Latest / Rusty's Garage / Neil Crompton (Part 1)

Transcript

Neil Crompton (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:29
  I'm back in Melbourne for this ep, and my guest is someone you've all been emailing and asking on socials to get.
• 0:36
  Neil Crompton is the voice of supercars.
• 0:39
  He's one of the hardest working people I've ever met, globally respected for his work in motorsport, in broadcasting and in the automotive sector.
• 0:48
  When Crombo does something, it's organised with military precision, executed perfectly, and the presentation always blows you away.
• 0:57
  He's not the kind to bang on about himself, so pinning him down for this chat has taken a while, but it's been worth the wait.
• 1:04
  We won't get to every aspect of his career, but we cover some fantastic stuff.
• 1:10
  It'll appeal to lovers of bikes too, because he's been successful on two and four wheels.
• 1:16
  Hopefully it also gives you a sense of the work he does behind the scenes to better the sport.
• 1:21
  Over the past 20 years, I've seen just how much this really drives him.
• 1:26
  First and foremost, he's a racer with an impressive CV.
• 1:30
  NC drove for Peter Brock, alongside Craig Lowndes, and for some of the best factory teams.
• 1:36
  The commentary career has taken him all around the world.
• 1:39
  Formula One, his beloved Champ Car or IndyCar, and more.
• 1:43
  He quietly counts some famous names as friends.
• 1:47
  His own production company has won awards for its work, and he runs the very professional Toyota 86 Racing Series in Australia too.
• 1:55
  Krompo is a family man, a pretty handy water skier, and one of the most thorough light aircraft pilots you'll ever fly with.
• 2:03
  All these skills were born out of a fascination.
• 2:06
  Actually, obsession is a better word that was evident very early on.
• 2:12
  Grew up in Ballarat, Western Victoria, born, bred, snap, frozen, because it's the world's coldest place.
• 2:18
  Very close to it.
• 2:20
  I think it came from dad, but there's no real logical origin for all of this other than for some obscure reason, perhaps laced somewhere in the DNA, that...
• 2:29
  there was a car fixation and as a kid literally as a toddler because in those days there was no such thing as having to worry about seat belts and there's probably one tenth the volume of cars on the road I would stand between mum and dad and call the brand names out going the other way which is frighteningly sad but it's true so um and just dreamt of cars drew cars talked about cars
• 2:59
  Obsessed.
• 3:00
  I love it.
• 3:01
  So recently you and I were at the Motorsport Australia Awards and you got a well-deserved gong there.
• 3:05
  And in the citation, it talked about you and a Honda minibike and how the racing sort of journey started.
• 3:13
  Tell us a bit more about that bike.
• 3:15
  What happened to it and what were the early sort of memories, if you have them?
• 3:19
  Actually, the very first bike, just predating even what was referenced in that lovely document, was a Yamaha something.
• 3:27
  I don't know what the designation was, but let's just, for the sake of it, call it a pressed frame 90cc something.
• 3:33
  You know, those ugly old things that kind of looked like the fuel tank was accidentally backwards?
• 3:38
  It's kind of predating the Lee Diffie posty bike disaster by a couple of decades most likely.
• 3:44
  But really ugly, horrible, nasty thing, probably a real early forerunner to what was ultimately an explosion of Japanese motorcycles, which was huge in that mid-70s.
• 3:57
  So I think it was motorcycle number one.
• 3:59
  I don't know where it came from, it was a shocking old thing, but one of the...
• 4:04
  One of the things that kind of underpinned the family life back in those days was that, you know, dad worked for what was known as the SEC in Victoria, or the State Electricity Commission.
• 4:12
  So, humble guy, humble job, you know, very straightforward nine to five existence.
• 4:18
  But outside ours, it was clean cars, buy and sell cars, do things up was the phraseology, you know, was the inverted around it.
• 4:27
  So,
• 4:28
  there was always something going on.
• 4:29
  There was an engine being reconditioned, a gearbox being fitted, a car being bought or sold or cleaned, and he was a ridiculous clean freak.
• 4:36
  So it came along as a second-hand bike because he had a wheeler-dealer nature.
• 4:41
  So I've got no doubt that he paid next to nothing for it.
• 4:44
  And back in those days, everything was bartered.
• 4:46
  So you probably swapped, you know, two hamburgers with the lot and a couple of pairs of shoes with a bottle of Coke, and next minute you had a motorbike.
• 4:54
  So, and that was how it all started.
• 4:56
  And then I know...
• 4:58
  In 1972, because it was a really big deal, in those days there was no GST, but there was a sales tax.
• 5:04
  So if you had a friend who had a farm, you could buy things with a sales tax exemption, which is a big deal, big deal.
• 5:12
  And I think the first new motorcycle I had was a Honda SL70.
• 5:17
  It was a beautiful little thing.
• 5:19
  It was a little red and white tank.
• 5:22
  And in those days, the first thing you did was unbolt the exhaust and then we went and got a straight-through exhaust, chromed, because the chrome made it that much faster.
• 5:31
  All you needed was the pot plants to go with it.
• 5:33
  And just so it was noisy and it really, really cheesed off the neighbours then.
• 5:38
  Um, and, uh, yeah, and that was it.
• 5:40
  And I reckon, and I could well be lying, but I reckon it was about a $275 device or maybe a $300 device.
• 5:48
  But when you didn't have to pay the sales tax, it was probably 250 bucks.
• 5:52
  So that was kind of where it started.
• 5:53
  And in actual fact, um, and it's up on the office wall and I bump him every now and again, and you'll, you'll know him.
• 5:59
  There's a, uh,
• 6:01
  One of the first races I ever did was at a place called Wallen, north of Melbourne, just off the Hume Highway.
• 6:08
  And it was a mini bike park.
• 6:11
  And, you know, at that point in time, mini bikes and motorcycles in the Japanese...
• 6:18
  explosion, if you like, of the Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and kind of everything that went with it was just huge.
• 6:24
  I mean, this was permeating almost every corner of the universe.
• 6:28
  And so, you know, that was a really big deal.
• 6:31
  So it was like you'd go to these race meetings and it was just like...
• 6:36
  It was like an invasion.
• 6:37
  You know, it was just like thousands, it seemed like thousands of these things and unruly kids going in every direction.
• 6:42
  So in the current world, in, you know, high-vis vest land where you'd need permission to take a wee, you know, just can you imagine hundreds if not thousands of kids all blazing around on these things between races, in the paddock, out the back, testing, whatever.
• 6:56
  So that's what it was like in those days.
• 6:58
  So there was sort of just an unbelievable amount of them.
• 7:00
  But to the point...
• 7:01
  I scored a podium, actually won a race.
• 7:03
  I think I've still got the skanky little gold medal somewhere.
• 7:06
  But there's a photo of us and it was on the back of a thing called Mini Bike News or Motorcycle Action or some damn thing.
• 7:12
  And I've still got the clipping.
• 7:14
  And the guy, I won it, and the guy that came third was a guy called Rob Urquhart.
• 7:18
  Well, Rob Urquhart works to this day in Matt White's Dunlop Super 2 team.
• 7:23
  So it's a hi Ralph, hi Sam moment for those who are listening who've ever looked at those silly Bugs Bunny cartoons.
• 7:29
  So I see Robbie...
• 7:31
  You know, every few weeks whenever there's a DVS race on with the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.
• 7:36
  Hey, Robbie, how are you, mate?
• 7:37
  Yeah, good, good, good.
• 7:38
  And the sort of, you know, we're kind of the sole survivors.
• 7:40
  We're the cockroaches that just can't be got rid of.
• 7:44
  In that period, I don't know what the year would have been, did you and now Supercars team owner Brad Jones cross paths?
• 7:51
  And I think in that two-wheel period you like to remind him of a particular race weekend.
• 7:55
  Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact.
• 7:58
  Well, we're fast-forwarding now to 1974.
• 8:00
  four and five so I think I would have unfortunately crossed paths with Bradley in 1974 but we didn't really know each other because you know Albury and Ballarat were light years apart in those days so he kind of raced properly in slightly different region to me but be certain events where you you would be aware you know how you're always aware when you're competitive who's that bloke you know oh look at the boots he's got I wonder what sort of hand grips are on that thing you know so so there was always that kind of nonsense going on but yeah I certainly knew him and uh
• 8:29
  His family had a bit of a motocross background as well, but there was one infamous event at Wonthaggie down in Gippsland in eastern Victoria where it was the world's – it's very loamy, very black soil down there.
• 8:45
  And when it gets wet, it just turns into –
• 8:47
  It looks like a black bean sauce.
• 8:49
  You know, it looks like a trip to your local Chinese restaurant gone wrong.
• 8:52
  And we were knee deep in mud.
• 8:54
  And I accidentally won the Victorian Junior Motocross Championship and absolutely flogged Bradley, which, of course, is only appropriate.
• 9:01
  And that tradition stayed that way for decades.
• 9:04
  And I'm sure he'll respond by, I have no doubt.
• 9:07
  In kind, in kind.
• 9:08
  So what were the cars in the family then?
• 9:10
  And did your late dad sort of say, right, we'll pack up and we'll trek off to some of these race meetings?
• 9:16
  Is that how it all kind of began?
• 9:17
  Yeah, well, it becomes an obsession.
• 9:19
  And, you know, I always...
• 9:21
  I stupidly imagined that I'd race cars, but I never had any understanding of how I might get there.
• 9:26
  So I guess I exercised that desire through the motorcycle racing in the early days.
• 9:32
  And you don't appreciate it when you were a kid, but I certainly do now as an adult.
• 9:35
  You don't realise how much sacrifice parents make.
• 9:38
  So this would have been an enormous undertaking for my dad and, you know, buying a motorcycle, scraping money together, working on it.
• 9:47
  But, I mean, what it also did was it gave you a real valuable lesson about life and preparedness and rolling your sleeves up.
• 9:54
  You know, really, I can't ever remember being bored ever in my life.
• 9:59
  You know, I've just always been one of those maniacs who feels like there's a size 10 mission and there's only size 8 time.
• 10:06
  And that applies from as far back as I can remember.
• 10:10
  And I probably picked that up from dad.
• 10:12
  So there was always a place to be going.
• 10:15
  We didn't go crazy far afield, but we'd go...
• 10:19
  For those that geographically understand Victoria, we'd go to Geelong.
• 10:22
  There was a place called Barrable.
• 10:23
  We'd go to Newtown, which was southwest of Ballarat.
• 10:26
  We'd go to Horsham.
• 10:27
  We'd go to maybe Mount Gambier or Colac or Bendigo.
• 10:31
  Ravenswood was the track in those days and all those sorts of places.
• 10:34
  I think Shepparton and kind of within a reasonable radius because there's a point where you're
• 10:40
  You can't get up early enough in the morning to be able to get to the race meetings and back.
• 10:45
  And we had some pretty wicked transporters in those days.
• 10:49
  You know, I think one of the delightful Pommie offerings was a comma van.
• 10:55
  Oh, wow.
• 10:55
  So I was actually talking to Bradley about this just the other day.
• 10:58
  I can remember being at it.
• 10:59
  It was a place called Monza Park, not to be confused with the famous Italian racetrack, but it's just south of Ballarat.
• 11:06
  And it was so cold that I...
• 11:10
  I remember jamming an umbrella on the throttle pedal of this thing.
• 11:14
  I wasn't old enough and licensed to drive, so Dad would have started her up, got her running.
• 11:19
  We would have jammed something on the throttle to make the engine run, to make the water warm, to make the heater work.
• 11:25
  Um...
• 11:25
  and coming in off the back of races that were so cold, you put your hand in an ice cream container of cold water and have the heater running to just try and get some feeling back in your hands because you literally looked like you had two claws.
• 11:38
  You couldn't actually unwrap your hands off the handlebars properly.
• 11:41
  So, yeah, so anyway, wandered all over the state and did all that sort of stuff and, you know, learned how to maintain machinery and...
• 11:49
  Used to get really incredibly nervous in those days.
• 11:51
  I was thinking about it because there's a bit of this reflection going on at the moment across different mates and they used to get horrendously nervous.
• 11:59
  Did it affect you?
• 12:00
  Oh, there was kind of a feeling that you had, you know, because to this day I hate getting up mega early.
• 12:07
  And to get to some of those places and to get ready to go to scrutineering and all that sort of stuff, you probably had, I don't know, I'm guessing, but you probably had to be there at 7.30 or 8 o'clock in the morning.
• 12:15
  So if you're going to go to...
• 12:18
  Shepparton or Wonthaggy or Mount Gambier or whatever.
• 12:21
  I mean, you're probably getting up at 3.30 or something stupid.
• 12:24
  And it was – I used to feel sick, you know.
• 12:26
  It was – but, you know, I loved it.
• 12:29
  And stupidly, again, I kind of always imagined when I was riding the bike that I was racing a car.
• 12:35
  So I sort of converted the obsession in a different way.
• 12:38
  But really fond times.
• 12:39
  Did a lot of it over a long period of time and look back at it now very fondly.
• 12:43
  Still got a few scars to prove the mission.
• 12:46
  Before we move to the car chapter, that was kind of my next question.
• 12:48
  A, injuries, and B, were there heroes?
• 12:51
  Were there some meetings that you went to where you were like, oh, man, it was so good to see that person race?
• 12:56
  Oh, absolutely.
• 12:57
  In that period, I couldn't tell you the exact dates, but there's probably a bit of paperwork laying around in the office somewhere, but I can remember going out to Calder when the internationals came.
• 13:06
  And the internationals were Roger DeCosta.
• 13:09
  Joel Robert, Andy Robert and Adolf Weill, you know, big names from international motocross and later Gaston Rayer, who unfortunately passed away with cancer, I think, from memory.
• 13:22
  But, you know, this was when, like I said earlier, every second household had seemed to have.
• 13:28
  a motorcycle or an interest in it in some way, shape or form, certainly in regional parts of the country.
• 13:32
  It probably wasn't quite the case in the metro areas.
• 13:35
  But, yeah, I can remember seeing those guys.
• 13:37
  I mean, one of the things that was mega, and I can remember we were all spellbound, I think you probably were too, but when we all very first saw On Any Sunday for the first time and we see that kid come over the jump, crossed up, it's like, oh, can you believe that?
• 13:51
  You know, so, I mean, you know, there was the fantasy around all the gear,
• 13:56
  there was just the evolution of the bikes which sort of turned from these oil leaking nasty kind of nying nying nying nying nasty things you know that people used to cut lawns with and all of a sudden it came became quite sophisticated you know the the monoshock suspension on the yz series yamahas and the laid down shock absorbers on the rm series suzuki's in the all red tanks on the cr125 hondas and all that sort of stuff it was a big deal and it was an exciting time you know a cr125 six-speed was a
• 14:25
  yeah it was a pretty serious weapon and i was a um a suzuki rider because we had a deal with suzuki australia and through a dealer and had support from the from the distributor but i remember we went on our family holiday at one stage and um geelong which you know is like dead said 80ks from ballarat not quite sure what that what that represents in terms of a holiday to the barwin river and um
• 14:49
  Got bored really quickly.
• 14:50
  And so dad went and bought a secondhand CR125, which we then cleaned up while we were away on hot and then went riding.
• 14:57
  So, and that was cool.
• 14:58
  It was a silver tank with the green over the top of it and six speed, like a six speed.
• 15:03
  If you had a six speed gearbox, you had a well and truly arrived.
• 15:06
  That was, you know, having that extra click made all the difference.
• 15:09
  What are the injuries?
• 15:11
  I like all the usual scars.
• 15:13
  I've got a shocking set of scars across the back of one of my hands from flipping a bike on a jump at Newtown and having the handlebars land on me.
• 15:23
  So every now and again when I wake up on those really cold mornings, it's a bit of a battle to get the hand to work.
• 15:29
  I've got...
• 15:32
  In fact, they pulled it out.
• 15:33
  There was an axle through my right foot through the metatarsals in that because I smashed it up on, of all things, a Husqvarna 390 practising for the Australian Motocross Championships.
• 15:43
  It would have been about 1978 or something like that.
• 15:46
  It was 1,000 years ago.
• 15:48
  And actually another sort of slight weird one was that this jumps...
• 15:53
  tracks with stories but went dirt bike riding with Richo with Jimmy Richards and with Brock once upon a time which was kind of funny because you know Richo was hard hardcore and I bought a KTM something or other 250 something or other which used to stay in his garage when we were all teammates so I guess this is in I'm jumping 10 years now into the latter part of the 80s
• 16:15
  but Richo was a brilliant rider, almost sort of at a world-class level, like he was as a racing driver, but he was dressed right and rode right, knew what he was doing.
• 16:24
  Where I was sort of a motocross rider, it was a very different discipline, so I really battled to be able to ride with him.
• 16:29
  But Brock one day was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll come with you boys, no worries.
• 16:32
  So one of those shocking Melbourne mornings, we're out in the north-east of Melbourne, it's about minus 400, and Brock turned up in a pair of bib and brace overalls with gumboots on.
• 16:43
  He looked like Elmer Fudd.
• 16:46
  And he took one look at what Richo was dressed like and what we were doing and how we were riding, which, you know, Richo would find the most unbelievably difficult track to ride on somewhere and then try and transverse it.
• 16:58
  And it'd be like at a 74 degree angle, either up or down.
• 17:02
  And you'd go, oh, my God.
• 17:04
  And so Brock took one look at that and went, oh.
• 17:06
  oh, jeez, I've got a meeting I forgot about.
• 17:07
  I've got to go, boys.
• 17:09
  Yeah, of course.
• 17:09
  But me, I pressed on and broke my ankle.
• 17:12
  But I did it at about one dead set, one kilometre an hour.
• 17:15
  So there's still, I just haven't been game, because I hate operations, I haven't been game to take the wire out.
• 17:20
  So I've got an ankle that's lock-wired, which is no fun.
• 17:23
  Before we move into the whole car racing stuff, I'm glad you bring up Peter Brock, late Peter Brock.
• 17:30
  He would feature in your life quite significantly along the way, but when was the first time you met him?
• 17:36
  You met him as a young bloke and that left quite a lasting impression on you.
• 17:39
  Yeah, it did.
• 17:40
  And I've actually still got a race suit in our meeting room at the office that he gave me.
• 17:44
  And it would have been at a point probably towards the late 70s, I guess.
• 17:49
  Did you talk with him?
• 17:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:52
  I don't even know how.
• 17:53
  I mean, I was just a fan.
• 17:56
  We'd go to Calder, we'd go to Phillip Island, we'd go to Sandown, and it's an important lesson.
• 18:01
  And unfortunately, as a driver, you can't always apply it where you need to be able to give time to our customers because our customers are the lifeblood of the industry.
• 18:09
  It'd be the same for you.
• 18:11
  everybody always tries to bend over backwards, but he had that special gift.
• 18:14
  Craig's got it as well, obviously.
• 18:15
  He's got that personality that allows him to engage.
• 18:18
  But sometimes you're just dead set busy.
• 18:20
  There's just nothing, you know, you're due for a debrief or you've got to be somewhere, national anthem, sponsor function, get in the race car, whatever.
• 18:27
  So it's not always that easy.
• 18:29
  But somehow Peter was one of those guys that always made it feel like it was easy for a customer or a fan to approach.
• 18:35
  So, you know, I approached him as a kid recently,
• 18:38
  I would have somewhere, you know, photos and junk from him in the early 70s.
• 18:45
  But he used to be – Rallycross was a thing that we were really into.
• 18:48
  We used to go to all the Rallycross meetings out at Calder, which were out in the –
• 18:53
  At Calder in the early 70s when they used to use a combination of the actual old racetrack, the original racetrack, which was short in those days, and running around on the dirt.
• 19:03
  And he used to be parked up.
• 19:05
  He had an, if my memory serves me, it was an HK duck egg blue.
• 19:12
  Holden panel van with a tandem trailer with a supercharged Rallycross Terranor on the back.
• 19:18
  That was the Holden dealer team.
• 19:19
  That's what they were in those days.
• 19:20
  No transporters, you know, and maybe a couple of blokes, maybe with some open-enders and a couple of ring spanners and screwdrivers and away they went.
• 19:27
  And parked next to him in those days was Leonard Teal, had a little Toyota Corolla, and he was a famous actor from the Homicide Show.
• 19:35
  So, you know, Brock, international race driver extraordinaire, and Leonard Teal, the actor.
• 19:39
  So if you got to, as a punter, walk up and say hello to these people, and they dared to say hello back, you'd just been blessed.
• 19:47
  So, yeah, so I met Peter in those early days.
• 19:49
  And then I can remember haunting him, would have been as an annoying fan, probably a stalker in many respects.
• 19:56
  But...
• 19:57
  he and Bev had a little terrace house down here, not far from the Grand Prix track in Melbourne.
• 20:04
  And I used to go down there and I can distinctly remember watching car races with them and having dinners there.
• 20:09
  And that would have been in the 70s, but it's just a relationship that evolved.
• 20:14
  So we, yeah.
• 20:16
  But it started out just literally as a kid asking for his autograph and he obliged.
• 20:21
  We'll talk more about him as we go here.
• 20:23
  I might not get the eras and the timings right, we could be jumping around a little bit in the storytelling, but before we get into your car racing chapter, am I right in saying you established a bit of a business as a young man that was kind of ahead of its time?
• 20:36
  Was it BMX and sort of adventure shop and what was it?
• 20:40
  Well, because I was disinterested in school.
• 20:44
  In fact, I looked at some of the reports recently and they're kind of... Did they say?
• 20:47
  Oh, they're just, you know, Neil talks too much.
• 20:49
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:51
  You can send an invoice for that if you get it right.
• 20:54
  And another one, which was a classic, and I haven't found it, but I know it's there somewhere, was we know Neil's at the bottom of all the trouble, we just haven't caught him yet.
• 21:03
  So...
• 21:04
  So, yeah, so, look, I felt that at that point as I was becoming a teenager that school was just getting in the way of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was race cars or somehow hang around car racing.
• 21:15
  And for the young people listening today, don't listen to your Uncle Neil.
• 21:18
  Get an education and do something special with your life.
• 21:21
  Don't be a maniac like Uncle Greg and Uncle Neil.
• 21:24
  But...
• 21:26
  Yeah, so look, I got out of school relatively early, I suppose.
• 21:32
  I finished what the kids now call year 11.
• 21:36
  I kind of passed stuff, but only just.
• 21:38
  It was like rolling your arm over gently just to make sure that you could get through the goalpost, and that was it.
• 21:43
  And then I bolted.
• 21:44
  So I didn't really know what to do.
• 21:46
  So it was that realisation of...
• 21:51
  I'm going to be a car racing driver.
• 21:52
  Look, I've got a helmet.
• 21:53
  Well, why can't I be a car racing driver?
• 21:55
  Well, the reason you can't is you need money and you need contacts and didn't have any of those things.
• 21:59
  So I did all sorts of things.
• 22:01
  At one stage I worked for a real estate agent in Ballarat.
• 22:04
  No way.
• 22:05
  Yeah, that's dead set true.
• 22:08
  And I remember I was at a display home one weekend and it was unfortunate
• 22:12
  timing because it was the same weekend as bathurst so the only way that i could deal with that was i went and bought a portable television which i actually had for a long long time a little color telly so therefore it was after 1975 and um so people would knock on the door and want to see the house i go yeah there you go it's up there and then uh i just sit there and watch the race
• 22:33
  You know, every frame of it.
• 22:35
  And I can remember literally, and you'll laugh, I mean, in those days, broadcasters were not on air 24-7 like they are now.
• 22:43
  I would get up...
• 22:45
  before the sun would get up, turn the television on and remember the test pattern?
• 22:49
  And I'd get the contrast and the brightness and the colours and things all just schmick.
• 22:54
  And then I'd shock.
• 22:56
  And then I would not move until there wasn't a frame left at the end of the day.
• 22:59
  So that meant no going to the toilet, no eating, no nothing.
• 23:02
  I would not move.
• 23:04
  And it used to be frustrating in Victoria because in those days, the old Channel 7...
• 23:09
  Seven was not a united company across the network.
• 23:12
  There was kind of Seven, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney.
• 23:14
  They're all kind of seven by number but not by association.
• 23:19
  So they used to stop in Victoria to do World of Sport and talk about footy and stuff, which for me was sacrilegious, whereas in the other markets they'd keep going.
• 23:26
  So then, you know, you'd disappear for...
• 23:29
  an hour and a half or two hours or whatever it was while they did the handball competition so i was throwing stuff at the television and there was no internet there's no radio there was no nothing you just had to wait and when they came back you know half the field oil leaking smoldering disasters by that stage so things had changed but yeah so that's kind of what it was like it was sort of weird so um yeah so
• 23:49
  Was it BMX, bikes and all sorts?
• 23:50
  You had a relationship with Bob Harrow too, didn't you?
• 23:52
  Yeah, yeah.
• 23:53
  So just back on point because I've gone wildly sideways there and oversteered into the fence.
• 23:58
  I started a business and, you know, it was around all the things that I was into, which was everything other than the ball sports essentially.
• 24:06
  So, you know, they had nothing to do with cricket or tennis or...
• 24:09
  footy or any of those things and it was a kind of an action sports joint where um you know i sold bmx bikes mountain bikes um motocross gear surf gear water skiing gear uh roller skates um
• 24:24
  stickers of all things.
• 24:26
  So anything that I could sort of get my hands on, which was kind of affiliated with the things that I did.
• 24:31
  And in fact, one of the suppliers, or in fact, the sponsor that I had was one of the suppliers.
• 24:36
  I used to work for them in Melbourne, go up and down every day.
• 24:38
  And then I ended up with the running around Western Victoria, flogging all this stuff.
• 24:42
  And then eventually just turned that into a little retail shop, which kind of grew and grew.
• 24:46
  because in those days the whole BMX thing was growing and growing.
• 24:49
  That sort of ended up being the real focus, and Haro ended up being a mate.
• 24:53
  We're still in contact to this day.
• 24:56
  Talk to him quite regularly.
• 24:57
  So, yeah, in fact, just the sort of weird stories that come along from time to time.
• 25:07
  We promoted at one stage, I hand-built a BMX track in Ballarat, which was weird in the old Victoria Park.
• 25:14
  Crompo on the digger?
• 25:15
  What were you doing?
• 25:15
  No, no, mate, this was on the shovel and literally in the wheelbarrow.
• 25:19
  And there was a fellow that did have a digger, but it was fundamentally like a hand-built...
• 25:24
  thing and it was made out of this um i don't know what you call it this effluent or this emulsion that came from the local paper mill which was like a a white clay with gravel in it so we had this white track it's sort of um you know green grass all around it so it looked pretty funky but we got castrol backing for it and it was called the castrol boss of bmx so you may be familiar with a with a
• 25:44
  a young guy called Tim Emery who works in these days in the Australian GT Championship.
• 25:49
  Well, I saw him just recently at the 12 hour and we were sort of talking about the old days because he was originally from Ballarat and he goes oh, do you ever remember the boss of BMX?
• 25:57
  I said yeah, yeah, yeah, actually I
• 25:59
  Yeah, I was right in the middle of it.
• 26:01
  And I said, I've got some photos somewhere.
• 26:02
  So I sent them to him just recently.
• 26:05
  And there he was in the middle of a scene with Bob Harrow on a half pipe doing a trick on a bike.
• 26:09
  And here's little Timmy, you know, with his short back and sides and his shorts on, you know, in 1982.
• 26:14
  So, yeah, so there's lots of these weird connections where you bump into people.
• 26:20
  And the guy that helped me...
• 26:21
  build that event was a guy called vincent teseriro who was the guy instrumental for the mr motocross who was the guy instrumental for the birth of the bathys 12 hour which to this day you know is still a very important part of the motor racing calendar so yeah lots of little weird connections along the
• 26:36
  Get to the first car in a sec.
• 26:37
  But I would imagine, even though you left school early, it brought a lot of strengths together.
• 26:41
  You talked about having a good sponsor relationship with one particular bike brand.
• 26:45
  I would imagine, I can picture the BMX track now in the detail that would have been done, the presentation and so on.
• 26:51
  So you were kind of bringing a lot of those skills together.
• 26:53
  You've got a great sense of customer, Krompo.
• 26:55
  You always have.
• 26:56
  That probably came together, all of that stuff at an early age.
• 26:59
  I think that's probably accurate.
• 27:00
  And you also get a, you learn by...
• 27:04
  drowning or swimming you know sense of survival in many respects so um you know i can remember just writhing on the floor at one stage in the office you know because it's very much a seven day a week sort of silly hours a day guy and you know over buying stock at one stage which would have been you know bicycle stock and uh
• 27:25
  and feeling so sick.
• 27:26
  But it turned out that I generated a stomach ulcer, got myself into such a frenzy.
• 27:30
  But yeah, you learn the hard way, particularly when it's your money.
• 27:35
  And if you've got people working for you or you're doing, you know, you're dabbling in things that have got risk in it, you learn the hard way about trying to survive and trying to make sure that things stay in the black rather than tipping yourself over.
• 27:48
  So yeah, you learn a few valuable lessons.
• 27:55
  customer satisfaction, whatever it is you do, whether it's motor racing, broadcasting, you know, retailing, whatever it may be.
• 28:01
  So I think those lessons were really valuable in the early days.
• 28:04
  One of the first race cars I reckon I can recall was a Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo.
• 28:08
  I think it's 1985.
• 28:11
  You talked about wanting to always go car racing, but what actually sparked the move?
• 28:16
  And was it Neil Crompton into the dealership, buy a brand new car and build it ready to race?
• 28:21
  Or was it already a turnkey race car?
• 28:24
  I have to compress a few eras here to get to that part of the story, but the short version is that a business that I built, I sold, and I had a girlfriend in Sydney, or through the process of getting kind of more involved in the calling side of my universe, I ended up travelling to Sydney a bit, so therefore there ended up being a girlfriend in Sydney.
• 28:45
  And then with some money in my back pocket and some different connections...
• 28:48
  you know, I had the opportunity to sort of light up the week on the car racing thing.
• 28:52
  So yes, the first racing car was a Mitsubishi Cordia turbocharged front wheel drive horror story that had so much torque understeer that was sufficient to provide for the entire world.
• 29:06
  So
• 29:08
  enough of that going actually scapey drove one as well we both drove at the witten 300 i don't think we managed to crash into each other he drove for a guy called peter granger and his was orange number nine on it and mine was red and white with number seven on it a pair of goons and um yeah so and i drove with with peter mckay and it was a bit of a family affair um fettling the car and it was a
• 29:31
  I think from memory it belonged... What happened was in those days, Mitsubishi, like a lot of the car companies in those days when those celebrity races were happening, they'd put those vehicles up and then they'd sell them back to the dealers at a discount.
• 29:43
  So I think I scammed it from the dealer somehow in Sydney, Haberfield Mitsubishi, and I think we probably, I don't know, rented it or something.
• 29:51
  Would have been a scam.
• 29:52
  But anyway, so, yeah, managed to whack some stickers on it and went racing, but, yeah, great, great memories.
• 29:59
  You know, just...
• 30:01
  Look, in that period of the 70s and 80s, if you were a young bloke, you know, probably your dreams were maybe to play AFL footy and have a run around the MCG or, heaven forbid, be a racing car driver and do something like what Peter Brock and others did.
• 30:19
  So to be able to exercise that opportunity, you know, was a huge thing.
• 30:24
  So, you know, you take it deadly seriously.
• 30:27
  And, you know, I probably – I can remember being –
• 30:31
  depressed is probably too strong a word but thinking at one stage that you know this is never going to happen you know I remember being in the shop at one stage going this is never going to happen you know I'm never going to be able to make this work which is a bit depressing and I'm sure it's a feeling that many have shared in motorsport or those that have got the dream or the desire to be involved more deeply in it have probably been through that where you just can't quite connect with the ball and then just serendipity
• 30:57
  things occurred and I was able to go and do it, which was pretty cool.
• 30:59
  So, you know, and really every step of the way, and it's obviously a long and complicated story, but now when I look at it, every step of the way is a little tile or a little building block in being exposed to the University of Motorsport, which is, you know, looking at it from all angles, understanding the commercialities, the technicalities, the administrative side of it, what it's like from an athletic side, from the...
• 31:25
  the physical and the mental side of it just kind of everything so i think now um you don't you don't understand it properly at the time but now from this moment on looking back as i see the mosaic of the whole thing i go actually all of it the win the the losing the the elation and dead set misery and tears actually all added up to a the quantum that has given you the experiences that you need to be able to do the sort of stuff that you and i do
• 32:06
  Before the virus, the word Corona used to just remind you of that model Toyota your weird auntie and uncle drove.
• 32:13
  Why did it always smell like cats when they didn't even own one?
• 32:18
  So you brought up commentary there before.
• 32:20
  When was the first time you picked up a microphone?
• 32:23
  Where and did it come easily?
• 32:27
  I don't have a pinpoint date.
• 32:32
  but it was as a result of an injury on a motocross bike.
• 32:37
  And if I can roll the clock way back, in the really early days, they've now got a new name in the modern era, but in the really early days, the governing body of motorcycle racing was called the Autocycle Union, and then there were the state-by-state versions of that.
• 32:52
  So the ACUV was here in Victoria.
• 32:57
  And the then secretary was a gentleman who was an electrical engineer that worked in the Victoria Hotel here in Melbourne.
• 33:05
  And his name was Bill Clough.
• 33:07
  And somehow my dad befriended him.
• 33:09
  I've got no idea where the connection came.
• 33:11
  I presume it was from race meetings somewhere along the line.
• 33:15
  They must have ended up...
• 33:17
  being mates, colleagues, whatever.
• 33:19
  Anyway, there were a couple of fellas, I actually remember their names, probably best I don't nominate them, but there were a couple of older boys who were doing the commentary back in the day and they weren't really connected to the riders or the machines or what was going on out there.
• 33:37
  And I was on crutches and they were talking, I think whenever we'd ever hear them as riders, just about,
• 33:46
  yesteryear and old bikes and all that sort of thing.
• 33:48
  So anyway, long story short, somewhere along the line while I was hobbling around, old Bill said, why don't you do that stuff?
• 33:56
  And I went, no idea, haven't got a clue.
• 34:00
  And the short version of the story is that I went, oh, okay, sure.
• 34:03
  So I got...
• 34:06
  to be involved in commentary from the writer's viewpoint, so effectively what these days we call the expert role as distinct from the play-by-play or the more detailed call.
• 34:18
  And I think, but I'm not 100% sure, so I could trip over here, but I think the very first...
• 34:25
  opportunity to do that would have been somewhere towards the back end of the 70s and it was on what was then known as the O10 network in Melbourne which then became Channel O which ultimately became Network 10 and in those days the Light Car Club of Australia were promoting a joint motocross and buggy race series that was run at Broadford north of Melbourne and
• 34:52
  And it was televised.
• 34:53
  So there were, you know, it was kind of like a motocross track, but not quite because you've got to stop and imagine that it had buggies on it as well.
• 35:01
  So it had to be reasonably wide to be able to do that.
• 35:04
  And they were live on air in those days.
• 35:07
  And...
• 35:08
  The host was a guy called Phil Gibbs, who's the gentleman that was responsible for bringing Bruce McIverney into sports broadcasting.
• 35:17
  Eddie Maguire got his start with Phil and he was a football guy and a very, very good host and a very good television guy in that era.
• 35:28
  So I think that was where I had my first...
• 35:31
  ever exposure to that.
• 35:33
  And I actually found a letter just relatively recently from the Light Car Club of Australia thanking me for my commentary efforts.
• 35:43
  And it was...
• 35:45
  It was dated 1978.
• 35:47
  Wow.
• 35:47
  So I was 18 at the time.
• 35:49
  So, yeah, a long time ago.
• 35:50
  And it also nominated the amount of money that I got paid to do it, which was pretty funny.
• 35:55
  But in those days it was probably considered to be a few bucks.
• 35:58
  So I'll disclose this incredibly confidential figure.
• 36:02
  It was $120.
• 36:03
  And if you had $120 in 1978, you were the man.
• 36:05
  So fast-forwarding here, we're probably jumping eras.
• 36:15
  How then did you cross paths with Mike Raymond, who became, when you moved to Sydney, he and Carol were a little bit like family for you, mate, weren't they?
• 36:26
  Yeah, they were.
• 36:27
  And unfortunately, just working from the end backwards, you know, I said farewell to Mike last year, as you know, and it was very, very sad.
• 36:35
  And I mentioned at the time and...
• 36:39
  personally to Carol that, you know, they did act in many ways like a mum and dad when I came to Sydney.
• 36:44
  So the very special place in my family and in my heart.
• 36:48
  So, you know, I was deeply saddened to lose Mike and we stayed in contact to the end.
• 36:53
  And, you know, I was broken hearted at Sandown last year when the news came through and I knew it was coming.
• 36:59
  But even now talking about it makes my hands sweat.
• 37:01
  So back to the question.
• 37:06
  True story, totally by accident.
• 37:07
  And I think I've probably told this story a couple of times.
• 37:10
  I'll try and pricey it.
• 37:11
  so people don't fall asleep.
• 37:13
  But I had a business.
• 37:15
  It was Ballarat-based.
• 37:17
  We were in all those things that you and I discussed earlier.
• 37:19
  But one of the things that we also did was we imported stickers from America, which was a really big deal back in those days.
• 37:27
  Every kid had a BMX bike and stickers were a thing.
• 37:30
  And we had a lot of stickers.
• 37:32
  I'm talking tens of thousands of dollars worth of sticker stock, which we used to wholesale, retail and mail order.
• 37:39
  And we were also agents because he was obviously a mate of mine and I also did some work with him for Vincent Tesarero's Rat Clothing gear.
• 37:46
  And Rat Clothing were doing motocross gear and they were also doing BMX gear.
• 37:52
  So I used to roam the planet trying to flog this stuff.
• 37:56
  And so I went to...
• 37:58
  Metro West BMX track one weekend having locked the shop up in Ballarat thrown the keys to one of the young guys that worked for me would have driven all night on a Friday night to roll out at Metro West which is adjacent to the old Liverpool Speedway and you'll laugh at this because you know what I'm like when it comes to this kind of authoritarian behaviour but all of a sudden someone's on the PA going you know with the owner of
• 38:23
  And I had an H.J.
• 38:24
  Holden panel van that was sign-written, right?
• 38:27
  So this is a three-on-the-tree Holden nasty.
• 38:30
  You know, with the owner of Holden Van ABC 123 or whatever the rego was, you know, please report to the tower.
• 38:36
  Well, the tower was just like...
• 38:39
  you know, a metal bucket that had a ladder on it.
• 38:41
  So I'm thinking, oh, geez, I reckon that must be my car.
• 38:44
  So, and I go and look, because I didn't know the rego.
• 38:47
  Oh, yeah, she said, it's my car.
• 38:48
  I better go to the tower and report to whoever it is who's calling.
• 38:51
  So I shimmy up the ladder and looking down from above is this very stern faced
• 38:59
  gentleman who was all about business and there was no frivolity staring down at me saying, who the hell do you think you are turning up and parking where you did and selling merchandise without a licence and no parking permit and no permit to sell anything here?
• 39:16
  And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay.
• 39:19
  So, you know, it's just, you just sell stuff that, well, it was Mike.
• 39:23
  So Mike was berating me.
• 39:25
  Anyway, we got...
• 39:26
  two thirds of the way through copying a lashing.
• 39:30
  And he goes, are you the bloke that's done a bit of the motor racing stuff on the ABC?
• 39:33
  Because after I'd done the O10 stuff, the Light Car Club were promoting motor racing at Sandown and they were connected obviously in Victorian motorsports.
• 39:42
  So somewhere along the line, I ended up getting dragged in.
• 39:46
  By the then general manager of the Light Car Club was a guy called Ian McKnight and he
• 39:51
  At one stage, I recall, did the, do you know anything about car racing?
• 39:54
  It was like, do I know anything about car racing?
• 39:56
  So I was about as hardcore, crazy as you get.
• 40:00
  And so anyway, the bottom line to the story is that I'd been doing some stuff for the ABC and Mike recognised and he goes...
• 40:09
  So then his tune changed completely.
• 40:10
  Instead of me copping a lashing, he sort of warmed up and went, we need to talk at some stage.
• 40:15
  And the short version of that story is that he told me that Seven had won the rights to the touring car championship in 1985.
• 40:22
  So as fate would have it, I was all loved up with a Sydney-based girlfriend in the mid-'80s and a guy serendipitously wandered through the doors of the shop one day and said he wanted to buy it, so I sold it.
• 40:36
  And...
• 40:37
  You know, I packed up the hillbilly wagon and went to Sydney and worked for Mike.
• 40:42
  So that was 1985.
• 40:45
  Our colleague and friend, Michael Heaton, who was a junior burger, probably editor.
• 40:49
  A videotape operator.
• 40:51
  There you go.
• 40:51
  Videotaped it.
• 40:52
  It was called Production Videotape at Channel 7 in the mid-'80s.
• 40:55
  He and Joe Ashby.
• 40:57
  I remember them.
• 40:58
  Who are still around our game to this day.
• 41:00
  Well, Jo is still, Jo's a she, she's still what's called an EVS operator in the motor racing telecast to this day.
• 41:08
  If I can just do a quick aside, I kind of know where you're going to go.
• 41:11
  But we are blessed by having some amazingly passionate people that produce motor racing television behind the scenes.
• 41:20
  And you know many of them and you and I have seen some of them just recently.
• 41:24
  These are people that, you know, over the years have worn...
• 41:27
  Channel O shirts, Channel 10 shirts, ABC shirts, SBS 7, 9, 10, you name it and everything in between.
• 41:34
  But fundamentally, they're motorsport people who are involved.
• 41:37
  Yeah, Ian O'Brien, who are involved in motorsport broadcasting.
• 41:40
  I mean, I... You know, Brian, you mentioned, who was an Olympic gold medalist.
• 41:43
  I did motocross with him and John Rowley, who was the head of SBS Sport at one stage in the early 80s doing motocross.
• 41:50
  I mean, that's how far back, you know... And he's still involved to this...
• 41:53
  He's still a senior cameraman to this day.
• 41:55
  So we have some people who are incredibly passionate and they've elevated Australian motorsport broadcasting to a world level that's the envy of pretty much everybody, perhaps with the exception of Formula One, which is an outstanding product.
• 42:09
  But we punch well above our weight.
• 42:11
  I digress.
• 42:13
  We digress.
• 42:14
  Hito reckons he can vividly recall you parking up at Mobs Lane in Epping, where Channel 7 used to be,
• 42:22
  You must have had a bit of cash in your back pocket from the sale of the business.
• 42:25
  You reckon you were in a three series BM back then?
• 42:27
  Yeah, that's true.
• 42:29
  So when I sold the business, there's a few bob in the bank, but like nothing, absolutely nothing by today's standards.
• 42:37
  And I told everybody I was retiring.
• 42:40
  So I was 25.
• 42:41
  What a knucklehead.
• 42:43
  And I went and bought myself and, you know, no finance, just went and paid cash, not as in folding cash, but paid for a 318 BMW.
• 42:51
  It was navy blue.
• 42:53
  I ended up flogging it to my dad, funnily enough, as time went by.
• 42:56
  But that was a cute little car.
• 42:57
  That was a nice little thing.
• 42:58
  It was a gutless thing, though.
• 43:01
  But I was a man about town.
• 43:02
  You know, moved to Mossman in Sydney, overlooking the harbour, dear boy.
• 43:08
  You know, my shitty little pad there.
• 43:10
  And I had my BMW.
• 43:11
  And, I mean, then the whole other chapter of life began.
• 43:14
  But I certainly didn't retire.
• 43:16
  But, yeah, Hedo is 100% right.
• 43:18
  Hello, Hedo.
• 43:19
  Hello, Hedo.
• 43:20
  If people go looking, they can certainly find stories and they can maybe even find YouTube clips of you.
• 43:25
  Please don't.
• 43:26
  I reckon, I want to say, early tester for RaceCam, was it an RX-7, Amaru Park?
• 43:33
  What are your memories of that?
• 43:34
  I mean, that was groundbreaking what they were doing, wasn't it?
• 43:37
  Yeah, it was.
• 43:37
  It was fantastic.
• 43:38
  It was such an exciting place to be.
• 43:41
  In those days, Channel 7, which was based, as you said before, at Mobs Lane in Epping, was a television factory.
• 43:47
  It was a dedicated hub of all things related to broadcast production, including outside broadcasting, engineering, race cam development.
• 43:55
  You know, there was the chopper pad, tennis courts.
• 43:58
  Multiple studios, woodworking facilities, videotape, art, production, just everything.
• 44:05
  Again, a lot of the people that worked there still work with us to this very day in audio and in other areas of the business.
• 44:12
  Great friends and tremendously skilled people.
• 44:15
  It was a really cool place to work because motor racing was at the heart of it.
• 44:20
  Ted Thomas was the GM of the day or the CEO or whatever his title was and he was passionate.
• 44:25
  Jeff Healy was the director of engineering and Jeff was the father of RaceCam as we know it from a
• 44:32
  uh from a governance standpoint and clearly there are a whole bunch of technicians dave thomas john porter and a bunch of people who brought the whole race camp thing to life i mean that was really groundbreaking i think it was 1979 wasn't it with peter williamson and so i arrived a little bit later in that into that party but it's still very cool to be a part of it you know the
• 44:52
  that technology got exported to the world.
• 44:55
  Sadly for Seven, I always wondered why they didn't keep a much greater eye and grip on the technology because that all started... You know, these days we take...
• 45:06
  that kind of inside of sports broadcasting for granted, no matter what it may be, whether it's cricket, football, tennis, golf, but all that minicam stuff and all that ability to be effectively in the locker room or with the player, that all came from Channel 7 in the early days and it was all motor racing driven.
• 45:23
  So it was a cool place to work.
• 45:25
  And, you know, I said, and I've said on different occasions that I've,
• 45:31
  the 360 view of my life in this amazing business, at times, you know, it's just dead set tears, as you know.
• 45:39
  It can be a very harsh and brutal business.
• 45:41
  But I look at some of it now more fondly thinking, gee whiz, all of those little pieces of the story all added to something somewhere along the line.
• 45:49
  And that was certainly a great chapter.
• 45:51
  The onboard things I did were incredible.
• 45:54
  Yeah, and we had like...
• 45:56
  I remember doing a seven promo at one stage.
• 45:59
  Thank God no one can find it these days.
• 46:01
  But it finished with a shot of me with a little miniature camera in my mouth, which is probably the best place for it to stop me from yapping.
• 46:07
  But in those days when we were starting to shrink the cameras, because the early ones were big and they made this...
• 46:13
  Imagine today with the arguments that people have over the centre of gravity when it's a millimetre different to the other guy.
• 46:19
  This was like...
• 46:20
  15 to 20 kilos of apparatus that was up at head height in the passenger seat.
• 46:26
  So that all gave way to miniature cameras and then they were in headlights and taillights and bumper bars and all over the place and that really was the beginning of the revolution.
• 46:36
  I'm digressing here, but I want to tell a quick on-board story.
• 46:39
  One day my friend Neil Crompton, when I was working at Channel 10, calls up and says, I want to debunk, decode motor racing.
• 46:44
  We're going to go to Malala with the Holden Racing Team, what was a three-seater ride car, and we'll wander around and we'll, you know, let people know what these acronyms stand for, these nicknames stand for, et cetera, et cetera, and then we'll go for a drive at the end of it.
• 47:00
  And I was chuffed because I would get to do a couple of laps in it.
• 47:02
  Who was the passenger, Rusty?
• 47:03
  I was the passenger.
• 47:04
  I was the passenger.
• 47:04
  And we had...
• 47:06
  That day, one on board to play with, but our producers wanted multiple angles.
• 47:11
  So that meant we had to cut a lot of laps.
• 47:14
  So I'm in the passenger seat with some notes in the footwell looking down.
• 47:18
  Share for the audience, I just progressively went greener and greener.
• 47:22
  Scaifey was handing me sick bags, more or less, wasn't he?
• 47:25
  Yeah, so Malala, Ride Day Program, Holden Commodore.
• 47:30
  I think in those days we had Bridgestone tyres on it, so it was actually quite a gripped-up car.
• 47:34
  And in that period of...
• 47:35
  What's now become supercar racing, I think those cars had what we describe as steer tyres.
• 47:40
  So at the moment, all four tyres on the car are exactly the same.
• 47:44
  There's no distinction between a steering tyre and a driving tyre.
• 47:47
  But in those days, there was a traction tyre at the back and a steering tyre at the front.
• 47:51
  So they were pretty well-behaved race cars, and they turned very, very well.
• 47:55
  So – and I'll talk, folks, as though he's not here opposite me at the moment with a microphone.
• 48:01
  But old mate, I'm looking over, and he just – you know when you –
• 48:06
  pull the fridge door open and you get the open the crisper and you look at the colour of the lettuce and it's that kind of slightly weird green.
• 48:14
  Well, that was rusty.
• 48:16
  And he got greener.
• 48:17
  So he started out as lettuce and turned into kale.
• 48:19
  So he got progressively worse as we went to the point where you actually asked me to stop.
• 48:25
  You are the only person in the history and I must have taken hundreds of people for race car rides that's ever actually asked to stop.
• 48:33
  You sook.
• 48:36
  But it was fun.
• 48:37
  Well, I certainly had a good time.
• 48:38
  Yeah, it was good.
• 48:39
  There's been some amazing cars over your career, mate.
• 48:41
  Can we bounce through a couple of them in racing terms?
• 48:44
  Firstly, the opportunity to drive a touring car for the great Peter Brock.
• 48:50
  Am I right in saying that was circa 87 and how all that came together?
• 48:55
  Well, I'd started to do some racing in the production car and then had to dabble in some sports sedan stuff.
• 49:01
  But, I mean, real small time, you know, just cobbling money together as best you can, little deals here and there.
• 49:08
  leveraging every connection and every person that you knew.
• 49:11
  And I was actually, in this phase of my life, was doing a bunch of different things.
• 49:16
  So the Triple M thing had begun, doing some radio with Uncle Doug, which was another amazing story.
• 49:21
  You know, the Channel 7 stuff was happening.
• 49:23
  I was still contracting to a company that I was involved with back in the bicycle days.
• 49:29
  So I still had a
• 49:31
  a contract with a company called TI Industries who were the Malvern Star and Rally distributors and importers in Australia because they'd given away making bicycles.
• 49:39
  And so I was like a consultant to them to wander around and try and iron out difficulties between the business and their dealers having run a dealership.
• 49:49
  effectively.
• 49:50
  So kind of all these weird things.
• 49:53
  But so it meant that I was in and out of the offices at Channel 7.
• 49:56
  I wasn't an employee.
• 49:58
  I was a contractor.
• 49:59
  So it wasn't really a nine to five thing.
• 50:01
  But obviously, the closer you got to the motor racing stuff each time, the more you were in there.
• 50:06
  And then we used to do another program called Sports World and there are various segments and things in it.
• 50:10
  In fact, we used to do this thing that I loathe.
• 50:13
  I loathe that it was called the Motorsport Rap.
• 50:16
  Oh, God, it was punishing.
• 50:17
  And so-and-so finished third.
• 50:19
  Yeah, oh, my God.
• 50:20
  So Mike used to take this feed.
• 50:22
  It used to come in on the satellite from NBC and CBS and everybody in the States.
• 50:27
  It would just be this collection of crap from...
• 50:30
  So there'd be...
• 50:32
  Boat racing and desert racing and stuff, and there's nothing.
• 50:35
  You know what it's like because you work in the business.
• 50:37
  No advisory.
• 50:38
  Who are they?
• 50:39
  Where are they?
• 50:40
  I remember one of the boat racers at one stage, some bloke won it.
• 50:43
  I didn't know what to call him, so I called him Rusty Seabolt.
• 50:47
  You know, it was that sort of, you know, so it was that sort of nonsense.
• 50:51
  Anyway, where the hell was I going?
• 50:53
  So I'm in at Channel 7 and the phone goes, it's Bev Brock.
• 50:56
  So I don't think we had mobile phones in those days.
• 50:59
  And she's, you know, they're right in the middle.
• 51:01
  So this must have been 87.
• 51:02
  They're right in the middle of that giant meltdown that was going on with Peter and Holden and the polariser.
• 51:07
  And Alan's walked and John's walked.
• 51:12
  Moffat and Harvey, this is.
• 51:14
  And she said, look, we're going to have a... Peter's been watching.
• 51:17
  I mean, I knew them very well.
• 51:19
  And, you know, Peter's been watching and he wouldn't mind giving you a run in the car at some stage.
• 51:23
  So we're going to have this...
• 51:25
  I don't even know what he called it.
• 51:27
  Drive day, I'll call it now.
• 51:29
  At Calder...
• 51:30
  and if you want to come down, you can have a run in the car.
• 51:32
  So, oh, okay, bell's on.
• 51:33
  Yeah, sure, that's unbelievable.
• 51:35
  And I actually thought it was a – I don't mean to swear, but it was a pee take, you know.
• 51:39
  I thought it was this can't be – no.
• 51:42
  So to begin with, I kind of called her bluff and she's like, no, no, no, no, no, we're serious.
• 51:46
  This is happening and we'd like you to come and have a run in the car.
• 51:48
  So when I got there, there was a whole bunch of people.
• 51:52
  So I don't remember the exact cars.
• 51:54
  Noonan would know their part numbers and, you know –
• 51:57
  whether or not you needed a tetanus shot to get in and out of it.
• 52:00
  But anyway, so there were a couple of cars, maybe even three cars there, I can't recall.
• 52:05
  And Peter went and said a benchmark time and then everybody had their turn.
• 52:10
  And it sounds like a bit of a tosses story, but I matched or beat the benchmark time and I got the job.
• 52:19
  And in those days it just meant a drive.
• 52:22
  There was no money attached to it.
• 52:24
  But you can imagine the...
• 52:26
  you know, what you thought of the opportunity to drive for a guy who had this gigantic reputation in sport and across households in Australia and in a Holden and in a mobile car.
• 52:39
  So, you know, this was pretty sort of amazing, a bit of a pinch-shoe moment in your life.
• 52:44
  And so, yeah, that's where it started.
• 52:47
  And I think the first one was out at Oran Park at an endurance race.
• 52:50
  And it was actually quite tricky to drive because it was quite a...
• 52:54
  bit more of a handful compared to the sports sedan which was a more balanced uh grippier car um you know bigger rubber and it was lighter and all the rest of it so actually driving one of those cars was was a real thrill though so i mean i look in them now and think oh my goodness it's um it's a bit frightening so that's where it started with him in 87 and did you
• 53:13
  Did you go within a whisker of the licence points you needed to actually run in the 87 race?
• 53:19
  Yeah.
• 53:19
  And in the end you were Johnny on the spot on a major story breaking in the broadcast, but it could have been you, ironically, in that car, is that right?
• 53:26
  Well, yes, but I never do the next jump which has been suggested of, you know, because Peter McLeod, Peter Brock and John Crook who got displaced in that car, didn't he?
• 53:36
  But they ultimately won the race that day.
• 53:39
  Look, that's all if button maybe.
• 53:40
  But the truth of the matter is that, um, I, you know, I was, you started later in those days and the touring car drivers of the day were much older.
• 53:50
  So keep in mind I'm 27, which by modern standards is an old person in, in racing these days, but
• 53:55
  You know, I didn't have enough signatures under my belt and I was never expecting to have that opportunity presented to me.
• 54:03
  So Peter did everything he could.
• 54:04
  The team did everything they could.
• 54:06
  I did everything I could.
• 54:07
  I actually even went to Perth and drove him.
• 54:09
  One of Peter's great mates was a guy called John Farrell in Western Australia.
• 54:14
  I went and drove his car one week just to get a signature.
• 54:17
  So I think I ended up with four and you needed five because this wasn't just Bathurst as we knew it.
• 54:22
  It was a round of the world touring car championship and...
• 54:24
  And that meant that you needed in the day an international sea licence.
• 54:28
  The irony here is that I can remember furiously hanging up on Tim Schenken, so gutted and disappointed that I wasn't going to drive in that race.
• 54:39
  Now, first of all, Tim's a great mate to this day who I revere.
• 54:45
  Now as a category administrator in motorsport, I understand the full picture of motorsport, and the truth of the matter was I didn't have the signatures.
• 54:53
  So you can slam all the phones you like.
• 54:55
  You know, that's the way it was, and you learn to live with it.
• 54:58
  So yeah, it was an opportunity missed, but then I drove at the next event, which was, I can't remember whether it was New Zealand or Calder, but anyway, I did it, and by that stage we were good to go and life goes on.
• 55:09
  But yeah, they went on.
• 55:10
  As you know, the Texaco cars were first and second.
• 55:14
  dodgy fuel in the cars they got boned and peter won the race and i think he did 158 laps he didn't do the 161 that year so but you know all power to him
• 55:27
  That's the end of lap one of my podcast with Neil Crompton.
• 55:30
  Make sure you head back to the library and have a listen to part two where we chat about some of the other great cars he's raced, an awkward fishing incident with Mark Larkham, and the part he played in what became the Supercars Championship.
• 55:44
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 55:48
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 55:51
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 55:59
  Listener.