Latest / Rusty's Garage / Graeme Crosby (Part 1)

Transcript

Graeme Crosby (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:13
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:29
  In this episode, I'm about an hour's drive north of Auckland.
• 0:32
  The countryside here is just beautiful.
• 0:35
  It's where one of the most diversely successful motorcycle races from the 70s and 80s is now based.
• 0:42
  Graham Crosby, or Cros as he's often called, is the larrikin biker with loads of funny stories from his time racing in New Zealand, Australia and around the world.
• 0:51
  Like Steve Parrish, who you may have listened to already in the Rusty's Garage library, Cross came through an era where they weren't PC.
• 0:59
  So keep that in perspective.
• 1:00
  We're just talking about history.
• 1:02
  He's a ripper bloke who also went on to be a very handy touring car racer.
• 1:06
  And these days he's doing some cool resto work with bikes too.
• 1:10
  Cross is one of those people that discovered his passion really early on in life.
• 1:15
  And he loved it so much, he couldn't imagine doing anything else.
• 1:19
  I want you to tell me in your own words where you grew up in New Zealand, your first memories of motorbikes or anything with an engine and how influential that was on you.
• 1:30
  Well, it's pretty easy.
• 1:31
  Marlborough, the wine capital of New Zealand, and riding a motocross bike or sitting on the tank of a motocross bike belonging to Ivan Miller, who at that stage was a pretty good motocross rider that went on to run in Grand Prixs.
• 1:47
  That's what got me, absolutely.
• 1:50
  And just the mere fact of actually sitting on also an AS, I think it's got an AS1, which was a very old early Yamaha, and I actually got to steer the thing.
• 1:59
  So that had me hook, line and sinker.
• 2:02
  How old were you then?
• 2:03
  About seven.
• 2:06
  I grew into it, but no, I was about seven or eight at that stage.
• 2:09
  I want to fast forward a little bit in your life here for a moment.
• 2:11
  Your first proper day of work in the motorcycle game, I think you were about 17.
• 2:17
  By this stage, you'd moved to Auckland.
• 2:19
  It's early 1970s.
• 2:21
  And you had a major cock up on a client's bike, didn't you?
• 2:26
  What happened?
• 2:27
  And did it nearly cost you your job?
• 2:29
  Well, actually, to correct you, it wasn't my first job.
• 2:34
  Wasn't it?
• 2:35
  My first job was actually in a used car yard selling sports cars, you know, like, I don't know, old Lotuses and Triumph Heralds and all that sort of stuff and an MGA.
• 2:49
  My job was to detail them and I used to use Nugget.
• 2:53
  On the leather?
• 2:55
  On the leather, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:58
  And I just can remember this guy coming in and going for a test ride and then walking out.
• 3:03
  He didn't obviously buy it, but I could just see the back of his trousers.
• 3:06
  You know, his light-coloured trousers were covered in this.
• 3:10
  So the linen got recoloured, didn't it?
• 3:11
  Yeah, it did, it did.
• 3:13
  So that job lasted a very short period of time, of course, and that actually led me on to working in the motorcycle shop because a customer did come in at the time and wanted to buy some sort of old sports car, and he was the manager of a motorcycle shop.
• 3:30
  And he then gave me the job of going over there and working in the workshop in Laurie Summers, which happened to be the New Zealand importers for Kawasaki.
• 3:39
  And that's where I got that sort of connection with Kawasaki.
• 3:44
  So my first job, of course, as a trainee mechanic.
• 3:49
  was to do the annual, well, the daily, I should say, the daily run across to the parts department in Mount Eden, which was probably, I don't know, say 10K, 12K or something like that.
• 3:59
  And we'd run across and pick up the parts and stick them down your overalls and bring them back.
• 4:04
  And I had a particular liking for a Kawasaki A7, which is the old twin-cylinder rotary valve thing that was about the equivalent to an RD350 in those days.
• 4:14
  Brilliant motorbike.
• 4:16
  But I was coming through the...
• 4:18
  One Tree Hill Park, and I was going a bit quick, pretending to be, you know, at the Isle of Man or somewhere like that, and slipped off it and disappeared under a fir tree.
• 4:25
  And I remember myself going, oh, no, what have I done?
• 4:31
  And I had to then explain to this workshop manager that, you know, I damaged the bike.
• 4:37
  Luckily, they were okay about it, didn't do too much damage.
• 4:40
  But that was my first day.
• 4:41
  So it was a bit of a scary start.
• 4:43
  You were worried it was actually sat from the trees or something at the time, but you spun on the yarn about the big yellow bus and come out of nowhere or something.
• 4:51
  I forgot about that one.
• 4:52
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:53
  No, that's exactly right because there's a lot of trees that overhang and it's a very similar scenario to Imola.
• 5:00
  If it ever rains at Imola, second or third corner, it has the same thing where it becomes very, very slippery.
• 5:05
  But at the time I sort of blamed an ARA bus, which is the Auckland Regional Council bus, to come out and, you know, failed to give way and I took immediate action and unfortunately, yeah, saved myself and what was left of the bike.
• 5:19
  You were cheeky and you still are.
• 5:21
  Correct me here, you were too young, I think, to get a racing licence.
• 5:26
  So did you kind of forge your mum's signature, maybe change your date of birth so you could get into the Auckland Motorcycle Club and get your racing licence?
• 5:34
  And you may have even given yourself...
• 5:36
  A licence upgrade too, did you?
• 5:38
  Yes.
• 5:40
  Well, I had to.
• 5:40
  I had to.
• 5:41
  I had to because I was involved in the motorcycle club fairly early on and this all feeds the whole motorcycle theme is that we'd sit in the motorcycle club and drink as much beer as you could possibly do and then watch and read all of the magazines that would come out from Australia
• 5:59
  the UK, whether it be Motorcycle Mechanics or Motorcycle News or whatever it was.
• 6:03
  And that's where that sort of passion, that desire to be more involved happened.
• 6:09
  But of course, in those days, you had to be 18 to have a competition license on the road for road racing.
• 6:16
  So I did a bit of forging.
• 6:17
  But I mean, any kid would do, wouldn't they?
• 6:20
  No.
• 6:20
  Yeah.
• 6:21
  And you upgrade.
• 6:21
  Did you give yourself like a truck endorsement or something or other as well?
• 6:24
  What did you do?
• 6:25
  Oh, that's actually, I think.
• 6:28
  You can't do this stuff now, but I love history because that was what it was like back then.
• 6:32
  But here in New Zealand in those days, of course, when you got your license, your driver's license, it was kind of a little booklet.
• 6:38
  And when I went for my license in a Morris minor, the guy signed me off and said,
• 6:44
  And I thought at the time, you know, like it's just a pencil mark or a pen, you know.
• 6:49
  And when they changed over to this new licensing system, there was nothing on the computer because they didn't have computers in those days.
• 6:57
  But when they did introduce the computer, I took the opportunity to endorse myself in trucks, heavy license for trucks and buses and caterpillar tractors and all sorts of things.
• 7:08
  So yeah, it kind of worked really well.
• 7:10
  I love the fact that you brought up the Motorcycle Club a moment ago and reading old magazines and things like that.
• 7:16
  That had a very lasting impact on you, particularly around the Isle of Man TT and listening to stories about the TT.
• 7:24
  And, you know, even now, the Tourist Trophy, which has been going for over 100 years there, it's amazing.
• 7:33
  It's this odd mix of immense danger and yet it's intoxicating.
• 7:39
  I mean, people like Mark Webber go and enjoy watching it.
• 7:41
  I mean, it's an incredible thing, isn't it?
• 7:44
  Yeah, he goes and watches it.
• 7:45
  I didn't see him on a motorbike running around it.
• 7:48
  But actually, to be fair, I mean, back in those days, it was a round of the World Championship, don't forget.
• 7:52
  So people had to go to the TT.
• 7:55
  It wasn't until 76 that they dropped that requirement out.
• 7:59
  But in the early 70s, I was just mesmerised by Phil Reid and Mike Halewood and all these guys going around there at these hugely ridiculous speeds.
• 8:09
  So it was kind of a – for me, it was something that sort of grabbed me and I said, well, I've got to do that at some stage.
• 8:16
  Also, which made it kind of poignant to me was that we'd taken quite a few –
• 8:22
  New Zealanders over there and some of them hadn't come back.
• 8:25
  And some of those were actually members of the Auckland Motorcycle Club.
• 8:28
  So it was kind of a, you know, like an interesting concept to be wanting to go, but knowing that, ooh, hang on a second, you know, like this guy got killed and that guy got killed and, you know, so it was a bit of an emotional sort of decision, but at the time it's empowering, you know, if you ever get the opportunity to race the TT, you can understand what it's like.
• 8:49
  But the thought of going there is compelling.
• 8:53
  Once you're there, you wish to God you hadn't arrived.
• 8:56
  Oh, it's frightening.
• 8:57
  It really is.
• 8:58
  It is.
• 8:58
  It's absolutely frightening.
• 9:00
  But the whole thing about going to the TT is you have an image in your mind, but when you turn up there and have to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and you're standing on the grid that's freezing cold, and a guy walks along with a board saying rain on the mountain or mist on the mountain.
• 9:16
  You don't appreciate what it's like until you're actually on the bike and you're going there and suddenly you're engulfed and just missed and you don't know where the hell you are.
• 9:25
  And that's the scary part.
• 9:27
  And the lap is, correct me here, it's like 37 miles or something ridiculous, isn't it?
• 9:32
  Yeah, it's 60-odd kilometres for one lap.
• 9:35
  So, you know, in our days we went round in six laps.
• 9:40
  So I think I was about the first person to do it under two hours.
• 9:42
  So you can get an idea of the length of the race.
• 9:45
  So, yeah, and, yeah, we can talk about the TT a little later on, but that's what drew me into that whole competition mode.
• 9:54
  Your first competition?
• 9:55
  and you'll need to join the dots here for me, was your first club event at the Pukekohe Circuit, which is a legendary place south of Auckland.
• 10:02
  I think you might have finished fourth for the weekend, but it wasn't completely without incident, was it?
• 10:08
  No, there's been a couple, but the best one was one of my early races.
• 10:12
  I went down to a place called Pororua, which is in Wellington, and they had a racetrack around the shopping centre.
• 10:19
  And I was actually riding the bike really, really well,
• 10:25
  and ran up the curb and were part of the driveway, I suppose, on the curb.
• 10:31
  And what the Wellington Motorcycle Club had done to prevent the crowd from coming on, they'd tied 44-gallon drums together with ropes.
• 10:39
  That's what they did back in those days.
• 10:41
  So I disappeared onto the curb and threw this rope and got tangled up with the 44-gallon drum.
• 10:48
  So I finished second in the race, and the 44-gallon drum was credited as coming third.
• 10:55
  So it was kind of a, it was a whoa.
• 10:57
  Yeah, it could be dangerous, these street circuits.
• 11:00
  I'm super pleased to hear that you've, you know, in your entire career, because it's a brutal game that you've not really got a massive, serious injury toll to speak of.
• 11:11
  But...
• 11:12
  naturally make you witness because it was a dangerous period that you came through.
• 11:16
  You witnessed others that are no longer with us.
• 11:19
  How did you compartmentalize that?
• 11:21
  How did you go, okay, I still love this.
• 11:22
  I still want to pursue this.
• 11:25
  And having seen some pretty heavy crashes, park it in the back of your mind and keep going.
• 11:30
  I think it's an interesting question because, you know, I get asked this question quite a lot, you know, how do you deal with the deaths, the accidents and all that sort of stuff.
• 11:37
  But if you were to be in a sport for a very, very long time in one area, you end up getting to know everybody really closely.
• 11:48
  Now, that didn't happen to me.
• 11:50
  I rode in Australia, I rode in Japan, England, and in Europe and America and all these different places.
• 11:56
  So I was never there long enough to bond enough with the riders that if something happened, you would have a profound effect on you, if you can get what I'm saying.
• 12:06
  Is that a conscious choice as well?
• 12:08
  Like maybe don't get too close to people?
• 12:10
  Well, that was – no, no, that came after when you think about it and then gives you an excuse.
• 12:14
  But it's not quite like that because the events that I would go to, you know, for example, in Japan, the first – one of the first races I went there, there was one of the test riders got killed.
• 12:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:27
  And he was very, very close to Morawaki.
• 12:31
  So I went to the funeral with him and he had a, I think it was a Buddhist type ceremony.
• 12:36
  And that was kind of a, whoa, hang on a second.
• 12:39
  You know, this is pretty tough, yeah, tough stuff.
• 12:44
  And from there on in,
• 12:46
  It was good for me not to get too close, but it was something that I didn't particularly, you know, I didn't avoid people.
• 12:53
  It just happened to be that, you know, I'd turn up at one race, then I'd go to Australia to another one, then, you know, Japan for another one, then back to America or something like that.
• 13:01
  So I didn't have that midweek bond that you get with somebody like Wayne Gardner, who lived in the UK, breathed motorbikes day in, day out, but only in one market, so to speak.
• 13:12
  That wasn't me.
• 13:13
  I wasn't like that.
• 13:14
  I was lucky enough to...
• 13:15
  to spread it you figured out pretty early on the importance of being a in interview situations and things like that being a bit of a character you are a character naturally i know what you're you're like and there'll be lots of these little stories that will pop up in our conversation here but you did and maybe your girlfriend at the time streak at a party one night i didn't plan on being caught
• 13:40
  Yeah, no, you do all those sort of things.
• 13:42
  You know, you're talking about, what, the mid-'70s when, like we live in a completely different lifestyle now.
• 13:49
  Yeah.
• 13:50
  And PC has just gone mad, but in those days, you know, streaking happened to be the thing that you do, you know.
• 13:56
  But like I said, I didn't figure on me actually getting caught and there's nothing worse than being dragged through and put on show.
• 14:03
  It was a cold night too, I might add.
• 14:06
  Among the many New Zealand circuits that you competed at over time, you raced at Manfield near Palmerston there on the North Island, the Amco Open Grand Prix in the early 70s, 73, I want to say.
• 14:17
  Weather was a bit sketchy.
• 14:18
  Some great names in the field, Stuart Vaughan, Ginger Malloy, who'd been runner-up in the 1969 500cc World Championship.
• 14:27
  that win for you, I think it earned you the grand total of $178 prize money, but that was probably quite a big deal back then, was it?
• 14:34
  It was huge.
• 14:35
  It was like winning lottery.
• 14:38
  And I always remember saying to myself, this bottle of wine, I'm going to keep this on my mantelpiece.
• 14:43
  It didn't last long, didn't it?
• 14:44
  It lasted about five minutes, honestly, but I did want to.
• 15:01
  The basic tools you'll need to work on your engine.
• 15:04
  Wrenches, ratchets, socket sets, screwdrivers, pliers, and if that doesn't work, use a hammer.
• 15:12
  The focal part of our discussion at the moment is naturally where it all really began for you in New Zealand.
• 15:17
  You would go on to Australia and then around the world, as you said before.
• 15:21
  The Castrol six hour came to New Zealand and you kind of survived the 1974 race.
• 15:29
  But there is a good yarn about you kind of no brakes, pressing on, almost stuntman stuff coming into the pit lane.
• 15:35
  And somehow you pulled a third place out of it all, didn't you?
• 15:39
  Yeah, that was an interesting one because the first Castrol six-hour race was won by Ginger Malloy, right?
• 15:48
  He was on a Z900 or a Z1 in those early days.
• 15:51
  We'd elected to use a 750 Kawasaki triple, the two-stroke.
• 15:56
  And, you know, in hindsight, we would have been better off on the Z1.
• 15:59
  But at the time, we thought the H2 may have actually been, you know, had been better.
• 16:05
  And...
• 16:06
  In those days, we always had trouble with retaining brake linings in the rear.
• 16:12
  And we used to go to a kind of a, it's a bit like a Bathurst brake, you know, really hard.
• 16:18
  And we enabled us somewhere along the line to source some of these brake pads and, well, brake shoes, I should say.
• 16:27
  And they were put aside for us because that was going to be our magic bullet that's going to, you know, take us through.
• 16:33
  So when we got to about a week out from the race, we went down to the local brake shop who had been storing these, and we said, okay, well, can we have our blue linings or green linings in those days or whatever it is?
• 16:45
  And they went, oh, and there was a bit of a stumble there for a while.
• 16:51
  And we eventually found out that they'd given them to Honda.
• 16:55
  So we had nothing to do.
• 16:56
  So we had to run with standard brakes.
• 16:59
  And Eric, I was riding with Eric Bone at the time, and he went out in the first session.
• 17:05
  And when he came in, we adjusted the rear brake like you'd normally do it.
• 17:09
  And then I went out, and about five laps later, there was no brake at all.
• 17:13
  So I continued until my first stop, and I gave it to Eric, and I said, look, there's no rear brake.
• 17:20
  And he basically sort of said, well, I don't want to do it.
• 17:24
  So the bugger, he said, no, you can ride it.
• 17:27
  If you want to ride it, you do it.
• 17:28
  I'm not riding it without a rear brake.
• 17:29
  So I did the rest of the race.
• 17:31
  And this theme follows through all of my life in racing when you go with a team manager, with a team rider or co-rider, is that come the end of the race, they're there for half the prize money, although you've actually done 90% of the riding.
• 17:47
  So I had to split the prize money, which I did, not begrudgingly, but I did.
• 17:52
  And that's happened on a couple of other occasions as well.
• 17:55
  As a young man, you decide to have a crack at going to Australia.
• 18:00
  How was Australia viewed in those early 70s?
• 18:02
  Was it a big step in your career?
• 18:06
  And did you go there on a wing and a prayer with hardly any bucks in your pocket?
• 18:09
  And what did you do for cars?
• 18:10
  And how did you get around and things like that?
• 18:12
  That's a good one.
• 18:13
  Back in the old days when you flew DC 10s, I think they were in those days, something chronic, it was basically one of my first ever trips away.
• 18:22
  And to arrive in Sydney, and we'd prearranged it with Kawasaki, New South Wales, Miles Devano in those days, to meet with him.
• 18:33
  And the expectation was that because I was racing for Kawasaki New Zealand, that they would then...
• 18:39
  perhaps give me or introduce me to a team that's running Kawasaki's to run the six hour.
• 18:45
  So we turned up there and we went and saw Miles and he sort of snubbed us a bit.
• 18:50
  And basically he told us, look, Kiwis, nah, mate, nah, no, no, too many of you buggers over here anyway.
• 18:57
  And go and see Peter Stevens.
• 18:58
  He's got a triumph.
• 18:59
  I think you might be able to have a ride on.
• 19:01
  And I thought at the time, hey, bugger.
• 19:04
  And I didn't want to do that.
• 19:05
  So we sort of left tail between our legs with about two or three weeks to go before the race.
• 19:12
  And then Bernie Summers, who was a journalist with Revs magazine, he was teed up to run with Chris Wise in those days.
• 19:22
  And they had an old...
• 19:24
  Z1 that they'd borrowed off somebody.
• 19:26
  And I remember at the time they couldn't find any of the shims big enough to take up the clearances and it was a rattly old thing.
• 19:33
  And anyway, I took over Bernie's ride after he had a crash, one of his numerous crashes that he's...
• 19:40
  infamous for.
• 19:41
  I think he broke his legs or something like that.
• 19:43
  I can't remember exactly.
• 19:44
  So we went out to Amaru Park and I rode with Chris and the bike stayed together for the whole six hour and went really, really well.
• 19:52
  I think we finished fifth or sixth or something like that.
• 19:54
  And that was my first time that I'd actually raced it in Australia.
• 19:58
  But huge, huge step.
• 20:00
  You know, when you've got eight people and a brown dog at Pukekohe and then you go to Amaru for the six hour, which is probably the biggest race in Australia, and
• 20:07
  in 70, it must have been 76 or something like that.
• 20:12
  That was a huge dip and hot and flies.
• 20:17
  And the stupidest thing of having to pull motorbikes down in all that sand and dirt.
• 20:23
  and have Chris Peckham stand over you and say, okay, well, we want one camshaft, we want one valve, we want one shock absorber, we want this and that.
• 20:31
  And he'd go away and measure it and we'd have to put it all back together in the hope that it would run without an oil leak or anything like that in the race.
• 20:37
  So the basic concept behind it was great.
• 20:40
  You know that if you've passed qualifying, nobody's going to protest you.
• 20:45
  You've done it.
• 20:47
  And that's how it worked.
• 20:48
  I lived for a time not all that far from where Amaru Park used to be.
• 20:52
  It's now all sort of lifestyle housing and things like that.
• 20:58
  Oran Park is now gone as well.
• 21:00
  There were some great Australian racetracks.
• 21:02
  Did you enjoy racing there?
• 21:03
  Amaru was, when you got down to Stopgo Corner for a motorcycle rider, that must have been quite a daunting corner.
• 21:09
  Well, it was, but, you know, because they're all right-hand corners, aren't they?
• 21:12
  And I had some terrific races there, particularly in the six-hour when I rode the CBX 1000.
• 21:21
  Everybody said, you're stupid.
• 21:22
  But in actual fact, you know, the thing, we put it on pole and we ran it.
• 21:28
  It was leading, I think, and then we had a problem with the...
• 21:31
  The thing's stopping.
• 21:32
  It broke down.
• 21:34
  No, it's seized, actually.
• 21:35
  We're trying to squeeze too much out of it.
• 21:37
  But the Z1R that I rode with Kiyohara, he sort of tipped it over as well.
• 21:46
  I rode a Ducati 900 there.
• 21:49
  and of course the Z1.
• 21:50
  So there's been plenty of opportunities there.
• 21:53
  But yeah, I loved that circuit.
• 21:56
  It was really easy.
• 21:56
  Well, I'd say loved it.
• 21:58
  Coming onto the straight there one time in the early days we were testing our super bike.
• 22:02
  We'd gone from a 19-inch wheel to an 18-inch wheel.
• 22:05
  and put a slick tyre on it, and suddenly I had grip, and I pitched it into that corner.
• 22:10
  I'm not sure what corner it is.
• 22:11
  It's the one that goes onto the main straight, but it's got a lot of arm cow ahead of you if you cock it up, and I cocked it up, and I hit this arm cow and destroyed this wheel.
• 22:20
  It was a Morris magnesium wheel that we were so proud to have to put on this bike, and we did about two laps and broke it.
• 22:28
  Yeah, destroyed it, but it was good fun.
• 22:30
  Motor racing is a game in many ways of self-belief, whether you're cars or bikes.
• 22:35
  What was the point where, maybe it was in New Zealand before you went to Australia, what was the point where you thought, I can absolutely make a career out of this and I want to ultimately take on the world?
• 22:45
  What point did that click with you that you could be that winner at that elite level?
• 22:51
  I think the biggest thing was if I talk about a point of change, I think it is, from being a sort of a privateer that kind of didn't really know where he was going but had opportunities given to him.
• 23:05
  I think it was when I got hooked up with Ross Hannon.
• 23:08
  in Redfin in Sydney, and he provided us with the superbike.
• 23:13
  That's where it all kind of started.
• 23:16
  And from there on in, I don't think I've ever worked an honest day in my life.
• 23:21
  So that's got to be the point at which the turn was made.
• 23:25
  He provided us with a piece of equipment that in those early days you could do production racing or you could go pucker racing.
• 23:35
  Yeah.
• 23:35
  Explain that for people that aren't Kiwis when you say that.
• 23:37
  Well, you know.
• 23:38
  Proper, proper.
• 23:39
  Well, pucker racing is the lay down, clip ons, you know, tucked in underneath a fairing, you know, the Yamaha race bikes and they're all purpose built race bikes.
• 23:51
  The production bikes are one you ride straight out of the showroom floor.
• 23:55
  Well, right in between that, the superbikes were kind of introduced, and that was on the basis that in America they were running the production bikes that were hotted up.
• 24:07
  So Australia adopted rules and superbike and –
• 24:11
  improved production and improved touring and various sets of rules.
• 24:15
  So we're able to take a standard Z1, which normally put out about 80-odd horsepower, and then convert that to 120 horsepower and put slick tyres on it and actually make the thing steer and handle reasonably good, but still retain that external vision of a production-type bike.
• 24:33
  It was good for the manufacturers because the punters could actually recognise that it's a Z1 Versa Yamaha or whatever.
• 24:40
  So that kind of worked really well.
• 24:43
  But when I got given that bike by Ross...
• 24:47
  I don't think I was actually ever beaten.
• 24:49
  There might have been the odd time when I maybe had a hangover or something.
• 24:54
  But I was sort of so dominant there.
• 24:56
  It just gave me that feeling that I've got three testicles and everybody has only got two.
• 25:02
  It's that kind of confidence that you build in your own ability, I guess, and knowing that the bike that you've got is more than capable of winning.
• 25:10
  And you go out there and it's kind of a nice feeling, I can tell you.
• 25:14
  Yeah.
• 25:15
  Some of the...
• 25:16
  When you're on a shoestring...
• 25:19
  that hunger teaches you a lot, I think, in life.
• 25:22
  And there are some fun moments away from the track that you experienced along the way, from what I can tell.
• 25:28
  So, for example, you had a Valiant at one point that you would take, and you would take it on big missions too, from Sydney to Lakeside, which is like a thousand K drive, back before there was big open lane highways and things like that.
• 25:42
  And didn't you have some alternator trouble in
• 25:49
  to help you.
• 25:50
  Yeah, we almost got to Surfers Paradise and the alternator was obviously not working as good and I stalled the bloody thing going through, I think it was Tweed Head or something, and there was traffic even in those days.
• 26:05
  What was it?
• 26:05
  Was it a Valiant?
• 26:06
  I think it was a Valiant.
• 26:06
  I think it was a Valiant, yep, yep.
• 26:08
  So what I did is I got out and there was a couple of guys came along and they said, oh, we'll give you a hand and give you a push.
• 26:16
  So I
• 26:17
  I didn't tell them to do this, but they pushed the back end of the car and literally forgot that there was a trailer behind.
• 26:24
  So when I dropped the clutch and it fired up, I drove off and, you know, the trailer hooked this guy's, you know, Armani suit and kind of ripped all his trousers off and I was seen disappearing off to see.
• 26:35
  You can't stop.
• 26:36
  You can't stop.
• 26:36
  You can't stop.
• 26:37
  Can't stop.
• 26:37
  Yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 26:38
  So that, but, but, you know, when you, when you look back and, and I guess to some extent, you know, that I'm not the only person because it was always a good, a good excitement as far as driving from perhaps Sydney through to Adelaide.
• 26:53
  And we used to do it on a Friday night.
• 26:55
  We'd meet at the Bankstown motorbike shop and then we'd all pile into a 350, no, a 350 Monaro with a.
• 27:03
  the small engine, four-speeder.
• 27:06
  Yeah.
• 27:07
  And it was a GS, I think they called it a Minaro GS.
• 27:11
  And there'd be basically five of us in this thing, a driver, passenger, and then three in the back.
• 27:17
  And in the trailer, there'd be a couple of bikes.
• 27:19
  And in the boot, there'd be all our bags and bits and pieces.
• 27:22
  And we'd do a rotation.
• 27:23
  So the first stop might be Bathurst, for example.
• 27:26
  So you'd race into the gas station.
• 27:28
  The driver would then go into the passenger seat.
• 27:30
  The passenger would then go into the back left.
• 27:32
  would just rotate all the way through.
• 27:34
  And that would happen all the way through to Adelaide.
• 27:36
  And just nonstop?
• 27:37
  Nonstop, all the way through.
• 27:38
  And you'd be driving across the middle of the Hay Plain, you know, and the stories that come out of there, like Peter Campbell on one of his journeys, he had a Humber Snipe with a Valiant V8.
• 27:50
  And he was going across the Hay Plain and he had tied his 20 litre drums of petrol in the back and one came loose and was still tied to the vehicle.
• 28:00
  and it dropped off the end of the trailer.
• 28:02
  And, of course, all you've got is this thing caught fire.
• 28:05
  And the immediate reaction would be to stop.
• 28:08
  But Pete's smart.
• 28:09
  He said, if I just keep going, there won't be any petrol left, so I can stop safely.
• 28:14
  So for about eight kilometres...
• 28:16
  He's left this flaming fireball all the way through in the middle of the night.
• 28:22
  That was one he told me about, which was great, but there was another one where he got hit with a kangaroo and it came through the front windscreen and ended up in the back seat and he thought he had rolled the car and he was dead because there was blood everywhere and he didn't realise there was a roo in the back.
• 28:38
  So those are the sort of things that kind of make it kind of...
• 28:42
  exciting as far as looking back on all that stuff goes.
• 28:46
  You would race against some great people for Australian listeners.
• 28:52
  At one point, you went to see the now late Greg Hansford for, I think, a couple of tips or some insights when you were at Lakeside there.
• 29:00
  And the very first time Harry, as he was known, came into view was like a scene out of a movie.
• 29:05
  He was sort of
• 29:07
  He more or less slid into view, didn't he?
• 29:09
  He did.
• 29:10
  He did.
• 29:10
  That was my first race at Lakeside and I'd come up on the super bike and nobody knew who the hell I was and I'd heard of Harry Hansford and the TKA team, you know, which was I think in those days Murray Sale and Greg and Rick Perry, I think, the three of them.
• 29:26
  Anyway, I arrived there and we were due to go out and I –
• 29:30
  was hanging over the fence at Lakeside and over the top of this hill came Harry.
• 29:34
  I think he was running a, it might have been one of his 250s or 350s at the time.
• 29:40
  And I thought, oh, got to watch this.
• 29:41
  Well, he put the brakes on, locked the front wheel up, came off the bike.
• 29:45
  The bike and him slid straight ahead off the track and he didn't even stop.
• 29:50
  He basically just...
• 29:51
  Came to a stop, but he had stood up and was still running and then just carried on and walked around, got onto his KR 750 and then went back out.
• 29:59
  And I thought, Christ, this is a bit exciting.
• 30:03
  So that was my first introduction to Harry, which was a bit of a shock.
• 30:10
  The Marlborough Series in New Zealand the following year, you had some fun with he...
• 30:14
  I think Randy Mamola was a part of this as well.
• 30:17
  And you were playing pool one night between races and things escalated, didn't it?
• 30:22
  What happened to poor Randy?
• 30:23
  Well, let me put it in perspective that we are playing pool.
• 30:28
  This is after the race or between the day of racing and the practice day.
• 30:34
  And we're at this motel and we're playing snooker.
• 30:37
  Or actually, it was pool.
• 30:38
  And...
• 30:39
  Harry, in those days, he had to put coins on the table, which he probably still do.
• 30:43
  I don't know.
• 30:43
  I haven't played it for a long time.
• 30:46
  But my coin had come up, and I was playing Greg Hansford, who was a shark in those days, as they call it.
• 30:53
  Anyway, I was getting very, very close to winning.
• 30:57
  And I only had the black to sink.
• 30:59
  And we were playing for sheep stations.
• 31:01
  I mean, you know, like in those days, if I got $10, I'd be doing really, really well.
• 31:05
  Okay.
• 31:06
  And, in fact, I think that particular race, I had to actually win two races to be able to pay for the hotel to be able to carry on.
• 31:12
  So...
• 31:13
  Holy hell, mate, it would get that tight.
• 31:14
  Yeah, it got that tight.
• 31:16
  It didn't get.
• 31:16
  It was there.
• 31:18
  It was true.
• 31:19
  So, and I'm thinking, well, you know, a few dollars would be kind of cool.
• 31:24
  And little Randy, the little bugger, he was a little hairy-ass, pink-headed guy that run through at about 1,000 mile an hour, and he swept the ball off the table.
• 31:34
  And of course, then it's null and void.
• 31:36
  So I was a bit pissed off, as you can imagine.
• 31:38
  So we chased him and we located him and corralled him towards the men's toilet, stuffed him in through the door and then got his head, turned him upside down, put his head down the toilet and flushed it.
• 31:50
  There was three of us at it, or two of us actually.
• 31:52
  And he still remembers that to the day.
• 31:54
  So from there on, and he never challenged us with pool.
• 31:57
  Oh, it was a good event actually.
• 31:58
  Oh, it was a good event actually.
• 32:04
  That's the end of the first part of my chat with larrikin biker Graeme Crosby.
• 32:08
  Head over and check out part two where we cover his international success.
• 32:13
  The fun didn't stop just because he was racing for big teams or at major events.
• 32:20
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 32:25
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 32:28
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 32:36
  Listener.