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Transcript

Lyall Williamson - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:14
I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
0:26
For this episode, I'm in Auckland, New Zealand at the International Motorsport or IMS workshop surrounded by cool cars, both race and restoration projects and all sorts of memorabilia with a connection to the owner.
0:40
I'm here to chat with Lyle Williamson, founder and long-time team boss who's built and prepped countless cars, worked with over 100 drivers and helped start or guide the careers of a similar number of engineers and mechanics.
0:55
As you'll hear...
0:56
He's also been a driving force in a program aimed at aspiring racers for over 25 years.
1:02
He's worked with several people already in our Rusty's Garage library.
1:07
Craig Baird, for example.
1:08
There's some good stories on Baird-O.
1:10
David Brabham and Paul Morris.
1:12
You'll enjoy his recollections of the late Jason Richards when he started out with IMS2.
1:18
Lyle's packed more into his race life than many of us would ever think possible, running programs in South Africa...
1:25
Australia and New Zealand, and often at the same time.
1:30
Little wonder this place is brimming with trophies.
1:33
And he's been recognised for his success by governing bodies and big manufacturers like BMW.
1:39
The winning continues, and it's as recent as the New Zealand Endurance title at the end of 2022 at Highlands on the South Island, which is where the idea of this pod was conceived.
1:50
Yeah.
1:51
Thanks to Nick Williamson and Dan Gaunt for their intel and their encouragement.
1:56
Lyle is far from done, but it's important in my books to preserve stories like this.
2:02
From humble beginnings, through passion and perseverance, he achieved some incredible things and rubbed shoulders with some greats along the way.
2:13
It is fantastic to try and tell a little bit of your amazing story.
2:19
People may not realise you actually kicked off in Speedway and you drove in Speedway, am I right?
2:25
No, I was what they called the gopher.
2:28
The gopher.
2:30
Go for this and go for that.
2:32
It was very early days.
2:34
And down in Christchurch, I was doing my apprenticeship at the JAG agents there, Archibalds.
2:42
And across the road from there was a wrecking company called City Wreckers.
2:48
and he was building the old stock car that you see in the photos and I was hanging around there all the time after school while I was also working at Archibald's and he wanted to know if I'd go out to the Speedway with him.
3:06
I couldn't go quick enough so it started way back then.
3:10
What were the cars, the style of racing in Speedway?
3:14
32 Ford Coupe with a little Offenhauser engine in it, V8.
3:23
And about the same time I'd met my wife at the beach down in Waikuku in Christchurch.
3:34
So I was trying to impress her by taking her to Speedway.
3:38
LAUGHTER
3:39
She got introduced real early as well.
3:43
So she's been to all the races and the speedway and all the things in between as well.
3:49
There's a lot of things in between.
3:51
She's amazing.
3:52
Hey, what I would like to understand in peeling this back a little bit is where the actual love of cars and racing comes from.
4:01
Did that come from family or what attracted you to it?
4:04
Well, I'm the youngest of 11, and my brothers were right into their cars, and there's photos of the cars they were restoring in a real amateur way, way back in those days.
4:19
So once again, I ended up to be the gopher, so my brothers would give me little things to do every now and then and kick my butt whenever I did them wrong, so...
4:30
My father was also one of those guys that polished his car every Saturday morning and we'd all line up to get our jobs and what we were going to do.
4:42
So it was quite regimented but very amateur in those early days.
4:46
Nice.
4:46
Were you good at school?
4:48
No.
4:49
You couldn't wait to get out of there, I gather, is that right?
4:51
Well, I was lucky we were later on.
4:56
in the high school that a teacher latched onto me in the engineering side of it.
5:04
And he gave me a lot of opportunities.
5:09
We ended up fixing his old Daimler during the school time.
5:16
I was a bit lucky with that particular person.
5:20
He also got me into the Army, into the engineering side there when it was compulsory training and all that.
5:29
So I missed all the military training, but I also got my licence back in the Army for trucks and things and...
5:41
Luckily, just some good guys picked me up in those early days when I could have got out of control.
5:46
I reckon when we were walking through International Motorsport here before, you showed me a picture of either your first car or an early car that you had or built.
5:55
And you said your dad made you sell it pretty quick.
5:57
Is that right?
5:58
What was that car and why?
6:00
Well, it was a Model A truck which I re-engined.
6:05
I just finished school and dollars were burning a hole in my pocket and I found this dreadful old truck.
6:16
So I put it on the back lawn and I could see the look on my father when he came home and saw it there.
6:24
So I worked away there and made some, learnt a lot, but also made some dreadful mistakes.
6:32
The problem was that I didn't have the money to put hydraulic brakes on it.
6:38
Had cable brakes, didn't it?
6:40
Had cable and rod brakes, and that was the death kick when I'd finished it and took it for a run.
6:49
I thought to myself, wow, this thing doesn't stop too well.
6:53
And my brother said, let me take it for a run.
6:57
So he immediately went to Dad and said, that'll kill him.
7:01
So down the road it went, funny enough, a mate across the road boarded off me and
7:09
I think he was still trying to build it 20 years later, but she was definitely nothing to be proud of.
7:16
The apprenticeship at Archibald's was a bit sliding doors in some ways because it exposed you to some great names in motorsport that would come in there when they came to New Zealand.
7:28
Just for people that don't know, just tell them some of the names that would come in.
7:32
Well, that's where I first met Denny.
7:35
Denny Holm we're talking.
7:36
Yes, Denny Holm, sorry.
7:38
And that's a story in itself because he was down to do the Tasman series and Archibald used to let all the guys who'd come in from overseas to work in their workshops.
7:55
So after work I was hanging around them.
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hoping that I could talk or say something intelligent, which I didn't.
8:04
Were you nervous around them or not?
8:06
No, I wasn't because I didn't really understand in those early days how lucky we were to have them just sitting there.
8:14
Bruce McLaren was there.
8:16
There's some photos in the boxes over there of...
8:19
how casual it all was.
8:22
It was, yeah.
8:23
But in the end, Danny said to me, you want a job, kid?
8:27
So I said, yes.
8:29
So he said, right, take these wheels out into the steam cleaning bay and clean them.
8:35
So I did that, and they'd proud as punch brought them back.
8:40
And he took a look at it and then he kept doing his thing.
8:46
So I was like a little puppy dog waiting for the next instructions.
8:50
And he said, so you've cleaned them, have you?
8:53
I said, yeah.
8:55
And he says, really?
8:56
He says, what about these?
8:59
And of course, I cleaned the wheels, but in those days, of course, the stones would stay in those old Dunlop tyres and things and the wheels.
9:09
which is what had happened here.
9:12
What about these?
9:13
I said, oh, I'll do those now.
9:16
And he goes, no, you won't.
9:17
If you can't do a job properly at the beginning, you can't do it at all.
9:20
He said, what happens when the stones flick out and hit somebody?
9:24
What happens then?
9:26
Bloody useless little prick sort of thing.
9:29
So left me down there.
9:31
So...
9:33
He never spoke to me again at that time.
9:36
Somehow I carried on and, oh, no, I worked on over the road and the speedway stuff.
9:42
And then he arrived back the next year.
9:45
I thought, I'll give it another shot.
9:47
So we went down there, hung around, hung around, and he looked at me and he says, ''Have you learned how to do jobs properly yet?''
9:54
And I said, ''Yeah, yeah.''
9:56
And he says, ''Really?''
9:59
but ignored me after that.
10:00
So no job, no nothing.
10:02
So I stood there for, I think it was two days.
10:05
Hoping.
10:06
Hoping, hoping.
10:08
Any rate, nothing.
10:09
So I ended up at Speedway at Lady Wigram that time with Jim Slater and he's...
10:16
running his XK 150, and I had my white overalls on, and I was proud as punch.
10:23
So I went up to Denny then and said, something stupid like, how's your racing going, or something dumb.
10:32
And he looked at me and he says, you're working on somebody else's car.
10:36
I said, yeah.
10:37
He said, well...
10:38
I hope you do a better job than you did on mine.
10:41
I said, oh, okay.
10:43
And then after that, of course, it smoothed out and we become good friends and he helped me get into a professional mode at the beginning.
10:55
The only other thing he said to me in those days was,
10:59
do you want to be a driver or a mechanic?
11:02
I said, oh, because I didn't have a lot of driving talent, so I said, no, I want to be a mechanic.
11:08
He said, well, you're no bloody good to me if you want to be a driver, but if you want to be a, I'll help you.
11:17
So from there on, of course, he stayed right till the day he died and was quite a motivator for me to do things.
11:27
things to a different level.
11:29
It was a very special friendship partnership thing that you had.
11:34
We'll unpack a bit more of that if we can, but a couple of things that have sprung to mind.
11:38
You talked about, I think, the Jag there a moment ago.
11:40
How important was working on that car for you?
11:42
It taught you a lot, didn't it?
11:43
Oh, yes.
11:44
Yes.
11:45
Because I had such good teachers.
11:48
I mean, there were some amazing guys that stayed friends with us and some of them still do to this day.
11:56
And
11:58
I'm not saying I got a shortcut, but I really did because without knowing it, I'd actually got to a different level way beyond what I was really worthy of.
12:12
And these guys somehow helped me.
12:17
Okay.
12:18
Had you become enamoured with motor racing?
12:21
I mean, back then there's no internet, is it magazines?
12:25
How were you following what they were doing when they went back to Europe and so on?
12:31
I had a friend who was getting those, and I'll show you before you leave, but that's as embarrassing as it is.
12:39
All the books are in the library upstairs.
12:41
Steers.
12:42
And I got all those English magazines.
12:45
They'd be third hand, so there's little signatures where who got it had to hand it on to the next.
12:51
Yeah.
12:53
That was keeping me reasonably up to date.
12:58
But in the area where I lived down there in Spradin, we had Ivan Major, Barry Briggs, Ronnie Moore all in our area.
13:10
We had the Stanton Brothers...
13:13
were just up the road and there was another guy three or four houses along called Bobby Burns.
13:18
That's quite a roll call, quite an impressive list of... Well, all living in that area.
13:23
And Bobby Burns was the guy who went and did the...
13:28
the records and these big black knighting events with a sidecar on it and things.
13:36
And I'd go up there and sit and talk shit, no doubt, because I didn't really know what I was talking about.
13:44
But they were all very good.
13:48
But they were all just in our area.
13:52
So I didn't know there was anything different, really.
13:58
They called him the Bear.
13:59
Yeah.
14:00
What was he like, Denny Holm?
14:02
Well, Denny had that side to him, but there was a lot of things people didn't know about Denny, and, of course, his dad, Clive.
14:13
And that was a very tough upbringing.
14:17
for Denny and Clive had been through the war with Charles Upham, the guy who got the VC.
14:29
And Denny, once he got to know you and I did a lot of travelling with him and there would only be the two of us in the car,
14:40
And he'd tell these amazing stories of how before he could go to school, he'd get in his old Austin J truck and go down and shovel the sand into the back of the truck and then after school go and take it home.
14:56
And he said every now and again the axle would break because it was too heavy.
15:00
So it was hitly laden, wow.
15:02
And when he got home, these Clive would...
15:07
I don't want to go exactly what happened from there, but it was... Tough.
15:12
Unbelievably tough.
15:14
So he stayed at our home with Joy and I.
15:19
He knew Joy.
15:20
Then he, when he lost his son...
15:28
Then he changed as a person.
15:31
He just couldn't deal with that and he knew we'd lost our son and he struggled with all that and Greta was trying to manage things with him and it wasn't an easy run then but once he got near a race circuit or he'd...
15:56
get anywhere near a car, of course, he'd lighten up and he'd be okay.
16:00
But in the dark hours when he was by himself, he loved his stationary engines and his old traction engines and he'd just sit there for hours and he was a world champion.
16:16
just playing with these little bits and pieces.
16:19
And that's when he was quite at home with himself.
16:23
But he was very good with me and he got me the job, or he helped get the job in BMW.
16:34
There was a lot of rivalry between Frank Gardner and Denny.
16:39
And I, of course, went to Australia towards the end of Frank's running of BMW and took over the running of all that.
16:49
And that was brought about through Denny opening the doors as well.
16:54
You and I would actually cross paths in the late 90s for the first time with Super Touring back in the Diet Coke era, which we'll get to.
17:01
Can we talk about a couple of stories in that period where you're with Denny and some of the legends would come down over summer?
17:09
Nick reminded me that Graham Hill somewhere had a massive accident, I think if I've got this story right, and the car ended up in the Dunnies.
17:20
Is that right?
17:20
What happened there?
17:26
Well, it was a bit different from that.
17:29
What happened was there was a habit back in those days at the end of the racing is you'd take your sponsor for a run around the track and things.
17:43
And New Zealand was quite slack.
17:48
In this particular time at Teratonga, it had been a wet meeting and there'd been some awful narrow escapes with the guys having a lose because the surface wasn't all that drained and all the rest of it.
18:03
At any rate, Faye's taken the boss of BOAC around the circuit and he somehow just gave it a little blip in the yeses, but it was enough and, of course, the car...
18:18
bit and took off, went down the bank, up, uh, into, through the fence and cleaned out the old style dunnies that were sitting there.
18:30
And everyone was, oh, it's okay, it's okay, I'm pushing the car and...
18:36
and there was a few red faces, and then somebody said, ''Hey, is somebody in there?''
18:42
And they answered the... opened the door, and here was Jimmy Clark.
18:48
Oh, Jimmy Clark.
18:52
Jimmy was a very dapper little man and didn't like being untidy in any shape or form, and he was covered all down his legs...
19:03
But it all got hushed up because, although he did mention it in one of his books, but he doesn't actually say...
19:13
What I've just told you.
19:14
Okay.
19:16
He had had an interesting incident down in Teirotonga and he loved going to New Zealand and blah, blah, blah.
19:23
But the interesting things were getting cleaned out while he was using the dunny.
19:29
Crazy.
19:29
We'll come back to Denny in a second and spend a bit more time on him if we can, but let's go with some of your impressions of these
19:36
Absolute legends.
19:37
So cool that they would come to this part of the world over the summer.
19:41
I mean, Jimmy is still now with a lot of people, you know, held in that same stature as like an Ethan Senna or...
19:50
I mean, just... What was it like?
19:52
Well, it was...
19:56
He was just in the car bay right next to us.
19:59
And because I could go and talk to the mechanics and the other guys, they were...
20:07
Just there.
20:08
They weren't anything special.
20:09
Special, yeah.
20:11
What was he like as a driver, though?
20:12
Because, I mean, he was a special driver, wasn't he?
20:15
He was, and he was a cut above the rest.
20:19
But Bruce was there with Pop McLaren, and there's some lovely photos back in the...
20:29
Archibald days before they built the new place.
20:32
Archibald used to sell and service coaches and horse-drawn carts.
20:40
Wow.
20:40
And they had bays there and there's a photo of Bruce and Pop...
20:46
sitting on the bench looking at one of the gears, which I remember it was slipping out of gear, the Cooper was.
20:54
And I could just wander in and have a chat and talk with them.
21:00
And because I didn't really feel anything, that I was doing anything wrong, they were as good as gold.
21:08
They knew my name.
21:08
Excellent.
21:10
And luckily, most probably the word had got round, don't get him to clean any tyres because he's bloody useless.
21:17
But no, I just knew around the pits areas there that I was welcome.
21:27
I was never told to bugger off.
21:29
But later on, of course, as I started running reasonable cars, it was a lot easier.
21:36
Let's bounce through a couple of other names.
21:37
It's the Stirling Moss.
21:39
Yes.
21:39
Well, there's photos out there.
21:43
One of the best things, of course, was when Colin Giltrap decided to run the GTIs when they first come out.
21:55
I ended up getting pulled in with Rod Coppins and Jerry Clayton and Jack Brabham, Sterling Moss and Denny Holm were the team.
22:07
Well, that's quite a team.
22:09
Very.
22:09
Yeah.
22:12
Once again, it didn't mean anything to us because it was just a job and that's what we had to do.
22:19
But Sterling had a lot more urgency to him.
22:24
But he wanted things done his way and quickly.
22:28
Then he would just...
22:32
not belittle him but it's our just just ignore him just do what we're doing don't worry about what he's doing he won't know but uh it wasn't a nice way it wasn't nasty stuff you would have an association with uh jeff and david brabham later on in super touring what about sir jack what was sir jack like
22:53
Yeah, he was a hard old boy.
22:55
Was he?
22:55
Yeah.
22:56
Well, look, Denny and Jack fell out years and years ago and it was actually at Bob Jane's Calder Park that we managed to get Jack and Denny to talk.
23:11
I never pressed Denny to know what...
23:17
what caused the problem.
23:19
But we were in having breakfast, and I said, there's Jack, and he goes, yeah, I can see.
23:26
Why don't you go and say something?
23:28
He goes, wow, fucking way.
23:30
I'm not going to remember.
23:32
At any rate, the second day, yeah.
23:35
I said, God, I just can't hurt.
23:38
So he did.
23:39
And Jack was very welcoming.
23:41
And I thought, gee, he's drawn up a seat.
23:45
And he sat there at the breakfast table and muttered about a whole lot of things that they'd been doing.
23:51
And it was never mentioned again about whatever the problem was.
23:57
That's when they first started to talk again.
23:59
Again, okay.
24:00
You've kept lots of lovely stuff of Denny.
24:03
When I walked in here today, you showed me, I think, even a tyre pressure gauge from the very early part of his career.
24:09
Is that right?
24:09
Yes.
24:09
Well, that was Clive.
24:11
When Denny went away and won the trip to Europe, Clive gave him the gauge.
24:18
And it was in a little case and Denny never used it, I don't think, but he was very proud of it.
24:26
But he also, when he gave it to me years and years ago, it was, you look after this...
24:33
preferably don't use it.
24:35
And every now and again he'd say, where's that gauge?
24:38
So I'd have to go and show him and make sure that it was still in that condition.
24:44
But he did that with a lot of things over the period of time.
24:53
was not miserly but he was very tight with his dollars.
24:59
And those days I was down on Khyber Pass and I'd started a bicycle shop and a chain and it grew and grew and grew.
25:09
So the race team got shoved out the back of Khyber Pass down there
25:16
And then he would come in and look for Joy and say, where's Joy, where's Joy?
25:21
And he'd open up a little plastic bag and it would have some money in it.
25:26
And she'd say, can you go and put it?
25:29
Because next to where the race shop was, was ASB Bank.
25:35
And she'd have to go and put these odd amounts of money into these accounts.
25:41
And you could always see him, he's looking at his book and adding him up and he's,
25:46
But he had small things, not amused him, but he enjoyed just small normal things.
25:54
He knew we had joy being a traditional West Coaster.
25:59
We'd have roast dinner on Sunday nights always, still to this day, funny enough, whenever we were around.
26:08
And Denny would always rock up and know that he's going to get a roast on a Sunday night.
26:15
At that stage, his life was still being difficult.
26:20
He hadn't settled down again, but he was always welcome around us.
26:26
What was he like as a driver?
26:28
Yes, he was so, not brutal, but he just did it.
26:35
With it all being so easy and he'd be chatting to you.
26:39
And he just, smooth, he knew the car, he knew what he needed from it.
26:50
Didn't make a fuss, unless it was wrong.
26:53
And then old Jandles or me would get it in the neck big time.
26:57
But overall, he was struggling when we were working with Peter Brock in the Goldcorp cars because he found that he reckoned the Commodore was not an easy car to do with.
27:14
the Australians were managing to do with it.
27:17
But he got in there and did the job that he needed to do, but he didn't really like it.
27:24
Okay.
27:25
Is there a car along the way in that period?
27:28
I mean, Murph recounted to me recently about getting the chance to drive the Yardley McLaren, for example, and sharing that.
27:36
Yes.
27:38
Was there a car that Denny drove or was there a car even in that period that you fondly remember that you felt a special maybe attachment or connection to?
27:48
Well, it's not going to be the answer that you would expect.
27:51
So he used to do a lot of mileage backwards and forwards to Rotoweedy and to here.
27:59
And that was just the mood he was in at that period of time.
28:05
And Jaguar had built him a very special XJ, which is well documented in that, and it's in a collector's hands now.
28:16
He had his Range Rover.
28:18
He later on had his BMW when we were working with BMW.
28:23
Every time he'd come to Auckland, he'd be in this Chevette area.
28:29
Bloody 800, 900 cc.
28:31
And I say, oh, mate, where?
28:35
Oh, no, no, no, I'm not putting mileage on those.
28:39
He used to talk to the bloody thing.
28:43
Really?
28:44
Yeah, he'd be, don't you talk about my chavette.
28:47
She's good, aren't you?
28:50
Really?
28:52
And he, his...
28:55
It wasn't a pride and joy thing.
28:57
It was this car up and down, up and down, up and down.
29:02
Because I can imagine sometimes when he must have been going down the highway and he'd go past somebody and they'd look out the window and say, geez, that guy looks like Denny Hartman.
29:14
It can't be him because he's in this little red Chevette.
29:17
But that's what he loved.
29:21
Special race cars?
29:24
Not really.
29:24
He, er...
29:27
You know, he knew the insides of them.
29:29
There's another nice thing that happened way back then.
29:34
We ended up befriending Alan Hamilton when Alan had the Porsche bits and pieces and he had the 917 Porsche that Alan restored and we ended up at his place and then he was...
29:54
having a good look around it, he said, oh, Jesus.
29:57
And Alan was saying, oh, we had you licked in the Can-Am days with this and all the rest of it.
30:03
And then he would say, oh, yeah, you reckon, did you?
30:05
How many did you win compared to us?
30:10
Then he said something unusual.
30:12
He said we were standing there, and there's a photo of this around somewhere too, and he said...
30:19
you know, we always knew how to beat you guys.
30:23
And he bends down and he looks at the back of the car and he said, oh, this one's had it done too.
30:29
What?
30:30
And he said, these cars carry the oil and the water inside the tube frame and they built the cars out of aluminium.
30:38
So we knew to get on the back and give it a tap and it would start leaking.
30:44
I said, is that for real?
30:48
And he goes, yeah.
30:50
I said, what?
30:51
Amazing.
30:51
You should have seen Noel and Hamilton.
30:55
You wouldn't have done that, really, would you?
30:57
Yeah.
30:58
Bloody oath we would, he said.
31:00
So that was a humorous part.
31:02
Of course.
31:02
When he's not a man that has a lot of humor, but he giggled away about that.
31:09
Good.
31:09
A couple to finish on him, if we can.
31:11
Nick said to me, which more or less underscores what Denny was like, I think on his first kind of serious go-kart outing, Denny came and supported and spectated, didn't he?
31:26
Yeah, he did.
31:27
Amazing.
31:28
But I think he got on better with the kids than he did with adults.
31:36
He's seen, especially if it was a family thing, that he would put a bit of time into them when he didn't need to.
31:45
But the same problem happened there where he...
31:50
we didn't like Nick wouldn't have thought it was any different because sometimes he was sleeping in the room next door at our home anyway so it was it's just Denny Paul Morris has been on the podcast and a couple of others and shared their their recollections of the day he passed at Bathurst how did that affect you mate?
32:15
Well, that was the weekend.
32:19
I was supposed to be over there with Denny and Frank, but the Germans arrived out to New Zealand to look at this proposal of running this new race team and how...
32:38
where we were going to run it and how it was going to work and all the rest of it.
32:41
When you say German, you mean BMW, obviously.
32:43
BMW Motorsport, Paul Rosher and another guy.
32:48
So they said, he said, look, it's better that you stay and do the deal than I was in a hurry to go to the race meeting anyway.
32:57
But I knew...
33:00
He was not struggling, but I said, are you okay?
33:05
And it just got, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just tired or overloaded.
33:09
So nothing really was standing out.
33:15
So I'm at home with Joy watching it on TV, and I see the incident, and I see the car going down and veering off to the right.
33:27
And then I said to Joy, gee, there's something wrong there.
33:31
And then I saw people getting into action.
33:34
Then my phone rang, and Tim Schenken said, are you watching this?
33:40
And I said, yeah.
33:41
He said, he's gone.
33:43
Oh, my goodness.
33:48
It'd take you a long time to get over there, mate, given how long you'd known him.
33:54
I'm sorry, I don't mean to make you upset.
33:56
Yeah.
33:58
The thing in the early part of your dealings with him where you talked about him being tough on you, about the rocks and the tyres and stuff, ironically, mate, it was a great life lesson that kind of set all this up where we are today because you've talked about how...
34:16
your kind of philosophy or your approach in this business, which has been so successful for whatever it is, 60 odd years, has been, if the preparation is meticulous, if you do a good job in the background, and then if you work and find the right drivers, the success will come.
34:35
So he kind of started a bit of that in you, didn't he?
34:37
He did.
34:38
Well, there was quite a few, like at Archer Bold Stew, it was very strict.
34:43
And old English mechanics,
34:47
who one of them I worked under, he came from the Jaguar Racing Department and he immigrated to New Zealand.
34:55
And like I mentioned before, I was quite lucky where sometimes I got put with people just through no real special reason.
35:05
I wasn't anything special either.
35:08
So those things happened.
35:10
But with...
35:14
Denny, he didn't compromise.
35:18
He was, that's the way I want it done, and if you don't do it that way, and I'm sure if you ask the boys out in the workshop, they'll be like,
35:29
Drives us nuts.
35:30
But that's just my way.
35:34
You know, I've had over in the records there, there's about 120-odd mechanics who have been through here and worked with me because we've had some big teams over the period of time where...
35:50
So a lot of them now you see overseas working, had their beginnings way back in those early days with IMS.
36:02
And the same as the amount of drivers that we've had, that's over 100 drivers.
36:08
And then I got involved with the Motorsport New Zealand's Academy and I'm one of the founders of that.
36:18
So I've been with that for 22 years now.
36:21
And that's also at about 100 and something odd.
36:24
So I've had quite a lot of...
36:27
people work under my influence and work in the team and still stay friends to this day.
36:36
And I must admit I get more enjoyment out of that than I do out of...
36:42
watching the young ones coming up.
36:43
Do you?
36:44
And knowing that I got a bit of a break way back in those early days of my apprenticeship and I try to do at least one apprenticeship every two or three years.
36:59
We're just changing over now, as I mentioned.
37:03
Amazing.
37:04
Connor Adams, we've had in the Toyota 86s and in the Porsches.
37:10
He's just finished his apprenticeship and a new guy is just starting who reminds me a lot of me that he's a bit...
37:19
Awkward, he's not the flashiest Harry, but I can see something in him, as I have with all the guys.
37:26
And we've been fortunate to have some very good guys who have worked with us.
37:43
Hi there, could I just give you a bit of direction?
37:46
If you are getting plenty out of this chat, you have to head into the garage and take a listen to Rusty's sit-down with another successful team owner in Ross Stone.
37:55
My question is a little bit loaded here, OK?
37:57
I'm probably talking a bit out of school, but Anna told me on the quiet she can remember driving home on the Monday, families in the car, and you turned around and you said, we're going to make it, we're going to make it.
38:13
Yeah, well, it was hard because there was a hundred grand if you win Bathurst, you know, and that was massive to us.
38:24
Just, you know, you don't get any now, you get the start money and all that sort of stuff, but winning that hundred thousand was just massive and really helped us.
38:35
And winning Bathurst also helped us with Ford because, you know, there was other guys in there and they were doing a good job too, you know,
38:43
It changes the, you're already very well known, already very well established in that pit lane.
38:49
But when you're a Bathurst winner, I mean, you'd ultimately go on and win championships as well.
38:53
But the cachet goes to another level, Ross, doesn't it?
38:56
Yeah.
38:56
Well, I always used to say in supercar racing, if you're doing today what you were doing a month ago, you're not going to be good enough.
39:05
So you had to keep reinventing yourself.
39:07
and just keep working and I think Jimmy always set the standard for the amount of work that was going on, you know.
39:17
They are a special breed.
39:19
Now, back to Rusty.
39:22
We love the contest, we love the racing, we love the cars, whatever, but it becomes a people game.
39:27
So at what point did you get good at picking the right people to come either drive for you or work for you and did that come easily?
39:36
Yeah.
39:37
It did, actually.
39:38
I sound conceited saying that, but I...
39:43
I just worked with some amazing people early on and then slowly those people were coming to work with me and we've been very lucky that we've not... We've always had people wanting to work with us.
39:59
You know, we worked in South Africa with Craig Baird and our mechanics went over there.
40:05
I've done a fair amount of time in America.
40:09
Australia too.
40:10
Australia.
40:12
And luckily, because of the teams that I've been running and working with, we've ended up with real good mechanics down this end of the world in Australia and New Zealand.
40:26
We are so lucky on the standard of people.
40:29
They come in not knowing a lot, but boy, after a couple of years, they're on to it.
40:34
Am I right in saying too that you were very active in encouraging Paul Sipronich to come to this part of the world, come to Australia, didn't you?
40:41
Yes.
40:42
So you obviously saw him in South Africa and how did that all sort of start?
40:46
There was the first year when there was a bit of a mess in BMW when I first went over there.
40:55
Frank had been struggling and the fire had gone out and everyone, the Morrises were holding it together.
41:04
So I moved over there.
41:06
I was keeping international motorsport running here.
41:11
And so I promoted one of our guys, and I thought I was bulletproof, but I sure and hell found out quick that it wasn't as good as I thought I was.
41:19
But they were trying to do Australia and New Zealand at the same time.
41:26
And we...
41:30
Where were we up to?
41:31
You were talking about Sipronich, Paul Sipronich.
41:34
So Rudy Minor came out to Australia.
41:38
He's one of the leading lights under Paul Roscher, who runs the BMW Mattersport programs.
41:44
And he said, show me what you're going to do.
41:49
So I said, well, first I've got no – I don't know what the budget is.
41:53
He said, just put it together, whatever it is.
41:56
He said, you're going to need –
41:58
to move away from the people that Frank's had, you know, we need better quality.
42:05
So we made this list up and he said, I want to ring a couple of guys.
42:13
So he said a couple of months later, right, I want you to go to South Africa and meet Peter Devar, who's the boss of BMW Motorsport.
42:27
He's also got a guy there called Paul Sopranek.
42:32
And then I want you to go to Europe and go to France and interview Eric Ferron, who was the guy who came from Renault Formula One through to Australia for that year that we were quite successful.
42:48
And so I went there and met Peter Devar.
42:51
He just said, I better be careful what I say here, but anyway, I met Paul.
42:58
Paul was a bit ho-hum.
43:01
He wanted to go to Australia, but he certainly didn't want to go and work with somebody, a little Kiwi.
43:06
He didn't know what he was...
43:09
Up to, but we ended up to be good friends and, of course, we had a successful year.
43:16
Eric Ferron and Paul didn't get on that well.
43:22
Eric didn't renew his contract for the following year where Paul was on a mission.
43:28
He wanted to use that as a stepping stone and he was always going to go to greater things.
43:34
He knew where he was going.
43:37
But back then, of course, the Diet Coke BMW team was starting to mould into a very, very good team.
43:49
In fact, Australia, as you know, was struggling to allow the two litres run against the V8s and all the rest of it.
43:58
So I got sent to Japan to have a look about going to set up a BMW motorsport race team as we had in Australia over there.
44:14
But at that stage, Joy was looking at me sideways and...
44:21
You were already busy enough.
44:22
Yeah, New Zealand was struggling.
44:25
And so luckily I didn't go ahead with it.
44:30
And I think it was two seasons later they closed that down too.
44:35
So I'm pleased I didn't.
44:36
Ironically, with the success of the Diet Coke BMWs in that chapter where you were with them, you were up against Audi and now you're running Audi at International Motorsport, which we'll get to a little bit later.
44:47
Can we just... We've skipped forward a fraction, which is okay, but let's just go back two steps if we can.
44:52
Firstly, there is one photo of you outside that I spotted at the wheel of a car, an open wheeler.
44:58
Oh, yes.
44:59
Is it a Lotus?
45:00
What are you in there?
45:00
I'm trying to remember what that is.
45:01
Yes, a little Lotus.
45:02
Tell me about that.
45:05
After Archibald's and the Speedway, there was a car enthusiast in Christchurch who owned a big electrical company called PDL.
45:19
And I used to be the man, old Bob, if he needed to be run back to work,
45:29
he would get Williamson.
45:33
So I'd do that and he'd chat away.
45:36
So what are you going to do?
45:38
I said, oh, one day I'll get out there and do my own motor racing sort of thing and babbled away and he was patient enough to put up with me.
45:50
Anyway, I don't know how many years it was, maybe two years I was running him back.
45:55
He said, no.
45:56
you been watching our motor racing?
45:58
I said, yeah, yeah, that's cool, isn't it?
46:00
And he was racing two minis and a little robot mantis, a little Lotus 7 thing.
46:06
And he said, well, when you decide to move, you come down and we'll see if there's a role for you.
46:17
I couldn't wait.
46:17
I think I went in that same week and thinking, I don't know what I was thinking, I'd go to the receptions and said, I want to see Bob Stewart.
46:25
And the girl saying, you?
46:29
Who are you?
46:30
Anyway, luckily Bob did, when they rung through, he did recognise...
46:38
that there was something.
46:39
So at any rate, I was hired immediately.
46:43
So then I had the problem of resigning from Archibald.
46:46
Archibald, yeah.
46:47
But I had not remembered that my apprenticeship wasn't finished.
46:52
Oh.
46:53
So that caused a few headaches.
46:56
And so I managed to be able to get my apprenticeship finished
47:02
when I moved to the other place, even though I didn't have a senior man over me, but I only had a small amount of time to go.
47:10
So I then ended up... Bob was starting his car collection and he put me onto his old Aston DB4, which was a restoration job that had been half-finished.
47:26
And then...
47:29
There was a bit of a split going on between a lovely old mechanic down there, Eric Johnson from Automotive Maintenance, and Eric was struggling to keep up with Bob's wishes to build a proper race team and all the rest of it.
47:48
And Eric was the old school, similar to what I was, but I most probably was a bit more modern than that.
47:55
So I did the last couple of races with Eric in the minis and then with the instructions from Bob, sell the minis, we're gonna go to V8s and that was when my life really started to take off.
48:17
So Clyde Collins, who we lost just a few months ago,
48:23
And he was the driver in those days, along with Robert Stewart, who was Voss's son.
48:32
And Clyde and I got underway with this burnt-out 69 Falcon in the race shed underneath.
48:44
And...
48:48
I don't know, what were we thinking?
48:50
Like, this car was all wrinkled where the heat had been through it and all the rest of it.
48:56
And Bob had a bit of patience with us for maybe a month or two.
49:01
And one day he said, just stop, stop, stop.
49:07
What are you guys thinking?
49:09
And we said, well, this is all we can afford to do.
49:12
So anyway, he went upstairs and I don't know, I think he said over the many years later, he thought he would just pick up the phone and ring Ford Motor Company.
49:24
So the boss then was Ren Penny.
49:27
And he said, I want to do this.
49:31
And Ren said, oh, OK, you know how you're doing at all.
49:34
Yeah.
49:35
So one day I was told to wear tidy clothes and all the rest of it.
49:40
We go down to Hutchison Motors.
49:43
And Wren was, he knew Bob Stewart was direct and to the point.
49:49
He said, right, what do you want?
49:50
Well, Bob said, I want...
49:53
XW Falcon, and I want, you can have your name on it, and it's going to have PDL, but you're going to give it to me, and blah, blah, blah.
50:05
I ran and said, oh, I don't know about that, but of course Ford did give us the car in the end, and we went on and built that.
50:15
overweight Falcon, run it for a couple of years but knew we couldn't beat the Mustangs.
50:24
Yeah.
50:26
And the Mustang to beat was Paul Fahey who had a 70 Boss Mustang with all the Bud Moore stuff on it.
50:34
Yeah.
50:36
It was speeding up in those days because Bob wanted to get faster and get better results.
50:47
ended up the very short time that we owned the Mustang of Fahy's.
50:57
Yeah.
50:59
A lot of people don't know the next part that I'm going to tell you, but Paul wasn't fussed about me being there.
51:08
He wanted Ray Stone, who was a very good mechanic in running his cars in those days.
51:17
and Bob said, no, no, he's staying and we're running it, sort of thing.
51:23
So I go to Bay Park to pick it up and we picked immediately when I got there.
51:32
There was a lot of animosity between Jack Naser and Paul and there'd been a bit of contact and things like that.
51:41
And...
51:44
It was race two, and there's a big puff of smoke in the cars.
51:50
The Mustang stops, and it comes toes back into the pits.
51:57
And I said, yes, well, what's going on now?
52:02
And they said, oh, I don't know.
52:03
Well, it's OK.
52:05
It's just something small.
52:07
So I had a look around it, and I could see there was a hole in the block.
52:13
And it had one of the very special engine called a J-block, which was when they put the 377 engines in the GT40s, they made these J-blocks.
52:25
And it had a hole through it.
52:28
So I have to ring Bob Stewart to tell him that the money's ready to be transferred and all the rest of it.
52:34
So I ring Bob Stewart.
52:36
Yeah, what's it like?
52:36
He's so enthusiastic.
52:39
I said, we've got a bit of a problem.
52:41
He goes, like what?
52:43
I said, he's blowing the engine.
52:45
He's what?
52:47
Oh, no, don't, don't, don't, just, no, no, just come home, come home.
52:52
So I said, oh, OK.
52:53
So Fahey gets on the phone to Bob and says, look, that's no big deal.
52:57
I don't know what he's told you, but it's, we'll fix it all and it's all OK.
53:05
Well, of course, it never was OK, and while there's a lot of versions of how PDL or how Bob and Fahey fell out, that's the reason why they fell out, is because in the season and a bit that Paul drove for us, he never fixed the engine and we never saw the engine again.
53:25
We found out years later it got taken to America and repaired and...
53:31
it was so valuable that it was used in a GT40.
53:34
Wow.
53:34
So...
53:39
The reason why there was a lot of problems back then was because the day we got the car, we had a blown engine in it and it took a while.
53:53
We then had to do our own engine and Murray Bunn from Auckland, he was helping us and he was saying, mate, you're not gonna get this GT40 engine back
54:06
And what it was is one of the little heavy steel weights that go in the crank came out and got caught between the block and the crankshaft as it spun around and just punched a hole out the side of it.
54:19
I want to break into the conversation for just a moment.
54:21
Lyle's made a bit of a revelation here.
54:23
As always with Rusty's Garage, it's the guest in their words, but I'm also a huge believer in balance.
54:30
And Paul isn't here to offer his version of events, so we need to keep that in mind.
54:35
His opinion...
54:36
may be different.
54:37
He's a legend who's carved a special place in the history books with his achievements in saloon cars in New Zealand in the 60s and early 70s.
54:46
So perhaps read the book Lyle refers to and then consider his recollections that we've just shared and then form your own view.
54:54
Now let's get back to the conversation.
54:57
The other thing that happened back then is Paul insisted that he wanted Ray Stone to work with us for the first few meetings and Bob wasn't having a bar of that.
55:11
But at the same time, Joe Wright, who was Graham McRae's mechanic, was floating a bit, waiting to go back to the Formula 5000 series in America and he didn't have a job.
55:27
So I liked Joe because he was an unbelievably casual, real clever Kiwi mechanic.
55:37
So he did the season with us, or some of the season with us before he went back.
55:45
And there was the stories in the Whahi book that,
55:50
We didn't know how to do the setups and anything like that.
55:52
Well, none of that was true.
55:56
All it was is that we'd been force-fed the wrong tyres and we were struggling to run the car as fast as had run the season before because we had been fitted in...
56:13
using tyres that weren't designed to do New Zealand and all the rest of it.
56:17
And Joe Chamberlain, the old Camaro guy who was out from the States, Bob Stewart somehow was chatting away to him and Chamberlain came down and had a look at the car
56:32
That car's a cracker.
56:34
Oh, hang on, what are you doing with those tyres?
56:37
Oh, well, that's what we were told.
56:40
And, of course, Bob, being the man that he was, he immediately hit Fahey up and said, You fitted me.
56:47
And it was a very...
56:52
It's the only time in my life I've really had quite a difficult relationship
57:02
It wasn't nice working there.
57:04
We were trying to do well, but it was a nasty part of life.
57:12
And, of course, later on we got the Mustang going, we raced Moffat and we raced...
57:19
Jimmy Richards would have been a part of Jimmy then?
57:22
Yes, well, Jim's car came a year later, but we managed – we did the Trans-Tasman Cup, the trophies around here somewhere.
57:30
And we – the car did over 100 race wins in our hands.
57:38
Each year we –
57:40
prided ourselves on wanting to go faster, which I teach these guys here.
57:45
No point in doing the same lap time as you did last year.
57:47
You've got to edge your head.
57:50
So that was quite a...
57:52
Your drivers back then?
57:53
Was it Leo Leonard?
57:54
I'm trying to remember who was who was here.
57:55
Yeah, Graham Baker came first.
57:58
He was driving a Formula Ford and Bucky and I go way back along with Clyde Collins.
58:06
And then Dave Baker came on board to drive that car.
58:12
Leo, of course, we went to Australia with that and then we decided that we would build Mustang 2.
58:21
And...
58:23
And once again, I thought we were bulletproof and sure and soon found out we weren't.
58:29
But the car was built to a high level and still is to this day.
58:36
But that's all New Zealand built.
58:38
Yeah.
58:40
It's been hacked around a few times lately, but the original car was a cracker of a car and there was three real good mechanics, our fabricators back in those days who made that car.
58:55
Cheeky Andy McIlroy sent me a message and said, you didn't give his dad a Guernsey.
58:59
Is that right?
59:00
Is that right?
59:00
Yeah.
59:04
He just sent me something this morning and he said, I said, Oh, good to see your success.
59:12
And I've known the family rod we used to race against his dad.
59:17
I said, Your dad would be so proud of you.
59:19
And he said, Yeah, but you're the one that taught us how to cheat.
59:24
Oh, is that what he said?
59:26
Yeah.
59:27
And I said, oh, yeah, well, I thought you knew pretty well before you got the mean, coming from Timmaroo.
59:33
What did he say?
59:35
He replied, yeah, there's more to be said.
59:38
Stirring.
59:38
Good stirring.
59:39
Hey, while we're in this phase, we raised Jimmy Richards a minute ago.
59:45
Was there a little rally story involving you two that you can share, you and Jimmy?
59:51
Have I got that right, or a rally story involving you?
59:53
I'm trying to remember.
59:53
Did you...
59:54
Did you go rallying at some point?
59:57
How on earth did you find that out?
59:59
Come on, share with it.
1:00:00
I think what you might be talking about is I was in the Ashley Forest and I knew Jim pretty well and we were doing a little bit of rallying back in those days too.
1:00:17
So I was standing with a few people.
1:00:20
They were doing drives up through the Ashley Forest.
1:00:24
And the...
1:00:26
I don't know how to do it.
1:00:31
Anyway, he saw me there and he said, come on, get in.
1:00:33
I said, no, no, no.
1:00:36
I've been in race car drivers.
1:00:37
They love to scare the living daylights out of you.
1:00:40
If you're the one that's been telling them they can't drive properly, once they get you in that car, you get away.
1:00:46
So anyway, I end up going into the end of the forest and I'm so sick and I've changed colour.
1:00:56
My hand's shaking.
1:00:58
And we get there and, of course, then you're going to have to go out and back out again.
1:01:03
So I said, I get out of the car.
1:01:06
He said, come on, are you all right?
1:01:08
I'm spewing.
1:01:09
I said, no, no, I'll walk.
1:01:11
He goes, don't be fucking stupid, you can't walk.
1:01:14
Anyway, he said, I'll just go.
1:01:19
A little bit slower.
1:01:20
And I said, oh, this is...
1:01:22
He says, I won't tell anyone.
1:01:23
I said, no, yeah, right here.
1:01:25
So he goes faster going back out because I had to wait till all the cars come up and then they wait and send them back out again.
1:01:33
He gets out of the car and some of our race team people are there and, of course, he's cracking up.
1:01:43
He can't smell it.
1:01:44
He's been spewing all over the show.
1:01:48
So that's what happened.
1:01:55
I absolutely love yarns like that.
1:01:57
And how good were the stories on Denny Holm too?
1:02:00
I ended up hanging on every word of those.
1:02:03
Don't forget, Jimmy Richards is in our library too.
1:02:06
If you haven't heard that one, I hope you find the time when you finish this episode.
1:02:11
That's the end of part one of my pod with respected team owner Lyle Williamson.
1:02:15
There's lots of great stuff still to come.
1:02:17
Part two is all loaded up and ready for you to hit the gas on right now.
1:02:22
From a cheeky Craig Baird, who basically wore him down, to a young Jason Richards, who was equally determined to drive for IMS.
1:02:30
And the high-stakes Bathurst drama that was both a win and a loss in equal measure.
1:02:36
Music