Latest / Rusty's Garage / Nick Harris - Part 1

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Nick Harris - 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.
• 0:27
  We're releasing this episode in the lead up to MotoGP, the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island, one of my favourite times of the year.
• 0:36
  Our guest spent decades on the tour and for a while worked in Formula One, at times even leapfrogging between the two in a crazy busy chapter of his life.
• 0:47
  His comms and PR work saw him making content well before we even used that term and working on events for all sorts of automotive brands and motorsport partnerships.
• 0:59
  He's a best-selling author too, but most of you will know him for his commentary.
• 1:04
  In fact, he was widely regarded as the voice of MotoGP before his retirement in 2017, a part of his life that he admits was difficult to give up or shift into park.
• 1:17
  Nick Harris, as you'll hear, has worked with the greats.
• 1:21
  He shares some wonderful insights and stories on them as we chat here.
• 1:26
  His career spans the revered 500cc period, which many of you listening remember so fondly.
• 1:33
  It's heroes and their feats of bravery on those awesome two-stroke machines.
• 1:39
  and almost two decades of the new four-stroke era as well, which is now producing arguably some of the most competitive racing we've seen.
• 1:49
  Yes, there'll be a Barry Sheen story or two.
• 1:52
  Nick knew him well, and he vividly recalls their final meeting before Baz left us, sadly.
• 1:59
  Nick is now in his 70s, and while he's not at the rounds as often these days, that doesn't mean he's stopped contributing more on that later.
• 2:07
  And he's still working around football in the UK too, his other love, Oxford United.
• 2:12
  I should really have done this pod ages ago, in the Ireland Media Centre, after he hosted one of his countless press conferences in that unmistakable Nick Harris style.
• 2:24
  But we'll make do with the interweb.
• 2:26
  From this convo, you would never know that we were 17,000 k's apart.
• 2:31
  And that's because of the truly endearing and likable person that Nick is.
• 2:37
  I hope you enjoy some of the tales from almost 50 years working around the sport.
• 2:44
  Nick Harris, welcome to the podcast.
• 2:47
  Honoured to be with you, Rusty.
• 2:48
  Long time no see and all my friends in Australia, long time no see as well and so, so many great memories.
• 2:57
  Well, let's get to a few of those a little bit later.
• 2:59
  Can we talk about your wonderful career, which is still going, I might add.
• 3:02
  You are busy even now, aren't you?
• 3:05
  Yeah, it's absolutely crazy, to be honest with you, this MotoGP guru.
• 3:12
  Podcast like this, I write a blog every week.
• 3:15
  I'm very busy with football locally that I always have been.
• 3:19
  Yeah, it was supposed to be different, but it's absolutely flat out.
• 3:24
  But I tell you what, it's a lot better than sitting at home with your slippers on.
• 3:29
  Exactly.
• 3:30
  Have you started the day, because it's nighttime here, but morning there, have you started the day with a cuppa, Nick?
• 3:34
  Yeah.
• 3:35
  I've had two cuppers.
• 3:36
  God, I couldn't say that.
• 3:39
  Two cuppers.
• 3:39
  It's a lovely autumnal morning.
• 3:41
  We've had some unbelievable weather in England the last few days.
• 3:46
  25 degrees in October.
• 3:48
  Unheard of.
• 3:48
  The leaves are just beginning to fall from the trees.
• 3:51
  And you just get the sense that, well, autumn, winter is getting closer.
• 3:58
  Okay.
• 3:59
  Can we do a little walk down memory lane about you?
• 4:01
  I know you'll invariably want to talk about bikes and some of the heroes on them and some of the stories that you've covered along the way.
• 4:08
  You touched on it a little bit there before about your love of football as well.
• 4:11
  You were born in the late 40s near Oxford.
• 4:15
  Am I right in saying your dad had a love of sport, but not necessarily motor racing?
• 4:20
  And where did the connection come from for you?
• 4:23
  Right, yeah, my dad was a sports mad cricket.
• 4:26
  We used to tune in at five o'clock in the morning for the test matches in Australia.
• 4:31
  He used to fade and come and fade on the radio.
• 4:35
  I remember writing to the England team in Australia.
• 4:38
  Len Hutton was the captain, and he sent me a letter back with a signature.
• 4:43
  I think England actually won that.
• 4:44
  Rare England won that series, I think.
• 4:48
  Yeah, we were cricket mad, rugby mad as well.
• 4:51
  dear old dad and then I got more interested in football and motorcycles but that's life, I mean Oxford is an incredible certainly there was an incredible city to grow up in if you were keen on sport, Roger Bannister ran that first four minute mile at Oxford the university rugby soccer, cricket especially teams were first class so you were watching absolute first class sport every week, that wasn't the same with the
• 5:20
  football, that came differently with first Oxford City and then Oxford United.
• 5:24
  United, yeah.
• 5:26
  Now, from a motor racing point of view, am I right in saying that on the two-wheel side, you might have seen Murray Walker's dad race at one point?
• 5:35
  And I think maybe Mike Halewood's machine left a really lasting impression on you as a young fella, didn't it?
• 5:40
  It certainly did.
• 5:41
  Mike Hayward lived just across the hill from here in Bores Hill, and his dad, Stan Hayward, ran Kings of Oxford.
• 5:49
  There was a street in Oxford that was just full of motorcycle dealerships in those days, and they'd been lying down the streets.
• 5:55
  I remember cycling to school one day, dreading what was going to happen because I hadn't done my homework as always, and in the window of Kings...
• 6:04
  of Oxford was Mike Hayward's 250 Honda that he'd won the TT on.
• 6:09
  His dad, I think, had just a one-off ride on that 250 four-cylinder Honda.
• 6:15
  And it was in the window at Kings of Oxford.
• 6:18
  I remember I just couldn't believe it.
• 6:20
  Wow.
• 6:21
  Yeah, I was set.
• 6:24
  But started off, again, Oxford had a very good Speedway team.
• 6:27
  Right.
• 6:28
  So I was a very keen Speedway fan.
• 6:30
  Every Thursday we'd go to the Speedway hot dog program, had a flirting on the back of the bus coming home, fishing chips.
• 6:41
  And a boy from the village, Keith Hickman, was a very good scrambler, as we called it, a motocross, went on to ride for the BSA Works team.
• 6:50
  So we used to cycle to the local scramble tracks all over the place and got very keen.
• 6:55
  And it was very big on television in those days in Britain, on both channels, scrambling.
• 7:01
  Murray Walker doing the commentary for the BBC.
• 7:03
  And I really, really got interested in scrambling rather than road racing till a friend...
• 7:10
  father and a lad at school and his dad we went to Mallory Park and I remember getting out of the car and how old was coming into that Mallory Park hair hairpin I think probably on the Honda 6 it might be on the floor and just hearing it and I'm thinking oh this is for me this this is yeah this is what I want to watch and and be involved in
• 7:29
  Now, you took the mickey out of yourself there a minute ago.
• 7:31
  This is a bit of a loaded question.
• 7:32
  Were you any good at school?
• 7:34
  Because it hasn't affected your career at all if you weren't.
• 7:37
  No, afraid not.
• 7:38
  Afraid not.
• 7:39
  No, I got far more interested in motorcycles, football and girls.
• 7:46
  I left school with 1.0 level, 1.0 level, and that was two attempts.
• 7:51
  Went to work in the local solicitor's office because my mum and dad knew the local solicitor is a clerk, to be honest with you.
• 7:58
  But I'll tell you another story.
• 8:00
  One day, I'm sitting there, I am so bored, I'll tell you.
• 8:03
  And I was going to Alton Park the next day.
• 8:04
  It's when Hayward had left Honda.
• 8:07
  Honda had withdrawn, but they gave him a bike so we'd ride at selected events.
• 8:11
  So it was a big thing to go to.
• 8:12
  The phone rang.
• 8:13
  It was the boss from upstairs.
• 8:14
  It was a smashing bloke.
• 8:16
  He said, oh, Nick, there's somebody I want you to meet before he goes.
• 8:19
  I think you ought to come up.
• 8:20
  So up I went.
• 8:21
  And then I went, and there was Hayward.
• 8:23
  He'd come to sign some papers there.
• 8:24
  And I shook hands with God as he was in those days to me.
• 8:30
  For once in my life, Rusty, I was speechless.
• 8:33
  I just didn't know what to say.
• 8:37
  To this day, he is still very much a hero for you.
• 8:40
  I mean, you've met and worked alongside some unbelievable people in motorcycle racing in your career, Nick, but he is right up there for you, isn't he?
• 8:50
  Yeah, he is.
• 8:52
  I think one, that he comes from our neck of the woods.
• 8:57
  That's great.
• 8:58
  Two, he used to go to the jazz club in Oxford.
• 9:01
  My sister went there and I just said, right, you get with this Mike Hayward.
• 9:06
  I want him as a boyfriend.
• 9:08
  It never happened, actually.
• 9:10
  I was very disappointed with my sister.
• 9:12
  She let me down badly.
• 9:14
  Yeah.
• 9:15
  The thing with Hale, when he could ride any bike, any bike, 125, right up to 500s, two stroke, four strokes, and could ride at any circuits.
• 9:24
  He could win at the TT.
• 9:26
  He could win proper road racing circuits.
• 9:31
  So he was amazing.
• 9:33
  Yeah.
• 9:34
  To me, he's right up there, right up there with the very, very best.
• 9:38
  And,
• 9:39
  tragically losing his life in a motor accident and losing his daughter in the crash as well was absolutely horrendous.
• 9:48
  And I spoke to his widow who sadly passed away now when he was inducted into the MotoGP Hall of Fame.
• 9:55
  And she was telling me when he saved the life of the Formula One driver, was it Andretti Kailami in London?
• 10:03
  South Africa, when he dived into the burning car and pulled him out.
• 10:07
  She said he came back to the pits afterwards and never said a word to anybody about it.
• 10:12
  Wow.
• 10:12
  He got the George Medal in Britain for an act of bravery.
• 10:17
  Bravery.
• 10:18
  A remarkable, remarkable person.
• 10:20
  Then he'd come back and win the TT at, what was he, 39 years old, I mean.
• 10:25
  Amazing.
• 10:26
  You can't write stories like that, can you?
• 10:28
  They just have to happen.
• 10:29
  No.
• 10:31
  Am I right in saying that one of your first bike Grand Prixs was actually the Dutch TT in the early 70s, maybe 1973?
• 10:37
  Was that the first one you went to as a young fellow?
• 10:39
  It certainly was, yeah.
• 10:40
  We were massive Jano Saarinen fans, me and my mates.
• 10:46
  And so we said we're not going to go to the TT, which was a big thing.
• 10:50
  Not to go to the TT in the Isle of Maham.
• 10:52
  We went every year.
• 10:53
  It was like a pilgrimage.
• 10:54
  But we were going to go to the Dutch TT instead.
• 10:57
  And, of course, tragically, Saarinen was killed at Monza before them.
• 11:01
  We still went.
• 11:01
  We had an absolute ball.
• 11:03
  We'd hardly ever been abroad.
• 11:07
  Beer at six o'clock in the morning, chips with mayonnaise.
• 11:11
  It was just absolutely amazing.
• 11:15
  And I think all of us, I think me in particular, the side of this is just fantastic.
• 11:21
  Then we used to go every year to different events.
• 11:24
  We went to Spa, I think, the year after.
• 11:27
  And then 75, we went back to...
• 11:31
  back to Assen, and that's where Sheen won his first ever 500cc Grand Prix.
• 11:35
  And you can imagine we'd had a few beers before.
• 11:39
  We had a lot of beers afterwards.
• 11:40
  It was great.
• 11:42
  We'll get to Barry.
• 11:43
  We'll get to Barry because I want to pick your brain on a couple of good stories, if we can.
• 11:47
  You...
• 11:49
  You mentioned before about a job in a solicitor's office and that maybe not working out and so on.
• 11:54
  You ended up, am I right, there was a distribution manager's job, maybe for the Oxford Journal.
• 12:00
  That didn't kind of work out.
• 12:02
  But you did get some work around your football and BBC radio and things like that.
• 12:07
  Is that correct?
• 12:08
  That's right.
• 12:10
  I was very happy.
• 12:13
  I went to work in a sports shop, then came a rep for the south of England.
• 12:16
  Very happy.
• 12:17
  But then they launched a local paper in Oxford called the Oxford Journal.
• 12:21
  I knew the guys who were funding it and running it.
• 12:26
  I went to see them and they said, we'd want a distribution amount of you know Oxford and the area better than anybody.
• 12:31
  Are you interested?
• 12:32
  I said, yeah.
• 12:33
  No, no, no, I'm really happy what they're doing.
• 12:35
  They offered me three times the money in a company car.
• 12:38
  So I said, well, I'll have a think about it for a minute.
• 12:42
  Thought about it for a minute.
• 12:43
  It's the best thing I ever did because not only was I distribution manager, which was pretty grim picking up bundles of newspapers and Donington Bridging Oxford on a Monday morning and
• 12:53
  Stuff like that.
• 12:54
  But I started writing for the local bits and pieces for the paper.
• 13:01
  And it went from there.
• 13:01
  And the big breakthrough, Oxford United played in Italy in the Anglo-Italian Cup.
• 13:07
  And the man that was running the Oxford Journal wanted him to become chairman of Oxford United.
• 13:12
  And he summoned to his office and said, you're going to Italy tomorrow with Oxford United.
• 13:17
  I mean, I was, I'd hardly been abroad.
• 13:20
  I'd not written a football match report since I was at school, primary school, that went up on the notice board.
• 13:26
  And off I went with Oxford United.
• 13:27
  And it really kicked off from then with Radio Oxford with the football.
• 13:32
  I was lucky, a job came up at Motorcycle News, I got persuaded to apply for it, which I never thought I had a chance in hell, and suddenly I was working at Motorcycle News and then the world just opened up into a completely different world.
• 13:49
  I'm glad you kind of corrected me there before, too.
• 13:51
  I said it didn't work out.
• 13:52
  What I meant was it did.
• 13:53
  Yeah, no.
• 13:54
  You didn't necessarily want to begin with.
• 13:57
  I didn't want to be under Donington Bridge every Monday picking up bundles of newspapers that haven't been delivered amongst dog stuff and needles and everything else.
• 14:08
  No, no, no.
• 14:11
  I'd had enough of that.
• 14:13
  Our world has changed so much now.
• 14:14
  We can talk, as we're doing now, over the internet basically.
• 14:18
  But back then, Nick, we're talking phone reports, filing results by phone, telex machines, if you could get one and all sorts, weren't you?
• 14:29
  It was an amazing...
• 14:30
  I went to Motorsoka News, and the first year I did the British Superbike Championship, which was fantastic, because all the top Grand Prix riders came to ride in it, because it's the only way they made any money, to be honest with you.
• 14:42
  So the likes of...
• 14:43
  Barry Sheen, Mick Grant, others came and rode.
• 14:47
  It was a great thing to do.
• 14:48
  But then the motocross correspondent for Motorcycle News, Patrick Wrighton, he got caught reversing up the motorway, going to the British Motocross Grand Prix because he'd missed the turning.
• 15:00
  He got banned from driving.
• 15:02
  So I was summons into the office and they said, Nick, you're doing the motocross.
• 15:06
  I went...
• 15:07
  Oh no, I don't really, I'm so happy doing what I did.
• 15:10
  It was great, I did two years travelling all over Europe.
• 15:13
  It taught me really how to look after myself, how to file a story.
• 15:19
  I was lucky Graeme Noyce became a great friend of mine, won the World Championship as well.
• 15:24
  It was a great experience.
• 15:26
  But I always, always wanted to be the road racing man, and in the end the chance came at Motorcycle Weekly.
• 15:35
  Yeah, back, sorry, to your original question.
• 15:37
  Oh, it was, you just, one, getting a pass.
• 15:40
  That was hard enough because each individual circuit issued the passes.
• 15:45
  Two, finding a phone that worked was virtually impossible.
• 15:51
  To file the copy over...
• 15:53
  You would have an operator on a telex machine would file all your early copy of gossip and practice.
• 16:01
  You had to type out all the results.
• 16:03
  And in those days, there was 50s, 125s, 250s, 350s, 500 sidecars, six classes.
• 16:09
  You had to type all that out.
• 16:12
  And then after you'd done all that...
• 16:14
  You try and find that phone either at the circuit, which I said was very difficult or back at the hotel.
• 16:20
  And then you'd be on the phone two hours, two and a half hours, phone and copy over.
• 16:25
  Some of the copy takers were great.
• 16:27
  Others you could tell when you go right off, we go then Barry Sheen.
• 16:32
  They say, how do you spell that?
• 16:33
  You go, God, this is going to be a long night.
• 16:37
  And it was a long night, but.
• 16:41
  It really, really taught you, one, how to survive, and two, how to gather news and how to somehow get it back.
• 16:50
  Photographs were taken by the photographers who gave you the films.
• 16:54
  Then you had to bring them back, develop them, and then you'd choose the pictures with a sheet.
• 16:59
  Yeah, I mean, it was crazy.
• 17:03
  It went very, very hard work, especially on a Sunday.
• 17:06
  But, you know, I was young.
• 17:08
  I was traveling the world watching motorcycles race.
• 17:11
  I wasn't grumbling, no.
• 17:13
  Amazing grounding for the life to come for you in many ways.
• 17:18
  Great, great skills.
• 17:19
  Your first Grand Prix, though, fittingly, took you, when I'm talking as a journalist covering it, did it not take you full circle?
• 17:27
  You went back to the Dutch TT in about 1980.
• 17:29
  Yeah, it did.
• 17:31
  It was amazing.
• 17:32
  Typical me, when I started at Motorcycle News and I went to do the motocross, there was a strike, so I missed two or three Grand Prixs at Motorcycle News.
• 17:44
  I then go to Motorcycle Weekly, strike, play,
• 17:48
  big strike and we were out of work for a month or more.
• 17:53
  So I missed the opening two or three Grand Prix's.
• 17:55
  I was going to miss the TT, but I went to the TT independently.
• 17:59
  While I was at the TT, the news came that everything had been resolved and off we went.
• 18:04
  Yeah, the first one I went to with Daryl McWillow, who was the editor, was to Assen.
• 18:10
  Yeah, it was at...
• 18:12
  It had to be in many ways.
• 18:14
  And Jack Middleburg won the race, the Dutch rider.
• 18:18
  And wow, I've been to some crazy places and crazy scenes since.
• 18:23
  But that was absolute mayhem.
• 18:26
  It was brilliant that he won the 500cc.
• 18:30
  Dear old Jack, of course, sadly lost his life as well.
• 18:34
  An amazing place, Nick.
• 18:36
  I mean, we'll talk about some great tracks along the way, but, I mean, you know, Dutch race is very special for all sorts of reasons, isn't it?
• 18:44
  Yeah, it is.
• 18:45
  I mean, it is the only original track from that very first World Championship in 1949, a year before Formula One started, bikes started, and Assen's been there ever since.
• 18:57
  It is an amazing circuit.
• 18:59
  The crowds are incredible, considering there's such a lack of Dutch success in Grand Prix racing.
• 19:05
  And that's been for a long, long time.
• 19:07
  They still turn up in their droves.
• 19:10
  It's amazing.
• 19:11
  The track has had to be altered over the years.
• 19:14
  Obviously, the cynics and the purists say, oh, it's not as good as it was.
• 19:18
  No, it probably isn't.
• 19:19
  But there was reasons that had to be altered, not just safety reasons, wildlife and everything else.
• 19:25
  But a lot of the original track is still there.
• 19:28
  It's a very, very special place to go to.
• 19:32
  The Isle of Man TT has featured significantly in your time from books to the coverage that you spoke about before and so on.
• 19:40
  Just give us a sense of the impact that that event has had on you because it is Last Bastion stuff nowadays.
• 19:46
  The track is remarkable.
• 19:49
  What they do on those machines, the heroics is incredible even now and some greats have ridden it over time.
• 19:55
  I mean, I look now, Nick, at...
• 19:58
  at colleagues perhaps in the four-wheel world like Mark Webber.
• 20:01
  If you get Mark Webber talking about the Isle of Antieti, you almost won't stop him.
• 20:06
  He raves about it, taking people there and letting them see and experience what it is like.
• 20:13
  It is incredible.
• 20:15
  37 miles of absolutely everything.
• 20:18
  I go every year to the Manx Grand Prix, which is a classic event.
• 20:23
  We always go in September with, we call it the, well, it's the old boys trip.
• 20:27
  Three of the lads I go with, I've raced in the Manx and raced in the TT and there's me one sidecar lap of the TT and we go every year.
• 20:34
  We have a wonderful time.
• 20:35
  Most of the people there have got grey hair like me.
• 20:38
  But,
• 20:39
  It's an absolute unique event.
• 20:42
  There is nothing like it in the world.
• 20:46
  Of course, in those early days, when I think I first went in 65 on a day trip, when you went over on the ferry in the morning, watched the race and came back to Liverpool that night and saw Hayald and Agostini and everybody else.
• 20:59
  Yeah.
• 21:01
  It was the World Championship event.
• 21:02
  It was the only World Championship event in Britain.
• 21:05
  So it was the British Grand Prix, but it was at the TT.
• 21:10
  That has changed since with Silverstone and Donington when a lot of people wouldn't ride there because it's too dangerous.
• 21:16
  And I think that's important that people have the prerogative that they don't want to ride there because not everybody wants to ride there.
• 21:23
  But as a spectacle, to go somewhere, I can't think of so many bends.
• 21:27
  You go somewhere...
• 21:29
  Rencullen or somewhere, and they're coming through there 150, 160 miles an hour with their shoulders touching brick walls.
• 21:36
  There's a road sign at Rencullen.
• 21:38
  I noticed it this year.
• 21:39
  40 mile an hour speed limit, and they're coming through there about 150 miles an hour.
• 21:44
  It is dangerous.
• 21:45
  They're lapping there over 130 miles an hour now.
• 21:48
  Perhaps that is a bit too quick.
• 21:49
  Perhaps the bikes are a bit too powerful, but...
• 21:54
  I think anybody who loves motorcycle racing, loves racing two or four wheels, you've got to go to the TT at least once just to feel, one, what it was like in the past, but even now, just how incredible it is.
• 22:09
  Before we move on and talk more of your career, you've mentioned Hale Wood there before.
• 22:13
  It would be remiss of us not to get an observation or a thought from you on the great Giacomo Agostini.
• 22:19
  I mean, to get to see him at the TT.
• 22:21
  I think you've mentioned in other publications, and rightly so, that his record will never likely be beaten.
• 22:29
  He's just an amazing human being and athlete, wasn't he?
• 22:33
  He was.
• 22:33
  Isn't he?
• 22:36
  Everything about him was right.
• 22:37
  One, he was the best motorcycle racer in the world.
• 22:40
  Two, he was so good looking, he attracted so many pretty young ladies to his life.
• 22:45
  He's still youthful now, isn't he?
• 22:48
  He is, isn't he?
• 22:50
  Yeah, he is.
• 22:52
  He was amazing.
• 22:54
  People would say he came at the right time.
• 22:56
  Yeah, he did.
• 22:56
  He had the best machinery with the MV Augusta State.
• 22:59
  They were far better than anything else, the 350s and the 500s and the three-cylinder and the four-cylinder.
• 23:06
  But I think what some people forget also, right at the end of his career, he switched to Yamaha
• 23:12
  And he became the first ever rider to win the 500cc World Championship on a two-stroke machine.
• 23:17
  And that, I think, just speaks volumes how good he was.
• 23:21
  And you've still got to ride the bike.
• 23:22
  You might have the best car.
• 23:23
  You might have the best bike.
• 23:25
  You've still got to go out there and lap the Isle of Man at 108 miles an hour.
• 23:29
  You've still got to win.
• 23:31
  These races were long races, two hours long as well.
• 23:33
  They're very, very different to the races we see now.
• 23:38
  Tell me about the move into commentary.
• 23:41
  You detailed there before about your love of Oxford United.
• 23:46
  Your first kind of public broadcast of anything was football in the early sort of 70s.
• 23:51
  We tend to think of you now, Nick, for your commentary of bike racing and what you did in that great period for the sport.
• 23:57
  But it was actually football more or less that kicked it off, wasn't it, in terms of commentary?
• 24:01
  It was.
• 24:01
  I'm totally in love with Oxford United.
• 24:05
  The old eyes aren't good enough for commentary.
• 24:07
  Now, I still do punditry.
• 24:10
  They still have to listen to me, and I still go to all the home games.
• 24:14
  Yes, it was.
• 24:16
  I was lucky because...
• 24:18
  Oxford drew nil all in Bologna.
• 24:20
  I mean, amazing that it was Bologna as well, where that first game was, of course, the home of Ducati and really right in the heart of a motorcycle racing territory.
• 24:30
  And when we came back on the coach, the Radio Oxford guy, Tony Anderson, was waiting.
• 24:34
  So, would you like to come and make the tea and read the football results?
• 24:38
  I said that sounds okay for me I think it was two pounds I got for each shift I did It meant stop playing football on a Saturday afternoon It was quite a big rent I loved playing local football on a Saturday afternoon And it honestly really went from there And I started doing commentaries at events North Gloucestershire Club, road racing Places like Roughton and Gaydon And then grass tracks locally And it really took off from there
• 25:07
  What about the formation of Nick Harris Media Communications?
• 25:11
  This is another hat that you wear.
• 25:13
  This is bringing together all the talents that we've spoken about so far.
• 25:16
  And it involved all sorts of things, Nick, didn't it, from promotional work to media managing the Rothmans Honda team and so on?
• 25:24
  Yeah, it did.
• 25:27
  Motorcycle Weekly sadly ceased, so we all got made redundant.
• 25:31
  I've got to say we were looked after very well by IBC.
• 25:35
  I set up on my own, and that meant going to the races, sleeping in the paddock,
• 25:42
  Travelling, John Brown, poor father, my great friends, helped me enormously with car tyre and Ray Daniel, the photographer, I sleep in the awning of his van and all good things that really, really set you up for later on.
• 25:58
  And when you see people moaning, sometimes you think you've got it so good, you don't start worrying about that.
• 26:04
  But yeah, and...
• 26:07
  Nick Harris, Media Communications, Chas Mortimer, who was setting up a race team, Silverstone Armstrong, based at Silverstone, Jimmy Brown, who ran the Silverstone circuit.
• 26:18
  They just started staging the Grand Prix and he was very keen that the bikes got a lot more going for them.
• 26:26
  And Chas asked me to come along and do the PR.
• 26:28
  And that's exactly what I did with Neil McKenzie.
• 26:32
  uh, one of the main riders and Donnie McLeod, both very good riders and did well in the world championship.
• 26:38
  As far as I'm just thinking back to the broadcasting that really came, uh, was in South Africa, 1983.
• 26:48
  It was the first race back of Barry Sheen after his horrendous Silverstone crash.
• 26:52
  So it was a massive, massive thing.
• 26:55
  And, um,
• 26:57
  BBC Radio rang me up and said, Chris Carter, who was doing the radio for them, was doing the television commentary for ITV because it was big news in Britain.
• 27:06
  Could I, they've been trying to get hold of Barry Sheen, was there any chance I could get hold of him and could he do an interview?
• 27:13
  Well, this is the night before the race.
• 27:16
  So I went and knocked on Barry's hotel room door.
• 27:19
  He was already in bed with Stephanie, 7 o'clock in the evening, getting a good night's sleep before the race.
• 27:25
  I said, Barry, sorry to disturb you.
• 27:26
  I said, the BBC wonder if you said, OK, Nikolas, as he always called me.
• 27:30
  What's the number?
• 27:31
  He dialed the number.
• 27:33
  The person answered the phone and said, Hello, it's Barry Sheen here.
• 27:36
  I think you want to do an interview.
• 27:37
  Nikolas told me, he said.
• 27:38
  That's it.
• 27:40
  And then I did the race to the BBC and it went from there.
• 27:43
  But that was Barry helping you all the way.
• 27:47
  I never forget.
• 27:48
  Hello, Barry Sheena.
• 27:50
  You want to do an interview, don't you?
• 27:51
  Nikolas told me.
• 27:55
  I love it.
• 27:55
  I love it.
• 27:55
  We will tap into your memory bank of him as we go, if you don't mind.
• 28:00
  In finishing some of the stuff around...
• 28:05
  you know, what you do with Nick Harris Media Communications, even now.
• 28:09
  Can we bounce through a couple of names from the Rothmans Honda period there?
• 28:12
  Firstly, Eddie Lawson.
• 28:16
  Eddie, yeah.
• 28:19
  Caught completely by surprise.
• 28:21
  I was sitting at home, phone rang, David Beck from the Rothmans.
• 28:27
  We've signed Eddie Lawson.
• 28:30
  We signed Eddie Lawson.
• 28:31
  Yeah, he's going to do a year with Wayne Gardner in the Rothmans Honda team, 1989.
• 28:36
  He'd won three world titles for Yamaha.
• 28:40
  I thought, no.
• 28:41
  David was joking.
• 28:42
  I said, does Wayne know?
• 28:43
  No, not yet.
• 28:44
  Put the phone down.
• 28:44
  Phone rings to me.
• 28:45
  He said, Wayne Gardner here.
• 28:47
  What the f is going on?
• 28:49
  Is it true they've signed?
• 28:51
  And Lawson said, oh, sorry, Wayne.
• 28:53
  Don't know anything about that.
• 28:54
  I thought I'd keep out of it when Wayne was left.
• 28:57
  So I got dispatched to California, a secret dispatched that comes just before Christmas.
• 29:03
  Eddie had always been really difficult with the media, so I was a bit nervous.
• 29:08
  We lived in Uplands in California.
• 29:11
  We spent three wonderful days with him, filming, interviews, everything, getting everything ready for when the announcement came.
• 29:19
  We had a great time and came back.
• 29:22
  Eddie was fantastic for that year.
• 29:24
  to work with.
• 29:25
  Really, really helpful.
• 29:27
  Unbelievable.
• 29:28
  Different Eddie.
• 29:29
  And of course, he went and won the world title.
• 29:31
  And so typical, Eddie.
• 29:33
  And he went back to Yamaha.
• 29:34
  He only did it for one year.
• 29:36
  Oh, that's it.
• 29:37
  Thank you.
• 29:37
  I can prove I can win on that.
• 29:39
  I'm not going back to Yamaha.
• 29:40
  Won lots of races on Yamaha, on the Kajiva, before retiring.
• 29:44
  Very, very underrated world champion.
• 29:47
  What?
• 29:47
  Four times world champion, Eddie?
• 29:48
  Yeah.
• 29:49
  Yeah, we should think of him, I guess what you're saying there, in our memory bank or in a radar sense in a greater capacity.
• 29:56
  Is that what you mean?
• 29:58
  Yeah, I do.
• 29:58
  There's only, with the Mark Marquez switched, obviously, to Giacati from Honda, that's all the big news at the moment.
• 30:07
  There's only five riders that have switched machinery and won a world title on different bikes, Jeff Duke,
• 30:15
  Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Giacomo Agostini, and Eddie Lawson.
• 30:21
  They're the only five in the 74-year history of the sport in the Premier class that have switched machinery and won the world title on two different makes.
• 30:32
  For Eddie to do that and then to go back to Yamaha, that was so Eddie to do that.
• 30:38
  Yeah, that's it.
• 30:38
  Thank you.
• 30:39
  One year of the world title.
• 30:40
  Yeah, it does that.
• 30:53
  When you think of Philip Highland, Wayne Gardner's unforgettable wins in the fearsome 500cc era immediately come to mind.
• 31:00
  In front of a huge home crowd, it changed his life forever.
• 31:04
  Also, look at me go.
• 31:06
  I'm really getting this motolingo.
• 31:09
  And I remember leaving the track on Monday and then there was big signs up on the roads and over the bridge going off Philip Highland's got Wayne for PM.
• 31:16
  And I'm thinking, this is going to be interesting.
• 31:21
  So I thought one day I might end up in Parliament, you know, as the PM.
• 31:25
  But I don't want that job.
• 31:28
  But it was a nice recognition of what happened on the weekend and everyone just loved it and, you know, it etched my name in stone forever, you know, in that moment.
• 31:38
  So a pretty special moment.
• 31:42
  Could you imagine Wayne as PM?
• 31:44
  Progress really would be his middle name.
• 31:46
  You can find the WG episode, a three-parter, in the Rusty Garage library.
• 31:52
  Now, back to his media manager during the height of Gardner's success, Nick Harris.
• 31:58
  You've mentioned Wayne.
• 31:59
  Let's talk about WG.
• 32:00
  How did you deal with all that and then, you know, the friendship and stuff that you share?
• 32:05
  Yeah, I met Wayne at Daytona when he was riding the Kawasaki.
• 32:10
  So we got to know each other.
• 32:13
  Then he came to ride in Britain in the British Superweight Championship, came over with Donna, and we became great friends.
• 32:19
  We still are great friends.
• 32:21
  And he helped me enormously in my career, and I think I helped him enormously in his career.
• 32:28
  I mean, Wayne, some stories you can tell, others you can't.
• 32:33
  It was just, it was.
• 32:37
  I spent hours outside medical centres or explaining to people why he wasn't there.
• 32:41
  Not in the medical centre, why he wasn't at places.
• 32:45
  Whoa, what a...
• 32:49
  What a man of steel, what a determined guy.
• 32:52
  He just never accepted defeat.
• 32:55
  And when he won that world title in 87 in Guiana, Brazil, was just fantastic.
• 33:02
  And one of my favorite, favorite, favorite moments.
• 33:07
  We went to Guiana, I'd never been to Guiana, found out it was the party city of Brazil pretty quickly.
• 33:13
  What an amazing, great place of way to win the World Championship, I can assure you.
• 33:17
  BBC wanted to get him live on the radio immediately after the race if he won the World Championship because he'd been doing some, he really helped me doing some great stuff on BBC Radio after every race.
• 33:28
  They loved him because he was so funny and telling stories and everything else.
• 33:32
  So when I got to Guayana, trying to fix it up.
• 33:35
  One, fixing up the local broadcasters was not easy, but they did arrive on the...
• 33:40
  Saturday, but they didn't have a microphone for me, so I had to pay cash, all things you learn as you go along.
• 33:47
  The difficult thing was that the commentary point was on the opposite side of the track to the podium, and I was trying to work hard to get to Wayne after he'd been on the podium to come to the commentary point.
• 33:59
  I got friendly with the chief of police of Guayana.
• 34:01
  It was very fortuitous.
• 34:03
  I think I probably met him in that local club where everybody's seen me go to all the time.
• 34:08
  The Zoom Zoom Club, where the guy would fire the gun into the ceiling to start the night off.
• 34:16
  And he said, leave it with me.
• 34:19
  It will be sorted.
• 34:20
  So I left it to him.
• 34:21
  Wayne Julie had his World Championship T-shirt on, covered in champagne, arrived at the commentary point with six armed policemen, rifles and everything, marched up the steps, sat down, and we did the live broadcast into London.
• 34:34
  And it was brilliant.
• 34:35
  Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
• 34:37
  That's where the celebrations afterwards, I can tell you, in the Zoom Zoom Club.
• 34:42
  In the Zoom Zoom Club.
• 34:44
  I love it.
• 34:44
  I love it.
• 34:46
  In your farewell video, which people can find online that Dorner and MotoGP did beautiful, you in the press conference.
• 34:54
  end of 2017, Valentino Rossi kind of ends up chairing it, Jorge Lorenzo, Danny Pedrosa, Mark Marquez, they're all there.
• 35:02
  And there's a great comment in the midst of that beautiful video from one Jeremy Burgess who says along the lines, if he ever needs any help with retirement to give him a call and so on, can we get a memory of JB?
• 35:15
  He's been a guest on the podcast as well because he was around in that whole period with Rothmans while you were there, wasn't he?
• 35:21
  He certainly was.
• 35:22
  Yeah.
• 35:23
  JB, there's so many.
• 35:25
  Oh, yeah.
• 35:27
  There's lots.
• 35:27
  JB and I became great friends.
• 35:29
  I remember when he came over to Britain and he worked at Suzuki, I think, in those early days, didn't he?
• 35:33
  And meeting him at the TT and then the Rothman Sonder days, always moaning about the clothing, never fitted and didn't know what they were.
• 35:43
  But we're massive cricket fans.
• 35:45
  So we were in the Saxon ring.
• 35:48
  It was the Ashes series.
• 35:51
  remember the year.
• 35:52
  Anyway, one of the top...
• 35:55
  So Valentino Julie won the race, and they used to come into our room where we were commentating before they went on to the podium.
• 36:01
  So JB was there with him, so he had to get the award.
• 36:05
  Me and Gavin Emmett were listening to the cricket as well, because we were cricket fanatics.
• 36:10
  And one of the top...
• 36:11
  I forget who it was.
• 36:12
  Australians was out.
• 36:13
  So we wrote down he was out.
• 36:15
  And we said to Gerry...
• 36:18
  Put that in your top pocket, that note, and when you're on the podium, have a look at it.
• 36:22
  So off we went.
• 36:25
  If I don't know what he'd ever received, Jerry comes to get the award for Honda.
• 36:29
  We can see him now lifting his face with feet.
• 36:34
  We still bet on the test matches now, me and Gerry.
• 36:37
  And he didn't let me off a penny, I can assure you.
• 36:39
  Not a penny.
• 36:41
  We still do, yeah.
• 36:43
  We were great pals.
• 36:44
  And, yeah, and it was a sad ending to his career.
• 36:50
  I really don't think it was handled very well with Valentino Rossi and the team, how the news leaked out.
• 36:57
  These things happened, you know.
• 36:58
  It happened to me.
• 36:59
  People feel it's time to move on.
• 37:05
  Just to find out, as we did in that press conference in Valencia, almost an off-the-cuff comment.
• 37:11
  Somebody said, well, we've seen in the Italian press that Jeremy Burgess is leaving.
• 37:15
  He's not true of Valentino.
• 37:16
  I had to admit it.
• 37:18
  I don't think it was done properly for a matter.
• 37:21
  Such a loyal servant.
• 37:23
  And all the other Australians with him.
• 37:25
  Briggs and everybody else.
• 37:27
  They were a great team.
• 37:28
  They were such good fun.
• 37:30
  They were great to socialise with, mad on cricket.
• 37:34
  So we would always have...
• 37:35
  I took them to Lourdes once, I forget what year it was, to the England-Australia game.
• 37:43
  And Michael Atherton was the captain of England.
• 37:46
  And he was on 99.
• 37:47
  And we all sat there and they were getting a bit annoyed.
• 37:50
  Jerry and the boys.
• 37:51
  And then Atherton went for a short run, slipped over, and the Aussies ran him out.
• 37:55
  They went absolutely cracking.
• 37:58
  They never let me forget that for years.
• 38:01
  Yeah, and I took them to Lords as a gift.
• 38:11
  That's the end of part one of my feature ep with the voice of MotoGP Nick Harris.
• 38:16
  We still have plenty of laps to cover in this edition leading up to the 2023 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island.
• 38:24
  If you're enjoying this on your way there, please drive or ride carefully.
• 38:28
  When it's safe to take part in or jump back to the library and hit the gas on part two.
• 38:34
  From working in Formula One to bidding farewell to Baz.
• 38:38
  Plus his observations on some of the Aussies who've made their mark in the sport.
• 38:43
  And his island memories too.
• 38:45
  That's all ahead in part two with Nick Harris here on Rusty's Garage.