Latest / Rusty's Garage / Kenny Smith | Part 2 - mentoring Scott Dixon & iconic single seaters.

Transcript

Kenny Smith | Part 2 - mentoring Scott Dixon & iconic single seaters. · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day everybody, Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature episode with Kenny Smith.
• 0:24
  Now, you all know that I usually bang on at this point.
• 0:27
  If you've arrived here and not listened to part one, you need to jump back to the library and give that a listen first and so on.
• 0:33
  Well, I mean that even more than normal with this one, and that is because Ken's story is...
• 0:39
  incredible a life that has just been about horsepower and racing and he is still deeply committed to it in part one you'll learn about how it all got started in the late 1950s his friendship in those early years with jimmy richards waking up after a big night out with his feet painted silver
• 0:58
  holding up an event or being a little late back to the track because he was putting a bed on a horse race somewhere.
• 1:04
  The absolute superstars of the 60s from Europe that he raced against here and hung out with afterwards.
• 1:11
  As we get into part two, just a little reminder that Kenny's career is so massive, he has so many trophies, stories, memorable moments, that we are not aiming to cover all of them.
• 1:22
  Apologies if I don't get to one that perhaps you wanted to hear a bit more about.
• 1:26
  I'm endeavouring to provide a summary of sorts that hopefully appeals for lots of different reasons.
• 1:31
  I loved this conversation.
• 1:33
  We filmed it too, so if you'd like to watch the chat at some stage later, you can do that by heading to our YouTube channel at Rusty's Garage Pod.
• 1:42
  Let's get back to the chat now.
• 1:44
  Kenny, the sport can have its tensions sometimes too.
• 1:49
  Craig Baird came on the podcast back in 2020 and I had a great chat with him.
• 1:53
  He talks about an incident with a screwdriver where things boiled over between the pair of you.
• 1:59
  You're good mates now, and I think you've been able to put that...
• 2:02
  But what happened back then?
• 2:04
  You were battling each other on track... Yeah, we were battling each other on track, and in those days there were stopwatches and not computers.
• 2:12
  And he came to me and said, Who's got pole?
• 2:14
  And I said, I have.
• 2:15
  And he said, No, you haven't.
• 2:16
  I've got it.
• 2:16
  And he was agitating me.
• 2:18
  So he went away and he found out that he did have the pole by a whisker.
• 2:22
  So he came back and he started poking me with his finger in the chest, and he kept us up.
• 2:26
  And I got a bit peeved with him, so...
• 2:29
  I pushed him over and then jumped on top to have a punch at him.
• 2:33
  And I saw a screwdriver about six feet away and I said to the guy, kick that screwdriver to me.
• 2:38
  I'll kill him with this.
• 2:40
  And thank Christ the guy kicked the other one.
• 2:42
  I mean, I wouldn't have, but anyway.
• 2:44
  Yeah.
• 2:45
  And you do funny things like that.
• 2:46
  But when we were on the track, him and I, we were at loggerheads, believe you me, we served each other.
• 2:52
  We're talking former Atlanta.
• 2:53
  here are we not?
• 2:54
  Yeah and you know he was a good steerer and but as off the track we were good friends and we're still good friends today and it's no different, Radisic was another one, mainly Radisic and Beardos who we raced against strong.
• 3:09
  Correct me if I'm wrong here.
• 3:10
  I don't want to say the wrong thing, Kenny, but Radicic, I think, had a helmet on.
• 3:14
  Did you punch him in the chest or the stomach or something or other?
• 3:17
  And he couldn't get out of the car.
• 3:18
  He was winded for about 20 minutes or something, wasn't he?
• 3:22
  That was Bay Park.
• 3:23
  Bay Park, OK. Yeah, and he came from doing Formula 3 in Europe, and in those days they used to wheelbang each other.
• 3:29
  And he started it on me, and he gave me that bit of rubbish at Bay Park.
• 3:34
  And I was that annoyed with him.
• 3:35
  When I went round, I saw he drove in the pits, so the next lap I came straight in the pits in practice, and I said,
• 3:40
  and got out and I thought, I'll deal to this guy.
• 3:43
  So I went in there and he had his hat on, so I threw a punch at him, got him in the chest, and he was gasping for air.
• 3:50
  And I threatened and told him what I was going to do with him and everything.
• 3:52
  At any rate, the next day, we were racing so close together, he swapped ends at Bay Park, and his car ended up pointing the wrong way, and my car was only half an inch off his nose, and we'd never crashed into each other, which that's how close it was.
• 4:08
  And it was funny, he undid his belts, jumped out of the car, climbed over a fence and ran back a long way to the pits and left the car he thought I was going to take to him.
• 4:15
  Really?
• 4:16
  Yeah.
• 4:17
  And he started, and I said, if you ever give me any of that crap again, you'll see what happens, you'll be tipped over.
• 4:22
  Okay.
• 4:22
  And so he started on Craig Beard.
• 4:25
  He gave Vito, and I said, Beard, you've got to do the same as I did.
• 4:28
  don't take any of that rubbish and this is how we're going to drive clean.
• 4:32
  And then in the finish, we had some good years together driving real clean.
• 4:36
  And, you know, they're all mates and that's it.
• 4:39
  But this is what happens when you get on the track.
• 4:40
  You get a bit mad with yourself.
• 4:43
  Is there a story too around you perhaps helping maybe Craig understand how to improve the car as well?
• 4:49
  You were somewhere and you were talking about him maybe...
• 4:52
  coming on and off the throttle, perhaps through one particular corner.
• 4:55
  And you had a conversation about that, didn't you?
• 4:57
  Yeah, I sold him a car, his first Rolt.
• 5:00
  He got it off me, an 86 Rolt.
• 5:02
  And I remember his father saying to me, is this car still a winning car?
• 5:06
  He said, it can win races, no trouble.
• 5:08
  So Craig wasn't quite on the pace at Bay Park, and his father was saying to him, you told me this car was a winning car.
• 5:15
  I said, it is.
• 5:16
  He said, well, do you want to jump in it and run it and practice and see what you think?
• 5:20
  Yeah, so I did.
• 5:21
  And it was quick, and quicker than my own, actually.
• 5:24
  Okay.
• 5:25
  Yeah, so when I got out of the car, I said to him, now get in that car.
• 5:28
  I know where you're wrong.
• 5:30
  Stopped pumping the throttle around that corner.
• 5:31
  He was off and on three or four times on a sweeper, which was losing power in your head.
• 5:37
  So he went out and he did about eight or nine laps, and all of them were pretty good except one of them, and he ended up being faster than me.
• 5:44
  Okay.
• 5:45
  Yeah, so these are the sort of things you... Maybe I should have shut up and told him nothing.
• 5:50
  This kind of leads us to the whole notion of mentoring, which you've done some incredible things, Kenny, along the way.
• 5:58
  Firstly, in talking about Beardo and Paul Radisic, there's probably a little bit of a realisation in that of a new wave or a new era of young Kiwi drivers coming through.
• 6:09
  How did you feel about that at that stage?
• 6:11
  Was there an element of...
• 6:13
  I mean, you stood up to them in the manner that you talked about before, but was there also an element of pride seeing what these fast young guys could ultimately do?
• 6:21
  Yeah, it was.
• 6:22
  I mean, when you could see what even with Beard, even at a young age he was, and what Radish Hips could do, I mean, it was world-class what they were doing out there.
• 6:31
  They're good drivers, and that's what's happening now with young kids coming up.
• 6:35
  There's some real super talent out there, and I think between Australia and New Zealand, we've got the best talent in the world for young guys for the size of the country.
• 6:43
  Why are we that good, do you think?
• 6:45
  What makes us that good?
• 6:46
  I don't know.
• 6:46
  The guys seem to be dedicated when they get in a car.
• 6:50
  Well, you know, I haven't seen all around the world what's going on, but I do notice people always talk about where drivers are coming from.
• 6:56
  The quality we have.
• 6:58
  In Australia are pretty good at what they supply.
• 7:01
  And the guys are obviously super dedicated to doing it.
• 7:04
  over your shoulder to autographed pictures of Murph from back in the day as well and you had in that single-seater part of his career you helped there too didn't you?
• 7:15
  Tell me what you did there and how that started.
• 7:18
  Murph was driving Fords when he was only 15 odd and I was running Formula Fords with the same team as him and he won the scholarship to get a free deal to win the championship in the Fords and then at the end he didn't have any money and he
• 7:33
  Bailed out and he was going to be a mechanic for Richard Leicester Motorsport.
• 7:36
  Okay.
• 7:37
  And then I said to him, I'd bought another car, an 88 Rolt, and I said, I've got a spare one there.
• 7:42
  No, I bought the Swift, I'm wrong.
• 7:44
  It was a Swift.
• 7:45
  And I said to him, I've got a car here if you want to drive it.
• 7:49
  But I said, he said, well, I haven't got any money.
• 7:51
  And I said, well, don't bend it.
• 7:52
  Bring it back in the same way if you've got it.
• 7:54
  So he takes it away, and he goes so good in it that Shellsore promised him, and they gave him a reasonably good buck the next year.
• 8:02
  And so he leased a DB4 Swift off me.
• 8:06
  And then he was quick.
• 8:07
  Amazing.
• 8:07
  His talent was there.
• 8:09
  So it's good that he never gave up, because, I mean, look, he's won Bathurst four times.
• 8:13
  Yes.
• 8:14
  And he's talent, and he's good at what he does.
• 8:17
  If I've joined the years right there, I mean, one of them is 92, for example, so he's probably...
• 8:22
  19 or 20, depending upon the time of year that was.
• 8:26
  And it's sort of on the cusp of him basically going to Australia.
• 8:29
  So it was at a really important time for him, wasn't it?
• 8:31
  It was an important time, yeah, because had he not done this, he would have been nothing.
• 8:36
  He wouldn't have been racing, so...
• 8:38
  It was just good to see him get going and he was a talented driver that never got wasted.
• 8:42
  I have a bit to do with his sons from time to time now with both Cormac and Ronan.
• 8:47
  Ronan does some commentary with me and he's very good at it actually.
• 8:50
  And I think there's quite a funny yarn around the boys talking with you about whether dad should help them on their motor racing endeavours too.
• 9:00
  You gave him a good bit of advice to go back to him on, didn't you?
• 9:03
  Yeah, Greg says, oh, they're wasting time.
• 9:06
  He sort of didn't want to get behind them.
• 9:08
  And I reminded him with some foul language what to go back and say to him how he got his break and get them going.
• 9:16
  So I don't know what his thoughts were.
• 9:18
  He never ever come and said to me they told him, but they did.
• 9:21
  What is it about the mentoring thing?
• 9:24
  And when did that become something that you have...
• 9:30
  Boots and all really helped so many Kiwi drivers over time.
• 9:35
  At what point did you sort of think, I want to give back in that way or I can help in that way?
• 9:40
  When did that sort of start, Kenny?
• 9:41
  Well, it was right when Scott Dixon first got going, when he was only 12 and he was running a Formula V. And I got to talking to him, was telling him a few things and what he shouldn't do and what he should do.
• 9:51
  He was a different kid back then, wasn't he?
• 9:53
  He was a little fat kid in those days, yeah.
• 9:55
  Sorry, sorry Scott.
• 9:56
  Yeah, keep going.
• 9:57
  Yeah, he can't hear us.
• 10:00
  And, no, he was... but he had a lot of talent.
• 10:03
  You could see even driving a V, he wanted to race cars.
• 10:07
  And then he moved into Formula Ford and went extra good in one of those.
• 10:11
  And from then on he just kept progressing.
• 10:13
  We kept pushing him along and eventually we got him...
• 10:17
  I talked to him in Australia about...
• 10:18
  Formula Holden.
• 10:20
  Formula Holden.
• 10:21
  And he went good and won that Holden Championship over there.
• 10:23
  Yeah.
• 10:25
  And then of course the next move was to go to USA.
• 10:29
  Yep.
• 10:30
  And a guy, Peter Johnson, PJ.
• 10:32
  Yes, PJ, sure do.
• 10:33
  He was helping with him and the two of us got our heads down to get some money jacked up for him for even when he went to Aussie through people putting donations and helping that way.
• 10:44
  Yep.
• 10:44
  And he just showed so much talent.
• 10:46
  And going to America, we couldn't pay the money that they were looking at.
• 10:50
  And it was just a matter of taking him there
• 10:53
  And I went around the circuit, up and down the pit lane, and it's amazing the amount of people that I thought I didn't know but knew me from days when Atlantic people came in and raced and knew who we were.
• 11:05
  I said, oh, what are you doing here?
• 11:06
  Come in.
• 11:07
  So I've got at least 15 out of 20 teams would talk to me.
• 11:11
  And I just said, I've brought this kid over and he's super talented and we need a test.
• 11:15
  Oh, we haven't got anything.
• 11:17
  You know, it eventually got to Vern Shupin with Jansen's team.
• 11:21
  And he said, oh, no, we'll think about it and all that.
• 11:25
  And I said, well, hang on.
• 11:26
  We've been mates for years.
• 11:27
  We've raced in Asia together with Vern and you need to do this for me.
• 11:31
  And he said, well...
• 11:33
  If I do it for you, you'll have to pay US$10,000 for the test day.
• 11:37
  And I said, yep, that's good.
• 11:39
  We'll do that because that was cheap.
• 11:41
  And then he suggested I get another car from PacWest and get them to run in the day before because their engine was tied in their car, so it was only a matter of learning Sebring Circuit.
• 11:53
  So I did that, and the next day he jumps into the PacWest car, the Johansson car, and...
• 12:01
  He's shown up about 15 guys out on the track and was fastest.
• 12:04
  And they're going, where's this guy from?
• 12:06
  Where's he come from?
• 12:07
  And I said to him when he got out of the car, don't talk to anybody.
• 12:12
  Don't run up.
• 12:13
  Because you were kind of surrounded by interested team people, weren't you?
• 12:16
  Yeah, well, they saw what he did, and they thought, this is unbelievable.
• 12:19
  And I thought, we've got to try and score a deal somehow.
• 12:22
  But I remember going back to Vern Shup and...
• 12:24
  And he said, oh, I'm not really happy because he said, I've got other people coming talking to me about him and here's Steve Horn who runs a team and he wants to talk to us about him.
• 12:35
  And I said, oh, well, I have to go and talk to him.
• 12:39
  So before he left, he said, well, we want a million dollars to do this.
• 12:44
  And I said, well, I'm with a million cents.
• 12:46
  And that's when he said to me, well, why are you here?
• 12:48
  I said, because you did tell me that no driver is as good as these Americans.
• 12:52
  And I said, we've got one here.
• 12:53
  And so as we went to walk away, he said, would you guys shake my hand and give me seven days to see if we can find some money?
• 13:01
  So I said, here, away you go, Scotch, I'm going to shake his hand.
• 13:04
  So we do all this rubbish and go and talk to Steve.
• 13:07
  And Steve, we knew what he wanted.
• 13:09
  He didn't have a drive there, but he was coming down to New Zealand to see the warbirds, and he wanted to know when they were on.
• 13:15
  So when I went back, Vern said to us, what did he say to you?
• 13:21
  And I said, I can't tell you.
• 13:22
  That's our business between him and us.
• 13:24
  And I said, I didn't discuss your business with him.
• 13:26
  So he said, oh, I've had a talk to Stefan Johansson, and we'll see if we can find the money and sign him up.
• 13:31
  And that's how it started.
• 13:33
  And it went from there.
• 13:34
  Yeah, and then what PJ did was got some funding to keep him up there and all that sort of stuff, with the necessary stuff, because he still needed money.
• 13:42
  Yes.
• 13:42
  But other than that, the main drive was free, and after, and they were struggling a bit, and I remember he crashed one of their cars, and...
• 13:50
  Colin Giltrap stepped in and bought a car, a rolling chassis.
• 13:54
  Yeah, he rung me and said, like, what?
• 13:56
  And I said, we've got one jacked up, but it's a roller.
• 13:59
  And so he said, yep, all right, we'll buy it.
• 14:00
  So he stumped up the money.
• 14:02
  He stumped up the money.
• 14:03
  And then, of course, that class was, they were going to change the cars after that year.
• 14:07
  And Colin, I said, Colin, we've got an offer for your car, and it's about 30 grand less than you paid for it.
• 14:13
  If it was me, I'd take it because I said, I hear they're changing the models.
• 14:17
  And he said, whatever you think, do.
• 14:19
  So that was how it started.
• 14:20
  He was very good.
• 14:21
  We have lots of Dixon memorabilia here.
• 14:24
  And there are others that we're going to come to here that you've helped along the way.
• 14:28
  His is probably, I think it's fair to say, a template in some respects of what you've been able to go on and do with some of these drivers.
• 14:36
  I mean, it's great that you bring up the late Sir Colin Giltrap there.
• 14:41
  You've mentioned PJ.
• 14:42
  So in addition to helping the drivers in a driving sense, are you working behind the scenes here with a consortium of people, Kenny, and saying, right, can we get this person to help us?
• 14:52
  And how can we get this group of people behind Scott and to create an almost business structure to support him?
• 15:02
  Well, that's what I ended up having to do a bit of that because it's relying on contacts.
• 15:07
  If I didn't have the contacts, it'd be hard to knock on a door and talk to someone because they wouldn't want to talk to any or half of them.
• 15:13
  But because I knew all the people that you talked to, it's a lot easier for them to not say no to you and try and give you some help.
• 15:20
  And that's how it sort of ended up over the years, just getting contacts here, contacts there to keep talking to people.
• 15:26
  What did you see in Scotland?
• 15:27
  What was it in those early days that you saw in him in Formula First or even as he progressed?
• 15:33
  What were the attributes that he had that made you realise you had something special there?
• 15:38
  He was very smooth in a car and he was 110% dedicated.
• 15:42
  When he was in that car, there was nothing in the world around him but that race car.
• 15:46
  You know, he was just a different guy where some guys will drive a race car and it'd still be a bit of a hoon.
• 15:52
  And like Scott could sit on a grid and he did in America, it was funny, he'd sit on the grid before he's going out and he's talking all sorts of crap to us and laughing and joking and going on.
• 16:01
  And when they say start your engines, he wouldn't even know you were there.
• 16:05
  Once he got that engine going, there was nobody around him.
• 16:08
  Gotcha.
• 16:08
  That's the way he went.
• 16:09
  He's such a dedicated athlete.
• 16:11
  Well, he's a thinker.
• 16:13
  You actually watch him, and sometimes he's never at the front.
• 16:16
  He doesn't worry about being partway back, and he's never fighting to get up there.
• 16:20
  He sits and he does his pace, saves fuel, gets less tyres, wears, so he doesn't have to spend so much time in the pits.
• 16:27
  and he's waiting and waiting, and when part of the race is ready, then he starts moving.
• 16:32
  And he seems to be able to do that.
• 16:34
  And I know one thing he's always been good at, when he's following a guy or moving in on somebody, he watches what they're doing.
• 16:42
  And he sees them making a mistake on a particular corner, right, that's where I'm coming past.
• 16:46
  That's what he always told me.
• 16:47
  Okay.
• 16:47
  When you see the mistake all over and over again, when I get beside the guy and I'm ready, I'm diving in there.
• 16:53
  That's amazing.
• 16:53
  On that corner.
• 16:54
  Yeah.
• 16:54
  Yeah.
• 16:54
  So he's a thinker.
• 16:55
  He just doesn't drive up to behind them like a lot of drivers.
• 16:59
  You get jammed behind a guy and they never move.
• 17:01
  Mm.
• 17:02
  What he's achieved, Kenny, is remarkable.
• 17:05
  I mean, from that PacWest photo that I can see over your shoulder where he's, I think, maybe having one of his first IndyCar drives, a Rookie of the Year, what he's gone on to do in the 20-plus years in that sport is nothing short of remarkable, isn't it?
• 17:20
  Oh, it's remarkable, yeah.
• 17:21
  No, he's something special.
• 17:22
  And even though he's getting on in age now, they still respect him and they know that he's still very competitive.
• 17:27
  Yeah.
• 17:28
  But he knows what he's doing.
• 17:29
  There's no doubt about that.
• 17:30
  Definitely.
• 17:31
  Let's come to a couple of others that you've mentored along the way now, if you don't mind.
• 17:34
  I want to come to Brendan Hartley because he has a Formula One chapter of his career that I'd like to ask you about, but he's really found his feet in sports cars.
• 17:47
  I mean, three Le Mans wins, Le Mans 24-hour wins, I should say, four World Endurance Championships,
• 17:56
  You tell a good story about meeting Helmut Marko and stitching, like ringing him about the talent that you said he had and why he was worth them getting behind, didn't you?
• 18:08
  Yeah.
• 18:08
  Well, PJ started helping him in the form of a Toyota.
• 18:13
  Yes.
• 18:15
  And Brendan had a lot of talent, and you could see that.
• 18:18
  So I thought, it's time to make a move.
• 18:20
  And I talked to a guy in the States, Jeremy Shaw.
• 18:24
  Yes.
• 18:25
  I've commentated with him.
• 18:26
  I know him.
• 18:26
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:27
  And I said, do you know anybody?
• 18:29
  I rang him and said, do you know anybody at Red Bull?
• 18:31
  I need to talk to them about a driver.
• 18:33
  He said, who's the driver?
• 18:34
  I said, it's Brendan Hartley.
• 18:35
  Oh, he's brilliant.
• 18:36
  He's good.
• 18:37
  He said, I'll talk to Helmut Marko, because he's a friend of mine.
• 18:41
  So I said, I'll tell him you want to ring him about a guy.
• 18:43
  So he did, and he rung me back and said, ring him.
• 18:47
  When you're ready, he'll talk to you.
• 18:49
  What did you say to Helmut Marko, and what's he like?
• 18:52
  Well, he was very grumpy.
• 18:54
  He wasn't a nice, pleasant guy to talk to, and I just said to him, look, I've got a kid that is actually super brilliant, and you probably need to be looking at him.
• 19:04
  And he said, what makes you think this kid's good?
• 19:06
  Because I said, well, I said so.
• 19:08
  And I said, I wouldn't be ringing you if I didn't think he was good.
• 19:11
  Good, OK.
• 19:11
  So he said, oh, well, I'll have a think about this.
• 19:14
  And so he rung me back and he said, I'm going to send you a contract out.
• 19:19
  And he said, it's for a test in the form of Renault.
• 19:22
  Then if he's any good, we'll run him in a Renault for a season.
• 19:25
  And that's how it started.
• 19:27
  Okay.
• 19:27
  And he won the...
• 19:28
  The test was good.
• 19:29
  He won the Renault Championship for him.
• 19:31
  Yep.
• 19:31
  And from then on, then he moved him into the proper teams, what he needed him for.
• 19:35
  And I thought this maybe will never work, but it did.
• 19:39
  Because he did the job for them and I thought he was brilliant.
• 19:42
  I don't know what you can say, Kenny, but I always feel like the Formula One chapter, knowing what he's gone on to do in sports cars was...
• 19:51
  It's sort of unfulfilled in some ways, but there are circumstances around that for him.
• 19:55
  It wasn't easy, was it?
• 19:56
  No, because he was with Tora also, and that was French run by Frenchmen.
• 20:01
  And Gasly, who still races Formula One today, is a Frenchman.
• 20:04
  And Brendan, being a Kiwi, when he went quicker, and he was quicker than Gasly...
• 20:09
  Any mods that were on the car, they'd take them off and put them on his car and give him the rubbish back on it.
• 20:15
  And that's what sort of held Brendan back.
• 20:17
  And he knows that he had issues.
• 20:19
  But he said, I'm still grateful because at the end of the day, if I hadn't got that deal, I wouldn't have been able to introduce myself around sports car driving.
• 20:27
  And that's how he made his break.
• 20:29
  And from then on, he's one of the most brilliant sports car drivers in the world.
• 20:32
  You know, you don't win my mind three times for nothing, do you?
• 20:35
  Exactly.
• 20:36
  I mean, he's got great longevity in his career.
• 20:39
  When you look at him, you had some reflections on Scott there before.
• 20:42
  What did you see in Brendan, for that matter?
• 20:44
  Well, Brendan was another one.
• 20:45
  When he was a kid running the Formula 1st, he was good at spinning up.
• 20:51
  But when he spun, you couldn't believe what he was doing, charging across the grass backwards.
• 20:56
  He's grabbing gears to try and drive it away on all sorts of opposite locks, fighting the car until it either stopped on the wall or he managed to stop it in time.
• 21:04
  And then he just got better and better, but you see he had magic car control.
• 21:08
  And he went on to go into Formula Ford and went good from that.
• 21:12
  I'd give him a run in a couple of Atlantic cars.
• 21:16
  And from then, I put him in a Formula Holden at Puka Koei.
• 21:19
  Koei, yeah.
• 21:20
  And he just, you know, you could see he was so good.
• 21:24
  And as a person, one of the nicest guys you'd come across.
• 21:27
  Totally, totally.
• 21:28
  He respects what I did for him, and he's very happy.
• 21:31
  And, you know, he's a great kid.
• 21:33
  I sat down with him in the very early days of his sports car racing in Taupo and had a great chat with him there.
• 21:38
  It's great to...
• 21:40
  see what he's gone on to achieve since then.
• 21:42
  While we're talking Hartleys, we might as well talk his brother because you helped Nelson as well too.
• 21:46
  I mean, I don't know, Kenny, I may have called some of his Formula Holden races in Australia.
• 21:53
  He had some good potential too, didn't he?
• 21:54
  Yeah, he was a very good driver too, and once again, I mean, they didn't have a lot of money, that family, but I bought a couple of cars that had been sitting in a container for a year, Formula Holdens, and got them going, and I drove one, and he drove the other one, and he was quick in the car.
• 22:10
  You know, he impressed a lot of those older Formula Holden drivers when they saw him, how quick he picked up and went, and he was, he was very good, but...
• 22:18
  But Brendan just had that little bit extra.
• 22:21
  And I tell you, it's cruel when you say they're going to two brothers.
• 22:24
  Yes.
• 22:25
  But it's...
• 22:27
  I mean, both of them were talented drivers, could have gone anywhere.
• 22:29
  Yeah.
• 22:30
  But we choose to carry on with Brendan, and that's sort of how Brendan ended up going.
• 22:35
  Going, yeah.
• 22:36
  And poor old Nelson didn't get the last break.
• 22:38
  Well, we still deal with him around racing today.
• 22:40
  I think he's done some great stuff around karting and things, hasn't he?
• 22:43
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:44
  Can we come to Dan Gaunt now?
• 22:45
  I mean, he's off...
• 22:46
  doing some very clever things in in business now i think tony quinn it's probably fair to say is mentoring him a bit in in that regard i think dan helps in the background with liam lawson as well which is which is excellent what was it like coming across a young dan gaunt and and how did you help there well he was only a school kid and he was i remember him running a formula ford at taupo he didn't even know how to change the brake pads so my niece changed the brake pads for him really yeah and he's telling him what to do and uh i thought it was funny actually and uh
• 23:14
  But he was a good driver, and he didn't come across as quick as those other guys straight away, but you could see he got himself into gear and did it, and we managed to find a drive for him in the former Atlantic in the USA, and took him up and did a test, and it was quite funny because there was about 12 people testing from different countries, and Americans as well, and...
• 23:40
  The guy said, you guys are late getting today.
• 23:43
  You're the last person up.
• 23:44
  When do you want to go?
• 23:45
  And we said, look, we'll run tomorrow.
• 23:47
  He said, oh, that's good.
• 23:48
  So him and I, we raced around all the corners watching the other drivers drive.
• 23:54
  And he's looking at what they're doing.
• 23:55
  And he said, we're changing gear here, there.
• 23:57
  So he had it all worked out what he had to do.
• 23:59
  And so he went back and they put a new set of tyres on every drive after they'd done about 30 laps.
• 24:06
  Well, he goes out, and the first thing he does, he comes in in about three laps.
• 24:10
  He forgot to do his crash hat up, and he was embarrassed.
• 24:13
  You know, he wanted me to smother around him so they couldn't see him doing it up.
• 24:17
  So he goes out again, and in a matter of short time, he was the quickest out there.
• 24:22
  And so when he come in for the new tyres, he said, look, we're not going to put them on.
• 24:25
  You don't need to get out anymore.
• 24:27
  You're quick enough on the old tyres, quicker than the guys on the new tyres.
• 24:31
  And this is sort of how we ended up getting a drive for him.
• 24:33
  So I got a Paul Newman, the film star.
• 24:37
  He was part owner of the team, and he was there.
• 24:40
  And so they ended up taking two drivers, an American and him.
• 24:44
  And that's sort of how it sort of got going.
• 24:48
  But it didn't.
• 24:49
  The team was, they were green.
• 24:51
  They were too new.
• 24:52
  Okay.
• 24:52
  And they didn't really justify what he could do in a car.
• 24:55
  Yeah.
• 24:55
  What was his strength, Kenny?
• 24:58
  What was the quality that Dan had that made him stand out to you?
• 25:03
  Well, once again, he was another dedicated guy.
• 25:05
  He just wanted to race, and he put 110% into what he did.
• 25:09
  Okay.
• 25:10
  He wasn't the sort of guy who could go out and talk to a lot of people in those days.
• 25:14
  He can now.
• 25:14
  He can now, yeah.
• 25:15
  But in those days, he was quite tame.
• 25:17
  Okay.
• 25:18
  He's quite a character now.
• 25:20
  He's funny.
• 25:21
  He's a lovely guy.
• 25:22
  I know you have spent over a decade helping Tom Alexander.
• 25:26
  There's some great photos of you guys competing together.
• 25:30
  He's got a little bit of a connection to my wife's family.
• 25:35
  He's a great coach.
• 25:37
  He's been off racing in America as you and I sit and talk here.
• 25:40
  What's it been like working with Tom?
• 25:41
  Tom?
• 25:42
  Oh, he's fantastic.
• 25:43
  I sort of was racing at Ruapuna when he was just helping Andrew Higgins with his car down there, and he was only about 15 or 16 at that stage.
• 25:51
  And Andrew said, oh, this kid goes good in a cart.
• 25:54
  We should throw him in a Ford.
• 25:55
  And I had one here, and so I said to him, do you want to come and have a run in a Ford?
• 25:59
  So he said, yep.
• 26:00
  So he come up, and he did some testing, and then went home, and Pat was in Fords, and we did a couple of races with him.
• 26:06
  And then he came up for, like, probably three months.
• 26:08
  Yeah.
• 26:09
  But 12 years later, he still hadn't gone home.
• 26:11
  He was still at my place.
• 26:14
  And we sort of went through the motions with him on different cars and got him in the Dallara single-seater.
• 26:21
  Raced in Australia with Ross Stone.
• 26:24
  He did.
• 26:25
  Well, Ross Stone was good.
• 26:27
  Ross took him over.
• 26:28
  He won the 86 championship here.
• 26:30
  And then Ross took him and put him in the Super Ute.
• 26:34
  and man he was so good in that ute it was unbelievable and so good to work with Ross loved working with him because he's quiet he doesn't mouth the orphan he just comes in and he's doing the job and if there's any queries he'll question things or look at what he should do
• 26:49
  But he was never one of those that got out of hand when he got beaten or something wasn't right with the car.
• 26:54
  Okay.
• 26:54
  He never threw the toys out.
• 26:55
  He was so good.
• 26:56
  Okay.
• 26:57
  And, you know, to be honest with you, he's been with us that long.
• 27:01
  He's like a son to me.
• 27:02
  Is he?
• 27:02
  And I love him to bits.
• 27:03
  Lovely.
• 27:03
  You know, he's just one of those kids that he made a good son.
• 27:07
  And he's doing some great things, as you've done, mate, in guiding, coaching some people as well.
• 27:12
  He's good in that.
• 27:13
  Well, he is because he's got a lot of kids that he takes in 86 and teaches them training, and a lot of them always ask for him to go.
• 27:20
  And if he can't go, they've got to come back when he is there because he's got so much talent.
• 27:25
  I watch what he does a lot of times.
• 27:27
  If somebody's not going good around turn one here, he'll explain and get them cranked up around there.
• 27:32
  But I hear a lot of the other guys, they'll try and give a guy a whole lap
• 27:36
  He doesn't try and give them a whole lap.
• 27:38
  Then he'll give them a couple of corners after.
• 27:40
  Because if you put a kid in that's young and say, here's nine corners, do that, you're doing that, do that.
• 27:45
  Too much information.
• 27:46
  They don't even know what they're doing.
• 27:48
  So break it down a bit for them, yeah?
• 27:50
  Yeah, no, he's well sorted out.
• 27:51
  It just annoys me a bit that he's one that I wanted to get right to the top, and we didn't quite get there because of COVID come along when we had a good connection to go and do Super 2, and I'm sure he would have been a winner in the main class.
• 28:05
  of V8s if he'd had the right team and the backing.
• 28:09
  I hate the pandemic for all those reasons, and he's not the only one to have that.
• 28:15
  But one of the nicest guys you'd come across.
• 28:16
  Absolutely.
• 28:17
  Can we come to Shane Van Gisbergen now?
• 28:19
  I mean, he's doing some incredible stuff in...
• 28:23
  in NASCAR now I feel like it's not going to be that long before he's you know in an oval sense regularly you know winning races and so on there's probably no surprises in that for you you helped in the early days there too didn't you?
• 28:35
  Well I knew him well and he was running a Formula Ford and he bought a Formula Ford that I had bought and knew and raced here and uh
• 28:43
  He was lining up at Pookie for the Formula Ford races when the V8 supercars were here.
• 28:49
  And he was a V8 supercar nutter.
• 28:52
  And he said, I'd like to go and sit in one.
• 28:54
  Can we get one to sit in?
• 28:56
  I said, I'll talk to Ross Stone and he'll do it.
• 28:59
  So I said, come over now and come and talk to Ross.
• 29:02
  So I said, now on your way over, Ross, the first thing he's going to say to you, what is your future?
• 29:07
  What do you really want to do?
• 29:08
  Don't say Formula One because he hates that idea.
• 29:10
  LAUGHTER
• 29:11
  Either a V8 driver or you're not.
• 29:13
  So he did ask the question, but he knew about the V8.
• 29:16
  He sat in it and he asked all sorts of questions, and Ross was happy to show him everything.
• 29:21
  And I said, Ross, he's got a Formula Ford race on shortly, and we'll have to go.
• 29:26
  He said, good, tell me when it's on and I'll come over, we'll go over the other side and track and watch him off the start, round turn one and all that.
• 29:32
  So we go and watch him and he's on pole and bugger me dear, he misses the kick in his back about five places off the start.
• 29:39
  And I remember Ross's words were...
• 29:41
  Oh, he's going to have a problem now.
• 29:43
  I said, no, he won't, Ross.
• 29:44
  He'll win this race.
• 29:45
  And sure enough, every car he passed was around the outside in Turn 1 in the loose stones.
• 29:51
  And he's got the car cranked up, but sideways.
• 29:55
  And Ross said, holy hell, has he got some potential.
• 29:58
  Yes.
• 29:59
  He's got car control.
• 30:00
  He said, bring him back after this race.
• 30:02
  I'll have to talk to him.
• 30:03
  And he said, like, what I suggest you do, he said, I like single-seater drivers driving a V8 because they drive them like a single-seater and show respect to them.
• 30:14
  So he said, go and drive yourself one of the TRS cars to Otis, and for a season, I'll come and watch you.
• 30:20
  And he did.
• 30:20
  He came out and watched him in a couple of races.
• 30:23
  And from then on, and that's how he got, and Ross said, right now, I'll put you in the car.
• 30:26
  Yeah.
• 30:35
  Rusty speaks with people from all around the motoring and motorsport world on this spot, with a decent focus on both sides of the Tasman.
• 30:43
  He's a little nugget from his awesome feature episode with Ross Stone and the Stone Brothers' breakthrough Bathurst win.
• 30:49
  Family's in the car, and you turned around and you said, we're going to make it.
• 30:55
  We're going to make it.
• 30:57
  Yeah, well, it was hard because there was a hundred grand if you win Bathurst, you know.
• 31:05
  And that was massive to us.
• 31:09
  From how it all got started in New Zealand to conquering supercars championships with Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingle.
• 31:17
  Search for it in the garage library later.
• 31:19
  Now back to another Kiwi racing legend, Kenny Smith.
• 31:24
  Let's come to Liam Lawson, if we can.
• 31:26
  I mean, we think about that because he's top of mind at the moment.
• 31:30
  I feel like, Kenny, that his place on the Formula One grid this year seems more cemented, which is excellent.
• 31:37
  Yeah.
• 31:37
  Tell me about your first sort of thoughts on Liam when you saw him, what you thought.
• 31:41
  He was Formula 1st driver and I sort of met up with him here at Hampton Downs and he was driving for a team here.
• 31:48
  And the car was real standout through turns.
• 31:51
  You could see he was getting the job done better than most people.
• 31:53
  Okay.
• 31:54
  But the car was slow in a straight line.
• 31:56
  So he said, oh, this car's got no power.
• 31:59
  So I interfered in the team and gave them the speech about the power, and they told me to get out of their team, out of their camp.
• 32:05
  They didn't want to talk to me.
• 32:06
  And I said, well, you're full of rot because that car has got no power.
• 32:10
  So eventually he gets himself going right in these and then steps into Ford's, goes through the motions of what he's doing, and I helped him in those early days, even when he's Formula Ford, mentoring him and telling him what he should do and what he shouldn't do.
• 32:24
  And he was funny because too young to drive on the road, didn't have a license, and he wanted to come down to Hampton a few times, and the mother would drop in with his father at my place and we'd come down, and they'd say, oh, don't let him drive, will you, on the road?
• 32:38
  And I said, no, no, it's all right.
• 32:39
  But as soon as they went, he was in the car.
• 32:41
  He was doing all the driving on the road and driving around.
• 32:44
  Was he?
• 32:44
  Yeah.
• 32:46
  He reminded them that later on.
• 32:49
  And I think they'd guessed that.
• 32:51
  But he was, he had a lot of talent.
• 32:53
  He was another one of those.
• 32:55
  He was so hungry, there was nobody around him that would be better than him in his own mind.
• 33:01
  And that's one thing, even today, he doesn't care who he drives against.
• 33:05
  He thinks if he can't beat them as a reason, he's better than them.
• 33:08
  And I said, look, think of that.
• 33:10
  That's a good way of thinking.
• 33:11
  Be positive.
• 33:13
  but don't go and tell it to anybody because you'll only make a fool of yourself doing that.
• 33:17
  But unfortunately, he did have these moments where he got into careers and people like that and Alonzo, which was the crazy thing to do because those guys have been around for a long time.
• 33:29
  Whether they're right or wrong, you're best to shut up and get on with the job.
• 33:33
  And he made himself a bit unpopular in place, and he did say when he went over there,
• 33:38
  I'm not here to make friends.
• 33:39
  I'm here to win races.
• 33:40
  And you sort of think you don't say.
• 33:42
  But he has got the talent.
• 33:44
  But I think he just, he's in the pound seat now, I reckon.
• 33:48
  Okay.
• 33:48
  Because of things that have been moved around.
• 33:50
  And it's unfortunate he's had a teammate that was, that whisker quicker.
• 33:54
  Not a lot, but a whisker quicker.
• 33:56
  And to get results, you've got to be the quickest in the team.
• 33:59
  Yep.
• 33:59
  But I think now what he's showing this year, and I think that team, I just about bet he'll be there next year.
• 34:05
  It's really positive for him.
• 34:07
  Well, it is, because to lose it after being there on the season, it's hard, isn't it?
• 34:12
  Because if he moves out of there, he'll never get another Formula One drive.
• 34:15
  I don't believe so.
• 34:16
  There's too many young kids that are hooked up to teams now.
• 34:20
  I mean, you've got quite a number of those young kids that are...
• 34:23
  are actually going very good and there's no holes to go into it is there so i'm pleased that you feel like he's he's cemented and i really hope that he has look he's always had the ability to drive i've never doubted that whether he's not quite as quick as a teammate that's irrelevant he is very outstanding as a driver okay and i think now he's got a bit older he's using his head a bit and just not doing silly things like saying the wrong thing to people
• 34:50
  coaching like that, when you're mentoring like that, um...
• 34:54
  I'm sure it's everything, Kenny.
• 34:55
  I'm sure it's driving technique.
• 34:58
  It's the mechanical empathy with the machine.
• 35:01
  But the mind stuff, is that something that you talk to them about and eliminating some of those things and focusing on certain things?
• 35:08
  I do tell them not to worry about other people.
• 35:10
  Don't worry about what people say to you because people can get in your head and push you back.
• 35:16
  And I say the one thing, be positive.
• 35:18
  If you're negative and say, I can't beat that guy, then you've gone forever, you'll never beat him.
• 35:22
  because you've made your own mind up you can't beat him and i always tell all the kids be positive if there's a guy quicker today so he's beating me today but i've got to go back and have another guy at this guy i think i can get him now and it's a just a positive thing isn't it very sage advice kenny i i love that my cameraman who is here with us today chris very kindly reminded me as we were pulling up here today
• 35:43
  about Dorothy, right?
• 35:45
  And, you know, what a great constant she was in your life.
• 35:49
  I think it's really nice that our summer championship, the Next Gen NZ Championship, has that Dorothy Smith Memorial Trophy, mate, too.
• 35:56
  Very special.
• 35:56
  Yeah, it is.
• 35:58
  I'm very thrilled that Tawada have done that.
• 36:01
  But she was part of the furniture.
• 36:03
  She went to every race meeting.
• 36:04
  She was a constant, mate.
• 36:05
  She was a constant support, wasn't she?
• 36:07
  And you know what?
• 36:07
  She never looked at my races.
• 36:08
  She sat in the tent and asked my sister where I am because she was nervous.
• 36:12
  And that's amazing, but she still loved to be there, and everybody knew around the pits and all that sort of stuff.
• 36:17
  In all those years, she never watched?
• 36:18
  No, she never watched my races.
• 36:20
  Really?
• 36:20
  Yeah, and she's had one famous saying to me before I went out.
• 36:24
  She'd say, take it easy and don't go fast.
• 36:26
  I said, okay.
• 36:27
  She used to give me that.
• 36:29
  But honestly, she'd get up at early hours of the morning, like four or five in the morning when we were flying, say, to Manfield or something.
• 36:36
  Oh, hurry up.
• 36:36
  We've got to get ready.
• 36:37
  I said, well, we're not going to 8 o'clock.
• 36:39
  Oh, no, no, but we've got to – don't be late.
• 36:41
  But she was like that and she just loved motorsport and loved everything around it.
• 36:46
  And that's why I had such a good era with a mother and father that was so dedicated which without them I wouldn't have been here doing it.
• 36:55
  And then I had a niece that grew up and from a baby she went, Karen, she went to all the race meetings.
• 37:01
  I remember even at Levin they were hanging through wire fences watching races and they
• 37:05
  She became the chief timekeeper on stopwatches, and she could do stopwatching on every car on the track as long as people gave her space on the wall.
• 37:15
  She had half a dozen watches going on, levers and everything.
• 37:18
  Really?
• 37:18
  Didn't want the help.
• 37:19
  She could do it herself.
• 37:19
  Self.
• 37:20
  And she was that good at it that in those days there was a lot of timekeepers messing up, official timekeepers, and there was two different tracks.
• 37:29
  One was Timaru, and I think Manfoo was the other.
• 37:31
  They came and asked her could they borrow her time to set the grid up.
• 37:35
  and until it went to computers and then she was on she was that good tops and that yeah and she used to look after the team the hospitality and do it like that and she went there from when she was a baby unbelievable and that's sad she passed away five years ago and um but she's just she was dedicated and she was really part of it and my sister warring she'd been to every race meeting like my mother everywhere we went they went
• 37:58
  So it's just dedication.
• 38:00
  It's nice to have a family that wants you to do something.
• 38:03
  Yes.
• 38:03
  Because I see a lot of kids that race now, and some of the part of the parents, like it might be the mother, they're not very happy about the kid racing and it's wasting money or something like that.
• 38:13
  Well, that's crazy.
• 38:15
  You've got to be dedicated to them, and you've got to let the kids think you're happy doing what you're doing.
• 38:20
  That's lovely, Kenny.
• 38:21
  I've always thought of it as a great family sport.
• 38:23
  Yeah, it is.
• 38:25
  When you go back in the days when Graeme Lawrence's family, his father ran the car, Paul Redisage, his father ran the car, Beato's father was there, and mine, and this is how you...
• 38:36
  We were racing those days, but nowadays a lot of it's team stuff, isn't it?
• 38:40
  Yeah, yeah.
• 38:42
  I mean, have you ever thought of stopping?
• 38:44
  I mean, what are you up to now?
• 38:45
  Is it 67 consecutive years?
• 38:47
  What are we up to as we record it?
• 38:48
  This is 67 years it was in January here.
• 38:50
  Amazing.
• 38:52
  I probably don't quite do as many races I would have raced around the world doing now.
• 38:56
  Yes.
• 38:56
  But at the end of the day, I still love getting six or seven meetings in a year.
• 39:00
  And it's hard to stop.
• 39:02
  Yeah.
• 39:02
  And I know it's hard to be, you can't be on top forever.
• 39:05
  But I don't care.
• 39:07
  All I like to do is go out.
• 39:08
  I love to have a grind with someone, real battle.
• 39:11
  Yeah.
• 39:11
  You know, and I feel just as good if you come in second, third, and you've had a battle with a guy, it feels like a win to you.
• 39:16
  Lovely.
• 39:17
  Can we talk just a couple of cars before we wrap this up?
• 39:20
  Firstly, although we are fundamentally surrounded by single-seaters in all of these remarkable photos made, there are a couple of saloon cars, as you talked about before.
• 39:30
  There's one at the Wellington Street race.
• 39:32
  I think there's even a crazy HQ somewhere here.
• 39:35
  I mean, you have – I mean, you dabbled a little bit in that, haven't you?
• 39:38
  Yes.
• 39:39
  Yeah, we used to do the Benson Hedges 500 races at Pukekohe, and I jumped into a few saloons on different places, Shiv Camaras and all sorts of things, but it's been interesting, and I don't mind driving.
• 39:52
  They're good.
• 39:53
  You know, a single-seater is, I don't know, they're not like jelly on a plate.
• 39:57
  They feel good.
• 39:58
  But the saloons have got going pretty good today, and we had a lot of fun.
• 40:03
  We've probably driven 20 different saloon cars.
• 40:06
  I think just a total, I did a telly of what I can remember, and I'm up to 165 different cars I've raced on tracks.
• 40:12
  Is that right?
• 40:13
  Yeah, driven on a racetrack.
• 40:15
  And I know there's more, and every now and again I think of another one.
• 40:19
  You've had a steer off.
• 40:20
  Is there, I mean, there's so many iconic Kiwi tracks, right?
• 40:23
  I mean, you've talked Bay Park, you name it.
• 40:27
  Is there one track in your homeland that is special to you and why?
• 40:32
  Well, I like Pukekohe.
• 40:33
  It's fast, and people will say it's dangerous, but it's no more dangerous than any track.
• 40:38
  And I suppose winning the Grand Prix there, and because that's mainly been our home track right through, it's sad when it got left, when they lost it.
• 40:46
  Yes.
• 40:47
  But I don't disregard any track, because if you have hate against a track, you'll never drive any good on it.
• 40:53
  Yes.
• 40:53
  You've just got to put your head down and do what you've got to do.
• 40:56
  Yes.
• 40:57
  I would love to have seen it with the...
• 41:00
  It was basically a car park for our television compound at one stage, but where it would hook left off the main straight and go around the longer iteration.
• 41:07
  You raced successfully there too, didn't you?
• 41:09
  Yeah, that was good.
• 41:09
  I loved that, going around there.
• 41:12
  It was different, you know, to have it instead of being open and flat out around the bottom corner.
• 41:16
  Yeah.
• 41:17
  It's fantastic, but it's a fast track, believe me, and when you run a 5,000 round, you know how fast it is.
• 41:22
  Yeah.
• 41:23
  In the finish of those 5,000s,
• 41:25
  we used to get through turn one with a foot hard on the floor in fifth gear without lifting off.
• 41:30
  And I remember the first time I ever did that was a mistake.
• 41:33
  I came down that straight and the fuel, the oil pressure gauge was dancing around and I kept looking at it and I looked up and I was at the corner and I got such a fright, I didn't lift off, I swung the wheel round and I thought I've gone and I thought, holy hell that car stayed on the road and I threw it into that corner
• 41:53
  And it took me at least 12 or 15 laps after that before I could get the courage to do it again.
• 41:57
  Again.
• 41:57
  And I remember Max Stewart and Graham Lawrence and even Bartlett, they were watching me doing some practice over the wall and said, how come he's going round?
• 42:06
  I remember he said to my father, how come he's going flat out round there?
• 42:09
  He said, he's got bigger balls than you.
• 42:13
  Well, I tell you what, by the end of the weekend, they're all going flat there.
• 42:15
  Isn't it funny how you just do it when you see someone doing it?
• 42:18
  Doing it, yeah, and learn from it.
• 42:20
  Another thing I was just thinking, and I didn't mention, way back when my father was helping me in the early days when we got going, there was another young guy, about 15, he was a school kid, and he never had a licence to drive his father's VW wagon around because he was delivering parcels, a guy, Barry Miller.
• 42:39
  And he spent years and years with us, and...
• 42:41
  And, you know, he's been a great help.
• 42:43
  The old man taught him a lot.
• 42:44
  And from then on, he was good.
• 42:46
  You know, we've had usual guys we've stuck with for years instead of disappearing and getting different guys.
• 42:51
  Yeah.
• 42:52
  And another guy, Murray Whitehead, he did years with me.
• 42:56
  And a guy, Doug McKechnie.
• 42:58
  Yes.
• 42:58
  I call him a fat man.
• 42:59
  Yes.
• 42:59
  And he still comes round now.
• 43:01
  Love it.
• 43:01
  And hangs round and helps round the pits.
• 43:03
  Love it.
• 43:03
  And it's good when you can get those guys to do it.
• 43:05
  It's just dedication, isn't it?
• 43:07
  Yeah, but that's also a reflection of you, Kenny.
• 43:09
  They enjoy...
• 43:10
  the journey with you they enjoy being around you and and um you know that i think they get as much out of it as as you do when you're in the in the car itself they probably come in innocent and by the time they leave they talk crap like you don't talk crap this has been great today downstairs there are some very cool cars can we just pepper some thoughts on them firstly
• 43:34
  The car that's been giving you a little bit of grief recently, which you love dearly, tell me a bit about that, and you'll be back in it again soon, I think, driving it, won't you?
• 43:40
  Yeah, the DB4 Swift, in a couple of weeks we'll be back driving that.
• 43:43
  Yeah, it would go good, and then all of a sudden it would lose horsepower.
• 43:47
  It wasn't like it was shutting down, and then it would come back again.
• 43:50
  Have you figured it out?
• 43:52
  Have you figured it out?
• 43:53
  Well, we've been through all sorts of wiring now.
• 43:55
  We've got it firing up, everything good, and we think we're on the...
• 43:57
  ballpark there now.
• 43:59
  So we don't want to have any more issues with that because that's a fast car.
• 44:01
  I mean, that car's capable of doing like a high 60 point something around the circuit and that's quicker.
• 44:07
  But that car at Taupo and Caleb Nato and his one, a PJ car, that car was going faster than the fastest TRSs this year.
• 44:18
  So, you know, I'll tell you, that's not bad for a car that's made in 89.
• 44:21
  And they sound sweet.
• 44:22
  They sound beautiful.
• 44:23
  Absolutely beautiful.
• 44:24
  Well, that one runs a Cosworth engine where the other guys have got Toyotas in theirs.
• 44:28
  Yes.
• 44:28
  And that Cosworth Ford motor is just something special.
• 44:32
  Something else.
• 44:32
  It's got a note at 9,500 revs.
• 44:33
  Yeah.
• 44:35
  Next to it, under a cover, being lovingly cared for, it's in amazing condition, there's a car that's only done just over a dozen races.
• 44:43
  Tell us a bit about that, that's a special one.
• 44:45
  Yeah, it's 7.6b March, when Formula Holden stopped in, no, where was it, no, 5000.
• 44:53
  Formula 5000, yes.
• 44:53
  Yeah, stopped in the end of 77.
• 44:56
  Well, we had to go to England and buy that car.
• 44:59
  and bring it out.
• 45:01
  And it was the most horrible car you'd want to drive after running a 5,000 car.
• 45:05
  It didn't seem to have any power.
• 45:07
  Well, it didn't.
• 45:09
  But it's done 13 race meetings in its life.
• 45:11
  And it's still like brand new, that car.
• 45:13
  It looks like it.
• 45:14
  It's the most original one in the world with all the original engine, Nicholson, McLaren engine, all that stuff.
• 45:20
  And no one will ever find a better one of those.
• 45:22
  That's for sure.
• 45:23
  And it's got its original livery, everything on it.
• 45:25
  Formula Ford, you've said it a couple of times in this conversation, is another thing that you have a soft spot for.
• 45:31
  There is a Formula Ford downstairs, I think, too, isn't there?
• 45:33
  Yeah, we've got a Ray Formula Ford there.
• 45:35
  It's about three and a half years old.
• 45:37
  But Formula Ford is a terrific class.
• 45:39
  If kids are going to make it...
• 45:41
  they go into that.
• 45:42
  Because I tell you what, when they learn to drive one of those properly, you can throw them in any car.
• 45:46
  And I've actually ended up selling a couple of FT40 Toyota's to kids that are actually running Formula Fords at the moment, and they do double duties.
• 45:54
  And even on the same day, they've been jumping from one to the other and feeling good about it.
• 45:59
  There are a couple of iterations of the Toyota Racing Series car there.
• 46:02
  I think there's a 50 and a 50.
• 46:06
  Tell me about those.
• 46:07
  The FD50 is a good car.
• 46:09
  It's paddle shifting.
• 46:09
  It's got a lot of downforce.
• 46:10
  The 40 is sequential, and it's not as fast through high-speed stuff, but up the straight, if you're level with a 50, it'll get about three or four car lengths on a 50 up the straight.
• 46:21
  It's got less drag.
• 46:22
  But they're magic, and the kids that jump in those now, for what they're worth, they're so cheap, those cars, and when you put them in one of those, they're less than half the price of a Formula Ford, and you put them in one of those to learn to drive, and when they're on top of it, you could throw them in anything.
• 46:37
  Is that right?
• 46:37
  Yeah, and it'd be no different than what Ross Stone said.
• 46:40
  Get a kid to drive something like that, and he wanted to be a saloon car driver, still drive a single seater until you think you're ready to jump in a tin top.
• 46:48
  Because you'll drive it properly when you jump out of that into a tin top.
• 46:52
  Then I was transported back to the late 80s.
• 46:55
  You'll correct me if I don't have the stats on this wrong.
• 46:58
  I think it's a V6, John Andretti, 1989 IndyCar.
• 47:03
  Tell me about that thing.
• 47:05
  Yeah, we've got one here, and I'd sold it at one stage, and the guy didn't want to do anything with it, so I bought it back.
• 47:11
  Or I should say, maybe I stole it back.
• 47:14
  It's an 89 Lola V6 Indy, and John Andretti drove it in 89 in the 500, and a guy, Billy Vistovich, I think his name was, and he got killed, unfortunately, a couple of years later in a sprint car.
• 47:28
  Yeah, but the car's beautiful.
• 47:31
  I mean, it's a big tank when you look at it, but there's something special about looking at it, isn't it?
• 47:36
  Absolutely, absolutely.
• 47:37
  What is the key to your longevity?
• 47:41
  Well, I mean, your trademark passion right this way through this 90-minute-plus conversation, it just oozes, Kenny.
• 47:49
  You've been racing since the 50s.
• 47:53
  you know we're marching towards 70 years of continuous racing what is the secret to your longevity i didn't get married and maybe that's that would help okay because a lot of guys i know that drive and got married and then their wives didn't want to race anymore and all that so they give up well my wife was my car okay
• 48:17
  No matter what you've come through, I mean, people reminded me, you always get back up again.
• 48:21
  If something happens, whatever, it's never faded, the love for it, has it?
• 48:26
  No, it hasn't.
• 48:27
  I mean, I just love motorsport.
• 48:29
  It's just something special.
• 48:31
  And I do love the older stuff.
• 48:32
  I mean, I think sometimes going back, you know, from 90 backwards...
• 48:38
  there was some better type of racing than there is today.
• 48:42
  But, I mean, that's just my thoughts on it.
• 48:43
  I mean, I love all the racing today, but when you get some of the old-time stuff, there's something special about it, and all the good people and all those old Formula 1 drivers that we're associated with, where if you went and saw a Formula 1 race now, you barely could say hello to a Formula 1 driver.
• 48:58
  So that's the difference, and it's something special.
• 49:01
  And, I mean, I've had kids come up through this...
• 49:03
  area up toppy and look at some of the stuff and some of them are very interested and I obviously read a lot of books and can understand everything, then I've had other people come through and you know that they say oh that's lovely but they ain't seen nothing, and I've even had people say to me who's Bruce McLaren?
• 49:19
  Oh
• 49:20
  That rattles my brain the most.
• 49:22
  I'll bet.
• 49:22
  I'll say, you'd better go and study something before he starts saying that to him.
• 49:27
  Yeah.
• 49:27
  You gave us a couple of little tips before for young people that might be listening.
• 49:31
  What do you reckon the key takeaway is?
• 49:34
  If there's an emerging Liam Lawson, if there's a wannabe Scott Dixon...
• 49:38
  What would you say to them?
• 49:39
  What are the key bits of advice you would tell them?
• 49:41
  Well, the thing is, if they want to do it, do it.
• 49:44
  Don't think they can't do it.
• 49:45
  That's the thing.
• 49:46
  And I mean, you look at other drivers and think, oh, Jesus, this guy's so good.
• 49:49
  Well, there's nothing to stop someone else being as good, if not better.
• 49:53
  And then you'll always find that doesn't matter how good you are, you'll always find someone else that might be able to knock you off at some stage.
• 50:00
  And like you go with like some Eton Sinner and a thing, I remember what he wrote somewhere, he said,
• 50:07
  Every dog out in a race car, I learned something I didn't know yesterday.
• 50:10
  Now, he made that statement, and that's one of the greatest drivers in the world.
• 50:14
  But look what he said.
• 50:16
  So you keep learning, and this is what guys, I think a lot of guys will jump in a car, and if they're not competitive straight away, they get sour about it.
• 50:24
  And you can see they spit the dummy, some of them, if they get beaten.
• 50:27
  And I say, hey, to be a good winner, be a good loser.
• 50:30
  But there's a few of them running around now that think they're better than what they are.
• 50:34
  I have thoroughly enjoyed this, Kenny.
• 50:36
  We could talk for hours about so many of the magic moments, the great races and places, the cars especially, and the people that you've had an impact on along the way.
• 50:47
  There are a string of accolades.
• 50:49
  I've mentioned a couple of them at the top of the podcast, but I mean a member of the Order of the British Empire, New Zealand Motorsport Hall of Fame, and many, many more.
• 50:58
  And they are all, Kenny,
• 51:00
  richly deserved.
• 51:01
  Thank you for talking to us today and congratulations on an unbelievable career so far and I look forward to seeing you rack up 70, mate.
• 51:08
  I'd love to see that.
• 51:09
  I reckon that'd be awesome.
• 51:10
  Well, we've got to keep breathing for that length of time.
• 51:12
  We'll keep going.
• 51:13
  I mean, as I've always said, the only way I'll retire is not to live anymore.
• 51:18
  That's the only way.
• 51:18
  But while I'm around, I love getting in the car and being with the people around us.
• 51:23
  Keep doing it.
• 51:24
  Good.
• 51:25
  Thank you for that.
• 51:33
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 51:37
  Series editor and producer is Joel Harrison.
• 51:40
  Audio production by Link Kelly.
• 51:44
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me on social media.
• 51:48
  The Garage, it's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fueled stories.