Latest / Rusty's Garage / Greg 'Rusty' Rust - Part 1

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Greg 'Rusty' Rust - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:12
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:23
  I'm Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  For this episode, we're celebrating a milestone, 100 feature episodes.
• 0:32
  Now, we could have counted parts twos and threes separately along the way and hit that ton sooner, but we simply did it on guest count of those that had given up their time to properly share their stories.
• 0:45
  I am indebted to all of them, from laughs over beers in the bush with Larco, which you all seem to enjoy, to Casey Stoner opening up on health battles.
• 0:55
  There's movie legends like Eric Banner, my buddy Shane Jacobson, and much, much more.
• 1:00
  Each and every guest or episode is special to me in one way or another.
• 1:05
  I don't do it for the headlines.
• 1:07
  I just love conversations.
• 1:10
  Over the past five years, we've had well over 5 million downloads, which blows my mind, and the pod has won a swag of awards with Motorsport Australia,
• 1:20
  Supercars and Motorsport New Zealand.
• 1:22
  And that is all because of you good people who listen.
• 1:27
  From the bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much.
• 1:30
  It's incredibly humbling to hear how much you all enjoy it.
• 1:35
  Preserving these yarns is something I'm quietly passionate about.
• 1:40
  And there's been regular commercial partners that have shared that vision from Shannon's to Burson's, Michelin Australia, Bendix Breaks and others.
• 1:49
  Thank you for making it possible and continuing to support us.
• 1:54
  And especially to Grant Tottill and the team at Listener who basically let me run my own show.
• 1:59
  I love that autonomy.
• 2:00
  Thank you.
• 2:01
  You trusted me to be the motorsport and automotive guy from the outset of Southern Cross, Osterios, push into podcasting.
• 2:09
  And you surrounded me with a little production team that make real magic.
• 2:15
  From Alex Mitchell, when we first went green, to Ed Gooden, and now Tom Dullard.
• 2:21
  And throw in our editor there too, Link Kelly.
• 2:23
  All are incredibly creative, but as passionate about the end product as I am.
• 2:29
  So how are we going to celebrate this?
• 2:31
  Well, we keep getting DMs and emails from diehard followers of the pod asking me to share more of my story.
• 2:40
  I tend to sprinkle yarns from time to time, but I generally prefer it to be about our guest.
• 2:46
  I don't know.
• 2:46
  For the 100th, I've relented.
• 2:48
  So I'm on the other side of the mic taking questions this time.
• 2:53
  And in the driver's seat is a mate and colleague, Mark Howard, a brilliant communicator whose Howie Games podcast is a true global success story.
• 3:04
  In between his AFL commitments and his recent IPL commentary, he kindly made time to do this, and I am very, very grateful to him.
• 3:13
  Now, we won't get to every story here.
• 3:16
  Those that we don't cover have invariably been shared in other pods.
• 3:21
  But as is Howie's Way, this is like a couple of blokes in jeans and thongs hanging out at the bar, having a chat, and he just lets it take its course.
• 3:31
  I hope you enjoy some of the tales from over two decades of broadcasting around stuff I love.
• 3:38
  Cars, bikes, people, and racing.
• 3:45
  Well, it is the 100th episode of Rusty's Garage.
• 3:49
  There has been all sorts of massive name guests on this show, but I can tell you, it gets none bigger.
• 3:55
  It gets none bigger than the host himself, the most prepared man in media.
• 4:00
  His name is Greg Rust, and he joins me, Mark Howard, on the 100th episode of Rusty's Garage.
• 4:05
  What a treat for me.
• 4:06
  Unfortunately, we're not in the same room, but I see you, big cheesy grin from New Zealand.
• 4:10
  Great man, how are you?
• 4:11
  I'm fantastic, mate.
• 4:12
  I'm on dry July.
• 4:13
  I wish we were having a proper tube together and a, uh, and a giggle.
• 4:17
  And I owe you, uh, firstly, I'm very grateful that you've, you've kindly done this milestone for us, mate, but there is, um, if we rewind the clock, you were the pioneer, you were already on this, this path of podcasting and, um, at that stage podcast one, which is now listener thought there was room for a kind of automotive and, and, and motorsport side of things.
• 4:39
  And, um,
• 4:40
  You were killing it and continue to do so, mate, just doing a super job.
• 4:43
  And I have loved the move into this space.
• 4:46
  It's been awesome.
• 4:47
  Yeah, I remember we talked about it and you said, what's it like?
• 4:50
  And I said, mate, you just chat to people that you think are really cool and you chat to them for an hour, an hour and a half.
• 4:55
  So it's what is there not to like about it, really?
• 4:58
  Exactly.
• 4:58
  How has it taken me 20 years to figure out that I want to channel Michael Parkinson, mate, you know, and talk about stuff we love?
• 5:04
  Yeah.
• 5:05
  Exactly.
• 5:05
  I was thinking about this on the way up.
• 5:07
  This, I'm right in the middle of the cricket at the moment, and it's a clash of two cultures on the cricket.
• 5:12
  You've got basball, that fast form of test cricket, is it going to work?
• 5:16
  And then you've got the Aussies playing traditional test cricket, which is going to come out on top.
• 5:20
  Now, I'm a bit more of a touch and feel man.
• 5:22
  You're a research man, but I've got three and a half pages of notes that, funnily enough, were sent by you, Guru.
• 5:31
  You can just use whatever you want.
• 5:32
  I don't know what you want to talk about.
• 5:34
  So anyway.
• 5:35
  There is so much to talk about.
• 5:36
  I think so people understand like Tommy who produces the Howie Games and he does a lot of work with you.
• 5:43
  He's a star on Rusty's Garage.
• 5:44
  He actually said to me on the way in here, he said, have you ever worked with Rusty?
• 5:47
  And I said, mate, I spent 10 of the funnest years of my broadcasting life when we worked together at Channel 10.
• 5:54
  And I can still remember the very first day, mate, when I started at Channel 10 and it was at the Grand Prix in Melbourne.
• 5:59
  And I walked in and I got introduced to you and to Lee Diffie and to Crompton.
• 6:04
  And I was like, I am so far out of my league here.
• 6:07
  But especially yourself and Lee made me feel so welcome.
• 6:12
  And it was always door is open.
• 6:14
  Any questions you want.
• 6:16
  So when you asked me to come and do this to you, it was the least I could do because you helped me out when I walked into a situation I knew nothing about, mate.
• 6:24
  Thank you, mate.
• 6:25
  That is in part, I reckon, due to a golden period for Channel 10.
• 6:31
  Not only the incredible lineup of motorsport that we had, including Formula One at that stage, they just had the lion's share of everything.
• 6:39
  So to work on WRC and Superbike and MotoGP and everything, and then Formula One was tremendous.
• 6:45
  But the likes of David White, who was the boss of 10 Sport, I mean, he...
• 6:51
  if he kind of called now, mate, and said, hey, we're going to put some boots on and go and help out in the Ukraine, you'd almost say I'm there because he just bolted together this really good team.
• 7:01
  He gave you rope and, you know, you had to deliver.
• 7:08
  There was no two ways about that because he properly knew motorsport and he'd come from a television background where he'd risen right through the ranks.
• 7:16
  But he gave you opportunity, mate, and what we had was this beautiful team,
• 7:20
  and a very special period for the sport.
• 7:23
  So I was fortunate to be a part of that for sure.
• 7:25
  Well, get how you got there.
• 7:26
  I like to just lighten things up a bit at the start, Rusty.
• 7:29
  People don't understand how funny a man you are.
• 7:32
  I know you listen to Rusty's podcast and think, God, he's well-prepared and he's so efficient and he's so professional, which he is, but he's also got a wicked sense of humour that he never lets really into sort of fourth or fifth gear.
• 7:43
  He only gets into about second gear on air.
• 7:47
  My first memories of doing the V8s, we're in Oran Park and you were in the comm box with the big redhead Mark Osler.
• 7:56
  Mark Osler.
• 7:56
  And Diffie and I was doing trackside and doing a bit of stuff in the pit lane.
• 8:01
  And pre going to air when we had to do all the audio tests, you'd be doing your own radio show.
• 8:07
  Typically led, Rusty, by Alan Jones was the star of the show and he's called in now.
• 8:13
  Hello to you, Alan.
• 8:14
  Hello.
• 8:14
  13 18 73.
• 8:15
  Hello, Mark.
• 8:16
  It's terrific to have you on the program and you're doing a wonderful job with the Lister podcast.
• 8:20
  What's that called?
• 8:21
  The Howie Games.
• 8:24
  So with that, Ray Warren, crazily, mate, I would end up doing some big MC jobs with Jonesy in this auditorium in Western Sydney with 450 kids and it was all about safe driving on the road.
• 8:38
  And I thought, how is this older guy whose demographic was sort of 60 to 70, whatever it was on radio, going to connect with these kids about safe driving?
• 8:47
  So I was the emcee.
• 8:48
  He was the guest speaker.
• 8:50
  He rocked up and spoke without a note for sort of 30 minutes or more.
• 8:55
  And you could have heard a pin drop.
• 8:57
  He connected with the kids so unbelievably well.
• 9:00
  So the impersonations made, as they say, sincerest form of flattery.
• 9:04
  I mean, he was the king of Sydney radio there for a while.
• 9:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 9:07
  So people need to understand, like, we'd be getting ready to go on air at the V8s, and you'd think, geez, Alan Jones has wandered into the box, and then Ray Warren would appear as well, which is a personal favourite of mine.
• 9:18
  The cutout pass.
• 9:20
  Howard is there.
• 9:21
  Through the centre now.
• 9:24
  But my favorite.
• 9:25
  So famously, I'm not sure I've ever told this, and this is about you, but famously at the F1s one year, you'd be up in the commentary box with Diffie or the barbecue hour, your mate Mark Webber, and I'd be down there as the drivers arrived, and I was trying to get a word in with your man, Kimmy, and I was like, Kimmy, Kimmy, Kimmy.
• 9:45
  And what I'd failed to realize or hadn't jumped onto that Kimmy had left West McLaren the year before, had been replaced by a Heike Kovalein, who turned around and said,
• 9:53
  My name is not Kimmy.
• 9:55
  It is Hikey.
• 9:57
  And you came down and you gave it to me, but you gave me your best Kimmy impression telling me off, I think.
• 10:03
  I don't want to talk about this.
• 10:06
  I had to interview him at one stage for the Grand Prix and I sat down with the producers and they said, how are we going to unlock him?
• 10:12
  Because he's actually got a bit of personality away from the camera and we've seen that, but he's just so short with –
• 10:21
  He just didn't enjoy media, obviously, and stuff like that.
• 10:23
  And so I came up with these questions.
• 10:26
  He had a love of motorbikes, custom bikes, for example.
• 10:28
  So I started talking about that, and he opened up a bit.
• 10:31
  And we had a little bit of dialogue for the first two or three questions.
• 10:35
  And then the fourth question was about the rumors he was going to leave Ferrari.
• 10:39
  And I kind of went to that as the fourth question, which was a bit...
• 10:42
  big change of direction, suddenly hard hitting.
• 10:45
  And he looked at me and he goes, ah, there's some bullshits in the papers.
• 10:52
  Your Kimmy impression for me has always been the one.
• 10:55
  Righto.
• 10:56
  Let's go back.
• 10:57
  Let's go back to the start, mate.
• 10:59
  Where's this love?
• 11:01
  And you have...
• 11:03
  And people would see that and hear that in your podcast, and that's why it's so successful because you're so passionate about motorsport.
• 11:10
  Where did it come from?
• 11:11
  Was it watching telly?
• 11:12
  Was it a next-door neighbor?
• 11:13
  Where does it come from?
• 11:14
  Mum and Dad.
• 11:15
  So Dad especially, he loved Speedway in his late teens, early 20s.
• 11:21
  Before I could even walk, he and mum were taking me to a place called the Sydney Showground Speedway, which is now Fox Movie Studios in Sydney.
• 11:30
  Later, after that, we would go to Liverpool.
• 11:33
  Liverpool Speedway is now all...
• 11:35
  housing estate.
• 11:36
  I spent a lot of time at Parramatta Speedway as well.
• 11:38
  So bikes and cars, not just cars.
• 11:41
  I owe dad a lot because we didn't race per se.
• 11:45
  My father wasn't a racer.
• 11:46
  He was a passionate enthusiast.
• 11:47
  He did business with a couple of races.
• 11:50
  My dad ran a hydraulic company with about 60 staff and invariably some of the work they did, he got to general manager in the end of the company.
• 11:59
  And some of the stuff they did was for
• 12:01
  legends like the 10-time sprint car champion Gary Rush, Ronnie Wanless and stuff.
• 12:07
  So we would get to go with him sometimes on work trips and meet these people.
• 12:11
  And I have a bit of a friendship with Gary now.
• 12:14
  He's in my podcast library.
• 12:16
  And, I mean, if you – I could go somewhere in the house here now, mate, and find –
• 12:21
  the autograph book that a very nervous Greg Rust would have had when Steve Kinzer and Gary Rush and those guys would battle away at the speedway and, you know, asking them for autographs and stuff.
• 12:31
  And years later, here I am having combos with Rush, you mate, pretty amazing.
• 12:36
  So when you're going through school, are you wanting to be the next Formula One driver?
• 12:42
  Like, is that what you want to do?
• 12:44
  But I know that you're obsessed with racing cars, but your mate Darrell Beattie always told me you didn't have the talent, but you certainly had the passion for it.
• 12:52
  It's like, did you want to race?
• 12:53
  I did a little bit, mainly sort of late high school and just beyond.
• 13:01
  Some club-level stuff, lap dashes, rally sprints and so on.
• 13:06
  I went thirds in a competition car, a Mitsubishi Gallant with some buddies, which was good.
• 13:12
  And then I had a go-kart for a while.
• 13:14
  Dad would come and crew for me, so I did some of that.
• 13:17
  I was very average, mate.
• 13:18
  Once you get to do in your world and mine, when you get to –
• 13:22
  uh you know in in your case you know go into the nets with gilly or or whatever it might be in my case to go for a ride with a mark scape or whatever and you see the way they operate and what they do you just knew they they played this whole other level but but i i loved it i loved the sensation of it the the the
• 13:42
  the sound, the smell, the competition and so on.
• 13:45
  So you took school there a moment ago.
• 13:48
  I actually went to school with Andy Raymond, who's, you know, ended up on Fox Sports and the like.
• 13:53
  He's been a boxing commentator, rugby league commentator.
• 13:56
  He was in BMX back then, mate, and he had some of the best BMX bikes.
• 14:00
  So I was always very envious.
• 14:02
  And then, then years later, mate, his, his dad would be a, I mean, he's proper legend in the broadcasting space, particularly around,
• 14:11
  touring car racing and I'd get a little message from the late Mike Raymond every once in a while, which I cherish even now.
• 14:17
  So you go into...
• 14:19
  finance.
• 14:20
  I didn't know this.
• 14:21
  I picked that up on the 15 pages of notes.
• 14:24
  You went into finance and I could see you as a real sort of, hi Greg, this is accounts receivable.
• 14:29
  How can I help you?
• 14:30
  Like what were you, you would, but see you would have been perfect.
• 14:33
  Like people that don't know Rusty, he would have had the in box, the out box.
• 14:37
  He would have had the red pencil in one pocket and the blue, what you would have been a Mac.
• 14:41
  You would have been tucked in.
• 14:42
  You would have been good to go.
• 14:43
  The kids are.
• 14:45
  Even now, try and ungloom me with the perfection thing, mate.
• 14:47
  They have a lot of fun messing around with stuff here, which we'll get to.
• 14:51
  In short, one of my best buddies from high school, I'm tight with about eight mates even to this day from high school that went off around the world, did different things and have been individually successful either in the medical industry or IT or whatever.
• 15:03
  And one of them, his dad was high up in ANZ.
• 15:08
  He helped me get some work experience that led to I started five days after school, finished on this kind of management traineeship thing.
• 15:16
  And I learned how to do personal loans, home loans.
• 15:21
  I stayed with them for a number of years before I went to –
• 15:24
  some boutique lenders in circular key and so on.
• 15:27
  I can still crunch numbers, mate, but I think about it now.
• 15:29
  I just operate in such a different way with my brain creatively.
• 15:34
  But, yeah, a bit of lending back in the day.
• 15:37
  Can you believe it?
• 15:37
  Hello, Greg Rust.
• 15:38
  How can I help you?
• 15:38
  Yeah.
• 15:40
  I want to know what the outfit was.
• 15:42
  I picked you as a brown slack and a short sleeve shirt.
• 15:46
  I don't know.
• 15:47
  A and Z used to have these uniforms.
• 15:49
  They were either dark blue or grey.
• 15:52
  They had vests and ties.
• 15:55
  And here's a little bit of breaking news for you.
• 15:58
  The first ever on-camera thing I did yesterday,
• 16:02
  anywhere was with them.
• 16:04
  They made this internal staff training video and somehow I got roped into it.
• 16:08
  And I would have that somewhere, mate, on a crook VHS.
• 16:11
  And I would have had boofy hair and bad eyebrows and it was just horrific when I think about it.
• 16:18
  So that's your first crack at the big time.
• 16:20
  But how do you make – like what's the first step from going from personal loans with Greg to being in the media?
• 16:30
  Like it's a reasonably large leap.
• 16:32
  I did in my early 20s basically have a decent career change.
• 16:38
  And it's kind of a lesson for young ones now not to be afraid of them.
• 16:41
  They talk about our kids, your kids and mine, maybe having two or three or more different careers in their time.
• 16:46
  Don't be afraid of that, you know.
• 16:48
  So it was a sliding doors moment.
• 16:50
  I was racing karts.
• 16:51
  I was very average at it.
• 16:53
  They had a major race meeting at Eastern Creek, what we now call Sydney Motorsport Park.
• 16:57
  It was called the Winfield Triple Challenge.
• 16:59
  And they had everything, mate, bikes, cars, drag racing.
• 17:02
  And the go-karts were a support...
• 17:04
  activity there.
• 17:05
  And the club came to me and said, will you go along and commentate?
• 17:09
  And I said, I don't want to do that.
• 17:10
  And they said, no, no, no, no, Andy Raymond's going to be there.
• 17:13
  A fellow by the name of Greg McShane, who's gone to God now and worked with SBS for a while.
• 17:18
  They'll be there.
• 17:19
  They'll ask all the questions.
• 17:20
  You're just doing it kind of for the PA and the big screen.
• 17:23
  And I went, okay.
• 17:25
  So I went along and I did it.
• 17:27
  It had a level of production to it, not full on like you and I are used to in TV now, but a level of production.
• 17:32
  And at the end of it, the guy producing it and running the panel at the back said to me, have you done this before?
• 17:36
  I said, no.
• 17:36
  He said, do you want to do it again?
• 17:37
  I said, yes.
• 17:39
  And two weeks later, the kind of moonlighting started.
• 17:42
  I was at Orrin Park in Sydney doing pit lane and truck racing of all things, mate.
• 17:49
  So the first person I reckon I interviewed was the late Rodney Crick, a good mate of Mark Webber's, truck racing legend.
• 17:58
  And his son now, mate, all these years later is racing cars and doing pretty well for himself.
• 18:02
  His dad would be pretty proud of him.
• 18:04
  So this gets to the first thing that I really wanted to ask you.
• 18:07
  Yep.
• 18:08
  So for people that don't know Rusty but listen to his show and see him on television or hear him on the radio, like I hear you every week on Dead Set Legends here on Triple M with Kath and Joey and the guys.
• 18:19
  And I know that you listen to Rusty and you listen to his podcast.
• 18:24
  It seems perfect.
• 18:25
  And you mentioned Rusty.
• 18:28
  being a perfectionist.
• 18:29
  Everything is where it's meant to be.
• 18:31
  Everything is so beautifully researched.
• 18:32
  So I'll go back to when I walked into Albert Park and was introduced to you guys.
• 18:38
  And it was a great lesson for me in a different way because I saw the preparation you were doing and Diff was doing and Crompton was doing and Daz was doing.
• 18:48
  And it was a bit like what you've given me here.
• 18:51
  It was pages and pages and pages of notes.
• 18:54
  Sorry, mate.
• 18:55
  But no, mate, in a way it set me on a path because I tried to do it at that first Grand Prix to do the research you guys do.
• 19:06
  And it didn't work for me.
• 19:07
  It filled my brain with facts that I wasn't really across, just written out stuff that didn't mean much to me.
• 19:13
  And I learned from that week.
• 19:15
  You've got to prepare.
• 19:16
  You hear athletes say you've got to prepare the way that suits you best.
• 19:19
  And I learned that my way of preparing is very different to your way of preparing, but I admire your way of preparing tremendously because I would compare people that I've worked Rusty alongside Bruce McEvaney as the two hardest people that are listening to this, the two hardest workers and preparers.
• 19:36
  for what they put out.
• 19:37
  Like what the work you do is why you are here now at a hundredth episode and have had a long and storied media career.
• 19:44
  So at what point mate, did you realize that that was your one would that you were going to get your confidence to go to air from doing an enormous amount of hard work and preparation?
• 19:56
  That's very kind of you to say that.
• 19:57
  I am nowhere near a Bruce McEvaney.
• 20:00
  And in truth, mate, I've had to learn over time to strike a balance that you do need a level of prep.
• 20:07
  But I've come particularly through podcasting to appreciate that our sport is very much a human game.
• 20:13
  And sometimes we do get immersed in those numbers.
• 20:16
  And we have in the modern era, we have all different ways of digesting that info, of getting that info.
• 20:23
  So what is it that I can bring to the table?
• 20:26
  aspect, mate.
• 20:27
  That is something in the latter part of my career that I have honed in on and kind of made my lane, if you like.
• 20:34
  I really enjoy that.
• 20:36
  The short answer is that I did some PA commentary for a number of years.
• 20:42
  I met people like David Tapp, son of Johnny Tapp, horse racing commentary legend.
• 20:48
  He told me to go off and do a bit of training with people like Max Rowley.
• 20:54
  I went to – he's a voiceover and presenting legend.
• 20:57
  And I went to the film, television and radio school and kind of honed some basic craft.
• 21:01
  But I am not a true journalist in the sense of the word, right?
• 21:04
  All of the stuff I've learned has been around good people in –
• 21:09
  The finance years, I moonlighted for a time, and my boss actually in the final company I worked for, he used to go to the bike GPs, and he kind of cornered me and said, mate, you should pursue this.
• 21:22
  Why don't you work a couple of days a week for me, make some bucks that you need to keep things going, and then go and chase this stuff on weekends, learn your craft, try and pursue that.
• 21:34
  And I did, and 12 months later, I kind of came back to him and said –
• 21:39
  I was almost going to start the conversation about, I want to go.
• 21:41
  And he just said, go.
• 21:42
  I know why you're here.
• 21:44
  So my old man was in business.
• 21:47
  As I said to you, my grandfather had been in the rag trade and had very senior positions there.
• 21:51
  And I thought they would freak out about me leaving business to try this.
• 21:55
  And both of them could not have been more supportive.
• 21:58
  The dad in particular said to me, I can vividly remember, you give this –
• 22:02
  a proper two years um don't sort of leave anything unturned give it a proper shot don't be on the on the uh front porch age 65 going i i could have done that you know so yeah there's hard work in it i've come to appreciate as i say being a bit more um relaxed about it i'm not i'm not perfect with that sometimes um but the key has been people and fun mate absolutely
• 22:28
  So looking back, and you talked about lessons for kids earlier on, mate, did you have reservations?
• 22:35
  Because like we were joking about the A and Z, but you know, in the 90s, that's a career path, mate.
• 22:41
  You could still be there now.
• 22:42
  You know, you're in 10.
• 22:43
  intelligent man, you get on with people, so whatever you were going to do was going to work out.
• 22:47
  So there's probably a pretty good path laid out for you in the financial world, a successfully financial path for yourself as well.
• 22:54
  Did you ever think, oh, hang on, I'm taking a bit of a punt here or was just, I'm going to follow something that I really enjoy doing?
• 23:01
  Huge trepidation.
• 23:02
  I mean, the trick is, and this is where Diff, as he would have come across in his podcast chat with you, is very good.
• 23:07
  You take a risk.
• 23:08
  You take a punt.
• 23:09
  You have a go.
• 23:10
  There's no point holding onto that, pardon me, that safety net.
• 23:15
  because you will never know.
• 23:17
  So probably two things that I am fortunate of in that point in time is that I got to do a few things that enabled me to learn and to kind of make mistakes that weren't Channel 10 or Frontline, if you will.
• 23:32
  So...
• 23:33
  Firstly, in a television sense, I started a bit of stuff with SBS and Speed Week after a number of years on the PA. Diff and I, I'd met Lee Diffie by this stage.
• 23:41
  He and I were great mates.
• 23:44
  We were trying to do the same thing.
• 23:45
  He was a school teacher, moonlighting as well.
• 23:49
  He would come to our...
• 23:51
  my parents' place and sleep on the fold-out bed in the spare room kind of deal.
• 23:55
  And we'd share jobs together.
• 23:56
  If he got an opportunity because he was so hungry and such a go-getter, if he got a job that was going to be good for him as he climbed the ladder, he would ring me and say, hey, can you cover for me on this one?
• 24:06
  And I go, he made sure.
• 24:07
  So one of them I drove 10 hours to Ballina to call 100 dirt bike races for him.
• 24:12
  I went to the Acuba Nationals.
• 24:15
  in Tamworth, you know, country music capital.
• 24:19
  And I saw Casey Stoner, this little kid running in five different classes.
• 24:25
  And we were like, who is this kid?
• 24:27
  He is going to be, I mean, he was winning or there or thereabouts.
• 24:30
  I mean, you just knew he was going to be special.
• 24:33
  And then there were times where Diff and I got to work together, mate.
• 24:35
  We did one race.
• 24:37
  We did one race meeting.
• 24:39
  We did one at Calder and we did one at a place called Fairbairn Park in Canberra out near the airport.
• 24:43
  and the commentary tower was kind of spider webs and maybe had broken glass, and we'd go, okay, up next, the 125s, and then you'd put your microphone down, and there was a boombox, like a cassette recorder, and it might have had, I don't know, Johnny Farnham or someone playing.
• 24:58
  You'd put the microphone to the speaker and then pick it up.
• 25:01
  Okay, folks, time now for the 250s, and then off you go.
• 25:04
  So I'd cut my teeth doing that.
• 25:06
  A fellow by the name of Greg Seter who runs –
• 25:10
  Australian Video and Entertainment, and he's got the longest-running motorsport show on Australian television on SBS called Speed Week.
• 25:17
  Gave me a chance to do a few things, very basic stuff to begin with.
• 25:22
  His company was attached to a wedding photography company in Burwood in Sydney, but they'll make this television show in a separate –
• 25:31
  room in the business.
• 25:33
  Steve Raymond would go outside and do the hostings in a carport with a sign in the background.
• 25:38
  We would call off a television in like a lounge room with microphones.
• 25:42
  I called a hill climb at one stage and the car starts going up the hill and it's a red Commodore and it cuts to a red Subaru.
• 25:50
  And I went, what?
• 25:50
  And like I was very early in my television career, but I knew about continuity.
• 25:54
  I knew that wasn't right.
• 25:55
  So I'm telling Greg, mate, I'm sorry, this is not right.
• 25:57
  Can we fix it?
• 25:57
  And so on.
• 25:58
  So you learned.
• 25:59
  That's the first time I actually came across Nathan Prendergast, who I know you listened to recently.
• 26:04
  He was there back then, and he's gone on to do some amazing things as a television director.
• 26:09
  So SBS Speed Week helped me cut my teeth.
• 26:13
  In the end, I did a little bit of hosting on that program, so I learned some on-camera stuff there.
• 26:18
  And then separately in radio, David Tapp had picked up a sport director's job at 2GB in the old building in Sussex Street in Chinatown.
• 26:27
  So there was a great crew there then, mate.
• 26:30
  Andrew Moore, who calls league for the ABC.
• 26:34
  Trevor Long, gadget guy, tech guru, who's now on the Today Show, for example.
• 26:38
  He was on the Switch back then.
• 26:39
  He would take the phone calls for us for the radio show.
• 26:42
  Paul Murray was there.
• 26:43
  David Spears, who you know, that hosts Insiders on ABC TV, and Jason Morrison as well.
• 26:50
  Morrison has up until recently been the director of news at Channel 7 for something like eight years, just a real proper news hound.
• 26:58
  And I went through the ranks there, mate, around the grounds, rugby league, AFL, sport news, general reporting.
• 27:07
  And then in the end, I was doing news for them, daytime news, nighttime news for a
• 27:13
  A while there, you know, it's nine o'clock.
• 27:16
  Good morning.
• 27:17
  I'm Greg Rust.
• 27:18
  Award-winning podcaster Mark Howard has been announced as part of the IPL commentary team.
• 27:22
  Darryl Beattie with the story.
• 27:23
  You know, like all this kind of stuff, you know.
• 27:25
  But I loved it.
• 27:26
  I loved the news.
• 27:27
  I had a great bit of fun doing that.
• 27:29
  And those guys, that collective group that I've just rattled off.
• 27:32
  They were exceptionally good to me at learning to write for the spoken word, how to tell a story, what the headline was, and all of the things that a proper journalist would get trained in.
• 27:43
  But because I hadn't gone through uni like that, that was my hands-on learning, mate.
• 27:49
  You've mentioned a couple of people that, like you mentioned David White, who was our boss at Channel 10 and he's in London now.
• 27:55
  I know we both keep in touch with him and without Whitey's confidence and guidance, neither of us would be sitting here chatting to each other like a couple of dickheads that we are now.
• 28:06
  But there's a few people that are close to both our hearts.
• 28:10
  And the first one you mentioned is Lee Diffie.
• 28:12
  So just give me a random you and Lee Diffie story somewhere, sometime, that normally involve late nights at Bathurst when I saw you two just get completely out of control.
• 28:23
  But just give me any Diffie story.
• 28:26
  Did he tell you, this will bring two things together.
• 28:27
  Did he tell you about racking up a serious charge on Barry Sheen's room at Bathurst one year?
• 28:32
  Did he tell you about that?
• 28:33
  I'd like to hear it.
• 28:34
  So Baz, who we love, we'll get to Baz in a minute.
• 28:37
  You know, massive.
• 28:39
  I only learnt in later life, mate, he would get chased by the paparazzi in England.
• 28:43
  I mean, he was a proper megastar over there, right?
• 28:46
  You know, he and I.
• 28:49
  I interviewed him once at the back of Sandown for the world media to talk about the passing of his late mate, George Harrison from the Beatles, you know, stuff like that.
• 29:02
  So anyway, Baz is super tight with his money, but very savvy.
• 29:07
  So we have this big night and the next morning as we go to checkout, I can hear, no, that's not right.
• 29:12
  I didn't know.
• 29:13
  There's not.
• 29:14
  That is not mine.
• 29:16
  Who can hear?
• 29:18
  And anyway, he figured it out in a heartbeat and he pulled him aside and he said, here, I know you think that's funny, but I'm not taking it as funny.
• 29:27
  So he racked up a bill.
• 29:29
  But I mean, we were allowed to, given that freedom to have a bit of fun, but we were asked to work pretty – or expected to work pretty damn hard, mate.
• 29:38
  But the onus was on us.
• 29:40
  David gave us that opportunity.
• 29:46
  It came with expectation, but he bolted together, mate, along with others that were there as well, this immensely tight team that was a joy to be a part of.
• 29:57
  Yeah, he provided a team atmosphere and the team was, the strength of the team was you, Neil Crompton, Diff, Daz, Mark Oster was there when I first got there, the great Mort who used to work for Peter Brock, used to keep the whole thing together in the commentary box, Matty White was involved in and out.
• 30:19
  So how were those early days for you at Channel 10?
• 30:23
  I started in the late 90s.
• 30:27
  in the pit lane, effectively, Diff had been given the opportunity to go and work on the V8s.
• 30:33
  That left a vacancy with the two-litre Super Touring Series, and they were kind of at war with each other, so they wanted different commentary lineups.
• 30:41
  I owe Diff a great debt in that regard because I think he helped –
• 30:48
  offer a solution as he was off to supercars.
• 30:52
  I can remember going to Mike Ortson's office at Channel 10 in a crook tweed jacket with a VHS tape of some stuff I'd done on Speed Week and a powerboat race, which I think had aired on Channel 10 or something.
• 31:04
  And he recommended me.
• 31:05
  Powerboat racing you thought you'd throw in there, Guru.
• 31:07
  Exactly, exactly.
• 31:09
  And he recommended me to Tim and Fran Jardine, who I know to this day from Zed Space, who did some beautiful work around the production of that series.
• 31:19
  And I really learned there, mate, in a television sense.
• 31:22
  Some of the other things where I may have made mistakes before, Timmy learned and taught me about quality.
• 31:28
  Heato was there.
• 31:28
  That's the first time I met Michael Heaton.
• 31:30
  who you've worked with, a great, great editor.
• 31:33
  I mean, he was working his magic on the buttons back then.
• 31:35
  He is a tremendous producer nowadays.
• 31:38
  And so I started in that.
• 31:41
  And the Opportunity 10 then gave me the opportunity to start working in the pit lane.
• 31:45
  I have to say that was probably a fraction awkward to begin with because John Smales had –
• 31:52
  Had been the pit man, the pit hound, if you like, prior.
• 31:56
  Legend.
• 31:56
  Legend of the caper.
• 31:57
  Proper legend.
• 31:58
  Silver Fox, dulcet tones.
• 32:00
  And, mate, if I have half the energy he has to this day when I'm his age, I'll be very happy.
• 32:06
  He's writing books on motorsport now, doing all sorts of great things.
• 32:10
  I mean, he –
• 32:12
  Willie Hagen, who's just got one of the most beautiful voices for motorsport.
• 32:17
  I mean, they were the guys kind of thing.
• 32:19
  So John had been in the pit lane for 10.
• 32:23
  I sort of came in there.
• 32:25
  But Diff...
• 32:27
  And I guess to a degree, we worked very hard on ensuring that we were respectful of that older group.
• 32:33
  Diff, it took us a bit of time, Diff would do this thing called Bikes and Bullshit.
• 32:37
  We would go to dinner in Crow's Nest.
• 32:40
  Wayne Gardner came one time.
• 32:41
  I think Peter McKay, the legendary journalist, came along and we would have these awesome nights.
• 32:46
  We'd be laughing at the top of our lungs.
• 32:48
  We would ultimately get kicked out when the restaurant had to close and so on.
• 32:53
  And what ended up happening was this...
• 32:57
  very respectful thing between the new brigade and the old brigade, if you like.
• 33:01
  But that's how I started out in pit reporting with 10.
• 33:04
  I've done some stuff in the booth over time, which we'll probably get to, but I do feel like that is my natural habitat, mate, my home.
• 33:10
  I love it there, being at the coalface, talking to people and helping to be a conduit, if you like, to get those that the audience wants to hear from to open up about what's going on.
• 33:24
  It's not about
• 33:28
  Glenn Seaton or Mark Winterbottom or Shane Van Gisbergen or Craig Lowndes or whoever it is telling me what the high, the low is or what the backstory is, if you will.
• 33:38
  That's what I always tried to work on when I was in the lane.
• 33:40
  Music
• 33:50
  If you enjoy different stories, see what I did there?
• 33:53
  Check out Rusty's pod with his good friend Lee Diffy who was on the receiving end of a gag in the world Superbikes one year when his co-commentator Steve Parrish, who is also in the Rusty's library, put some iron on transfers on the back of Lee's shirt without him knowing.
• 34:09
  looked like a football player across the back.
• 34:11
  He'd had his Wi-Fi and I stiffed it across the back of it.
• 34:15
  So I'm walking through the Misano World Superbike paddock and I'm waving at the Ducati mechanic.
• 34:20
  Say, mate, how are you?
• 34:21
  And they're kind of looking at me strange and I'm waving.
• 34:24
  People kept looking at me and I'm thinking, what the?
• 34:26
  Bloody hell are they looking at?
• 34:27
  Anyway, it just so happened, it was coincidental that that same meet was part of an RPM, Network 10 Motorsport overseas trip.
• 34:35
  So Billy Woods and Daryl Beattie were there as well.
• 34:38
  Anyway, they were crying with laughter and they said, oh, you poor bugger, we've got to tell you, you got stitched up big time.
• 34:45
  Why do I get the feeling you always have to look over your shoulder in case this lot is up to something?
• 34:51
  They're not a brat pack of motorsport, more like the prank pack.
• 34:54
  Now back to Rusty and Howie.
• 34:57
  So when you first were at Channel 10, what was the uniform?
• 35:02
  Because I only asked you this as a Channel 10X, and we went through some good and some bad.
• 35:07
  I've still got a photo of you, me, Crompton, Diff, Daz, Mort, Kylie King in the Bathurst pit lane, back in the, well,
• 35:16
  I think they were eyes odd.
• 35:17
  That was eyes odd.
• 35:18
  We were in these like beige tops with the 10 logo.
• 35:22
  And I, for whatever reason that day, I didn't read the memo.
• 35:24
  So I turned up in the blue jacket, but the rest of you were all in your beige tops.
• 35:27
  I'm the one idiot standing out.
• 35:31
  We had a few different ones over time.
• 35:32
  I didn't go through the denim.
• 35:34
  Mate, they were golden days.
• 35:36
  I can remember Bathurst was always a massive week, right?
• 35:40
  Yeah.
• 35:42
  For the audience's benefit here, they typically set up a TV compound.
• 35:45
  So there's like these school demountable buildings that are maybe set in a U-shape, and some of them are edit suites, and some of them are production offices, and meeting rooms, and so on.
• 35:54
  There's 200.
• 35:54
  I can remember the production meetings that Murray Lomax would be in charge of, and there'd be 250 people at the production meeting.
• 36:01
  Like 250, Guru.
• 36:02
  Yep.
• 36:03
  I think at its peak, mate, it nearly got to 300 or thereabouts.
• 36:06
  It was massive, massive.
• 36:07
  So-
• 36:08
  Quick story, I'm going sideways here.
• 36:10
  No, please do.
• 36:11
  But I was working at the office at Pyrmont there.
• 36:17
  no doubt grabbing some of the stash of Kit Kats.
• 36:20
  Baz always wanted Kit Kats, so they were always in the draw.
• 36:23
  But it was a Monday.
• 36:24
  No one was there because they were getting ready to go to Bathurst.
• 36:26
  It's race week.
• 36:27
  And Anthea, Maida and Belinda Mortars are already there.
• 36:30
  The compound is set up and they're waiting for the arrival of the crew for a big week of stories and then on air.
• 36:37
  So I had to ring.
• 36:38
  I rang, you know, we're talking landlines here, not mobile.
• 36:42
  I ring the compound and Anthea answers,
• 36:46
  And she's got this real hurried tone or, you know, stressful tone in her voice.
• 36:52
  Hello, 10 Production, whatever.
• 36:54
  Which is not out here.
• 36:55
  I immediately switched to a voice, mate.
• 36:57
  And I go, G'day, love.
• 36:59
  It's Barry here from Bathurst-Portaloos.
• 37:01
  How you going?
• 37:02
  She goes, oh, good, thanks.
• 37:05
  Good, thanks.
• 37:05
  And I go, listen.
• 37:07
  I've got two females and a male to drop off here.
• 37:11
  I'll get the trucks on its way.
• 37:12
  Where do you want us to drop them?
• 37:13
  And I can hear her flicking through the production manual or paper.
• 37:17
  And she goes, I'll be with you in a moment.
• 37:19
  And she goes, no, no, no.
• 37:23
  All of our bathroom facilities are already here.
• 37:25
  We're already set up.
• 37:26
  They're not ours.
• 37:26
  I said, love, don't shoot the messenger.
• 37:28
  I'll just drop them off and you can work it out.
• 37:31
  And I'll hang the phone up.
• 37:32
  Yeah.
• 37:34
  So that sort of stuff used to go on all the time, mate.
• 37:36
  And to be fair, rightfully, I was on the receiving end of it sometimes too.
• 37:40
  You had to be sharp.
• 37:45
  So play-by-play in the V8s?
• 37:48
  In 2000.
• 37:50
  Yeah, so you're the pit lane man.
• 37:51
  And there's been some amazing people in the pit lane, but I think you're right, you know, the natural habitat.
• 37:57
  Like you look at Rihanna do it now or Greg Murphy, who are fantastic at it.
• 38:02
  I was terrible at it.
• 38:03
  You were always...
• 38:06
  just in control and the respect every, I think you were good at it because everyone in the pit lane had such tremendous respect for you that they were happy to talk to you in the most difficult situation.
• 38:15
  So again, that's a big decision like that, that that's your area.
• 38:19
  And then I guess the commentary box is seen as in some ways, the next step, but I don't know if it always is the next step, but you took that step.
• 38:27
  I did.
• 38:28
  Um, you could argue in the benefit or with the benefit of hindsight, was it, was it right?
• 38:34
  Um,
• 38:36
  I mean, I can't not be proud or be happy of the fact that I got to call things like Garth Tander and Jason Barguana getting their breakthrough Bathurst win with Gary Rogers at the end of 2000.
• 38:46
  There were some immensely good things there.
• 38:51
  There was kind of a train smash made at the end of 2000.
• 38:55
  I can vividly recall David White calling me.
• 38:57
  I know exactly where I was when I took that call.
• 39:00
  And he told me that Krompo would be taking more of a central role in 2001 and that would mean I would be shuffled sort of out of there and back to the pit lane.
• 39:14
  That was hard to take.
• 39:15
  That was absolutely hard to take at the time.
• 39:18
  But I learnt – You get off the phone and you're like, oh, wow, there's my dream just being crushed.
• 39:23
  Well, yes.
• 39:26
  I've come, mate, to have this –
• 39:28
  attitude or approach that Dick Johnson's got that great old line about, the only thing you get by looking backwards is a stiff neck kind of thing.
• 39:36
  You always got to be eyes forward.
• 39:39
  The first thing I did, I thought about it for a few minutes and yes, I was gut-wrenching.
• 39:43
  The first thing I did almost immediately was pick up the phone and ring Crompo and I said,
• 39:51
  no hard feelings.
• 39:52
  He was almost kind of speechless.
• 39:53
  He was not expecting me to call.
• 39:54
  I said, no hard feelings.
• 39:56
  I want to work with you on this.
• 39:59
  I want to find a way to either get back in the pit lane or whatever and make my own mark again.
• 40:10
  So the other aspect to this story is, and it's a little sidestep here,
• 40:19
  I made a mistake in 2000.
• 40:20
  It's not one that was kind of fully my fault, but I have to own it.
• 40:25
  I'm a big believer in owning things when shit goes wrong.
• 40:29
  So Craig Lowndes was moving from the Holden Racing Team to Ford.
• 40:33
  It was a very high-profile switch.
• 40:35
  You can imagine any athlete in the world you're in now basically defecting to something else.
• 40:43
  And I was out on the road on a job and the producer for Sports Tonight called me.
• 40:49
  I'm not going to name him because I don't want to throw him under the bus or blame him.
• 40:54
  But the call basically went something like, you know, hey, mate.
• 40:57
  It's all happening.
• 40:58
  Lowndes going, you know, da-da-da-da-da.
• 41:01
  And I should have stopped and asked more questions, and I didn't.
• 41:06
  And I broke an embargo, and it's the one time, mate, I have broken an embargo.
• 41:10
  And I was deeply upset with myself for doing that.
• 41:14
  I didn't like doing it.
• 41:15
  Explain what you mean.
• 41:15
  People are going, you broke an embargo.
• 41:17
  So an embargo basically means –
• 41:19
  A sporting organisation might be announcing something really significant.
• 41:23
  They will help the media prepare for that by releasing some information, often via email nowadays, back then probably by fax or whatever.
• 41:32
  And it's very strictly marked on the press release or the email that this is embargoed until this time or this date.
• 41:42
  So you can know that information.
• 41:44
  You are not allowed to publicly discuss it.
• 41:47
  And I didn't ask that question of the producer.
• 41:49
  I didn't ask enough questions in the haste of thinking that this was out there and what have you.
• 41:57
  I got on radio and talked about it.
• 41:59
  It was within about two hours of the embargo, I think, or three hours of the embargo.
• 42:03
  Some of the HRT staff didn't know, and I was very disappointed about that.
• 42:08
  I'm sure Craig told a few people, key people about it, but that's not the point.
• 42:14
  You don't break embargoes like that, and I've never done it since.
• 42:17
  So that was a very difficult moment, mate, and I stopped.
• 42:22
  I owned it.
• 42:23
  I faxed him back in the days of faxing.
• 42:26
  I faxed John Crennan, the boss of the Holden Racing team and Holden Special Vehicles, who's a very tough man, and he was seething, rightly so.
• 42:34
  If I was in his shoes, I'd be seething too.
• 42:37
  Years later, he would call me and say, mate, can you go to Channel 7?
• 42:41
  And he goes, I think the pit lane stuff is a bit lacking.
• 42:43
  I'd love you to be there, and I think we need you to help lift it.
• 42:46
  And it took time.
• 42:48
  You had to go through that difficult moment.
• 42:51
  but I garnered his respect in the wake of it, right?
• 42:54
  I don't want to repeat something like that, but I garnered his respect.
• 42:56
  So that's kind of lesson number one, own it.
• 42:59
  Providing it's not a career wrecker, Howie, providing you're not in the papers for something really bad,
• 43:05
  I think you are often judged on how you come back from those moments, not the actual setback itself.
• 43:13
  So I immersed myself in it.
• 43:14
  I went about a period of reinvention.
• 43:16
  What could I do?
• 43:17
  I started doing stories for RPM.
• 43:21
  And I can remember, mate, in the period of uncertainty, David, we were at a pre-season production meeting in Mossman,
• 43:30
  And David kind of put his hand on my shoulder and he goes, relax, mate.
• 43:34
  It's okay.
• 43:35
  He didn't tell me specifics about where I was going to end up, what I was going to be doing, but he just wanted me to not sweat it too much.
• 43:44
  It was bad.
• 43:45
  We could move forward.
• 43:47
  But the onus is on you.
• 43:49
  And so, mate, I grabbed it with both hands and I went for it.
• 43:53
  I started doing feature stuff for RPM.
• 43:55
  I started reporting on the Australian Rally Championship.
• 43:58
  I went back to the lane for supercars and I kind of made it my turf, mate.
• 44:05
  So I was deeply sad at what I did years later on this very podcast, mate.
• 44:11
  I apologize to Craig Lowndes.
• 44:13
  You know, I walked him through it.
• 44:16
  Yeah.
• 44:17
  In part, it wasn't my fault, but you have to own it, mate.
• 44:20
  I f***ed up.
• 44:21
  I did not ask the right questions.
• 44:25
  I raced into it in a manner that I wouldn't do now, and I learnt a tough lesson.
• 44:30
  But I certainly believe that I earned a lot of...
• 44:35
  respect by knuckling down.
• 44:36
  I mean, some days there, mate, with RPM, I'd pull 24-hour shifts.
• 44:40
  I would sift through tape and I would find sound bites and bits of vision and Darrell on a dirt bike and a jump with this and something with that.
• 44:47
  And you would paper edit the stuff and give it to the editor so they could make these beautiful big features.
• 44:52
  And I've kept a lot of that stuff.
• 44:54
  I'm very, very proud of it, mate.
• 44:56
  It was manual, hands-on.
• 44:58
  I'm not a proper editor like a Michael Heaton or a Jarvis who you work with, mate, those sort of legends.
• 45:05
  but yeah, own it.
• 45:09
  If it's not a career wrecker, how can you come back from it and don't be afraid to reinvent?
• 45:13
  That were probably my lessons there.
• 45:15
  As RPM, you know, that was back in the day of six, seven-minute sports stories.
• 45:18
  Correct.
• 45:19
  Which seems like an epic these days with everything on.
• 45:22
  But I know you're big on TikTok, Guru, so she's a good fan.
• 45:26
  No, I'm not.
• 45:26
  The kids won't let me hear it, mate.
• 45:29
  Probably.
• 45:29
  I think you'd have an impersonation channel.
• 45:31
  You'd blow up the old TikTok.
• 45:33
  Do you want a quick story about impersonations that nearly landed me in trouble and I got away with it?
• 45:39
  I got away with it.
• 45:40
  Years later, it was around the advent of live streaming,
• 45:45
  We were getting ready for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
• 45:47
  It was myself, Craig Baird and Darrell Beattie.
• 45:49
  We were on set and the NBL grand final was on.
• 45:51
  It was the lead up program before our coverage.
• 45:55
  And it goes into overtime.
• 45:56
  It's a cliffhanger.
• 45:57
  It goes into overtime.
• 45:59
  So that naturally starts eating into the half hour preview we have before qualifying.
• 46:04
  So we're all dolled up.
• 46:05
  We're on the desk.
• 46:06
  I don't know what color the shirts were back then, but we're on the desk.
• 46:09
  And we're sitting there and we can see on the monitors, you can see the NBL game going on.
• 46:14
  So I break into Ray Warren, mate.
• 46:17
  Well, there's the cutout past or so-and-so and so-and-so, right?
• 46:19
  Right.
• 46:21
  So it all goes fine.
• 46:22
  The Malaysian broadcast is mint.
• 46:25
  And on the Monday, Hito rings me and he goes, now, he's got this sort of panicked tone in his voice.
• 46:30
  And he goes, now, I don't want you to freak out about this.
• 46:33
  And it's actually been received very, very well.
• 46:36
  And we've had a few people say it was quite funny.
• 46:38
  And I go, what happened, mate?
• 46:39
  And he goes, well...
• 46:41
  It's the early advent of streaming, right?
• 46:43
  And a lot of it was automated.
• 46:45
  So here's another lesson to all of us broadcasters about a live mic can be going anywhere.
• 46:50
  Be careful.
• 46:51
  I broke into Ray Warren for eight minutes.
• 46:54
  I thankfully never slandered anyone or did anything bad.
• 46:57
  When it kicked in at five o'clock, it went live somewhere on some internet thing.
• 47:03
  And a few people were listening.
• 47:04
  A few people were listening.
• 47:06
  Yeah.
• 47:06
  And, mate, I got away with it.
• 47:07
  I got away with it.
• 47:08
  And Hito's trying to calm me down and telling me that the feedback's actually been good.
• 47:13
  I'm enjoying the names you bring up, Michael Heaton, when he used to produce the Formula One and you and the barbecue, and you'd be up there running the whole show, and I'd be in the pit lane or in the paddock.
• 47:24
  And Hito would say, all right, mate, we need to fill for three minutes.
• 47:28
  I say, I've got nothing.
• 47:29
  He said...
• 47:30
  Guru, just talk.
• 47:31
  I said, I got to just talk.
• 47:33
  And he just cut down to hear me like, oh, here we are.
• 47:37
  Great man, Michael Heaton.
• 47:38
  I mentioned Billy Woods on RPM, another man that was tremendous at the Channel 10 stage.
• 47:42
  Mate, on the little podcast I do that you kindly mentioned at the start, I had Grant Denyer on.
• 47:48
  Late last year.
• 47:50
  And I told him that he texted me saying, turn your TV on.
• 47:55
  And it was September 11, 2001.
• 47:58
  And he was in the newsroom.
• 48:00
  And he reminded me later off air, because we were talking about the psychological impact on reporting on September 11.
• 48:07
  It struck my mind that he said, I reckon Rusty was involved in the coverage of September 11th.
• 48:13
  So let me paint a picture as best I can here.
• 48:16
  So it's late at night.
• 48:17
  It's, I don't know, 10 or 10.30.
• 48:19
  Most of the newsroom is starting to clear out for the night.
• 48:22
  Sandra Sully is on reading the news.
• 48:24
  I've been working in the Sports Tonight team, helping the preparation of their side of the bulletin.
• 48:30
  And I walked past what's called News Exchange.
• 48:33
  And for people that don't know, that is like a small office, if you will, but it's got a massive bank of monitors with feeds coming in from all over the world, Reuters and NBC and BBC and all this sort of stuff.
• 48:45
  And you're seeing what everyone else is broadcasting at the time because as with news, you can then take that and use it because it's for news purposes, right?
• 48:53
  And I walked past and the guy that is –
• 48:56
  recording and monitoring everything in there.
• 48:58
  I said, how are you going?
• 49:00
  And he's kind of ashen-faced.
• 49:02
  And he said, mate, I think I just saw a plane go into the World Trade Center.
• 49:05
  And I said, what?
• 49:07
  And I'm thinking like a Cessna, like a little someone's, you know, had a moment, whatever.
• 49:13
  And Sandra's producer was sharp.
• 49:16
  He switched to it straight away.
• 49:18
  He made Sandra start LVOing, live voiceovering the pictures and like that's big, big mission, big mission.
• 49:26
  Big mission.
• 49:26
  Yeah.
• 49:27
  And then the phone rings in Sports Tonight and I grab it and it's the producer who's in the control room and he goes, are you watching this?
• 49:33
  And I go, yes.
• 49:33
  He goes, record everything.
• 49:34
  So I start recording everything.
• 49:38
  There's tape and machines going everywhere.
• 49:40
  And the whole newsroom starts to come back to life.
• 49:43
  I mean, I genuinely thought, mate, it was the start of World War III.
• 49:48
  So Jason Morrison, who I mentioned before, was the chief of staff back then.
• 49:52
  He comes in.
• 49:53
  I'd worked with him in radio.
• 49:54
  And he goes, have you been watching this?
• 49:56
  And I said, yeah, mate.
• 49:57
  It's all being recorded.
• 49:58
  Here's this, here's this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 50:00
  And he goes, okay, are you –
• 50:04
  in a position to stay the night, work through the night, and make us a five to six minute story that encapsulates the lot.
• 50:12
  We're gonna do a six or 7 a.m. bulletin the next morning.
• 50:16
  And I want this to be the lead story that sums it up for everybody who's waking up that hasn't seen what's gone on.
• 50:21
  You gotta step us through it, right?
• 50:23
  Okay, no worries.
• 50:24
  So I start gathering that together.
• 50:26
  He was very helpful because he was next level wordsmith and knew what was important.
• 50:32
  I've kept it.
• 50:33
  I have kept that story, mate.
• 50:34
  I took the kids there in 2016.
• 50:43
  In truth, brother, I was, whatever it was, 16,000 kilometres away.
• 50:48
  I was not reporting on it.
• 50:50
  I was just compiling it, right?
• 50:53
  But it became very, very real when you see, you know, when first responders take you around and, man,
• 51:00
  Yeah, very oddly proud of that.
• 51:03
  So when that was happening, I have a good friend from a long time ago who was an editor at the time, Rusty, and it's a serious conversation.
• 51:18
  And she talked about what she saw.
• 51:22
  and we don't need to go into it.
• 51:23
  It's reasonably obvious.
• 51:23
  You know, what we saw on the news was graphic enough, but there was stuff that was too graphic for the news.
• 51:29
  Obviously, 20-odd years later, that still sits in the back of your mind because if you're sitting there hitting record on every feed that's coming in, you're seeing stuff that the rest of us thankfully never had to see, I presume.
• 51:42
  Yep.
• 51:43
  Jason was very good in that regard, mate, because he was your filter.
• 51:46
  He was the difference between...
• 51:49
  what's a step too far and what's palatable.
• 51:51
  You know, as I said, mate, it was very confronting, but it wasn't real.
• 51:58
  I was, you know, thousands of kilometres away.
• 52:00
  But when I went there years later and seen what they'd rebuilt and heard the on-the-ground stories, it was,
• 52:05
  It became very, very real for me.
• 52:07
  But the team did an amazing job that night.
• 52:09
  Everyone came back in.
• 52:11
  The newsroom was alive through, you know, 3am, 4am.
• 52:15
  All these people that properly knew.
• 52:17
  I mean, you walk in there into some newsrooms now, mate, and they're a shell of what they used to be, very, very sadly.
• 52:23
  But back then, there were some seriously good operators that knew what to do.
• 52:28
  They dispatched people on the ground and made a great bulletin the next day.
• 52:39
  That's the end of part one of my podcast.
• 52:42
  Apologies for the little moment there.
• 52:44
  That's the softer side of me coming through.
• 52:46
  I'll try and keep it in check for the second instalment, which is all loaded up and ready for you to hit the gas on whenever you like.
• 52:53
  From the impact Barry Sheen had and some funny yarns from his time working with us at Channel 10,
• 53:00
  he is still missed greatly to this day.
• 53:02
  The time I took the dog to work and the chaos that ensued, stepping out of my comfort zone for big gigs like the Commonwealth Games coverage and working on the Winter Olympics broadcast too.
• 53:14
  A movie cameo complete with porn star moustache and the lifestyle reset that has lent some perspective.
• 53:23
  All that and a whole lot more on a milestone episode of Rusty's Garage.