Latest / Rusty's Garage / John Cleland (Part 2)

Transcript

John Cleland (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here, about to launch into part two of my podcast with the legendary John Cleland.
• 0:25
  If you haven't already, head back to the library and hit the gas on part one where he talks about the early days, a special Brock Commodore he acquired for racing in the UK and how he never stopped working in the family car yard even at the height of his professional race career.
• 0:41
  We pick up the discussion on his second British Touring Car Championship win in the mid-90s and why it was so special to him.
• 0:51
  That was the first year with the full aero package for what it was, you know, front splitters, rear wings and things like that.
• 1:00
  And we went to test that 95 Cavalier at Brands Hatch on the little Indy track there in, I don't know, January or whatever it was.
• 1:09
  And it was the first time, because we'd been all over Europe again, testing, testing, testing over the winter.
• 1:15
  Then we start, first time we're there with all of the teams for the championship test, we're there with all of the teams for the championship test,
• 1:21
  And I go out and I come back in after five or six laps and I said to my engineer, it's good, yeah.
• 1:30
  He said, it's, I said, it's pretty good.
• 1:32
  The dash isn't working, so I don't know what the times are.
• 1:35
  If you could just fix the dash.
• 1:37
  He said, what's it like otherwise?
• 1:39
  I said, yeah, I think it's pretty good.
• 1:42
  He said, well, it should be.
• 1:43
  You're half a second faster than anybody else.
• 1:46
  And it's just an old shitty rubber.
• 1:50
  So I said, right, okay, as the day wore on, we, like everyone else, we throw new rubber at it.
• 1:56
  And we ended up quickest in that test.
• 1:59
  And I said, when I got out the car, I said, right, wash it, clean it, put it in the truck, and we'll go and win this championship.
• 2:06
  That was so confident, was I, that this car was capable, no matter what I asked it to do, it did.
• 2:13
  It wasn't complicated.
• 2:15
  And when I look back on it now, and I know the man that owns the car, and when I look in it, there's nothing.
• 2:21
  There's no fancy switches or carbon fibre or multiple this, that or the other.
• 2:27
  It was just plain and simple.
• 2:30
  And one of the funniest things, nobody believes me in this, but the engineer I had was a guy called Phil Barker.
• 2:35
  Lovely, lovely bloke.
• 2:37
  And he and I set a target to win the championship.
• 2:42
  And I said, if we win this championship, I'll buy you a really good watch.
• 2:45
  So that was his incentive for getting on with it.
• 2:49
  So we would used to tune the car by putting the rear windows up or down.
• 2:56
  we left the window mechanism in the rear windows.
• 3:00
  And to upset the balance at the back of the car, you would either wind the windows up or down, whichever track you were at, whichever you wanted the car to have a little bit more oversteer or a bit less oversteer.
• 3:14
  believe it or not, winding the rear windows up or down was the trick to tuning it.
• 3:18
  That's amazing.
• 3:18
  So it disturbed the air over the rear wing.
• 3:20
  Is that right?
• 3:21
  Or limited it?
• 3:22
  Amazing.
• 3:24
  It disturbed the air inside the car as well, and it just gave the car a little bit more oversteer, or no oversteer at all.
• 3:33
  It was amazing.
• 3:34
  Nobody believes the story.
• 3:36
  Crazy.
• 3:37
  So it finishes, you know, on such a high for you.
• 3:42
  The Vectra...
• 3:43
  I know you'll probably tell me wasn't, you know, wasn't as great a car compared to the Cavalier.
• 3:48
  And you've just rattled off the whole, you know, the back story in the potential move to Audi as well.
• 3:54
  I mean, that's crazy from having number one on the side of the car.
• 3:58
  Well, to win the championship at the start of the year, I knew that the thing was going to win the championship.
• 4:04
  It was absolutely it was on for that.
• 4:06
  Yeah.
• 4:08
  turning down Audi, at the time, didn't seem like a difficult choice because the Vectra had Opel money from early in 1995.
• 4:20
  The Vectra was being prepared.
• 4:22
  It was being drawn up.
• 4:23
  It was being designed by the German team in conjunction with Ray Malek.
• 4:28
  And on paper...
• 4:30
  It looked like it was going to be an astonishing piece of kit, and they were going to sell it all around the world.
• 4:35
  Because remember, from about 1994 onwards, the two-litre series became a world series.
• 4:43
  It was, even in America, they had a two-litre series.
• 4:46
  Not very successful, but you guys had it in Australia.
• 4:50
  It was all over Europe.
• 4:51
  It was the same regulations, a bit like TCR today to some extent.
• 4:57
  So you had a single regulation, to the point where we even had the World Cup.
• 5:01
  You know, we had the World Cup at Donington, we had the World Cup at Paul Ricard, and then we had the World Cup at Monza.
• 5:07
  Now, people like Mark Scaife came to Monza and drove a Nissan there.
• 5:11
  So it was a global series with cars from each country working to the same regulation.
• 5:20
  So I had no reason to think that this Vectra, with the mighty Opel,
• 5:25
  and Ray Malek, who was a very good engineer, would put together a championship winning car.
• 5:32
  So I've won it in 95.
• 5:34
  I've got number one in the car for 96 in a brand new, ground up, designed Vectra, but it turned out to be a piece of shit.
• 5:43
  It was just a shocker.
• 5:45
  It was just a shocker.
• 5:47
  We just, we won a couple of races with it.
• 5:50
  but by luck, by default.
• 5:53
  And even when years later in 98 and 99, I think it was when Ivan Muller, who then went on to become multiple World Touring Car Championship winner, a great driver, fantastic driver, one of the best.
• 6:10
  He and I could not get that car to work.
• 6:14
  with his car control and bravado, he and I would still be split by a tenth of a second.
• 6:22
  We just couldn't get it to work.
• 6:24
  It never, ever was designed right as a race car.
• 6:28
  It had all the wrong suspension, and because of the regulations, meant we couldn't really make it the Nissan Primera, if you want, which was what won in those days, you know.
• 6:39
  But, hey...
• 6:41
  You went for a decade with, or more, just over in fact, with Vauxhall.
• 6:46
  I mean, the stats, you'll correct me if I'm wrong here, two titles, 17 outright wins, another 15 class wins, almost 100 podiums, John.
• 6:57
  Was it hard to stop given the success that you'd enjoyed and the success of the class, of the category at the time too?
• 7:06
  Yeah, it was.
• 7:07
  I mean, I was, I'd been in it a long time and I have no doubt.
• 7:11
  If you remember, I didn't really start until I was about 40 something.
• 7:17
  So I was already, I was already, you know, getting to the latter ages.
• 7:21
  And if I look at the age of, of the kids you have in the V8s, supercars nowadays, these kids look as though they're 12, but they're pretty little superstars they are.
• 7:36
  In those days, I knew that I could have stayed on longer than 1999, but I had a business that was getting bigger.
• 7:46
  I had, sadly, my father passed away that year and he had been a help.
• 7:51
  When I was away racing, he would look after the business and...
• 7:55
  I just decided that there were a few things changing.
• 7:58
  I might do sports cars if I would go and look.
• 8:01
  I raced a Porsche and a Viper and a few other things the following year.
• 8:05
  But I didn't really...
• 8:06
  I think I'd got to the point where I'd packed my suitcase enough.
• 8:10
  And that was really it.
• 8:12
  I'd been around the world.
• 8:13
  I'd raced all over the place.
• 8:16
  Our championship was still right up there.
• 8:19
  But oddly enough, at the end of 2000, the championship started to fall over.
• 8:24
  And had I stayed in it, it would have been much less of a championship than it previously had been.
• 8:29
  So, for the first year, I didn't really miss it.
• 8:36
  I took up flying helicopters.
• 8:39
  I didn't...
• 8:40
  I learned to fly a helicopter.
• 8:41
  I didn't buy one.
• 8:42
  I learned to fly them.
• 8:44
  But that was the buzz.
• 8:45
  That was something to give me that buzz.
• 8:47
  But then after about two years, I thought, hmm, I really could do with sitting my bottom back in a car again.
• 8:54
  And by that stage, it was too late.
• 8:56
  You know, it was just gone, you know.
• 8:59
  It didn't stop me coming to Australia, though.
• 9:02
  To Bathurst, that was my next point.
• 9:04
  Before we go to the supercar side of things, just very quickly, favourite circuit was at Donington of the British circuits I'm talking about.
• 9:13
  I mean, you went to that BTCC was shown in Australia.
• 9:18
  We loved it in this part of the world as well.
• 9:20
  So seeing you hustling that thing around Donington,
• 9:23
  Knock Hill or, you know, Brands Hatch on the Grand Prix circuit or wherever.
• 9:28
  But it seemed as though Donington had a little bit of a special place for you.
• 9:33
  Yeah, Donington, whether it be on the short track or on the Grand Prix track with the big loop, I thoroughly enjoyed Donington because I had won, I think I've won more races in a touring car at Donington than I have anywhere else.
• 9:46
  And there's, again, there's a great race that if you go onto YouTube, it's 1998, I think it was, Nigel Mansell was in the race.
• 9:54
  And I have a great battle with Mansell.
• 9:57
  Eventually I win the race, and Mansell I think was third or fourth.
• 10:02
  But it was just a track that I enjoyed.
• 10:06
  I couldn't...
• 10:08
  I could get the best out of the car there.
• 10:11
  If you used a long loop, it had a couple of hairpins, so you had to be gentle with the car.
• 10:16
  It's just one of those tracks that I thoroughly enjoyed.
• 10:19
  It's a pretty quick track too, but it's quite technical.
• 10:22
  And when it rains, because it's on the flight path into East Midlands Airport, it can be quite slippy as well.
• 10:28
  So you had to have your wits about you when it was a wet race.
• 10:31
  But yeah, Donington was probably one of my favorite tracks.
• 10:35
  Although you talk about Knock Hill.
• 10:36
  You talk about Knock Hill.
• 10:38
  Knock Hill were a personal sponsor of mine since I started in touring car racing.
• 10:45
  The first race they had there was 92.
• 10:47
  And I always ran on my crash helmet Knock Hill Racing Circuit.
• 10:50
  Knock Hill, yeah.
• 10:52
  I could never, I won one race there.
• 10:55
  I could never get to grips with it.
• 10:57
  I just couldn't understand it.
• 11:00
  It's a 50-second lap and I still couldn't get it right.
• 11:03
  It was a shocker of a place for me.
• 11:06
  It's a little bit of a rollercoaster ride there, isn't it?
• 11:08
  It's got all sorts of challenges.
• 11:11
  Yeah, you're off the ground more times than you're on it, but it was obviously too technical for me and I wasn't clever enough to understand it.
• 11:21
  You talked earlier in the podcast about buying that big banger, your dad buying that big banger VK Commodore.
• 11:29
  Had the family kept contact with Peter Brock?
• 11:33
  And when did the association really sort of renew again for you as far as the supercars chapter was concerned?
• 11:41
  With the supercars, it was really nothing to do with the family at that point.
• 11:45
  It was Alan Gow, because when Alan Gow, having, as you mentioned previously, been Brock's manager when he was in Australia, when Gow came across to the UK to run the Touring Car Championship here,
• 11:59
  I get on very well with Gow, he's a really good mate.
• 12:03
  And not everybody likes his abrasive, autocratic way of working, but I actually get on really well with him because I give him as much abuse as he gives me.
• 12:14
  And it came about that Gow said to me, would I like to go and drive at Bathurst with Peter Brock?
• 12:25
  And I couldn't answer yes quick enough because two things.
• 12:32
  One, Bathurst, which, as I said before, I've watched on TV so often.
• 12:38
  And two, Brock was God in a saloon car as far as I was concerned.
• 12:45
  So to go and combine the two and to share with PB was...
• 12:50
  Yeah, that was a no-brainer, absolutely.
• 12:53
  But the way it came about was Gau said, right, well, there's a test at Bathurst.
• 13:01
  And it was the Easter weekend, I think, was the test.
• 13:03
  Yeah.
• 13:04
  Yeah, the press test or whatever it was.
• 13:07
  So I did the race at Oolton Park in the touring car.
• 13:10
  got straight to the airport, got on a plane, flew out to Sydney, got up to Bathurst, and there we go, and Brock, I get introduced to Brock again, who I hadn't seen for many years.
• 13:24
  And Gau said to me, the one thing I would advise you, he says, I know Brock, and I know him really well, don't adjust anything, don't fiddle with anything, don't ask for anything, because you won't get it.
• 13:41
  It's Brock's way.
• 13:43
  That's it.
• 13:43
  He'll set it up.
• 13:45
  You just get in and drive it.
• 13:47
  Right, okay.
• 13:48
  So anyway, I get there, I get to Bathurst.
• 13:50
  Brock's out there doing laps with the press or whatever it was.
• 13:54
  And he come in and he said, right, it's your turn now.
• 13:58
  Brock being Brock, he knew the weather patterns at Bathurst.
• 14:01
  He knew it was about to rain.
• 14:03
  And as I got in this car for the first time ever at Bathurst, it rained.
• 14:12
  So here I am, just straight off a flight from the UK, straight into Commodore, in the pouring rain around Bathurst.
• 14:20
  And I'm thinking, what have I done here?
• 14:25
  So that was fine.
• 14:26
  So I've done that.
• 14:27
  We managed to get over the day without too much trouble, no damage.
• 14:32
  And we went to Bathurst Airport.
• 14:35
  got on a little private plane, the team and Brock and I, and we flew down to Phillip Island, where they had another car for us to test properly the following day.
• 14:48
  So we arrived at Phillip Island, and Brock said, we put a passenger seat in this one.
• 14:54
  It's a full race car, but he said, we put a passenger seat in so that I can take you around and show you the track.
• 15:01
  So we go out and brought, Julie shows me Phillip Island and you break here and you do this and do that and right fine.
• 15:09
  And next to Bathurst, I would say Phillip Island is probably one of the best tracks I have ever gone to and ever had the privilege to test on.
• 15:20
  So...
• 15:21
  After that, he goes out and he does some laps and he sets a benchmark time and I get let in the car.
• 15:28
  So I've done, I don't know, 10 laps and I've equaled his time.
• 15:33
  So the crew bring me in, we do the debrief and I said, yeah, no, it looks like the car feels good and I'm fine with the track.
• 15:42
  So they throw new tires on it and Brock goes out with new tires on and he set a benchmark, which was a pretty fair mark
• 15:52
  They stuck tires on it for me and I went out and beat him.
• 15:54
  So I went out quicker than Brock, round Phillip Island.
• 16:01
  Fantastic, and you got the job clearly.
• 16:03
  I got the job.
• 16:07
  They said, okay, this guy can pedal this car, let's have him.
• 16:11
  Great stuff.
• 16:12
  But I mean, everything that Gau said to me about Brock wasn't true because
• 16:18
  Bev, his wife Bev and Peter, invited me up to the Pink Ponderosa, which was their house, and we had lunch.
• 16:28
  And that was my first introduction to the wildlife in Australia, because up until that point, I'd only ever seen a kangaroo on the TV.
• 16:37
  It was called Skippy the Kangaroo.
• 16:39
  And so I've never seen the Australian wildlife.
• 16:43
  So we're sitting having lunch, and just that...
• 16:47
  there's a little kangaroo who hops up to the window.
• 16:50
  And goes, there's a kangaroo, wow!
• 16:54
  You know, I've only ever seen them on TV or in the zoo.
• 16:57
  So Brock said, hang on a minute, we'll slide the patio door back and see if it'll come in.
• 17:04
  So we slide the door back and this little joey hops in, it comes up to the side of the table where I am and helped itself to the roll that I had on the side of my plate.
• 17:16
  and I'm going, this is amazing, and Brock said, Tilly, put that roll down and lie down.
• 17:25
  It was Brock's pet kangaroo that he'd had since it was about this size.
• 17:30
  Amazing.
• 17:31
  But he was lovely.
• 17:32
  He and Bev were lovely.
• 17:34
  They could not have done enough.
• 17:36
  They could not have been more helpful and accommodating.
• 17:39
  I just loved my time with Brock.
• 17:41
  It was fabulous, you know.
• 17:44
  The weather may not have been on your side in that first drive, but what were the overarching feelings?
• 17:52
  I mean, you'd seen it on television in the UK.
• 17:53
  You knew about the aura of Bathurst.
• 17:57
  Weather aside, what was it like to drive there?
• 17:59
  I think it's the...
• 18:00
  I've been on, whether I've tested or raced on racetracks throughout Europe, I don't think I've ever been on a racetrack that when I drive out the pits, I start smiling.
• 18:10
  And when you drive out of Bathurst and you head up Mountain Straight, and you're heading for Turn 1, or Turn 2, but Turn 1 out of the pits, you just smile.
• 18:19
  And then when you go up over the mountain and along over the top and then down the Dipper, it is just...
• 18:26
  Amazing track.
• 18:27
  I mean, you cannot explain it to anyone.
• 18:30
  And a touring car driver anywhere in the world, they'll ask him, which race would he love to do?
• 18:36
  And he will tell you it will be Bathurst.
• 18:38
  You know, it is just the best track I think I've ever raced on.
• 18:44
  Challenging, very, very challenging.
• 18:47
  And I've been there now, what, 13 times, and having stood on the podium once, but had all of the other times, I've had great races there.
• 18:58
  Whether the car broken or not, whether I finished the race, I've had a fabulous time and
• 19:04
  I just wish when I'd been younger, I'd found the Australian V8s and maybe I could have made a career out of going over there because I seem to click with the things and learn how to drive them reasonably well.
• 19:16
  What's immensely clear to me, John, during this chat, and others have told me about it as well,
• 19:22
  When you pulled that helmet on, when you were behind the wheel, you were, you know, an intense, you know, some might even say an aggressive racer.
• 19:33
  But when the helmet came off and you stepped away from the car, you have this zest for life and for fun.
• 19:41
  It's like...
• 19:43
  the great perspective in the car is the competitive John Cleland out of the car is a different person have you always been that way or has that just evolved over time
• 19:53
  No, it's...
• 19:55
  When I came out there in 92 or 93 or whatever it was when I first met Brock, I learned an awful lot from him because that was in my early years of a touring car driver anyway.
• 20:05
  What I learned from him was that he would always take time to talk to people.
• 20:10
  And if he'd had a really bad time in the car, it broke or something happened, Brock would always smile.
• 20:17
  Brock was always...
• 20:18
  He had always had time for people.
• 20:20
  He never, ever...
• 20:22
  had a long face and he would kick things about the pit garage.
• 20:27
  I never, ever saw that side of Brock.
• 20:29
  Maybe he had it in his younger days, I don't know.
• 20:32
  But I learned from Brock that you have to have the time for the spectators and the other competitors because whether you're coming up for them to pass you or you're going to pass them, if you've been aggressive with them, there's only two ways it's going to work.
• 20:48
  But with the spectators, I always took it that
• 20:53
  Have the time for them because without them, there is no support.
• 21:00
  I used to love coming and talking to all the spectators there.
• 21:02
  It was just a fun, fun time.
• 21:04
  But you're right.
• 21:06
  I would fool around outside the car, and that was maybe one of the things that Ray Malek couldn't quite get in his head, was that I could be a clown outside the car, just fooling around, having a joke and a laugh, and all manner of things.
• 21:22
  But in the car, as soon as I slammed that door,
• 21:25
  It's professional.
• 21:26
  That is the way it works.
• 21:28
  There's, I will not fool around.
• 21:30
  I've got a job of work to do and I will do it.
• 21:33
  But outside of the car,
• 21:35
  What's the point of being, you know, with a big long face?
• 21:38
  And to be honest, I watch podium interviews with the Formula One guys.
• 21:44
  Now bear in mind they're being paid squillions of dollars to drive those little Formula One cars.
• 21:50
  It's maybe time they smiled now and again, which is quite refreshing to see guys like Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc and guys like that now.
• 21:58
  But if you interview some of them, they're really bubbly and Danny Rick and things like that.
• 22:04
  You know, when you lose the passion for the sport you do, and it doesn't matter if it's motorsport, golf, tennis, whatever, if you don't have that passion, go do something else, you know?
• 22:14
  Yeah.
• 22:15
  And for me, there was always a great passion about it, and we would always fool around.
• 22:20
  I mean, I've got into lots of trouble with Alan Gow.
• 22:24
  I mean, he's quite an intense character sometimes too, and takes the job really seriously.
• 22:29
  And he's a bit of a poser.
• 22:31
  So at Brands Hatch,
• 22:33
  At Brands Hatch, I remember this thing, his car at the time was a Saab convertible in some horrible colour, and he would lead out the procession of cars before the race, we were all in our cars up through the sunroof waving to the spectators.
• 22:49
  What we did was, I got space savers, I got four little space savers for it, took the wheels off his car, put the space savers on it,
• 22:59
  And my bike has got bigger wheels on it.
• 23:02
  Because he came out to get in this Saab convertible and pose in front of the grid of drivers, only to discover it's got wheels this width on it.
• 23:12
  He lost his sense of humor that day.
• 23:18
  So stuff like that, yeah, stuff like that we'd always do.
• 23:22
  It's got to be done.
• 23:22
  As you and I talk to each other, you've found somewhere some Brad Jones racing apparel and race suits and the like.
• 23:31
  That was a great part of your time in Supercars too, John.
• 23:34
  And it's a friendship, a good friendship, particularly with Kim, that remains to this day.
• 23:39
  Yeah, it does.
• 23:40
  I speak to Kim every month or something like that.
• 23:43
  It's a while since I've spoken to Brad but Kim has been here and stayed with me at home over, I think it was New Year and stuff like that.
• 23:52
  I even had him in a kilt once and he's a good buddy and I would, out of motorsport I would still go and stay with him and have some crack with him.
• 24:03
  I enjoyed that period of time and I can't remember how many years I drove for them but
• 24:07
  It started in 2001 with Brad and we started 22nd, I think it was, on the grid because the car just wouldn't do anything right.
• 24:22
  But in the morning warm-up, I think it was wet and the car was fabulous.
• 24:26
  The car was just a rocket ship.
• 24:29
  And we ended up coming second to Mark Scaife.
• 24:33
  And that was, I think we were two seconds behind Scafie at the end of that race.
• 24:40
  And right in front of Murphy.
• 24:42
  So to beat Murphy and come right behind Scaife in that race where it had everything from hailstones to sunshine to you name it, and we survived it, was a pretty special time.
• 24:53
  And that was a great, great event for me.
• 24:57
  So I've had fun because I've shared with Brock, I've shared with Mark Scaife,
• 25:03
  And then I shared with Brad Jones and a few other guys in between.
• 25:08
  So I've always had a ball there, always, apart from when I rolled one of Kim's ones.
• 25:14
  Well, we'll talk about that very shortly.
• 25:16
  Let's talk about the association with Kim, which I think began, I think he visited England during the super touring period around, you know, when Audi were, when they were running them in Australia, for example, I think you guys first met back then.
• 25:29
  He says he took you to dinner on the eve of the Sandown 500
• 25:35
  to a very good Vietnamese restaurant in Melbourne, and you had some pretty decent hot chilli that night.
• 25:42
  Tell the audience what happened during your first stint.
• 25:45
  Yeah, I've had some interesting stints.
• 25:55
  It's probably not something we could talk about on here, but I didn't actually poop myself completely, but...
• 26:03
  You were on the radio trying to pit sooner than you needed to, though, weren't you?
• 26:07
  Yeah, I think I was on the radio saying, guys, you've got to get me out of this car because something bad's going to happen quite soon.
• 26:13
  So you better get me out of here.
• 26:15
  Classic.
• 26:16
  He says when you came back after the incident with Jason Plato, where unfortunately the Aussie male car ended up on its roof coming out of the chase.
• 26:25
  Can you recall what you said to him?
• 26:27
  He's told me what you said, but can you recall what you said to him?
• 26:30
  It probably would have had lots of bad words in the sentence, but basically, I can't actually remember what I said to him because I was embarrassed that I'd just destroyed his quarter million dollar car.
• 26:43
  But I figured that it wasn't altogether my fault because Plato had been dawdling about in the middle of the road.
• 26:49
  And as it turned out, when you watch the overhead shot when Crompton commentates it back...
• 26:59
  Plato is in the middle of the road, but I was right under, I think it was under the 51, the Kmart car, whatever the 51 car was then, Murphy's car, right under the back bumper of that car.
• 27:09
  And I was catching, so I was heading for a sort of fairly sensible position.
• 27:15
  And as I just flicked out,
• 27:18
  He was placed who had hit the wall and destroyed two wheels and tires down one side of it.
• 27:25
  And the next thing, it's up on its roof.
• 27:28
  And the problem was it was skating down the road on its roof.
• 27:32
  Getting out of a V8 supercar when it's got all four wheels on the ground is a hard enough job because they've got roll bars and nets and tubes and stuff everywhere.
• 27:43
  But to get out of it when it's upside down was an even bigger task.
• 27:48
  And as it's skidding down the road on its roof, I can see fluid.
• 27:54
  As it stopped, I could see fluid running down the windscreen area.
• 27:59
  And I'm not sure if it's fuel or water, but I was leaving that car as fast as I could possibly get out of it.
• 28:07
  So I couldn't get the doors open, so I had to kick the windows out one side of it.
• 28:13
  Maybe when I got back, I said to Kim, I've destroyed one of your windows or I can't remember.
• 28:17
  What did I say?
• 28:19
  He reckons you said you're pretty fired up and he came back and I'll have to beep this in the podcast here, but I think you said something along the lines of, I'm sorry, just about everything on the car was **** when it rolled, but unfortunately the one thing that survived was the window, but I had to kick that out and that's now **** too.
• 28:42
  Yeah, I think that sounds about reed.
• 28:45
  Yeah, that sounds about reed.
• 28:48
  I'm sure that's exactly what I said.
• 29:01
  I don't know what is worse, foot hand brakes or electronic hand brakes.
• 29:06
  Either way, it makes the possibility of sliding into a tight car spotting the wet a bit tricky.
• 29:12
  A credit to you, obviously, you know, around this time, you would call time on the Supercast chapter as well, but it was with no animosity.
• 29:22
  I mean, you guys, as you've detailed, have maintained that friendship sense.
• 29:27
  No, there was no animosity at all because, again, I found it quite easy to go out there and get in those cars and drive them pretty quickly.
• 29:38
  I can't remember what year it was, but I had the option to drive for the Kmart team, Dick Johnson or Kim's team.
• 29:49
  And I thought
• 29:51
  The trouble with the K-Mart and the Dick Johnson team was they wanted me to go out there for a couple of months to do Sandown 500 and then do Bathurst and live the V8 life for two months while they tested and I got used to them
• 30:09
  the two races were a month apart or whatever it was.
• 30:12
  And I just couldn't afford that time away from my business and my family, really, because, I mean, I've got four kids.
• 30:19
  They were older in those days, for sure.
• 30:21
  But to leave my wife and home and the business for two months probably wasn't the right thing to do.
• 30:28
  Where with Kim, I could fly in, do Melbourne, fly out, and then fly back for Bathurst.
• 30:33
  But...
• 30:37
  There was no animosity at all.
• 30:39
  I loved the time that I got to know the Jones boys and they were good fun.
• 30:49
  Kim is a good mate still.
• 30:50
  Brad, he's a funny, funny bloke.
• 30:53
  And quite intense sometimes, but a funny bloke.
• 30:56
  It sounds as though the negotiations about you resigning for the following year got interesting at one point.
• 31:00
  Kim reckons he turned up at his place, he and Fran's place.
• 31:05
  He came downstairs in a proper suit.
• 31:08
  You promptly went and got the kilt on with an Aussie male shirt for the negotiations.
• 31:12
  Is this true?
• 31:14
  That's exactly what happened.
• 31:15
  That is exactly what happened.
• 31:17
  I went, got my kilt on, got my, um, got my kilt on and got my, uh, Aussie male shirt back out again.
• 31:24
  We sat down and did a deal.
• 31:25
  I love it.
• 31:27
  So I know that you're, I know that you're a Scotsman, so you're pretty savvy and those boys from Albury, they know how to hustle.
• 31:33
  That would have been quite an interesting conversation.
• 31:35
  Yeah.
• 31:36
  It wasn't an easy one, let me tell you.
• 31:37
  The funniest thing about it was that when, um,
• 31:40
  When I flew out there, you know, the deal with the imports was always you would fly business class and that was the deal.
• 31:47
  That's what you expected.
• 31:49
  And some of the skinflint UK drivers would take the money for the business class ticket and sit at the back of the bus and pocket the difference.
• 31:58
  Not me, I want to sit in a bit of luxury.
• 32:00
  If I'm gonna drive a car in a thousand mile race, I want to get off the plane feeling a bit comfortable.
• 32:06
  Anyway, Kimmy had a deal with Lauda Air and Lauda Air was great.
• 32:11
  You had to fly from London initially to Vienna and then you got on the big bird to go from Vienna down to Sydney or Melbourne.
• 32:21
  And I got there with my wife on one of these occasions and handed my tickets over.
• 32:27
  only to discover that they weren't full business class tickets.
• 32:30
  They were staff tickets that Kim had done some form of deal with Lauday Air in Australia, that as long as there was no staff, then you got the tickets.
• 32:41
  But if there was anyone else prioritised, staff got bumped.
• 32:45
  So here I am in Vienna with no way of getting business class to Australia.
• 32:52
  And I phoned him up.
• 32:54
  It was about three in the morning, Australian time.
• 32:57
  And I phoned him up and said, listen, we are stuck here in Vienna and we cannot go any further.
• 33:04
  We're not getting, I'm not going in the back of this bus.
• 33:06
  I don't care for how much money am I going in the back of this bus.
• 33:10
  But worse than that, they don't have a space on a loud air flight for the next two days.
• 33:15
  And he said, why just go and get in an airplane, just get on a plane somewhere, house, wherever.
• 33:22
  So I went to the Qantas desk and I said, I've got to get to Melbourne by tomorrow or whatever.
• 33:30
  And the girl said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine.
• 33:32
  We can ship you through Narita.
• 33:34
  Now I had absolutely no idea where Narita was.
• 33:39
  It could have been in the face of the moon for all I knew.
• 33:42
  I had no idea it was in Japan.
• 33:44
  So we got on this plane and we eventually got there.
• 33:47
  But that cost Kim a fortune.
• 33:50
  And he continues to remind me that.
• 33:54
  I said, well, if you will, you will buy cheap tickets from Loud Air.
• 33:58
  Just pay the proper money.
• 33:59
  Yeah.
• 34:01
  Absolutely.
• 34:03
  As we sort of near the end of the podcast chat here, John, first let's rattle through a couple of things.
• 34:07
  I mean, you've been to Goodwood.
• 34:08
  People that listen may not have been to Goodwood before.
• 34:12
  They will know what it is, of course, and what a legendary event it is.
• 34:15
  You've got to drive and drive pretty impressively, I might add, some good cars there, haven't you?
• 34:20
  Yeah, yeah, it's been good.
• 34:21
  I mean, Goodwood is an event that the Earl of March, Lord March previously, he has created
• 34:29
  a race event that goes back in time to the 50s and 60s.
• 34:35
  And everyone gets dressed up in period costume.
• 34:39
  And if you arrive at Goodwood for the revival event and you're not in period costume, then you are completely out of sorts with everyone else because everybody else is.
• 34:49
  Everybody takes part in it properly.
• 34:51
  And the cars, I mean, I remember adding up
• 34:56
  what I thought was the value of the cars in the first race that I ever went to at the Revival.
• 35:04
  And I stopped counting at about 100 million quid.
• 35:07
  I mean, some of the cars you see there, you'll never see again ever.
• 35:12
  They're staggering things and
• 35:15
  I mean, I've driven some great bits of kit there.
• 35:18
  I mean, I remember getting in an E-type one day and the owner, before I started to go down pit lane with it, he just leaned in the car and he said, I've actually sold this car.
• 35:28
  So he said, it would be good if you could bring it back the same shape.
• 35:31
  I'd be very grateful.
• 35:33
  No pressure there, then.
• 35:37
  But there's some great races.
• 35:40
  What I did last year was a saloon race, driving an old Volvo.
• 35:44
  And because the touring car drivers for the previous year, whether they be British touring car drivers or world touring car drivers,
• 35:53
  They had all crashed into anything they could and damaged a lot of cars for the owners of those cars.
• 36:01
  And it just, Lord March, or Erland March, got really miffed with all this.
• 36:06
  So at the driver's briefing, what he did was he changed the dates of the revival event to clash with a British touring car round and a world touring car round, so the drivers couldn't be invited.
• 36:19
  So what he did to replace those professional drivers was he brought in virtually every person that had ever won Le Mans to drive the cars instead of the Touring Carboys.
• 36:30
  So I'm sitting on the grid.
• 36:32
  I qualified fifth and I've got Carl Wendlinger.
• 36:36
  I've got Nicolas Manassion.
• 36:38
  I've got Roman Dumas.
• 36:40
  Behind me, I've got Tom Christensen.
• 36:43
  I had
• 36:46
  there were 19 Le Mans winners in the race.
• 36:50
  And between these 19 winners, I think they'd won about 30 Le Mans between them.
• 36:56
  What a great race.
• 36:58
  Really, really good.
• 36:59
  And there was no damage to the paintwork, apart from Tom Christensen kept rubbing me up for about 10 laps, but I did beat him at the end of the day, so I beat a Le Mans, multiple Le Mans winner.
• 37:12
  Fantastic.
• 37:12
  But it is a great event.
• 37:13
  Great event.
• 37:14
  Yeah.
• 37:15
  It's a must, a bucket list if you haven't done it.
• 37:18
  Yeah, definitely.
• 37:18
  John, you have kept, I'm told, a Super Tourer.
• 37:23
  Which one?
• 37:23
  And you still race it, is that correct?
• 37:26
  Yeah, yeah.
• 37:27
  My son Jamie, who was, when I was racing these things, would be about eight or nine.
• 37:34
  And the only thing he used to steal out of the Triple Eight race truck was Mars bars and tins of pop.
• 37:42
  But he wishes now that what he'd done was stolen calipers and discs and wheels and stuff like that over the years.
• 37:49
  Because the car we bought back is a 97 Vectra.
• 37:51
  And...
• 37:55
  He found it.
• 37:56
  I was not thinking about this at all.
• 37:58
  There's a series in the UK for historic race cars of that year, historic touring cars.
• 38:03
  So Renault Lagunas, Nissan Primeras, Ford Mondale's, and all of that.
• 38:09
  And they're all back in period costume.
• 38:12
  They're all painted exactly as they were, with the drivers' names, Radisic, Howe Rouse, Hoy, all those things.
• 38:21
  Jamie found this on Facebook,
• 38:24
  And he said, we should go buy this.
• 38:25
  I said, well, why do we want to buy it?
• 38:27
  He said, because there's a series for it.
• 38:29
  So he established that it was my car.
• 38:33
  So we went down and looked at it.
• 38:35
  But what Jamie didn't realize was it was chassis number one.
• 38:39
  It was the first triple eight car ever built.
• 38:42
  I raced it for the very first time at Knock Hill in 97, I think it was.
• 38:48
  And we then shipped it out.
• 38:51
  I think in 98, it went to Bathurst.
• 38:55
  It was the, you'll correct me with this one.
• 38:58
  It was the one that Brock rolled at the chase.
• 39:00
  Rolled?
• 39:01
  He rolled it.
• 39:02
  Yeah.
• 39:03
  So him and Derek Warwick, it was the Australian Grand Prix sponsored car, the Qantas car.
• 39:10
  And Brock, he rolled it in either practice or qualifying.
• 39:15
  Not badly, but nonetheless, he rolled it, gone down through the chase.
• 39:19
  It got repaired.
• 39:21
  And when we went to view the car with the idea of buying it, I looked inside and just inside the roof of the car, I could see the damage that the guys at the TAFE had repaired at Bathurst.
• 39:34
  to get Brockie back on the road for that race.
• 39:36
  So the damage is still inside the roof of the car from that Aussie race, which just added something to, apart from it being chassis number one, it was my car.
• 39:49
  There were things in the car that I recognised, and it was exactly as it was.
• 39:55
  But more than that, Brock had driven it.
• 39:57
  So for me, I had to buy it.
• 39:59
  But it got better because...
• 40:02
  Jamie then started to take it apart and there was a problem with the clutch.
• 40:06
  So he took the clutch out of it and he phoned AP Racing and he said, I've got this clutch.
• 40:12
  And the guy said, just give me the number of the cover.
• 40:16
  So Jamie gave him the number and he said, where did you get this?
• 40:20
  He said, that's in a car I'm working on.
• 40:23
  He said, that clutch is out of John Cleland's Vectra from 1997.
• 40:28
  They could tell him that that was the part from my car back in 1997.
• 40:34
  That's crazy.
• 40:35
  So we then took the shock absorber, took the dampers off it, which were Ohlins, sent them back to Ohlins.
• 40:42
  And the guy from Ohlins phoned up and said, Are you Jamie Cleland?
• 40:47
  Are you John's son?
• 40:48
  And he said, Yeah.
• 40:50
  He said, why?
• 40:51
  He said, I built these dampers for your dad's car back in 97.
• 40:56
  And he said, I've still got all the settings.
• 41:00
  Which track are you going to race at?
• 41:02
  And I'll give you all the settings.
• 41:04
  Oh, fantastic.
• 41:05
  He could actually give us all the settings for the original dampers that he had made for the car back in 1997, which was unbelievable.
• 41:14
  Yeah.
• 41:15
  So we have used it and we've back in 97 it didn't win very much from recollection but we've won more since we've taken it back in those last few years.
• 41:26
  I've had five years or so now and we've probably won about 20 races with it and it's interesting because Jamie's got it looking better than it was when it was brand new.
• 41:39
  It's Triple Eight come and looked at it at one of the races we were at where they were racing touring cars.
• 41:44
  Yeah.
• 41:45
  And Ian Harrison, who was the team manager at the time, he had a look and he said, fair credit, he said, you've got this car looking better than we did.
• 41:53
  And honestly, it is just beautiful, beautiful.
• 41:58
  Nice for you and for Jamie too, mate.
• 42:00
  I mean, Jamie did a stint as a mechanic at BJR.
• 42:03
  He came out to Australia for a time, didn't he?
• 42:04
  Yeah, he did.
• 42:06
  I lined him up with a job with Kim and Kim wanted to keep him there, but I needed him back into business because he and his brother Nicky, Nicky was into rallying, not so much the racing, and one of those days I'm going to step back from the business and these blokes will take over that at some point.
• 42:25
  So I needed him back here, but he's got to...
• 42:29
  fiance and he's got one and a half kids at the minute.
• 42:32
  He's got one that's due in a month's time.
• 42:34
  So he's not going back to Australia anytime soon.
• 42:37
  But he loved the stint there.
• 42:38
  A couple of observations from you, John.
• 42:41
  Firstly, I love the fact that you're doing some commentary.
• 42:44
  And are you enjoying that side of it?
• 42:47
  I would imagine you've got a great sense of humour.
• 42:51
  You're not afraid to express your view.
• 42:52
  You're kind of a perfect fit in that regard, aren't you?
• 42:56
  Yeah, I did.
• 42:57
  I was doing some Eurosport stuff and I remember saying Eurosport wouldn't take us always to the events around the world.
• 43:06
  We take us to a lot of European ones, but not the far away ones.
• 43:09
  So we were commentating, Martin Haven and I, for Eurosport in London.
• 43:14
  the studios in Paris on the Japanese race for world touring cars and Ivan Muller, now bear in mind the World Touring Car Championship for those that don't know is actually sponsored and fully paid for by Eurosport, Eurosport being a French company right, Ivan Muller being a Frenchman
• 43:36
  After qualifying, Muller hasn't had a good run, and he gets out of the car, takes the helmet off, absolute body language is saying he is not a happy man.
• 43:48
  And at that moment, I said, that is one unhappy frog.
• 43:56
  And as the words were coming out of my mouth on a French TV station owned by a French company about a French driver, I'm thinking, oh dear.
• 44:10
  So I don't think I've ever sworn on it, but I have given them the benefit of my experience occasionally.
• 44:17
  Along the line.
• 44:19
  Yeah.
• 44:20
  Fantastic.
• 44:21
  Supercars is talking at the moment about its next generation of vehicles, what they've dubbed Gen 3 and what it will look like.
• 44:29
  We're waiting to see.
• 44:31
  You've raced successfully in Super Tourism, a two-litre formula.
• 44:34
  You've loved the whole, you know, big banger Commodore and racing a supercar yourself.
• 44:41
  In your mind, knowing what an entertainment business it is, if you had a blank sheet of paper, what would you do?
• 44:46
  Well, I think your V8 racing is, I know it's not called V8 any longer.
• 44:53
  It's just called supercars, isn't it?
• 44:55
  Correct.
• 44:56
  But for me,
• 44:59
  The reason I got involved in motorsport in the first case was for the sound and the smell.
• 45:04
  End of story.
• 45:05
  I loved the smell, I loved the sound.
• 45:08
  There's nothing better.
• 45:09
  We used to be racing on the club circuit at Silverstone and on the south circuit at Silverstone, the Formula One boys would use it for a test day.
• 45:19
  And we would all just stop and listen to a V8, V10, V12 engine Formula One car testing.
• 45:27
  It's the sound.
• 45:28
  And one of the things that I used to love about the V8s in Australia was the sound of them.
• 45:33
  They're just...
• 45:34
  They are glorious things.
• 45:37
  Formula One, I think, has lost the plot in terms of their sound.
• 45:41
  Now, you could argue that...
• 45:44
  The new generation of kids that are growing up now are growing up with electric cars, hybrid cars, and do they really care about the sound anyway?
• 45:52
  Maybe not, but it's entertainment.
• 45:54
  No matter what you do, motorsport is an entertainment business.
• 45:58
  It's not necessarily about producing the next widget that goes onto a road car.
• 46:05
  I kind of get the hybrid battery cares type technology and where we'll go there.
• 46:12
  But British touring cars and supercars has to remain an entertainment business.
• 46:20
  The minute it stops being an entertainment business, it just blends into every other bland form of sport that there is.
• 46:27
  Firstly, I think there's too many categories of motor racing anyway for where we're heading in the future.
• 46:34
  We need to condense that.
• 46:36
  We need to have less formula.
• 46:40
  Because where we find ourselves now, that for the foreseeable future is the normal.
• 46:46
  You know, we are not going to have, we're not going to back to what we used to do.
• 46:49
  You're not going to see spectators sitting side by side in the near future.
• 46:54
  So we have to do something to make sure they get their money's worth.
• 46:59
  Your supercars are just great entertainment.
• 47:02
  And I suppose that, I don't know what your crowds are at racetracks, but they have to be fantastic.
• 47:09
  Because in a lot of the cases, you're getting them really close to the action.
• 47:14
  And that's important.
• 47:16
  And Alan Gow in the British Championship have done the same over here.
• 47:19
  It is...
• 47:21
  It is such a spectator sport and TV.
• 47:26
  It gets all day television.
• 47:28
  You know, I think 10 o'clock in the morning it starts and it finishes at half past five at night.
• 47:33
  It entertains people.
• 47:35
  End of story.
• 47:36
  Do we go hybrid?
• 47:37
  Do we go battery?
• 47:38
  Do we go racing with no sound?
• 47:40
  No, absolutely, definitely not.
• 47:44
  You mentioned Ian Harrison there before in Triple Eight.
• 47:46
  When you were with Kim and the Jones boys driving in the Supercars Endurance events, it would have been very early in Roland's new chapter down under.
• 47:55
  He's gone on to become a heavyweight of the sport, tick some big boxes in Oz.
• 47:59
  Different cars, though, different motor racing landscape.
• 48:02
  Was he always going to succeed, in your opinion?
• 48:04
  What were your Roland observations?
• 48:07
  I was actually at Bathurst and I can't remember who I was with.
• 48:11
  And I was told that Roland Dane, Derek Warwick, Ian Harrison and John Gentry were going to produce a super team to take over the Vauxhall job from Ray Malek.
• 48:25
  And on paper, you had Derek Warwick as the sort of go-getter.
• 48:31
  You had Roland Dain with the money.
• 48:33
  You had Ian Harrison, who was ex-Williams Formula One team manager.
• 48:39
  And you had John Gentry, who was an ex-Formula One designer.
• 48:44
  So on paper, it looked like the dream team.
• 48:48
  It looked like it was gonna be, they would invest huge sums of money and we would just win everything.
• 48:55
  And it didn't work that way.
• 48:57
  As Roland then went on to Australia and his next phase in his life with AAA over there, knowing Roland, when he sets his mind to doing something, to get something, he'll get it no matter what.
• 49:12
  And it really, in a lot of cases, doesn't matter who he tramples all over to get to it.
• 49:16
  That's his focus.
• 49:17
  He does it.
• 49:18
  Very professional, very successful businessman.
• 49:21
  So it didn't surprise me that...
• 49:24
  he got the result.
• 49:26
  I think the smartest thing he did was, first of all, he cottoned on to... Lounsie was the man to have.
• 49:34
  Lounsie was his star driver.
• 49:36
  He then picks up Winkup, who's gone on to become even more so, and then he plucks Van Giesbergen out of the boonies, and there's nothing to choose.
• 49:47
  I mean, Van Giesbergen, for me, is probably...
• 49:51
  Next to Scotty McLaughlin, I would say is probably the new big, big star in supercars.
• 50:00
  Definitely.
• 50:00
  But I think Roland is pretty good at recognising where there's an opportunity, where he can push.
• 50:11
  Unfortunately, I don't know how the Holden deal in Australia is now going to work when there are no Holdens.
• 50:18
  I don't know what's going to happen there.
• 50:20
  I'm sure that Roland will still survive somewhere, but he just sets his stall out and he goes for it.
• 50:26
  Final one for you.
• 50:27
  The car, the race during your career.
• 50:31
  What's the one that you perhaps go to sleep and dream of?
• 50:37
  Honestly, and I'm not blowing smoke here, but I think the 2001 race at Bathurst with Kim and Brad,
• 50:50
  We were 22nd on the grid.
• 50:53
  We thought we'd have a day out.
• 50:55
  We weren't gonna do very well.
• 50:57
  And as the race wore on, things went wrong with the car.
• 51:00
  Nothing serious.
• 51:01
  I remember the radio stopped working, so we had to strap a radio down inside the overalls because the in-car radio wasn't working.
• 51:09
  So they were working with an old pit board.
• 51:11
  And there was just, it was a day that evolved and we didn't actually say
• 51:18
  take it easy, don't do this, don't do that.
• 51:20
  We just went out and said, well, we'll start in 22nd.
• 51:23
  The best, we can get better, let's go for it.
• 51:26
  And it just got better and better and better as the day wore on.
• 51:30
  And I remember at the press conference at the end of the race, when we were talking about it, somebody asked me about it.
• 51:36
  And I said, well, to be honest, Kim did his fastest lap on the second fastest, the second last lap of the race, right?
• 51:47
  If he'd done that lap in qualifying, we'd have been in the top 10 and we'd have won the blinking race rather than starting 22nd on the grid and fighting through all these lunatics.
• 52:01
  I'd always watched the race.
• 52:03
  I'd always thought I'd love to stand on that podium and look down at the throngs of people at the end of that race, because it had something special for me.
• 52:13
  That's just the way I am.
• 52:15
  I mean, I've won races all over the UK.
• 52:16
  I've won races in Europe.
• 52:18
  I've been all over.
• 52:19
  But that one race, 2001, to stand there, Scafid won, we were second, and Murphy, two guys that I highly admire,
• 52:30
  in V8 supercars in those days.
• 52:33
  I'm on the podium with them.
• 52:35
  Doesn't get any better as far as I was concerned.
• 52:37
  And somebody bet me that I couldn't get, it was $5,000, I think, if I could get a bottle of Gatorade onto the podium.
• 52:47
  Because apparently you strip search everybody.
• 52:51
  Well, I managed to get this bottle of Gatorade up on the podium, so I got a picture of it.
• 52:56
  And I got my $5,000 as well.
• 53:01
  So no, it was, it was really, it was, I've had loads of good races.
• 53:05
  I've had great battles throughout my whole career.
• 53:10
  But I'd say that for me was one I will remember for a long, long time.
• 53:15
  John, it's been fantastic to talk to you.
• 53:18
  I've admired you from afar and, you know, for a long, long time, but had the chance to meet you at Bathurst and places like that.
• 53:26
  Of a side of the success, we've rattled off the statistics before, to know that you're this, you know, this engaging, funny bloke, great company that brings out the best in people.
• 53:35
  And I can probably wrap up this podcast with a little funny one.
• 53:39
  You helped a young Andrew Jones in the early part of his career as well, and he still remembers lots of the best bits of advice that you gave him.
• 53:47
  He says that they still serve him well today.
• 53:50
  But he says he will never forget the first time that he met you.
• 53:53
  He reckons you were at his parents' place, and he walked in to meet the great John Clelland.
• 53:58
  You'd been holidaying in Spain, and cool as you walked into the kitchen in your Y-fronts, shook his hands, and continued the conversation.
• 54:07
  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
• 54:09
  Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
• 54:14
  Yeah, I remember that.
• 54:16
  It was, yeah, because he was still staying at home with these folks in those days.
• 54:22
  And I remember looking in his bedroom thinking, what an untidy little shit he is.
• 54:29
  Congratulations.
• 54:30
  You've done some amazing things, John.
• 54:32
  A huge character for the sport, and it's terrific to know that you've kept a Supertura and that you're still having a steerer, but I reckon that's just fantastic.
• 54:39
  Well done.
• 54:40
  No, thanks very much.
• 54:41
  It's been a pleasure, and I've really enjoyed it.
• 54:43
  And one of those days, I've just definitely got to come back.
• 54:46
  I'm coming back to watch Bathurst one day.
• 54:47
  I just don't know when.
• 54:49
  Good stuff.
• 54:54
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 54:58
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 55:01
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 55:04
  I'm Greg Rust.
• 55:05
  Enjoy the drive, but drive safely.