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Jim Read - Part 2 · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:20
G'day, it's Rusty here.
0:21
All set for part two of my podcast with Australian Motorsport Hall of Famer Jim Reid.
0:27
Because of Jim's incredible achievements over almost 60 years in the sport, we have made this a three-parter.
0:35
So if you've landed here without taking in part one, head back to the library now and kind of set the scene.
0:41
the beginnings of Jim's high-octane, high-horsepower life.
0:46
There's stories of a young man who didn't enjoy school, but that didn't hold him back.
0:51
How getting into a trade in his teens saved him from being sent to the boys' home.
0:57
Driving on the road as an 11-year-old.
1:01
And sage words from a cop that would steer him toward drag racing at places like Castle Ray and change his life forever.
1:11
meeting Ian Cleman, the close friendship they forged, and how his commercial nous and support would help Reid become one of the most professional racers in the country.
1:23
We begin this second instalment on the growing recognition of Reid and his racing team in the Aussie sporting landscape.
1:34
Is it urban myth or truth
1:38
that people would see the Freddie Gibson touring car transporter.
1:42
Back then they had the GTRs and then a little bit later the Commodores and they were Winfield liveries too.
1:47
But quite often people would say, is that Jim Reade's car in there?
1:50
There's a bit of truth in that story, isn't there?
1:52
That would happen from time to time.
1:54
Yeah.
1:54
We probably need to say a few things here, that touring car racing, unlike what it is now in this country with supercars and so on, had gone through a massive lull and really you guys were the big ticket in town, weren't you?
2:05
Well, I can remember... Mm-hmm.
2:08
them having a meeting long before whatever I forget his name.
2:13
Tony Cochran.
2:13
Tony Cochran come along which was heaven sent for them.
2:17
I can remember them going, we know what it is.
2:21
It's night racing.
2:23
But they forgot one thing.
2:25
It was the noise and the big head of flames and two cars doing it side by side that
2:31
They should have been doing things that they shouldn't have been doing.
2:34
And it was a stadium sport.
2:36
Everything happened right in front of you, didn't it?
2:38
Quite a few of them.
2:40
had their head up their arse.
2:41
Okay.
2:42
You know?
2:43
And thank Christ Cochrane come along, but they'd still be wandering around with their head up their arse.
2:47
And they all need to go out one day and say, thank you, thank you, thank you, because where they are today, if Cochrane hadn't have stepped in then, they were doomed.
2:57
One time, I get a call from Rothmans.
3:03
Jim, we're having lunch down at this restaurant in Parramatta.
3:07
Will you come down?
3:08
I said, yeah, right.
3:10
Down I go.
3:11
There's four or five of the big bosses around.
3:16
And they said, Jim, we're having a hell of a debate.
3:20
What would you do?
3:22
They said...
3:26
We're going to start the Winfield Racing Team.
3:29
We're going to include some people.
3:31
Yeah.
3:32
And they rattled off a few names and they said, understand something.
3:36
Alan Moffat I didn't like.
3:38
Okay.
3:38
But I talked to him.
3:39
I wasn't ever rude to him.
3:41
I just thought he was a smartass.
3:44
They said, who would you have?
3:45
And they rattled off Freddie Gibbs and this one and this one and this one.
3:50
And Moffat.
3:51
I said, Alan Moffat.
3:54
I thought you didn't get along with it.
3:55
It doesn't matter who I get along with.
3:56
He's the best man to do the job.
3:58
He's the most professional guy and he gets the job done.
4:03
Give him some money, he'll get it done better.
4:05
And Scaifey, it took a long while to get to know him.
4:11
Scaifey, Scaifey, he's just like me.
4:13
I can be a big mouth.
4:15
But he made the most of what he did.
4:18
He was a damn good driver.
4:20
I think he was smart when he got out.
4:22
Yeah.
4:25
everyone's ambition in life, in circuit racing, as I see, because they always wanted to be better than Peter was.
4:34
You can't, no one could ever be better than Peter.
4:36
Better than Brock.
4:37
No one.
4:39
Brock was something, and I was the third person to know he was dead.
4:42
Were you?
4:43
Yes.
4:44
Mm-hmm.
4:44
He was killed outside of a mate of mine's place in Perth.
4:47
Okay.
4:47
Where he hit the tree.
4:48
Tree.
4:49
Mm-hmm.
4:49
And he rang me up, and his name was Peter, it was all Peter Pike from Perth Motorplex.
4:53
Mm-hmm.
4:55
And we'd been talking the day or so before about some brother, Peter and I, and he rang me back and he said, Jim, quick, quick, quick.
5:02
He said, is Peter Brock back in the country?
5:04
I said, yeah, Peter got back two days ago.
5:07
He said, oh, my God, it is him.
5:09
I said, what's up?
5:09
He said, he just got killed outside of my house.
5:12
My brother's seen it.
5:13
Oh, God.
5:15
And I said, oh, that's terrible.
5:16
But Peter, Peter was a ladies' man, but you'd wander in there.
5:20
The Bathurst, you'd wander around at nine o'clock at night.
5:22
Peter would be still sitting on a tin sign and autographs for people.
5:26
And him and I, Peter and I got along real well.
5:29
And I said to him one time, you people should have gone and...
5:32
paid double for Peter Brock, but they wouldn't.
5:35
And I don't think Peter wanted to get involved with tobacco back then.
5:39
Can we talk a little bit of racing for a second?
5:42
There are some milestone moments in your career, both here and some stuff that you did internationally.
5:48
I want to focus on a little bit of that.
5:50
Firstly, breaking the seven-second mark before we get to six, before we get to five.
5:56
Yeah.
5:57
Take us there.
5:58
What was that like?
6:00
It just happened.
6:01
Did it?
6:01
Where were you?
6:02
Tell people where you were.
6:05
I'm not sure whether it was here or Adelaide, but we had a lot of success in Adelaide.
6:11
We loved the place, but it was like when we ran 300 mile an hour.
6:18
The car got past half track and I felt it pinning me hard in the seat.
6:24
I thought, shit, this is quick.
6:26
Because we'd run 298 to 299.
6:30
We get to the bottom and the truck's coming down and everyone's going berserk.
6:34
Well, it was the same when we were at the Severn.
6:36
There's the crew going, because... What are they all like?
6:40
Because...
6:42
It became like second nature, driving a fuel car.
6:45
I don't want to sound like a smart-ass, but I've driven it that many times.
6:49
And I did an apprenticeship.
6:51
I grew with it.
6:52
Explain that.
6:53
When you say you grew with it, it's just learning.
6:56
Well, when I first started driving a fuel car...
7:00
If you ran eight seconds, wow, you know, you were hauling arse.
7:06
Street cars do quicker than that now.
7:08
Guy went 5.98 or something out there with a registered street car.
7:11
And you could always pick that it was going a little bit better.
7:16
wouldn't be wobbling around, it'd be going dead straight.
7:19
And you think, gee, this is a pretty good run.
7:21
And you know it was when the crew's coming down, they're all screaming like stupid kids on the back of the truck.
7:28
And that was the first seven.
7:29
Then there was the first six and then the first five.
7:33
You know, it was just...
7:35
To get to that though, Jim, to get the development, the work, the ingenuity, it sounds like in time, in pure time, it's very little.
7:46
The life that elapses in between in searching for that, the incredible work by the people, it's a massive deal, mate, isn't it?
7:58
Yes, it was.
8:04
Every time you got in a fuel car, it would coincide with the weather being right.
8:13
Mm-hmm.
8:13
When you'd think back later for everything to click.
8:18
Mm-hmm.
8:19
There's a lot of things like last weekend we had a shocker.
8:22
Nothing worked, but it was the best weather to ever race in.
8:25
We just weren't ready for it.
8:28
Well, back then, you didn't throw the rods out.
8:31
You didn't bang the blower off.
8:34
You went up and down the racetrack.
8:36
And I was always one for...
8:42
not wanting to go too much faster than the other bloke to make it too hard for them to get there.
8:48
You with me?
8:48
Gotcha, yeah.
8:51
Win by the narrowest margin you need.
8:52
Didn't matter.
8:53
Didn't matter.
8:53
Just as long as you won.
8:54
Didn't matter as long as you got there first.
8:56
And my greatest rivals was the Victorians, Larry Ornsby and John Marr.
9:01
Yeah.
9:03
And I'd get to a race, and the race they were at before where I was at, they'd run a little bit quicker.
9:09
Yeah.
9:10
So I'd get to a race and I've got to step this up a little bit, see.
9:14
Well, we're at Castle Ray and it was approaching the first five.
9:20
We'd already run first seven seconds, first six seconds.
9:23
Now we're getting under six and a half seconds.
9:26
And I was constantly running six threes, six fours.
9:31
Larry and Mar would be running six fives, six sixes.
9:36
You get to this meeting at Castle Ray, out they come.
9:40
And they both go 612 or 622 something.
9:45
Shoot a brick.
9:46
Well, right at that very moment, Russell Jones was with Mike Cool in Santa Ana.
9:54
And Mike and I were good friends.
9:57
So I said to Russell, I said, how's it going?
10:00
I said, those bloody Victorians just run quicker than me.
10:05
And I can hear Cool in the background.
10:07
Hey, Reid, hey, Reid.
10:08
Because every time I go, I go, Cool and myself and half a dozen others would all fly to the races together.
10:16
It was like, it was just like a big day out.
10:22
Cool says, give me the phone, Russell.
10:25
He said, Jim, what size idle check valve have you got?
10:28
I said, dash six.
10:30
Good.
10:31
Right.
10:32
He said,
10:34
Can you put a jet in the line?
10:37
He said, get a so-and-so tap and just tap in the end.
10:40
He said, you haven't got a jet order in there?
10:42
He said, no.
10:43
He said, put a 50,000 jet in the end of the idle check belt.
10:48
He says, yeah.
10:51
What's that going to do?
10:53
It's going to make you go faster, you fucking idiot.
10:57
I said, righto, Mike.
10:58
Back I go.
11:00
Screw this idle.
11:01
Screw it.
11:02
Put this 50,000 jet in.
11:03
Start the car up.
11:05
It's getting a lot more volume.
11:08
It's sounding better.
11:09
More fuel.
11:10
Step on the throttle of this thing goes, boom, down the racer.
11:13
6.09.
11:16
They've all, yeah, I can see them.
11:18
And I'm talking back to the pitch.
11:19
They're deflated, are they?
11:21
Especially John Murray.
11:23
And we still have a lot to do with the Mars, his nephew, who owns a big engineering business down there.
11:32
Here they are, just.
11:36
You couldn't believe they didn't pick it up and run with it and think, right, we've got to do better than that.
11:44
They just went into a coma.
11:47
Deflated.
11:47
Yeah.
11:48
And we went, I think we went 609, 607, 604.
11:53
It was all just through screwing that one jetty putting more volume into the car on the hit of the throttle.
11:58
Wow.
11:58
So we were over the moon and naturally then it wasn't that long after we were in the first five.
12:05
And that was with the good, bad and ugly car.
12:08
Yep.
12:09
But Adelaide, we used to love going to Adelaide because the Victorians had come across to Adelaide.
12:15
We won Top Fuel three years in a row.
12:17
No, sorry.
12:18
We won Funny Car three years in a row and the Nationals were in Adelaide.
12:22
And we won Top Fuel two years in a row and was runner-up.
12:27
So running the three in Funny Car as well and then the two in Top Fuel.
12:33
Crazy.
12:34
It was confusion.
12:37
Of getting out of one car into the other, that lost me the final in top fuel.
12:40
Really?
12:40
The difference in the way they... Oh, yeah, yeah.
12:43
You'd reach up here for the parachute.
12:45
That's what eventually made me stop running two cars, because one night a car sorrows, got out in one funny car, had to jump in the fuel car, and I'd get down near the lights, reach up for the parachute, nearly tore my arm off.
12:57
Sure.
12:57
Yeah.
12:58
And I said, I'm not doing this anymore.
13:00
It is a misnomer for people to think that, you know, top fuel is your only love.
13:08
In fact, you loved the period when you were in the funny car too, mate, didn't you?
13:12
Yeah, I know it's a terrible thing to say, but the reason I stopped driving funny cars was because, and I chose top fuel, was you always knew where you were and you could see the other guy in funny car.
13:23
I don't want to sound like a big mouth.
13:25
No, no, but that's how you found it, though, obviously.
13:27
I was always out there in front with a funny car because I devised a system of driving that the thing couldn't get into trouble.
13:36
I used to tow the front tyres right in, lay them in at the top.
13:40
I'd only wanted to go straight because as I'd get going, they would straighten out and it had a gearbox in the car.
13:46
Everyone had a hand shift right in.
13:48
I'd put a button beside my foot.
13:51
I'd nail it off the start line, and before it could smoke the tyres, I did the shift with my foot.
13:57
The car would motor on down the track.
13:58
They'd all be up there all over the bloody racetrack.
14:00
And I'd get down the bottom, and they're still coming.
14:05
And I used to be terrified they were going to hit me.
14:07
Really?
14:08
Yeah, absolutely terrified they were going to run up the back of me.
14:11
Well, John Marr proved it when he...
14:16
Him and I were racing.
14:19
We've left the start line and he's run off the racetrack.
14:23
He's got into the gravel, hasn't taken his foot off.
14:26
He's drove it back onto the racetrack.
14:28
Then he's drove it off.
14:30
Then he's tipped it over upside down.
14:32
It's come back onto the track.
14:34
I'm in the other lane.
14:35
I'm seeing all this.
14:35
I turned it off.
14:36
He's gone through the lights upside down.
14:39
Sure.
14:40
Then he's got the hide to turn around and say he beat me.
14:43
He got up at a...
14:45
He walked onto the stage at a presentation night, right?
14:50
And they'd given me the trophy.
14:52
And he's bowed it up on the stage.
14:54
He's won a lodge of protest that he got there first and he should have been the winner.
14:59
So I turned around and I looked and I said, you know what, John?
15:02
Here, mate, I've got 20 more of them at home.
15:03
You can have this.
15:06
We ran the first ever top fuel series.
15:09
It was called the Winfield Pro Series.
15:11
Series, yeah.
15:13
And I said to Larry, he'd stop driving.
15:16
I said to Larry, you better come work for me.
15:18
You began recruiting, if memory serves, to kind of build the sport.
15:23
Was it about this time, I think, that you started to make real inroads with Channel 9 too, to get prime time coverage for drag racing?
15:31
And I think you were dealing with the then head of sport, Gary Burns.
15:35
Probably wasn't all that easy for motorsport to get space against the ball codes back then, and it still isn't to a degree.
15:42
So there was a bit of backwards and forwards to the network's Sport HQ on Sydney's Lower North Shore.
15:48
and you called on every kind of support or contacts you had.
15:55
Go back in and see Gary Barnes.
15:56
So I go back in on the Monday.
15:59
He stands up at his desk.
16:02
I don't know who the fuck you know.
16:05
Was that in the little house at the side of Channel 9 there, that side street?
16:08
I know the one.
16:09
I remember it.
16:10
Remember his office?
16:10
Yes, yes.
16:11
He said, I don't give a...
16:14
I don't know who the fuck you know, Jimmy.
16:15
He said, but...
16:17
I'm going to tell you something.
16:19
You're not going to get one minute of editing.
16:22
I said, no, that's all right, Gary.
16:24
I just want some prime time.
16:27
And I went, Daryl Eastlakes.
16:31
Daryl had already told me two or three weeks before, you ever got APNL, Jim?
16:36
I said, we'll see.
16:38
And I said, I'll go to Global.
16:39
Global.
16:41
Mike, somebody, was the guy up there.
16:43
Mm-hmm.
16:44
And he was the one, I think, that helped.
16:46
Nathan.
16:47
Nathan, get the job.
16:48
Mm.
16:49
Nathan Prenigast.
16:50
And Larry used to go there and help do all of the editing.
16:55
Mm-hmm.
16:56
Anyway, so I said to Gary Burns, Gary, we need a top-notch director.
17:04
Do you remember Mike Williamson?
17:06
Yes.
17:06
Yeah.
17:08
He used to do Wimbledon.
17:11
He gave me a job.
17:12
I worked on the bike GP one year at Eastern Creek on the support categories.
17:17
We had Mike in charge, Daryl.
17:21
We had it, mate.
17:21
Mega.
17:22
And we're all up here at Global.
17:24
Come back a step.
17:25
This is all you wanting to make this happen, mate, is it?
17:27
To take drag racing to... Well, what happened, all the managers of drag racing were offered the money from Winfield.
17:35
Mm-hmm.
17:36
And because of Bob Jane being quit for life, Bob banned me from ever coming near Calder.
17:44
And that's another funny story.
17:47
I said, we've got to do this right.
17:50
And Daryl said, you ain't got to hope in hell, Jim.
17:52
No one will.
17:53
I said, we'll see Daryl.
17:54
So we got Daryl.
17:56
And then we got Mike Williamson.
17:59
Because I think they realised then, somebody said something to them, you better make sure this happens right.
18:03
Larry is a perfectionist.
18:05
Larry Awnsby.
18:06
Absolute perfectionist.
18:08
So I said to Larry, this is going to happen.
18:11
So all of a sudden, one day, I get a phone call.
18:15
It's Quit for Life from Victoria.
18:17
Listen, Jim, blah, blah, blah, blah.
18:19
We've got to do this.
18:19
We've got to do that.
18:24
I said, you want to, do you?
18:26
I said, well, I've been with Winfield forever, yeah, and I don't intend leaving them.
18:30
How much money will it take, they said.
18:34
And I turned around and I said, I said, well, go on back to Victoria and call up someone else's arse.
18:40
And I walked out.
18:41
We're in the...
18:45
this big flash fucking hotel where he organised dinner and everything.
18:49
In Sydney?
18:49
Yeah.
18:51
Anyway, so off he goes, and then Bob Jones started on me.
18:55
Don't you ever set foot in Calder.
18:56
Don't you do this.
18:57
Don't you do that.
18:58
Cut a long story short.
18:59
Quit for life.
19:00
Leaves him and goes.
19:03
The best drag race I've ever seen, ever been to, was the 1995 Nationals at Calder Park.
19:14
I rang Bob one day.
19:15
He used to avoid me.
19:16
He'd see me coming at Bathurst.
19:18
He'd head off in another direction.
19:19
I'd follow him.
19:20
How you going, Bob?
19:22
Anyway, so I'd call him up.
19:24
Who's this?
19:26
Probably in my file, we've still got the letters he wrote.
19:29
Barnaby, I'll run you off, I'll have you arrested.
19:31
Don't ever set foot in here with your tobacco, filter your tobacco, see?
19:34
So I rang him up.
19:36
There you go, Bob, it's Jim Reacher in Sydney.
19:38
Oh, oh, yeah.
19:40
Hi, Jim.
19:41
What's happening?
19:42
He said, Bob, I want to sponsor the Nationals.
19:45
He said, what?
19:47
I said, I want to sponsor the Nationals.
19:49
It called a part.
19:50
I got 50 grand.
19:52
I got free television.
19:55
I'll have helicopters.
19:57
Darrell Eastlake's.
20:03
Right, right, right.
20:06
Well, I'll get Larry to come around and see you and we'll get all this tidied up, eh?
20:10
I said, when it comes to money, Bob, we're all prostitutes, aren't we?
20:16
And that was probably one of my greatest victories.
20:19
Bob and I are in a good friends.
20:21
We had over 50,000 people there.
20:23
Amazing.
20:24
We had two helicopters in the air.
20:27
Would you believe Tom Hoover driving my second car won it?
20:31
He beat us earlier.
20:35
I don't know what happened.
20:36
I just think that I was too involved with that event.
20:38
Event, yeah.
20:39
And I'd still today, if you climb upstairs in my office, in my workshop, you'll see a pallet.
20:50
It's got every inch of footage.
20:55
From the Channel 9?
20:56
Everything.
20:57
Every inch of footage that was ever taken to the Winfield Pro Series.
21:03
Plus... You need to save that, Jim.
21:05
That needs to be digitised.
21:06
No one wants it.
21:07
No one wants it?
21:08
No.
21:09
I've got all the rules.
21:11
I've got all of the rules of the footage of the shows, plus I've got every inch of footage ever made.
21:18
And I believe I've got another pallet that's VH Supercoaster.
21:24
Wow.
21:24
It's all down there.
21:26
Someone should preserve that.
21:27
If it's preservable, they should do that.
21:30
Ask Nathan.
21:30
Yeah.
21:31
He'll tell you what we've got.
21:32
Okay.
21:32
He'd say it.
21:33
Okay.
21:33
It's there.
21:34
It's just, I can't do anything with it.
21:37
I can sign my name, but I can't do any of that.
21:40
The digitising.
21:41
The thing that intrigues me here, I want to talk a little bit about America in a second, but this is a period of you, again, I don't know how you did it from a time perspective, mate, you're obviously racing and there's family and business and whatever else, but you are going 10 tenths, 11 tenths, putting back into the sport.
22:04
As well.
22:04
And I mean, Darrell Leeslake, I still have the fondest memories of him letting me use his microphone when I was a junior commentator and things like that.
22:14
I mean, just the perfect voice for what you were doing and showcasing, wasn't he?
22:20
Well, I knew that, see.
22:22
We needed somebody at that time that when he spoke, people turned their heads.
22:29
Yeah.
22:30
Excitement, Mr.
22:30
Excitement.
22:33
Darryl was just outstanding at doing that and he I remember him saying you'll never get you'll never it'll never happen Jim it'll never it'll happen we'll make it happen and we did I'd never give up I
22:50
We've had a little pause here for a moment, so you can have a jelly bean, which is understandable.
22:55
I can hear them shaking in the background.
22:57
And that's because you're... Glucoboost.
23:00
And that's because you're a diabetic, mate.
23:01
Now, there is a little bit of a story about how that was diagnosed.
23:05
Is that right?
23:06
Yeah, we... Straight after the crash at Willowbank, they said, you're in no pain.
23:15
What are you going to do?
23:15
I said, I'm going home.
23:17
So Noel and I jump in the car.
23:19
This was that night.
23:20
Mm-hmm.
23:22
And it was before the freeway, long before it was in the 90s.
23:29
And all of a sudden the painkillers started to wear off.
23:31
We're just getting close to Newcastle and I was driving.
23:35
And I said to Noel, we used to have a routine where we wouldn't stop.
23:44
Swap drivers, keep going.
23:47
And there was a guy following us and we
23:53
We're getting where the cutting for the freeway was.
23:59
Cutting in amongst the big sandstone, the big rock, the big, yep, yep, I know where you are, yep.
24:04
So what happened was I pulled over to the side of the road, Noel jumped out, ran around, I stood across the seat and took off again.
24:16
And just before we took off, this guy who was following us had gone by and vanished into the cutting.
24:26
And as we come around the corner, a B-double had come across the freeway, down in the gully, come up and kill this guy stone dead in front of us.
24:39
The shock of it all... Are you saying that could have been you guys if you hadn't stopped?
24:43
Yep.
24:44
He nods his head.
24:45
I think I'm a cat.
24:46
I think I've had nine lives.
24:48
Anyway, it was horrendous.
24:54
This car was just flattened up against the stone wall.
24:57
You couldn't... No way.
25:01
No way.
25:02
You could have predicted that that was going to happen.
25:08
And this is just the doctor's version of...
25:10
Between that and then...
25:13
Young Louis Raposado used to come around to my place a lot.
25:18
Louis begged me, Jim, Jim, go and tell Dad we'll go race and we'll do this, we'll do that.
25:26
So after my crush had happened, of course, Louis and his father took me to the ambulance.
25:33
We go up to Willow Bank and Bruce and the boys all used to get together and help Louis.
25:39
Mm-hmm.
25:42
And we're at Willowbank and Louis is in the car and he's had a problem.
25:49
So they've shut it off and everyone's hanging around waiting for Louis to get ready to do the run and whatever it was, I think it was a minor oil leak, they fixed it up.
26:02
Louis left the start line, gone straight out and was just like in a big arc.
26:06
Somewhere around.
26:08
Ploughed into the Armco railing.
26:12
And Louis turns around to Sando and says, come on Sando, we've got to go pull another one out.
26:17
Made enough to pull me out to the wreck.
26:21
And we get down there and the ambulance guys just not doing anything.
26:34
And Bruce is sitting on the ground
26:38
screaming at him, do something to help him, do something to help him, cradling Louie on the ground, Bruce was.
26:45
And they said, we've got to take him to the hospital.
26:50
He was already dead.
26:51
He tore the main artery out of his heart.
26:53
He was dead.
26:55
We get to the hospital and Sandoz just... Beside himself.
27:03
He's in a trance.
27:04
Mm-hmm.
27:06
And he's calling out Louis' name and calling out Louis' name.
27:10
It was terrible.
27:10
Absolutely terrible, it was.
27:13
So they...
27:17
I went over to the head woman at the hospital and I said, what can we do?
27:22
She said, nothing.
27:23
Let him roam.
27:23
Just let him walk.
27:25
He's got to... Get it out of his system.
27:26
He's got to get it out.
27:28
If we try and restrain him, it'll be terrible to see so.
27:33
Anyway, cut a long story short, it was...
27:36
Sure enough, Louie was dead and it hit us all pretty bad.
27:42
And we get back home and they've got to get the body back from Queensland and whatever.
27:57
Turns out I knew the undertaker through
28:06
Another good friend, I'd met this guy.
28:11
Well, every morning I'd have to go up to Santo's place where they lived on 8th Avenue.
28:22
And Italians, being Italians, the blinds are pulled and I'd get there every morning and they'd all be sitting around moping and naturally because this woman's lost a son.
28:37
Sando's in the bedroom and he's in another world and, you know, he's lost his son and still hadn't accepted it.
28:49
Then one morning I get a phone call, Jim, Jim, Jim, get here, hurry, get here and hurry.
28:58
Now we've opted to hit the beep here, not because Jim swore.
29:03
We hit the button mainly because you can gather what might have been happening or perhaps contemplated.
29:10
If you or anyone you know or love is having a personal crisis or needs help, it is very important, please, that you talk to them or seek assistance from the good people at Lifeline or a similar service.
29:25
I also don't want to upset the Rappasada family by going into too much detail here.
29:30
Jim's story is actually quite powerful.
29:33
We'll continue now as he intervenes to help and endeavour at what is a very difficult time to get life back on track for them.
29:48
Here they all are sitting around morbid and they just,
29:54
Turned around and said, get out.
29:55
Everyone, get outside.
29:57
Somebody get the barbecue going.
29:58
Tore all the curtains off the wall.
30:02
Get some light.
30:02
Get some vibrance back into this.
30:04
Some life.
30:05
Move forward kind of thing.
30:05
I said, come on, we're all going outside.
30:07
I picked up.
30:09
Picked his wife up.
30:11
She had polio bad as a kid, Sando's wife.
30:14
I said, come on, we'll take you outside.
30:15
Somebody get me a chair out there in the air.
30:18
I said, somebody get the barbecue going.
30:19
We're going to go outside.
30:20
I said, finally get everybody outside and...
30:24
It tore the shit out of me.
30:26
I'll bet.
30:29
Anyway, a couple of nights later, we'd pull a girl out of a car upside down, almost drowned and bruised the boys.
30:35
Down the road here?
30:35
Mr. Ben.
30:36
No, from going to Santos.
30:39
Yeah.
30:40
And the doctors reckon the shock of all of it is what...
30:45
Triggered your diabetes.
30:47
Can we divert here for a moment and talk America?
30:53
You've talked about the great relationships you have with some very big names in drag racing.
31:02
those that love the sport will remember fondly is 1982 Pomona California you become the first Australian to be a top fuel top qualifier at a US national hot rod event was that a little bit surreal mate what what and it was a borrowed car too I think was that tell me all the backstory to that there was a guy by the name of Ron Trotter
31:31
And Lee Cohen was the guy who used to send our exports out for us.
31:34
Hmm.
31:36
And Lee said, trotter all in your car if you want to come here and do some runs.
31:43
And I said, what?
31:45
How's he off the motor parts?
31:47
Oh, he's got plenty of everything.
31:48
And we thought, you know.
31:50
Anyway, I was talking to Uncle Ian one day and I said, Ian, I'm thinking of going to talk to the Winter Nationals.
31:59
I love the Winter Nationals.
32:02
Look, I'm going nuts here too, mate.
32:03
I've got half a sandwich.
32:04
That's all right.
32:05
You've got to eat.
32:06
Please eat.
32:08
Anyway, so Uncle Ian gave us the money for the airfares and everything.
32:16
We turned up there and this guy has this massive house.
32:20
But out the back there's a workshop and it's got this race car in it and it was nowhere near resembled what he told us on the phone as to being ready.
32:31
We have a lob there for us.
32:32
Gary Phillips from Queensland, myself and Russell and Denise.
32:38
We're looking at it, oh, my God, we've ended a race.
32:41
So we get this car and we go out to the races.
32:43
First thing that goes wrong is...
32:46
Gary Beck, who was a friend of mine as well, but a bit of a dog, don't help him.
32:52
Told everyone, don't help him.
32:54
These smarties come here from another country and think they're better than us, blah, blah, blah.
32:58
So we get out, we start the car up, his fuel pump shears.
33:06
We had our cylinder heads.
33:09
We had our injectors and other bits and pieces that we'd bought with us on the plane, see?
33:15
Okay.
33:17
So we're wandering around and I see Marvin Graham.
33:21
I said, Marvin, I need a fuel pump in a hurry.
33:27
Well, you know, Beck's been over here telling us, he says, that we shouldn't help these foreign bastards.
33:35
Stuff, Beck.
33:37
So he gives me a fuel pump.
33:43
This is something you'll appreciate.
33:47
Do you notice how the fuel cars have a lot of fuel coming out when they're running?
33:52
Yep.
33:54
But they'd never seen that in America before we got there.
33:59
Wow.
34:02
It was more by luck than judgment.
34:07
We've got to hurry.
34:08
We've got to be in the staging lanes.
34:11
We put this fuel pump on.
34:12
Hey, Marvin, what size is this fuel pump?
34:14
It's two sides bigger than the one we had.
34:16
Oh, holy shit.
34:19
So we start this thing up.
34:24
There is fuel.
34:25
And here's Russell and Gary Philz going.
34:28
No one else.
34:30
There is fuel going everywhere.
34:33
Here's Beck standing back there.
34:35
Big smirk on his face, see?
34:37
So I do the burn out.
34:40
Look, backing up, the thing's pulling so hard, I've got my knee between the steering wheel and I'm pulling the brake on to try and slow it down, going backwards.
34:50
Help!
34:50
That's how much power this is.
34:51
Power it had, yeah.
34:54
I get it back into forward.
34:58
I pull in, pull up, pull the first stage light on.
35:01
Whoever's in the other line, pull their stage light on.
35:06
when the tree come down, step on the throttle, you wouldn't believe how hard it left.
35:15
Boom, down the racetrack.
35:19
It's a coincidence that it had been something like eight years since anyone had run in the 560s.
35:29
And Don Garlitz was the last one that had run in the 560s when it was at Ontario Motor Speedway that was built for the California 500, which is now a Kmart.
35:40
Okay.
35:41
They could seat 250,000 people on concrete seats at this place, right?
35:46
And Beck had been there, and he'd run a 68 and a 69 and thought he had the game tied up at that particular event.
35:56
Garlitz turns up, him and I were good mates.
35:59
Garlitz turns up and goes out and goes 563.
36:03
Well, Bec's arse fell in.
36:05
So here we are.
36:06
This thing's gone down the racetrack and I think it went 589 or something.
36:12
Sorry, 569, right?
36:16
Everyone's doors dropped.
36:18
Jaw's dropped.
36:18
We're number one qualifier.
36:21
So Bec's comes up to me afterwards and goes...
36:25
By this time tomorrow night, you'll be on the bump.
36:31
For those who don't understand what the bump is, that's number 16.
36:33
Yep.
36:34
And there's still more cars to run.
36:36
You're on the bump, see?
36:38
I said, is that right, Gary?
36:39
He says, yes.
36:39
He said, off he goes.
36:41
He was driving for a guy by the name of Larry Minor.
36:44
Larry was a good guy.
36:46
He was a potato farmer.
36:47
I think he sold all his potatoes to McDonald's.
36:50
So...
36:52
We ran in another couple of qualifying sessions and everyone was running high to middle 570s and we didn't want to bust its backside, so comes the end of the meet.
37:09
Oh, and Gary Beck would walk out and he'd stand in the lane and as I'd back up from doing the burnout, he'd stare at me all the way back and I used to give him the big salute and all sorts.
37:20
So Beck's on the bump, not me.
37:22
I'm number one.
37:23
He's on the bump.
37:24
So he goes out for his last qualifying shot.
37:26
So you can guess what I did, can't you?
37:28
I stood out there and as he backed up, I just stared at him and went.
37:34
We stayed number one.
37:35
He's a little reminder.
37:36
His boss come over and give us the biggest bottle of, I forget what it was, some...
37:42
Bourbon or something or other.
37:44
Yeah.
37:44
And said, well done.
37:46
Well done.
37:47
Anyway, afterwards, between that night and the next day racing, all the other drivers, congratulations.
37:55
So tell us, we guessed you had 65 in the bag.
37:59
Yeah.
38:00
We guessed you had 40 over on the blower.
38:02
Yeah.
38:04
We guessed you had 91% in the tank.
38:07
Yeah.
38:07
Just everything I said, I just said, yeah.
38:10
I want to know what you did.
38:10
Yeah.
38:12
And you weren't going to give anything away, were you?
38:13
I wasn't going to tell anybody.
38:16
Anyway, you're not going to believe it.
38:19
We go out in the first run.
38:24
We got down just past the 1,000 foot and the transmission, because we used to have a two-speed transmission back then.
38:32
Transmission, all the plates snuffed out of it.
38:35
The guy in the other lane just gradually going, no, no, no, no, no, because this thing's losing power.
38:40
Power, yep.
38:41
And he just nipped me right on the lights.
38:43
So we were out.
38:45
But we're the first foreigner to ever top qualify.
38:51
Amazing.
38:53
That whole scene for you, having come from Castle Ray, that whole American scene must have been mind-blowing, mate, was it?
39:01
Well, it was, because Wally Parks was the founder of the NHRA, and he begged me to stay on for some more races.
39:10
He said, everyone's going to come and want to see this guy from down under.
39:14
He said, no, mate, we're going home to my kids.
39:17
As is your way.
39:18
As is your... You were almost going to be like the crocodile Dundee coming to drag racing, mate, were you?
39:23
No, it's just... You know, sure, it would have been great to stay.
39:29
Yeah, but that's not your way.
39:31
Your way is family.
39:32
You're a family man.
39:33
I've known that for a long time.
39:34
Yeah, I just... Couldn't imagine being away from my kids.
39:42
Look, my kids...
39:46
Mum, Cheryl and I, we divorced early.
39:50
Hmm.
39:54
There was nothing whatsoever that ever came between...
39:59
The kids came first.
40:01
Yes.
40:01
With the both of us.
40:02
Well done.
40:02
It didn't matter whether we wanted to kill each other.
40:04
Hmm.
40:05
Not in front of the kids kind of thing.
40:07
No way.
40:09
I can remember Cheryl used to go away on holidays.
40:12
Anyway, one day she pulls up out the front, she's got all the kids to come.
40:17
And she was off to Brisbane.
40:18
We were in Greystates.
40:21
And she says, listen, the kids don't want to go.
40:25
So what do they want to do?
40:26
They want to stay here with you.
40:27
I said, well, Cheryl, don't ruin your holidays.
40:30
She says, I'm sure not going to ruin my holidays.
40:32
Out.
40:34
But you would have happily taken, you would have happily had them, of course.
40:38
Oh, we used to pull tricks on us.
40:42
We were racing in Adelaide one time.
40:43
Bruce was a young fella.
40:45
Probably, I don't know where he was, 13 or 14.
40:49
I can't remember.
40:52
And we'd pre-planned it.
40:54
There was this box we left outside the garage door.
40:58
I rang Cheryl up, we're in Adelaide.
41:00
Cheryl.
41:03
We left home, forgot something.
41:07
Can you book Bruce an air ticket?
41:11
Can you go around and get the box that's sitting outside the door, give it to Bruce and take him to play?
41:17
She said, yeah, sure, no problem.
41:19
There's nothing in the box.
41:22
I think he threw it away.
41:25
He's wanting to become the risers.
41:26
Oh, yeah, look.
41:30
It's hard to accept he's 60 at the end of this moment.
41:42
If you're enjoying Jim Reid make sure you check out the recent episode with TV directing wizard Nathan Prendergast.
41:48
Nathan has just about done it all in motorsport TV, and he actually started out commentating drag racing in Western Australia as an 11-year-old.
41:59
there would be low-level street meets or race meetings and no commentators would obviously turn up for it.
42:04
It wasn't really worthy of it.
42:06
But people would want to know...
42:08
The results.
42:08
The results.
42:09
What was the ET?
42:10
What was the speed?
42:12
And so one day Dad said, Nathan, can you just stand here when the time slips come out of the machine, pick it up, key on the microphone and just say left lane, read out the name, the ET and speed.
42:24
So I started doing that and then obviously...
42:27
I just couldn't help myself and I'd add some commentary on the last pass or I would talk about... Because you're such a shy type, aren't you?
42:33
Well, yes, I'm very shy.
42:35
Shy and reserved.
42:38
Nathan has a revelation in this episode of Rusty's Garage about a new TV deal for Australian drag racing that will be great for the sport.
42:46
He also helped Rusty with some intel for this podcast with Jim Reid.
42:53
want side of your own racing was also to help the sport to progress and and you did some things very early on you you um you know it was a very blokey game but you you convinced them about things like no grog so it would become more of a family orientated thing so so wives and kids would would come along i mean that was a pretty big step a lot of a lot of that
43:19
A lot of that stopped at the end.
43:21
But I was brought up in an alcohol family that I didn't like.
43:29
Never drank beer.
43:31
Couldn't stand it.
43:31
My brother and my dad drank beer.
43:35
But outside of our family, I've seen a lot of violence through alcohol.
43:39
Okay.
43:41
And...
43:43
To see a woman get smacked across a room and bounce off a wall by some drunken bastard just didn't...
43:50
I was terrified that if I drank beer, I'd end up like that, wanting to smack someone.
43:58
I was 27 when I had my first drink, and it was a cherry brandy in the Three Swallows pub.
44:06
Yeah.
44:07
Near Yaguna there.
44:08
Yeah.
44:09
And...
44:11
I'm the opposite.
44:12
But I was terrified because my brother was a bad alcoholic, really bad.
44:20
And all he wanted to do was fight people.
44:24
And he didn't have a real good life.
44:27
And he had meningitis of the brain when he was 14.
44:30
They told him, go home, he's going to die.
44:34
But he'd get grog in and the slightest thing... Set him off.
44:38
Would set him off.
44:39
And he'd want to thump someone.
44:41
Or he'd misunderstand.
44:42
Like you could be sitting there talking to me and you could turn around and say, oh Jim, you're a prick, you know.
44:48
He'd deck you on the spot.
44:49
Just his temperance would flare.
44:52
And I was always scared of it.
44:55
I drink a lot of scotch.
44:56
My wife can tell you.
44:58
I'm not a nasty drunk.
45:00
If I was, I'd never drink.
45:03
Where I'm going here is that over that course of time, that partnership that you had with Winfield and so on, it wasn't just about sponsoring Jim Reed Racing.
45:12
It was actually about creating things around the sport from my side.
45:17
One of the very first commentary jobs, in fact, the first commentary job I ever did as a guest commentator over the PA was Winfield Triple Challenge at Eastern Creek.
45:27
That was unreal.
45:28
Unreal.
45:28
Unreal.
45:29
To think that you could bring together everything, bikes, cars, and then at night when it all finished, all the circuit racing stuff finished, we'd fire up the drag racing.
45:37
And then you'd get Wayne Gardner versus Glenn Seton roaring up the drag strip in their touring cars.
45:42
It was awesome.
45:43
And they wanted to.
45:45
You know, the boys, they were like us back then.
45:48
They were enthusiasts.
45:49
It hadn't gone to their head.
45:53
They enjoyed doing it, but there was a lot who didn't.
45:57
At the time, we were on top of the world.
46:01
Mm.
46:01
And if things happen, along come... Tony Cochrane?
46:09
Mm.
46:10
Yep.
46:10
They will change, didn't it, mate?
46:12
It had to.
46:13
Mm.
46:13
And I used to say, somebody needs to go out and talk to that man.
46:16
Mm.
46:17
I said, because we're platted.
46:20
The only reason we played it through greed and the races themselves.
46:25
You know what I'm saying?
46:26
Yeah, yeah.
46:28
They got so up their own backside about what they were doing.
46:34
It's like the last race in Sydney, just gone by.
46:38
Had some guys come up and they start to talk and...
46:41
You know, need to do this and need to do that and need to do something else.
46:44
To fix the sport you're talking, to unify it, to make it better.
46:49
And I said to this guy, you know one thing we've run out of here?
46:54
What's that?
46:55
I said, wingers.
46:57
I said, we've run the wingers out.
47:00
Don't come racing top fuel if you're going to piss and moan about everything.
47:02
If you make the decision to run here...
47:06
Don't come in here and have the audacity then to start pissing and moaning about the rules and regulations.
47:13
Be a pioneer, not a prick.
47:15
Yep, yep.
47:17
And do it, not a whinger.
47:18
A couple of them started going on and said, mate, you won't race me if you want to keep on going like that.
47:26
You know, thinking V8 supercars, drag racing,
47:35
a little bit similar in it needs a fair amount of money to make it happen.
47:41
You can't expect the promoter to pay you all the money you think you deserve because there's too many of you.
47:49
You can't expect... We go to Darwin to race.
47:51
The government pays for us to come up.
47:54
We're out of pocket when we get home.
47:56
But if it helps it get going up there, one day there might be more money to go for.
48:01
Yes.
48:01
And people need to understand something.
48:04
I'll tell you now.
48:06
Eastern Creek Raceway wouldn't be there where it is if it had started running a lot of major events.
48:12
So it's only got a piss-down rain, and you're a quarter million bucks out of pocket as a promoter, because you've paid for all your advertising, you've paid for all the preparation of the venue, you've got all of these people who have bought tickets in advance that you've got to refund, and you're not making any money.
48:28
I mean, if the drag swashers... Top Fuel Australia, along with Andy and Nathan and others...
48:37
They go in and do a track hire.
48:40
Now, Eastern Creek Raceway is only there because all of the track hires they do.
48:47
You notice they don't put on any events, do they?
48:49
You're talking about the...
48:50
The circuit race, guys.
48:56
The ARDC are like real estate agents.
49:00
They're renting the place out.
49:02
It's the only way they've survived.
49:04
And I applaud them for it.
49:05
Although I hate some of them, I applaud them for it because they're still there after all this time.
49:11
And back when Nick Dryner built the place...
49:16
And the, you know, the piss down rain, the place was a boggy, and everything like that.
49:21
And all the motorbike shops were going to come in and run.
49:23
And I said, Nick, that's never going to work, never going to work.
49:26
Anyway, after the motorbike race was over and,
49:32
A couple of months go by and nothing's happening there.
49:34
So Griner sends a guy out to talk to me.
49:37
He said, Jim, what would you do to fix the place?
49:40
I said, well, you've got to get rid of all those motorbike people.
49:43
The enthusiast honestly believed that there's a cow to milk and the golden dollar's gonna fall out every time you squeeze it.
49:51
He said, it's not gonna happen.
49:53
I said, it's not football.
49:57
I said, it's motorsport.
49:59
It's too expensive.
50:01
to expect one single promoter to take the responsibility.
50:05
If it rains, no spectators.
50:08
Guess what?
50:08
He's blown his bank.
50:10
So I said, what would you recommend?
50:13
How do you think we should fix it?
50:15
I said, I'll get your guy.
50:17
I rang Kevin Prennikas.
50:19
I said, Kevin, we need you.
50:21
So Kevin, come over.
50:22
Accommodation and everything.
50:23
Yeah.
50:25
He'd been running Ravenswood, hadn't he, in WA That's right And done a very good job there And a lot of people had noticed what a good job he'd done And I said to him, this is your man Or Kevin ran it right up to them, handed over to the ADC
50:40
Well, he'd already been offered a job to go and take on it.
50:43
Philip Ireland.
50:45
Which he did.
50:46
But Kevin's a natural.
50:48
Kevin's a...
50:49
Very good in that role.
50:50
I mean, he's a good friend of yours, I know, mate, but he's in... Oh, you're telling me to fuck off and it's not bothering me if he's too busy.
50:56
Him and I have a real good understanding.
50:58
Yes, Jim.
50:59
Yes, Kevin.
51:01
Okay.
51:02
Kevin, what about this and this?
51:03
Oh, fucking not now.
51:04
Piss off.
51:07
There's no better man to do the job.
51:08
I wanted him to come and run Sydney.
51:11
This time.
51:14
Yeah.
51:16
And Kevin's too happy doing what he's doing.
51:19
Doing.
51:20
And he does it.
51:21
Does it well.
51:22
Yeah.
51:22
And you can't drag it.
51:24
There's not that much responsibility there for him.
51:28
All he's got to do is do what he knows best.
51:30
Make it happen.
51:37
That's the end of part two of my podcast with Andra Drag Racing Hall of Famer Jim Reeve.
51:42
But the good news is we are not done yet.
51:45
It is a beautiful afternoon here.
51:47
Jim is enjoying the conversation and there's still a bit more ground to cover.
51:52
So there is a third installment of this podcast, something we don't often do.
51:58
It's all loaded up and ready for you to enjoy right now.
52:01
Remember, with a life this full, we just want...
52:04
won't get to every story in Jim's incredible career.
52:08
Good excuse to sit down for another yarn perhaps with him in the years ahead.
52:12
Part three covers the exciting new chapter in Australian drag racing that was announced on the day we recorded.
52:20
The car that he had perhaps the greatest attachment to and navigating the politics to ensure Sydney had a purpose-built drag racing venue for generations to come.