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Rhianon Gelsomino (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:20
G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with champion co-driver Rhiannon Gelsimino.
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If you've arrived at the start of stage two before checking out stage one or part one of the podcast, jump back to the Rusty's Garage Library and give it a listen.
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Her early years learning the lessons on the family property, from hairdresser of the year, yes, to the Junior World Championship.
0:45
Her first car...
0:46
Many years later, ending up in her brother's garage, and it is an awesome little beast.
0:51
And learning to walk again after a massive crash.
0:56
We begin part two by talking about becoming a full-time co-driver.
1:00
Was it an epiphany in the wake of her injuries?
1:03
And when she made the decision?
1:06
So at the end of 2009, obviously I'd missed a lot of time off school in 2009 and my school had been really supportive because the principal I had at the time was just fantastic and they would give me unpaid time off so I could go do my races because they said it was really good for the kids to see, you know,
1:24
their PE teacher doing what they were doing and chasing their goals.
1:27
So I was extremely lucky that my boss was so supportive of what I was doing.
1:32
So I got to the end of 2009 and I thought, you know, if I've survived this crash and I still love this and I'm passionate about it, this has to be what, you know, I do it for the rest of my life.
1:43
And so I quit teaching full time at the end of 2009 and,
1:48
and decided to just do rally full-time from 2010 onwards.
1:52
And that included, like, I started a Brennan Reeves supporters club, which Brendo and I had hundreds of, like, even Jim Richards always, every year would give us, you know, send us a check in the mail.
2:04
And, like, Jim's an idol to everyone in motorsport in Australia.
2:08
and he would race us in Targa Tasmania races and then he'd be like, hey, you two, are you doing that supporters club again?
2:14
And I'd be like, oh, I'll send you a cheque.
2:17
Okay.
2:17
And he never wanted anything.
2:19
He didn't want his name anywhere.
2:21
He just wanted to support us.
2:23
So the supporters club was something that I got going.
2:26
We ran functions, all sorts of different things to raise money.
2:29
And for me, it was rally become everything.
2:32
So I'm like, okay,
2:34
I have to raise this money so we can race.
2:36
There's no question about it, you know what I mean?
2:38
And by doing that, it meant that it projected us to the spot in Spain and then obviously to the Junior World Championship that following year.
2:45
So that was where my passion took off from that time.
2:49
The Supporters Club was a brilliant initiative that you really drove.
2:52
I know, I think you had something like a thousand supporters from various different levels of sponsorship, shall we say.
2:58
Great that the legend in Jimmy was involved and people's names on bonnets and so on.
3:03
When you get to the World Championship, there are no doubt struggles and strains to make ends meet and I want to know a little bit about that.
3:13
But also, too, you get to meet...
3:16
some of the legends, some of the heroes of the game as well, because you're sharing, you know, service park with some of these people.
3:21
What was that all like?
3:22
Oh, it was just incredible.
3:24
Like, obviously, that 2011 was paid for by Pirelli Star Drivers.
3:30
So, it was a great year because we could really focus on our rallying and travelling.
3:34
We spent most of the year in Europe.
3:36
We had a recce car that we called Bob the Recce Car and
3:41
I don't know, it was an Opel something, I don't know, some little crappy car that we bought in Europe and it got driven everywhere.
3:47
We caught ferries from France to Estonia and then ferries from somewhere in Italy over to Sardinia.
3:55
And I don't know, it was just an incredible year.
3:58
And obviously we learnt so much travelling around together and obviously meeting the stars of the WRC.
4:05
So in that year, you know, 2011 was us, you know, finding our footing and,
4:10
really getting into the WRC.
4:11
And then this following year in 2012, obviously we didn't have Pirelli Star Driver sponsorship that year.
4:17
And Brendo and I had come, I think it was fourth or fifth or something like that in the championship.
4:23
And we realised pretty quickly that, hey, we can do really well here and we need to be here in 2012.
4:28
So we met all these famous people in, well, we call them famous people in the WRC that year.
4:34
And the following year with my supporters club and then obviously the...
4:39
different functions and stuff, I also decided to run auctions.
4:42
And so it was incredible.
4:44
Yari Matty gave us boots and gloves and all sorts of things.
4:49
Julian, Oja's co-driver, gave us one of his Citroen suits, you know, that they won a WRC championship in and signed it and
4:57
we did, I cut, Terry Neuville, I cut, every person you can think of in the WRC gave us things to auction in, and we raised thousands of dollars.
5:07
It was a lot of money for Australians to do the Junior World Championship because obviously the Australian dollar compared to the British pound because it was through M Sport,
5:16
it is quite weak most of the time, you know what I mean?
5:19
We're talking about 50% sort of thing.
5:22
So if you're looking at, you know, £150,000, we're talking about £300,000 plus flights and all of those sort of things.
5:29
So, you know, bonnet names, like you mentioned, all these sort of things.
5:33
the amount of people that were helping us in the WRC was incredible.
5:37
And I just think Brendo and I, our personalities where we weren't, you know, afraid to just go hang out with these people and talk to them.
5:44
And we shared a test road with Petter Solberg.
5:47
And at the end of that test, I rode in with Petter and in the Citroen WRC car and,
5:53
You know, we went and did the Tommy Makenen Snow School.
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So, I mean, I've got to ride with Petter Solberg, Tommy Makenen, like world champions that you just would never even dream of.
6:04
And just because of really that door opening at the end of 2010 when we won the Pirelli Star Driver, it just, you know, opened a world of opportunities to us.
6:16
crazily, your husband, Alex, who is Ken Block's co-driver, you know, you're out there as co-drivers competing against each other.
6:25
You don't really have much to do with each other, you know, in the early part of things.
6:30
But as life has gone on, you've found a few photos and things where you've realised you've actually been quite close or what, didn't you in New Zealand one year crash within 500 metres of each other or something like that?
6:44
Is that right?
6:45
Yeah, New Zealand 2008, I think it was, Brendo's were my first ever WRC.
6:49
We find that Alex and I were talking, I was talking about, oh, yeah, when we were there, this happened.
6:53
He's like, are you kidding me?
6:54
Ken and I were like stuck in the same stage or whatever, you know what I mean?
6:59
And then 2011, WRC Australia, when I first come over to America was like November 2012,
7:07
And so I went to Ken's workshop in Park City, Utah, and Alex is showing me around the workshop.
7:13
And I'm like, wait a second.
7:15
And one of the canvases they have on the wall is Brenda's back, Ken, Alex.
7:20
And it's at the signature session at Rally Australia 2011.
7:25
I said, Alex, are you kidding me?
7:26
I'm sitting next to my brother.
7:28
My brother's next to Ken and you're here.
7:30
And I said, do we even speak a word to each other?
7:32
Like it's just...
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so many little things that we've realized throughout the time where, I mean, we were both there racing and focusing on our job.
7:41
And obviously it was just quite a coincidence that when we work out, you know, how many times we, you know, passed by each other and didn't even realize each other existed.
7:52
People listening to the podcast know and love Ken Block.
7:55
They'll know him from rallying.
7:56
They'll know him from what he's done on YouTube and even the success that he's had with DC Shoes and so on.
8:02
What has it been like going into that workshop, which sounds like heaven for most of us in terms of cars and equipment?
8:10
And paint a little picture, if you can, of what that is like.
8:14
Oh, Ken's workshop in Park City is incredible.
8:17
So he has containers that are stacked inside this building and it's just, it's a really amazing place.
8:25
Ken's creativity, let's just say, you know, as we've all seen throughout the years.
8:30
So he's obviously got incredible cars.
8:33
He's got great taste and great flair for different things that most of us would never even think of.
8:39
You know, so walking in there for the first time, Alex was Ken's general manager at the time.
8:45
So not only was he co-driving for Ken, he was also his general manager.
8:49
So he had his office upstairs in the second container upstairs.
8:53
And it was just an incredible space to be in because obviously you follow what Ken was doing and what he was achieving with not only his gym carners, but doing the WRC and things like that.
9:04
It wasn't something that we usually saw, you know, Europeans, yeah, for sure.
9:08
But what he's done for the car world, I think, is phenomenal.
9:11
And it doesn't matter how many times we go to his HQ in Park City, Alex and I always smile and enjoy looking around at pictures and different, you know, things that he has hanging on the walls and just take it all in and enjoy.
9:24
And Alex has obviously been very lucky to work with Ken since 2005.
9:29
And that's very rare for two people to stick it out for those many years.
9:33
So it's been something that they've worked really hard together and achieved many things together.
9:39
His role has been all encompassing too, not just in a co-driving sense.
9:42
I think he's been spotter for Rallycross and worked within the team and so on, hasn't he?
9:46
Yeah, so when we started dating, he was general manager, he was Ken's co-driver, and he was Ken's spotter.
9:53
So he had three roles going on.
9:55
It was pretty full on.
9:56
Let's just say between me going home to Australia to race with Brendo and me racing in America and all of Alex's races, we were virtually never home in our first year dating because it was just mayhem.
10:10
You know, one time we'd been, I don't know, I'd been on the road for eight weeks
10:14
I think it was 2016, I was doing the Scottish Championship, the British Championship, some Australian with Brenda, some New Zealand, all sorts of things.
10:21
Alex was doing a crazy schedule too.
10:24
And we worked out that we could meet at the Melbourne airport for like four hours or something.
10:29
Like if I booked this flight and you booked that flight, we could go into the lounge and then go again.
10:34
You know what I mean?
10:36
So that's our life.
10:37
It's been pretty crazy like that.
10:39
You know, when COVID happened, we were like, oh, we're stuck at home together for 10 weeks.
10:42
How's this going to work?
10:46
Let's focus on the WRC car when you did the Pirelli Star.
10:50
What was that like?
10:52
I mean, obviously, it's not the top spec WRC machine at that stage.
10:56
I mean, you got to ride, I think, in the Citroen with Peter Solberg, which would have been amazing.
10:59
How eye-opening was that?
11:01
And what was the car like that you tackled the series in?
11:05
Let's just say that I get in the world rally car with Petra and Chris Patterson was his co-driver at a time and he hands me his pace notes.
11:13
And he says, here's the pace notes to call to him on the way down.
11:16
And he talks me all through them.
11:19
This is what this means.
11:20
Because, you know, it's someone else's handwriting.
11:22
Everyone uses different abbreviations.
11:23
Like for me, Slippy is a dollar sign, whereas if someone else sees a dollar sign, they're like, what does that mean?
11:29
So Chris talked me all through it.
11:31
Okay, ready to go.
11:33
So we go to take off and the first thing I accidentally do is push a button at my feet, which makes the wipers go.
11:39
So the wipers are going flat out.
11:41
They're spraying the screen and Petter's yelling, wipers, wipers.
11:44
I'm like...
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I know the wipers are on.
11:46
Why are you yelling at me?
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And he's like, your foot, your foot.
11:49
And so then I go all nervous because I'm like, well, I've already screwed up and I'm supposed to call these notes.
11:55
And so I start calling them.
11:56
He's like, no, no, you be quiet.
11:57
You be quiet.
11:58
Okay, I'll be quiet.
11:59
So be quiet.
12:00
I go for the ride to the end and I get the time and it's like one second quicker is how heavy are you?
12:06
Because Petter's obsessed with weight.
12:08
And I tell him, he's like, oh, Chris needs to lose weight.
12:11
Chris is tiny.
12:12
Like, he doesn't have any weight to lose.
12:15
So we turn around and he says, okay, you call notes back.
12:18
And I'm like, Petra, he showed me the notes in the stage, but he didn't show me the notes for the reverse of the stage.
12:24
I don't understand.
12:26
Yes, you call notes.
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And I'm like...
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oh, I've got no idea what I'm doing because I can't, I'm just like, Chris hasn't shown me what everything means on the way back, you know what I mean?
12:37
So I call about three corners.
12:38
I'm so confused.
12:40
He goes, oh, shut up.
12:44
And so we get to the end and he's laughing so hard.
12:48
We do a second clicker again.
12:50
And he says to my brother and Chris, oh, she only called three corners and she was off notes.
12:54
And Chris is like, really, Rhiannon?
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I showed you and I'm like, Chris, he made me call the notes back.
13:00
And he's like, oh, Petter, I didn't show her them.
13:02
And I'm like, I'm so sorry.
13:16
My kids have been using Rhiannon's story about not using notes during a race to justify not studying for exams.
13:23
Rhiannon, could you have a word with them, please?
13:28
You've rallied in Asia, in Australia, and you talked about in the UK and other places with the Junior World Championship, you know, some amazing parts of the world.
13:36
When did the idea of going to America come about and for you and Brendo and things like that?
13:42
When did that sort of surface happen?
13:43
Yeah, so obviously 2011 and 12, as we've discussed, we did the Junior World Championships.
13:48
So I don't know, 12 different countries or whatever it was.
13:52
And then in 2013, I was predominantly living over here in America.
13:57
Brendo and I were doing the Australian Rally Championship in the Mazda with Rally School.
14:02
And Brendo got contacted by the Team O'Neill Rally School over here because they were sponsored by Ford USA to run a little R2 in America.
14:13
So the first two rounds they had lost and it was a seven round series and there was five rounds left.
14:19
And they contacted Brendo virtually saying, do you think you could come and win five from five?
14:25
Because that's what's required to win the two wheel drive championship.
14:29
Brendo had never been to America.
14:31
I'd only been over here a few months and we'd never raced over here or anything.
14:36
they did some things differently.
14:38
It was still a little bit old school to Australia or the WRC, one past recce.
14:43
A lot of people used supplied notes.
14:45
It was more like 20 years ago rallying, is how I explain it.
14:51
So, Brendo's like, yep, let's go for it.
14:54
So, Ford USA would pay our lease of the car for the rallies and then
14:59
We had to pay like other expenses like us getting here and different things like that.
15:04
And yeah, we won five from five.
15:06
It was challenging because, you know, to write pace notes from one pass and then we had to video them.
15:12
And our recce checks on video obviously had to be so thorough because if you did make a mistake, you weren't driving the stage again.
15:20
You had to check it on video.
15:21
I remember very many late nights and not much sleep.
15:25
and just having to make sure that we won those rallies because it was so important for us.
15:31
You know, we're over here, you know, Ken was racing for Ford that year with Alex and Brenda and I were like, I guess, like the junior drivers.
15:39
And so it was really important opportunity for us.
15:42
And we absolutely loved it.
15:44
It was just incredible.
15:45
The video stuff is actually an integral part of the incredible preparation you now do.
15:52
So just explain it if you want to share with the audience, because quite often you will record the recce run over a stage, and there are limitations there, strict limitations on speed in America, what speed you can do through the recce, but then you'll play it back at a decent speed.
16:10
Is that right?
16:10
In order to learn what it's like in a proper competitive sense.
16:14
Yeah, so this is something Brendo and I learned in the Junior World Championship.
16:18
Craig Breen was really thorough with his videos, and this is back in 2011.
16:25
And Brendo and I were recording recce, but we pretty quickly realised that
16:29
You know, we were recording recce and we'd just go to sections that we had issues on recce.
16:35
So we would say, you know, 3.5 kilometres, check this corner because we weren't happy about it.
16:41
At this, check this.
16:42
We'd make sure our camera caught our trip meter that we had in the car and we could do that.
16:46
But pretty quickly we realized that Craig Breen and his co-driver who won the Junior Championship that year were watching their recce videos at double speed and the co-driver would call the notes to the video and we were realizing that, wow, this is like a practice for the actual stage.
17:02
You know, you're not watching at normal speed.
17:04
You're not just checking specific corners.
17:06
you're checking the whole stage and you're checking how the notes come out at speed and how that works for you.
17:13
So we quickly adapted that and started using that.
17:17
And that's what, you know, the guys in WRC do.
17:19
But then I quickly worked out that unless you were doing WRC, you didn't really know.
17:25
what was happening with videos, all you knew was people were recording recce and they were checking sections of stages.
17:31
So at that point in time, we adapted it and I've taught all of my drivers.
17:36
I think I've worked with nearly 30 drivers throughout my career now.
17:39
All of my drivers, this and you look, some of them are more gentleman drivers.
17:43
They don't want to sit up for hours and watch recce video at double speed because to them, it seems pointless.
17:49
But
17:50
Even if that's the case for me as a co-driver, what I do is I would then watch it on my own at double the speed and I highlight my notes and pick tricky sections which I need to jump out at me.
18:01
Before this technology, you would just make a mistake in stage.
18:05
Like you might be a little bit late on a corner, you might be too fast on the corner because you didn't pause.
18:09
Whereas with the video, what it meant was I could put like a little comma if it was like a very long corner and I might rush the note.
18:16
The video at double speed allowed me to say, oh, Rhiannon, you've actually got time.
18:20
like you need to pause.
18:21
So put a little comma to let you pause and all this happens really quickly.
18:25
You must say this together.
18:26
So if I must say it together, I'll put brackets either side.
18:29
And it's like, doesn't matter what you think, you cannot look up.
18:32
This must be called together.
18:34
So the video has been a huge thing, which I've actually taught to Travis as well, because when I started working with him, he was like the way Brenda and I used to be.
18:43
He would just find the sections that he needed to fix.
18:47
And I was like,
18:47
I'm like, oh, no, there's a really good system.
18:50
And he loves it now.
18:51
You know, every rally we finish recce, the first thing we're doing, I'm downloading the videos.
18:54
He's like, Ria, are we ready to watch videos?
18:56
Are we ready to watch videos?
18:57
Like he's just ready to do that process because it's so important, not only for him checking the notes, but him also having them read at speed and deciding does it process?
19:07
You know, we've got all these words.
19:09
Do they make sense?
19:11
At speed, can I process all this information?
19:13
So it's been a tool that's been incredible.
19:16
He is like a jack in the box.
19:18
He's so energetic.
19:19
He's a legend when it comes to motorsport, what he's achieved on two wheels and stunts and then even what he's now doing on four wheels.
19:28
We're talking about Travis Pastrana.
19:31
Firstly, I mean, I love the fact that he's enjoying the homework now.
19:35
I reckon that's crazy, crazy cool.
19:37
I wouldn't have expected that if you told me at the beginning.
19:41
The opportunity to go and work with him has actually taken a little while to come about.
19:46
Is that right?
19:46
How did you ultimately end up as appearing in a Subaru in the American Rally Championship?
19:52
Yeah, I mean, it's quite difficult because obviously when your husband's also a professional co-driver and you've got corporate sponsors like Alex and Ken, it usually always was Ford and Monster and things like that.
20:04
And then you've got a wife who's also a professional co-driver and she's wanting to find rides that
20:10
could clash with you, you know what I mean?
20:12
So there was a while where an opportunity to sit with Travis, for me, back 2015 or something come about, but it just wasn't possible because of the situation Alex and I were in with Ford versus Subaru and things like that.
20:26
So for us, you know, when Ken sort of moved away from doing
20:30
the American Championship full time and was doing world stuff and bits and pieces everywhere, really just enjoying his rallying.
20:36
When Travis contacted me in 2020, that opportunity I could jump at because it wasn't a situation where Ken and Alex were
20:45
directly competing against us and they were worried about pillow talk, I guess you'd say.
20:52
But at the end of the day, they also quickly realised that when Alex and I are at rallies, we don't stay together.
20:58
We're both professionals.
20:59
We're there doing a job.
21:01
And at no point in time would we ever discuss...
21:04
you know, anything to do with our team because we both want to win.
21:07
So Travis contacted me as soon as the lockdowns happened and said, could I do the Southern Ohio Forest Rally?
21:15
But unfortunately, I was already booked with another driver.
21:18
And yes, when Travis calls you, how do you say no?
21:21
But at the same time,
21:23
I'm one of those people that it doesn't matter who's booked me, whether they're the last person in the field or a world champion's trying to book me.
21:31
Like, I'm loyal to what the decision I've made.
21:34
You know what I mean?
21:35
There's no contracts with those people or anything.
21:37
It's just, yes, I'm doing the work and no questions asked.
21:41
So we did that race and he had to use a co-driver he'd had from a few years ago.
21:46
And then I think it was the day after that race I got a phone call again.
21:49
He's like, are you booked?
21:52
Because this time I can't miss out.
21:55
So that's when I said, no, I'm not booked.
21:57
And so he said, we'll do a Jeep Wave Forest Rally.
22:00
I said, test rally?
22:01
We knew each other, but, you know, we didn't know each other really well.
22:06
And you need to work out, do your personalities work together?
22:09
Do you work well in the car together?
22:11
You know, just so many things, especially these cars over here are bloody fast.
22:17
And, you know, if it doesn't work, you can't have that person in the car.
22:21
So our first rally together, we won.
22:23
So I was pretty confident that I was going to get a call to continue, which I did.
22:29
And now I've done nine rallies together and...
22:31
obviously a great season this year and I've put the boy to work, lots of homework and all that sort of stuff, which he's jumped at and he's been fantastic, which is great.
22:41
And we've obviously won this year's championship.
22:44
So a lot of hard work has gone into it.
22:47
But at the same time, I feel like I'm working with a brother again, which is pretty cool.
22:52
That's awesome.
22:53
A little bit of the detail here just around the championship.
22:56
I think if I have the math right, you guys won 66% of the championship, five of the nine or something along those lines.
23:05
Massive year in the cool trademark blue Subaru colors alongside a legend in world motorsport, not just in America.
23:15
That for you must rank enormously high.
23:20
What does that mean to you?
23:22
Yeah, I mean, when Brenda and I didn't win the Australian Championship in 2014, I truly didn't know.
23:30
Like, that was something that meant so much to me to try and win the Australian Rally
23:36
and to miss out on it.
23:38
And then 2016, we won quite a few rounds, but we didn't register for the points.
23:42
And I guess at that point in my career, I'd nearly given up on whether I could win a national championship.
23:51
And obviously everything just fell in place.
23:55
David Higgins left the team.
23:57
Travis said he could drive full-time for Subaru.
24:01
He got moved into the number one position.
24:04
And so, so many
24:06
things just fell into place.
24:08
I guess sometimes you feel like giving up on dreams, but I never did.
24:14
And I kept pushing.
24:15
And I mean, Travis, it was the sixth time he'd won.
24:20
So, you know, I'm trying to not get emotional and I'm just trying to act all cool.
24:24
And my family can't be here because of COVID.
24:27
And I haven't seen them for nearly two years.
24:29
And
24:30
My family's the reason I am where I am because they taught me all about the sport and guided me on the way.
24:36
And I still remember it was a super special to finish.
24:39
So it was only half a mile long.
24:40
We were both nervous because imagine screwing up on a half mile long stage.
24:45
That would have gone down real well.
24:47
And so we finish.
24:49
I think the first thing was relief.
24:51
Like, you know, it's happened, you know, I've achieved this lifelong goal to be a national champion.
24:57
And I'm also an American citizen now.
25:00
So it didn't feel like I'd gone to another country and it was like, hey, I'm a citizen here.
25:05
I live here and I've just won my national championship.
25:09
I had tears later when Travis wasn't around.
25:12
He thinks I'm this really tough girl.
25:14
I didn't want to show him any different.
25:18
And, yeah, I guess for me I just can't wait till I can see my family and celebrate with them this achievement that for me is just incredible and, like, I hope I can do it again.
25:30
But I guess for all the young people out there who...
25:34
think that, you know, things are hard.
25:36
Just I'm 40 years old and I achieved my goal that I had for so many years at 40 years old.
25:41
So don't ever think that your time's up because just keep pushing and chasing your dreams because you just never know when it's, it's just around the corner, you know what I mean?
25:50
Now, Travis did make you celebrate in a very Australian way.
25:55
So Daniel Ricciardo does the shoeie.
25:58
David Reynolds does it in supercars.
26:01
He made you do a shoeie.
26:03
What was that like?
26:04
And you're not a drinker either, so you don't like alcohol.
26:07
So did you have water in the race booth?
26:10
What did you have?
26:12
I mean, how could I say no?
26:14
We've just won the championship.
26:15
He does it every time we win.
26:16
So we've done nine rallies together.
26:18
We've won five all up out of our nine.
26:21
And so it's his ritual.
26:22
He always does it.
26:23
And I stupidly said on the Monday night, I actually was with a team that were doing some rally cross testing and I'd gone with the team.
26:30
And at dinner, I stupidly said, if we win the championship this week, not thinking we would because at that point our team mate,
26:39
was still on really good points.
26:41
He had a crash at testing, which put him out of the rally.
26:43
So there was a lot of things that happened in that week that changed things.
26:47
And so I went from saying, I'll do a shoeie if we win the championship this week to going, oh, what have I just done?
26:54
And thinking the boys would all forget because they'd all had a few drinks at that stage.
26:58
And sure enough, Travis is up, he'd just got up, he had his shoe off, he's ready to go, beer in his shoe, I think he had beer in his shoe.
27:05
And he's like, Ree, you have to do the shoeie.
27:08
No, no.
27:09
He's like, you said you would.
27:10
And I'm like, he was even down the opposite end of the table.
27:14
Like, I don't even know if I thought he heard me say it.
27:16
Like, and so then he's just got all the crowd there, like looking at me, like you have no choice.
27:22
Like, what do I do here?
27:24
Like, I know Travis so well now that there is no getting out of this.
27:27
Like, and so I'm like, well, I don't drink.
27:30
And then this one lady's like, I've got water.
27:33
So I put the water in the boot and did my shoeie and it was the most disgusting thing I've done.
27:38
And we've got great photos and video footage.
27:42
And I'll always remember, I told myself, you know what, Rhiannon, there has to be one thing that jumps out that tells you that that was the day you won the championship.
27:50
And believe me, I'll always remember that.
27:52
Most definitely.
27:52
Brendo says for me to ask you about your party trick, your other party trick.
27:58
What do you, and it might involve...
28:01
a bone or an injury or something or other?
28:03
Is there a little party trick you do?
28:04
What is that?
28:05
Is my audience going to wince?
28:07
That's just my broken fibula.
28:10
There was one of the motorcycle guys.
28:13
I can't remember which one it was.
28:14
It might have been Darryl Beattie.
28:15
Darryl Beattie.
28:16
That's it.
28:17
And he had something that had happened in one of his crashes or something.
28:23
He'd lost all the toes off one foot.
28:24
That's right.
28:25
And I remember him telling me that and thinking that, oh, my goodness.
28:28
And then as I got older, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm like Daryl Beattie.
28:33
I'm showing people my, as a party trick, I'm...
28:37
scaring people.
28:38
We had a Channel 10 work, like water skiing event many, many years ago with Neil Crompton and others and Darryl was there.
28:47
And I took my daughters who were very, very young at the time.
28:51
And Darryl's other party trick around that poor foot that has no toes on it that he lost in Grand Prix bike racing, he would put it in not a thong, but like that.
29:01
And I can remember my daughter looking at it and going, like, Dad, where is his toes?
29:07
You know?
29:07
And I said, well, darling, he lost them in a crash.
29:10
And I had to explain it.
29:11
And she looked at me and she goes, but they're going to grow back, right?
29:14
No, darling.
29:15
No, they're not.
29:16
You know?
29:16
So, I mean, it is...
29:19
It's a brutal game and you've reflected on the crash earlier in the chat.
29:24
But the thing that stood out for me with you and Brendo in hospital and even kind of laughing while you're on the happy gas, I mean, it was a serious, serious crash, right, where you had to learn to walk again.
29:34
But am I right in saying that the one that was probably more frightening or real for you was 2014 and a fire of some kind?
29:43
Because with the other one, you don't really recall the crash, whereas this was different.
29:47
Yeah, 2014 was definitely hard to recover from.
29:51
So I was racing with Nick Roberts, an American driver, in the Oregon Trail Rally, one of the national rounds, and we went through a chicane.
29:59
And when we went through the chicane, something on the car broke, which in America they call it the prop shaft.
30:05
It runs straight down the mid-centre of the car.
30:07
I can't remember what we call it in Australia now.
30:10
Drive shaft.
30:11
Drive shaft, that's it.
30:12
So it's flinging around and we thought, oh, we'll just get to the end of the stage and deal with it.
30:17
You know what I mean?
30:18
Like you do.
30:18
Four-wheel drive cars are pretty good.
30:20
You can keep going.
30:21
Well, little did we know that it was flinging around that much that it punctured a hole in our fuel tank and the fuel tank just burst into flames on the straight.
30:31
No crash or anything, just burst into flames.
30:34
So we stop and our fire suppression system goes off like it's meant to.
30:40
So it drowns you in like a foamy sort of thing.
30:43
And the whole idea of that is they'll never save a car, but they'll save a person, you know what I mean?
30:48
So Nick opens his door and when he opens his door, for some reason the oxygen in the fire just means that the flames, if I try and open my door, the flames just engulf me.
30:59
So I'm trying to get out my side, but I can't because I'm just covered in flames and I see Nick's doors open.
31:04
He thought I'd got out and he'd got out and ran.
31:07
And so I actually had to get myself out over his side all on my own.
31:14
And at that point I'd got burnt pretty badly and got myself out.
31:19
And I straightaway said to Nick, he then ran back because he realised, you know, I was still in the car.
31:24
I said, I'm burnt badly.
31:26
We need to like...
31:28
I need to get water.
31:29
You know what I mean?
31:30
Like that's my first thing.
31:31
I've done a lot of first aid training and stuff.
31:34
And so the next car, how it works in rally is the next car is meant to stay with you.
31:38
And you're supposed to stay where you are, obviously.
31:41
You show them like an SOS, hey, you need to stop or a Red Cross in some situations.
31:45
And then the second car is meant to go get help.
31:48
But you as the injured person is supposed to stay where you are.
31:52
But that first car got there and I said, I need to get in with you and we need to find water.
31:57
Because at that point when you get burnt, you're not necessarily like showing like straight away how bad
32:03
bad you are, you know, and my hands were really burnt.
32:06
And so I just get in with him and he had some water bottles and I'm just drowning myself with them.
32:11
And then we find like a little dam.
32:13
And then that little dam, I just go and put my hands in there and my face was burnt.
32:18
I'd lost my eyebrows and eyelashes and things like that.
32:21
And then once I got enough water, we then went to the next, um, like safety point where they had an ambulance and things.
32:27
And, um,
32:28
And they started giving me medical attention and then got me to the hospital.
32:32
But the hardest part about that was I remembered every single thing that happened.
32:37
And thinking that I was going to die in a car fire was horrific.
32:42
And it was only four weeks later that I had to get back in a rally car.
32:46
We were fighting for the championship in our class.
32:49
David Higgins was great and he had sourced some co-driver gloves without fingers on them.
32:55
So I was able to wear them to protect my hands, which was still recovering from second and third degree burns.
33:01
My face had like had some scabs and stuff on it, but it had recovered pretty good.
33:05
I still had no eyebrows and eyelashes at that point, but the mental side of it was the hardest part.
33:11
Like I recovered pretty quickly.
33:13
I'm a really fit person, so that was good.
33:15
But just mentally getting back in a rally car and
33:18
just preparing myself for the fact that I'm okay and this will be fine and not thinking that every little noise I heard in the car was going to cause a fire.
33:28
It's a dangerous game.
33:29
We know that.
33:30
The stories you've shared around the fire and the leg injuries are a reminder of what can happen, even if it's rare these days, given the great work that's been done and continues to be done around safety and...
33:44
Has that awareness of the danger perhaps changed the way that you and Alex approach life away from the sport?
33:52
I mean, there's a lot of athletes out there in the world that you become so passionate and driven with your goals that, you know, sacrifices have to be made.
34:00
And already knowing with my broken legs and my fire that I've had two chances, you know, that I've luckily survived.
34:08
I personally couldn't take the risk of having children and continue doing my rallying.
34:12
So, you know, with a husband that does the same job as me and the risk that we both take in our life, it was a decision that we both had to make.
34:20
And we're both firmly stand by our decision.
34:22
But we also know that when I get back to Australia, my poor nieces and nephews are probably going to stop kissing us and cuddling us and all those sort of things.
34:31
Because I think the world, I'm just very lucky that my siblings have had kids and
34:36
I can be an auntie to them and enjoy that, even though I've had to make that sacrifice to not be a mother myself.
34:42
Now, you, in your role with Travis, aren't just co-driver.
34:48
You make some decisions on different things and he even kind of laughs about it sometimes, doesn't he?
34:51
He goes, oh, no, no, no, Ree's going to make that call.
34:54
She can do that.
34:55
You're heavily involved in this project, aren't you?
34:57
Yeah, it's quite funny because obviously we all know Travis for the incredible motorsport person he is, but the reality is he has no mechanical knowledge at all.
35:08
And he's the first to say that.
35:10
You've got to think this guy from a young age was, you know, he had someone working on his bike and he had someone helping him at events and stuff, so he never learnt the mechanics of his motorbike.
35:21
You know, he doesn't know anything about motorbikes, to be honest with you.
35:23
Like, he gets on it and rides it.
35:25
like a crazy man.
35:27
And it's the same as the rally car.
35:29
So if there's any decisions or anything about tyres, I guess he looks at it.
35:34
I've done double the rallies he has.
35:36
Like I've done, I think 180 rallies or something and he's done maybe 80 or 90.
35:41
my experience and and that is higher than his but when you're working with Travis Pastrana it's Travis Pastrana you know what I mean like you you don't ever think that you're going to be the one making some important decisions um but even like the team wanted us to go to Vermont to the workshop to learn more about the car so I'd been at Travis's for a few days we'd been there working on videos and
36:02
and doing prep for the next two races.
36:05
And then we flew to Vermont and we get there at 9am in the morning and our car's ready for us to learn things.
36:11
And we get there and Travis is like,
36:12
I've got to be honest, guys, this will go in one ear and out the other.
36:15
I've got lots of emails to do.
36:17
Ree is going to be great.
36:20
She will learn everything and let me know when to come back down.
36:24
And I'm like, I won't say the word I called him because I knew that was going to happen.
36:31
And so off he went.
36:32
The boys are laughing.
36:33
You'd actually convinced him to come and do this because no other co-driver has been able to.
36:37
I love it.
36:38
Yeah, well, that didn't go to plan, did it?
36:40
Tell me a bit about that awesome car, because not only does it look like a weapon, but it sounds and goes like one too.
36:49
Tell the audience a little bit more about this championship winning car in 2021.
36:54
Oh, wow.
36:55
It's, yeah, Subaru Motorsport USA definitely have, well, Vermont sports car obviously build the cars and the American regulations and rules are virtually pretty open.
37:06
So Barry McKenna brought in the latest spec world rally car.
37:09
He bought one off M Sport, put a two litre engine in it.
37:12
They're usually 1.6 litre and he brought it out and he blew us off the road.
37:17
You know, he was a second half a mile quicker.
37:21
So quickly Subaru was like,
37:23
Well, how's this car legal?
37:25
You know what I mean?
37:25
You're letting the fastest world rally car come in and you're putting a two-litre engine in it.
37:31
And ARA rules, as far as anyone could find, Barry wasn't breaking the rules.
37:35
So our team quickly had to, you know, we've got a lot more aero on the car now.
37:39
We had to do a lot of engine upgrades.
37:42
And, you know, for people who are listening now,
37:45
An R5 spec in Australia is virtually your fastest car that you've got now.
37:50
Like Harry Bates and Lewis Bates, you know, I think their cars are classed as like an AP4, but R5 standard is the fastest car you'll get in Australia.
38:00
We beat R5s by like five, six minutes of rally.
38:04
Like they're the same speed as a world rally car.
38:07
And there's stages where I think it was New England Forest Rally.
38:11
There was seven stages that average speed was 85 miles per hour, which is 134, five kilometers per hour average.
38:22
Like that's not even allowed in WRC.
38:25
As soon as the stage is over, I think it's 131 or 32 kilometre average, the stage doesn't run a second pass.
38:32
So I'd love to put someone like, say, Ogier in the car and his Toyota and just compare them and see where they are because, again,
38:42
They're incredibly fast and because they're not FIA homologated, you can't do a WRC round in them.
38:48
So to know where they are, all you can do is look at the R5 times compared to what we're doing and get an idea of how fast they are compared to the WRC cars now.
39:00
To me, they're right there.
39:02
So it's a ride.
39:03
It's incredible.
39:05
You know, you get to the end of stage and sometimes you're handshaking and when Travis puts out his hand and it's like, geez, Ree, look at my hand, I'm like, well, if he's scared, why aren't I scared?
39:13
You know what I mean?
39:14
Like...
39:15
I cannot believe, I mean, you were floating around the WRC paddock from the mid-2000s.
39:21
This good-looking Italian guy is there.
39:23
Nothing really transpires until Finland 2012.
39:28
Now two co-drivers are married.
39:32
I think they're, I mean, if you look...
39:34
I mean, at world level rallying, there are not many co-drivers who are married.
39:39
You guys, so this is a very rare stat.
39:42
You are two highly organised people.
39:44
What is that sort of life like?
39:45
He's a ripper bloke too, isn't he?
39:47
Oh, my goodness.
39:48
Let's just say we're both very OCD.
39:51
I'm shocked, I'm shocked.
39:56
Yeah, it's poor Alex, I'm even worse than him.
39:59
Like the poor thing, he'll take off his underpants and they're just on the floor ready to get in the shower and I'm already like, why aren't they in the washing machine?
40:07
Like, you know what I mean?
40:08
I'm like...
40:09
And he's like, give me a break.
40:11
I'll have a shell, then I'll put them in the washing machine.
40:14
You know what I mean?
40:14
Like everything in our house, everything has to be immaculate and spotless.
40:18
And it's just, I think it's the mentality that you have as a co-driver that everything has to be organised in a certain way.
40:26
And, you know, in our garage, we've got a nice big garage and we've got boxes and boxes of paste notes of all our drivers.
40:32
And.
40:33
you know, it's all in order and it's all named and listed and everything.
40:36
But I think that's the way we have to live our life because we live our life, you know, crazy lifestyle, you know, on the road here, there and everywhere.
40:45
And
40:45
to Alex and I coming home as to our home base, it needs to be, you know, in a way that we can just come home and relax.
40:52
And ironically, you're from, you know, country Victoria, from Wedderburn.
40:56
You've ended up in a beautiful country area in the States, haven't you?
41:01
Are you guys on about 40 acres or something along those lines?
41:04
Yeah, we're on 40 acres.
41:05
It's called Horseshoe Bend and it's in Idaho.
41:08
We live out in the mountains, actually.
41:10
It's very much like New Zealand where you are now.
41:13
And so it's...
41:15
Yeah, it's incredible here.
41:16
We live in the rolling foothills, horseshoe bends, probably about 800 people, which is similar to Wedderburn.
41:23
If I want to run into the post office, I can run nearly all downhill, seven and a half kilometres to get to local post office.
41:30
And then I can either decide to walk back or run back, depending on how I feel.
41:35
The cool thing about Idaho is we have a Can-Am and you can put a plate on it and we can ride it anywhere.
41:41
We have a four-wheeler.
41:43
that we ride everywhere.
41:44
Like the other day I went and got the mail on the four-wheeler.
41:46
And so it's just incredible.
41:49
I always say to people, Idaho is like Australia 20 years ago.
41:52
Like, you know, there's not too many rules.
41:55
You do what you want, you do as you please.
41:58
And it's just a really cool, casual lifestyle with very little rules and regulations.
42:04
You mentioned earlier in the podcast about going to Qatar, women in motorsport.
42:09
I think, did you nearly end up getting lost and getting into Saudi Arabia?
42:13
What happened there?
42:15
And the reason for my question, I mean, aside of a laugh, the reason for my question is, does Dakar appeal at some point here?
42:23
I mean, definitely when I went to do that, I was like all about, I'm going to learn to do Dakar.
42:29
And this is my next goal.
42:30
Because at that point, obviously, I was like, I don't think I can win a national championship.
42:37
I need to start moving my goal around, you know, what's my next thing.
42:41
WRC is always that huge goal that I have sitting there that I want to get back to and things.
42:46
But then Dakar opportunity comes along where you train for a week with, you know, these incredible women.
42:51
And
42:52
And I was like, this could be the next, you know, thing that I decide to do in my career.
42:58
So off we go to Qatar.
42:59
And I mean, it was a baptism of fire.
43:03
I mean, here you are, one of the best female co-drivers in the world, and you have no bloody idea what you're doing when you get in the sand dunes and you're completely lost.
43:13
And you're stuck and you're with, I mean, one of the girls I worked with, Christina, she was a dentist from Spain.
43:20
And, you know, her and I, I think she was the first girl I worked with.
43:23
We were so lost.
43:24
It wasn't funny.
43:25
And we were trying to get this car out.
43:28
I think we were in a Nissan Patrol or something like that.
43:31
And then this other Nissan Patrol comes along and this guy from Qatar gets out and he's full white, you know, and.
43:37
And we're like, oh, like we don't know.
43:40
He can't speak to us.
43:41
We can't speak to him.
43:42
We're not sure if this is very safe.
43:43
You know, no one can see us.
43:45
We're in the middle of the desert.
43:46
And he helps us and we can't communicate and he's showing us what to do and then all of a sudden we get the vehicle out and he gives us a thumbs up and we're like,
43:54
oh, like we realised that for them that's just the way of life, you know what I mean?
43:59
Like so he was just helping, like he was driving in the sand dunes and there's some girls stuck so he helps us, you know.
44:05
And then the Saudi Arabia border wasn't far from where we were and it was actually one of the other teams that they were on the tracker and they were really lost and all of a sudden the people, Utah and the people running it, they realised these girls are nearly at the Saudi Arabia border and...
44:22
in that country at the time women couldn't drive.
44:26
So here you are with two women in a car coming through the sand dunes and like luckily something at the last minute they just turn around and beep, beep, beep, it's coming back the right way.
44:36
So I rang Alex at the end of the first day and I
44:41
I class myself as very tough.
44:43
And I was sharing a room with Molly.
44:45
So the little two Australians were sharing a room.
44:49
And I didn't want to cry in front of Molly, but lots of other girls had already broken down and cried.
44:53
And I'm like, I am not letting anyone see me lose it, you know.
44:58
And so I could hear Molly was out on like sort of having her private time, I think talking to Coral.
45:04
And I'm bringing Alex and I just burst into tears.
45:08
And I'm like, I want to get on the first plane out of here.
45:11
I think six days later I loved it.
45:14
We did a, I think it was an 80-kilometre stage.
45:17
The girl I was with was a Swedish girl.
45:19
I think we finished second in that stage.
45:23
And so, you know, all that was incredible as far as that's concerned.
45:28
But the initial shock of what Dakar is and what it involves was
45:34
blew my mind and people really, I've met Toby Price now and I've met Ricky who also, American, who won Daka on the bike.
45:42
They were actually at a desert race I was at recently and I was talking to them about it and they're like, you need to come and, you know,
45:49
you need to train again and you need to, you know, give it your all because it's, you need to do it once sort of thing, you know, and Alex and I've spoke about it recently, whether we should both go and train with like one of the competitors now that's at the top sort of thing.
46:07
And maybe both of us give it a try, you know, before the time when our career end and we don't ever look back with regret and say, we wish we did Dakar.
46:16
Oz Rally Pro.
46:18
Tell our audience a bit more about this.
46:20
We've touched on it a little bit in terms of your co-driving skills and sharing that with those that are aspiring, the next generation.
46:29
Obviously, being a teacher, I love teaching and Brenda and I used to train quite a few people at our track in Wedderburn.
46:36
People would just generally ask us to...
46:38
if we could do some training, there was never any formal, you know, business or anything that we started.
46:44
So when I moved over to America, I actually said to Alex that I was missing my teaching.
46:50
Like rally was everything to me, but I miss, you know, just teaching people and the joy that I got from that.
46:58
So I said to him, how did he feel about us starting a training business?
47:03
Alex doesn't come from any training background.
47:06
So for him, he was like, I don't really know what you're talking about.
47:09
Like, this seems crazy, you know.
47:11
And so we decided to sit down and come up with ideas.
47:15
And because it was my baby, as he called it, we decided to call it Oz Rally Pro because it was really my thing that I wanted to get up and going.
47:25
I saw a real, you know, hole in the American Championship with the one pass reccee.
47:31
co-drivers not knowing how to write down notes because they got provided Jemba notes they called them so there was a lot of things going on here that I felt like I could really teach people so many of the skills I'd learned I'm never a person that hides things I like to share and I like to teach and so we started Ausralia Pro and our first student was in December 2013 and
47:53
We've nearly trained 300 students now, be it in New Zealand, Australia, America.
47:58
Someone from Barbados come over here.
48:00
We've trained some people online in Europe as well.
48:03
We don't really like to do online because we like people to be one-on-one with us and things like that.
48:08
But one thing we've really noticed is we're two professionals that are willing to get – people pay, obviously, but –
48:14
they're willing to give back to the sport and teach their secrets, which is very rare.
48:20
That doesn't usually happen with people at the top.
48:23
They like to keep their secrets hidden, whereas now we've quickly realised that people who come and train with us, we're just training them and don't really think anything of it.
48:33
But to them, like, we're their role models teaching them.
48:37
So it makes you realise pretty quickly that what we're doing is fantastic for the sport and the people around us.
48:43
Final one for you.
48:45
You've talked about storing co-driver notes and paste notes from all the different people you've worked with over time, racked and stacked and ordered appropriately, probably in year order and whatever it might be.
48:58
In the garage, though, because with Rusty's Garage, we like to talk about a car project.
49:04
Is there a resto car in the garage?
49:07
Is there a little project car of some kind?
49:09
And if not, is there one that you'd like to do one day?
49:12
Alex wishes there was.
49:13
We usually have a lot of toys.
49:15
At one stage we had the Can-Am, two quad bikes, two dirt bikes.
49:20
We have a one-kilometre track on our 40-acre property, which we race around on our dirt bikes and Can-Am and four-wheeler and those sort of things.
49:28
So we don't have a rest or anything that exciting.
49:31
We have what we call over here a Toyota Tundra truck instead of a ute.
49:38
And so nothing really exciting, I guess you could say, but definitely we love the classics and we always go to car shows and things like that and I think at some stage if we're not living on a three-kilometre gravel road that winds up to our house, if we move somewhere else and we're on tarmac, I'm sure Alex will very quickly acquire a car
50:01
some sort of classic car.
50:02
He loves classic Porsches.
50:04
So they don't come cheap though.
50:08
So I think we'll have to wait and see.
50:10
But yeah, for now, it's just the normal toys that you love to play with in our garage.
50:15
Well, I look forward to having a beer with him and talking old 911s.
50:18
They're a bit of something I've got a soft spot for.
50:20
I think it's terrific that your first, what the Americans probably call a Datsun P510 or Datsun 1600, has ended up back with Brendo.
50:28
I think that's awesome.
50:29
I've loved the insights on that wild car that you compete in in America.
50:34
Congratulations on the championship.
50:37
No doubt it'll be all about the defense of it in 2022.
50:41
And thank you so much for sharing your story, which probably isn't as widely known in Australia and should be.
50:48
And it's been nice to get you to share more of that with our audience.
50:52
Thank you so much.
50:53
Thanks for having me.
51:00
Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
51:04
Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
51:07
Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
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Listen up.