Latest / Rusty's Garage / Aaron Slight (Part 1)

Transcript

Aaron Slight (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:10
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:26
  After a few months of doing episodes remotely, it's really nice to be recording one face-to-face again.
• 0:32
  I've done a three-hour road trip to the North Island, New Zealand town of Masterton, about 100km from the capital, Wellington.
• 0:40
  Former motorcycle racer Aaron Sleight grew up here.
• 0:44
  Success would take him to Monaco with time in Australia, the US and Japan along the way.
• 0:50
  But it seems you can't keep the boy out of the Wairapa region.
• 0:54
  Aaron's story is a gripping one.
• 0:56
  not just for his feats on track, but also because of a freakish brain injury in his prime and some determined gritty comebacks.
• 1:06
  His race number, triple one, became a bit of a signature, created as a junior by his dad, who knew they couldn't give Aaron the number one straight away, so three straight lines of tape was it, and it stuck.
• 1:19
  Slight CV also includes some time on four wheels too, and as you'll hear, he loosely worked on plans to race at Bathurst.
• 1:26
  And he tested one of the all-time gun bikes, McDooran's 500cc Honda, among other dream rides.
• 1:34
  Now, many of you have asked for this one, describing the once Mohawk sporting world superbike racer as badass.
• 1:41
  First impressions are actually of a gentle yet driven Kiwi.
• 1:46
  He's a bit of a perfectionist.
• 1:48
  And on the bike...
• 1:49
  Fearless with a fondness for wheelies.
• 1:52
  The record books show Sleight went close to winning the world's superbike title, real close in fact, with two runner-up finishes in the championship in 1996 and 98, and he finished top three in the series on another four occasions.
• 2:06
  From a staggering 239 race starts, he scored 13 wins and a further 74 podium finishes.
• 2:11
  Sleight.
• 2:15
  He was a great endurance racer as well, with two wins in the six-hour here, plus a remarkable three-peat at the famed Suzuka 8-hour in the 90s.
• 2:25
  Sleight was awarded a New Zealand Order of Merit for his commitment to the sport, and he's a Hall of Famer too.
• 2:31
  The self-styled hoon has kept an old Commodore ute in the garage, and although he probably fell out of love with riding for a while, he's back enjoying it again now.
• 2:40
  Back in the place where it all began.
• 2:43
  Masterton.
• 2:45
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:45
  We were on a camping trip and went and watched the Boxing Day races.
• 2:49
  So that was road racing, and, you know, I wasn't really interested in road racing.
• 2:54
  I thought I was interested in cars, and that was going to be my thing, you know, get into cars, but cars are big and expensive.
• 2:59
  And then we went further north, way up to Coromandel, and that was about these little hire bikes.
• 3:05
  And so these bikes that you could – the little True Test bikes, and you could hire them.
• 3:10
  So we, you know, made a big effort to go around, and the day we went around, they were closed.
• 3:14
  Oh.
• 3:15
  And it's like, oh, go on.
• 3:16
  So my dad said, well, your uncle's actually got a mini bike.
• 3:20
  If you want to ride one, why don't you ask him?
• 3:22
  And it took me a month to get the courage to ask him to borrow the bike.
• 3:28
  So he let me have the bike.
• 3:29
  I'd brought it home and rode it around the backyard and then in the back paddock.
• 3:33
  And one day I went down to the river and met some people who were into motocross.
• 3:37
  And that was where we started, really, to go to the local motocross.
• 3:40
  It was humble beginnings for you.
• 3:41
  Tell us a bit more about that bike.
• 3:42
  And am I right in saying it was kind of gumboots and dad's big helmet and things like that to get going, wasn't it?
• 3:48
  Oh, for sure.
• 3:49
  And for a long time.
• 3:50
  And after gumboots, it was tramping boots, you know.
• 3:52
  Yeah.
• 3:53
  And the helmet with a big visor on, you know, like an open-faced visor thing.
• 3:57
  And, yeah, and it was a GTM X80.
• 3:59
  And, you know...
• 4:02
  looking back now, the tires are bald, but it didn't really matter.
• 4:06
  It was about having fun.
• 4:08
  And even, I can remember going to the New Zealand motocross championship as a 14-year-old, and you'd go with a shitty old tire, and nobody had it.
• 4:15
  You didn't have a new tire.
• 4:18
  You bought the bike with the tire on it, and halfway through the winter, you change it to a ching-ching, the cheapest thing you could find, and then you rode it till the end of the season, and then hopefully you got the new model.
• 4:28
  What about the benefits or the, you know, if you talk to the likes of a Casey Stoner or perhaps even a Darrell Beattie or, you know, the dirt track or motocross or whatever it might be, ends up being quite influential in their road racing career.
• 4:45
  Those formative years are so important, aren't they?
• 4:47
  They are and it's funny, like you say, it's about the dirt in Australia, it's about dirt track and here it's motocross, we don't have dirt track.
• 4:54
  But I think it's just that eye hand coordination thing that you just don't even think about, you know, you're on the throttle or the clutch or whatever and it's just happening.
• 5:02
  It's a sixth sense that just, yeah, it starts from an early age.
• 5:06
  And even now when you go on a trail ride, like why would you dip the front wheel into a big hole?
• 5:11
  Why wouldn't you wheelie over it?
• 5:12
  You know, stuff like that you just don't even think about.
• 5:14
  And that just relates to the road.
• 5:16
  And then you get to the road and shit's got so much grip.
• 5:19
  And you know, it's just, and then it hasn't got any grip, but you've got an instinct to control that.
• 5:25
  Yeah, and I think that's where it comes from.
• 5:28
  probably ride round around the road and never have that sort of technique unless you're brought up then again like the Europeans are on their mini bikes, you know, so they're losing the front all the time on the road.
• 5:37
  So they've got to, you know, and they've got their... Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't have that.
• 5:42
  So you come from a different avenue.
• 5:43
  Yeah.
• 5:46
  Those races like what we were talking about, about Wanganui and things like that, I mean, New Zealand had some gritty, very good races back then.
• 5:53
  Graeme Crosby's been on our podcast before.
• 5:56
  Who were the guys that sort of inspired you back then when you were watching those?
• 6:00
  Yeah, well I didn't really get into it as in, because in New Zealand back then there wasn't any magazines you could buy, there wasn't any videos to watch and so I didn't know that Randy Mimola came to the Marlborough series or whatever, I didn't know that.
• 6:13
  Well I knew that Graham Crosby did cool wheelies, you know, and he was on a Z1R doing wheelies all around Whanganui and that was awesome.
• 6:21
  So he was someone I thought was pretty cool, but we didn't follow him in the Grand Prix because it was two months before he got any news from what happened over there.
• 6:29
  Yeah.
• 6:30
  And there wasn't a magazine in New Zealand at that time.
• 6:32
  Let alone social media or big internet coverage.
• 6:35
  Yeah.
• 6:36
  So there was no heroes actually to follow, really.
• 6:39
  But what Graham did was amazing.
• 6:41
  And then he switched the cars as well, which I was interested in.
• 6:44
  And he's a cool guy.
• 6:46
  Yeah.
• 6:47
  But no real heroes.
• 6:48
  Just...
• 6:50
  Race after race, yeah?
• 6:51
  You want to win one race and you want to, whether it's motocross or whatever, it wasn't sort of aiming to be New Zealand motocross champ or a road racer.
• 6:58
  It was just like, what do we do now?
• 6:59
  Yeah.
• 7:00
  Did you become obsessed with it quite early?
• 7:01
  Because, you know, you went off and studied to become a mechanic for a while and things like that.
• 7:07
  But I gather once you got that first bike, you even got to ride it to school, I think, didn't you?
• 7:12
  Yeah, well, I used to ride to school until my dad took it off me.
• 7:16
  You'd sneak out a bit too, is that correct?
• 7:18
  Yeah, and he caught me doing a wheelie in front of all my classmates on his way home for lunch.
• 7:23
  So the bike got taken off for a while.
• 7:24
  But, yeah, I think it's – I was a fairly good sportsman.
• 7:30
  But I was too small for everything.
• 7:32
  So you play rugby and I wanted to be the halfback because it was the ideal position.
• 7:37
  But you were handy on the wing, I'm told.
• 7:38
  Yeah, but only because the coach's son played halfback.
• 7:41
  So you got put in these positions you didn't want to be.
• 7:43
  And then you get a little bit older and then you're suddenly playing with the younger kids because you're too small for the same age kids.
• 7:49
  I played basketball, I was a gymnast and all these sort of things.
• 7:52
  And they're all, you know, I was okay at them, but my size always was a problem.
• 7:57
  But when you put your goggles on or you put your visor down, it's all go, you know, and that was where I could hone my skills into doing something for myself.
• 8:07
  And, you know, that's just captured me from there, yeah.
• 8:10
  You got your license pretty much as soon as you could, didn't you?
• 8:14
  You put your head down, got your license, and...
• 8:18
  The local police would get to know you a little bit because they were in shock about who this short-statured kid was.
• 8:25
  Did he really have a licence?
• 8:26
  Is that right?
• 8:27
  Exactly.
• 8:28
  I'd be pulled up and I'd be at my foot on the gutter so I could hold the bike up.
• 8:32
  You're too small to have a licence.
• 8:35
  I remember going home one night and Dad wasn't home.
• 8:38
  My sister was home so I rushed home pretty quickly.
• 8:41
  and I turned at the last intersection and saw the blue and red lights.
• 8:45
  So I rushed into the garage, pulled the roller door down, jumped in bed, and then there was a knock on the door.
• 8:51
  And so I set my sister up and I went up and then he said, you've got to come upstairs and see that.
• 8:57
  And I come up with my pajamas and he said, I've been downstairs, I've lifted the garage door, your bike's still hot.
• 9:04
  So that was a local cop, I know his name today, Roy Sensen.
• 9:08
  And actually he retired about five years ago and his son got hold of me and said, can you just send us a little snippet of Roy's early days?
• 9:17
  So I sent that story to him to read out on his retirement.
• 9:19
  So yeah, no, it was a bit of fun, but you know, it was so much fun back then.
• 9:25
  And we were dealing with motorbikes that would
• 9:28
  wouldn't do 110k, so they're not really that dangerous, but, yeah, you did get a bit carried away.
• 9:34
  Were you good from a hands-on, I mean, I sense you were, with the mechanical aspect of it and prepping the bikes and things like that?
• 9:42
  Yeah, and out of necessity, because my father didn't know anything about motorbikes.
• 9:46
  So the local shop owner who sponsored me in the end, Ross Gregory, he lived over the road.
• 9:52
  And so I had this little GTMX and he says, well, why don't you clean the thing?
• 9:56
  And so he taught me how to clean the bike and this is where the air filter is and maybe you should change the gearbox oil.
• 10:00
  And so that went on and then I started working at the bike shop and that was the way of working on the bike yourself.
• 10:09
  Yeah, so I did all my own maintenance.
• 10:11
  And I never actually finished my apprenticeship because in New Zealand, the six hour, and the two hours on a Saturday and the six hours on a Sunday, and that was the weekend every year that the final exam was.
• 10:23
  So I would choose to go and ride the bike race and not do the exam.
• 10:27
  And then I had sort of six months to go, and that's where I started traveling to Australia, back and forward.
• 10:32
  So I never did my time in the end.
• 10:34
  Wow.
• 10:34
  Yeah.
• 10:34
  Close.
• 10:35
  But you've kept all those mechanical nows.
• 10:38
  The Gregory family were sort of influential in that early period and setting you on the path.
• 10:44
  really to the world championship.
• 10:46
  Yeah, for sure.
• 10:48
  You know, I got to do my apprenticeship, and I was, I think, about 16, and that was, you know, do I buy another motocross bike or do I buy a car?
• 10:55
  And those things, I bought a car, and the motocross ended, and then Ross said to me, why don't you give road racing a go?
• 11:00
  You know, here's a bike, and you can use this bike for – but my first ride on the motorbike was over to Polytech in Petone.
• 11:10
  So I ride to Polytech, and I come home and have a head-on with a Murray 1100.
• 11:15
  And not my fault, there's an intersection which sort of veers off on a V, and guy coming home from the pub.
• 11:22
  This is just down the road from where we're talking in Featherstone really, not all that far, is it?
• 11:25
  Yeah, not far from home.
• 11:27
  He veered across the road and hit him square between the headlights, and went over the roof and fractured some bones in my feet, and that was my first experience of road racing.
• 11:37
  You were road bikes, yeah.
• 11:38
  You were knocked out too, is that right?
• 11:39
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:40
  And they put me in the same bloody ambulance as the old fella and drove me all the way to Marston.
• 11:45
  And then he was, they let him out about three hours later and I'm sitting there with two broken feet, yeah.
• 11:52
  I think when you came around, there was some discussion about whose fault it was, but I think it was pretty clear it wasn't his fault.
• 11:59
  Yeah, yeah, no, actually there's a little, I woke up and there's this little kid hanging over top of me and I was laying in the gutter and I just said to him, whose fault was it?
• 12:08
  It wasn't my bike and it was now wrecked, yeah.
• 12:11
  And before that there was another mechanic that started at Gregridge as well and he was a couple years older than me and his name was Peter.
• 12:18
  And Peter was actually killed in a flat-tracking race and he'd started road racing so,
• 12:24
  we were sort of going down this avenue together and then Peter was killed about 80 months into it.
• 12:29
  How much did that affect you?
• 12:31
  A little bit because the bikes we rode at the flat track were the Gregory Yamaha bikes as well.
• 12:38
  And we had this XT550 and a YZ250.
• 12:41
  So we had a motocross bike and a big trail bike.
• 12:43
  So we used to swap every weekend.
• 12:45
  So, you know, I'd have the motocross bike because it was faster.
• 12:47
  He'd have the other bike.
• 12:48
  And this weekend I had the faster bike.
• 12:50
  So I was out in front and he was back behind and got cleaned up.
• 12:53
  Wow.
• 12:54
  Yeah, yeah.
• 12:55
  So just an unfortunate accident.
• 12:57
  He fell over in a corner and I think someone's come around with a foot peg to the back of the head.
• 13:02
  Sure.
• 13:03
  Yeah, yeah.
• 13:05
  The transition, I want to just step back a fraction if I can, because obviously there's success on the dirt.
• 13:09
  You've talked about the pair of you wanting to head down that road racing path.
• 13:14
  But was it, at this point in time, just fun or were you thinking about, no, I'm going to, this is me, I'm going to make a career out of this?
• 13:22
  No, just fun, just one week into the next.
• 13:25
  And like I said, I didn't have those heroes.
• 13:27
  I didn't have those books to read.
• 13:29
  Didn't know there was a world championship.
• 13:30
  Didn't really know it was out there.
• 13:32
  It was just fun.
• 13:33
  And riding motorbikes was, you know, where do you get the fuel to put in it for that night?
• 13:40
  And we just didn't have anything, you know.
• 13:42
  We didn't, you know, there was no spare fuel can to go and get fuel and stuff.
• 13:47
  It was just, you know, it was just nothing.
• 13:48
  There was no spare tyres, no nothing, you know.
• 13:53
  getting your mates around and like how can we go and get someone's lawnmower fuel and then we can all have a little bit and we can go and do this and yeah yeah so it was it was it was pretty menial to start with and it was just about the fun side of it often they're great life lessons in all that stuff because not only are you you know you've got perhaps the gregory's that have that have helped get you started in that sense but you're learning to find ways to
• 14:17
  in maybe even a little commercial sense to keep the thing going.
• 14:20
  Yeah, and I was just talking about our daughter the other day to Megan and, you know, talking about after-school jobs.
• 14:25
  And that's probably one thing that I missed there.
• 14:27
  I never had any holidays because I was too passionate about working to earn money so I can go and spend it on motorbikes.
• 14:32
  You know, so from the age of 13, I was in the bike shop and there was no holidays anymore because you just wanted to earn some cash.
• 14:39
  And it was about, you know, fueling up the motorbike so you can go and ride it on the weekend.
• 14:43
  Life would, you know, in a competitive way, you learn to get very fit and very focused and things like that in the latter years of your career.
• 14:53
  In this early phase that we're chatting about now, was it about the love and passion of the bike or was it about the want to win?
• 15:00
  What was it that drove you back then?
• 15:03
  Yeah, I think the bike was just the avenue to be able to win something.
• 15:07
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:07
  So yeah, I love riding the motorbike and I can ride around all weekend, but the better thing was to go to an event and to have a result.
• 15:16
  You know, you can ride around at the river track all weekend.
• 15:18
  That was great, but go somewhere and have a result was awesome.
• 15:21
  And that gives you, like you say, those life lessons.
• 15:23
  That gives you, do you go and clean the air cleaner?
• 15:26
  Do you check the spark plug gap?
• 15:28
  Do you make it better?
• 15:29
  And then do you get all your equipment right?
• 15:31
  And the next thing, you're worrying about all that sort of stuff as well because that's going to come through in the result.
• 15:36
  If you don't bother with that, the result's going to be poor.
• 15:38
  Were there, when you started down the road racing path, were there injuries, were there crashes?
• 15:43
  And what are some of those early memories like?
• 15:46
  Yeah, well, my first road race, I took my YZ125 to Manfield.
• 15:50
  So it was a motocross bike, put some road tyres on it.
• 15:53
  Which is kind of like a local track in some ways for you, isn't it?
• 15:56
  Yeah, it was.
• 15:56
  And I went there and crashed at the hairpin, lost the front, put a hole in my knee, got the bike going, got going again after that and then seized it down the back straight.
• 16:08
  So, yeah, you didn't know too much about how fast it was and what you were supposed to be doing and maybe you should have put a bigger mange in it.
• 16:14
  Okay.
• 16:16
  But you know, you were rushing up the inside of people on road bikes and you're on a little 125 and they're on 650s and things and just think, this is pretty cool.
• 16:23
  And that was the start of it really.
• 16:27
  And just how much grip there was and how much road there was, you could use all of it.
• 16:31
  And it wasn't until a little bit later that you realise there's only actually one line.
• 16:37
  There it just seemed so big and cool.
• 16:41
  Your mates would often come, I think, to local meets like that.
• 16:44
  And, you know, over those years, you'd have quite a bit of fun around it.
• 16:48
  New Zealand's got some terrific tracks in an historical sense from Pukakoe, Manfield, you mentioned, I mean, Terratonga.
• 16:55
  Was there a favourite for you back then?
• 16:57
  Of course it would be Manfield.
• 16:58
  It's so close.
• 16:59
  It's only an hour and 20 minutes away.
• 17:00
  And I think it's a really good motocross track because it's got three hard braking areas.
• 17:06
  So it's just, you couldn't believe how much grip you had and how soon the road races broke.
• 17:12
  compared to a motocross, you'd be like in there and you'd pass everybody under brakes and that would just hone that skill, I think, and just, you know, the hard braking thing, so, you know, always loved Manfield and then Pukakaui was sort of, for me, it was only sort of once or twice a year so it wasn't a great, it wasn't that great for us and
• 17:30
  But one of the better tracks too was Teratonga.
• 17:34
  But it's so short but so cool.
• 17:37
  Always loved Teratonga.
• 17:39
  And then the other tracks they were sort of modifying at the time, making them a bit longer by adding a lot of short stuff.
• 17:44
  And probably, yeah, I'd still rate Manfield as one of the better tracks for me.
• 17:50
  and then moving on to be close to home then I think Phillip Island is the best track in the world so the two tracks are really close and Phillip Island doesn't offer great facilities and all that sort of stuff but there's no better track it's got just everything
• 18:06
  We'll get to the Australian chapter and that important step on the way to the World Championship.
• 18:13
  You would get to race and be successful here against the likes of Dr Roger Freeth and others.
• 18:21
  I mean, there were some terrific Kiwi races during that period, weren't there?
• 18:25
  Yeah, well see my first year I rode an RZ250, so New Zealand was all about production racing, so RZ250 you could ride that in the production 250 race and you could ride it in the F3, I think it was.
• 18:39
  But halfway through that year, Mike Dowson came over and they did the six hour and...
• 18:46
  Yamaha New Zealand made special bikes for them and da-da-da.
• 18:49
  And we had it.
• 18:50
  Ross was a Yamaha fan, so he ordered an RZ500 just to have one.
• 18:56
  And they took it as a spare bike for Manfield for Mike and Dowson and I'm not sure who your partner was there, actually.
• 19:04
  I can always remember just Dowson.
• 19:06
  I think Richard Scott was riding the other bike.
• 19:09
  Was it Rod Harris, maybe?
• 19:12
  Could be.
• 19:12
  They'd been with the bike crash, didn't they?
• 19:14
  Is that right?
• 19:14
  What happened?
• 19:15
  Well, yeah, that was the thing.
• 19:16
  They made this special motorbike, and ours had never even been started.
• 19:20
  So Wynne gave ours a run and said, oh, I'll race for this bike.
• 19:24
  It was a production bike.
• 19:25
  No, nothing been changed.
• 19:27
  And then they'd hot-rodded this other thing, and they chose to ride our proddy bike.
• 19:31
  But, yeah, that was really, really windy that year.
• 19:33
  And half an hour from the end, Dowson crashes our bike, just destroys it.
• 19:39
  So Ross says to me, well, you might as well have that as well.
• 19:43
  So the bike I had the head-on crash was a 350.
• 19:48
  So that year I bought a brand new 250, got another second-hand bike and made a 350 out of the engine, and then we had the 500.
• 19:57
  So in one day's racing, I could do the 250 production championship, the junior production championship on the 350.
• 20:05
  and I could do the senior championship on the 500, and I could do F1 on the 500, and I could do F2 on the 350, and I could do F3 on...
• 20:12
  So the only race I wasn't doing was the 125s in the sidecar.
• 20:15
  So I was just riding, you know, three races for each championship a day.
• 20:19
  So I was doing like 18 races a day.
• 20:21
  I love it, because we don't have that now, do we?
• 20:24
  I mean, I mean...
• 20:26
  I'd come in and Ross had the other bike started and I'd swing my leg and jump on it like a Marquez pit stop and just go out and do the next race.
• 20:33
  And no tyres really, not new tyres.
• 20:34
  You couldn't afford to have new tyres and stuff.
• 20:37
  It was just riding.
• 20:38
  And that's where I had 10 years experience in about two.
• 20:42
  Yeah, it was awesome.
• 20:44
  that among the different classes you just rattled off there, the 250 proddy thing in particular was very important to you in a title sense.
• 20:52
  How did the door first open to go to Australia?
• 20:55
  I mean, obviously, you know, Michael Dowson had been here and Aussies often came across the ditch.
• 20:59
  Greg Hansford, I think, would come as well, wouldn't he?
• 21:01
  So how did that opportunity first come about?
• 21:05
  Well, we did that for probably just two years.
• 21:08
  My career in New Zealand feels really long, but you add it up, it's probably only about four years.
• 21:12
  And so I think I did two years, I rode the six hour for two years, and then we got the FZ750.
• 21:19
  So I can remember, I was reading an Aussie motorcycle news, and Rob Doran's name was in there.
• 21:26
  He was an up-and-comer from Adelaide.
• 21:28
  So I just picked the phone up and rang this guy.
• 21:31
  Cold call.
• 21:31
  Yeah, and he was from, I knew he, I had to ring World Bank Yamaha in Sydney and get a number and a number and a number.
• 21:39
  I said, do you want to come over and partner me for the six hour?
• 21:42
  And like, of course, he was a privateer.
• 21:43
  I said, yeah, I'd love to.
• 21:44
  So he came over.
• 21:45
  We won the six hour.
• 21:47
  He says, why don't you come back to Australia?
• 21:49
  We've got a flat in Sydney and I'm trying to get into racing and...
• 21:52
  So I hummed and hard and hummed and hard.
• 21:54
  And then I bought a ticket, sold my RZ250 because it was the one I owned.
• 22:00
  I didn't own the other bikes and got on a plane and went to Australia.
• 22:04
  And I arrived with no plan, no nothing.
• 22:07
  And my plan was to go and knock on some bike shop doors and hopefully someone would give me something.
• 22:14
  It sort of didn't happen.
• 22:15
  So I went into World Bank Yamaha and I just bought a RZ250.
• 22:23
  and the only toolbox I had was what it came with.
• 22:27
  And so I got this bike.
• 22:30
  I can remember I rode it to Annemarie Park one day to watch a session, and of course I was on the bones of my ass, so I didn't register the motorbike.
• 22:39
  So I'd borrowed a number plate off something else, and on the way home from Annemarie Park, I'd pass on double-year lines.
• 22:47
  So I got thrown in jail.
• 22:51
  And yeah, I had to rig up robbers and said, can you come pick me up?
• 22:55
  What police station were you in?
• 22:56
  Can you remember?
• 22:57
  I don't even know what it was.
• 22:58
  It was out there Emery side.
• 22:59
  Like Castle Hill or something.
• 23:01
  Yeah, yeah.
• 23:02
  And so unregistered bike or stolen bike because the bike was off a KR, the plate was off a KR250 or something like that, uninsured.
• 23:10
  So it was only about running in the motorbike at that stage.
• 23:13
  So that started it all.
• 23:14
  And I can remember them pulling me up and saying, just put the bike on the side of the road.
• 23:17
  I said, I'm not leaving the bike on the side of the road.
• 23:19
  I will get pinched.
• 23:20
  So I managed to talk them into letting me leave it in this lady's driveway and come back and get it later.
• 23:25
  So that was my first ride on this bike.
• 23:29
  But yeah, we were just trying to plan trips and I only really ended up doing about four races and I was there for six months and did the typical Kiwi thing over there and just jobs here and there.
• 23:42
  But I didn't want to take a full-time job because I wanted to be a full-time racer.
• 23:45
  So I thought I need to train, I need to do all this stuff and I actually ended up sitting around a lot.
• 23:49
  Did you?
• 23:50
  Yeah.
• 23:52
  I started working for the motorbike shop where I bought it from and they gave me a little bit of cash, but I didn't want to get tired there.
• 23:59
  And I was always coming home at the end of the year, but time was going on and there was not much happening in the winter.
• 24:06
  So I robbed Doren, I don't know why he wasn't racing at Winton, so I asked if I could borrow his postie van.
• 24:13
  So he had one of those transit postie vans with sliding doors.
• 24:17
  So I borrowed that from him, and another friend was over from New Zealand, and he was riding in a Formula 2 on a Rotex 250.
• 24:23
  So we borrowed the van and went to Winton, and that was my first race meeting, and out of about four, I can't remember what happened at that race, but the end of the year, I went with Rob, and he took his 750 and went to Surface Paradise.
• 24:40
  And I finished second in the races up there in Surface Paradise to a guy called Mick Doohan.
• 24:47
  And I was riding my bike on the tires that it came with.
• 24:52
  And for the second race, I bought a new rear tire, which was a silver dot Pirelli, which was the go in those days.
• 25:00
  And from Matic's bought this tire and that was it.
• 25:03
  And yeah, I finished second to Mick in those races there.
• 25:06
  And then I sold the bike and came home and thought,
• 25:10
  what do I do now?
• 25:11
  It was okay, but no one helped me or I didn't really work out.
• 25:17
  But the new TZ 250 came out.
• 25:20
  So that was a really cool bike.
• 25:22
  And so I got my bike in New Zealand to race in New Zealand.
• 25:26
  And then at the end of the season, I'd won, I think I'd won 20 out of 21 races on it.
• 25:33
  Yeah, and so then I decided, well, instead of buying a bike, I'll just send this bike to Australia and I'll go and do whatever meetings I can.
• 25:42
  And I had a friend who lived in Albury and he had a trailer and an HQ and so I'd fly into somewhere and he'd meet me there and it started all that.
• 25:51
  And I only did about two or three races, probably two races, and Yamaha came along to me and said, you know, you can't go in to win the prize for the Yamaha Cup, don't you?
• 26:01
  Because I was leading the championship.
• 26:02
  Because you were a Kiwi, the Yamaha Cup was designed for Aussies, I think.
• 26:05
  Aussies, yeah.
• 26:06
  And he says, you know, because you're looking like you could be somewhere near the front of the end because you won a trip to Spain.
• 26:12
  And that was how that sort of started.
• 26:14
  And then Bob Brown came over and said, why don't you ride a bigger bike and ride my Ducati?
• 26:20
  Yeah, so that's where it all sort of started.
• 26:22
  At the same time, Robert Holden was at Action Suzuki, and he said to me, well, we're going to do the 6-hour together in the 750 class.
• 26:31
  So that was happening, and I was sort of, you know, do I ride for Bob Brenner or do I try and go the Action Suzuki way?
• 26:36
  And, you know, Bob wasn't riding on Saturdays at that stage because of his religion and stuff.
• 26:43
  and all those sort of things.
• 26:44
  And yeah, it was good times.
• 26:45
  I mean, people were offering me things, which was amazing.
• 26:49
  And I did the Swan Series that year and did pretty well on the Ducati.
• 26:53
  I should have known then, shouldn't I?
• 26:55
  Stay with those f***ing Ducati's.
• 26:58
  Yeah, on his little 750 Panda and, you know, amongst all these other things.
• 27:01
  Yeah.
• 27:02
  So, you know, and so Bob's ride was great for me.
• 27:06
  And then I rode with Robert and we won the 750 class.
• 27:09
  And that's where we talked about on the TV.
• 27:12
  Yeah.
• 27:12
  Just before we started the podcast, I was reflecting with Aaron.
• 27:16
  Firstly, come back one step.
• 27:17
  I mean...
• 27:18
  Surface Paradise Track, now gone.
• 27:20
  Amaru Park, now gone.
• 27:21
  Great old Aussie racetracks.
• 27:23
  Orin Park's another one.
• 27:24
  Great places for bikes and for car racing.
• 27:28
  But they did something quite innovative in the Orin Park at the six hour, I think, wasn't it?
• 27:34
  And Will Hagen, who's been very good to me over time, great commentator, he was able to cross to you.
• 27:41
  You were mic'd up while you were riding around in the race for chats.
• 27:47
  Channel 7 at the time were doing some amazing onboard things in car racing land, but this was another level to do it to a bike racer in competition, mate.
• 27:58
  What was that like?
• 27:59
  Yeah, well, I say it had never been done before, and he was sort of put this microphone in and put the thing in, and no one was doing any volume checks or let's just go to it during the race.
• 28:10
  And I think I was in my first stint.
• 28:11
  Robert had come in and going in Orem Park over the flip-flop thing before you come into the last corner.
• 28:16
  Which needs massive concentration.
• 28:18
  Because it's all blind, and then I hear, How's it going?
• 28:21
  And it's like, Yeah, good.
• 28:24
  Can you turn it down?
• 28:26
  So yeah, that was a first.
• 28:28
  I don't think it's been done much before.
• 28:30
  At all.
• 28:31
  At all, yeah.
• 28:33
  But that was pretty cool.
• 28:34
  And I don't know how Action Suzuki got to put it on our bike or whatever, but I can remember even after that, you're experimenting with the cameras on bikes and how big they were and all that sort of stuff.
• 28:44
  And we sort of used to try and shun it away because it was a bit of a headache, but it was really cool to do.
• 28:50
  And I remember that was my first conversation I had with Robbie Phyllis, was on the helmet cam.
• 28:57
  And yeah, we've been great mates ever since.
• 29:00
  I wanted to bring him up because he's a great character of motorsport in this part of the world and someone we want to get on the podcast.
• 29:07
  Actually, we've tic-tac-ed a little bit over Facebook about the chances of that happening.
• 29:11
  The friendship's been a long and enduring one for you guys.
• 29:15
  He's a crazy cat sometimes, isn't he?
• 29:17
  Oh, for sure.
• 29:18
  Early days, it was just so much fun.
• 29:20
  It was just so much fun.
• 29:22
  And then, I mean, I got to learn after that, just do everything the opposite that Rob does.
• 29:27
  And you're halfway right, because, you know, it was really good times.
• 29:30
  But, you know, Rob and Carol, I mean, you know, they were great to us over there and looking after us.
• 29:37
  And we lived in Albury for a while.
• 29:38
  And, you know, Rob...
• 29:42
  When we first were teammates, I don't know if we were moving ahead this far, but when we were first teammates, I could feel there was a bit of tension that he is with teammates, but he just couldn't help it.
• 29:51
  He couldn't help but be a nice guy.
• 29:54
  You could see that he just wanted to beat you and da-da-da, but then we were so friendly and so good together that it was all about a team thing, it was a real team thing.
• 30:04
  And in those days, it wasn't, didn't seem to be beat your teammate first.
• 30:08
  It seemed to be a team, you know, and Rob and I got on really well and we helped each other out, yeah, a lot.
• 30:23
  Flat track racing, also known as dirt track racing, looks similar to speedway racing but is quite different.
• 30:30
  Flat track bikes have rear brakes which allow for a different cornering technique.
• 30:34
  But both of them do have one thing in common though.
• 30:37
  Getting sideways.
• 30:39
  Are you starting to make a bit more money at this stage?
• 30:42
  I think you bought an old Falcon and you were able to, you know, kind of set yourself up a little bit.
• 30:47
  But was it still hard to make ends meet at this stage?
• 30:49
  Yeah, I was making money from prize money, you know, so just prize money was... Race paycheck to race paycheck to some degree.
• 30:55
  Yeah, yeah.
• 30:56
  And then when I was, you know, that year I rode in Australia on my 250 and for Bob Brown and for Action Z, I was flying home and working.
• 31:05
  So I was working here, yeah, work for six weeks, fly back.
• 31:08
  And it was better than spending money and just staying there.
• 31:11
  So I was doing that.
• 31:11
  I probably did six or seven trips that year to Australia and the last one stayed there for the whole Swan Series.
• 31:18
  which I rode the Bob Brown and during that time in the Swan Series, McElnay came out and there was YZRs and there was all sorts of really trick stuff and that was open your eyes and Michael Dowse was riding a trick FZR 750 and then they had the NRs, I'm not sure if it was that year they had the NRs, I think it was that year they had the Oval Piston Honda that Mal Campbell rode.
• 31:42
  You know, when I was on the Bob Brown Panther and I was dicing with Anders Anderson on his GSXR, you know, so that was still 750, so dicing with those sort of guys, but still sort of in the race, you know, top 10, top 8, and could see the guys just in front pulling away because of machinery.
• 32:01
  And that's where I sort of thought, well, you know, I could probably do this on a big bike.
• 32:05
  And some people, I don't know why, some people are big bike racers and some aren't.
• 32:09
  And I just seem to be.
• 32:11
  It wasn't because of my stature.
• 32:12
  I just seem to ride the big bikes well.
• 32:15
  And I could tell that early on, even though the 250 had been so good to me, the big bike was just so much better.
• 32:21
  And, yeah, it was working.
• 32:23
  Would it be fair to say that there's something, the huge failure in your cap to have six hour success at home here in New Zealand, similarly to do well in the six hour in Australia too.
• 32:34
  Did you enjoy that endurance element?
• 32:37
  I think I have that mechanical sympathy, being a mechanic.
• 32:43
  So you don't have to go flat out for a six-hour race.
• 32:46
  Well, you are.
• 32:47
  You're going flat out, but you're probably giving a couple of tenths back to the bike.
• 32:51
  Still with an end game.
• 32:52
  Yeah, yeah.
• 32:53
  And some people just don't.
• 32:55
  Some people just bang it through the gearbox like they always do.
• 32:57
  And it's got to last.
• 33:00
  And maybe that was my...
• 33:03
  defining thing and that's why I went on to do the 8 hour so well and win the 8 hour 3 times and because of all that sort of stuff it wasn't about wringing its neck and you know getting every last bit of gas out of it and when it came to the 6 hour or 8 hour race yeah.
• 33:18
  The 8 hour of course we're talking about the famous is a great hour in Japan which Aaron holds a very
• 33:24
  a special piece of kind of statistic history to win three in a row is a very, very rare feat.
• 33:29
  And you held it on your own for quite some time there.
• 33:34
  I want to just continue, if we can, with Australia for a moment.
• 33:37
  At this stage, you're flying backwards and forwards.
• 33:39
  To give it a bit of context, we're talking sort of late 80s-ish now, aren't we?
• 33:43
  So are you committed to trying to make it to the World Championship?
• 33:48
  Or are you just, you know, you want to try and be that Kiwi that wins on Australian soil?
• 33:52
  What's the motivation?
• 33:54
  Yeah, still not thinking about World Championship at all really.
• 33:56
  Just thinking of riding a big bike and someone's good big bike I can win races on.
• 34:00
  And Mick's in there a bit.
• 34:04
  Mick Doohan, the year before I raced in at Service Paradise, this year he gets a ride in Japan.
• 34:09
  And so he's up in Japan riding.
• 34:12
  a factory bike supported by a bike shop.
• 34:15
  And so I'm there and he's not.
• 34:17
  So that's quite good because I can see what he's sort of doing up there.
• 34:23
  And so I'm riding and then Mick gets a job
• 34:28
  back in Australia, which is really weird.
• 34:30
  He's made it to Japan, so now he rides for Yamaha Australia.
• 34:34
  So I've been riding Yamahas and the 250 thing, and I get a phone call from Yamaha Australia saying, I'm thinking I've got to ride with the Superbike team.
• 34:43
  They said, well, no, Mick Doohan and Michael Dowson are riding those bikes, but Mick's left a gap in Japan.
• 34:50
  Do you want to go to Japan?
• 34:52
  And I go, well, yeah, for sure.
• 34:55
  So that was 87.
• 34:57
  So in 88, I go up to Japan and race for this bike shop.
• 35:03
  And it's a bit of a – it looks better than it is because when –
• 35:10
  When Mick got to ride up here, they were trying to get this big bike shop hooked into racing.
• 35:17
  So they were supplying them factory stuff.
• 35:19
  So now they've done a year, the bike shop was going to do it by themselves.
• 35:23
  So they went and bought a Bermuda Yamaha, and they really didn't have an idea.
• 35:27
  Okay.
• 35:28
  So it was pretty tough going up and doing that.
• 35:32
  And still not thinking about World Championship, just still thinking the best to win the championship I'm in, really.
• 35:38
  And the opportunity to go to Japan was amazing.
• 35:42
  It meant I didn't have to buy a bike in Australia.
• 35:45
  And so that's what 88 was all about.
• 35:48
  And Mick came back to Australia to do the Yamaha ride in Australia.
• 35:55
  The focal point as we progress along here would have been the Australian Superbike Championship, I guess, to... And it's probably fair to say that that entree to Japan was the beginning of a bit of a kind of love affair with the place.
• 36:09
  You really enjoyed your time racing in Japan, didn't you?
• 36:12
  Yeah.
• 36:12
  Yeah, I mean, straight away up there, it's very, very different.
• 36:15
  And I actually didn't like it at all that first year in 1988.
• 36:19
  It was really hard.
• 36:20
  Dealing with the team didn't speak English.
• 36:22
  a guy that was, you know, he owned three of the biggest bike shops and he was sort of, you know, the big boss and not that friendly.
• 36:31
  So it was pretty hard that first year and they were offering me everything, which was great.
• 36:35
  I rode the – my only Grand Prix I rode was a Japanese 250 Grand Prix.
• 36:38
  So I had a TZ to ride in that.
• 36:40
  But everything was standard.
• 36:42
  Nobody knew what they were doing with the bike.
• 36:44
  They wouldn't let me fiddle with it.
• 36:46
  And then I had a Bermota, which is a Yamaha engine, Italian machine, where they had just stuck with the AW01.
• 36:54
  It would have been a whole lot better.
• 36:56
  And that was in fuel injected.
• 36:58
  And then we had trouble in the ADR because they had a fiberglass tank, and they had fiberglass and fuel.
• 37:03
  And it was just a whole lot of drama.
• 37:07
  Yeah, so it taught me a whole lot of things, but it wasn't really giving me the results I wanted.
• 37:11
  And then finally, at the last round that year, finally the bike went well at the World Superbike Championship.
• 37:20
  And so that was at Sugo.
• 37:21
  And I think I had a sixth and a seventh or something, but I beat Rob Phyllis.
• 37:28
  so that's where my opportunity opened to go back to Australia to be Rob's teammate, because, you know, I mean, in Australia, me not being an Australian, but racing the Australian Championship was so lucky.
• 37:42
  Like, they had such good machinery there.
• 37:44
  They had factory Hondas, they had factory Kawazagis, they had factory Yamahas.
• 37:48
  Suzuki was the only bike that wasn't really supported, but they had a big influence.
• 37:52
  They had a big swing at it.
• 37:53
  Yeah, from Action Suzuki.
• 37:55
  So they had great machinery and no other country in the world did.
• 37:59
  Maybe America did, maybe not even Honda Britain, I wouldn't have said was as good a bike at those stages.
• 38:07
  So I beat Robbie in that race and that's where the offer came to be Robbie's teammate as they were going to a two bike team because Kawasaki were finally producing a 750, they were getting rid of a GPX.
• 38:18
  and they were getting a ZXR, so they were getting out of that and they wanted to support that bike.
• 38:23
  So that's where that came in the shift back to Australia.
• 38:26
  Iconic bike, iconic colours, great combo, the pair of you together and the people behind the scenes.
• 38:33
  How now is Aaron Sleight, the racer, from a fitness point of view, from a...
• 38:43
  understanding the technical side of racing more.
• 38:46
  I mean, clearly throughout this period, you're really starting to apply yourself more to that part of the trade, aren't you?
• 38:51
  Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 38:53
  And in 89 is that season I ride with Robbie.
• 38:57
  I get an offer to ride for Colors Like Australia and to be the workshop boy.
• 39:03
  And I just went, well, actually, I want to be a professional racer.
• 39:06
  I'm not going to live in Sydney.
• 39:08
  I'm not going to come in and sweep up.
• 39:10
  How did that conversation go?
• 39:12
  Not very well.
• 39:13
  And it was almost, you know, you're making it too hard for them and you're not going to have a job.
• 39:20
  But in the end, that's what it was and I didn't want to live in Sydney because I didn't want to be on their beck and call.
• 39:24
  And so I lived in Aubrey with Robbie and it wasn't about being around Robbie, it was about getting away from Sydney.
• 39:34
  But we did drive together the races.
• 39:36
  Well, I drove, he slept.
• 39:39
  And so we did everything together like that.
• 39:41
  But I think now I was starting to sort of say, well, this is what I want to do and I'm going to do it this way.
• 39:49
  Where I probably should have just gone and been the lackey and loaded the bikes and all that sort of stuff.
• 39:53
  But I knew it wasn't even going to give me the results hanging around the bike shop all day.
• 39:59
  So, yeah, that's what happened in that year with a new bike.
• 40:04
  And my very first sort of test, well, I did the Swan Series on Robbie's GPX.
• 40:10
  So that was the introduction, sorry, you'll go back to that, probably the introduction to Kawasaki was riding his GPX while he rode an F1 bike at the Swan Series.
• 40:18
  And, you know, I can remember it's...
• 40:22
  Your face is lighting up here.
• 40:23
  What's this bike like from a memory point of view?
• 40:26
  The bike's actually not that great because it's, and to look at it, it's not a very sexy bike.
• 40:32
  And the forks are modified to fit it and try and get the ride height right.
• 40:37
  But it still works and it's still quite fast.
• 40:39
  It's still the best result thing I've had and reliable.
• 40:43
  But Robbie's on an F1 bike, but I get to ride the F1 bike a little bit as well.
• 40:48
  you know right after that series we have the new ZXR and I'm testing with KHI Kawasaki Hemat Industries we're at a factory test at Oron Park you know with brand new bikes surreal yeah but going to the Swansea I remember going well shit what leathers I'm going to wear and I'm still a privateer and
• 41:07
  And Robbie says, I've got a spare set of Kushitani's.
• 41:10
  You can have those.
• 41:11
  And Kushitani is my dream leather suit.
• 41:14
  There's nothing better.
• 41:15
  And after seeing Wayne Gardner's ZM, Triple M suit in the old days, Kushitani suits are just the best suit.
• 41:25
  But I'm thinking that he's got six or seven of these pairs and I'm throwing it down the road, left, right and centre and he's going, my suit, my suit, you're f***ing my suit.
• 41:35
  But I'm just thinking, that's just a factory ride, he's got plenty of them, but it wasn't quite that way.
• 41:40
  I was still Kawasaki, Australia.
• 41:42
  So yeah, and I can remember picking Robbie off the tire barrier at turn one at Lakeside and he's gone in there and he's going, oh, my fingers, and he's broken fingers and couldn't get this, and he's not good with pain.
• 41:57
  Okay.
• 41:58
  So, and so he's sitting there, because I'd already crashed there and I'm sitting on the
• 42:04
  sitting on the tyre wall, crashed, then Robbie ends up at my feet.
• 42:07
  And I'm going, oh, God.
• 42:08
  And the other thing, I was, dumb prick.
• 42:11
  You win six races, you get 50 grand.
• 42:12
  He's on an F1 bike.
• 42:13
  He'd already won three races.
• 42:14
  It was a walk in the park.
• 42:18
  So the 50 grand's gone.
• 42:19
  And, yeah.
• 42:20
  But that was where we first got together was the Swan Series, really, and then on to the factory test at Oron Park.
• 42:25
  And, yeah.
• 42:26
  And then you were a factory rider, yeah.
• 42:28
  Awesome.
• 42:29
  Just one, you've triggered a little thought in my mind here about just the whole industry that goes on in the paddock when you get to kind of world championship level and even at this level.
• 42:38
  When you're injured like that, some of those guys at Cushitani and things, they do some incredible fungics.
• 42:46
  fast modification to cope with hand injuries and all sorts.
• 42:50
  They're amazing, aren't they?
• 42:51
  Yeah, but it comes much later.
• 42:52
  These are still the early days.
• 42:55
  The rider is still not treated like they're treated today.
• 42:58
  Okay.
• 42:58
  You know, in the 90s, you're not the hero, you're not the superhero.
• 43:02
  Everyone's trying to bring you back down the ground and, you know, so...
• 43:06
  you're struggling to find gloves that fit and things like that.
• 43:09
  And Japan is a long way away to get a set of gloves.
• 43:11
  And, you know, Australia is a big market, but it wasn't back then.
• 43:15
  They weren't selling lots and lots of stuff.
• 43:16
  They weren't giving away free helmets.
• 43:20
  But I had a great association with, you know, Kushitani and Arrow Helmets, and those things were sort of set up through Robbie.
• 43:27
  You know, Robbie had had these relationships, which was great for me to get on the back of them.
• 43:32
  And otherwise, how...
• 43:34
  you would have been dealing with a local dealer.
• 43:35
  And so I was pretty lucky for that.
• 43:37
  But yeah, like you say, the rider thing comes, I think, even to the late 90s, where you start looking after a rider.
• 43:46
  And I don't know why they didn't realise that you would get more out of a rider if you actually looked after them.
• 43:52
  Everybody was trying to keep them in their place and not trying to spoil them so they were big headed because that's that whole Kiwi and Australian thing.
• 44:01
  Keeping grounded.
• 44:01
  Keeping grounded.
• 44:02
  And it wasn't probably until the mid-90s that it started to turn around.
• 44:07
  The boys did like to have some fun after the races.
• 44:13
  And you were a bit of a getaway car driver, weren't you?
• 44:17
  I mean, I've raced cars a lot, but this is where I learnt to drive cars.
• 44:23
  Render cars were just the best.
• 44:25
  And there's just so many different stories about render cars.
• 44:29
  But the one you're probably referring to is we were in Tasmania, actually, and one of my mechanics, when he takes his teeth out, you know shit's going to go down.
• 44:39
  So he says, hold these and get the car.
• 44:44
  So I'm down at the car park, the front doors, and these two people come out of the front of the casino swinging and they've got bouncers hanging off them and then we're off.
• 44:54
  So, yeah, that was a big night and a bit of an escape thing.
• 44:58
  But, yeah, Robbie and Render Cars and, yeah, I can remember going over in Perth, Amaru, and we turned up one day and we were in a, I don't know what sort of Falcon model it was.
• 45:10
  This is the dunes out the back, isn't it?
• 45:13
  So half the car's missing because all the bumper and stuff's back in the dunes because we'd come in the sand way, of course, and we were jumping the dunes as we came in and everybody's cracking up and getting there because half the car's missing.
• 45:26
  But there was lots of stories like that and I can remember Robbie taking a car back and same place actually, Western Australia.
• 45:34
  and gave the keys back and we just got on the flight and then all these photos turned up and it was like broken axles and gearbox and because when we turned onto the freeway we'd only had third and reverse the automatic gearbox and when you did left hand corners the axle would slip out of the diff so it had no drive.
• 45:57
  So the car was pretty second-handed.
• 46:00
  But, yeah, we really learned to drive in those things.
• 46:02
  It was so much fun.
• 46:04
  And then the whole insurance thing started to happen, and then you got in the blacklist, and, yeah, and then it wasn't so much fun anymore.
• 46:10
  We shouldn't laugh.
• 46:10
  We shouldn't laugh.
• 46:11
  He got sent a six-grand bill for that.
• 46:12
  Quite funny, quite funny.
• 46:14
  Rob Phyllis.
• 46:16
  Michael Dowson, Malcolm Campbell, Darryl Beattie.
• 46:19
  I mean, it's Peter Goddard.
• 46:20
  There's some unbelievable names in this Australian Championship during this phase, isn't there?
• 46:25
  But unbelievable names, but on really good equipment too.
• 46:28
  So if you can keep up with these guys, you're going to run at the front of the World Championship.
• 46:32
  And then in my first year, you send Robbie and you send Mal Campbell away to the Austroite ring and they get on the podium.
• 46:39
  So it gives you some hope, you know.
• 46:41
  So that's when I'm starting to think about the world championship is these guys can run at the front, so so can I.
• 46:46
  And, you know, on those weekends they're away and you come back and you run with them.
• 46:50
  I can remember looking at one, on YouTube this other day, at one race at Phillip Holland, and I run with them for five laps.
• 46:56
  Only five laps, but it gives you hope, you know.
• 46:59
  They start to get away and they, you know, by the end of the race they've got five, ten seconds on you, but it gives you hope.
• 47:05
  Just through equipment, budget, tyres, et cetera, et cetera.
• 47:08
  Yeah, and just learning the craft.
• 47:09
  And it's a bit, you know, everybody can be fast for a lap, but you make it last for 15, 20 laps around Phillip Island.
• 47:16
  It's a different thing.
• 47:17
  So you're just using up everything to hang with them and you last there for five laps, but you're learning all the time.
• 47:23
  So you've got this exposure to World Championship.
• 47:26
  You've got this exposure to Japan.
• 47:28
  You've got the great grounding of New Zealand and Australia and things like that.
• 47:33
  Did you and your wife Megan, did you sit down and go, right, we're going to have a proper shot at the world championship here and here's a rough ladder of how I think we can do it?
• 47:43
  What did you do?
• 47:44
  No.
• 47:45
  No?
• 47:45
  Because there's only the next race.
• 47:48
  There's only that one-year contract.
• 47:50
  what's Peter Doyle gonna do next year?
• 47:52
  Is he gonna sign you or is he gonna pick someone else?
• 47:54
  So it's always about the next race.
• 47:56
  There's no plan at all.
• 47:57
  It's just because these are dreams you're still having, but there's no two year, three year contract that's gonna lead you on a path.
• 48:05
  And like I say, at this stage, still the rider's just part of the, they're not gonna carve out a career for me to get their bike on the podium because they can do that with 10 people.
• 48:18
  So it's still just about weekend after weekend and getting that contract.
• 48:23
  You said to me prior to starting the record of this podcast just about the importance of team.
• 48:28
  And I think that probably still helps you in life now from a business point of view.
• 48:33
  But working with a group of people, yes, it looks on television like a solo pursuit, but very important the role the people around you play in helping that success happen.
• 48:45
  Yeah, for sure.
• 48:46
  And that probably came later when we got to Europe as well, is you have individuals from all parts of the world as well.
• 48:53
  So you've got different cultures and all that sort of stuff.
• 48:56
  And I use this analogy a lot with the Mitre 10, our general manager there.
• 49:01
  Over COVID, I was saying, you can see one part go wrong in our process and it just, the whole thing breaks down.
• 49:07
  And I said to him, it's just like me when I was racing.
• 49:10
  You get an engine guy, who's probably paid more than the chassis guy,
• 49:14
  And then you get a guy that polishes the frame and does the wheels and gets the wheels changed.
• 49:18
  So just basically three people if you boil it down like that.
• 49:22
  The guy gets paid all the money.
• 49:23
  If he's got two less horsepower than the other engine he built, it's not really going to make much of his in the race.
• 49:29
  The chassis guy, he needs to do his stuff and we need it all good, but we've figured out a solution together.
• 49:35
  But if the guy puts the tyre and doesn't balance the wheel right –
• 49:40
  you get in a race and you're a second lap slower race because the wheels out of balance.
• 49:44
  And if you don't give him the time of day, what's gonna happen?
• 49:48
  So it's not always about the most, it's not always about the guy giving you the horsepower or the guy at the top.
• 49:53
  The guy at the bottom is sometimes, Just as important.
• 49:57
  Just as important.
• 49:58
  And he probably not getting paid as much as the others.
• 50:00
  So if you don't include him in the whole thing, the whole thing's gonna fall over.
• 50:05
  It's a game where injury can happen.
• 50:07
  I'll look at your hands while we're talking here, mate, and I think about stuff like that.
• 50:12
  Tell us.
• 50:12
  Firstly, you've just raised your right arm there and there's a really decent scar there down.
• 50:16
  Tell us about that.
• 50:18
  Yeah, so this is 1992 – sorry, 1990 now.
• 50:22
  So I've done 89 with the Fetri Kawasaki team and now Robbie's gone to the World Championship and doing the Australian Championship, so he's doing double duty training.
• 50:29
  And I'm doing a lot in Japan, so they want me to ride an F3 bike, an F1 bike, a super bike.
• 50:34
  And this is great.
• 50:35
  I'm loving it, lapping it up.
• 50:38
  But I get to Japan, and we're testing for the 200K race before the 8-hour, so it's like a 2-hour race, and it gets you ready for the 8-hour.
• 50:48
  So we're testing this bike, and it's an F1 bike.
• 50:51
  It's all going good.
• 50:52
  And it's always the last thing of the day.
• 50:56
  They slip a new tyre in and say, go and try this.
• 51:00
  And it was go and try this.
• 51:01
  And I don't know if it was an accident or I was supposed to be trying this, but it was a new tire.
• 51:06
  But it worked out in the end that I'd used a three and a quarter inch rim instead of a three and a half inch rim.
• 51:12
  So as I came out, so it might've been something we talked about, you know, trying to make it turn or something, or it might've just a tire.
• 51:18
  I don't know if it was a mistake or, but I came out the last corner and I wheelied the bike.
• 51:22
  Just to set the scene here, West Suzuka, is that correct?
• 51:24
  West Suzuka, yeah.
• 51:24
  So you come into the chicane, into the chicane, tires are all hot by now, and I come out of the chicane, I wheelie the bike a little bit, as I put the front tire down, it doesn't give any traction.
• 51:35
  So second year, not too fast, maybe 120k, but as it folds, I go under with the bike, and typical motocross style, I try and hang onto it, but then I become trapped between the broken handlebar and the chassis.
• 51:50
  And so the bike slides along on my hand.
• 51:53
  And then I get up and I'm missing the back of my hand, of course, so I never ever lay down.
• 52:02
  I'm never in the back of my ambulance.
• 52:03
  I always walk it off.
• 52:05
  So I'm walking down pit lane and my mechanics haven't seen me come around, haven't seen me come around.
• 52:10
  And I've got a green and white suit, but now it's green and red.
• 52:14
  And they didn't even notice who I was.
• 52:15
  I'm coming down with my hand, pulled my glove off.
• 52:19
  Yeah, my back of my hand's missing.
• 52:22
  So that was the start of it all.
• 52:24
  But yeah, for me it was, oh, well, bad hand injury, you know, it'll scab over and I'll get on with it.
• 52:30
  Didn't know that I had all my tendons are missing in my back of my hand.
• 52:32
  I would never be able to operate my fingers again.
• 52:35
  So it was a career-ending crash.
• 52:38
  And I went to Japan, into a Japanese hospital for three days.
• 52:43
  And I'm sitting there going, well, what's going on?
• 52:45
  And the hospitals weren't that great in those days.
• 52:47
  And I didn't actually realize, like I say, that the amount of damage.
• 52:54
  So we were supposed to fly back to Australia.
• 52:57
  So my mechanic at the time, Mark Wilfred, got me on the plane because my plane was going to go through to Auckland and I was going to come home here and go and see a doctor.
• 53:09
  Who that would be, I don't know.
• 53:10
  That's what I say about riders now to then.
• 53:13
  We were still in the medical system as an individual, not a superstar motorcyclist.
• 53:18
  Just go and find a doctor.
• 53:19
  How do you find a doctor?
• 53:20
  Good luck with that.
• 53:21
  Yeah, yeah.
• 53:22
  So I arrived back here and I was very lucky that a guy that operated was a burns and hand specialist and he was into car racing.
• 53:32
  But at the time I thought, yeah, it was just going to scab over and be good.
• 53:35
  But I've got three tendons missing, so I can't operate those three fingers and I've got that part of the finger missing, only got the tip left.
• 53:43
  So we're talking about your right hand here.
• 53:45
  You've pointed to your pinky for a start, which is kind of permanently curled almost, isn't it?
• 53:49
  And then the finger directly next to it is almost recessed, mate, or set down, isn't it?
• 53:53
  Yeah.
• 53:54
  But this is your throttle on your brake.
• 53:57
  You don't use a rear brake on a full stroke, so you don't need your foot, but you need this hand.
• 54:01
  This does everything.
• 54:04
  And...
• 54:05
  This is, yeah, why my pinky's like that is because my operation, my second operation, I went on to free up the tendons.
• 54:13
  I actually took a handlebar in there and said, make it fit around that.
• 54:16
  Oh.
• 54:18
  So they do make it a bit bent so you don't catch it on things, but it does fit around a handabar really well.
• 54:23
  Amazing.
• 54:23
  Yeah.
• 54:24
  And see, I've got, see, there's a tendon here.
• 54:27
  So this tendon, which is that one there, is split in half and it operates that finger as well.
• 54:33
  Your middle finger.
• 54:34
  Yeah.
• 54:34
  So those two fingers go together.
• 54:36
  They can go down sort of separately because they've got a different tendon underneath, but upwards is the same.
• 54:40
  And same with those two.
• 54:41
  Oh, man.
• 54:43
  So that's, and that's, you know, I was a four finger breaker in those days and all that sort of stuff.
• 54:48
  So this has just ruined my career.
• 54:50
  And now I'm going to try and start riding again after this.
• 54:55
  But this is probably where I realized I was a fast rider.
• 55:01
  But I wasn't that smart.
• 55:03
  And now I needed to start saying, well, I'm not going to go and test that shit.
• 55:07
  It's the end of the day, I'm having enough.
• 55:09
  Because I was just the lackey.
• 55:11
  And I just did everything they wanted me to do.
• 55:13
  And I was riding my, and this was just the end of the day.
• 55:16
  Shouldn't it happen?
• 55:17
  And this was a turning point for me that I thought, well, if I get over this, I need to start calling some shots.
• 55:23
  Because it's just too hard.
• 55:26
  So how much in the operation to make your hand work
• 55:31
  in a braking sense, in a motorcycle racing sense, was about this doctor helping and was there a bit of groundbreaking stuff in it?
• 55:40
  And then how much did you have to adapt as a rider given the hand injury?
• 55:47
  And very, very lucky.
• 55:48
  Like I say, the riders, I'm still saying, the riders are still not treated as a superstar anymore.
• 55:52
  I was so lucky.
• 55:53
  This is the first year I'd signed a two-year contract.
• 55:56
  Wow.
• 55:56
  If I hadn't have, it would have been career over.
• 55:59
  So I was coming back, whether you like it or not, and I was ringing, you know, Peter in Australia, and, you know, I'm going to be there, I'm going to be ready.
• 56:06
  And so I went and rode the, I think it was the RI500 they used to have at Eastern Creek.
• 56:10
  It wasn't a race they used to have at Bathurst, but now it was Eastern Creek.
• 56:14
  And they had a shootout, a $10,000 shootout if you win three races or something.
• 56:19
  The formula was ideal because it was only about five laps each.
• 56:21
  So my hand at the time, I...
• 56:25
  Well, going back to, did the operation and I was doing physio four times a week in Wellington.
• 56:31
  So I was driving over the hill and back four times a week and I was getting nitrous while she was trying to break the scar tissue off those tendons.
• 56:39
  Because that there is called an ulnar flap, so that's...
• 56:45
  cut off here and slapped on there like a piece of steak.
• 56:48
  He's just pointed to the underside of his arm slash wrist and then flipped it over to where it was placed.
• 56:54
  Yeah, so that's sort of, that there's sort of your finger there.
• 56:58
  Unbelievable, you can see the scars still.
• 57:01
  So they put it there, but when they put it on there it just sticks to the tendons.
• 57:04
  So there's no tendon tunnels, you know, for carpal tunnel, that injury you talk about, carpal tunnel, there is no tunnels.
• 57:11
  So it's just stuck.
• 57:13
  So I've got a barbell and she's just doing it with nitrous trying to break the scar tissue.
• 57:21
  And so that went on for three months.
• 57:23
  And I, in the end, talked the doctor into giving me another operation.
• 57:28
  So where he just slithers the top off.
• 57:31
  and releases all the scar tissue.
• 57:34
  And when you wake up, you just start moving it.
• 57:36
  And you just, it doesn't matter what the pain is because now the tendons are fine.
• 57:40
  The tendons can't break.
• 57:41
  You just got to make some tunnels.
• 57:44
  So I had a drip hanging out of here.
• 57:46
  And from when I wake up at the operation, he was saying, do this.
• 57:49
  So you clench your fist the whole time.
• 57:52
  And before that, the operation before that, I had these special little, like it looked like a guitar with these return springs and stuff.
• 57:59
  That was to try and stop the scar tissue forming because these tendons are sort of blanket stitched together.
• 58:07
  So as soon as you move them, you break them.
• 58:09
  So this was to stop that.
• 58:10
  But what happens is it just glues up and you can't work it.
• 58:15
  So I was very, very lucky to get the second operation.
• 58:17
  But in New Zealand, once again, I was a professional racer.
• 58:20
  You couldn't just go in and pay for it.
• 58:22
  You had to do it through the public system.
• 58:24
  So I waited, and luckily enough, this guy was in the cars, and he knew...
• 58:28
  what was happening with me.
• 58:29
  So he did the operation on the medical system and that's what I came out with.
• 58:34
  And this hand is really, really strong from all the physio I did in the end.
• 58:39
  But when I rode at that Arri 500 race, I probably only had about that much.
• 58:43
  I couldn't even grab the handlebar.
• 58:45
  I could go from here onto the brake.
• 58:47
  Yeah.
• 58:47
  So the description you're giving here is going from open palm to sort of closed fist.
• 58:53
  You may have had, what, mate, 20% movement getting toward that closed fist?
• 58:56
  Yeah, and probably if the handlebar was three times the size that it normally is, would be comfortable to wrap around, but I couldn't wrap around a normal-sized handlebar.
• 59:05
  So I was going from gripping it with my thumb...
• 59:08
  almost a handlebar to getting on the brakes and you know what if the thing got into a tank slipper I was probably history really because I couldn't grip it and that was the race I did there and I came back from that race and then got the other operation but I had an okay you know results after a big comeback with this manky hand that gave me the the next year you know so 1991
• 59:33
  I had the TA contract with, and then Kawasaki brought out a new bike again, and this bike was ahead of the field.
• 59:40
  Yeah.
• 59:41
  Two questions to finish the injury, this first injury on if we can.
• 59:45
  A, tough bastard, what was that pain like?
• 59:50
  And B, just the way you, to adapt to it.
• 59:56
  I mean, you talk about the hand being quite strong now, but it clearly wasn't to begin with.
• 1:00:00
  Was it just a case of to hell with it or how did you deal with it?
• 1:00:04
  Yeah, and like at the same time I had broken my shoulder as well, which I didn't actually realize because they were too busy worrying about my hand.
• 1:00:12
  But the pain was, I remember when they operated, they used to give me an arm block.
• 1:00:17
  So you're awake?
• 1:00:18
  Yeah.
• 1:00:19
  awake but you've got an arm block oh no this is afterwards for the pain is so intense it's like a yeah it's like your operator they just block the arm and um the arm block lasts for eight hours but like everything it wears off doesn't it so the next time only lasts for seven hours next time it lasts for six hours but the nurses in those days were waiting for the eight hours weren't they and you're in pain for two or three hours
• 1:00:41
  Yeah, no, it was immense, the pain.
• 1:00:43
  And, you know, that was just, yeah, that was a horrible time.
• 1:00:47
  And I crashed.
• 1:00:49
  And when I got this hand caught underneath the bike, I'd done that and slapped this hand on the road as well.
• 1:00:55
  It's a diver, yeah.
• 1:00:55
  So I was, you know, when I was coming back on the plane, on the plane, can't use any of my hands.
• 1:01:00
  So I can remember in the operation trying to go to the loo and all that sort of stuff, I've got two hands that are like meat cleavage, you know, like just, yeah, can't use.
• 1:01:09
  So it was bad for a couple of weeks.
• 1:01:12
  And then knowing, not knowing, I'm thinking it's just going to scab over and come right, not knowing that it's actually internal damage, you know, and then you suddenly start processing that two weeks later and,
• 1:01:25
  are you going to have it right again and all that sort of stuff and I'm just giving the big phone calls, yeah, it's all good and I'll be back, but not knowing.
• 1:01:37
  Man, motorcycle races are next level when it comes to pain tolerance, aren't they?
• 1:01:41
  Most of us would probably just give up.
• 1:01:43
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with world superbike hero Aaron Slyde.
• 1:01:48
  Make sure you dive back into the library and hit the start button on part two.
• 1:01:53
  He opens up on loose plans to race with a famous Holden team at Bathurst and the lead-up test that he did for them.
• 1:02:00
  plus an intense search for answers after fatigue set in during 1999 at the peak of his powers.
• 1:02:07
  A search that would uncover something far more serious, and in typical slight fashion, why he refused to let it beat him.
• 1:02:14
  Listener