tony said, I'm going anyway.
• 35:07
  We've got the sponsorship.
• 35:09
  I need to rewind a bit because Frank got the Diet Coke sponsorship and then went to Benson Hedges and said, I don't need your money anymore.
• 35:16
  I've got Diet Coke money.
• 35:17
  And they went, well, we still want to stay in racing.
• 35:20
  So within...
• 35:23
  a month's period, we had double the amount of money that we had before.
• 35:26
  So that's how we ended up with the two BMWs, two Diet Coke BMWs that myself and Jeff Full drove, and then Tony and John Blanchard in the B&H cars.
• 35:36
  So rolling to the next year, Tony's going, we're going to go V8 racing, I'm doing it anyway, ordered a car from Larry, and then
• 35:46
  So that's how we ended up with it.
• 35:48
  And then Frank said, oh, OK, if you're doing it anyway, we might as well get two.
• 35:51
  So I ended up with a V8 and a BMW, and so did Tony.
• 35:55
  That was the formation too, correct me if I'm wrong here, of Logomo, is that right?
• 35:59
  So Longhurst, Gardner, Morris, that was kind of the underpinning name of it, wasn't it?
• 36:04
  Yeah, I think that was Frank's exit strategy was to wind us in.
• 36:07
  So then we ended up purchasing a share in Norwell.
• 36:12
  That's how that started and the race team and all that.
• 36:15
  And at that stage, it was a great business decision.
• 36:17
  The team was flush with money.
• 36:18
  We had factory support and...
• 36:21
  and all that stuff.
• 36:22
  And then when Tony's relationship with Frank broke down and he wanted to go V8 racing, we bought Tony's share, so then we were a 50% holder with Frank until he's passed away.
• 36:34
  And, yeah.
• 36:48
  Formula Ford is an entry-level class of single-seater open-wheel Formula Racing, 0 to 100 km per hour in 3.9 seconds and reaching top speeds of nearly 235 km per hour.
• 37:03
  Formula Ford has traditionally been regarded as the first major stepping stone into Formula One racing after karting.
• 37:12
  You'd raced a Formula Holden in Australia in the early 90s, so you had that Wings and Slicks experience.
• 37:17
  But in 98, you decided to go to the US, to the Dayton Indy Light Series, just a rung, if you like, below IndyCar or ChampCar.
• 37:25
  How did that whole thing come about?
• 37:26
  What prompted it?
• 37:28
  What prompted it was BMW pulled out of racing in Australia.
• 37:34
  I was, what was I going to do?
• 37:35
  I thought maybe I could go over there, get myself into an IndyCar and maybe do the race on the Gold Coast.
• 37:45
  That was the...
• 37:46
  That was the plan, yeah.
• 37:48
  Was there, you know, in the deal that you'd structured with PacWest, was that the long-term thing that you wanted to get to that point or was it no guarantee that that would happen?
• 37:57
  There was no guarantee.
• 37:58
  And then, you know, the way I run, it wasn't going to happen anyway.
• 38:01
  So my best race over there was the first race.
• 38:05
  I think I finished sixth on the oval at...
• 38:08
  down at Miami, and then the thing just unraveled from there.
• 38:12
  Tell me more about that.
• 38:13
  Was it mid-Ohio?
• 38:14
  There was a decent one at mid-Ohio?
• 38:15
  Michigan.
• 38:16
  Michigan, I had a huge shunt.
• 38:17
  And I'd had a big head injury, but I didn't really understand what was wrong with me.
• 38:23
  But my biggest problem was I was just too big for the car, and they didn't have a driver weight rule.
• 38:27
  So I was...
• 38:29
  I think when I was over there, I lost so much weight, I got down to like 74 kilos or something.
• 38:34
  And I was racing guys like De Marta that were 50 kilos.
• 38:37
  So it was just a big disadvantage.
• 38:39
  I could run okay, but never run where I wanted to run.
• 38:43
  And I really didn't get the hang of...
• 38:46
  I actually did better on the ovals than I did the road courses.
• 38:48
  But that head injury, yeah, I had a big shunt.
• 38:51
  I don't really remember it.
• 38:53
  I know Mick Doohan and Selina Doohan were there at the time.
• 38:57
  And they were there.
• 38:59
  I was in practice.
• 39:00
  And then I got three or four days there where I don't remember really what happened.
• 39:05
  But we went to Miami.
• 39:06
  And next thing I know, we're in the Bahamas on holiday.
• 39:09
  And when I think back, I don't really remember how I got there or what happened.
• 39:12
  That was sort of the end of it, really.
• 39:14
  How did you get on top of all that then?
• 39:16
  I don't reckon I did.
• 39:17
  I reckon I went back and tried to race and tried to do a few things and couldn't really get going in the car.
• 39:23
  And then I just was like, right, I just got to get home and sort out what's going on.
• 39:28
  Did you ultimately then, you know, you're talking about a feel and reaction time thing.
• 39:34
  Is that what you're saying?
• 39:35
  You weren't as sharp or what was it?
• 39:37
  Yeah, I just was not driving the car very well and not enjoying it and had a decent whack on the head.
• 39:46
  So I think I pulled out, didn't finish the last race, came home and was happy just to chill out.
• 39:56
  I probably didn't really want to go racing anymore.
• 39:58
  Yeah.
• 40:00
  I was at the point where I was just going to do something else.
• 40:03
  Yeah.
• 40:03
  So how did the spark reignite then?
• 40:05
  What did you do to, I mean, clearly you loved it and had done since you were little, but what made you keep going then?
• 40:12
  I was actually dad.
• 40:13
  He was like, Bathurst is coming up.
• 40:17
  Do you want to do it?
• 40:19
  I'm like, no, I don't really care.
• 40:21
  He goes, well, you better do it.
• 40:21
  You'll probably never race again.
• 40:23
  I think he was more worried about me not racing again than me not racing again.
• 40:28
  So he'd been talking to Brad and Kim and they wanted me in the Audi.
• 40:34
  So that's what happened.
• 40:36
  He pushed me into it.
• 40:37
  I went, okay, I'll go and do it.
• 40:39
  And as soon as I got back in the car at Bathurst and drove out the pit lane, I was like, well, yeah, this is where I'm meant to be.
• 40:44
  I'm back in a car.
• 40:44
  I can understand what's going on again.
• 40:47
  Those guys had been my rivals for such a long time, but it was awesome to see how they operated.
• 40:53
  Like their team environment was...
• 40:55
  was way better than what we had going on at BMW under, you know, it was just a shit environment, and Brad and Kim's environment was awesome.
• 41:04
  The car, what was the car like to drive too?
• 41:06
  Because it was the first time you'd sort of hopped in the rival machine.
• 41:09
  It was easy.
• 41:10
  Was it?
• 41:10
  Yeah, yeah, it just...
• 41:12
  It was a very simple, easy car.
• 41:14
  You didn't have to hustle it like the BMW.
• 41:15
  It just did everything you wanted it to do to a certain point.
• 41:18
  If you tried to make it go any faster, that's as fast as it went.
• 41:21
  With the BMW, you could go, well, I'll just put the balls on the dash and hang on here and hopefully it makes it out the other side.
• 41:26
  But the four-wheel drive car was a bit easier to drive.
• 41:31
  Let's talk about Bathurst for a second here because I look at it, mate, and I feel at times like you have a little bit of a love-hate relationship with it.
• 41:39
  I mean, you talked about the class when you had there before.
• 41:41
  I think you had another one in 94.
• 41:43
  94, Alfred Hager.
• 41:45
  Yeah.
• 41:45
  Yeah.
• 41:45
  So, I mean, there'd been some success there.
• 41:47
  I've got a good story about that.
• 41:48
  Tell us, tell us.
• 41:50
  So, Alfred's got a stutter, a real bad stutter, and so has Pete Gagan.
• 41:58
  Got a stutter.
• 41:58
  So I go take Alfred down the park hotel with Mike Gagan, one of my best mates, and then Pete's in there having a beer and Alfred comes in and I said, oh, Alfred, this is Pete.
• 42:11
  And he goes, no, no, no, nice to meet you, Pete.
• 42:13
  And Pete goes, are you taking the piss out of me?
• 42:18
  So two guys had a stuttering.
• 42:20
  Then I had to explain real quickly that they both got stutters and they were pretty good mates after that.
• 42:25
  I'll find it all out.
• 42:27
  So let's get to 97.
• 42:28
  So you and Craig Baird crossed the line first.
• 42:31
  There is a rule breach, and the winner's trophy ultimately goes to your teammates, David and Jeff Brabham.
• 42:37
  Take us back to that day.
• 42:39
  How did it make you feel, and how long did it take you to put that behind you?
• 42:44
  Oh, I probably didn't really put it behind me until what happened with Chas, to tell you the truth.
• 42:49
  Really?
• 42:49
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 42:50
  It ate you that much?
• 42:51
  Oh, yeah.
• 42:52
  Look, I put the thing on pole, blitzed it, was going all right, wanted to get back in the car.
• 42:57
  Then Seppi and Lion-Williamson decided that I wasn't going to get back in the car, and I was, like, blowing up.
• 43:02
  Like, come on, you know?
• 43:04
  Like, I was clearly way quicker than Craig was in that car, and I thought, well, I'm in it.
• 43:09
  Anyway, they didn't let me back in the car, and then, you know, they just stuffed the whole thing completely up, so...
• 43:17
  And then...
• 43:18
  The bridge was too many laps for one driver, is that correct?
• 43:20
  Yeah, and then they knew it and they just left him in there.
• 43:22
  Actually, Tim Schenken even come down and said, hey, you need to fix that up, and they just kept going.
• 43:26
  So I'm like, what's going on here?
• 43:28
  So anyway, I got... Craig didn't know either.
• 43:31
  He's up on the...
• 43:32
  He's doing donuts and up on the podium celebrating, and I'm like, dude, we're in the shit here.
• 43:36
  We're not going to keep this trophy.
• 43:40
  And then I went, looked through the rule book, and then there was a grey area about continuous driving.
• 43:46
  So I said, oh, continuous driving, you did come in the pit, da-da-da-da.
• 43:49
  I come up with a bit of a story about how we could appeal it.
• 43:53
  And then, obviously, BMW owned and ran the team.
• 43:56
  So with David and Jeff still winning the race, they didn't really push our fight too much.
• 44:04
  They got the victory they wanted, which was great for David and Geoff.
• 44:07
  I don't begrudge them one bit.
• 44:09
  I think it's fantastic that they won the race, and it was fantastic from BMW, and Craig and I missed out.
• 44:15
  When you look back now, mate, you talked about opening the rule book and looking for the continuous clause and things like that.
• 44:21
  Have you always been good at that, at knowing that rule book quite intimately?
• 44:26
  Yeah, I just...
• 44:28
  I've got a logic.
• 44:29
  When I look at something, I look at it logically and try and think how that could, you know, how you could interpret that or how you could see it.
• 44:37
  I've just got a...
• 44:39
  I don't know how.
• 44:39
  I've just got a really good sense of having a good helicopter view of what's going on while the heat's on.
• 44:47
  Yeah.
• 44:47
  So...
• 44:48
  Yeah, even those races we did in the Bathurst 12 hour in Holtys car, I'd call the strategy from the car.
• 44:54
  Wow.
• 44:55
  Yeah, so you'd just give me the information, okay, this is what we're going to do, what's the fuels left, what tyres, what, what, what, okay, let's do that.
• 45:02
  So that's, I don't know why, I don't know how, I just got an idea of how it all works.
• 45:07
  So you get reinvigorated after the crash of detail before and then driving with Brad and so on, and there's a push into supercars, if you like, that whole big Kev period.
• 45:17
  I think you had an ex-HRT car as well, didn't you?
• 45:20
  You won the Winton round in 01.
• 45:22
  What was that?
• 45:23
  Calder Park.
• 45:24
  Sorry, Calder Park at 01.
• 45:24
  What am I saying?
• 45:25
  Calder Park at 01.
• 45:28
  That was a great chapter, mate, wasn't it?
• 45:29
  Yeah, that was good.
• 45:30
  Like, we...
• 45:32
  I got on top of that car pretty quickly, loved the Bridgestone tyre, had a good feel for it, won that race.
• 45:39
  I said, we're going to go places, this is going to be good.
• 45:42
  Then we started making our own cars, making our team better.
• 45:47
  And to sum it all up, to be a driver and run a team, you do both things pretty badly.
• 45:53
  Yeah.
• 45:55
  That's looking back on it.
• 45:56
  It was just like, oh, yeah, okay.
• 45:59
  I wasn't driving good.
• 46:00
  I was trying to run the team.
• 46:01
  I wasn't doing that good.
• 46:03
  You can't be a good driver and a good team owner.
• 46:06
  You can only be one, I reckon.
• 46:08
  The acquisition of the HRT car was beautifully timed.
• 46:13
  They were doing incredibly well.
• 46:15
  To acquire that was a bit of a coup, wasn't it?
• 46:18
  Yeah.
• 46:20
  It was actually James Rosenberg had it.
• 46:22
  And then he'd had it for sale.
• 46:24
  And I just thought in auto action, because I whacked that car at Oran Park, I need a replacement car.
• 46:31
  And I actually rang him up and lowballed him, and he took it, took the offer.
• 46:36
  So...
• 46:37
  And I've still got a great relationship with James right up until these days.
• 46:41
  He's still an amazing guy.
• 46:43
  He's done a lot for the sport and helped a lot of people.
• 46:46
  He's one of those behind-the-scenes guys.
• 46:48
  He should be in the Hall of Fame, that guy, mate.
• 46:50
  There'd be no one in the Hall of Fame without people like him.
• 46:53
  You alluded to it there a moment ago, so let's talk about it.
• 46:56
  Fans have been asking about it on Facebook and things.
• 46:58
  The 2000 fireball crash at Oran Park, what are your recollections of that and how it all unfolded?
• 47:06
  Yeah, it's pretty... Larry stalled and I just hit the back of Larry, which was enough to bump start him.
• 47:14
  Then I stalled and then...
• 47:18
  Sat there on the grid, tried to refire the car, wouldn't refire, and then finally Mark Larkin come along and he was unsighted due to traffic and turned left, straight into me.
• 47:30
  So, yeah, he had a fair head of steam up when it happened.
• 47:33
  But, yeah.
• 47:35
  Can you remember things like...
• 47:39
  Did you pass out?
• 47:40
  Did the G impact?
• 47:41
  What sort of stuff can you recall all of the action?
• 47:43
  Yeah, I remember I couldn't feel my feet or legs and massive pain.
• 47:47
  I thought, right, don't move, just don't move, because something's wrong here.
• 47:50
  And then it started getting a bit hot, and somehow I got out of the car.
• 47:54
  I don't know how I got out of the car, but I got out of the car because of the heat.
• 47:59
  Helicoptered out, went to Liverpool Hospital, was waiting down in there for a while.
• 48:03
  By the time I got to there, they just thought I'd been in a road crash.
• 48:07
  That's what they thought.
• 48:08
  Oh, where'd you crash?
• 48:09
  I was at Oran Park.
• 48:10
  Oh, where's that?
• 48:11
  What's your hidden?
• 48:12
  So I was in that hospital for probably two or three days.
• 48:16
  No one had really known I was there.
• 48:19
  The only guy that'd come to see me was Gary Coleman.
• 48:22
  Wow.
• 48:23
  Chaplain.
• 48:23
  Chaplain Gary Coleman.
• 48:24
  Yeah, he was there straight away and was like, what's going on?
• 48:29
  He was straight on, but there was nothing from supercars, no protocols in place.
• 48:33
  I was just in the public hospital waiting to work out what was wrong with me.
• 48:40
  and then not getting what I needed to get.
• 48:41
  Like, hey, I've got private health insurance.
• 48:44
  I'm paid up, ready to go.
• 48:45
  Get me there.
• 48:46
  I don't need to wait.
• 48:47
  And then eventually what happened was my mum come down.
• 48:51
  She saw what was going on.
• 48:53
  I unplugged everything, pulled all the shit out.
• 48:55
  I'm out of here.
• 48:56
  Yeah, and just got myself out of there, got on a plane, and then went straight to the local Pindara Hospital here and got a specialist onto it, and then got sorted out what was going on.
• 49:07
  I can vividly remember you getting off the plane in a wheelchair, if memory serves, and they had to sort of lower you down.
• 49:14
  What, from an injury point of view, as we sit here now nearly 20 years later, do you still have or suffer from any effects of that?
• 49:23
  Yeah, my right, the ball on my right foot and my right toe are still numb.
• 49:27
  Really?
• 49:28
  Yeah.
• 49:28
  Yeah.
• 49:29
  Yeah, so that's still numb from that.
• 49:32
  Crazy, crazy scary.
• 49:33
  And it did huge, huge damage to the car, mate.
• 49:36
  Yeah, and the car...
• 49:38
  I've still got the car.
• 49:39
  Do you?
• 49:40
  Yeah, so we stripped everything out of the car...
• 49:43
  sold all the parts off it and kept the body shell.
• 49:45
  But that car now, that'd be a $600,000, $700,000 race car now.
• 49:49
  And there's people now circling around for that body shell.
• 49:53
  A couple of people have tried to buy it off me because it was one of the cars Lounge used to win the championship.
• 50:01
  So I think there was 11 races that year, and he drove that for seven or eight races of that championship.
• 50:07
  And is it just the bent, damaged chassis?
• 50:10
  What state is it in now?
• 50:11
  Oh, you'd fix it pretty easy now.
• 50:13
  Back in those days, you'd go, oh, cheaper to build a new one.
• 50:15
  But yeah, you could fix it pretty easily.
• 50:18
  You won't sell it though?
• 50:20
  To the right guy.
• 50:21
  To the right guy.
• 50:22
  Yeah, I would.
• 50:24
  One guy come up to buy it, and when he got up there, I agreed on the price, and he tried to label me five grand, so I just told him to f*** off, you know?
• 50:35
  As only you can do, mate.
• 50:36
  I love it.
• 50:37
  I love it.
• 50:39
  Owen Kelly reminded me, quite rightly reminded me of a great story.
• 50:43
  Because there's a lot of internationals that have come through, even in the supercar phase and super touring phase with you.
• 50:49
  I can recall Kevin Schwantz, former 500cc racer at one point.
• 50:54
  But Owen reminded me of a great story regarding Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR legend.
• 51:00
  turning some laps in one of your cars but share with our audience because at the same time i think wasn't there a big press launch happening at the track and the press had no idea that earnhardt was behind the wheel is that is that the story would come out later but at the time i'm told they didn't they didn't know is that right yeah no one knew he was there so um where were you queensland raceway queensland raceway we they turned up
• 51:26
  Toged for one of my good mates now, which was one of Junior's good mates, rolled into our garage at Sandown.
• 51:32
  Long story short, me and Owen got talking to him.
• 51:35
  They said they're coming to the Gold Coast.
• 51:37
  They come up to the Gold Coast.
• 51:38
  We started hanging out, take them up to Norwell, show them the thing.
• 51:41
  We drive around in the school cars and he goes, I wouldn't mind having to drive one of those cars.
• 51:45
  I said, yeah, no worries.
• 51:45
  Let's go.
• 51:47
  So we loaded up the stuff.
• 51:50
  Actually, the press launch was Russell being announced.
• 51:53
  I'm pretty sure he was leaving Stone Brothers to come to you, wasn't it?
• 51:56
  Yeah, and he was coming to drive our car for the first time.
• 51:58
  So we just stuck the other car in the trailer and they all come out.
• 52:03
  And then we just put Dale in Owen's suit and helmet.
• 52:09
  Walked out of the truck with a helmet on.
• 52:11
  He drove around there all day, took his mates for a ride.
• 52:14
  They were in the car for about four hours driving around.
• 52:17
  In the meantime, the press launch is unfolding and they don't know.
• 52:20
  No one knew he was there, mate.
• 52:22
  No one knew he was there.
• 52:23
  Gerald McDonough knew he was there and got a few spy pics, but no one knew he was there.
• 52:29
  It was pretty cool.
• 52:30
  That's cool.
• 52:30
  He's got a ripping podcast.
• 52:32
  He's an amazing guy.
• 52:33
  How did he go?
• 52:34
  Because they're a unique car, aren't they, compared to what he's been driving?
• 52:37
  Yeah, he's straight on it, mate.
• 52:38
  Yeah, he's straight on it and started telling you what it was different to a NASCAR.
• 52:42
  It's got more forward bite or something.
• 52:44
  He just had all these things that we didn't really understand what he was talking about.
• 52:47
  But yeah, he was straight on the gas.
• 52:49
  Amazing.
• 52:50
  Am I right in saying that 2012, I think a fan has even asked this on Twitter or social media, mate, that your last full-time race was at Oran Park?
• 52:59
  Is that right?
• 53:00
  And it was kind of, because Scafie was pulling the pin at the same time, so it probably went under the radar a bit more.
• 53:08
  But you drove like a demon that day, mate.
• 53:10
  Was it something in you, or was it just that you loved that place?
• 53:13
  What was it that made you... Oh, Oran Park?
• 53:16
  It's a driver's track.
• 53:17
  You know, you can...
• 53:19
  You can do stuff that makes a difference just because of the topography of the track.
• 53:24
  You can bomb it over a corner.
• 53:26
  You can try and do different stuff.
• 53:27
  You can bomb a kerb.
• 53:29
  You can break lake because you come down the hill and the front gets loaded.
• 53:34
  So, yeah, if you think about how you drive the car there, you can make speed.
• 53:38
  Lakeside's another track like that as well.
• 53:40
  And Bathurst, so that's...
• 53:43
  And there's not many tracks left like that anymore.
• 53:45
  It's a shame that Orrin Park is gone.
• 53:46
  It's still cool that Lakeside exists, isn't it?
• 53:50
  It is good.
• 53:51
  They've changed it a little bit, made it a little bit easier through the kink and the back under the bridge, but it's still there and it gets used all the time for sprints and club racing.
• 54:01
  Awesome.
• 54:01
  Bathurst Triple Crown, so you have a six-hour win on your CV, you have a 12-hour win, very, very cool.
• 54:07
  And then the final piece of the puzzle, the big one, mate, 2014, as you said, with Chas.
• 54:13
  I mean, that was in the history of the race.
• 54:15
  It's one of the craziest days.
• 54:18
  And I can vividly remember you...
• 54:20
  going to the Supercars Awards at the end of the year.
• 54:24
  And, yeah, a little bit of a tear in your eye, I reckon.
• 54:26
  And was there a point either between winning the race and maybe that awards night where you went, that's it from a top-tier point of view for me?
• 54:35
  Was there a decision that you made?
• 54:37
  And when did you make it?
• 54:39
  Actually, you said something on the night, and I sort of did a double take.
• 54:43
  Like, was that a headline?
• 54:44
  Yeah, to...
• 54:47
  One of the first persons to come and see me after the race was Roland.
• 54:52
  And he said, right, that's it.
• 54:53
  You should stop right now.
• 54:55
  Well done, mate.
• 54:56
  You've been kissed on a dick by a fairy.
• 54:57
  You've won the race.
• 54:58
  The one that, you know, whatever it was, which we were, which I was.
• 55:02
  And he said, that's it, mate.
• 55:04
  Don't, that's how you have to stop.
• 55:06
  And that just sat with me over.
• 55:07
  I said, okay, I need to think about that.
• 55:09
  I need to think about that.
• 55:10
  And then...
• 55:11
  logically it probably took a year to sink in or a year and a half to sink in but looking back it was it was the right decision and it was Roland's advice actually because if I had gone back I just would have done a shit job you know I was I was struggling there as it was what are your recollections of the day because as I mean there was a stoppage there was track breakup there was you know you guys were well down the starting order weren't you so
• 55:32
  I just got put in there to look after Chas because I'm good with young blokes and Rod's like, hey, what do you think about doing this?
• 55:37
  And I'm like, the last time he was there, he was hanging out of the fence.
• 55:39
  We just need someone to keep an eye on him.
• 55:41
  I'm like, yeah, that's me.
• 55:42
  I can do that job.
• 55:43
  No problem at all.
• 55:43
  I'm great with that.
• 55:44
  So when he got past, I think he passed Russell under a red flag in qualifying and we got sent to the back of the grid.
• 55:52
  So we rubbed out of qualifying and we're going to start last.
• 55:55
  So that's the first thing that went wrong that went right.
• 55:58
  because that allowed me to start the car with no pressure.
• 56:02
  No pressure.
• 56:02
  So I remember at the time,
• 56:06
  Adam's gone, you're going to start the car.
• 56:07
  And I'm like, oh, I should have done if I want to do that, mate.
• 56:09
  And he's like, no, you'll be right down the back.
• 56:11
  And I went, oh, yeah, okay.
• 56:13
  So I was still not quite sure about it.
• 56:15
  And I was still running my Dunlop Series car, and I was talking to Ian Wally, Wally.
• 56:20
  And he said, oh, they want me to start the car.
• 56:22
  He goes, oh, that's the best place for you, mate, you know.
• 56:24
  I'm like, oh, okay, no worries.
• 56:26
  So I just sat on the back of the train and cruised along and saved fuel and had a lovely time sitting at the back of the pack all day and never really got...
• 56:32
  gotten to to any sort of strive and um that's how that's how it panned out really so me starting him getting the excluded from qualifying me starting at the back allowed us to get off sync you know and i was i was happy enough for i could i was up against the main gun drivers so if i'm sitting at the back i'm sitting at the back you know not no big deal how much did that one that win mean to you mate
• 56:57
  Yeah, man, everything.
• 56:58
  It was... That's probably what...
• 57:02
  the only thing I ever dreamt of.
• 57:03
  So it was a real life-changing experience, you know, a life-changing experience for me.
• 57:08
  You just go from being a dickhead with a race car to a hero in overnight.
• 57:16
  So, you know, guys that win multiple Bathurst, just that's why they're up there as a, you know, someone like Dick, I understand why someone like Dick is so a hero to so many people now, for sure.
• 57:29
  You mentioned Roland Dane before, team boss at Triple Eight.
• 57:32
  You two have become good friends.
• 57:33
  You road tripped with him in the US.
• 57:36
  What car, where did you drive, and is it true that Roland got a tat on the trip?
• 57:42
  It's 100% true.
• 57:45
  Another good mate, Boris, said, I said, I said, mate, I want to get a police car.
• 57:49
  Can you find me some police car?
• 57:52
  So he goes, yeah, yeah, man, I've got you this.
• 57:55
  I'm up at the auctions.
• 57:56
  There's a Crown Vic X Washington State troopers car coming through.
• 58:01
  I think I can get it for two and a half grand.
• 58:03
  I said, that's the car we want.
• 58:06
  So we roll down to Boris's and he's got this state troopers, Crown Vic patrol car there.
• 58:11
  It's still got the aerials and everything on it, the light on the side.
• 58:15
  And it hasn't got any registration or insurance.
• 58:18
  And he goes, you'll be right.
• 58:20
  And he gives us, he's got a car dealership in partnership with Rick Hendrick.
• 58:24
  So he gives us this Hendrick Automotive dealer tag, like a dealer plate.
• 58:29
  Put that on the dash.
• 58:30
  Here's my business card.
• 58:31
  If you get into shit, give me a call.
• 58:35
  So...
• 58:36
  So we drive this thing, so we drive it back up into West Hollywood, LA.
• 58:41
  We go out to this Italian restaurant this night, big night, and there's all these Italian wines, and Roland's been an expert on the wine list and having a good time trying to impress the girls we're with.
• 58:53
  And then, anyway, there's a tattoo shop across the road, so we get that fist, he ends up in the tattoo shop and gets a triple eight logo tattooed on his... Did you dare him?
• 59:03
  Yeah.
• 59:04
  Yeah, oh, yeah.
• 59:05
  I think he was trying to show off to the bird.
• 59:08
  He was trying to impress or whatever.
• 59:11
  Anyway, he ended up in there.
• 59:12
  We got the tattoo.
• 59:12
  Then we went to Vegas and then Mick Doohan hooked us up for some VIP nightclub seats in Vegas.
• 59:18
  He had a big night there.
• 59:19
  Then El Paso.
• 59:23
  And we finally got to the circuit.
• 59:24
  We drove to Circuit Americas.
• 59:26
  We drove to the Circuit Americas.
• 59:27
  But the last...
• 59:29
  The last 300 miles, we did it on seven cylinders with an open cylinder.
• 59:34
  So I've still got a video of this thing like... And he went... And I remember, this is how good he is.
• 59:41
  We were like having the wildest time, having a good time in this car.
• 59:45
  As soon as we roll up the circuit, he gets out of the car and goes straight into Roland Dane, the racing Roland Dane.
• 59:51
  It's like, boom, everything's business now, mate.
• 59:54
  Yeah, it's pretty funny.
• 59:57
  On paper, if people didn't know you both, you'd almost seem like the odd couple.
• 1:00:01
  Why is it that you get on so well?
• 1:00:04
  I spoke about that the other day.
• 1:00:05
  I said we both like the same thing, girls and cars.
• 1:00:10
  He is a perfectionist when he gets in race mode.
• 1:00:12
  I do like that.
• 1:00:13
  Mate, if I'm to speak frankly for a second, some in the paddock, you know, they look at you and they think rich kid or they think, you know, lucky sperm club or whatever.
• 1:00:24
  But the Paul Morris I have seen over time...
• 1:00:27
  you've had an eye for looking out for the young racer.
• 1:00:30
  You notice someone that's doing the hard yards, trying to stitch something together, and you'll often go and help them with advice or maybe even roll your sleeves up in some way to assist them in that process.
• 1:00:44
  I think there are times where, and maybe the show you're doing with Russell has helped change that,
• 1:00:49
  I think you've been a bit misunderstood sometimes.
• 1:00:51
  Do you feel that way?
• 1:00:52
  Oh, yeah, it's easy.
• 1:00:54
  Like, I just didn't wake up one day and there was a bag of gold beside the bed.
• 1:00:57
  You know, like... Me and my dad have worked bloody hard to have what we've got and still continue to do.
• 1:01:03
  So, the business that we have, we've built together.
• 1:01:07
  You know, when...
• 1:01:09
  Dad was a life insurance salesman, and when we started the mail-order business, we started it together.
• 1:01:13
  But people know me, know that.
• 1:01:16
  But, yeah, you get misunderstood all the time.
• 1:01:18
  But what do you do?
• 1:01:19
  I just joke about it now and go, yeah, I'm really good, mate.
• 1:01:21
  I chose my parents well, you know.
• 1:01:25
  What can you do?
• 1:01:27
  Did you ever have a day where you were just professional race rival?
• 1:01:31
  Was there a period or were you always doing something with the business, always helping Dad out in some way?
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, even when I was factory employed by BMW, I still went to work.
• 1:01:42
  When I wasn't at the racetrack, I went to work.
• 1:01:44
  I always went to work.
• 1:01:45
  It was just what I was brought up to do.
• 1:01:50
  Norwell Motorplex, you touched on that before.
• 1:01:52
  For those that are listening that haven't been there, you've got to go and check it out.
• 1:01:54
  Halfway, more or less, between the Gold Coast and Brisbane.
• 1:01:58
  It's been your home since the Frank Gardner BMW days.
• 1:02:03
  You spent a lot of time there.
• 1:02:04
  In addition to the various events, lots of driver coaching nowadays.
• 1:02:10
  Who in your mind, and maybe we're seeing it with Anton Di Pasquale, who are the stars of the future that you see massive potential in?
• 1:02:20
  Well, definitely Anton.
• 1:02:24
  To be honest, the kids or the young drivers, and I say drivers because I mean men and women, so the car doesn't know if it's got a female or a male driving it.
• 1:02:36
  So a driver's a driver in my books.
• 1:02:39
  So the drivers coming through now that are coming through karting at such a young age, it just amazes me how good they are and how they understand.
• 1:02:51
  So-
• 1:02:54
  You know, Anton was the... Anton's the first guy I took and said, if you listen to everything I'll tell you, going back to what Frank did for me, that result will pop out.
• 1:03:05
  So I tried to do that with someone like Andre.
• 1:03:09
  I'm going to work with him.
• 1:03:10
  I tried to do that with Renee.
• 1:03:11
  They fell in love, moved to Melbourne and just sat in bed eating Mars bars and basically messed their careers up.
• 1:03:18
  Andre got his back on track, which was great for him, but Renee didn't.
• 1:03:22
  And then...
• 1:03:24
  Then when Anton came along, he's the first guy that said, listen to everything I told him.
• 1:03:29
  And I'm sure sometimes he looked at me and thought, well, I'll just listen to what he says and not do that.
• 1:03:33
  And we still have that relationship today.
• 1:03:36
  And I think that's why he's so good and got through so quickly.
• 1:03:40
  I've made a lot of mistakes, but you learn by them.
• 1:03:43
  So if I can see the mistake about to happen, I can stop it from happening to him.
• 1:03:48
  So that's sort of what it is.
• 1:03:49
  And even before and after every race now, there's a massive amount of communication that goes on between us.
• 1:03:56
  And you taking, no doubt, that helicopter view and noticing things and talking about that stuff.
• 1:04:01
  Yeah, because you're not under pressure.
• 1:04:02
  You're not under pressure.
• 1:04:04
  I'm sticking back looking at it all.
• 1:04:06
  And it's even easier now that I'm not actually involved in running the team.
• 1:04:11
  Like, I can look at what he does at Erebus and have a really good view of it, you know.
• 1:04:16
  I can see stuff going on there that even the guys in the team can't see, you know.
• 1:04:23
  You clearly enjoy this aspect.
• 1:04:25
  What I'm intrigued about is how much of it is the driver coaching, the Frank Gardner stuff that you're talking about, what to do in the car and behind the wheel.
• 1:04:33
  But every human being is different, mate.
• 1:04:35
  So how you connect with them, how you communicate with them, they all operate very differently.
• 1:04:38
  So a lot of it is people skill too, isn't it?
• 1:04:42
  I suppose it is people's skills, but I think in... Obviously, I talk to people a lot nicer than Frank.
• 1:04:50
  Frank was very direct, you know, it was that way.
• 1:04:51
  So I'm not as...
• 1:04:54
  If I need to be, I can be.
• 1:04:56
  Like someone with Brock Feeney, for example, I'll give him a chance to try and join him, but if I know it's not right and not the way, I'll just say it and say, right, that's the way we're going and that's what we're doing.
• 1:05:09
  And he listens?
• 1:05:10
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:11
  Yeah, he listens.
• 1:05:12
  And they listen more because when you tell them what's going to happen, it actually happens.
• 1:05:16
  It's pretty funny how that whole thing's repeating itself would happen with Frank and me.
• 1:05:20
  Have there been examples?
• 1:05:22
  I think one listener, I think his name's Carl Phillips, asked about Richie Stanaway, for example.
• 1:05:28
  Did you work with him and how did that go?
• 1:05:30
  I worked with Richie, spent a couple of days with him.
• 1:05:35
  I reckon I haven't seen him since.
• 1:05:40
  So, you know, you just don't...
• 1:05:43
  You don't go to school for one day and pass grade 12, do you?
• 1:05:47
  So the driver coaching and the way you've got to stick at it.
• 1:05:51
  You've got to stick at it.
• 1:05:52
  It's something you've got to do like you would study for anything.
• 1:05:55
  So I think that's where that's fallen down.
• 1:05:59
  He's been up once.
• 1:06:01
  I reckon got to a fair point.
• 1:06:03
  But if you're not reviewing what you're still doing wrong and trying to fix it, you can't really...
• 1:06:09
  fix the problem so I haven't interacted with those guys since since they come and did the two days with them so I don't know where they are I don't know what they're doing but um I can tell you they're not going to sort it out because I can still watch the tv and still see all the shit they're doing wrong I've heard maybe you can't tell me too much about this there's you and there is also the whisperer is this is this true and what can you tell us about the whisperer
• 1:06:35
  Robbo the Whisperer?
• 1:06:35
  Oh, good, good.
• 1:06:37
  People might like to know a little bit more about this.
• 1:06:38
  You're talking about Robbo the driving coach?
• 1:06:41
  Yeah, so Robbo's my right-hand man at Norwell.
• 1:06:45
  So Robbo raced, been racing for a long time and raced in utes.
• 1:06:51
  Then did a job.
• 1:06:52
  I gave him a job about 10 years ago, and I just started teaching him everything I know.
• 1:06:56
  But he's actually...
• 1:06:59
  He's actually probably the best driving coach in the world, I reckon.
• 1:07:02
  Really?
• 1:07:03
  Yeah.
• 1:07:03
  He is that good.
• 1:07:05
  What gives you that sense?
• 1:07:07
  Why do you say that?
• 1:07:09
  Firstly, because he's doing it every day.
• 1:07:11
  So it's something you're doing every day.
• 1:07:13
  And the amount of people he gets to see and understand, the curriculum keeps growing.
• 1:07:20
  So he's not stale.
• 1:07:22
  and his communication skills and the way he explains things is very simple and very easy to understand.
• 1:07:29
  Your own son I saw on socials, Nash, the Flash, he's had his first race in a Hyundai Accel.
• 1:07:38
  passionate about it?
• 1:07:39
  Is he following in dad's footsteps?
• 1:07:41
  And I ask that with a little bit of a kind of loaded question, mate, because he's from the gamer generation.
• 1:07:46
  So is he into it as much as you and will he follow that path?
• 1:07:49
  That's for him to work out, but...
• 1:07:53
  um i think to set the scene he's been around racing his whole life never really wanted to drive then the week before so two weeks ago he come to me after he finished winton he'd been down seeing the honda xl's race at winton and said i want to go and race a honda xl at queensland raceway next weekend and i'm like yeah what
• 1:08:16
  So, like you did, you literally went out and bought a car, did you?
• 1:08:18
  No, I didn't.
• 1:08:19
  I didn't do anything.
• 1:08:21
  I rang up a mate and said, have you got a car?
• 1:08:23
  And he said, yeah, I've got a car.
• 1:08:24
  It's got no engine, gearbox or suspension in it.
• 1:08:27
  I'll drop it down.
• 1:08:28
  And then, so, right, Nash, you're having a day off school and...
• 1:08:34
  He normally works at Norwell on a Friday anyway as an apprentice mechanic.
• 1:08:37
  He does a school-based apprenticeship.
• 1:08:38
  There's your car.
• 1:08:39
  There's all your shit.
• 1:08:40
  See if you can get it going.
• 1:08:42
  And he got it going, but it wasn't going too well.
• 1:08:46
  And all he did was take it to the track and it broke down every time he drove it.
• 1:08:48
  Bit of learning.
• 1:08:51
  But it was good for him and he still had a good time.
• 1:08:55
  So now we've got to work on getting him a better car.
• 1:08:57
  But, yeah, I...
• 1:09:00
  I want him to understand that his preparation and all that's got to be key and he needs to enjoy working on the car himself and understand where it comes from.
• 1:09:11
  Does he listen to you?
• 1:09:12
  Yeah, he just loves it.
• 1:09:14
  I think he's finally worked out it's a team sport.
• 1:09:16
  Yeah, he's like, oh, there's all these cool people around here that like doing the same thing I'm doing.
• 1:09:22
  So I hope he just – I don't care how hard he gets into it or whatever he wants to do as a hobby or a career or whatever as long as he's hanging around good people and having a good time.
• 1:09:31
  Yeah, cool.
• 1:09:32
  Cool.
• 1:09:34
  Final sort of aspect of your racing career.
• 1:09:35
  I've got a couple more questions here, but you've done some different stuff in the latter part of time.
• 1:09:41
  Firstly, I want to talk about sprint car racing because I love Speedway.
• 1:09:45
  Not only did you race here, but Owen reminded me, you went to the Knoxville Nationals.
• 1:09:49
  Donnie Schott's helped tee up a car for you and things like that, didn't he?
• 1:09:52
  Yeah, and, mate, that was crazy.
• 1:09:56
  I don't know why I even did that.
• 1:09:57
  What was that like?
• 1:09:59
  That is a legendary place, mate.
• 1:10:01
  I was scared shitless.
• 1:10:02
  It was the most scared I've ever been in my whole entire life.
• 1:10:04
  Why?
• 1:10:06
  Because you just roll up to this place.
• 1:10:08
  And it's fast.
• 1:10:10
  The biggest track I've been on is a quarter mile.
• 1:10:12
  So we roll up to this half-mile racetrack.
• 1:10:17
  Donnie teed up the car.
• 1:10:18
  It was a nice car.
• 1:10:18
  Everything was cool.
• 1:10:20
  And I'm like, you sure I can do this?
• 1:10:22
  And he's like, yeah, you'll be fine, mate.
• 1:10:24
  No worries.
• 1:10:24
  I'm like, okay.
• 1:10:27
  If you said it's fine, I'm going to be okay.
• 1:10:29
  So...
• 1:10:30
  When you roll in the gate, you just pull up and you pull a number and that determines where you grid and where you go out in qualifying.
• 1:10:39
  So there's no practice, there's no nothing.
• 1:10:40
  You just turn up and go.
• 1:10:41
  So I draw a number...
• 1:10:44
  One.
• 1:10:44
  I'm first car out, so there's not even a line on the track, there's not anything, and I've got Jack Hoddenchild next to me, then Sammy Swindell next side down.
• 1:10:54
  I'm like, what the hell am I doing in this place?
• 1:10:57
  Anyway, that Jack Hoddenchild actually, he started giving me a bit of a hand, and that Sammy Swindell just...
• 1:11:04
  Didn't even want to know who I was.
• 1:11:06
  And by the end of the week, a lot of people gave me a hand.
• 1:11:09
  I think I actually, in qualifying, I actually, the header pipe fell off.
• 1:11:15
  I rolled into the pit area and just sat there.
• 1:11:19
  And the first person that was over there to fix it was Brook Tattnall.
• 1:11:24
  Awesome, awesome.
• 1:11:25
  Yeah.
• 1:11:26
  What are you doing, dude?
• 1:11:27
  Your header pipe's hanging off.
• 1:11:29
  Oh, hang on, run back to my trailer, put it back on and...
• 1:11:32
  So, yeah, amazing experience.
• 1:11:34
  And it took me to the, you know, I think I was in the Z main or something.
• 1:11:39
  But I did it.
• 1:11:40
  I went and done it.
• 1:11:40
  It was a fantastic experience.
• 1:11:42
  So not many people can say they've done that race.
• 1:11:44
  So it's pretty cool to do it.
• 1:11:46
  Very cool.
• 1:11:47
  Brooke, like his late father, is a gun in Speedway and has spent a lot of time in the States.
• 1:11:52
  He actually crossed paths in Super Touring for a while too.
• 1:11:54
  Drove a Vectra, which I think is cool.
• 1:11:57
  I want to just for a moment talk about that because it is the antithesis, mate, of most of the race cars that you've driven over time.
• 1:12:04
  It's like sitting on a dunny with, what, 800 horsepower underneath your right foot and you need the wing to work.
• 1:12:09
  You've got to make it work, don't you?
• 1:12:11
  You've got to get the wing working and you've got to have everything going for you.
• 1:12:17
  To me, it was a way I could go and race at the local track and still get my rocks off and still hang around with people that like racing and just get back to grassroots racing where there's people there that just want to race because they can.
• 1:12:30
  The commercial side's out of it and you can go and sling some clay and get dirty and tip upside down.
• 1:12:35
  I think I did it for 10 years.
• 1:12:38
  You know, I won a couple of races, a few podiums here and there.
• 1:12:44
  Held my own in the World Series.
• 1:12:45
  I think I won a couple of heat races, made it into the A-Main a couple of times.
• 1:12:48
  But I was never, ever going to be...
• 1:12:50
  that little extra bit that you needed to grow up growing it, I was never going to get that, you know.
• 1:12:55
  So, yeah, that was sort of when I sort of hit, I think, about 50, 50, two years ago.
• 1:13:02
  I thought, oh, that'll probably be enough of that.
• 1:13:04
  I've survived that era in my life and there was some guys getting broken backs and ended up in wheelchairs and stuff and I thought, oh, that's probably time to pull the pin on that one.
• 1:13:13
  That said, though, you still clearly love that American style of racing and when the Americans come to town, like Donnie, for example.
• 1:13:20
  I mean, the way they go about their racing really connects with you, doesn't it?
• 1:13:26
  Yeah, they just unload the... Well, they put it back in the driver's hands that it's not over-officiated.
• 1:13:32
  So for me, all the racing in Australia is over-officiated.
• 1:13:36
  There's just too many rules, too many people telling you how to drive.
• 1:13:40
  At the end of the day, if there's two guys having a race and they have contact or whatever they have, those two blokes know exactly what went on.
• 1:13:47
  They're the only two blokes that know what went on.
• 1:13:49
  Just let them sort it out.
• 1:13:52
  That's the way it should be.
• 1:13:53
  If you had the reins, hypothetically, could be supercars, could be motorsport generally, and you could change two things, what would you change?
• 1:14:02
  Okay.
• 1:14:07
  I would change.
• 1:14:09
  I'd definitely change the code of conduct for racing.
• 1:14:13
  I'd just say- To loosen it up to, or what?
• 1:14:16
  Yeah, loosen it up, because it never used to exist.
• 1:14:19
  There was always this code of conduct, and I raced in an era where I raced against Peter Brock, Colin Bond, Jim Richards, Tony Longhurst, and all those guys, and if you got out of line, you knew it.
• 1:14:30
  You knew about it, and it didn't take long before you got put back in line.
• 1:14:33
  Like-
• 1:14:35
  If you messed up or rubbed something the wrong way, it was get out of the car, go up and have a, hey, young boy.
• 1:14:40
  When I was a young fella, that's not how we raced, that's how we do it.
• 1:14:43
  And that's how it got sorted out.
• 1:14:46
  So then when you started getting driving standards observers and all these people involved, you get put in a box that you can't...
• 1:14:55
  come out of and then I think the crashes and the accident damage is actually bigger because the the the rules are on the guy in front that's going slow that's holding the holding the train up you know you can't move that guy out of the way and get on with your race what about another thing you'd change if you if you could oh one one thing yeah
• 1:15:19
  I'd make Formula Ford the premier category in Australia for open wheel racing.
• 1:15:23
  I'd chuck that F4 thing in the bin.
• 1:15:27
  Go back to what you had.
• 1:15:28
  It works.
• 1:15:29
  Look at the people that have won it in Formula Ford.
• 1:15:32
  The category works.
• 1:15:33
  History shows that that is the best training ground for people that want to race cars in Australia.
• 1:15:38
  We're unique here.
• 1:15:39
  We don't have a massive open...
• 1:15:41
  The wings and slick thing just doesn't work.
• 1:15:44
  the chances are you're going to want to end up in supercars or a touring car and Formula Ford is proven to be the best training ground for that.
• 1:15:54
  Stadium trucks, what are they like to race?
• 1:15:56
  You won the title in 2017.
• 1:15:57
  Give, I mean, they had instant appeal, particularly with real young fans because it's action-packed, you know, the way you jump and launch the cars and things like that.
• 1:16:09
  It just seems completely different to what you were used to.
• 1:16:13
  It's actually not a lot different than driving a supercar.
• 1:16:16
  Really?
• 1:16:16
  Yeah.
• 1:16:17
  So for one, you've got a spool, so you've got a lock rear end.
• 1:16:20
  And the cars pitch and move around a lot.
• 1:16:23
  So the driving style I used to drive that truck was pretty similar to what I used in the supercar.
• 1:16:31
  And the jumps is just something you get used to.
• 1:16:33
  You just, after you... You brace yourself?
• 1:16:36
  No.
• 1:16:36
  The first couple of times you do, but in the end you don't even think about it.
• 1:16:39
  You just send the thing over the jump and you...
• 1:16:42
  all you're worrying about is landing and getting back on the gas.
• 1:16:44
  So amazing things to drive.
• 1:16:47
  Probably the best racing I've ever done.
• 1:16:50
  Again, there's...
• 1:16:52
  No rules.
• 1:16:52
  Okay.
• 1:16:53
  Well, there is rules.
• 1:16:54
  Side-to-side contact's acceptable.
• 1:16:56
  Front-to-rear contact is not.
• 1:16:59
  So, you know, if you get up underneath someone, you can leave them out of the way.
• 1:17:04
  And they're just limited on grip, limited on brakes, and they've got heaps of power, and they're good fun to race, and they're not as out of control as you think they are.
• 1:17:13
  Enforcer and the dude, Russell Engle and Paul Morris.
• 1:17:17
  You two are breaking the internet with this YouTube show, and you want to make racing great again.
• 1:17:22
  That's the underpinning of this whole thing from your point of view, is it?
• 1:17:25
  Yeah, that come from Donny Schott's, so I stole his idea.
• 1:17:29
  So he rolled up.
• 1:17:31
  So people that don't know, when he comes and races in Australia, he runs just out of my shop here at home.
• 1:17:36
  We have the car, his sprint car here at the house, and we have a good time, and he rolled through the house.
• 1:17:41
  He always brings some gifts, you know.
• 1:17:43
  He's a good guy, Don.
• 1:17:44
  He rolls through the door with this Make Racing Great Again hat, like a Donald Trump hat.
• 1:17:50
  So we stole his saying.
• 1:17:51
  But it's true.
• 1:17:52
  We've got to make racing great again.
• 1:17:53
  It's got to be good to watch.
• 1:17:55
  It's got to be entertaining.
• 1:17:56
  Yeah.
• 1:17:59
  and that the drivers and the rivalries aren't there anymore, you know?
• 1:18:02
  We don't have that rivalry.
• 1:18:03
  What's our rivalry now?
• 1:18:04
  We don't have one.
• 1:18:06
  because they've over-sanitised it.
• 1:18:08
  The guys that are driving the cars are too scared to say what they think and you just don't... We're not getting what people want to watch.
• 1:18:14
  If you look at state of origin or football, what have you got?
• 1:18:18
  Rivalry.
• 1:18:19
  We don't have that anymore.
• 1:18:20
  I mean, heroes are important, but...
• 1:18:23
  Sport, we don't have anymore, you know?
• 1:18:25
  When you look back over time, though, there have been guys that have been the arch rival, if you like, and that's actually a good thing in sport, isn't it?
• 1:18:33
  When you've got people like that...
• 1:18:35
  Yeah, if you look at someone like Russell Ingle, he's come back from Europe, he's gone, well, how am I going to make a living and survive with this?
• 1:18:42
  No one's been the bad guy at the moment, so I'll be the guy in the black hat.
• 1:18:46
  That'll do me, and carved a career out of it.
• 1:18:50
  When you do that show, don't give away too much in the way of secrets of it, because I think it's... Yeah.
• 1:18:55
  But do you rehearse, and how do you go about it?
• 1:18:58
  No, not at all.
• 1:19:00
  You just rock up and go...
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, I get a one-pager probably five minutes before.
• 1:19:06
  So Russell comes to me with this idea about three weeks before the show actually happened, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea.
• 1:19:14
  And I'm like, I wonder if you'll run out of steam here.
• 1:19:17
  And I'm busy doing it.
• 1:19:18
  Like, I'm busy, you know, and he's, hey, dude, da-da-da.
• 1:19:20
  I'm like, yeah, okay, mate, fantastic.
• 1:19:23
  Push on.
• 1:19:24
  Good on you, mate.
• 1:19:24
  That's exactly what you should be doing.
• 1:19:26
  I reckon you're going to hit the spot there.
• 1:19:28
  And about a week later, I'm up in my office, and he goes, I'm ready.
• 1:19:31
  Yeah.
• 1:19:32
  I'm like, come down.
• 1:19:33
  I'm like, what?
• 1:19:34
  I walk in the bar and he's got all the cameras set up.
• 1:19:36
  I say, oh, he's pulled it off.
• 1:19:38
  And away we went.
• 1:19:39
  And I think that's why it sort of impacted because he knows what he – he's put the show together, he's produced it, he's done it all, but I don't know what's going to happen really.
• 1:19:50
  And the essence is straight talk, basically.
• 1:19:54
  Is that what it is?
• 1:19:56
  Yeah, straight talk and not being afraid to have an opinion and upsetting someone.
• 1:20:02
  So everyone's... Like, the biggest thing people say to me is, oh, what did supercars say?
• 1:20:07
  I'm like, who gives a f*** what they say?
• 1:20:10
  Like...
• 1:20:11
  People, you need a difference of opinion.
• 1:20:13
  You need, I might be wrong, I might be right, but you've got to put it out there.
• 1:20:17
  And I'm sure there's something I say that people don't like and some things they say that they do like, but that's what makes the world go around, isn't it?
• 1:20:26
  A couple of fans have asked, the driver or drivers, when you look in your rear view mirror, that you kind of wince and go, not you.
• 1:20:34
  Is there anyone that's ever been an intimidator in the field for Paul Morris?
• 1:20:39
  No, I've never really been intimidated by anyone.
• 1:20:42
  So, no, I don't have anyone that I'd think, not you, I'm ready to go with anyone, you know, no problem.
• 1:20:52
  Five track.
• 1:20:53
  I mean, you've been to the Daytona 24-hour, you talked about Macau before, you've done all sorts of things around the world.
• 1:20:58
  Is there one track?
• 1:21:00
  And the common answer we obviously get is Bathurst, but is there one track for...
• 1:21:04
  Yeah, for me, it's Lakeside.
• 1:21:05
  Is it?
• 1:21:06
  Yeah.
• 1:21:07
  Yeah, it's just badass and fast.
• 1:21:11
  And the similarities, if you had a car that could go around Lakeside, it'd be a good Bathurst car.
• 1:21:17
  But I just love Lakeside.
• 1:21:19
  Whenever I race there, I knew I could win.
• 1:21:21
  Cool.
• 1:21:22
  Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  Is there one that got away from you, a race, a result, a championship?
• 1:21:27
  We talked about 97 Bathurst before, but what's the one that sticks in your mind?
• 1:21:31
  Oh, that's the one, 97 Bathurst.
• 1:21:35
  to for me that that that was the race i'd worked all year for it train my ass off you know put the car on pole again and there was a all everyone from europe and super touring was there that that was the one that that got away for sure you may not own it you talked about some that you you have before but is there a car that you get a little glint in your eye where you go you know that's over my 25 odd years of racing or more more than that is there a car that's special in your heart
• 1:22:05
  Yeah, the 96 Super Tourer.
• 1:22:09
  Yeah.
• 1:22:09
  Yeah, that's the car.
• 1:22:11
  Why?
• 1:22:11
  Give us a bit of a rundown for people on the features, what it was like to drive and why it's so special to you.
• 1:22:18
  From the title point of view, I guess.
• 1:22:19
  I just felt part of the car.
• 1:22:21
  I think...
• 1:22:24
  What happened with that car, you kept getting updates all the time.
• 1:22:27
  So this is a factory car, and every couple of weeks or months, a little thing would come along or an engine upgrade or this and that.
• 1:22:36
  So every time you got in it, it was like something new's in that car, and it's going a couple of tenths faster.
• 1:22:42
  and I could just gel with it.
• 1:22:43
  I could put that car wherever I wanted it, drive it how I wanted it, understood how it worked and I felt like I was invincible in the thing.
• 1:22:52
  What was the history on it?
• 1:22:53
  Who drove it before you?
• 1:22:54
  Often they came from...
• 1:22:56
  It was a Bugazzi car, so it was in their fleet out of Italy.
• 1:22:59
  I'm not sure who the driver was.
• 1:23:02
  Road rule that drives you mad, mate, when you're on the...
• 1:23:06
  Anywhere, because you travel all over the country with your racing, is the road habits that people have that drive you mad?
• 1:23:11
  The worst one for me is the green arrow that tells you to turn right.
• 1:23:15
  Yeah.
• 1:23:16
  Like you used to be able to work out that there was no traffic coming and actually turn right.
• 1:23:21
  Yeah.
• 1:23:22
  So now we've got all these people.
• 1:23:23
  We're just breeding idiots, mate, that just sit there and wait for this green arrow to turn right.
• 1:23:28
  You just sit in your car half the day waiting to turn right.
• 1:23:32
  So, you know, that's the one that bugs me.
• 1:23:36
  Daily driver, and finally, have you got a little resto project that you're currently working on?
• 1:23:41
  If so, what?
• 1:23:43
  My daily driver, I just bought the new Ram 1500, so love that truck.
• 1:23:49
  I had the F250 for 15 years.
• 1:23:54
  I actually had bought Marcus Ambrose F truck off him when he went to the States, and that was my daily driver up until about...
• 1:24:03
  four weeks ago until I got the Ram.
• 1:24:04
  Awesome.
• 1:24:05
  Yeah.
• 1:24:06
  And is there any more resto projects?
• 1:24:07
  You talked about your Formula Ford before.
• 1:24:09
  Is there anything else you've got on the go?
• 1:24:10
  No, no, not really.
• 1:24:11
  I'm not really into road cars.
• 1:24:13
  Unless it's got a number on the door, I'm not really into it.
• 1:24:16
  Yeah.
• 1:24:17
  Mate, it's been awesome to sit here and to chat with you and reflect on an amazing career.
• 1:24:23
  The raft of titles that you've won, the Bathurst wins, as we said before, the Triple Crown that you've ticked off.
• 1:24:29
  I think it's enormously special.
• 1:24:30
  And I owe you a little debt of gratitude.
• 1:24:33
  And that is, back in 2000, you gave a little Greenhorn reporter a chance to drive a supercar.
• 1:24:41
  at Queensland Raceway.
• 1:24:43
  Probably still got it on replay at home, mate, but I was very proud of that day and maybe gave the gearbox boys and the engine boys a bit of work to do, but I have very, very fond memories of that, so thank you very much.
• 1:24:53
  Mate, I have fond memories of you and your Aussie racing car career at Pinson Motor Raceway.
• 1:24:59
  Let's not bring that up.
• 1:25:00
  Cheers, mate.
• 1:25:00
  Thank you.
• 1:25:01
  See you.
• 1:25:06
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:25:10
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 1:25:13
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 1:25:23
  Listener.