Latest / Rusty's Garage / Steve Horne Part 2 - Tasman Motorsports to the Supercars Commission.

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Steve Horne Part 2 - Tasman Motorsports to the Supercars Commission. · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature episode with former Champ Car team owner Steve Horn from Tasman Motorsports.
• 0:26
  If you've arrived here without giving part one a listen, jump back to the library now.
• 0:30
  How the New Zealand Grand Prix at Ardmore back in the day had a profound effect on him.
• 0:35
  His dad's influence.
• 0:36
  leaving home and heading overseas to pursue a career in motor racing, meeting his wife Christine and taking a gamble on the United States.
• 0:44
  What followed was incredible.
• 0:47
  Working with the late Jim Truman and TruSports, winning the Indy 500 in the mid-80s with Bobby Rahal...
• 0:53
  building their own race cars.
• 0:55
  And there's some fabulous takeaways that remind you why he is such a great team leader, a great spotter of talent and how passionately invested he was, taking quite a calculated or big punt to ultimately start and build his own team, Tasman Motorsports.
• 1:10
  Let's get back to it now.
• 1:15
  You'd gone from 100 staff at True Sports.
• 1:18
  You've formed this, you know, you, Christine, this humble organisation.
• 1:22
  You've got some success happening.
• 1:24
  What are you in staff numbers now?
• 1:26
  And are you putting into place immediately all of the things that you became so good at at True Sports around people in right places, around process and so on?
• 1:35
  I learned at True Sports a couple of really good things.
• 1:38
  Have good people, obviously.
• 1:39
  So the team manager at Truesports, his name was Jeff Eyshen, he'd started with us running the test team, and Jeff was a bit of a grumpy old man, but he got shit done.
• 1:49
  He was, you know, we're leaving the shop at this time, on this date, and the cars will be ready.
• 1:56
  So Jeff came on board, but I also realised that I needed help myself.
• 2:01
  I can't make all these decisions without some good advice.
• 2:07
  People say, Steve, you're wrong.
• 2:10
  Every time somebody said to me, Steve, you're wrong, I've got my back up.
• 2:15
  So Jeff became a 10% owner in Tasman Motorsports.
• 2:18
  He had equity in the team.
• 2:21
  And then I had a really good attorney in Columbus.
• 2:25
  His name was Stan Ross, who was an avid Ferrari collector.
• 2:27
  That's how I met him.
• 2:29
  And I said, Stan, you know, would you like to come on and be an owner in Tasman?
• 2:33
  It'll cost you $10,000.
• 2:35
  And he said, I'd love to.
• 2:37
  Then there was another guy that I'd met in India.
• 2:39
  His name was Ben Dillon.
• 2:40
  And he was a CEO of a Fortune 500 country that made Mastron Scales.
• 2:45
  They'd provided the scales in India.
• 2:46
  And I said to Ben, and he was in Columbus, said, I'm starting this other team.
• 2:50
  Would you like to come on board and be sort of my mentor and tell me stuff that maybe I don't want to hear?
• 2:55
  He said, I'd love to.
• 2:56
  So we capitalised the team with $100,000.
• 3:00
  They owned 10% for 10 grand.
• 3:02
  And Christine and I owned...
• 3:03
  70% for 70 grand.
• 3:06
  And why you went?
• 3:07
  We went to the bank and borrowed the money.
• 3:10
  That's unreal.
• 3:11
  People talk about calculated risk.
• 3:14
  People talk about only plan A, don't think of a plan B and so on.
• 3:18
  There was no plan B. Yeah.
• 3:20
  But you clearly had the assets in the sense of the acumen, the things that you'd learnt.
• 3:28
  You knew you could put the right people in the right places and so on.
• 3:31
  So in that sense, it is a calculated punt.
• 3:33
  Yeah.
• 3:33
  And we had a really good driver in Andre.
• 3:35
  He was really fast.
• 3:36
  Yeah.
• 3:37
  um he had a lot of learning to do um crashed a few times but he was always crashing when he was fast um and he was a charismatic man it was very sad that we lost him in recent years it was a great period for you in terms of the the move into champ car what you're able to do with with him with some support i think that he brought with honda and and so on it was such an important step wasn't it
• 4:00
  It was a great step and we won, you know, I'm very proud of this, won Honda's first IndyCar race at Nazareth actually on an oval.
• 4:08
  Andre was a really good oval racer, really good.
• 4:11
  And we also were using Firestone tyres because we'd used them in Indy Lights and this was their first year into IndyCar and a lot of people were gun-shy of them.
• 4:20
  But I thought, I think these are going to be really good and they were amazing.
• 4:24
  in my opinion, better than the Goodyear's.
• 4:25
  So we had a Honda engine and we had Firestone tyres, and that made us right at the sharp end with a rookie driver.
• 4:32
  How did you develop that sense of knowing that something was the right way, that you could see that, I mean, clearly Honda, because of its background, you knew that would come right.
• 4:41
  What gave you the confidence to go to the Firestones?
• 4:43
  Well, we'd used them in Indy Lights.
• 4:45
  We knew their durability.
• 4:48
  We knew that they never fell off big time.
• 4:51
  We knew that they were very consistent batch to batch.
• 4:55
  And we knew the engineers.
• 4:56
  So we were kind of just building a bigger tyre for a different environment, spent a year testing them on IndyCars.
• 5:06
  privately.
• 5:07
  So I just thought it was such a logical decision.
• 5:09
  Plus there were free tyres.
• 5:11
  So we had free tyres, free engines, and Honda bought the chassis.
• 5:15
  So suddenly our budget, where we had half the budget, we had the whole budget.
• 5:19
  We had to unwind our Lola purchase with Carl Haas.
• 5:23
  So I called Carl and said, Hey, Carl, I've got this opportunity and explained to him.
• 5:27
  He said, No, that's fine.
• 5:28
  And I said, Well, how much is it going to cost?
• 5:30
  Because, you know, we've got to pay you something.
• 5:32
  But he was very fair and Honda bought out of that contract.
• 5:35
  And I called Paul Ray at Ilmore and said, look, something's come up and we've got this great opportunity with Honda.
• 5:41
  And he said, that's good for the sport.
• 5:43
  How much is it going to cost?
• 5:44
  And he said, nothing.
• 5:45
  That's fantastic.
• 5:46
  Yeah.
• 5:46
  So in a roundabout way, Ilmore helped us big time.
• 5:50
  And off we went.
• 5:51
  And there's a little sideline here.
• 5:54
  So we had a shop probably twice the size of this in Columbus, Ohio, and we had a shop
• 6:01
  We had maybe 15 employees.
• 6:03
  We'd geared up a bit more, and Honda said, oh, Steve's on.
• 6:06
  We need to insert engineers.
• 6:08
  So what does that mean?
• 6:09
  He said, we need engineers full-time in the shop.
• 6:12
  I said, okay, how many?
• 6:13
  Six.
• 6:13
  Okay.
• 6:14
  You give special area for engineers, private.
• 6:17
  So I think I kicked the accountant out of his office.
• 6:23
  But I had a little secret weapon.
• 6:26
  The chief mechanic on the Indy Lights program was a guy called Steve Reagan, and he said,
• 6:30
  And he was half Japanese.
• 6:33
  So I said to Steve, listen, mate, don't tell these guys that you're fully fluent in Japanese.
• 6:38
  Just hang around and listen to what they're saying.
• 6:40
  So I think for about six months we knew every damn thing they were saying about us via Steve.
• 6:47
  Most of it was pretty complimentary.
• 6:49
  In the end, somewhere they're having a beer and he told them and they laughed their heads off.
• 6:52
  Yeah.
• 6:54
  This period is not the beginnings, but the sport goes through this kind of golden period.
• 7:00
  You're already known and established for what you did at True Sports, right?
• 7:03
  But how are you now with Tasman and what you're doing?
• 7:05
  How are you being received and perceived by Barry Green, who you mentioned before, Roger Penske, and some of those?
• 7:13
  Well, I'd known the people you talk about.
• 7:17
  Most of them I knew anyway, because doing any lights, you're in the paddock.
• 7:21
  And they kind of knew our background at True Sports, so it wasn't as if we were totally fresh faces.
• 7:27
  We were just reinventing ourselves.
• 7:29
  So that was great.
• 7:31
  And you're right, Rusty, it was a golden era.
• 7:35
  an era that actually made Christine and I financially.
• 7:39
  The racing was unbelievably competitive.
• 7:42
  I think it was better than Formula One.
• 7:44
  IndyCar or Championship Auto Racing Teams was organised as a franchise.
• 7:50
  And to get a franchise, you had to compete for a season and knock out one of the 24 players.
• 7:57
  competitors teams in there who could still race, but they didn't have the franchise.
• 8:01
  What the franchise did, back then it cost $400,000 US dollars, but it paid you quite a travel... Every time you showed up, you got a flat fee of I think it was 50 grand.
• 8:11
  So there were 14 races.
• 8:12
  Well,
• 8:13
  Yeah, do the math.
• 8:14
  Do the math.
• 8:16
  So we competed in the first year.
• 8:18
  I think Andre finished like 10th or something.
• 8:20
  And so we actually kicked Dan Gurney out, which was kind of sad, but they kept running.
• 8:26
  So he lost the franchise.
• 8:28
  So I got that.
• 8:29
  And then the next year...
• 8:31
  Adrian Fernandez from Mexico came to us.
• 8:35
  He'd been racing at Gallus.
• 8:37
  And I sort of knew him, but I didn't know him that well.
• 8:39
  And he said, Steve, I'd like to drive for you.
• 8:41
  So we sat down and did a deal.
• 8:43
  And Adrian was immensely good with sponsors.
• 8:48
  He had Takati be here.
• 8:50
  and a number of other good spots.
• 8:52
  So he brought basically the whole budget, and we ran it for him.
• 8:56
  Great guy to be with.
• 8:58
  Him and Andre got on great, won some races together, and suddenly I had a second franchise.
• 9:05
  The first one we bought, again, Christian and I had to have a second mortgage on our home, but it was a no-brainer.
• 9:11
  So you can convince a bank with,
• 9:14
  If you've got the numbers there, they'll buy an Indy.
• 9:17
  We had a really good bank, actually.
• 9:19
  I remember sitting in there quite a few times.
• 9:21
  So we had two franchises, right?
• 9:24
  And you're running this still in parallel with Indy Lights as well, are you not?
• 9:27
  Well, that's a whole other little period.
• 9:28
  But let me finish off this part of the story.
• 9:32
  And IndyCar was going strong.
• 9:34
  We were going to Brazil.
• 9:35
  We were going to Mexico.
• 9:36
  We were going to Canada.
• 9:38
  We were going to Australia.
• 9:39
  Australia, yeah.
• 9:39
  And there was big money floating around from IndyCar.
• 9:42
  you know, tracks and countries that wanted us to race.
• 9:45
  TV was growing.
• 9:46
  We were a threat to F1.
• 9:48
  There was no question about it.
• 9:50
  And Championship Auto Racing teams did a deal with a company in Switzerland that owned the rights to World Tennis and some other big franchises.
• 10:01
  And they put a lot of money on the table to buy the rights.
• 10:05
  I think it was like $100 million to IndyCar worldwide for five years.
• 10:11
  So...
• 10:12
  We, as franchise owners, we voted, we said, okay, we signed those rights over to them.
• 10:17
  And then it was really Pat Patrick, I think, that started it.
• 10:24
  He said, look, we should take this company public.
• 10:27
  We should make it a public sports entity and be the biggest sports...
• 10:32
  franchise in the world.
• 10:33
  And he was actually kind of right.
• 10:35
  But there was a lot of discussion internally.
• 10:39
  What it meant was we would give up our franchises and the rights to the revenue for stock in this future company.
• 10:46
  So there was a big risk there.
• 10:51
  The numbers stacked up to me.
• 10:53
  Some of the other team owners went so sure Roger Penske was pretty against it.
• 10:58
  Anyway, we divided the company into two.
• 11:01
  The technical side, which we still controlled, and the financial side, which became a public company.
• 11:08
  So for every franchise, you got 400,000 shares in this public company.
• 11:16
  Um, so suddenly Christine and I and our other partners, we owned all these shares in a public company that started at $16.
• 11:25
  Um, and it kept on going up and up and up.
• 11:28
  And I thought this, this sounds too good to be true.
• 11:33
  And there was a lockout period, I think of six months and nine months.
• 11:35
  So again, this, the business side, the accounting side.
• 11:38
  Yeah.
• 11:39
  And I'm thinking, oh, there's a lot of hype here.
• 11:41
  There's too much hype.
• 11:42
  I think it got to $31.
• 11:43
  Um,
• 11:45
  So I hired a firm to actually slowly bleed some of it off for us because I thought, you know, I need to have the cash.
• 11:55
  set aside for the future in case something goes wrong.
• 11:58
  Long story short, we sold $800,000.
• 12:01
  I mean, 800,000 shares at the market peak of around $30.
• 12:06
  So suddenly, our lives changed.
• 12:10
  We couldn't understand, how do we get all this money?
• 12:12
  And obviously, our other partners got it.
• 12:15
  Some of the other owners stayed with the stock, and...
• 12:19
  And this was the beginning of the IndyCar Wars.
• 12:21
  This is a masterstroke move.
• 12:23
  I don't know.
• 12:23
  I mean, the simplicity of this is too good to be true or this is the peak.
• 12:28
  I mean, that's a great gut feel or however you've arrived at that.
• 12:32
  But when you look back on it now, your decision to move was… IndyCar had grown so big that everybody wanted a piece of it.
• 12:40
  And, you know, Tony George was running the Indy 500.
• 12:42
  He felt there were too many foreign drivers.
• 12:46
  He wanted more Americans.
• 12:47
  Yada, yada, yada.
• 12:48
  Long story short, that's a whole other episode.
• 12:50
  But it blew up big time.
• 12:52
  You know, suddenly there were two competing series, et cetera.
• 12:55
  And I thought, this is not going to end well.
• 12:58
  We'd already...
• 13:00
  We were financially secure through luck.
• 13:05
  That's the way I look at it.
• 13:06
  We're lucky.
• 13:06
  You made that luck.
• 13:07
  You made that luck.
• 13:09
  But I could see this war going on, and it really hit me one day.
• 13:15
  We had LCI as a sponsor and they'd moved on because they got absorbed.
• 13:20
  And I had another big Fortune 500 company that wanted to sponsor the team.
• 13:24
  Gone all the way through, taken nearly 12 months to do the deal, working with the president of the company, contract signed, yada, yada, yada.
• 13:33
  And he said, Steve, this is great.
• 13:34
  I'd like you to meet the chairman of the board.
• 13:36
  Why don't you come down and see us?
• 13:37
  And they were in.
• 13:38
  They were in Illinois.
• 13:40
  So I went down there, met the chairman of the board, and he's talking about it.
• 13:44
  I said, Steve, this is great.
• 13:46
  The president's there.
• 13:47
  This is wonderful.
• 13:47
  He said, I'm really looking forward to going to the Indy 500.
• 13:50
  500.
• 13:50
  Oh, fuck.
• 13:53
  Well, no.
• 13:53
  And I had to say, well, actually, we don't actually go there anymore.
• 13:58
  Poof.
• 13:59
  Poof.
• 13:59
  Yeah.
• 14:00
  Like, I could see it.
• 14:01
  Mm.
• 14:02
  So that contract got cancelled and I thought, this is a war of attrition.
• 14:07
  Mm.
• 14:07
  It's gonna drive a lot of teams out of business.
• 14:10
  That story is a reoccurring story too with major corporations, I think, either like Pepsi or MTV or all this sort of stuff.
• 14:17
  Dead Ex.
• 14:17
  They all left, they all left, yeah.
• 14:19
  Mm.
• 14:20
  At the same time I had Tony Kanaan driving for me.
• 14:23
  And he was a wizard.
• 14:24
  You could see he was going to be an absolute superstar.
• 14:27
  And one of the other team owners, Jerry Forsyth, who ran Forsyth Racing, had Greg Moore before he died.
• 14:34
  Nice guy, but very introverted, incredibly wealthy.
• 14:37
  He was nibbling at Tony, but I had a lot of...
• 14:41
  Rock-hard contract with Tony.
• 14:43
  But what happens is it gets in their brain, and Tony's sort of started talking about it.
• 14:48
  Oh, Jerry's going to do this, and he's going to spend this, and I realized, hang on, I'm on tenterhooks here with my biggest asset, so I need to make sure.
• 14:59
  I don't think I can hang on to this asset, but I need to make sure I get something out of it.
• 15:03
  So I said to Jerry, look.
• 15:07
  In reality, you're tampering with a contract of mine, but I can't fight you.
• 15:11
  You're too big.
• 15:14
  You want Tony?
• 15:15
  I'm not going to let him go, so go away and think about it.
• 15:18
  So he came back to me and he said, I'll tell you what you'll do.
• 15:20
  I'll buy the whole team.
• 15:22
  I'll buy Tasman off you.
• 15:23
  I'll just change the name.
• 15:24
  You just keep running it.
• 15:26
  And I've got Tony and I've got McDonald's sponsorship and happy days.
• 15:31
  And I went home to Chris to remember, I said,
• 15:36
  Somebody wants something that we've got really bad.
• 15:42
  You put your whole lives into...
• 15:44
  It's going to rip our soul apart, but it's the right thing for the people that work there because I could see the thing was blowing up and we both agreed, let's sell it.
• 15:54
  Amazing.
• 15:54
  Went to the other guys and said, let's sell it.
• 15:57
  On the ground, everything will stay the same.
• 15:59
  Tony will drive.
• 16:00
  I'll run the team.
• 16:01
  Yada, yada, yada.
• 16:03
  So we ran for years McDonald's Racing and Tony won his first race with them and everything went great.
• 16:08
  But...
• 16:10
  underlying this, Jerry had some bag men that were telling him what to do, then they were telling me what to do, and it ended up one day, we were planning for 2000, and I'd ordered some new Raynaards, we were running Honda engines, and my past manager comes in and said, oh, there's a guy here with a couple of drivers with some new Ford trucks.
• 16:33
  I said, what Ford trucks?
• 16:36
  What are they for?
• 16:36
  And they said, oh, they've got to drop them off here.
• 16:39
  And I thought, what?
• 16:40
  We haven't done it.
• 16:41
  So I get on the phone and one of the bag men said, oh, we're switching to Ford next year.
• 16:46
  we've got to deal with Ford, so you need to cancel the Honda contract and we're going to run Swift chassis.
• 16:51
  I thought, and this was coming from a third party, not directly from Gerry.
• 16:55
  No consultation with you.
• 16:57
  And I thought, that's me gone.
• 17:00
  So that was that.
• 17:00
  And we got out.
• 17:02
  We got out intact individually.
• 17:05
  Some of the other people got out intact.
• 17:08
  The team ran for a year.
• 17:10
  But he was having a big internal fight with Ford
• 17:13
  champ car because he wanted a third franchise and they wouldn't give it to him.
• 17:16
  So he parked the whole team.
• 17:18
  It just went, it was a nightmare.
• 17:21
  And I, we got out, we escaped.
• 17:26
  So that was in 2000.
• 17:29
  And I said to Christine, that's it.
• 17:31
  We're done with motorsports, it's over.
• 17:33
  But suddenly the phone rang.
• 17:36
  And it was, it was, it was Chip Ganassi.
• 17:41
  And he said, oh, Steve, I hear you sort of got a bit of spare time.
• 17:47
  Would you sort of, and they were running to outer engines, having a terrible time, Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon, they were having a terrible time.
• 17:55
  He said, could you just come and have a look at our team internally and...
• 17:59
  see if there's something that sticks out to you that we're doing wrong.
• 18:02
  So I spent three weeks down there and I did a simple thing.
• 18:05
  I just created a list of 10 questions.
• 18:08
  And I asked everybody that I could answer these questions, including the drivers.
• 18:13
  It became obvious.
• 18:14
  The number one problem was getting free engines from Toyota.
• 18:18
  Because they were doing things to make the car better that were extreme, that didn't work.
• 18:23
  So the drivers were insecure, the engines were not good enough.
• 18:27
  So my bottom line, I went back to Chip and I said, mate, how much money has Toyota given you?
• 18:33
  And he told me nothing was pretty good.
• 18:35
  I said, they're actually destroying you.
• 18:38
  They're destroying you.
• 18:39
  So you have to get out away from Toyota.
• 18:41
  Because as it stands, you're going backwards at a great, and you need to go to Honda because they're the best.
• 18:48
  So he did.
• 18:49
  and, you know, the rest is history.
• 18:51
  That's right.
• 18:52
  So that was a consulting...
• 18:54
  So suddenly I'm a consultant.
• 18:55
  Next minute I get a call from Bobby Rayle.
• 18:56
  He said, oh, he just did a project for... Chip.
• 18:59
  Chip.
• 19:00
  He said, could you come and have a look?
• 19:02
  And on it went.
• 19:03
  So I did a big report for them, and Bobby read it, and I heard that ended up in the bin.
• 19:07
  So I don't think they enacted anything.
• 19:10
  Then I got another call from Honra.
• 19:11
  He said, oh...
• 19:12
  Robert said, look, we're looking at doing IMSA in sports cars and ultimately we want to go to Le Mans and we'd like you to build a team to do that.
• 19:19
  And I said, Robert, no, it's too big a project.
• 19:22
  I don't think I'm ready to take on.
• 19:24
  He said, well, could you help another team?
• 19:28
  So we went and helped another team that they were building up to do IMSA and they did do IMSA.
• 19:33
  I never got to Le Mans, so suddenly I'm a consultant.
• 19:37
  And then Tony Canine calls me and said, he said, boss, could you just come to the races with me?
• 19:43
  I just need someone to talk to.
• 19:45
  He was with KV Racing, someone just to talk to and have a look at things and just be my mate at the racetrack.
• 19:51
  So I went a whole season with Tony and that was a lot of fun.
• 19:55
  Lovely.
• 19:55
  I wasn't his manager, I was just his mate at the racetrack.
• 19:58
  He paid me a little bit of money and
• 20:00
  I hung around there and so suddenly my life changed and I realised people wanted my IP.
• 20:06
  Yeah.
• 20:07
  Which was strange.
• 20:09
  I don't see it as strange.
• 20:10
  No, but for me it was.
• 20:11
  For me it was.
• 20:13
  And there was other little projects cropped up.
• 20:18
  At the same time, and we touched on this before a little bit, we had a bit of money and put it under management and I'd get all these reports every month and lost a bit here, made a bit there and I thought,
• 20:31
  This is...
• 20:33
  I've got to learn more about this.
• 20:35
  So I became a day trader.
• 20:37
  Christina, remember this.
• 20:38
  I'd get up at 9 o'clock in the morning when Wall Street was about to open.
• 20:41
  I'd go downstairs and I'd just trade stocks.
• 20:44
  Sometimes I'd do 100 trades a day.
• 20:46
  I'd buy at 8, sell at 3 or vice versa.
• 20:50
  And I'm kind of proud of this, so I'm going to say the number in a year, I made $2 million.
• 20:54
  Crazy.
• 20:55
  Yeah.
• 20:56
  But I lost a million the next year.
• 20:57
  Okay.
• 20:58
  So I still came out ahead.
• 20:59
  But suddenly I learned about day trading, and I also heard about this thing called Bitcoin.
• 21:08
  And I thought, I read, I studied, and I looked at it, and I thought, this kind of might be something I should...
• 21:17
  Sort of followed.
• 21:18
  Yeah.
• 21:19
  And Kristen and I made the decision to move back to New Zealand full-time in 2012.
• 21:23
  So here I was accumulating a bit of Bitcoin and pulling it at $200 or $300.
• 21:31
  Long story short, I became a Bitcoin fanatic.
• 21:34
  Oh, my God.
• 21:35
  Most people thought I was crazy.
• 21:37
  Most people still do.
• 21:38
  Christine says, I don't understand it.
• 21:40
  Are we okay?
• 21:42
  Are we okay?
• 21:43
  We're okay.
• 21:45
  So I came back in 2012.
• 21:46
  And right before we're about to leave, I'm on YouTube and this thing pops up and it's Greg Murphy driving a Super Tour.
• 21:53
  A bit of sales pitch.
• 21:54
  And I thought, oh, that looks pretty cool.
• 21:56
  So I got back here and I met with Mark Pitch and I said, I think I want one to do this, so I bought a car.
• 22:02
  And we'll reinvent Tasman in New Zealand.
• 22:04
  It's semi-professional.
• 22:05
  Actually, we used a hanger next door as a workshop.
• 22:08
  Hired Mark Pilcher from M2.
• 22:10
  Who you still have a connection with.
• 22:11
  Yes, run it.
• 22:12
  Freddie came on board as a sponsor, PR guy.
• 22:16
  I need a driver.
• 22:17
  So what do I need in a driver?
• 22:18
  I need someone that's not going to crash.
• 22:21
  knows the circuits, knows these cars, and currently doesn't have a job, Daniel Gaunt.
• 22:27
  Gaunt, yeah.
• 22:28
  So Dan came on board, I just paid him expenses and I paid him prize money.
• 22:33
  What a find that was.
• 22:34
  Great guy, bloody good driver.
• 22:38
  Freddie found us, and suddenly we, I think it cost $300,000 a season back then, and suddenly we're just about cash neutral.
• 22:47
  I thought that was pretty good.
• 22:49
  But what I didn't realise, and this goes back to the whole champ car blow up, there was a bloody war going on here as well with Motorsport New Zealand who really wanted to kill that series.
• 22:59
  And I remember the first race we went to at Hampton, there were 5,000 people there.
• 23:03
  That doesn't sound like a lot, but it was huge.
• 23:06
  Cost effective, good names, the emergence of Scott McLaughlin, Murph's in it, it was awesome.
• 23:11
  Supercar drivers wanted to come over here and race for...
• 23:15
  For fun and, you know, keep fresh.
• 23:18
  Shane ran it.
• 23:20
  Lots of good drivers came over here.
• 23:23
  Seppi ran a car for Scott McLaughlin, who bounced off everything that was that was moving in the beginning, but you could see he was going to be good.
• 23:31
  So I really loved it.
• 23:33
  It was a lot of fun.
• 23:35
  It was competitive.
• 23:36
  We won some races.
• 23:38
  Then that blew up and I thought, man, I must be the bad chalice around here.
• 23:42
  So that was the end of Super Tourist.
• 23:45
  And I thought, and just prior, when I came back to New Zealand 2012, the phone rings against Cromley.
• 23:52
  This is Neil Crompton.
• 23:53
  You've had a great friendship with him for a long time.
• 23:54
  Yeah, Neil and I go back for a long time.
• 23:56
  And, yeah, we love flying together.
• 23:57
  We think alike in a lot of ways.
• 23:59
  He's anal.
• 24:00
  I'm sort of not as bad as that.
• 24:01
  But we do complement.
• 24:03
  And we think the same way in a lot of things.
• 24:07
  So Neil said, oh, supercars are looking for a new chairman of the commission.
• 24:12
  I said, well, what the hell is that?
• 24:13
  Well, it's just all the team owners get together and they, you know, they control the rules and the rule book, but they need someone strong and smart to control them because Scathey had been doing it, but it kind of got a little bit out of control.
• 24:27
  I think not because of Mark, but they were leading the ship rather than the other way around.
• 24:33
  So I went over there and chatted to them.
• 24:36
  And I remember Roland was in the room.
• 24:38
  when I were doing the interview and talked about it.
• 24:42
  And so anyway, I signed on for this.
• 24:44
  So suddenly I went to the dark side.
• 24:46
  Because you've gone from team to the administration.
• 24:49
  So suddenly I'd gone over the pit wall.
• 24:51
  I was now an administrator and I thought, but I learned a huge amount
• 24:56
  Worked with James Warburton and Sean Seamer, both really good guys.
• 25:02
  Great group of team owners.
• 25:03
  The series was on a big up.
• 25:06
  There were a number of issues, a lot of discussion about parity because we had Nissan, Volvo, Ford, Holden, obviously.
• 25:15
  So Mercedes was in there as well, sort of.
• 25:18
  You refined that parity process with Steve Hallam, I think, didn't you?
• 25:21
  Yeah, and the first thing I noticed was the aero process was...
• 25:26
  pretty archaic.
• 25:26
  Okay, yeah.
• 25:27
  So Steve Hallam was on the commission, and I really liked Steve.
• 25:32
  He was a smart, forward thinker, but very unemotional.
• 25:37
  I said to Steve, I know there's something wrong here.
• 25:40
  We need to measure the ruler.
• 25:42
  Is the ruler right?
• 25:43
  So we got stuck into that, and Steve did all the work.
• 25:46
  And we come up with a number of changes on the aero program, which moved it to another level.
• 25:50
  It still wasn't right, and it's still ongoing.
• 25:53
  Mm.
• 25:54
  But,
• 25:55
  Engine parity was another one.
• 25:57
  Worked a lot with Craig Haystead on that.
• 26:00
  And I really loved the time at Supercars.
• 26:05
  That's six years, I think.
• 26:06
  Was it?
• 26:07
  I think it was six years.
• 26:08
  Met a lot of really cool people.
• 26:10
  Very passionate racers.
• 26:14
  And...
• 26:16
  COVID came along.
• 26:17
  I couldn't travel, so that was the end of that job.
• 26:19
  And obviously supercars was in survival mode.
• 26:22
  It was changing ownership.
• 26:23
  So I did my time.
• 26:25
  Really liked it.
• 26:27
  And I'll just finish off this part of the journey.
• 26:30
  So I'm at home one day and the phone rings.
• 26:32
  It's Tony Quinn.
• 26:33
  And I didn't know him that well.
• 26:35
  And Tony says, oh, Steve, I need a bit of advice.
• 26:37
  So he said, I'm thinking of buying a team.
• 26:39
  And what do you think of DJR?
• 26:41
  Because you've been around all these teams.
• 26:43
  You know what they're like.
• 26:44
  And I said, well, yeah, it's a very good team.
• 26:45
  I know Ryan's story.
• 26:47
  They're really good.
• 26:49
  And we're talking to him.
• 26:50
  And he said, well, there's one other thing.
• 26:51
  He said, I get all these drivers coming to me wanting money and sponsorship.
• 26:54
  And I've given money here, given money there.
• 26:56
  But I don't quite know whether I'm doing the right thing.
• 26:59
  And I said, well, actually, on a 10% scale of what you're doing, I can't have the same problem.
• 27:04
  Because my thing is giving back now.
• 27:08
  So I said to Tony, why don't we get some people together and we'll form like a trust or something and we'll get some expertise and we'll have a process and we'll form this foundation and you tell me how much money you want to give away and we'll stick to that.
• 27:23
  And that was the foundation at the beginning of the Tony Quinn Foundation, which has gone on to be a massive success, massive success.
• 27:31
  To quantify it, I was at St. Petersburg for the IndyCar round.
• 27:34
  There were seven Kiwis there.
• 27:35
  That's this year, 2025.
• 27:37
  Yeah, racing open wheel.
• 27:39
  Four of them had been through the TQF process.
• 27:42
  Two of them had won scholarships there.
• 27:44
  They would not be there without TQF.
• 27:46
  No question.
• 27:48
  So that's kind of up to today, I suppose.
• 28:00
  If you're enjoying the champ car convo with Steve, you will love the recent feature episode with Max Pappis from humble beginnings.
• 28:07
  He's now at a point where he enjoys passionately sharing the knowledge bank.
• 28:12
  But I achieved a lot coming from 800 people village and starting from nowhere.
• 28:20
  But I've been able to transfer a lot of my knowledge to a lot of great people.
• 28:28
  From his friendship with Etten Senna, to the world-class work he now does around steering wheels and more with MPI, Max Pappy's innovations, it's quite the journey.
• 28:37
  Now back to one of the great leaders of the pit lane, Steve Horn.
• 28:42
  I want to come back to one little piece of the IndyCar chapter, if I can.
• 28:46
  There's a couple of little things here.
• 28:47
  Firstly, you mentioned Tony Canaan.
• 28:49
  Yeah.
• 28:51
  We can weave Elio Castroneves into this conversation too.
• 28:54
  There is a chance for you to get these guys on board.
• 28:59
  There is a thing that you need to tell the audience about called the gong show.
• 29:01
  The gong show.
• 29:03
  Yeah.
• 29:03
  I mean, Tony, I think, had a connection to some South American tobacco money.
• 29:06
  Is that right?
• 29:07
  No, it was Andre.
• 29:07
  Andre was...
• 29:09
  sponsored by Philip Morris Brazil, which was obviously Marlborough, Kibon Ice Cream, a number of other products that Philip Morris owned.
• 29:17
  So I got a call from the president of Philip Morris South America, and he said, Steve, we want to create another era of Brazilian drivers, and we want them to start in Indy Lights.
• 29:29
  And Andre says you do a good job, so could you run a team for us?
• 29:34
  I said, boy, that sounds like fun.
• 29:37
  So 95 were one IndyCar.
• 29:39
  96 were suddenly two IndyLights cars and two IndyCars.
• 29:42
  So suddenly, holy shit, how did this happen?
• 29:45
  Anyway, I said, well, what about drivers?
• 29:48
  Now, we've got a list of drivers, and Emerson Fittipaldi's helping us with selection.
• 29:53
  So I said, well, okay, let's set up a process.
• 29:55
  I like process.
• 29:56
  We'll go to a racetrack.
• 29:57
  We'll put them all through the same things,
• 30:01
  you know, very strictly and see what pops out.
• 30:03
  On and off track.
• 30:04
  So you're doing like engineering analysis?
• 30:06
  It was on track.
• 30:07
  They got 10 laps to warm up.
• 30:09
  They got 10 laps to change the setup.
• 30:12
  Then they got 10 laps on new tyres each day.
• 30:15
  Excellent.
• 30:16
  Then we interviewed them.
• 30:17
  What did they know about engineering?
• 30:18
  What did they know about sponsorship?
• 30:19
  And Emerson was there.
• 30:20
  He was great.
• 30:21
  Andre was there.
• 30:22
  And there was a couple of reporters from South America.
• 30:25
  It was a big deal, the gong show.
• 30:27
  We called it the gong show.
• 30:28
  Somebody was going to win the gong.
• 30:30
  So anyway, Tony and Elia were there, and I remember going to the motel, we're staying in Phoenix, and these two kids walk in, and I, who's that kid there with a big nose?
• 30:42
  That was my first impression.
• 30:43
  Who's that kid with a big nose?
• 30:44
  Helio spoke pretty good English.
• 30:46
  So I was talking to him.
• 30:47
  He said, hi, Tony Kanaan.
• 30:49
  And anyway, he couldn't speak very good English.
• 30:51
  Anyway, next day we'd go to the racetrack and get a fit in the cars and then they'd do a run.
• 30:56
  And Tony goes out and five laps.
• 30:58
  I thought, Jesus Christ, this guy is going to be a star.
• 31:02
  I just, you know, your waters tell you straight away, instant.
• 31:06
  So I thought, well, he's in.
• 31:08
  Well, I've got to go through the process, but he's in.
• 31:10
  And then Elio goes out, and he does about eight laps, and he was really fast, and then he comes in the pits.
• 31:15
  He didn't do the whole 10 laps.
• 31:17
  He was upset too, I think, was he not?
• 31:18
  He jumped out of the car, and he went and sat over under the trailer.
• 31:21
  He started crying.
• 31:24
  I thought, what the hell's going on there?
• 31:27
  So I went over, and I didn't really know him.
• 31:29
  I said, Elio, whatever's bothering you, we can fix it.
• 31:32
  He said, oh, no, Steve, I've blown my chances.
• 31:35
  What do you mean?
• 31:36
  He said, I can't drive anymore.
• 31:37
  I've got three cracked ribs.
• 31:39
  I had a big crash at Silverstone five days ago, and I'm in so much pain, I can't drive anymore.
• 31:44
  That's gutsy.
• 31:44
  Yeah.
• 31:45
  Yeah.
• 31:45
  I said, well, he's in.
• 31:48
  Because you admired that.
• 31:49
  You admired that.
• 31:50
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:50
  And he was really...
• 31:52
  Him and Tania were, you know, you couldn't...
• 31:56
  They were always fast.
• 31:59
  So anyway, we had the Gong Show.
• 32:00
  They got selected.
• 32:01
  We added a third driver from Argentina to politically keep it correct.
• 32:06
  So Philip Morris sponsored this team and away we went.
• 32:09
  And first year...
• 32:11
  Tony Anilio, I think, was second and fifth in the championship.
• 32:14
  But I always said it's going to take two years.
• 32:16
  The next year, they just blitzed it.
• 32:18
  Came down to the last race.
• 32:20
  Whoever was going to beat the other one.
• 32:22
  How'd you go managing the competitiveness here?
• 32:25
  Yeah.
• 32:26
  In the end, I just had to let them go.
• 32:28
  You know, there was nothing you could do.
• 32:29
  But there was one race in the middle of the season at Toronto, and they're both on the front row.
• 32:34
  I said, guys...
• 32:36
  Whoever leads the first lap here, whoever gets into the first corner first has got to lead the first lap.
• 32:42
  I do not want you bouncing off each other in the walls on the first lap when we're trying to win a championship.
• 32:49
  Well, that was a red flag, wasn't it?
• 32:51
  So I don't know who led, I think it might have been Elio led the first corner.
• 32:55
  They get down the end of the back straight at Toronto, which is a really long straight.
• 32:59
  They're probably doing 160 mile an hour.
• 33:01
  Both try to outbrake each other.
• 33:02
  Both run into each other.
• 33:04
  Both hit the wall.
• 33:05
  I had two race cars there that normally had eight wheels there.
• 33:09
  There are only three left between the two of them.
• 33:12
  I thought, Jesus Christ, there's another 200 grand.
• 33:16
  So, anyway, I'm in the pits and they make their way back down the pits, carrying their helmets side by side, and they're sort of looking a bit sheepish, and they see me in the distance, 180, and they were gone.
• 33:28
  Gone.
• 33:30
  They were ultra competitive.
• 33:32
  They were mates.
• 33:34
  Yeah.
• 33:34
  There is, I think, I don't know whether they were with you for this, but I think there's a little funny story that I've heard Tony recount on the Dinner With Racers podcast.
• 33:41
  At some point here, he gets a little bit of money and he decides, I'm going to buy myself a mountain bike.
• 33:46
  He really wanted to buy this flash mountain bike.
• 33:49
  But they didn't know where they were going.
• 33:51
  And I think they ended up on the freeway and the cops got called or something or other, didn't they?
• 33:55
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:56
  That's right.
• 33:57
  I made them sort of stay in Columbus and be in the shop in the first year to learn, you know, about race teams and what they were like.
• 34:04
  And one day they kind of said, boss, we haven't got a car.
• 34:06
  I said, well, go and buy a car.
• 34:07
  We haven't got any money.
• 34:08
  So, well, here's five days.
• 34:09
  Go and buy a car.
• 34:10
  So, they went and bought an old Honda or Toyota and they drive it and they said, boss, the brakes are squeaking.
• 34:16
  So I got one of the mechanics to have a look.
• 34:19
  And he said, oh, it needs your brake pads.
• 34:20
  I said, Tony, come buy some brake pads, and you and Elia put the brake pads in.
• 34:24
  So I'm trying to teach the mechanical shit.
• 34:27
  Well, what a disaster that was.
• 34:29
  Took two of the mechanics to unwind what they'd done and fix the car for them.
• 34:33
  But we had a lot of fun together.
• 34:34
  They were just great young men, and I could clearly see they were destined.
• 34:40
  They were destined.
• 34:41
  Aside of the raw speed, what was it?
• 34:43
  Because they...
• 34:44
  professionally immerse themselves, I think.
• 34:47
  They were sponges, they would soak up a lot of things with you, wouldn't they?
• 34:50
  They did, they soaked up a lot of things.
• 34:51
  We had good engineers, I think they were...
• 34:55
  They were at the right time in their career.
• 34:57
  They'd done their apprenticeship and they were ready to break out.
• 35:00
  And so I think we were able to let the raw speed go, but keep it under control to a degree.
• 35:08
  And what a great period.
• 35:10
  So we won the Indy Lights Championship in 1997 with Tony and Elio was second.
• 35:17
  and they wanted to go to IndyCar.
• 35:19
  So I couldn't hire both of them, so we ended up hiring Tony, and then I helped Elio get a ride with Tony Bettenhausen, who after, I think after a three race, he said, he said, Steve...
• 35:31
  you've actually given me a dud here, because I think Elio had crashed in all three races.
• 35:34
  He'd been very quick.
• 35:35
  He said, mate, you've given me a dud.
• 35:37
  I said, no, just hang on a bit.
• 35:38
  So anyway, Elio did great with Tony and went on to Hogan and then obviously to Penske.
• 35:43
  But there's a little bit of politics in here, because again, we had Philip Morris Brazil with Marlborough prominent on the car.
• 35:51
  You'll see a picture of it.
• 35:54
  Penske also had Marlborough and he wanted control of everything.
• 35:59
  He had this little Marlborough off to one side that he didn't control another team.
• 36:03
  So eventually I got the call, sorry, we can't support you anymore.
• 36:07
  That money's going to Penske and Andre went with.
• 36:11
  And that's what opened the door for Tony.
• 36:13
  A thought on both of them and what they have gone on to achieve.
• 36:17
  I mean, Elio with his wins at the Indy 500, you were there with Tony when you finally called time.
• 36:24
  I mean, to think that you were there and what they went on to achieve in their career is pretty remarkable.
• 36:31
  Yeah, but I don't think they've changed personality-wise, Rusty.
• 36:34
  They've grown up to be really...
• 36:39
  Really good men.
• 36:40
  Yes.
• 36:42
  They've both gone different directions in what they're doing.
• 36:45
  Elio is a part owner of an IndyCar team.
• 36:47
  Tony's the team principal at McLaren now.
• 36:50
  And, you know, when he...
• 36:53
  When he got that position, I thought, I can't imagine that.
• 36:57
  But then when I talked to him, I could see how it's evolved and I could see the trust that Zach Brown had put into him and what Tony brought to that team.
• 37:06
  So Christine and I have never had any children.
• 37:08
  They were our two kids.
• 37:09
  That's lovely, lovely, lovely.
• 37:12
  Crompo, you mentioned him before.
• 37:14
  As if you weren't busy enough with Indy lights and Indy car and everything else, somewhere along the line here, a mate from Oz ends up in a Labatt's-sponsored Honda Super Tourer as well.
• 37:26
  Yeah, I'd met Neil at Indy.
• 37:27
  I can't remember what year.
• 37:28
  It was in the 80s sometime.
• 37:29
  He sort of...
• 37:30
  wanted to do a story about IndyCar racing.
• 37:34
  Which he loved dearly.
• 37:35
  Which normally I would have said no because I didn't want...
• 37:38
  But something with Neil, I thought, oh, this guy's okay.
• 37:42
  We'll help him with the story.
• 37:44
  And we became, you know...
• 37:46
  Good friends.
• 37:48
  And Neil was driving supercars at the time and doing TV, and he wanted to drive an IndyCar.
• 37:55
  So he was pretty persuasive.
• 37:58
  And I said, mate, I don't think you're ever going to race an IndyCar because, you know, it's money.
• 38:04
  You gave him a test in one day, didn't you?
• 38:06
  He came back to me and said, what if I could do a test where I'd do a story about it
• 38:10
  and what it's like.
• 38:11
  And we went to a track up in Michigan and Neil had a day in the car driving in.
• 38:16
  And he was okay.
• 38:17
  He was okay.
• 38:18
  He was okay.
• 38:19
  I'm talking out of school here, so correct me if I don't get this story right.
• 38:22
  I think he recalls getting in the car...
• 38:25
  And then the enormity of the moment where, okay, the initial pitch was story for television or whatever.
• 38:32
  But I think you turned to him at one point and he was talking as though he was going to sample this car, talk about it and so on.
• 38:39
  But you were like, this is a proper test.
• 38:41
  You're going to get in there.
• 38:42
  We're going to do all of these things and you're going to deliver.
• 38:44
  That's right.
• 38:45
  Yeah, there was a film crew there.
• 38:46
  But I said, Neil, you're driving a race car.
• 38:48
  You're not making a story.
• 38:49
  Awesome.
• 38:50
  So drive it like you're a race car driver.
• 38:51
  The engineer was there and we'll develop the car with you and help you learn to drive.
• 38:57
  And by the end of the day, he was going competitively.
• 38:59
  What a great experience for him, not just a thing for pictures.
• 39:02
  So that made me realise, actually, Neil's a pretty good driver.
• 39:07
  So, I don't know, I think it was in 98, they announced this North American Touring Car Series, which was a copycat of the BT CNC.
• 39:15
  CNC.
• 39:17
  And I thought, well, that might be fun to do that.
• 39:19
  And Honda were obviously strong in BTCC.
• 39:24
  So I went to Honda and said, oh, would you sponsor a car in this series?
• 39:28
  They said, well, we're not sure about the series.
• 39:31
  Maybe after a year we might get involved.
• 39:34
  So I went to the bank at Christian and said, we're going to buy a touring car from England.
• 39:40
  Well, how much is that going to cost?
• 39:41
  And I told him, anyway, we got this touring car and I wanted Neil to drive it.
• 39:45
  So Neil came on board and drove the North American Touring Car Championship for us for one year.
• 39:53
  And it was a blast.
• 39:54
  It was a lot of fun.
• 39:55
  His engineer was a guy, Phil Harris, another Kiwi, and the –
• 40:03
  Our parts manager became the team manager at the weekend.
• 40:05
  It was sort of a make-up crew, but we went and blitzed them.
• 40:09
  Neil reckons he couldn't get anything by the parts manager.
• 40:11
  There were no foreign orders.
• 40:12
  It was real strict.
• 40:13
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:14
  We had a lot of fun, and Neil evolved that car really quick.
• 40:18
  It was really strong.
• 40:21
  There was a fair amount of politics in it because the series were trying to get American manufacturers involved and Dodge were involved.
• 40:28
  And there's a fair amount of backdoor politicking going on that didn't work out so well.
• 40:32
  But only lasted one year, but a lot of fun with Neil.
• 40:36
  And we're big mates.
• 40:37
  Yeah, the friendship has remained and you've done some stuff, you know, around supercars together and so on.
• 40:41
  I think, ironically, that car has ended up in New Zealand somewhere.
• 40:44
  Yeah, it's in Crosschurch.
• 40:45
  I wish I'd never sold it.
• 40:46
  I'd love it sitting there next to my other Honda.
• 40:48
  It's still, I mean, it's an ex-BTCC car, but I think it's still got part of the Labatt slivery, which I think is awesome.
• 40:55
  Can I come to Greg Murphy?
• 40:56
  Because I think he, did he not do a test for you as well?
• 40:58
  He did.
• 40:58
  Murph did.
• 41:00
  Trying to think what year.
• 41:01
  I think it was 1998.
• 41:05
  And Murph had been pestering me a bit.
• 41:07
  And I knew Greg sort of in passing.
• 41:10
  He wanted to get a break into America.
• 41:12
  He'd done, you know, Formula Holden had done really well.
• 41:14
  And he said, yeah.
• 41:15
  I haven't got any money, but can I come and do a test and I'll do well at the test, then maybe I'll find some money.
• 41:22
  So not in a moment of weakness.
• 41:25
  I said, OK, Greg, come along.
• 41:27
  We'll do a test.
• 41:28
  We also had...
• 41:32
  Etan Dare and Cristiano de Marta at the test.
• 41:35
  So Greg came and did a test.
• 41:36
  He didn't fit very well in the car, but he was on the pace.
• 41:40
  I think with a couple more days, he would have been right there, but it just didn't pan out.
• 41:44
  I can remember the build-up to that because I was –
• 41:49
  so in awe.
• 41:51
  I'd come to California Speedway for the first time, got to see Champ Car for the first time, and I recall going with him and the group that we were with travelling, and he sat in Etendare's car, and we got a picture of it at the time, but I'm glad you filled in the back story around the testing with him.
• 42:06
  We've talked Super Tourers.
• 42:07
  You've talked a little bit about Tony Quinn Foundation.
• 42:09
  Yeah.
• 42:10
  I want to come to some of the drivers in that and why this sort of project really appeals to you.
• 42:16
  I mean, yesterday I did – my colleague Stephen McIver did an interview with Liam Skeets.
• 42:22
  Yeah.
• 42:22
  To see the growth of his personality from – even from winning the New Zealand Grand Prix 12 months ago, he's marketable.
• 42:30
  He's come out of his shell.
• 42:31
  Yeah.
• 42:31
  And to witness that growth and to potentially see this guy going on to other things is –
• 42:37
  Yeah, and I think with the foundation, what we say to people that come through the TQF process, we're there forever as mentors, as people that can help you.
• 42:49
  And Liam has impressed me because he's grasped...
• 42:53
  What I call the three-legged stool.
• 42:55
  Go.
• 42:56
  You've got to be fast on the racetrack.
• 42:58
  That's one leg.
• 42:59
  Tick.
• 43:01
  The second one is you've got to understand the engineering of the cars.
• 43:04
  So he works really hard on the setup and understanding how it works.
• 43:08
  And third, you've got to understand the business.
• 43:10
  And actually, that's the biggest one.
• 43:12
  Because if you don't have the money, the other two will not come into play.
• 43:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 43:16
  So Liam has worked really, really hard on that and still working hard on it.
• 43:22
  We're supporting him a bit with the Tasman Motorsports Legacy brand.
• 43:27
  And I think he's got a great future, but it's a big uphill struggle for drivers at that stage.
• 43:35
  You know, we've also got Callum Hedge that we're supporting.
• 43:39
  And Callum's...
• 43:42
  Callum reminds me of SVG a lot.
• 43:44
  Really?
• 43:44
  He's just really fast on the racetrack.
• 43:46
  He's a nice guy to talk to.
• 43:48
  He's somewhat introverted.
• 43:50
  And he doesn't want to know about the business or the media.
• 43:52
  He doesn't want to know about any of that.
• 43:53
  But is that changing?
• 43:54
  Oh, it's changing.
• 43:55
  I'm twisting his arm really hard on that.
• 43:57
  And he is growing a lot on it.
• 43:59
  but he's diametrically opposed to Liam when it comes to that side.
• 44:03
  That side, yeah.
• 44:04
  The foundation is this great collection of people too from Murph who we've talked about yourself on the board there.
• 44:10
  Tony obviously is a driving force and more.
• 44:13
  And it's had this ripple effect, hasn't it?
• 44:16
  You know, people are aware of it now, young racers that are, even through Toyota 86, they're aspiring to be a part of it and get involved in it, aren't they?
• 44:24
  Yeah.
• 44:24
  Yeah, I think it's been a major, it is a major force in New Zealand motorsport.
• 44:29
  It's not the only force.
• 44:30
  There are other people doing a lot of good stuff.
• 44:33
  I'd like to mention Gill Traps for many, many years have supported New Zealand motor racing.
• 44:40
  They deserve a lot more accolades than they get, I think.
• 44:42
  And there are others that put behind the scenes.
• 44:46
  Liam Lawson's a good story.
• 44:48
  You know, a group of South Islanders have funded him to get to where he is.
• 44:51
  And so Kiwis are good at motorsports.
• 44:55
  But there's a core group of passionate...
• 44:58
  people that support these young kids and you know christine and i are proud to do that now we're i'm we're in give back mode yeah you know um you're doing that in spades which which i love you mentioned m2 before and there's a connection there with mark mark culture too we don't often he's a bit like you in the sense of he's not a lot it doesn't seem like a limelight seeker he's an under the radar guy like me so i'm gonna get on really well with mark um obviously he's done
• 45:25
  His record in TRS slash CT5 will never be broken.
• 45:31
  He's a go-to guy, but one of the things that Mark and I noticed was we keep getting these phone calls from mums and dads and what do we do, how do we do this, how do we do that, and
• 45:41
  A couple of times we'd given advice and then watched them go the other direction and waste a lot of money.
• 45:46
  So Mark and I said, why don't we have a little sort of driver management company where people can come to us and feel like they're getting...
• 45:54
  The right guidance.
• 45:55
  The right guidance, the right help.
• 45:57
  And so we've got Callum Hedge under contract.
• 46:00
  We've got Liam on an advisory contract.
• 46:02
  We've got Seb Manson on an advisory contract.
• 46:06
  And we've got other people knocking on the door.
• 46:08
  And actually our role is to help the drivers, but also the mums and dads.
• 46:11
  He got you.
• 46:12
  Because you can burn a lot of money, and I don't care how much money you've got.
• 46:17
  I think with Seb in particular, we've been able to craft his career path through CT Frock in Japan, here in New Zealand, now in the USA.
• 46:27
  And I like to think that we've helped guide his pathway in a logical fashion.
• 46:35
  Are there any more one-off projects motorsport-wise?
• 46:38
  I know you've done a little bit of rallying, for example.
• 46:41
  The Honda is over the back here.
• 46:43
  I've done – I don't know how that happened, but – Targa.
• 46:47
  Targa, yeah.
• 46:48
  I came back to New Zealand.
• 46:49
  Well, we bought a home in 2000, I think, and Targa in New Zealand was going pretty strong.
• 46:56
  And I'd done a bit of rallying when I was really young, hopeless at it.
• 46:59
  And I thought, well, that'd kind of be fun.
• 47:00
  So I bought a DC2 Honda, and my mate Ian Barlow, who we went to school with, we thought, we're just going to have some fun.
• 47:07
  So I've done, I think, six or seven Targas, Targa Bambinas.
• 47:11
  We've won our class a couple of times.
• 47:13
  It was just a fun thing to do.
• 47:15
  But it got to the stage where, you know, we were both in our 60s, and, you know, I'm –
• 47:22
  probably over driving half the time and he and sitting there next to me and i just felt responsible for him and i yeah and our wives and we both came to the same conclusion we said tick that box we've ticked that box one day we're actually going to have a really big one and we're not sure the outcome is going to be that great so we both agreed we're stopping so i've done a little bit of club racing with it but it's just sitting there
• 47:43
  getting ready for when it becomes a historic racer, and I'm still a historic man.
• 47:46
  Very cool.
• 47:48
  Beside a plane, we're in a hangar here.
• 47:50
  You and Krompo share a love of flying.
• 47:54
  I've always been intrigued by the parallel, the connection between motor racing and flying.
• 47:59
  A lot of people that are like yourself properly into it,
• 48:04
  have an affinity with it, don't they?
• 48:05
  When did it become a thing for you and what do you love about it so much?
• 48:07
  Really when I was a kid, you know, as I said way back, I wanted to join the Air Force.
• 48:11
  But I think it's discipline.
• 48:14
  Being a pilot requires good discipline.
• 48:17
  It requires ongoing learning.
• 48:20
  And actually for me, it was a practical tool.
• 48:22
  because where we lived in Columbus, most events were within 450 miles, but they had this hub-and-spoke system in America.
• 48:30
  So to get from Toronto to Columbus, I'd have to go to Detroit and then Clevedon and then...
• 48:35
  It was a mission.
• 48:36
  I would get home at two o'clock in the morning.
• 48:38
  Whereas if I had my own plane, I always took an instructor with me.
• 48:42
  Sometimes, Christian and I were home at nine o'clock at night.
• 48:45
  I'd go to work the next day.
• 48:46
  I couldn't ask the mechanics to go to work.
• 48:48
  So it became a business tool.
• 48:51
  So I've owned four aircraft now, flying all over America, Canada, the Caribbean.
• 48:57
  Obviously, Neil had 182, and we did an epic trip one year.
• 49:01
  Neil calls and said, would you like to fly to Darwin?
• 49:05
  What, no, 182?
• 49:06
  And he said, yeah, we'll take three days.
• 49:07
  We'll go across Australia.
• 49:09
  We had a wonderful time.
• 49:11
  Just the two of us together flying all day and looking at Australia.
• 49:14
  What an amazing country.
• 49:16
  Countryside.
• 49:17
  When you fly over it at 5,000 feet.
• 49:19
  About Tindallier Base and all that sort of stuff.
• 49:22
  And Neil's gone on to be a very competent pilot flying PC-12s now.
• 49:26
  And I'm just back here in New Zealand flying my 182 as a hobby.
• 49:29
  Yeah, so – but it's discipline.
• 49:32
  You talked about bucket list things in another interview I saw, and you said at one stage, as you've reached this point in life, you want to spend a few months each year in Europe with Christine.
• 49:42
  Are you doing that?
• 49:43
  Yeah, we're going later in the year.
• 49:45
  We're going to France to see her sister.
• 49:46
  We're going to England to see her brother.
• 49:48
  I want to go to Bath because I love Roman history.
• 49:52
  And then we're going to come back and do the Singapore Grand Prix with the Highlands Group, who we went to Indy with last year and had an absolute blast.
• 49:59
  So we're...
• 50:00
  stretching our wings a little bit and doing things for ourselves.
• 50:04
  But, you know, my heart, I don't think I can ever get motorsports out of my blood.
• 50:10
  I've tried, it doesn't work.
• 50:12
  So there'll be something popping up.
• 50:14
  It's a good drug.
• 50:15
  It's a good drug.
• 50:16
  Around us are all these incredible memories of what you've done over your time from 86 at the Indy 500, the LCI car, what you did with Honda, even on a personal level.
• 50:29
  I mean, seeing the most beautiful shot of Christine with Paul Newman.
• 50:33
  I mean, there's been some remarkable things.
• 50:35
  When you were this little seven-year-old boy watching the Grand Prix here at Ardenmore, did you ever think?
• 50:40
  It's impossible to think like that, Rusty.
• 50:42
  But I think if there's a life lesson, follow your passion.
• 50:46
  I'd say that to anybody.
• 50:47
  Follow your passion.
• 50:49
  There's always a pathway doing what you want to do.
• 50:53
  Never get closeted into anything.
• 50:56
  Another thing, and Quinny, I agree with this, nothing's impossible.
• 50:59
  Nothing's impossible.
• 51:01
  Look at his story.
• 51:02
  Yes.
• 51:02
  Amazing.
• 51:03
  Amazing.
• 51:04
  And I could never, ever have done this
• 51:09
  Without that lady there.
• 51:10
  Yeah.
• 51:11
  Well done.
• 51:12
  Never.
• 51:13
  Christina sitting off to the side of us here, I am super grateful that you've entrusted us to tell a bit more of this because you are more of a private person.
• 51:22
  You've preferred to roll the sleeves up, get on with it, do the job rather than...
• 51:27
  you know being a show pony and talking about it um there are plenty of people in this country in america in australia that have huge admiration for what you've achieved congratulations thank you i yeah it's it's been my life and um on it continues on it continues thank you steve very very much thank you for doing this rusty appreciate it yes been great
• 51:58
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 52:02
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 52:06
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• 52:11
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