Latest / Rusty's Garage / Kenny Smith | Part 1 - a good bet & waking up with silver feet!

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Kenny Smith | Part 1 - a good bet & waking up with silver feet! · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  For this episode, I'm at Hampton Downs, about an hour south of Auckland in New Zealand, at the workshop of legendary Kiwi racer Ken Smith, who at age 84 is still racing.
• 0:39
  Look back over the different eras and you'll find his name in the results pages.
• 0:43
  Kenny went up against the greats, like Bruce McLaren, Jimmy Clark, Sir Stirling Moss and many more of that calibre back in the 1960s, and he socialised with them afterwards too.
• 0:54
  Later on, he'd go toe-to-toe with rising Kiwi stars like Craig Baird and Paul Radisic, who were both in our library, and he arguably made them better for it.
• 1:03
  Then there's the mentoring.
• 1:06
  He's helped and continues to help so many aspiring racers.
• 1:09
  Over time, that's included Scott Dixon, Greg Murphy, Dan Gaunt, Brendan Hartley, Shane Van Gisbergen, and more recently, Liam Lawson, just to name a few.
• 1:19
  Kenny has kept...
• 1:20
  So much awesome memorabilia.
• 1:22
  It is a perfect backdrop for our conversation.
• 1:25
  From old news clippings to trophies and sashes, there are brilliant pictures all around us that keep kind of catching my eye and sparking another thread in the conversation.
• 1:35
  Yes, there were crashes too.
• 1:37
  He's even kept the tub from one on the start line at Manfield.
• 1:41
  It's hanging up on the wall here in the workshop and it made me wince seeing it all buckled up at the front.
• 1:46
  On the floor, there are some seriously cool race cars and we'll discuss them in a bit more detail later.
• 1:52
  Now, the reality is we just won't get to every story, every win or a recollection of each of the 160 plus race cars that he's competed in.
• 2:04
  We'll cover some signature moments, of course, like his three New Zealand Grand Prix wins and some of the successes abroad.
• 2:11
  As we talk, if he shares a story or two that you think is a bit out of step, a fraction with what life has become in the 2020s, just respectfully remember that sometimes that's how it was back then.
• 2:23
  No one got hurt.
• 2:24
  Kenny is genuinely a national treasure.
• 2:28
  He's had books written about him and even a documentary movie celebrating his 60 years at the wheel.
• 2:33
  He's been a man.
• 2:34
  I see this pod as an opportunity to capture a nice rounded snapshot of an incredible motor racing life and some behind the scenes things that help paint more of his full picture from the lovely Constant in Pit Lane, his late mum Dorothy always supporting him.
• 2:52
  to funny yarns about betting on racehorses, something that he has a keen eye for.
• 2:57
  You'll also get a sense as we chat that he's mellowed a bit with age, but the desire to make the race car better, to keep enjoying that pure thrill of driving at the limit, and to help unearth the next Kiwi star is as strong as ever.
• 3:12
  I hope you enjoy getting to know Ken Smith.
• 3:16
  Kenny, thank you for having us today.
• 3:18
  I mean, typically when I do these things, they're in a studio somewhere.
• 3:22
  It's a joy to come to a workshop.
• 3:24
  And, man, you have kept some memorabilia from way back to the 1950s, haven't you?
• 3:30
  Yeah, it's just stuff.
• 3:32
  I don't know, people might think it's hoarding rubbish, but it's not.
• 3:34
  It's not.
• 3:35
  It's stuff you can never get once it's gone.
• 3:37
  And people do throw stuff away, unfortunately, and it's nice to keep it in it.
• 3:41
  There is memories of you racing.
• 3:43
  There are great photos and race suits and all sorts of those that you have helped and mentored along the way.
• 3:49
  There are memories of some of the legends you've competed against, the different categories of cars that you've raced over time.
• 3:56
  Can I begin with early life for you, if that's okay?
• 4:00
  I'm told that you grew up – was it on Great North Road in Auckland?
• 4:03
  Is that where early life was for you?
• 4:04
  No.
• 4:05
  It wasn't.
• 4:05
  It was in O'Recky.
• 4:06
  O'Recky.
• 4:07
  Tell me about that.
• 4:07
  Tell me about that.
• 4:08
  Well, I was born in O'Recky and went to O'Recky Primary School.
• 4:12
  And from then on, we progressed to Seddon Tech in Auckland, which is where Bruce McLaren was there at the same time I was there.
• 4:20
  And just stuff like that.
• 4:21
  And from then on, we moved out of there and ended up going to a place, Metabank, and from there to Glen Innes, then Howick.
• 4:30
  and then Whitford, and now I'm at Bombay.
• 4:33
  So we've moved along a bit.
• 4:35
  What has been the trigger?
• 4:38
  Where did the motor racing love come from from you?
• 4:41
  What's your earliest memory of it?
• 4:42
  Well, I was always a car fanatic, and my father was good at working on cars or working at anything, but he just loved cars and was always pulling them apart and tinkering with them.
• 4:51
  We decided I'd get a Ford 8 Special which we saw for sale in Auckland and it was an old, like a Ford 8 with an aluminium body beaten onto the top, a terrible looking old thing.
• 5:03
  And decided that we'd go and do hill climbs and stuff on it.
• 5:07
  My father gave me all the help in the world I needed to get going, and that's how it started.
• 5:12
  If I tried to even give a snapshot of the statistics, that's going to be really hard.
• 5:17
  But I mean, one of the early standout things, Kenny, is the New Zealand Hill Climb Championship.
• 5:22
  And you did that at age 16, is that right?
• 5:25
  No, it was late 17.
• 5:26
  Late 17, okay.
• 5:27
  Tell me a bit about that.
• 5:29
  Yeah, well, going out to those, well, it was Pukukoe on Ostrich Farm Road there.
• 5:32
  They had just under a mile hill climb there, and we used to go there regularly, and there was one in Bombay as well, and on loose metal, and just learned to drive that way.
• 5:44
  But I was always a nutter and I loved driving and 15 years, right on the day I was birthday, I went for my driver's licence at 15.
• 5:52
  Did you?
• 5:53
  Yeah.
• 5:53
  And I was not that good at handbraking a car off on a slope.
• 5:57
  So my father backed the car into the wall outside the transport office so that car wouldn't roll backwards.
• 6:03
  So that made it a bit easier for me to get away.
• 6:05
  And we flew through and got the licence anyway.
• 6:07
  Great work.
• 6:08
  Great work.
• 6:08
  And from then on I was just mad on cars.
• 6:11
  You talked about your dad and his ability around cars, his mechanical skill.
• 6:17
  Did that come easy to you?
• 6:19
  You've been here today, even before we arrived, and working on cars downstairs.
• 6:23
  You clearly love that, don't you?
• 6:24
  Yeah, I do, but he taught me a hell of a lot.
• 6:28
  We worked together for years as car painters.
• 6:32
  And he did mechanical stuff as well and all that.
• 6:35
  But without him, I wouldn't have gotten at motor racing.
• 6:38
  I had a mother and a father that just loved what I was doing at car racing.
• 6:42
  Did they?
• 6:42
  And you know, a lot of them don't get it like that, do you?
• 6:45
  No, exactly.
• 6:45
  So they were, the whole family has been involved and that was great.
• 6:49
  And my father used to share drives with me in hill climbs and at Pukecoe.
• 6:54
  places like that and even Ardenmore he drove another little Austin special we had at Ardenmore as well.
• 7:00
  Excellent some bright tracks you're rattling off there what were you like at school were you useless useless if you could read my reports at school um they give me a hard time okay I left when I was 14 I didn't wait until I was 15 I couldn't take any more and the last words the teacher told me when I left he said you'll be a bum all your life that's his words
• 7:22
  Well, that's kind of motivation for you then in some respects to prove them wrong, right?
• 7:26
  Yeah, but he's probably the bum, not me.
• 7:29
  You had a bit of a friendship quite early on with Jimmy Richards too, is that right?
• 7:33
  Yeah, with Jim Richards, yeah.
• 7:34
  When did you first meet him?
• 7:35
  Well, Jim was only sort of a road-driving lunatic in those days when he started racing.
• 7:41
  And I remember we had a car yard in Papatoa, my father and I, and he had a Lotus Cortina.
• 7:48
  And we ended up buying it because one night I think he was boozed out of his brain and his mates and they jacked it backwards at a high speed and then swung it and tipped it over.
• 7:58
  So when it went over, they all got out and it was on its roof but it had damaged one side.
• 8:04
  So instead of putting down on the damaged side, tipped it back on the side that wasn't damaged and damaged the lot.
• 8:09
  So we ended up buying that car and it was sold later.
• 8:12
  Jim, he was funny.
• 8:12
  He was a good bloke.
• 8:16
  terrific driver and uh you know had everything going for him but like like us all when kids you go crazy on the road crazy good good um human being tell me a bit more about the car yard in those early days there because you had some fun there along along the way i'm told there were some late nights and you might have even slept there on occasion is this true oh i can't remember sleeping there
• 8:40
  You've been picking up stories.
• 8:41
  Did you did you wake up one morning with silver feet silver painted feet or something?
• 8:45
  No, that was a little bit that story a little bit different Is it okay?
• 8:48
  I worked for a guy Garth Sooners in those earlier days and you probably know he drove a Merari that was a Ferrari with a Morris minor body and he was a stock car driver in the days were
• 8:59
  Red Dawson and John Riley.
• 9:00
  Yes.
• 9:01
  And when I worked for him one day, I sold a car to a guy in the morning, took a deposit off him and we had to go into Newmarket because he had his marari being wheel-aligned.
• 9:12
  So he said, it's going to be another hour or two, we'll go over to the pub.
• 9:15
  So we went over to the pub and I hadn't seen the lights of the pub and so he ended up drinking a bit and we got thrown out of the pub because he started abusing somebody.
• 9:26
  I remember that we wouldn't go, so the guy called the police.
• 9:30
  And the Rimura police station was in view of the pub.
• 9:34
  You could see it up the road in Rimura on the way to Newmarket.
• 9:37
  And the cops are coming down at 100 mile an hour and foot.
• 9:40
  So Garth Sooners was such a funny guy.
• 9:43
  He got in his chev and parlour he towed the car in there with, and he waited until the police got trapped between two trams going up and down either way, and then he lit rubber up and wheel spinned, so he got away.
• 9:55
  But I was as mad as a foul by that time.
• 9:57
  When I got back to work, the guy comes to pick his car up and pay the balance.
• 10:01
  But by that time, I felt that dogged out drinking spirits.
• 10:05
  He fed me up.
• 10:06
  I was lying out the back with a canvas cover over myself, and he picked the cover up, and he painted my feet silver.
• 10:13
  I took my shoes off, and the guy had come in and said to him, can we talk to the sales manager?
• 10:18
  I've bought this car this morning.
• 10:20
  I said, I'll go and see if he's going to come out, because he's out here.
• 10:23
  So he lifted the cover.
• 10:23
  He said, oh, there he is.
• 10:24
  No, we can't disturb him at the moment.
• 10:26
  I'm lying there with silver feet.
• 10:28
  I mean, these are silly things you do along the way.
• 10:30
  You have countless stories like that.
• 10:32
  You talked about the Hill Climb Championship before.
• 10:34
  That's kind of late 1950s.
• 10:36
  In the early 60s, you get in a single seater for the first time.
• 10:40
  And there are literally countless photos of some amazing cars along the way, some really special machines.
• 10:49
  What is it about single seaters that you gravitated to?
• 10:52
  And tell me about that first one that you drove.
• 10:54
  Well the first one was a Lola front engine Formula Junior, beautiful looking car, looked like a Vanwell rig long nose on it and we ended up racing that after a guy had bought it out from UK and ran 5th in the Wigram race and 5th at the Grand Prix and a local guy.
• 11:09
  And so that was the car we started as an open wheeler.
• 11:12
  And I've never looked back on driving anything but single seaters.
• 11:16
  Yeah.
• 11:17
  And when I refer to saloon cars, I used to get knocked back a bit by guys.
• 11:21
  I talk about them driving taxis.
• 11:23
  Actually, they've got a roof on them.
• 11:25
  But at the same time, I've driven 20 or 30 different saloon cars as well, so they're good.
• 11:30
  But an open wheeler is something special.
• 11:32
  Definitely.
• 11:32
  It's not just...
• 11:34
  the bitumen that you've driven on before, I think you talked a little bit about some of the shingle there before.
• 11:39
  There is an amazing photo of a very rare, I think, Ferrari.
• 11:43
  And is that on the Speedway somewhere, for example?
• 11:46
  What are you... And you're all competing on dirt there.
• 11:48
  The Monza Ferrari that Ken Wharton got killed in 1957 at Ardenborn, it was rebuilt here and we ended up, a friend of mine had bought it, so we decided there was a meeting at Western Springs on the Cinders, so Northern Sports Car Club had the meeting there, so he said we'll take it out there.
• 12:05
  So I was driving around there and that's crazy because that's probably a 12 million US dollar car now and here we were going around on the Cinders and something which was worth, I don't know, we'd be lucky to be worth a thousand dollars in those days.
• 12:18
  So you move into single-seaters, it clearly clicks for you straight away.
• 12:24
  And I think if the timeline is right, within two years, you're on the grid of the New Zealand Grand Prix, aren't you?
• 12:30
  Yeah, we're running on the grid in the New Zealand Grand Prix.
• 12:32
  And it was always an honour to run in those races because you had people like Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Moss and Bradman Holman.
• 12:40
  McLaren all of those I mean we had the biggest and Australia had the same we had the biggest lot with the Tasman series of Formula One drivers which you'll never see again and they were ordinary people not like some of them now these guys would help you talk to you and it was you know it was an interesting day of going out even though they'd get lapped quite frequently you'd drive a little 1500 car against their ones it didn't matter it was an honour to be in a race with the guys
• 13:05
  You have just rattled off some absolute legends and we are surrounded by pictures of many of them here.
• 13:12
  Can I dive into a few of them?
• 13:13
  I mean, firstly, I spotted a picture when I first walked in today of Jimmy Clark.
• 13:18
  And people try and draw a modern day parallel now with, say, an Ettencener or something like that.
• 13:23
  I mean, he was enormously special.
• 13:26
  What was he like as a person?
• 13:28
  Oh, look, he was just an ordinary person.
• 13:30
  a brilliant driver and he'd come and talk to you there was never anything that he was better than you and that's the sort of guys and they all were like that and it was funny one year when he did come out i can't remember the year but they they had a fuel bagged lotus that they brought out here and about two hours for the grand prix they had a fuel leak
• 13:49
  and they didn't have a fuel kit for it.
• 13:51
  They'd made a mistake and not bought one.
• 13:53
  So they'd run around, who would have a fuel kit, repair kit here?
• 13:57
  But no one runs fuel bags.
• 13:58
  And I'd bought a Lotus 41, and that was the first small car that Chapman had fitted a fuel bag to.
• 14:04
  That too.
• 14:05
  And so they come around and they said, you wouldn't have a fuel bag kit to repair one, would you?
• 14:09
  And I said, geez, I don't know.
• 14:11
  All the stuff come out from England.
• 14:12
  I bought this car over there.
• 14:13
  And they're shaffling through.
• 14:15
  Oh, no, here it is, a little box.
• 14:16
  It had all the glue and stuff.
• 14:17
  And it was one of those they could repair within an hour.
• 14:20
  Yep.
• 14:20
  And they said, we'll replace this for you.
• 14:22
  We'll fix it up.
• 14:23
  Thank you.
• 14:24
  And it took about nine months.
• 14:25
  I never heard from them.
• 14:26
  And all of a sudden, a fuel kit came out.
• 14:28
  And you've got to repair it 1,000 bags.
• 14:30
  That's how big it was.
• 14:31
  and then Colin Chapman sent me a letter thanking us for it and all that and you know it's just those are the sort of people that help you and you'd help them you know even going back like Bruce McLaren when I bought the Lotus 41 it was a pig under brakes darting all over the road
• 14:46
  He said, have you got towing on the front wheels?
• 14:48
  I said, yes.
• 14:49
  He said, good, tow them out.
• 14:50
  This is the new trick, time out.
• 14:52
  And that's when, from that day, is when people, everything is towed out in the front, not in anymore.
• 14:57
  Okay.
• 14:57
  And as soon as we did that, you could take your hands off the wheel when you put the brakes on.
• 15:00
  That's how straight it pulled out.
• 15:02
  You've just reminded me that there's a great sort of chapter in your career, if you will, where you had a real fondness for Lotus machines, didn't you?
• 15:12
  Yeah, a lot of guys run Brabham's here, and they're a magic car, but I had a bit of a kink for Lotuses, so we went from just about all the model Lotuses and Formula Juniors upwards, and I enjoyed them.
• 15:25
  They were good.
• 15:26
  We got them working good.
• 15:27
  And I remember saying to Jack Brabham one day when he was in Asia when we were racing up there, I said, Jack, which is actually the fastest car, a little Brabham or a Lotus?
• 15:36
  He said, a Lotus is faster than the Brabham, only on a billiard table, he said.
• 15:42
  Never forget that.
• 15:44
  There's a pick here with you and Chris Amon as well.
• 15:47
  What was he like?
• 15:48
  Yeah, Chris was a magic guy.
• 15:50
  I knew him from way back in the early days when he was a pretty young kid and he was driving an Austin A40 single-seater special that was made up.
• 15:57
  And he was always good to talk to.
• 15:59
  He'd come and talk to, chat.
• 16:01
  Ordinary guy.
• 16:02
  A brilliant guy who should have won a world championship but didn't.
• 16:05
  Just was in at the wrong time in the wrong cars.
• 16:08
  graham hill you come up against him i think in one of those early grand prix that we we talked about he might have won in 65 if memory serves for example what was what was graham hill you know graham was magic because they always used to have uh booze ups after the meetings yes and he would take the floor and he was hard to get rid of off the floor he'd just come up with old jokes and stories all the time a real character oh fantastic guy yeah
• 16:33
  Unbelievable.
• 16:33
  Just a simple, ordinary guy that would talk to you.
• 16:37
  Didn't have a big head or anything like that.
• 16:38
  I love it.
• 16:39
  Most years, Kenny, since it started, I have the pleasure of working at the Singapore Grand Prix now.
• 16:46
  And I thoroughly love that event.
• 16:49
  And then in the paddock last year, during Friday practice, just by chance, I had the most beautiful conversation with Sir Jackie Stewart and Martin Brundle.
• 16:59
  And the conversation wasn't anything to do with how Oscar Piastri was going, Landa Norris, any of that stuff.
• 17:06
  For whatever reason, we started reminiscing about the Tasman series.
• 17:11
  Now, in the 70s, I was quite young.
• 17:13
  I don't have recollections of that per se.
• 17:15
  But Sir Jackie spoke so fondly of that era.
• 17:20
  And the Grand Prix would often kind of kickstart the Tasman chapter.
• 17:24
  And they loved coming down here over our summer, didn't they?
• 17:26
  It was fantastic.
• 17:27
  I mean, the amount of those guys that come here, it just wasn't an odd one.
• 17:30
  It was a pile of them coming.
• 17:32
  They just love what they've seen here.
• 17:34
  And Jackie was another one.
• 17:36
  He was a good storyteller and full of humour.
• 17:39
  And he started the race and finished it in the Malaysian Grand Prix when I won it.
• 17:44
  Yes.
• 17:45
  And he said, oh...
• 17:46
  He'd go, I've got to come and talk to you.
• 17:47
  And he sat on a tyre talking to us while we were getting the car ready for about two hours because he said the guys that he brought them up to talk to, he said, they're boring.
• 17:56
  He said, so I'll come over and chat.
• 17:57
  Talk to you.
• 17:58
  And he was chatting about motor cars and that.
• 18:00
  And he was great.
• 18:01
  You know, he was just, he was a hard case.
• 18:03
  Was he?
• 18:03
  You know, he could get a laugh and everything, which is good, isn't it?
• 18:06
  Yep.
• 18:07
  You've talked about them kind of out of the car there and, you know, post-race and so on.
• 18:13
  What were they like when you were racing them, when you came up against them and things like that as competitors?
• 18:19
  Because invariably that, you know, that social environment is wonderful.
• 18:22
  But once the helmet goes on, you're all different.
• 18:25
  Oh, they're out racing, they're like all of us.
• 18:28
  You're no longer a friend around them.
• 18:32
  But in those days, they had more powerful cars than we started with them.
• 18:37
  But you never gave them any grief out there.
• 18:39
  You made sure with a flag you got out of their way.
• 18:41
  But we never had any bitches with them or anything like that.
• 18:45
  They were great.
• 18:45
  Cool.
• 18:46
  You have to wait a little while.
• 18:48
  You start in single-seaters in the early 60s, but...
• 18:51
  Your first win in the New Zealand Grand Prix doesn't come until the mid-1970s.
• 18:56
  Tell us about that day, what you remember about it.
• 18:59
  76 from memory, if I've done my homework right there.
• 19:02
  And of all the ones you've won along the way, is that the one that you perhaps hold in a special rig?
• 19:09
  was special to win that New Zealand Grand Prix in 76 it was something you know it was like winning lotto and more was it it was just something special and that's because I remember getting the car we were running two litre cars and they just weren't quite on it with the 5000s they weren't far away but they weren't there and so in 75 I went to the states and bought a 5000 car up
• 19:33
  And, like, it was an arm and leg in them days.
• 19:35
  We paid $20,000 US for it with a spare motor.
• 19:38
  In the 70s.
• 19:39
  It was buying Redmond's spare car and had spare motor.
• 19:43
  As that money, $20,000 then was $17,600 New Zealand.
• 19:46
  I'll never forget that.
• 19:47
  The other way.
• 19:48
  And you could buy a house nearly for that price.
• 19:51
  So, but at any rate, we got that here.
• 19:52
  And when I first got it, it blew a motor in testing straight away.
• 19:56
  Yeah.
• 19:57
  And I thought, hell.
• 19:58
  So I rung up Jim Hall, who did the motors in the States, and I said to him about the motor.
• 20:03
  And he was real good to deal with.
• 20:05
  Most of them would say to you, oh, you're over-revved.
• 20:07
  I said, it hasn't been over-revved, but I'm right to ask you why should I let go and it was rebuilt.
• 20:13
  So he said, leave it and I'll come back to you.
• 20:15
  He come back to me and he said, within a few days, he said, we owe you a free engine.
• 20:20
  And I thought, oh, what's going on here?
• 20:22
  He said, Cruller had bad bolts out for the Conrots, and they notified us all to pull them out of the engine shops, but there was one set left in the engine builder's room, and he said, and the guy told me that he'd pick those up and put them in your motor.
• 20:36
  So he said, we've got to give you a motor.
• 20:38
  And they sent a motor out free of charge.
• 20:39
  Did they?
• 20:40
  You can't ask for better than that, can you?
• 20:41
  No, exactly.
• 20:42
  But getting the car out here the first year...
• 20:45
  It was a handful because it was 5,000 with 525 horsepower.
• 20:49
  Yeah.
• 20:50
  And there was a lot of guys saying, oh, he's too small and I'd be able to drive one of those.
• 20:54
  But anyway, by the time 76 come, we got it going.
• 20:57
  And, you know, we just about cleaned up most races and then.
• 21:00
  And to win that Grand Prix was just something super special.
• 21:04
  And it's something you can never forget.
• 21:06
  Absolutely.
• 21:06
  We're literally recording this within just a couple of months of the 70th running of that amazing race.
• 21:12
  We became first resident New Zealander to win it, which was good.
• 21:16
  And you've gone on to win it more than once, Kenny.
• 21:18
  Three times.
• 21:19
  Three times.
• 21:19
  Well, I want to come to that because it's quite a gap between drinks for them, isn't there?
• 21:25
  14 years apart.
• 21:27
  Unbelievable.
• 21:27
  It's rather than 14 years apart.
• 21:29
  But unfortunately, the last 14 years, I've only got too old or we couldn't win it.
• 21:35
  I mean, to do it on more than one occasion means that you hold a special place in the record books.
• 21:39
  Tell us about the second one and your recollections of that day.
• 21:42
  Yeah, the second one was 1990 in a Formula Atlantic Swift, which I race still today in Formula Open.
• 21:49
  Beautiful cars.
• 21:50
  And it is a magic car.
• 21:51
  And...
• 21:52
  We cleaned up from start to finish in that car and that was another magic day.
• 21:56
  But the one in the 76 always felt better.
• 22:00
  Did it?
• 22:00
  You know, everything feels good when you're winning.
• 22:02
  Yeah.
• 22:02
  So no, that was good.
• 22:03
  We had a lot of fun in that.
• 22:05
  And then fast forward to 2024.
• 22:06
  Yeah.
• 22:07
  That's 2004, I beg your pardon.
• 22:09
  2004.
• 22:10
  You do it again.
• 22:11
  Yeah, well that was, they went back and used the Formula Fords for the Grand Prix in that year.
• 22:17
  So we ran a 92 Van Diemen and it was at Invercargill.
• 22:21
  And we got to the line, it was by about a whisker.
• 22:26
  There was a guy right on me at the finishing line and I knew he was going to try and tow down to the start line.
• 22:32
  So I had the car that just, I knew how to move the car around without balking and making it look obvious.
• 22:37
  And we just managed to hold him out and just leave that gap at the last minute.
• 22:41
  There wouldn't have been an inch in the two cars going over the line.
• 22:44
  How did you evolve as a driver over time from the late 50s through to some of those, the 1976 Grand Prix win that you spoke about and so on?
• 22:55
  Was there a trademark to the way you went about your racing?
• 22:59
  What would that be?
• 23:01
  Well, it's not really.
• 23:02
  I mean, everybody probably did the same type of thing to get going.
• 23:05
  But, you know, we were dedicated to wanting to go and do what we did.
• 23:08
  And like I said before, I had my father and looking after a car.
• 23:13
  And that was the sort of thing that helped when you got someone.
• 23:16
  He used to build the engines in those days, the 5,000 engines and all.
• 23:19
  And we just kept progressing.
• 23:22
  But every morning when there was a meeting coming up and the day before, you couldn't wake up early enough to get to the meeting.
• 23:28
  Okay.
• 23:28
  Yeah, it's just one of those things that we were crazy and mad about getting to a racetrack.
• 23:33
  Loved it.
• 23:33
  You still, today, I think you got here at some ungodly hour this morning to work on the cars.
• 23:37
  I know you still have that.
• 23:38
  Yeah, I get down here about 8 each morning, so.
• 23:40
  Do you?
• 23:41
  Yeah.
• 23:42
  One thing we didn't talk about before in rattling off the kind of roll call of some of those great international races, I guess as a part of that Tasman series, is there was that strong Aussie versus Kiwi mateship, but also rivalry at times.
• 23:56
  What about some of the Aussies that you've come up against over time?
• 24:00
  And I mean, I look back at some of the...
• 24:02
  the results and entry lists from different events in the 60s.
• 24:06
  I mean, there's Lex Davison in there, for example.
• 24:10
  Frank Gardner was another.
• 24:12
  What were some of the Aussies like that you come up against?
• 24:14
  Yeah, no, they were good.
• 24:15
  We had no trouble with any of them.
• 24:16
  They were nice people to talk to, you know.
• 24:19
  And...
• 24:20
  Gardner was, he was a hard case, because I was a Lotus 22 aboard out of England.
• 24:24
  He came up in the pits and he said to me, this was my car.
• 24:26
  And I said, how would you know that?
• 24:28
  He said, the only Lotus that's got an extra two inch square box section around the cockpit.
• 24:32
  He said, that's the car.
• 24:33
  And we fitted that.
• 24:35
  Is that right?
• 24:35
  Yeah.
• 24:35
  So we've become good friends after that.
• 24:37
  Did you?
• 24:38
  Yeah.
• 24:38
  And, um, but they were good.
• 24:39
  I was like some Max Stewart, Kevin Bartlett and, um, you know, Johnny Goss and them guys, but they're all there and you'd have no trouble getting help from them.
• 24:48
  You know, if you needed some bits or something like that, they'd be there.
• 24:51
  You mentioned about, you know, the fondness, if you will, for Lotus cars before.
• 24:56
  There are a couple of kind of Aussie-linked cars that are up on the wall here.
• 25:00
  I mean, I think about the Matic, for example.
• 25:01
  That's one of them, isn't it?
• 25:02
  Yeah, a Matic A50.
• 25:04
  Yeah.
• 25:04
  Yeah, that was a good car.
• 25:05
  And it was one I actually bought to sell because I'd already had a Lola at that stage.
• 25:10
  Yeah.
• 25:10
  But when I got that car, I decided I'd take it out and start running it.
• 25:15
  And it was good.
• 25:15
  It was a nice car to drive.
• 25:17
  And then I got the Alphan, Gary Cooper's.
• 25:19
  Cooper's, yeah.
• 25:20
  Yeah, his own one that he actually used himself.
• 25:23
  And that was a good car too.
• 25:24
  Okay.
• 25:24
  So there was nothing wrong with them.
• 25:26
  They had Repco's in the back of them, a set of Shivs.
• 25:29
  Okay.
• 25:29
  We had a lot of fun in those.
• 25:40
  Rusty spoke with Ken's friend, the great Jimmy Richards, back in 2022 for a two-part feature episode, which included some detail on a Gibson motorsport policy.
• 25:51
  When you join the team, if you lock a brake or dent the car, yo, the boy's a slab.
• 25:59
  And on the flashing light, in the light was slab, slab, slab.
• 26:08
  Jimmy goes on to describe how Scaifey's crash in Adelaide looked like he owned a small bottle shop.
• 26:13
  Now back to Rusty with Kenny Smith.
• 26:16
  You lit up today, just before we started recording, when I began mentioning about Formula 5000s.
• 26:22
  You enjoyed that era, didn't you?
• 26:24
  Oh, 5000 is something special.
• 26:27
  They're a dangerous car, there's no doubt about that.
• 26:29
  I mean, when you look at them, they've got plenty of body work around them, but when you hit anything, that body work's gone, and you're sitting in less than six inches height from your hips when you're sitting in the tub.
• 26:39
  And I'll tell you what, they fold up.
• 26:40
  That's why they used to call Lola Limp to them when guys used to crash.
• 26:44
  And being small, our pedals were back 14 inches from the front, so we didn't get like a limp.
• 26:50
  But now that's a car.
• 26:53
  I mean, the Atlantic car is the most fantastic car I've ever driven, but I still have to say the 5,000 was the cream of anything.
• 27:01
  Is that right?
• 27:02
  And after we got – I sold the car in Australia after the end of 77 because New Zealand decided to go form Atlantic and drop them and Aussie kept the 5,000s.
• 27:11
  And the car's still over there now, so that's why I went to the States to buy this other one later when we started running 5,000 back here again.
• 27:19
  And had it up until about five years ago, did a good 10 or 12 years on it, and then I decided I wouldn't run again here because they started wanting to do handicap racing.
• 27:30
  And I just didn't fancy...
• 27:32
  starting off a back of a grid with two or three sharp guys with you, and you've got 15 or so cars in front of you, and some of them were five and six seconds off the base.
• 27:43
  And it's just too dangerous.
• 27:45
  I mean, those cars, I had a big hit at Pukakari in one of them on a V8 Supercar day.
• 27:50
  I remember it vividly, yeah.
• 27:52
  A rear wing, a guy forgot to bolt the one stay up on the rear wing and just twisted the wing, and she went in hard over another car.
• 28:01
  So you sort of don't, you push your luck a bit, and I've been very lucky I've got away without, I've had a few crashes, but nothing super major, and I haven't done too much damage.
• 28:10
  Can I have a bit of fun with you now?
• 28:13
  They tell me you don't like swimming and you're not a fan of water.
• 28:18
  Is this true and why?
• 28:23
  No, I've never been a water lover.
• 28:24
  I can't swim.
• 28:26
  No, I'm hopeless swimming.
• 28:27
  And you wouldn't get me in any deep water.
• 28:29
  So, I mean, that's crazy.
• 28:32
  The only time I use water is when you wash. And I thought that's what it was a hate of.
• 28:37
  Behind us here, among some unreal motor racing memorabilia, is a little nod to the fact that
• 28:45
  that you like another kind of horsepower too, don't you?
• 28:48
  And have done for quite some time.
• 28:51
  Where does the fondness, I guess, for horse races and maybe a flutter come from?
• 28:56
  Well, my father and I bought a racehorse and I had a friend train it in Cambridge and then we ended up with a dozen horses in the finish.
• 29:07
  But every horse we had was placed or won races and one of the cream horses we had was a horse called Elmar.
• 29:15
  She won 17 races and three in Australia for us and...
• 29:19
  She was running at Pukekohe in a very... At Ellesley.
• 29:22
  Ellesley in a very big race, and it was Grand Prix day.
• 29:26
  And we're parked on the other side of the Grand Prix to track by the tote, and Eric Mallard, who's running the Grand Prix Association, he's yelling, all drivers got to be out of here now.
• 29:35
  We're ready to line up for the Grand Prix.
• 29:37
  And I had the transistor radio because the horse was running, and they said there'd be a three-minute delay at Ellesley
• 29:44
  And I thought, oh, here we go.
• 29:45
  So I had to bolt out before they shut the gate.
• 29:47
  So I took the transistor with me and we drove around the track and we stopped for about five minutes on the track before they let us go.
• 29:54
  And I've got the radio and it says there'll be a further three-minute delay at Ellerslie.
• 29:58
  So they're telling everybody to get off the grid.
• 30:00
  So I just throw the radio at the crew.
• 30:01
  LAUGHTER
• 30:03
  About four laps later, I come around and the board comes out, because those days there were short boards, and it had $7.45 and $2.45 below it, which meant she won.
• 30:12
  And then I could get me – I'm done.
• 30:14
  Start getting going.
• 30:15
  That's excellent.
• 30:16
  And we did the same at Bay Park.
• 30:18
  She was running at Ellerslie, and we were at Bay Park, and Peter Hanna was a promoter there.
• 30:22
  Yeah.
• 30:23
  And I said to him, Peter, this clashing, we've got a half-hour qualifying.
• 30:27
  And I said, as soon as we start the qualifying, I've got this horse I've got to see.
• 30:32
  So he teed it up for a guy over from the start line in the house.
• 30:36
  He said, I've teed it up there.
• 30:37
  Now, when you're ready, pull in past the start line and get off the track, get out the car, and I'll tell you when you can bolt across the track.
• 30:44
  So that's how he did it, and I got over there, and the old boy said to me, what are you here for?
• 30:49
  And I said, I'm here to look at a horse.
• 30:51
  And he said, what's his name?
• 30:52
  I said, Elmer, she won't win, he said.
• 30:54
  So he was an old horse nut.
• 30:55
  Well, she won by three lengths, so I bolted out, thanked him, went back and got across the track, and then jumped in the car and got bolted in again, and away we went.
• 31:04
  I don't know if this is the same race meeting.
• 31:06
  Is this the one when you got bolted back in again?
• 31:08
  This might have been qualifying, I can't remember.
• 31:10
  But there was a moment there in the juggle of all of that and what have you, that when you got back in, you still managed to pip David Oxton for pole, is this true?
• 31:20
  That's actually a different story.
• 31:23
  Yeah.
• 31:24
  We were at Manfield Racing, and we had a horse running at Awapuni.
• 31:30
  So the father and I went and watched that, and I said, I'm not coming back for qualifying.
• 31:33
  I'll start off the back tomorrow.
• 31:34
  So we're there and we had lunch.
• 31:37
  The horse got up and won.
• 31:38
  And I had about three bourbons for lunch and all that.
• 31:41
  Then when I get back, they said, look, the practice only just started and they stopped it because there's a problem on the track.
• 31:47
  Throw your gear on and get in.
• 31:48
  And I said, no, no, no, forget about it.
• 31:49
  They punished me.
• 31:50
  I threw the gear and got in with the bourbons.
• 31:54
  And in about four laps, I got it on pole.
• 31:57
  And David said to me, what the hell did you do that?
• 32:00
  And I said, you need to come to the races with me.
• 32:04
  I had Roberto Moreno come on last year.
• 32:07
  I had a really, really good chat with him.
• 32:09
  And he talked about, he was here last year in a kind of coaching capacity and helping Kiwi Motorsport and so on.
• 32:16
  But he talked about when he came out here and raced himself.
• 32:20
  And I'm paraphrasing here, but it was along the lines of they had enough money to do the first race, but he couldn't necessarily stay for the rest of the campaign.
• 32:32
  And you got hold of him and said, I know about a horse, might have been one of your own horses, I don't know.
• 32:37
  You both put some money on it.
• 32:39
  And it got to the point where I think he won enough money to continue with the rest of the New Zealand series.
• 32:44
  He did.
• 32:45
  He was funny.
• 32:46
  He did, because a Greek, a little Australian, he was managing him, looking after him.
• 32:50
  And so we got him enthused into horses, but he did make enough money to keep going here.
• 32:56
  And we backed a few over that time he was here, so he was happy.
• 33:00
  And he always throws that bat even now.
• 33:02
  When I saw him last year, and he came here a few years ago and signed the wall and that sort of stuff.
• 33:07
  Love it.
• 33:07
  Love it.
• 33:07
  Great guy.
• 33:08
  Yeah.
• 33:09
  You mentioned about, you know, racing a bit overseas as well.
• 33:13
  I mean, I can immediately see a picture of Phillip Island where you've been there.
• 33:16
  But you had some success, Kenny, in Asia too, in Malaysia and all sorts of places, didn't you?
• 33:20
  Yeah, in 1970, we went and did the Singapore Grand Prix.
• 33:24
  And we had a crash with another driver, a Japanese guy, who, when he got a flag, he put his finger out for me to go that way.
• 33:31
  But what he meant in Japan, I go that way, you go the other way.
• 33:34
  So we collided it.
• 33:36
  And the car got damaged and it was only a week apart, so we had to work pretty frantically to get it going again.
• 33:42
  And we went and did the Penang Grand Prix further up and won that.
• 33:46
  And ended up winning that three times a year later and again in 1979.
• 33:52
  And the Singapore one eluded me.
• 33:55
  I led it for a while and then had a mechanical issue.
• 33:59
  And Jack Bradman was doing the starting up there in those days.
• 34:01
  Those days, yeah.
• 34:02
  Yeah, and then we won the Salanga Grand Prix and the Malaysian Grand Prix, which Jackie Stewart was part of that year.
• 34:09
  Yeah.
• 34:09
  So we've had a lot of fun.
• 34:11
  Did you enjoy racing up there?
• 34:12
  Oh, yeah.
• 34:13
  It was quite different back then to now, wasn't it?
• 34:14
  They laid the red carpet for you.
• 34:16
  Did they?
• 34:16
  They are unbelievable people, yeah.
• 34:18
  They made sure everything was what you wanted.
• 34:20
  And I remember, I used to be fussy when I parked my car, and in Penang we'd park the car, and a guy said, you can bring it in his workshop.
• 34:28
  And I said, do you lock this at night time?
• 34:30
  And he said, no, I'm here most of the time.
• 34:32
  And I said, well, I'm a bit worried about the car.
• 34:34
  And he went, no one touch it.
• 34:35
  And he went, woof, and he brought up a gun, and he said, I kill him if he touched the car.
• 34:42
  Safe as houses.
• 34:43
  Safe as houses.
• 34:44
  Yeah, no, it was quite funny.
• 34:46
  It was bloody, it was good.
• 34:47
  But we've had some good fun up there and the people were nice.
• 34:51
  And, you know, we've done quite a lot of racing off and on in Australia and different parts there, so that's been good.
• 34:56
  I enjoyed it.
• 34:57
  Has there been a race that you haven't done or an event that you would like to have done?
• 35:02
  Well, it'd be nice to have got to Europe maybe and done something over there, but it didn't matter.
• 35:06
  We've been in America and Australia and Asia and here, and that's good.
• 35:11
  Yeah.
• 35:12
  Did you almost get close to stitching something together for Europe?
• 35:16
  No.
• 35:16
  Back in those early days, look, they were looking for F1 drivers in the early days, where nowadays they're not.
• 35:23
  There's that many of them there.
• 35:25
  And I know if I'd have gone over there maybe back when I was, say, 20, 21,
• 35:29
  With the help of Bruce McLeod, I'm sure I could have got a deal going, but I didn't.
• 35:34
  It was one of those things, I just didn't go.
• 35:36
  I choose to stay home, and so that was it.
• 35:39
  You mentioned him, but we didn't talk so much about him there before.
• 35:43
  What was Bruce like, and did you have a good relationship with him?
• 35:46
  He was a fantastic guy.
• 35:47
  He was a prefect at Sidon Tech, and I even quoted in the book, he should never have been a prefect.
• 35:53
  He was too nice to everybody.
• 35:55
  Really?
• 35:55
  Yeah, he wouldn't harm anybody.
• 35:57
  That's the sort of guy.
• 35:58
  And he used to bring his little Austen Ulster to the school and Wellesley Street and park it outside the school at times.
• 36:04
  And I always looked at that car and thought, God, I'd love to own that car one day, which was good and fortunate because I did get it.
• 36:09
  And I remember when he went to Cooper's with Jack,
• 36:13
  He came out in 1960 and bought a 3.8 Jaguar out for his father, a rally Jag.
• 36:20
  It was a beautiful car.
• 36:21
  And he was cleaning it up in his workshop on Upland Road where his father had the garage.
• 36:26
  And I rolled up in the Austin and he fell down when he saw it again.
• 36:29
  Did he?
• 36:29
  He said, can I go for a ride in it?
• 36:31
  So he jumped in it.
• 36:32
  We both got it.
• 36:32
  And we drove up through Ramira Road, flat-stick, and back down again.
• 36:36
  And that's, you know, what sort of guy he was.
• 36:38
  Yeah.
• 36:38
  Yeah.
• 36:39
  You're 84 now, as I talk to you, but your memory, Kenny, is as sharp as, particularly around cars and moments of your racing career, isn't it?
• 36:48
  Well, I always think that my memory's not as good.
• 36:51
  Well, obviously you can't when you get older, but I forget people's names more than anything.
• 36:55
  Okay.
• 36:57
  If I had to go through and do this, it's hard, but you asking a question, then all of a sudden things start coming back.
• 37:02
  Coming through, yeah.
• 37:03
  Yeah, and I probably could go for hours talking rubbish.
• 37:05
  Please, please, keep going.
• 37:07
  And if I, for whatever reason, if we, you know, spark a memory of some kind, go with that.
• 37:13
  Your health around your racing has fundamentally been really good, right?
• 37:17
  But there is one story around your heart, and you might have taped...
• 37:22
  an angina pill that you had to the side of the Formula Atlantic.
• 37:25
  And on the day in question, was it the last pill that you had...
• 37:31
  at the time what what happened it turned to powder or something did it yes um i remember graham watson the ralt dealer over there he called me over and he said he was trying to win the championship and it was three rounds to go and he wanted me to come over and drive his 86 ralt and just sort of interfere with the other guy a bit so that he could get the job done so we get to the last meeting which um where are you here i think it was amaru park amaru park okay yeah and uh
• 37:57
  So we had an engine failure in the car, and he didn't have another engine.
• 38:01
  Then I remember he had a customer's engine in the back of his truck.
• 38:03
  He said, I don't know what it's like.
• 38:04
  We'll put it in.
• 38:05
  And it was actually quicker than his engine.
• 38:07
  It was a good engine.
• 38:08
  But anyway, we go out that morning, and I said, now, look, don't worry about this guy that you're competing with.
• 38:16
  And I had to start off the back because I didn't qualify with the engine problem.
• 38:20
  And I said, I'll work my way through this pack.
• 38:22
  And I said, leave me the deal if we have to.
• 38:25
  I know it's a pretty greasy way of trying to get a guy's championship.
• 38:29
  But off the start line, Graeme and this guy came together.
• 38:34
  And Graeme's car tipped upside down and went along an Armco fence.
• 38:38
  And I'll never forget that.
• 38:39
  He had grazers on his crash hat.
• 38:41
  And he also had no camshaft left in one side of the engine, in the BDA engine.
• 38:46
  It had tore it out on the Armco.
• 38:48
  That's how close it was.
• 38:49
  Wrecked the car.
• 38:50
  And the other car of the guy climbed up over his car and shot her way in the air and ended up in a car park beside the track, upside down, and it killed a lady who fell on top of her, which was a sad day.
• 39:03
  And, of course, the race was postponed for four or five hours because the police came and everything.
• 39:08
  And so they say, right, we're going to start this race.
• 39:12
  And I remember going out on the dummy grid, and the mechanic that was working on it was one of Graham's mechanics, Lear's Laidlaw, and I said, don't touch that what's on there until I need that tomorrow.
• 39:22
  The pill, the angina pill.
• 39:23
  Yeah, yeah.
• 39:24
  And he said, I know what it is.
• 39:25
  And he said, you're crazy.
• 39:26
  And so what I did, I got the pill, and I'd lick my finger and pulled the tape back to get it, and I thought, holy shit, this is powder.
• 39:36
  So I've got a problem here because I was getting bad angina pains.
• 39:40
  And so I'm picking it away and I'm putting it under my tongue.
• 39:44
  And I looked up and there's a big guy looking at me, he looked like he was about seven foot tall.
• 39:48
  And he went, my God, good luck, and walked away.
• 39:50
  Now to this day he probably said I was on dope.
• 39:55
  But it was later on that I had to go and get the bypass done because it was, we only had one artery was closed, one was 10% open, the other one was 5% open and I was suffering bad.
• 40:07
  And even like at Pukekohe when you're coming down the front straight and taking turn one, you're trying to get in there as late as you can and every time I went into there, the massive angina would come and release itself down the back straight.
• 40:19
  It's just because you're tensing yourself.
• 40:21
  But hey, look, we never looked back.
• 40:23
  We had that done, and then we did have a little issue originally about getting a license, because motorsports in those days, oh, you can't renew your license anymore.
• 40:34
  So I hung up, and I was devastated.
• 40:38
  And a week later, I rung them up, and I said...
• 40:42
  I want to run in there and you can't run, they said.
• 40:44
  And I said, all right.
• 40:45
  I said, well, you've got your international drivers coming out to run in a month.
• 40:49
  And they said, yeah.
• 40:51
  I said, well, they won't be running.
• 40:53
  Why is that?
• 40:53
  I said, I've got the best lawyer you'll ever see in this country and he's putting a court injunction on you so you can't do it.
• 40:59
  Run it.
• 41:00
  They said, you won't do that.
• 41:01
  And I said, well, you watch me.
• 41:03
  And I said, you go and talk to your lawyers and see if I've got any right to say what I'm saying.
• 41:07
  And within a week, I had a license.
• 41:09
  And now all around the world, anybody that's had heart trouble, as can prove a cardiologist, said you've had, you know, your arteries are open and all that, they can run a car.
• 41:18
  And as I said to them on the phone, I said, have you got any trouble with your heart?
• 41:21
  And they said, no.
• 41:22
  And I said, well, you might drop dead in a minute with that phone not talking to me.
• 41:24
  Because they said, oh, mine are open.
• 41:26
  Yours might be closed.
• 41:27
  Closed, yeah.
• 41:28
  So I stood a lot of crap those days.
• 41:31
  How did you stitch it together along the way, Kenny?
• 41:34
  You talked about the kind of car dealership and things like that before.
• 41:38
  Were you doing other jobs as you were progressing through, or has it just been your life?
• 41:45
  You talked before about some of the money required in America back in the day, and it's an expensive game, isn't it?
• 41:50
  Oh, it is an expensive game.
• 41:51
  But in those early days, like we first started, my father and I were car painting for a number of years and then decided we'd go car dealing, and...
• 41:59
  And that business was good.
• 42:00
  And we just, you know, we worked seven days a week to go motor racing.
• 42:06
  And, you know, it was never time off.
• 42:07
  And you just take your day off when you were going motor racing and then back to work again.
• 42:11
  And my father, he'd work till midnight at night time and we'd do long hours doing car painting and all that to get going.
• 42:18
  And so it was self-funded until later on when we got some sponsorship with some different companies.
• 42:30
  That's the end of part one of my overdue podcast chat with the legend Ken Smith.
• 42:34
  That's not a good enough word for him.
• 42:36
  Because his career is so comprehensive, there is a lot more ground to cover.
• 42:41
  And that is all set for you to enjoy right now.
• 42:44
  Part two is all done and loaded up in our library whenever you have the time.
• 42:48
  Jump back to the garage, then hit the go button and let Kenny tell you about spotting and guiding some modern day stars and how he helped steer Scott Dixon, Greg Murphy, Shane Van Gisbergen and many more in the right direction.
• 43:02
  The iconic cars he's tinkering with here in the workshop.
• 43:05
  And a few rare moments swapping his trademark single seaters for a saloon car.
• 43:11
  That's all ahead here on Rusty's Garage.