Latest / Rusty's Garage / Kevin Magee | Part 1 - Horsham hijinks & rounding ‘em up on the outside!

Transcript

Kevin Magee | Part 1 - Horsham hijinks & rounding ‘em up on the outside! · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:10
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  For this episode, I'm at home and my guest is dialling in from Horsham, about 300 Ks or three and a half hours drive northwest of Melbourne.
• 0:35
  As you'll hear, it's truly home for Kevin McGee.
• 0:39
  As he climbed the motorcycle racing ladder, he earned the nickname the Horsham Hurricane and later became known simply as Magoo, a subtle tune on his surname that lent into the cartoon character Mr Magoo.
• 0:52
  Kev is in his early 60s now and I've had the opportunity to work alongside him several times over the years covering domestic bike racing.
• 1:00
  We also cross paths with some fun four-wheel stuff too, from road rallies to being at Orrin Park when he sampled Rod Salmon's AU Falcon Supercar back in 2002.
• 1:11
  I seem to recall walking into a kitchen at his place once and he was rebuilding a turbo from a Subaru.
• 1:17
  He loves that stuff and has this knack of crazy ideas that might generate more performance or beloved horsepower.
• 1:25
  This chat is one that I probably should have done some time ago and it will tend to zero in on his bike racing.
• 1:31
  We'll get to his Grand Prix career, of course, winning in Spain and a couple of crashes that had a profound effect on him, I sense.
• 1:40
  including one that led to an Aussie news outlet making the horrible mistake of reporting his passing as a result of the accident.
• 1:49
  As you'll hear, Magoo talks in incredible detail at times, from remembering specific bikes to sprocket choices and a whole lot more.
• 1:58
  We'll also talk about a big stint that he had with Fox Sports covering motorcycle racing that lasted nearly three decades.
• 2:06
  And the remarkable part that he played shadowing a vision impaired rider, guiding him to a world record on Lake Gertner.
• 2:14
  Kev's got a cuppa.
• 2:15
  which you'll hear him use to soothe the vocal cords as we talk, mostly him, for nearly 90 minutes.
• 2:22
  One of us also left our phone on the desk too.
• 2:24
  So when the odd text comes through, it might sound, in the distance, like a game show buzzer.
• 2:29
  And its timing is uncanny.
• 2:31
  If you're anything like me, it'll probably make you laugh because it's like we got the answer wrong at the time.
• 2:38
  I'm a huge believer in keeping the chats, as you know, in their own words.
• 2:42
  And this one steadfastly sticks to that principle.
• 2:46
  Here we go now.
• 2:48
  Hello, Kevin McGee.
• 2:49
  How you going, Rusty?
• 2:50
  Hey, it has been too long, my friend.
• 2:52
  It's great to get you on the podcast.
• 2:55
  I would love to know, life has come full circle for you.
• 2:57
  You're back in Horsham where you grew up.
• 3:00
  And tell me about early life and when you first got your hands on a motorcycle.
• 3:04
  Well, life started out at Dewan behind the motocross track on a sheep and wheat farm mainly, had a few cows and, you know, chooks and geese and all the rest of it.
• 3:14
  But that was it.
• 3:15
  And then we moved into town in 68, just after I started school.
• 3:22
  I only went on the school bus a couple of times.
• 3:25
  And then my middle brother, Damien, he was a bit of a rebel and a
• 3:32
  sort of an industrialist, if you know what I mean, industrialist, if that's the right word.
• 3:38
  He ended up making a minibike because he wanted a minibike.
• 3:41
  So he made one old two and a half horsepower Briggs and Stratton stationery motor.
• 3:47
  been up some frame down at the local garage who he was mates with, his kid at school, and a couple of wheelbarrow tyres, and, you know, it was a V-Bell drive which wasn't very successful.
• 4:01
  It was idling at about 15 mile an hour.
• 4:04
  And Dad felt sorry for us one Sunday afternoon, so he...
• 4:08
  He jumped in the car and went around the corner to the Honda dealer.
• 4:12
  This is on a Sunday afternoon when, you know, the whole world's dead and regional Victoria, especially back then.
• 4:18
  And I come home with a blue Honda 70, the old ST70 Honda Dax, as I famously know.
• 4:25
  That was it.
• 4:25
  Amazing.
• 4:26
  And were you like a duck to water?
• 4:28
  Yeah.
• 4:28
  Tim's four years older than me, the next oldest brother, and Damien, who built that first mini bike, he's another two years older.
• 4:34
  So I was 10 at the time, so they were 14 and 16, respectively, and...
• 4:41
  They were pretty fair, but, you know, sometimes you get short end of the stick.
• 4:46
  Were you just trying to keep up with them, mate, or were you sort of off and running?
• 4:49
  Yeah, that was always a case.
• 4:51
  I remember they were building up the ground near the Wimmer River down south of town for more housing, and there was sort of like a four-, five-foot-, six-foot varying areas of like a ramp,
• 5:06
  And, you know, you're trying to do that.
• 5:08
  And so Bane was telling me how to do it.
• 5:12
  And I was pretty scared of jumps, but, you know, got used to it after a while.
• 5:16
  So, yeah, it was good.
• 5:17
  We used to spend like Sunday afternoon down there, have barbecues and
• 5:22
  all that stuff and just riding.
• 5:23
  There was other kids riding as well.
• 5:25
  So it was a good little social sort of start to motorcycling.
• 5:29
  Awesome.
• 5:29
  So we tend to think of you from your career in circuit racing and, you know, super bikes and Grand Prix and so on, mate.
• 5:36
  But was there sort of an early push in towards either dirt track or motocross or something along those lines?
• 5:43
  What transpires next?
• 5:45
  Never did do dirt track.
• 5:48
  Basically dodged trees for a lot of years.
• 5:51
  And then from the Dax got a YZ80C.
• 5:55
  And that was like a proper bike with a clutch and that.
• 5:58
  Before that, Tim had moved to South Australia over to the Uncle Anoni's at Narocourt.
• 6:03
  He left this XR75 home for me for a while.
• 6:05
  And compared to a Honda Dax, it was a real bike.
• 6:07
  It had five gears and a clutch and...
• 6:10
  Spoke leels and stuff like that.
• 6:11
  You could dump the clutch and look out the back and watch the dirt fly and that sort of thing.
• 6:15
  It's just so important when you're a kid.
• 6:19
  And we went over to Eden Oak.
• 6:22
  It was just, you know, your bush sort of scrambles, as they were called in the day.
• 6:27
  Didn't even use a front brake because back in the early days, they said, I don't touch front brake, you know, you'll fall off.
• 6:32
  I won the first one, I think, and then you've got third and a fourth.
• 6:38
  As the Horsham Motorcycle Club, we basically were, was originally a bunch of road riders and then it sort of turned into like all us dirt riders and minibike kids.
• 6:48
  Dirt track, we didn't have one anywhere near here that I know of or knew of.
• 6:52
  And in the early days, I was better at right-handers than left-handers, so I probably would have been no good at dirt track anyway.
• 6:58
  So what transpires next, mate, in the story of your career?
• 7:02
  Clearly you're good from a scrambles point of your – you had the feel for the motorcycle and so on.
• 7:07
  Did someone coach and give you a bit of tuition?
• 7:09
  Were you just a natural?
• 7:10
  What transpires next?
• 7:12
  One of the schoolmates, Russell Jagger, he had a CR125 M1, and I had my wives at 80, I had a do, and mum took me out in a little 323 in a tiny trailer and dropped me off and come back and get me later.
• 7:22
  And Jagger's given me a ride on his CR, and I just killed it.
• 7:25
  And –
• 7:27
  Yeah, there was guys there that had full racing gear and stuff, but race motocross and basically I was beating them straight away.
• 7:34
  So there was a few different tipping points.
• 7:37
  That's one.
• 7:38
  And then, well, Dad died in the meantime there at the end of 78.
• 7:42
  That was the end of Form 4.
• 7:44
  And then I was working at a servo with the other mates from tech school and you'd save every penny and you'd screep for motorbike stuff.
• 7:54
  And that's what it was all about.
• 7:55
  First thing I bought was a push bike to ride.
• 7:57
  It was 12Ks to school and 8Ks to the servo.
• 8:00
  So I was a pretty fit little ringer and, you know, working around the place, cutting wood, doing, well, not so much lawns, but grass with just a push mower and things.
• 8:12
  All the stuff you had to do, whether it's fixing a pressure pump or what, you know, you never really got much of a spare time.
• 8:17
  And I begged mum or $1,100 loan to buy an RM125N when they were coming out.
• 8:25
  And what happened before that, I did work experience at one of the motorcycle dealers.
• 8:30
  And I had a $50 deposit on an RM370.
• 8:34
  I think we had a work and be.
• 8:35
  So the dealer took it out.
• 8:37
  I went out with him.
• 8:38
  And we do the work and be and that and have a ride on the RM370.
• 8:41
  And it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know, to go faster when you let it off than it did when it opened on.
• 8:48
  And one of the other schoolmates from the Servo, Colonel, Tim Grosser, he had brand new YZ125F.
• 8:57
  And he gave me a ride and Bolshe, the dealer, just had the brand new KX250 with the gold rims.
• 9:02
  And he was a very good motocrosser.
• 9:05
  And I caught him and passed him on the makes YZ125.
• 9:08
  Yeah.
• 9:10
  So we're driving back into town.
• 9:11
  I can still remember about 500 metres up the road after we left the motorcross track of doing Phil Bolch it was.
• 9:17
  Bolch goes, Kevin, I got this trip to Japan and RM Suzuki bringing out this new RM125N, 12 inches of suspension, the first one, and all that sort of thing.
• 9:28
  So that's how that story started.
• 9:29
  So I begged mum.
• 9:30
  She came good.
• 9:31
  I ended up paying her back.
• 9:33
  after saving the bucks from pumping fuel after school and on the weekends and that.
• 9:37
  And that was the same weekend I met.
• 9:40
  This is one of the key factors besides Bob Brown is Phil Neewon.
• 9:44
  He was there and he was a local road racer.
• 9:46
  He had some TAs and he was a very good two-stroke mechanic.
• 9:49
  He'd got up his RD350s and that probably...
• 9:52
  you know, run alongside, probably sometimes drag off Honda 4s and Quackenines.
• 9:56
  So it was a good two-stroke tuner.
• 9:58
  And that was mainly because I think it was into model aeroplanes too and chainsaws and stuff like that.
• 10:03
  And when I met him, he saw me riding and passed Bolshe on the 125 and Bolshe was on the 250.
• 10:10
  And he said that he was going to Mack Park over at Mount Gambier, the closest road race track.
• 10:15
  in like a couple of weeks or whatever.
• 10:16
  So one of the weekends, not far in front of that, I went motocrossing with the wrong gearing because the sprockets were worn out when I prepped it for the motocross meeting.
• 10:25
  So...
• 10:27
  One of the mates, Greg Arnott, we got the rear sprocket, which was 520, not 428 gauge chain.
• 10:33
  Then we got a front sprocket on the Saturday morning, went to the motocross at Mirabara, and it was really overgeared for motocross, but then we lined up.
• 10:42
  Phil put a Trials Universal on the 21-inch front on the RM and just an old 18-inch road tyre on the back with the same gearing from the Mirabara motocross meeting.
• 10:54
  And coming onto the straight at Mack Park, it was hitting the rev limiter, so you just nurse it down the straight and loved it because it got home and the bike wasn't dirty, the brakes weren't worn out, the chain wasn't stuck from the mud and all that sort of stuff.
• 11:09
  So it was just clean and easy and a lot of fun on the tarmac.
• 11:14
  And it's a fun day, so we didn't technically race, but you always wanted to beat the other guys.
• 11:19
  And there was a guy that I was racing with on an MTR 125, the 125 Honda Road Racer.
• 11:24
  And I kept trying to peg him back and I'd pass him sooner and sooner and sooner.
• 11:29
  So I raced and got second last, not last.
• 11:33
  I was just before 17 and nine months at that stage, which was when you got your learners for a motorcycle in Victoria.
• 11:39
  And I was just after the 250cc limit come in.
• 11:43
  So I'd been riding Quacker 9s and 750 Commandos, three-cylinder 750, Mach 4 Kawasaki's, Mach 3 Kawasaki's, all that stuff.
• 11:54
  mainly on the dirt, and I was slammed with this 250 limit, which sort of was very disappointing.
• 12:01
  But born an RD 250F off-farmed, who was that, Robert Black?
• 12:06
  And went road racing for the first time.
• 12:08
  I think when my first race got something like fourth, I was like, how good's this?
• 12:12
  And then you get on and your gear's not trashed, dirty.
• 12:15
  And like I said, the brakes worn out and the chain, the sprockets half hanging off it because O-ring chains were sort of only really just hitting the scene back then.
• 12:22
  So everything used to wear really quick and road racing was just good, clean fun.
• 12:27
  So what transpires from here?
• 12:29
  Because I would imagine you are immersed in it, Kev.
• 12:32
  I mean, it's very different in the way that you perhaps ride the motorcycle or lines and things like that.
• 12:37
  Did you start to soak up a whole heap of stuff in relation to circuit racing?
• 12:41
  What did you do to improve?
• 12:43
  The way it fan-spied was because Tim and I used to race the four-years-old brother, Tim.
• 12:48
  Before he left, we used to race the CB125 with road tyres around down the creek and we had a watch with a second hand on it and we used to time each other.
• 12:57
  So you're always up for beating, especially bigger brothers.
• 13:01
  I think the little brothers can generally be the tyre in the sense that they always want to beat the bigger brother.
• 13:06
  And I was always told...
• 13:08
  being the youngest of five boys, that you're too small to do that, and that really give you the shit.
• 13:16
  So it motivated you?
• 13:17
  Yeah.
• 13:18
  So then when you're out there with mates and even blokes you don't know, you just, the competitiveness is there.
• 13:22
  You just want to beat them.
• 13:24
  So how does it go from that to some level of professional circuit racing, if you like?
• 13:31
  Who provides an opportunity?
• 13:33
  How does a door open that makes it a bit more of a significant step?
• 13:38
  That year with the RM125, I got an X a couple of years later during my apprenticeship.
• 13:43
  I had a HR station wagon.
• 13:46
  Um, actually raced motocross at Broadford when Leeski was high flying on the, um, Jeff Leakes.
• 13:51
  Oh, wow.
• 13:51
  I think it was about 83, 82 or 83.
• 13:54
  And, um, yeah, so I think I did like 42 or 45 race meetings in a year between the motocross and the enduros and, um, road racing.
• 14:04
  Wow.
• 14:04
  You know, apprentice mechanics wage wasn't much, so things were pretty tight, so I had to make a decision.
• 14:10
  So it was like, forget the dirt bikes and, um...
• 14:14
  Use the road bikes.
• 14:16
  Okay.
• 14:16
  You've tipped me off to something there just around, you know, post-school life and stuff.
• 14:20
  So you're a qualified mechanic.
• 14:22
  And I know, like, if I know you, probably on the kitchen table there at home is a turbo being worked on or something along those lines.
• 14:28
  You enjoy that side of it, mate, don't you?
• 14:30
  Oh, yeah.
• 14:30
  Because when I was growing up, you had to fix things.
• 14:33
  And Dad and I were down cutting wood beyond the sawmill down the road here.
• 14:39
  And I was 13.
• 14:40
  Yeah.
• 14:42
  and sharpened on the chain, you know, mid-afternoon, and Dad dropped that, no vice or anything, just sitting on the trailer Budga, and it slipped off, and it was a steel chainsaw with fuel cap in the left-hand side, and it popped the fuel cap in it, and was like the Baker Light sort of slash, what is it, magnesium crankcases, and we were struggling for a dollar, and I remember Dad ordered the
• 15:05
  New crankcases from Doug Miller Machine, where it was called, where I bought me the Waz at 80.
• 15:11
  They were $166, which was a bit of a deal back in about 75.
• 15:17
  And there was an A-grade mechanic about, and he come out and saw what I was doing.
• 15:21
  There was no workbench.
• 15:22
  I just swept off part of the concrete floor in the shed, pulled the chainsaw apart bit by bit and just laid it out.
• 15:29
  in order, bit Hansel and Gretelite.
• 15:31
  And down in Cole Thomas' shed down in the back, he was a pig farmer who I always help out.
• 15:36
  He taught me weld and all that when we were making up pig gates and had an old prefect ute and there was another motor.
• 15:43
  So I pinched the water pump pulley off the spare motor because I managed to fashion that up with bolts and washers to a full...
• 15:50
  The crankcase is apart because our interference fit on the bearings.
• 15:52
  I just want you to just undo the bolts and pull them apart.
• 15:55
  Gotcha.
• 15:55
  Then this A-grade mechanic said, Jack, that'll never go again.
• 15:59
  This is the chainsaw.
• 16:00
  Got it going and used for the next five years.
• 16:03
  Like I said, Dad died in the meantime a couple of years later, and then I used it for the next couple of years and then traded it in when I first started my apprenticeship on a bigger second-hand trade-in, and that's it.
• 16:13
  That still goes.
• 16:15
  Amazing.
• 16:16
  Was it tough losing your dad at such a young age, mate?
• 16:19
  Yeah, just starting to get to know him, Rusty, and on that man and young man level, not the man and sort of boy level.
• 16:27
  Yep.
• 16:28
  Yeah, with a kick in the guts, but...
• 16:30
  life can do that to you sometime.
• 16:32
  Yeah, exactly.
• 16:33
  He would love to have seen what you went on to achieve.
• 16:35
  So basically you've got a ute, some bikes.
• 16:39
  Are you in between your Monday to Friday work?
• 16:43
  Are you getting a little bit of time off from your boss at the time so you can go and pursue the racing?
• 16:47
  Is this what's happening at this stage of your career?
• 16:49
  No.
• 16:50
  I started my apprenticeship at Earl and Motors.
• 16:52
  That was everything a farmer needs.
• 16:55
  From your harvester to your whippersnipper and your plough shears and your rotary hoe, your three-wheeler back in the day, your four-wheeler, your motorbikes.
• 17:06
  Had the Suzuki four-wheel drive and car agency as well, the Honda bike and car agencies.
• 17:12
  So pretty much you could work on anything.
• 17:15
  Outboards, a lot.
• 17:17
  And no, it was really full.
• 17:20
  And the other bike shop, which was Centrepoint Motorcycles, the bowl she had.
• 17:26
  that was where all the cool stuff was.
• 17:27
  You know, you weren't working on rusted.
• 17:30
  There used to be a lot of dairies around this area and now it's pretty much all broadacre cropping.
• 17:36
  So three and four wheelers and, you know, your CT 125s and 185s that have been...
• 17:42
  Spent their life in water and you've got to get the back wheel out.
• 17:45
  Everything's just locked up.
• 17:46
  You know, you're just working on this crap.
• 17:48
  Wow.
• 17:48
  And it's just hard work.
• 17:49
  And old Johnny Rookman, smart guy down the back in the tractor sheet, he taught me a lot of tricks to get things apart that have locked themselves together.
• 17:58
  Anyway, God rest soul.
• 18:00
  Rookie soul too.
• 18:01
  He's a really good bloke.
• 18:02
  Very, very clever.
• 18:04
  And I was two and a half years into my four-year apprenticeship, and I wanted to go and work at the other dealer because it was just full-on bikes, and the boss wouldn't give me the sack, and I got down to five chargeable hours a week because I said to the foreman, I'll just keep working on the tradings and stuff, give me everything to fix, don't have to do a job card on it.
• 18:24
  I got called up to the office, and he told me, and then I worked a little bit more, and then I slacked off again.
• 18:30
  and called me up to the office and was giving me the boots.
• 18:34
  I went up and seen Ivan Washington.
• 18:36
  So I jumped on my pushbike and rode up to the Horsham Tech School and saw Ivan Washington and he said, well, what do you want to do now?
• 18:43
  I said, well, I can go and start work at the Centrepoint Motors office.
• 18:46
  He said, well, off you go.
• 18:48
  So I finished one before lunch and started the next one after lunch.
• 18:54
  And then comes another key moment.
• 18:56
  At the end of that year, Bob Brown...
• 18:59
  I borrowed, it was the end of 82 because I borrowed Wayne Von Einem's 350LC, Yamaha RD 350LC, because the year before on the 250LC I won the Victorian millage Yamaha.
• 19:14
  They were the importers back in the day before.
• 19:16
  It was Yamaha Motor Australia.
• 19:18
  Anyway, the millage RDLC series for just this one make bite.
• 19:23
  So I won that on the stocker.
• 19:25
  and then bought Phil Neewon's TZ350, borrowed Wayne Vynum, little Von.
• 19:31
  He passed away a few years ago.
• 19:33
  Another great bloke and great inspiration.
• 19:36
  He was trying to win the South Australian Series on the bike that I was hopefully going to win the Victorian Series on.
• 19:43
  And then we could sort of, between the two of us, we could brag about that.
• 19:46
  And that was kind of funny, so...
• 19:49
  I'd borrowed Russell Jagger's FC Holden, Phil Neewon's bike trailer.
• 19:53
  I was on a borrowed ID350LC.
• 19:54
  Took my first day off worth.
• 19:58
  Bowled it down the bench seat on the Thursday night after getting there.
• 20:02
  Slept in the FC.
• 20:04
  And being a mechanic, you don't want people looking over your shoulder.
• 20:07
  And this bloke come up looking at me changing the tyre on a tyre, you know, to keep it out of the gravel in the pits at Winton.
• 20:15
  So I give him the sort of go away body language.
• 20:18
  He went away, come back and introduced himself as Bob Brown and goes, do you want to have a ride on Maducati?
• 20:25
  I'm up here testing a few riders because Jeff Fine, his normal rider, was getting married on the weekend of Sandown, this international swan series that we used to have through the 70s and 80s.
• 20:35
  Yep.
• 20:36
  I said, all right, oh.
• 20:37
  And then he rang Irwin's on, I think it was a Tuesday, and he goes, do you want to come down to Sandown at the end of the month, which was the end of November?
• 20:44
  So it would have been a few weeks before.
• 20:45
  And I said, oh, yeah.
• 20:46
  Kevi, fill in the blank here.
• 20:47
  This is a Ducati superbike you're talking about, aren't you?
• 20:50
  It's a Ducati 500 Panda that Bob bought crashed probably at the auctions.
• 20:54
  Gotcha.
• 20:55
  Bob Martin straight in the frame.
• 20:57
  And Bob just put some slicks on it and...
• 21:00
  He didn't tell me for probably six or eight months later that I was two and a half seconds a lap faster around Whitten than any of the other riders he tested.
• 21:09
  That's why he rang me up to ride at Swan Series.
• 21:12
  So we go down there.
• 21:14
  It breaks the shim when I'm riding across the tarps in the Desmo gear and pushed it back and he said, oh, well, I'll see you Sunday morning.
• 21:23
  I'm like...
• 21:24
  I've ridden it like halfway across the pits and I'm supposed to go out.
• 21:28
  So we do the warm-up lap Sunday morning and won both races against fairly stiff opposition, which was Peter Muir on the old Ducati drama they used to call him, the Dharma, from Gowan Lock Engineering in Sydney.
• 21:40
  But it nearly tipped me off.
• 21:41
  You'd remember the old Sandown Rusty where...
• 21:45
  At the first corner, the arm car was right there.
• 21:47
  Like if you ran off, you pretty much ran your T-bone in the arm coat.
• 21:51
  So off the start, I got down into the first corner first, flicked it on its left side.
• 21:56
  Next minute, the back wheel's off the ground.
• 21:57
  It's come around.
• 21:58
  It's nearly flung me into the arm coat.
• 22:00
  Managed to stay on it and, like I said, won that one and won the next one, wary that I couldn't lean it over much to the left, which is a bit of a problem around sand down.
• 22:09
  Anyway, Bob rings me up and said the front forks were three inches too short because they were out of a different model.
• 22:16
  And by the way, won both races, you're going to want to go to Oron Park.
• 22:20
  So...
• 22:21
  back to the Sunday night coming home after the presentation, I give the cheque and the trophy and the whatever else back to Bob Brown.
• 22:29
  He said, no, it's yours.
• 22:30
  You rode it.
• 22:31
  I said, yeah, but your tyres, your engine, you paid the entries.
• 22:34
  Like I'd been paying my own entries, tyres, everything, obviously.
• 22:38
  So I think I got 500 and something bucks and was thinking, this is not a bad earn compared to an apprentice mechanic.
• 22:46
  Does this sort of accelerate you into the Australian Superbike Championship?
• 22:49
  What happens next?
• 22:50
  Got stuck on Bob Brown's Ducati.
• 22:52
  I got promised a few rides, but nothing of any consequence ever eventuated.
• 22:59
  Then I have in the 500K Nippendento 500,
• 23:04
  Winton in 1985.
• 23:06
  And that was the same year Yamaha had the one make series for the RZ 350s.
• 23:12
  They had the state championships and then they had the national championship.
• 23:16
  Bob Brown off the boys at Component Yamaha at Essendon.
• 23:21
  He bought and paid for an RZ 350 for me to race in this state championship, thinking that I could win that and then get a go in the national one, which he won the trip to Holland to compete at the World Cup.
• 23:33
  So Bob paid for the bike and we put all the prize money in the kitty and, you know, black or red at the end of the year will go halves in the profit or the loss.
• 23:42
  So I won that, and I think when I won the first couple of races, Graham Lang from Millie, Yamaha, back in the day, rang me and asked me, did I want to ride with Mike Dowsing, who was a very good from Western Australia back in those days, very good 250 Grand Prix rider, and, you know, I could ride anything else as well, especially production bikes, on the new Yamaha FZ 750.
• 24:07
  So, all right.
• 24:09
  I'll do that.
• 24:10
  Can I get one to ride?
• 24:12
  Yep.
• 24:13
  So jumping by then I had an XP Falcon U and drive down to, where was they, Mulgrave and pick it up in Melbourne and come back and rode it around and rode it over to the race.
• 24:25
  And Mike Dowson had the hour race on the 250s in the morning.
• 24:30
  We had a real dogfight with Russell Howard from Tasmania.
• 24:34
  Because he was supposed to start the 500k race.
• 24:36
  I was just going to fill in the middle bit in the Ducati leathers.
• 24:39
  And then he was going to finish it.
• 24:41
  And that worked with fuel loads.
• 24:43
  And Dowson come up to me about 20 minutes before the start of it.
• 24:47
  He said, I'm too tired.
• 24:49
  I don't think I'm going to do the two sessions.
• 24:50
  You're going to have to start it.
• 24:52
  And I'm like crapping myself because I'd been on the Ducatis and that, not raced against the Len Willings, Mel Campbell, all those sort of guys on that sort of bike, on the production bikes.
• 25:05
  Yeah.
• 25:06
  Yeah.
• 25:06
  Got away at the start, but I knew from being a mechanic, don't punish it early.
• 25:10
  So you ride the wheels off it early and then use sort of red line later on when you're a bit worn out yourself.
• 25:19
  I remember at the start of that, let them get away to about sort of, I started to panic when I was four and a half seconds behind Rob Phyllis on the brand new GSXR 750.
• 25:29
  And then just wear them down and just keep them in sight, keep them manageable.
• 25:33
  Dowson got on, he did his stint in the middle, and I got back on, had a good lead, and Lenny Wheeling on the GPZ 900 was catching me.
• 25:41
  I think it was about 10 laps to go.
• 25:44
  So I just put my head down and ended up winning it.
• 25:47
  That's a very cool memory, mate.
• 25:49
  Was Warren Willing a part of all of that at that stage too?
• 25:51
  No, not yet.
• 25:52
  He'd been down there at some stage with Lenny.
• 25:56
  It was a reverse direction meeting, I think, at the Tom Phyllis Memorial.
• 26:00
  I remember Warren said to me sometime after I've met him, he said, I remember seeing you on that Ducati reverse direction when the start line was up the top of the hill.
• 26:09
  So down into the S's, he said, the wheels are bouncing off the ground.
• 26:13
  How'd you get around the corner?
• 26:14
  And I said, well, we didn't know anything about suspension.
• 26:17
  It used to chatter its head off.
• 26:18
  So you just throw it at the corner and the centrifugal force had stopped the chattering.
• 26:23
  And that was it.
• 26:25
  Get on the gas after that.
• 26:26
  Awesome.
• 26:27
  That was how it worked.
• 26:37
  Back in November 2018, Rusty chatted with another Aussie motorcycle racing hero Mick Doohan, and not just about his success in MotoGP.
• 26:48
  But the tools that took me to those world titles or took me through sport, I've tried to apply to life after sport.
• 26:56
  And, you know, the same commitment, the same dedication and persistence are the things that I still use and also try and continually work with trusted people.
• 27:13
  Channeling the skills learned through his career has helped Mick enjoy wins of a different kind and ultimately lead to board positions with the Australian Grand Prix, for example.
• 27:22
  Recorded in a restaurant at Crown, Mick is candid and shoots straight from the hip.
• 27:26
  Search for it later.
• 27:28
  Now back to Rusty and Migu.
• 27:32
  Did you win?
• 27:32
  I think you were talking before about, was it a trip to the Netherlands?
• 27:35
  Did that eventuate?
• 27:36
  Yeah, in the meantime, Mick only took me to the Suzuka 8-hour.
• 27:39
  This is the middle of 85.
• 27:40
  Yeah.
• 27:42
  with Rob Fillers on the Morawaki CBX 750 engine.
• 27:46
  What is Kevin McGee from Horsham thinking?
• 27:48
  You know, this must have been one of your first big overseas trips, was it?
• 27:51
  Yeah, went to New Zealand at the end of 84, raced at Whanganui in Gracefield on the Ducati.
• 27:57
  Getting to Japan, like, the culture is one thing.
• 28:01
  But the amount of people at Suzuka Circuit at the eight hour, six point whatever kilometres long and almost completely surrounded.
• 28:09
  And then the pit area where it goes under the road and Suzuka Circuit Hotels just over the other side of the road, but you can get all under that.
• 28:17
  The people, it's just wall to wall.
• 28:19
  And to see that many people, over 200,000 people at the race meeting was just mind-blowing and just acre after acre of bikes parked
• 28:29
  Around the joint.
• 28:30
  Did you and Michael Dowston get a second there on a Formula One bike or something or other?
• 28:34
  Was that the meeting that you've gone to?
• 28:35
  No, that was the year after.
• 28:36
  So this is 85.
• 28:38
  I'll get a bit more because 85 was a lot of rides and a lot of things.
• 28:41
  Trevor Flood, the late, great motocrosser from Melbourne.
• 28:45
  Yep.
• 28:45
  He gave me a ride on his FZ 750 a quarter.
• 28:48
  And...
• 28:50
  Mel Campbell and Rob Phyllis beat me on their thousands.
• 28:53
  Then I rode Trevor Flood's TZ750 in the 85 Swan Series at the end of the year.
• 28:58
  What was that like, mate?
• 28:59
  Because that series was iconic back then, wasn't it?
• 29:01
  Yeah.
• 29:02
  The bike wasn't that good.
• 29:04
  Gardner that year was on the three-cylinder, I think, him and Mel Campbell.
• 29:09
  No, it was on the four-cylinder, that first V4 when Honda went from the...
• 29:13
  V3 Grand Prix 500 to the V4 500.
• 29:15
  It was a pretty angry beast.
• 29:18
  And Dave, the South African, he was doing the Grand Prix's on the three-cylinder 500 Honda.
• 29:24
  So good roll-up.
• 29:25
  You're going to some great tracks too, aren't you?
• 29:27
  Yeah, well, you imagine we went into Surfers Paradise for the first time.
• 29:31
  Awesome.
• 29:32
  What happened from 85, 8-hour riding flood is FZ, you know, the phone started to sort of get a little bit busy with, can you come and ride this?
• 29:39
  Yeah.
• 29:41
  And then there was the Castro Six-Hour-It-On Park, Wick Mike Dowson off the back of the Nipendenzo 500 wind.
• 29:50
  And that was the one that was really wet, if you remember.
• 29:53
  It just absolutely poured with rain.
• 29:56
  And unfortunately, Mike had a crash on his id lap.
• 29:59
  And then my next stint, this is how I recall it anyway, the left foot peg come off a turn two,
• 30:09
  on the start of the second lap of like an hour and a half stint.
• 30:12
  How'd you cope with that?
• 30:13
  Well, there was a little bit of a sort of a plate above where the muffler comes up around the chain.
• 30:20
  I could just sort of lift my whole leg and put my heel on that.
• 30:23
  But when you had to change gears, you had to hold your whole leg up.
• 30:26
  You had no ankle pivot or anything.
• 30:28
  So anyway, I got through that and then, um, it was pretty interesting in the end where I think we're two and two and a half or two and two and three quarter laps down.
• 30:38
  And in the wet near the end, like it was, I mean, poor and rusty, like off the end of the straight, I'm like half lock on the front, aquaplane, and then you just pick up.
• 30:47
  I just had a damn pat.
• 30:49
  Were you always comfortable in the wet, mate?
• 30:51
  It was an advantage because my bikes were usually slow.
• 30:55
  And if it was wet, I looked forward to it because I got more chance of doing better or wind.
• 30:59
  Gotcha.
• 31:00
  And from skating on road tyres in the early days, Tim called sorry for me when he was in Narakot and I was here.
• 31:07
  He bought me a crashed CB360 for $125 and gave it to me.
• 31:11
  So I was riding around with mates on DT250MRs and CR250s on a 360 twin-cylinder road bike with road tyres, mud, gravel, grass, whatever.
• 31:22
  So you learn to hang on pretty well.
• 31:24
  Awesome.
• 31:24
  So from there, mate, I mean, there are races at Bathurst and all sorts.
• 31:28
  I mean, are you no longer working as a mechanic?
• 31:31
  Are you just purely chasing the motorcycle racing dream?
• 31:34
  No, I'm still a full-time mechanic.
• 31:36
  Wow.
• 31:37
  Assembling bikes after work and working into half-ass one the next morning, back at work at six.
• 31:44
  So take me to some of the success that's starting to emerge beyond Australian shores here, like the eight hour, for example.
• 31:50
  I mean, that is you talk about the crowd there before and so on.
• 31:53
  I mean, that must hold a special place in your memory, mate.
• 31:56
  Oh, definitely.
• 31:57
  That impressed me that much.
• 31:58
  So that's that was the middle of 85.
• 32:00
  And that's when I'm getting a few rides and I'm sort of jumping from one thing to the other to the other, like Bob Brown's Ducati, the RZ 350 series.
• 32:09
  The FZ750 Accorda, the CBX750 at the 8-hour, which was a TT Formula 1 chassis, all aluminium, super trick, super light.
• 32:16
  Trevor Flood's TZ750, FZ750 proddy bike, the FZ750 super bike that was.
• 32:23
  So it was sort of the case that I could ride on treaded tyres or slick tyres, whatever bike.
• 32:29
  It sort of didn't matter.
• 32:31
  And Dowson and I got third in that six hour.
• 32:34
  I got us back onto the lead lap in my last, I think it was my last session.
• 32:39
  And we lost it by seven seconds.
• 32:42
  We came third.
• 32:44
  Because I wonder...
• 32:45
  It took me years.
• 32:46
  I just could not get a ride in the Castrol six hour from like 1982.
• 32:50
  And so we're talking 85.
• 32:54
  And I finally got in it and I wanted to win the first one.
• 32:57
  And just missed out.
• 32:58
  But Gaston and I did win the next two on FZ750 and the FZ1000.
• 33:03
  Yummy.
• 33:04
  So that was good.
• 33:05
  To win those, mate, was a massive tick.
• 33:08
  And it had...
• 33:09
  You know, some great names in the field traditionally and often a bit of international interest.
• 33:13
  They sort of kept an eye on it, didn't they?
• 33:15
  Yeah, well, it was the spring when...
• 33:19
  The manufacturers had released all their new models, so it was the first acid test for the almonds throw-by.
• 33:25
  Gotcha.
• 33:26
  So the international press used to keep an eye on the Castrol 6-hour as did the manufacturers and all that.
• 33:31
  But to win it was bloody hard because it could be 40 degrees or 14 and wet as a shag sort of thing.
• 33:38
  You can't win it first hour or the second hour.
• 33:40
  It's called the Castrol 6-hour because you've got to get past six hours, then they pull the flag out.
• 33:45
  Gotcha.
• 33:46
  You know, there's a lot of corners, a lot of gear changes, a lot of breaking errors.
• 33:50
  Either of the two riders can make a mistake.
• 33:52
  And you say to your teammate in those ones, just say, look, if you're going to prang it, just do it in the first session.
• 33:58
  Do you and Dowson, it seemed as though you formed a pretty decent combo, mate.
• 34:01
  What was it about each other that complemented the other rider?
• 34:05
  I think he was fast and sort of reliable, more classical road racer.
• 34:11
  I was just, I'll go anywhere I've got to to pass you.
• 34:13
  And they used to call me ride, ride around the outside.
• 34:17
  That was because I used to be timid, scared to go up the inside of people because I knew if I lost the front, I'd take them out.
• 34:24
  Got you.
• 34:25
  So I'd go around the outside, and plus, when I got my shit starts, they're all going for the inside apex at the first corner.
• 34:31
  Yeah.
• 34:32
  And I had good flow speed from the motocross days.
• 34:34
  I did any sort of stock and turn of motocross where I used to rail the berms.
• 34:38
  So I like that high-speed, high-lean-angle feel.
• 34:41
  Yeah.
• 34:41
  I used to tend to go around the outside and pick up a lot of positions rather than get stuck in logjam, everybody going for the same bit of race stroke in the first corner.
• 34:49
  And that was the difference, I think.
• 34:50
  Dowson was classical.
• 34:52
  I was uncouthy.
• 34:58
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with 500cc Grand Prix winner Kevin McGee.
• 35:03
  He loves a chat, in case you hadn't gathered.
• 35:06
  So that means there is a part two all loaded up and ready for you to enjoy right now in our library.
• 35:12
  From that win at Harama to a couple of headline-making crashes that really took their toll.
• 35:19
  And the incredible record-breaking effort where McGoo coaches a vision-impaired rider, the pair...
• 35:25
  getting well above 300km an hour on the way to the Guinness Book.
• 35:29
  All that and a whole lot more as we twist the wrist on another feature episode of Rusty's Garage.