Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jason Bright (Part 2)

Transcript

Jason Bright (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here at the start line of part two of my podcast with racer Jason Bright.
• 0:25
  If you haven't already, make sure you give part one a listen.
• 0:28
  We covered the early years racing open wheelers with Mark Webber, how the door to supercars opened for him, driving with F1 hero Alan Jones, winning Bathurst and making it all the way to IndyCar.
• 0:41
  We begin this second instalment by talking about his return to Australia and how a plan B really shifted into gear during a Bathurst drive with another Rusty's Garage guest, Paul Radisic, with a team run by touring car legend Dick Johnson.
• 1:01
  I didn't grow up a Dick Johnson fan.
• 1:02
  I, you know, he was always the bad guy as far as I was concerned.
• 1:08
  And even, you know, when I was racing against him in 98 and 99, you know, he was just a rival, you know, in another car.
• 1:18
  But...
• 1:21
  The experience of driving for DJR and how good a guy Dick Johnson was, that was pretty special.
• 1:32
  I probably learned more about Dick Johnson doing that one weekend and how down to earth he was.
• 1:40
  and, you know, a good guy to bear around than, you know, I did probably in the rest of my career.
• 1:45
  And so that made it pretty special.
• 1:47
  I had a lot more respect for Dick after that weekend, after growing up with him not being my, him being my hero sort of rival than what I expected.
• 1:57
  Both Greg Murphy and David Brabham have been on the podcast, so I've had a chance to ask both of them about the panels.
• 2:02
  I'm going to ask you now because you brought it up.
• 2:04
  You brought up Race of a Thousand Years.
• 2:06
  Murph talked about it being like driving an aircraft carrier.
• 2:10
  Brute.
• 2:11
  So, you know, such a long bonnet, lots of power, maybe a bit of a handful around Adelaide.
• 2:16
  What are your recollections of that car and getting the chance to drive it?
• 2:20
  It was really weird to drive.
• 2:22
  I mean...
• 2:23
  Awesome in the fact that it had great power.
• 2:26
  It had awesome stopping power as well because it had carbon discs.
• 2:32
  And it was, you know, it was a proper LMP1 car.
• 2:35
  You know, it was only the Audis that were any quicker than it.
• 2:38
  But it was very unique to drive.
• 2:40
  You know, you were sitting essentially on the rear tyre, you know, with engine and everything all forward of that.
• 2:48
  It was...
• 2:49
  It was very, very weird to drive and Murph and I probably struggled to get anywhere near the most out of it compared to Brabham.
• 2:58
  Brabham had driven the car quite a bit, knew what to expect from it, knew how to drive a car when sitting on top of the rear tyre.
• 3:07
  And so it was definitely a...
• 3:10
  a very different beast to drive, but I'd say it's probably one of the, you know, most unique LMP1 car or big sports cars, you know, ever made, you know.
• 3:24
  It was certainly a very unique car and, you know, what the whole experience of driving for Don Panos that weekend was very unique.
• 3:35
  I mean, he's...
• 3:36
  what he sort of brought to motorsport.
• 3:39
  I remember sitting...
• 3:40
  When we did the test at Sebring, we were sitting in a restaurant that he owned at the track at the hotel that he owned.
• 3:48
  There were bottles of wine from the winery that he owned at the racetrack that he owned and we were driving for the race team that he owned.
• 3:54
  He was... You know, and he invented the nicotine patch and he smoked like a chimney because...
• 4:00
  It was surreal.
• 4:02
  It was just a crazy guy.
• 4:03
  You know, we were waiting for him at dinner because...
• 4:07
  the landing gear wouldn't go down on his private plane.
• 4:09
  You know, it was just, yeah, very, you know, crazy guy, loved motorsport, did a lot for motorsport and sports car racing in America, buying, you know, all of the circuits that he did like Mossport and Road Atlanta and Sebring.
• 4:26
  And yeah, so he was a very interesting guy and a pretty crazy experience driving for him.
• 4:33
  In that whole period from Gold Coast Indy to Race of a Thousand Years, where were you at as far as the following year was concerned?
• 4:41
  Because clearly you wanted to keep going if you could in America, but that was an expensive proposition.
• 4:47
  You must have been going through the whole machinations of that, were you, and what was happening?
• 4:51
  Yeah, so I had, you know, there were options on the table in America in IndyCar, but, you know, they were still millions of dollars and we were millions of dollars short, basically.
• 5:03
  You know, I was, I think I was very fortunate.
• 5:08
  to be in a situation where I think I signed my Holden Racing Team contract at Bathurst when I was with Dick Johnson.
• 5:18
  What were you doing having meetings sort of at the back type thing?
• 5:21
  What were you up to?
• 5:21
  Well, it was at the time, you know, Craig was obviously leaving Holden Racing Team, going to double O and they approached me to drive for HRT.
• 5:33
  The contract that I signed, there was a cut off date of
• 5:37
  I think it was February the 15th.
• 5:40
  If I didn't have an IndyCar drive by February the 15th, I had the Holden Racing Team drive.
• 5:47
  So I sort of had the best of both worlds.
• 5:48
  I, you know, extremely lucky to be in that situation where
• 5:54
  I could go hard and put everything into trying to find an IndyCar drive, but if I didn't, I was stepping into one of the, you know, probably the best seed in, you know, supercars at the time.
• 6:08
  When did you call on the IndyCar thing and commit to supercars then?
• 6:12
  Oh, it was pretty much February the 15th.
• 6:14
  You know, I put everything into trying to come up with the money to go over there, but it was, you know...
• 6:20
  very hard to find the corporate dollars you needed to go overseas and race.
• 6:25
  Um, you know, I was probably a couple of years early, you know, a couple of years later we had Team Australia and, you know, KV Racing who all had a bit of an Australian flavour to them.
• 6:36
  Um, you know, so I think it would have been probably a little bit easier if it was a couple of years later.
• 6:41
  But, um, you know, I, like I said, I,
• 6:44
  My American racing that I did was amazing.
• 6:48
  You know, I got, I was lucky that I didn't miss out on, you know, a career in Australia because I had a crack at overseas.
• 6:56
  And that's always the risk when you do, you know, go overseas and have a crack at something like IndyCar or F1 and, you know, that you get forgotten about here in Australia and end up with no drive here.
• 7:12
  I was pretty lucky that I ended up with, you know, I felt like the best of both worlds in that regard.
• 7:17
  Most people, when they've come on and spoken about a certain point in their career, talk about rolling the dice in some way.
• 7:25
  You know, for Mark Webber, that year in 2002, getting those championship, those valuable championship points for Minardi helped.
• 7:32
  set him on the way as far as Formula One was concerned.
• 7:34
  For you to come back from America when you backed yourself, Jase, and you know, maybe it's not something you need to discuss in a numbers sense, but was it a heavy burden financially when you came back from there to sort of embark on the Holden Racing Team chapter?
• 7:51
  Were you great to drive for the Premier team, but were you coming back weighed down by that whole US experience?
• 7:58
  Not really, no.
• 7:59
  I mean, you know, if there was one motto I always sort of live by in my motorsport was have a crack and go as far as you can.
• 8:10
  And if...
• 8:13
  if you don't make it to F1 or IndyCar, then you'll have no regrets.
• 8:18
  You know, if I had just stayed here racing supercars, I would have had regrets.
• 8:25
  And that's what I didn't want to be.
• 8:28
  You know, I didn't want to think, oh, I should have more of a crack at overseas.
• 8:32
  You know, but I knew that I'd given...
• 8:35
  you know, getting to IndyCar or F1, everything that I could, you know, with what I had.
• 8:43
  And, you know, I got to race an IndyCar, I got to race, you know, great sports cars and Indy Lights cars and, you know, still, I guess, through the rest of my supercar career,
• 8:56
  I always sort of kept my ear to the ground and, you know, wanted to do events like Le Mans and wanted to do, you know, other events.
• 9:03
  So, you know, I didn't miss out on any of those opportunities.
• 9:07
  And, you know, but if I had just done supercars, a lot of those opportunities wouldn't have happened, I don't believe.
• 9:13
  So you come back and you get to race for the iconic team in HRT and they're in an unbelievable phase of success as an organisation.
• 9:23
  You're a part of that.
• 9:24
  And your teammate to Mark Scaife, who's, you know, an ultra competitive human being.
• 9:31
  What was that whole dynamic like, that whole period like, you know, to be a part of that?
• 9:36
  It was interesting.
• 9:37
  I remember my first day getting to HRT and Matty Crawford, who was my engineer, walked me through the workshop and he said, you know, welcome to the most hated team in supercars.
• 9:47
  And I'm like...
• 9:49
  what do you mean most hated?
• 9:50
  And he's like, everyone, you either love Holden Racing Team, which they did have a massive amount of fans, but everyone else hated them.
• 9:58
  And that's pretty much the story for any successful team in sport.
• 10:03
  But it was a good way to put it.
• 10:05
  And, but it was a crazy good period.
• 10:10
  We obviously won a lot of races, the Walkinshaw,
• 10:15
  group back then and the Kmart race team, you know, there was a period there where, you know, we were sort of dominating the first couple of rows of the grid and that was really good to be a part of.
• 10:25
  You know, then moving across to Team Brock as part of the same, you know, sort of group as well, that was, you know, probably more enjoyable for me.
• 10:36
  You know, I think at HRT it was, you know, Mark certainly had...
• 10:42
  the team working in his favour, I felt, and I had some good times there, but I felt like it was better moving across to Team Brock and being a bit more in control and working with Phil Keid, who I've built a good relationship with, and I felt like,
• 11:03
  we, you know, kick well above our weight, we punched well above our weight in that period than just winning races at HRT.
• 11:13
  You know, I felt like we were doing a good job for a small team and, you know, we had, you know, a lot of good equipment, but I don't feel like it was the best equipment at that time.
• 11:25
  But, you know, it was, I felt like we were getting more out of it than what I was at HRT at the time.
• 11:32
  I'm really glad that you bring up Phil Keed because that was sort of the natural line of questioning because he'd been over with ProDrive in the World Rally Championship, hadn't he?
• 11:40
  And that was the first time you guys, you know, they took a punt, brought him over and the first time that you guys got to work together and you would do that several times throughout your career.
• 11:50
  That bond between driver and engineer became actually a really significant thing for you, didn't it?
• 11:55
  Yeah, it did.
• 11:55
  And, you know, I guess that 2003 year was great because, you know, Phil had only done rallying up to that point.
• 12:04
  He was trying to learn, you know, about supercars.
• 12:07
  He was going to all of the tracks for the first time.
• 12:09
  And, you know, we started doing track walks in 2003.
• 12:13
  I think we were probably one of the first teams to ever do it because Phil had never been to the circus before.
• 12:19
  And so...
• 12:22
  He sort of used me as a bit of a source of information on all the circuits.
• 12:28
  But I think what that did was we actually learnt a lot about each other and how we work well together.
• 12:36
  And so, yeah, like I said, I felt like that...
• 12:43
  2003, 2004 period, we were getting the most out of those cars that we could.
• 12:49
  Credit to you.
• 12:50
  I mean, these are from friends and rivals.
• 12:53
  Paul Wheel, who you were a teammate with, he said you always loved the data and that you had a great understanding of that.
• 13:00
  Even Greg Murphy says that you...
• 13:03
  you thrived on the technical side and he saw that in various different examples from 24 hour to panels to you name it within that group that you're talking about.
• 13:13
  At what point did you realise that that was a skill or had that skill morphed from what you were talking about before the learnings of Formula Ford and so on?
• 13:22
  I think there's a mixture of things.
• 13:23
  I think preparing my own car always had an interest in it from that point, so the Formula Ford days.
• 13:31
  I felt like I learned so much in America working with a good engineer.
• 13:35
  You know, my engineer over there, Gerald Tyler, was, you know, extremely good engineer and I learned a lot about, you know, setting up the car, racing on ovals, setups are very important.
• 13:51
  Um, and it just got, it always got me thinking outside the box, you know, the data, you know, I learned a lot about the data working with him.
• 13:58
  Um, and there, there was a lot more data on those cars than what we had in supercars back then.
• 14:04
  So, um, yeah.
• 14:07
  I've always had a very keen interest in the technical side and I work very hard at finding sponsorship.
• 14:15
  I work very hard at making the car go as quick as it can and I enjoyed all different aspects of it.
• 14:22
  So I don't know how much other drivers put into it but I certainly have always enjoyed
• 14:31
  you know, the technical side of it and trying to get the most out of the car.
• 14:33
  I'm never one to look back and have regret because you make the best decisions with the info in front of you at the time.
• 14:39
  I'm a firm believer in that.
• 14:41
  You could argue that 05, within the mix of what we've just been talking about, could have been a super year for you, but you...
• 14:49
  embark on yet another challenge for Jason Bright and the whole notion of running your own team.
• 14:56
  When did the idea of starting Brightech or venturing down that path really begin for you?
• 15:04
  It was probably 2003, 2004.
• 15:08
  I guess I've always had aspirations to own my own team.
• 15:16
  I guess I liked guys like Cito and that, that had their own team and drove their own cars.
• 15:24
  2004, we're obviously having a good year.
• 15:28
  You know, if there was ever going to be an opportunity to find the sponsorship and the backing to do it, you know, it was going to be after that.
• 15:36
  And, you know, I initially had the support from Holden.
• 15:42
  I only wanted a one-car team, to be honest.
• 15:46
  You know, I would have been in either a Walkinshaw car,
• 15:52
  or a Paul Morris car.
• 15:53
  And so the transition would have been, you know, relatively, relatively easy.
• 15:59
  Um, you know, essentially almost taking a car very similar to the one that I was competitive with and, you know, just running it out of a small workshop.
• 16:08
  Um, and you know, that all sort of changed.
• 16:13
  I had a phone call from, um,
• 16:16
  managing director of Caterpillar actually, who is a friend of mine.
• 16:20
  I sat next to him on the plane going to Canberra the year before and, and, you know, or actually it was a couple of years before, and it was before Lowndes was going to ProDrive.
• 16:30
  I actually tried to talk him into sponsoring my car at Team Brock.
• 16:35
  And he was sort of, you know, lured to ProDrive with Lowndes driving the car at, um,
• 16:43
  with Ford backing and thought it was going to be great.
• 16:46
  And anyway, that obviously didn't pan out so well for them.
• 16:50
  And he phoned me up at the end of 2004 and said, I want you to drive the Caterpillar car at ProDrive.
• 16:56
  And I'm like, I'm already doing my own thing.
• 16:59
  And wasn't even going to meet with them.
• 17:03
  In the end, I went out a meeting with them and, you know, the opportunity with Ford, you know, was made to sound extremely compelling.
• 17:12
  And, you know, they wanted two cars.
• 17:14
  They wanted another, you know, manufacturing house, you know, to do engines and chassis.
• 17:20
  And so, you know.
• 17:24
  part of the proviso for me to get all of the backing for a five year deal with Ford was that I did two years with ProDrive.
• 17:37
  And as part of that deal, I made sure that I went there with an engineer, obviously Phil Keat.
• 17:48
  And I went there
• 17:51
  for the two years did what I had to do and then moved to my own team.
• 17:58
  But it was, yeah, it was a tough couple of years because there was a couple of things.
• 18:06
  One, my team was sitting over there and it had its hands tied because
• 18:12
  it was attached to me and so they weren't allowed to test.
• 18:14
  You know, I had two rookie drivers, Matt White and Steve Owen, and the year after Warren Luff, and they weren't even allowed to do a test day.
• 18:21
  And it was just ridiculous rules like that, that, you know, I don't feel like there would have been anything in it.
• 18:28
  It was just, it was just, you know, hurting young guys' careers that,
• 18:34
  really didn't need to be that way.
• 18:35
  And all, you know, it was just the wrong people making the wrong decisions, I felt.
• 18:39
  But, you know, so it was disappointing to see that that was happening.
• 18:45
  You know, and it was also disappointing to leave ProDrive at the time.
• 18:48
  You know, I had a great year in 2006.
• 18:51
  There were good people back then.
• 18:53
  You know, Dave Richards was a great guy.
• 18:57
  And I really felt like if I stayed at ProDrive in 2007, we would have had a very good shot at the title in the same way that it would have had a good shot at the title if I stayed at PWR in 2005.
• 19:09
  But if I didn't move to my own team at the time, it would have been too late if I sort of stayed at ProDrive for a couple more years.
• 19:18
  It's a huge undertaking, mate, because I can recall working on the Australian Rally Championship at the time.
• 19:22
  You had cars in there for Michael Guest and Darren Windus.
• 19:25
  I mean, it was it was bigger than just a supercar operation, wasn't it?
• 19:29
  Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, I was extremely proud of the workshop we had, you know, and proud of the guys.
• 19:34
  You know, we, it was, you know, we were, to be honest, we were, I felt like we were really only making headway in supercars right when the money started to dry up because of GFC.
• 19:45
  You know, we, our first, you know, in-house engine was, you know, basically built at the end of 2007 when, you know, Ford pulled all their funding, you know.
• 19:58
  So it was disappointing in that regard because I felt like we were just making good headway and it sort of all started to go backwards.
• 20:08
  But it was as far as what we achieved, the rally cars were awesome cars.
• 20:14
  We had an immaculate workshop, 2,000 square metres.
• 20:18
  We had our own dyno spray booth, sub-assembly CNC machine shop.
• 20:28
  fabrication area.
• 20:30
  I was very proud of what we had.
• 20:32
  It was just a shame that we had very good backing.
• 20:36
  We had Fujitsu, we had Ford, we had Caterpillar, Erwin Tools.
• 20:43
  All the ingredients were there, but just as we started to make, I felt the right ground, it was, you know, the money started to get very tight.
• 20:53
  How'd you go dealing with that?
• 20:54
  How hard was that to, you know, to deal with?
• 20:57
  Extremely hard, you know.
• 20:58
  The last thing I wanted to do was shut the doors on Brightech when so much effort had gone into it, you know, and I'd made hard decisions to leave PWR, hard decisions to leave
• 21:11
  ProDrive, you know, as a paid driver to, you know, to watch it all build up and be very proud of it.
• 21:19
  And then, you know, the financial reality of it was that, you know, the sponsorship wasn't there to run it the way that we needed to, you know.
• 21:27
  And, you know, I think part of the problem was, you know, the money we were getting from a manufacturer to set up a two car operation,
• 21:41
  And the fact that they wanted all of their own, you know, another manufacturing house, that wasn't feasible.
• 21:49
  If we were just to, you know, like Paul Cruikshank was at the time, where we were just getting a car from 888, preparing it, and not having to worry about all of the design and manufacturing, I think we would have been able to possibly weather it a bit better.
• 22:05
  One thing I wanted to quickly chat about before we move on in career terms here involves Le Mans and 2006, because there was an opportunity there with Aston Martin and ProDrive, wasn't there, that you were scheduled to do that?
• 22:17
  Yes, I did Sebring with Pedro Alami and Stefan Sarazen and it all came from George Howard Chappell who was with ProDrive.
• 22:29
  Dave Richards sent him out to Australia to help the supercar team.
• 22:33
  And at Tasmania, when he was out there, he asked me whether I'd be interested in having a test in the Aston Martin.
• 22:40
  And I went over and had a test at Vallelunga and it went really well.
• 22:43
  And they basically signed me up to do Sebring, Le Mans 24 hours and then Petit Le Mans at Rota Lanta in 2006.
• 22:55
  There was a cancellation of one of our races in China, and they moved the date one week to have a Winton round, and it clashed with the test at Le Mans, so I couldn't do Le Mans.
• 23:09
  I sat at home watching Pedro and Stefan and my replacement leave the whole race at Le Mans.
• 23:16
  And I was like,
• 23:18
  And unfortunately they blew a clutch on the last pit stop.
• 23:21
  But I was thinking, man, this could have been my chance to win Le Mans.
• 23:25
  But, um...
• 23:26
  Yeah, it was a bit of a shame.
• 23:28
  The Aston Martin was awesome to drive.
• 23:31
  We had a good run at Sebring, but we weren't on the Michelin, whereas they switched to the Michelin at Le Mans and were much more competitive.
• 23:41
  But we still had a podium at Sebring.
• 23:43
  But, yeah, it was very enjoyable to go and do that race with ProDrive.
• 23:52
  You know, they were...
• 23:54
  very professional outfit with the Aston Martin.
• 23:57
  It's an amazing place, Le Mans, and anyone listening really must go and experience it.
• 24:02
  It's such an incredible event.
• 24:04
  You would get back there in 2013, but I want to tap into your recollections, if I can, of Alan Simonson, the guy who was, you know, known and loved in this part of the world, had raced it.
• 24:18
  in both the 12-hour and even the 1,000, and that was a very difficult year with his passing, wasn't it?
• 24:24
  Yeah, it was.
• 24:25
  I mean, it was difficult for a couple of reasons.
• 24:27
  I mean, I didn't have a lot to do with Alan in Australia, but I did do Bathurst with him once at the 12-hour season
• 24:36
  in the Mustang with Marcus Okanavik.
• 24:38
  So got to know him there and we got on really well.
• 24:41
  He also came out and did the Gold Coast race with Jason Barguana that year.
• 24:50
  And so I got to know him reasonably well in the end, but it was at the start of the race at Le Mans, I was in the car actually and I saw
• 25:05
  Alan had crashed and I drove past and I didn't sort of like what I saw and when I got out of the car, because I actually got out of the car not long after, I didn't know.
• 25:16
  And I asked my dad, you know, how's Alan?
• 25:18
  And he's like, no, they've said he's okay.
• 25:21
  And so for that next period, you know, I was under the impression that he was still okay.
• 25:27
  And then I got back in the car an hour or so later and I was in the car for a few hours.
• 25:33
  And when I got out, my dad told me that Alan had passed away.
• 25:38
  And that was really tough because,
• 25:41
  he had a son or a child the same age as my son who was, you know, over there at Le Mans with me.
• 25:49
  And so going back and sleeping in the motorhome that night was really difficult.
• 25:55
  Like, you know, and then, you know, it was certainly, you know, it was a tough race in that regard.
• 26:01
  You know, it was, you know, not very often I can't think of any races that I've been in when someone's passed away and, you know,
• 26:09
  you're on the other side of the world and when someone of your friends passed away like that, that was made it pretty difficult, that's for sure.
• 26:29
  People say things go together like, peanut butter and jam, or a pie and sauce, but what about front wheel drive cars and a handbrake?
• 26:38
  Now that's a perfect match.
• 26:40
  Your chapter with Brad Jones Racing is one of longevity, mate.
• 26:46
  It was a great period for you.
• 26:48
  Why was it such a good fit?
• 26:50
  And obviously it was a change of regulations for the category at the time with a new car coming on while you were there.
• 26:57
  And you guys seemed to adapt to it pretty well straight away, didn't you?
• 27:01
  Yeah, it was a great period.
• 27:03
  You know, I remember
• 27:05
  I went to the BGR Christmas party the year that I'd sort of signed with them before I was driving there.
• 27:11
  And I think I ran to...
• 27:16
  JR in the car park and he was like, mate, you'll never want to leave this place.
• 27:20
  You know, trust me, you'll see out your career here.
• 27:25
  And that's, you know, it was that kind of way, like, once you were there, you're sort of not looking around for other places to go.
• 27:32
  And, you know, I felt like I found a really good family there.
• 27:36
  So, you know, and it was, I sort of take my hat off to Brad because,
• 27:42
  You know, it was Phillip Island 2009, I think it was after I got pole in the Stone Brothers Fujitsu car that I was racing that year.
• 27:51
  And Brad came over and said, mate, if you ever want to, you know, just drive again, get rid of all the team owner stuff and just drive again, give me a call.
• 28:02
  And so that was what I did and that's how it all sort of came about.
• 28:07
  you know, that next year.
• 28:08
  And, you know, once again, I teamed up with Phil again.
• 28:13
  You know, Phil was, I don't think, having a lot of fun at ProDrive at the time.
• 28:18
  And, you know, we got talking and I'm like, well, you know, it looks like I might be going to Brad's and trying to get him to call you, and that was pretty much how that happened.
• 28:28
  And, you know, so it was good to team up with Phil again.
• 28:31
  It was good, you know,
• 28:33
  I think that year we got a provisional poll at Bathurst in 2010.
• 28:38
  We were lucky to get BJR's first couple of wins the year after.
• 28:45
  That was really satisfying.
• 28:47
  It was satisfying because I did it with Phil both times.
• 28:54
  ProDrive, you know, getting their sort of wins, you know, in 2006.
• 28:59
  And then, you know, BJR, you know, that was really satisfying to see a team that had been there so long and, you know, how happy it made the whole team.
• 29:11
  to get those wins, you know, at a pretty tough time when JR was so sick.
• 29:15
  You brought up JR, Jason Richards.
• 29:17
  He was a much-loved member of that team, that family, as you described them before and at the sport for that matter.
• 29:25
  You would win the race, the trophy-bearing race,
• 29:29
  his name after he passed in New Zealand.
• 29:32
  I think you famously jumped up on the podium and smashed the light above you and so on.
• 29:37
  Just share with our audience a bit.
• 29:40
  He's much missed, isn't he?
• 29:42
  Absolutely.
• 29:42
  I think, you know...
• 29:44
  everyone knows how good a guy he was.
• 29:50
  That's well documented.
• 29:51
  I think from racing against him, you knew he was a racer, he was a hard racer, and we had some great battles, but...
• 30:00
  When I was in the same team as him, I saw an even better side of JR where he was a hard worker.
• 30:08
  Him and Wally used to work so hard on that car and he was...
• 30:16
  You know, he was just a pleasure to be around all the time, not a bad, not an angry bone in his body.
• 30:21
  You know, he was, you know, as far as teammates go, you know, he was certainly one of my favourite teammates that I ever had to be.
• 30:34
  And I mean that as far as, you know, he'd race you hard, but...
• 30:39
  There'd be no grudges.
• 30:41
  You know, there was no, and there was no hiding anything.
• 30:44
  There was no underhandedness.
• 30:46
  He was just super genuine, you know, and for him, even when he got so sick, he would phone me a couple of times a week and just want to know what's going on with the car.
• 31:01
  And, you know,
• 31:03
  how are we going to fix this relationship with you and Phil because we were having some problems and disagreeing on things and he just would not let up on it.
• 31:13
  He had to be always on the phone chatting to you when he was driving or whatever.
• 31:18
  Yeah, he just, you know, and he loved racing.
• 31:20
  That was, you know, I don't think you'll, I don't meet too many people that are that passionate about racing.
• 31:30
  their motorsport and they just live for going racing like he did.
• 31:34
  Yeah, amazing guy.
• 31:35
  Amazing guy.
• 31:36
  Your full-time supercars career would stop at, I think it was November 2017, wasn't it, at the Newcastle event there.
• 31:47
  Was that a hard thing to come to terms with?
• 31:49
  We've had a few years now to, I guess, get used to that.
• 31:53
  Was it hard to deal with and how have you compartmentalised it?
• 31:57
  At the time, you know, it was extremely hard.
• 32:01
  You know, it was very emotional and, you know, I felt at the time that I needed to still sort of be involved some way.
• 32:13
  But, you know, I think it was probably halfway through that year, I just enjoyed, you know, sitting back and watching the races again.
• 32:22
  You know, I think...
• 32:24
  Initially I was trying to figure out how am I going to still be involved and be involved with the team or use my franchise and be involved there.
• 32:41
  I guess once I'd sort of been out of it for a couple of races, I didn't miss it as much as what I, anywhere near as much as what I expected to.
• 32:52
  And, you know, it was, I felt...
• 32:57
  you know, there was parts of the sport that I, you know, really loved and that was the technical side and the racing side.
• 33:02
  But, you know, the travel and there's other parts of it that, you know, you do get over and, you know, you don't realise how big an impact they have on everything else you're trying to do in your life.
• 33:14
  But, you know, certainly the racing side and the technical side of it, that was the part that I was going to miss the most, I felt.
• 33:22
  Let's talk about life now, task force.
• 33:24
  Tell us about that, where you came up with the idea and just to share a bit more about what life is like in that world for you now.
• 33:33
  Well, it's funny because the idea came from trying to find sponsorship back in the day.
• 33:37
  So it was an idea I had, I think it was 1999 when I first came up with it.
• 33:41
  And it was trying to find groups that have a lot of buying power and a lot of pull, which
• 33:51
  then can generate into sponsorship.
• 33:53
  And, you know, it sort of came from racing against, you know, a lot of kids that had dads that owned trucking companies and they just so happened to be sponsored by oil companies.
• 34:01
  And, you know, so I saw an opportunity with, you know, and I sort of always thought about it, you know, with tradies, helping tradies, helping tradies, you know, by grouping together and putting together a buying group and generating work for them.
• 34:16
  But, you know, tradies...
• 34:20
  not a lot of them operate under the same brand.
• 34:22
  You know, they're not like a big brand.
• 34:24
  They're all individual businesses, but so they all walk into, you know, their suppliers and they all pay top dollar.
• 34:32
  So we help them, you know,
• 34:34
  get some of that buying power.
• 34:35
  We generate work for them.
• 34:37
  We've got our own software now that, you know, manufacturers like, you know, tap manufacturers and ceiling fan manufacturers use our software to manage their whole warranty process.
• 34:50
  And all of our tradies do that work.
• 34:54
  We do insurance work.
• 34:57
  But it's one of those things where we've now got a group of tradies nationally, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, handymen, painters, that...
• 35:08
  can do work for national groups, whether it be real estate companies, whether it be insurance companies, warranty work for manufacturers of air conditioners and lights and taps.
• 35:21
  So some of those things have only come about as a byproduct of what we're doing initially, which is, you know,
• 35:31
  being a bit of a buying group for tradies.
• 35:33
  How much has the University of Motor Racing helped all this?
• 35:36
  I think it still helps a lot.
• 35:38
  You know, I enjoy, to be honest, I enjoy the technical side of it, which is the software and the development of that, and I enjoy the marketing side of it as well.
• 35:47
  So, yeah.
• 35:50
  I think the hard work of motorsport and the hours that you put in sometimes has helped it as well and probably my pig-headedness to keep on pushing on with it.
• 36:01
  But I enjoy it.
• 36:05
  I enjoy going to the office every day and working with our small team and seeing things develop all the time.
• 36:13
  And there is a bit of motor racing, which I love.
• 36:16
  So you and I have kind of reconnected, if you will, through the TCR series.
• 36:20
  So a global formula for those that don't know about it.
• 36:24
  front-wheel drive, turbocharged cars, and they're the same here as they are in Asia or Europe.
• 36:30
  You ran in 2019 a V-Dub Golf.
• 36:32
  We saw you back on the podium and all sorts.
• 36:35
  How satisfying was that and how different are they to race compared to a supercar?
• 36:41
  It was good.
• 36:41
  I mean, you know, I like the formula.
• 36:43
  I like, you know, there's certainly a lot of good aspects about it.
• 36:49
  I feel like, you know, they've got the formula right in the sense that
• 36:54
  All the cars are very even, but got strengths in different areas.
• 36:59
  Yeah, cost effective.
• 37:00
  And there's no massive benefit in making, spending a heap of money to make a car that is so much faster than everyone else's because of the balance of performance.
• 37:12
  And I feel like they've got other parts of the formula right where they punch a very big hole in the air, so slipstreaming's good, the racing's good.
• 37:24
  because all the cars make performance in different areas and they're quite quirky to drive.
• 37:29
  You know, the first couple of laps of a TCR race, you know, it's on, it's on for young and old.
• 37:37
  And, you know, there's mistakes being made, you know, and maybe certainly in this initial phase when everyone's getting used to it, but, you know, it's good racing, you know, and the cars, you know,
• 37:51
  are quite, you know, very good to drive in the sense that they've got good downforce, they're on a good tyre, and that makes the racing good.
• 38:00
  You know, I feel like, you know, the fact that you can have a, you know, really good crack and fire it in under brakes and, you know,
• 38:10
  They're a good little racing car.
• 38:11
  You know, I feel like there's a lot of aspects to them that make for good racing.
• 38:15
  How beneficial has that been for you, though?
• 38:18
  I mean, I think, I mean, I enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy racing.
• 38:23
  I, you know, I enjoyed being out there last year and, you know, running in the task force colours as well.
• 38:29
  So, you know, I, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,
• 38:34
  Like I said, I think the category's got a good future here in Australia.
• 38:39
  And, you know, I take my hat off to, you know, the promoters because they've done all the right things.
• 38:46
  You know, they've, you know, made sure, you know, the first year got up and running, you know, there was a lot of naysayers and they made sure it happened.
• 38:55
  They made sure, you know, it had good events, you know,
• 38:58
  This year, even though there's been all the trouble with the COVID-19, going into the year, they had the event of the Grand Prix.
• 39:10
  They've got a race at Bathurst.
• 39:15
  They've got a Channel 7 deal, free to wear.
• 39:18
  So I feel like they've done all the right things to make the category a success for sure.
• 39:24
  Kind of the final ones to finish here to give fans a bit of a sense of just how much you love cars and so on.
• 39:30
  Firstly, the race car that you go to sleep and dream of, because you've driven some amazing ones during your career, from the Champ car that you recounted on the Gold Coast to driving for HRT.
• 39:42
  Is there one that, you know, at a certain place, when you're at the peak of your powers, just gives you that really, really fond memory?
• 39:50
  I think...
• 39:51
  You know, the Gold Coast IndyCar, that was an insane car to drive, you know.
• 39:58
  And like I said, there was a peak of IndyCars period.
• 40:01
  They were the best cars.
• 40:02
  It was a Raynard.
• 40:03
  It was, you know, 900 horsepower Toyota.
• 40:06
  It's pretty hard to beat that one as far as exhilarating.
• 40:11
  The IndyLights car was probably something you really had to grab by the scruff of the neck, but it was an awesome car to drive.
• 40:17
  Yeah, it's hard to choose.
• 40:20
  You know, I love driving the Aston Martin GT1 car that it was back then.
• 40:25
  My favourite supercar sort of era was probably...
• 40:31
  the PWR Commodore or the Cat Falcon, those two were probably where I felt were getting the most out of the car and in a good phase.
• 40:45
  One that's a little off topic in some respects, but I know as you've gone through business and things like that, invariably you probably enjoy
• 40:52
  good discussions with people that have either mentored or been successful and so on.
• 40:57
  If you could go for a drive anywhere in any car of your choice and pick some people to go for the ride with you for chat's sake, they can be racing, non-racing people.
• 41:08
  Who would it be?
• 41:09
  Where would you drive?
• 41:09
  What would the car be?
• 41:12
  Oh, that's a hard one.
• 41:14
  I mean, I enjoy doing roads like Great Ocean Road or something like that.
• 41:22
  You know, I had the pleasure of meeting, you know, Jack Grabham a few times, you know, and I,
• 41:31
  of watching some of those old videos and what they used to do then and watching the Bruce McLaren documentary and that era, I'd love to hear a lot more about what they were doing then.
• 41:46
  So someone like Bruce McLaren or Jack Braddon and, you know,
• 41:54
  driving a car from their era, I think would be, you know, a very interesting, you know, conversation, put it that way.
• 42:03
  For sure.
• 42:04
  There'd be some great old stories.
• 42:05
  You're very fortunate, Jase.
• 42:06
  I know you feel that way.
• 42:07
  You've driven for factory teams, great people, Brad and Kim Jones, Ross and Jimmy Stone, heroes like Brockie, Johnson.
• 42:18
  It's been a remarkable career, really, when you think about it, hasn't it?
• 42:22
  I feel very fortunate.
• 42:23
  Like, you know, and I think, as I said before, you know, I always lived by the, you know, I'm going to have a crack at trying to make it.
• 42:32
  And, you know, even when I was doing go-karts, you know, that was if I got to race a Formula Ford once or twice and that was where my career finished, then so be it.
• 42:42
  I had a crack and I got to race a Formula Ford.
• 42:46
  But, you know, to have sort of gone on and,
• 42:50
  and got to race an IndyCar, got to race at Le Mans, Sebring, supercars for 20 years or so, win a couple of Australian championships.
• 43:00
  I feel very lucky.
• 43:02
  But to do it and do it, I guess...
• 43:07
  with a lot of the guys that I looked up to, like Brock Johnson, you know, Alan Jones, you know, Stone Brothers, you know, I feel like I'm really lucky, you know, to have actually sort of been able to do it with them as well.
• 43:23
  Congratulations, mate.
• 43:24
  It's been great to summarise all that in some way.
• 43:27
  Lots of people have been asking for you to come on and knowing the things that you've gone off and done during your career.
• 43:33
  I mean, to throw into what you were just talking about a moment ago, a Bathurst victory, you know, more than 570 races that you contested, 20 wins and a swag of podiums.
• 43:43
  It's been quite a ride and it's been great to relive it with you now, mate.
• 43:46
  Well done.
• 43:47
  Cheers, mate.
• 43:47
  Thank you.
• 43:53
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 43:57
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 44:00
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 44:03
  I'm Greg Rust.
• 44:04
  Enjoy the drive, but drive safely.
• 44:10
  Listener.