Latest / Rusty's Garage / Warren Luff (Part 1)

Transcript

Warren Luff (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  For this edition, I'm at home and my guest has kindly gone into one of our studios on the Gold Coast.
• 0:34
  That's Warren Luff's day off, so I'm grateful for his time.
• 0:37
  Life for Woz involves regular hat changes, but he's bloody good at all the roles and if you're anything like me, you will be envious of every one of them.
• 0:47
  The common denominator is cars and driving.
• 0:50
  For the past 15 years or so, he has been one of the go-to co-drivers, earning highly sought-after rides alongside the very best in supercars.
• 1:00
  He's raced at most of the circuits on your bucket list, not just here, but overseas too.
• 1:06
  He's become a world-class race driver coach, and he's giving back through a program aimed at students nearing the end of their high schooling called No Second Chance.
• 1:14
  He's been a coach.
• 1:16
  When you finish listening, Google it.
• 1:18
  It's powerful and it really resonates with them.
• 1:21
  In our chat, we'll talk about his early years working as a driver trainer, meeting a hero, one of the all-time greats, what it was like to pilot Nemo, a seriously wild Mitsubishi Evo at World Time Attack, going from lapping Bathurst in three minutes...
• 1:39
  to two and how insanely hard that is to process while being immensely exhilarating.
• 1:45
  Plus a story you may not have heard on a pretty serious medical challenge he faced leading up to Bathurst 2005, one of the most talked about races in history, when he co-drove for Marcus Ambrose and the Stone Brothers.
• 1:58
  We begin with his weekly stunt driving job at one of the big GC theme parks and why he's more than just a hired gun.
• 2:07
  Yeah, so for the past 13 years, Movie World here on the Gold Coast has been home for me doing the stunt show out there.
• 2:13
  So I started there in 2008.
• 2:15
  So five days a week, I'm out there driving cars and sliding around and having a lot of fun.
• 2:19
  But also because I also sort of manage the day-to-day running of the show, realistically, I'm sort of on call seven days a week.
• 2:25
  So I do work my Monday to Friday, so to speak, although my Monday to Friday is a Tuesday to Saturday.
• 2:32
  But even still on my days off, there's still stuff going on out there on a day-to-day basis.
• 2:36
  So it's never...
• 2:36
  never too far away.
• 2:38
  Even when I'm away racing, I still deal with the day-to-day stuff out there, but it's a lot of fun because as I said, it keeps me driving cars and yeah, we have a ball out there.
• 2:46
  So you're actively involved in the choreography, if you like, of the shows.
• 2:51
  How much of that is the experience that you've amassed over more than 20 years and how much of it is almost the engineering or the science?
• 2:57
  Um, yeah, look, there's a lot that obviously goes into it because obviously the, the show, it's all about the narrative of the, the story that they're sort of trying to tell.
• 3:05
  So you're trying to sort of, you're trying to choreograph your driving to, to what the storyline of the show is and everything like that.
• 3:11
  So in the time that I've been there, uh, we've been through three different variations of the show, um.
• 3:16
  so the original show that I started with in came in off the back of the really successful police Academy show.
• 3:21
  So police Academy was there for like 17 years from when the park first opened.
• 3:26
  Um, and then that original stunt show I started with in 2008.
• 3:30
  So that was a, that was a lot of fun.
• 3:31
  It was a, it was a real change for me because, um, with all the sorts of driving I've done sort of throughout my career, um,
• 3:38
  that was a real sort of challenge because we were driving on two wheels and it was the choreography of sort of the timing of how you drive and sliding and everything like that.
• 3:47
  So that was a lot of fun.
• 3:48
  And then in 2014, probably the biggest change for the show was
• 3:53
  was the company that I now work for, Contract 2 Movie World.
• 3:57
  So when they shut down the original stunt driver show that I started with, I stayed on with a few of the other guys and then in 2014 started with Showtime FMX.
• 4:06
  So I probably had a lot more to do with the choreography of that show and how the driving patterns unfold.
• 4:11
  And as I said, we've been through a couple of different variations of that show now.
• 4:14
  But yeah.
• 4:15
  Yeah, look, it's a lot of fun.
• 4:16
  We get to basically slide cars around five days a week.
• 4:20
  So it's never a bad day at work.
• 4:21
  What do you do in terms of the amount of tyres you might go through, prep on the cars, because they do need a bit of love for this kind of continual treatment, don't they?
• 4:31
  It is.
• 4:31
  Like, as I tell the guys, like, we're driving the car seven days a week.
• 4:35
  So in the current show that we're doing now, we've got a backup of each of the cars.
• 4:39
  And depending on, obviously, what the weather's like, depends on how often we go through tyres.
• 4:43
  But so, like, at the moment, it's wintertime.
• 4:45
  Obviously, it's not too hot out there.
• 4:47
  A set of rear tyres will maybe last three to three and a half days.
• 4:51
  In summertime, when we're doing, like, three or sometimes even four shows a day, VIP rides after the show.
• 4:58
  set of rear tires every day so we've got our own like we've got our own workshop there we do all the maintenance in-house we've got our own tire machine so every couple of weeks we get a delivery of tires uh we get the scrap tires picked up so it's only if there's something major that goes wrong with the cars that we'll like send them away we've got another workshop about 10 minutes away that we utilize as well uh but most of the stuff's done in-house usually because again it's just that it's the old saying the show must go on uh
• 5:23
  And that's why we've got to have the spare cars as well because even like during the show, if something breaks or goes wrong with one of the cars, we can quickly pop the roll-it or grab the spare car.
• 5:31
  And a lot of the time when we've had to swap cars, a lot of the time the crowd won't even realise that we've had to do a car swap because, as I said, we've got an exact copy of each of the cars out there.
• 5:42
  It didn't pan out, but this has led to opportunities for potential movie work.
• 5:48
  There was an approach, I think, for Mad Max, was there not?
• 5:50
  Yeah, so the Mad Max film, which came out a few years ago now.
• 5:53
  So originally they were going to shoot that here in Australia back in late 2010.
• 5:59
  It was due to be shot.
• 6:01
  So early 2010, myself and a bunch of the other guys from the original stunt driving show and a whole heap of other guys auditioned for when Mad Max was due to be shot here in Australia.
• 6:12
  So they actually hired like a big farm just behind Dreamworld, so not too far from Movieworld,
• 6:18
  And we had a bunch of old rally cars and old like dirt track cars and bits and pieces.
• 6:23
  And for the motorbike guys, they had sort of a container full of bikes.
• 6:27
  And we had all sorts of stuff out there, like graders just to be able to grade tracks and all that sort of stuff.
• 6:33
  So I sort of went through the process to audition for that.
• 6:36
  And as I said, originally it was due to be shot here in Broken Hill.
• 6:40
  So just outside of Broken Hill, there's a town called Silverton.
• 6:44
  which is where a lot of the original Mad Max films were filmed out that way.
• 6:48
  And so it was due to be filmed out there.
• 6:50
  But then there was delays in production and George Miller was delayed with Happy Feet.
• 6:56
  And there was a whole bunch of reasons.
• 6:57
  And it kept getting pushed back and pushed back.
• 7:00
  Until eventually they made the decision to pack up here in Australia and it was shot in South Africa.
• 7:05
  So I think it ended up being shot in about mid to late 2012.
• 7:10
  And obviously for me, that was my first year at Triple Eight doing the Enduros with Craig.
• 7:15
  So, look, it was disappointing to not go to Mad Max, but it was also my first Bathurst podium.
• 7:22
  Craig and I won Sandown.
• 7:23
  So, yeah, it wasn't a bad thing to not go and do Mad Max.
• 7:28
  But certainly it would have been a cool thing to have on your CV in years to come to be able to sort of sit there when I'm old and grey and watching the credits sort of roll over on a Mad Max film and see your name out there.
• 7:38
  But, look, it was a good experience to be involved in nonetheless.
• 7:42
  That said, I mean, the fact that you got to drive with Craig Lanz, you could not knock that back.
• 7:46
  That's a huge thing which we'll talk about as we go in the discussion here.
• 7:49
  Great part of your diversely successful career, mate.
• 7:53
  And I'm glad you bring up Silverton there too.
• 7:55
  For listeners of the podcast, there's actually lots of great memorabilia and things out there, a little bit of a museum for the tips it's had to Mad Max.
• 8:04
  And I know you've driven through there with the Motor Mag guys on a road tour, haven't you?
• 8:08
  Yeah, we did a road tour from Adelaide to Sydney.
• 8:11
  It was actually back in 2008 and it was at the time that I was auditioning for the original stunt show at Movie World.
• 8:18
  So we'd just finished doing the second audition, which ended up being a bit of a mess up with my schedule because I was coming back from Darwin that particular weekend and there was a mistake in my flight.
• 8:29
  I was meant to fly back from Darwin on the Red Eye flight on the Sunday night
• 8:35
  There was a slight issue with my flight and they'd booked me on the wrong flight so I couldn't get on that flight.
• 8:40
  And originally I was meant to do my second audition for Movie World on the Tuesday morning out at Queensland Raceway.
• 8:47
  They were using the drag strip.
• 8:48
  They had a whole bunch of stuff set up out there.
• 8:50
  And then I was going to be flying to Adelaide that afternoon to do the road trip to Sydney.
• 8:55
  And with the dramas, with my flight getting out of Darwin.
• 8:58
  So I didn't end up flying out of Darwin until the Monday night red eye flight.
• 9:03
  So...
• 9:04
  I was like, oh, that's okay.
• 9:05
  Look, red-eye flight, I'll land in at Brisbane at 6 a.m.
• 9:07
  I'll drive straight out to Queensland Raceway.
• 9:09
  I'll do the audition in the morning, go back to the airport, fly to Adelaide.
• 9:13
  No dramas.
• 9:13
  Murphy's Law, of course.
• 9:15
  The red-eye flight was delayed.
• 9:16
  So we didn't end up landing in Brisbane until 9 a.m.,
• 9:19
  So I'd already sort of rung the guys from Movie World and said, oh, look, there was a drama with my flight.
• 9:25
  I'll be landing like first thing Tuesday morning and I'll come sort of straight out there and then I've got to go back to the airport because I'm going to Adelaide.
• 9:31
  And they're like, oh, look, that's fine.
• 9:32
  You'll have plenty of time, no problem.
• 9:35
  I remember landing at Brisbane Airport at 9 a.m., which is when I was due to be at Queensland Raceway, and I've rung Gavin and I was like, slight problem.
• 9:42
  I've kind of just landed at Brisbane Airport.
• 9:44
  And he goes, oh, that's all right, mate.
• 9:46
  We'll see you when you get here.
• 9:46
  I'm like, problem.
• 9:47
  I'm on a two o'clock flight to Adelaide as well.
• 9:49
  So I kind of need to get back to the airport in a hurry.
• 9:52
  So I literally drove out to Queensland Raceway.
• 9:55
  Thankfully, they sort of rushed me through all the components that I had to do.
• 9:59
  And basically, I was there for like an hour.
• 10:01
  Yeah.
• 10:01
  turned around and drove straight back to the airport and then drove to, flew to Adelaide.
• 10:05
  And then we did that road trip Adelaide to Sydney and we stopped in at Silverstone.
• 10:08
  And like you said, the, like the pub, and there's so much sort of history around there.
• 10:12
  And because obviously that's where the original Mad Max was shot.
• 10:15
  So it was a, as a Mad Max fan to be able to sort of go out there and, and see some of those iconic locations.
• 10:21
  And you can still like, I remember driving out there, you stopped at a few different spots and you could,
• 10:26
  picture where they were filming in that sort of original one.
• 10:29
  So it was pretty cool to go out there and see all that sort of stuff.
• 10:32
  Awesome.
• 10:32
  One of the hallmarks of your entire career, mate, and I have great respect for you for this, is longevity and loyalty.
• 10:40
  When you look back, you've had long partnerships with various different things.
• 10:44
  So I'm glad we touch on very briefly Motor Magazine here because...
• 10:48
  I did a little bit of writing for them at one point.
• 10:50
  You have, with them, you know, had the dream opportunity to test some cool cars, perform some cool manoeuvres for photo shoots and so on over the years, haven't you?
• 11:00
  Yeah, look, it's great.
• 11:01
  For me, it was a partnership that started actually back in 2004, so it's sort of 17 years this year.
• 11:07
  And in that time, like you said, there's been so many cool road trips that we've done, so many great cars, like when you're getting paid to drive some real high-end sports cars and just a lot of cool stuff.
• 11:17
  But for me, it's more sort of the team that I've got to work with over the years.
• 11:21
  And obviously through that time, there's been different editors.
• 11:24
  There's been a lot of different staff on the magazine.
• 11:26
  But it's just sort of – it's that culture of – it's a whole bunch of people that just have a love and passion for cars and driving and, as I said, like –
• 11:34
  We've done some really sort of cool trips over the years.
• 11:36
  I went to Nürburgring with them in 2005 and did a bit of a trip from sort of England across Europe going to sort of Nürburgring.
• 11:46
  And as I said, yeah, all sorts of different cool cars and different bits and pieces.
• 11:50
  So it's been a great partnership for me.
• 11:53
  And look, my love of cars is just I love driving cars.
• 11:57
  It doesn't matter whether...
• 11:59
  like racing supercars at Bathurst is a great experience and it's something that I cherish very dearly.
• 12:04
  But also a lot of the stuff I've done with a magazine, you're at a racetrack, there's no one there watching you, but you've got a whole bunch of different cars that you get to sort of have a play with and enjoy driving.
• 12:13
  So, yeah, my passion is just cars and driving.
• 12:17
  And for me, it doesn't matter what I'm driving, whether it be doing stuff for Motor Magazine, out at Movie World, sort of skidding around out there or racing around Bathurst.
• 12:25
  I just...
• 12:26
  Like I always say to people, I'm the kid that never grew up.
• 12:29
  I sort of had matchbox cars and billy karts as a kid.
• 12:32
  Now the cars have got bigger and more expensive, and thankfully someone else gets to pay the bills.
• 12:37
  That leads us to your childhood, because I can remember a very young Warren Luff, more or less, growing up at Orrin Park Raceway, where your dad had his advanced driver training.
• 12:47
  set up for probably 30 years or thereabouts.
• 12:50
  I mean, that was effectively home for you, wasn't it?
• 12:52
  Yeah, look, it was.
• 12:53
  Like, look, without Dad's sort of involvement, support and encouragement sort of right from sort of those early days, like I wouldn't be where I am today.
• 13:02
  So, yeah, like growing up out of Oram Park, like I think I started driving cars when I was about seven or eight years of age.
• 13:08
  It was literally that sort of it was that moment of having enough pillows underneath and behind me so you could reach the pedals, reach the
• 13:15
  And kind of just barely sort of peer over the steering wheel there.
• 13:19
  And, yeah, for me, that was my childhood.
• 13:21
  Instead of like a lot of your mates that would go and play sort of soccer or football on the weekends, I'd go out to Orrin Park with Dad where he was doing the driving school and –
• 13:31
  basically run around and pick up witch's hats and do whatever I could so I could just have a bit of a drive of a car during sort of the lunch break or in the morning or any time sort of during the day.
• 13:39
  So yeah, there's a lot of great memories and a huge part of my childhood was spent out there.
• 13:46
  And as I said, without sort of having those opportunities early in life, I wouldn't be doing what I am today.
• 13:52
  The Perich family who owned Orrin Park for many, many years are good family friends.
• 13:57
  I know that's continued even
• 13:59
  now that the racetrack, which is long gone, very sadly.
• 14:03
  I'm told there's a fun story about Tony coming out one time.
• 14:08
  I can't remember what kind of car you were driving, but he freaked out because it looked like it was a driverless car, more or less, wasn't it?
• 14:16
  What happened?
• 14:17
  Tony actually tells the story best because he said he was standing in the office one day and, as I said, Dad had a program on out there, so to see cars driving past the office out on the main straight was nothing new for Tony.
• 14:27
  But...
• 14:28
  He's kind of glanced out and saw what he thought was a driverless car coming down the main straight.
• 14:33
  And I still have a vivid memory of it, like coming around onto the main straight on the next lap.
• 14:37
  And here's Tony, and he's a six foot four, very sort of big sort of empowering man.
• 14:43
  He's standing out in the middle of the main street waving hysterically at this driverless car.
• 14:49
  And I've sort of pulled up, sort of peering up over sort of the dashboard, looking up to Tony and him sort of glaring in at me through sort of the driver's window there.
• 14:57
  And I just kind of looked up at him like, hi, Tony.
• 14:59
  And yeah, so but yeah, look, they've been fantastic supporters of not only Dad's business over the years, but they've done a lot to sort of help me with my career and even sort of post-traumatic.
• 15:08
  Post-Orem Park, a lot of times over the years when they've sort of flown down for sort of Sandown to come down and see the Sandown 500, they've managed to sort of take my dad, stepmom and sister on the plane with them and bring them down to sort of help support my racing.
• 15:23
  So they've been huge supporters of motorsport.
• 15:26
  and still great friends of the family.
• 15:28
  And they've done a lot to help me with my career as well.
• 15:31
  Without doubt, the biggest supporter, of course, is your dad.
• 15:35
  He's been there the entire way.
• 15:37
  He and I have worked together on television over the years in different capacities.
• 15:41
  He's been a bit of a
• 15:42
  bit of a go-to guy for television programs like A Current Affair when they're looking at issues relating to road safety and so on.
• 15:50
  He's got some great turns of phrase that I love.
• 15:52
  Things like, I'm a drug dealer.
• 15:55
  I sell speed, but it's the legal stuff.
• 15:57
  Aside from the actual driving component, and I mean, coaching is one of the things that
• 16:04
  you're exceptionally good at now as well because it was instilled in you at such a young age.
• 16:08
  But what do you reckon the other great life lesson from Dad has been?
• 16:13
  Because I think it's been about you as a person or a character outside the car.
• 16:17
  Yeah, look, I think one of the things I learnt from sort of Dad early on was obviously...
• 16:22
  It costs money to go motor racing.
• 16:25
  It's an expensive sport and there's nothing you can do to sort of get away from that.
• 16:29
  And probably one of the big lessons I learned very early on was being able to sort of network and be able to sort of utilize the contacts that I was able to sort of make through the business.
• 16:39
  to be able to sort of help ultimately fund my racing.
• 16:41
  Cause if it came down to sort of dad being able to sort of fund my racing, it would have, it would have ended very, very early on.
• 16:47
  So it was, it was those relationships and, and him encouraging me to sort of make those relationships and, and get to meet people and all that sort of stuff.
• 16:56
  And it was, it was through those people that I met sort of through the driving school.
• 17:00
  Um, and a lot of those people were, were very instrumental, especially in the early part of my career and still to this sort of day.
• 17:06
  So, um,
• 17:07
  Yeah, there was so many relationships that came out of those initial sort of driving programs over the years.
• 17:12
  And it was just – it was each year sort of something new would sort of come along and new opportunities would come along.
• 17:18
  So you were having the ability to sort of meet people that had obviously been very successful in business and had a passion for cars and driving and all that sort of stuff.
• 17:25
  And maybe at some point early in their sort of life had an ambition to be a race car driver or go motor racing.
• 17:32
  And for whatever reason, they weren't able to sort of live their dream.
• 17:35
  but now they're in a position to be able to sort of help me live my dream.
• 17:38
  So, yeah, that was, it was amazing in those sort of early years and, and so many of those people that that made the dream possible for me.
• 17:45
  That was actually quite a cool program that your dad put together.
• 17:48
  Often there were RX sevens that I can recall that they may have been like improved production spec.
• 17:54
  And as you, as you say that these guys were, were kind of enthusiasts midweek races in, in, in a sense and, and,
• 18:03
  The courses and working with them on that program gave you a chance to connect with these guys, these business people, didn't it?
• 18:10
  Yeah, look, so our Dynamic Club Sport program started back in the early 90s.
• 18:14
  So, look, these days, sort of successful business people doing sort of track days is quite common with sort of high-performance cars and all that sort of stuff.
• 18:22
  But certainly back in the early 90s, there was nothing really like that.
• 18:27
  And we had a whole bunch of these guys that would always sort of come along to one of our performance programs.
• 18:32
  So Dad sort of came up with this idea of, well, let's create sort of like this midweek sort of group for these guys because a lot of them –
• 18:38
  They can't sort of justify the time on weekends due to family and all that sort of stuff.
• 18:42
  So it was easy for them because a lot of them were in business for themselves to be able to sort of justify, I'll take a Wednesday or a Thursday off or whatever and go out there.
• 18:51
  But, again, a lot of those guys had sort of some high-end performance cars and everything, and a lot of them back then, like a performance car, it's not like what we know it today.
• 18:59
  Like you go and buy sort of a Ferrari or a Porsche today,
• 19:02
  It's your everyday car.
• 19:03
  It's your weekend car.
• 19:04
  It's your family car.
• 19:05
  It's the car that you can sort of drive every day, no problem, whereas back then I suppose probably technology wasn't where we see it today.
• 19:12
  So Dad came up with the concept of building sort of all these RX-7s that these guys could sort of own and sort of drive themselves, and it was a more cost-effective way for them to be able to sort of come out where they had a car that they could come out and sort of play with, but if something went wrong with it or, God forbid, if they had sort of a bit of a bingle or something like that, they weren't sort of...
• 19:31
  They weren't tearing up a whole bunch of money on their nice road car or anything like that.
• 19:36
  So as I said, look, we had a great group of guys there for such a long time.
• 19:41
  And out of that, as you spoke about, some of those guys were very sort of important in my career in helping sort of create opportunities and get me on the road.
• 19:50
  Your dad let me drive one of those RX-7s at Amaroop Park one day.
• 19:54
  The steering wheel stayed on for the record.
• 19:55
  It was absolutely great fun.
• 19:57
  He tells me you got to meet...
• 20:00
  the great Ayrton Sinner one year after the Adelaide race.
• 20:04
  He's a hero for many people that listen to the podcast.
• 20:07
  Can you remember that?
• 20:08
  What sort of impression did that leave on you?
• 20:10
  Yeah, I remember it was after the final Adelaide Grand Prix.
• 20:13
  We were flying back home to Sydney.
• 20:16
  It was the Monday morning.
• 20:18
  And he was just sitting in the domestic lounge.
• 20:20
  I think he was getting on a flight to go.
• 20:22
  I think he was going up sort of to Hamilton Island or somewhere up there.
• 20:25
  And he was just sitting there by himself.
• 20:27
  And like, I just remember being awestruck by sort of, and again, you think back to then, there was no social media.
• 20:32
  So
• 20:33
  a lot of your heroes and those sort of people were very much out of reach.
• 20:37
  You saw them on TV or you read about them in sort of newspapers or something like that.
• 20:41
  But sort of the interaction that we have today with sort of our heroes and stars, they're so much more attainable these days.
• 20:49
  So back then for me, like to see it and sound like I was just sitting there gobsmacked and Dad actually was the first one to go over and sort of just asked him very kindly, like, hey, could we possibly have a photo?
• 21:00
  Yeah.
• 21:01
  And he was just so warm and so approachable.
• 21:04
  He was like, yeah, of course.
• 21:05
  So Dad sort of called us all over and got a photo.
• 21:08
  And, look, I had a chat for sort of a couple of minutes.
• 21:10
  I don't think anything very meaningful came out of my mouth because I was probably just too sort of –
• 21:15
  Too overawed to actually sort of meet the guy.
• 21:18
  But, yeah, look, he was just sort of talking about his weekend, was excited to sort of finish the year on a high for him and looking forward to the following season.
• 21:27
  And, yeah, look, it was a great sort of few minutes of my life but left a massive impression because, for me, he was –
• 21:33
  he was my reason for wanting to get into motorsport.
• 21:35
  He was the guy that sort of, for me, he was the ultimate race car driver, so dedicated, so passionate about racing and just sort of a legend of a guy.
• 21:45
  And look, as we all know, obviously, tragically, not even six months later, he was taken away.
• 21:50
  So it was one of those sort of surreal moments for me to sort of get to meet my sort of hero and my idol growing up.
• 21:56
  But to know that he was gone so soon after that was definitely a massive sort of sad moment as well.
• 22:03
  Great story, mate.
• 22:04
  Thank you for sharing it.
• 22:05
  True or false?
• 22:07
  You spent time driving the Cornell sand dunes out near Cronulla in Sydney.
• 22:12
  What were you doing out there?
• 22:15
  This is in your teens, obviously.
• 22:16
  That was very true.
• 22:17
  Actually, a lot of our sort of, a lot of those early days of my driving was spent sort of driving around out there sort of through the sand dunes.
• 22:24
  And, you know,
• 22:24
  Look, it's one of those things where sort of it's kind of like the fish that got away.
• 22:27
  I think my memory of how big the sand dunes out there were, they were the size of Mount Everest and all this sort of stuff.
• 22:33
  Probably in reality, they weren't quite that big.
• 22:35
  But, yeah, a lot of my early driving, sort of dad used to take my sister and my mate and take the dogs out there and go to the beach.
• 22:42
  But we'd just drive around the sand dunes.
• 22:43
  And a lot of my early driving was kind of done out there.
• 22:46
  But I remember...
• 22:47
  Again, a throwback to the Mad Max side of things.
• 22:51
  One day we're out there and we've come over this sand dune and all of a sudden there's this massive plane buried into one of the sand dunes.
• 22:58
  And we're thinking there's been some catastrophic airline disaster or something like that and some planes crashed.
• 23:05
  part of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was actually filmed out at the Cornell Sand Dunes.
• 23:09
  And there was a point where there was like the plane was buried into the Sand Dunes out there.
• 23:12
  And that's where they did some of the filming.
• 23:13
  And so there was all these security guards there.
• 23:16
  They didn't want people sort of getting too close to it or anything like that.
• 23:18
  But it was just kind of like this amazing moment of like, what on earth has gone wrong here?
• 23:23
  But yeah.
• 23:24
  Yeah, it was good fun driving around out there.
• 23:26
  And again, it's all part of that journey of just learning to drive and being able to slide cars around and having a ball out there.
• 23:33
  I want to tap into your recollections of one of your first proper cars in a race car sense.
• 23:40
  Mazda RX3, I think it was.
• 23:42
  Cool car.
• 23:43
  Did you get it on your 18th birthday?
• 23:45
  Tell us more about it.
• 23:46
  Yeah, so that was my sort of 18th birthday present.
• 23:48
  It was a little, look, it was a Mazda 808.
• 23:50
  It wasn't an RX3.
• 23:52
  Everyone kind of rebadged them as an RX3.
• 23:54
  But that was my first real race car.
• 23:57
  So, yeah, so 18th birthday.
• 24:00
  And that sort of probably really started sort of the journey.
• 24:02
  I'd already done sort of a race the year before that.
• 24:06
  Out at Eastern Creek, it was an endurance race.
• 24:08
  I shared a little Honda CRX with Dad.
• 24:10
  But, yeah, my little 808 RX3, that was kind of what sort of got the journey sort of going in motorsport and had a lot of fun with that car.
• 24:18
  And, again, just a lot of the things that I learnt sort of in those early days, I sort of have great memories of that car and sort of the learning that I sort of got through that.
• 24:26
  But, funnily enough, only probably I think five or six years ago I was at the Bathurst 12-hour.
• 24:32
  I was at the hotel on the circuit there, hopped in the lift going across to the track one morning and there's this guy hopped in and he's kind of looked at me and he's like, Warren Luff?
• 24:39
  I'm like, yeah.
• 24:41
  And he goes, did you ever have a Mazda RX3 808 early in your racing career?
• 24:45
  I'm like, yeah.
• 24:46
  And he goes, I own it.
• 24:48
  And I was like, are you serious?
• 24:49
  Yeah.
• 24:50
  And he said, like, when they bought it, he'd had it for a few years.
• 24:53
  When they went back through the logbook, I was the second owner in the CAMS logbook.
• 24:57
  Awesome.
• 24:57
  And so we had this fantastic chat and he showed me a whole bunch of photos.
• 25:00
  And he lives up here in Queensland, does a lot of state racing with it.
• 25:04
  So it was cool to, after all those years, to hear sort of the car was still going.
• 25:10
  Because it's one of those things, I suppose, is you probably get to sort of the –
• 25:14
  the latter years of your career, you sort of look back and go, jeez, I wonder what ever happened to that car.
• 25:17
  I wonder what ever happened to that car.
• 25:19
  So to find out that it was still out there racing and this guy was having a lot of fun with it.
• 25:25
  But the tragedy of that story was 12 months later, again, back at the 12-hour, literally the similar scenario, in the hotel, I'm standing in the lift half asleep.
• 25:35
  This same guy hops in the lift.
• 25:36
  He goes, Warren.
• 25:37
  I'm like, yeah.
• 25:38
  And he goes, remember me?
• 25:39
  I'm the guy with your RX3.
• 25:40
  I'm like, oh, yeah, how are you going?
• 25:42
  So 12 months on.
• 25:43
  And we're sort of chatting.
• 25:44
  I'm like, oh, how's the car going?
• 25:46
  He goes, bad news.
• 25:48
  My son had a big crash in it at Lakeside and it's no more.
• 25:50
  Destroyed it.
• 25:51
  So it was sad.
• 25:52
  So like some 20 plus years later, you find out that the car is still running.
• 25:57
  And then 12 months later, it's scrap metal.
• 26:00
  So, yeah, it was a bummer to sort of hear that.
• 26:02
  But I've still got the photos that he sent through.
• 26:04
  So it was cool to be reunited with the car.
• 26:08
  But unfortunately, it's no more.
• 26:11
  period of your life emerging from a racing point of view and no doubt putting money in your back pocket through doing instruction at dad's company there, there were some good names that you were working around at that time, the late Rodney Crick truck racing star in Australia Mark Webber was there, the late Greg McShane was there, there were some good names weren't there
• 26:32
  Yeah, there were.
• 26:33
  And guys like Rodney Crick, I'd known Rodney since the early 80s.
• 26:37
  So when I was sort of a little kid and he'd been working for dad for so many years.
• 26:42
  And more than anything, Rodney was a great sort of family friend of ours.
• 26:45
  So dad actually, dad sports today and that he ran in sort of the early 90s, he'd actually bought that off Peter Crick, which was Rodney's father.
• 26:52
  So that was Rodney's car from sort of in the late 80s, that sort of built up.
• 26:58
  And then dad bought it off Peter.
• 26:59
  And yeah, he was a big fan of Rodney.
• 27:00
  And
• 27:00
  Rodney worked for us for many years and he also was a huge influence, especially in the early part of my career because guys like that, same as my dad, I looked up to guys like Rodney because obviously he was the king of truck racing in Australia, had had all sorts of success.
• 27:16
  So even for me in those early years of my career, to have someone like Rodney Crick that you could turn to and get advice from and...
• 27:24
  Generally, some of Rodney's advice is usually sort of quite funny and probably stuff that you can't sort of repeat these days.
• 27:29
  But, look, it was great.
• 27:31
  And like you said, even like Mark Webber worked at the school because when he actually started racing here in Australia, so when he first started in Formula Ford, his dad, Alan, brought him to Sydney to come along to get his cams licence through Dad's driving school.
• 27:42
  He came along, did one of our Formula Ford programmes,
• 27:45
  And then when he moved to Sydney in late 94 before doing the Formula 4 championship in 95, he was living in Sydney.
• 27:52
  And so he was working sort of in the driving schools, same as so many young guys right around the world trying to sort of make their start in motorsport.
• 28:00
  They generally tend to find a home through doing driver training and track days and all that sort of stuff.
• 28:04
  So, yeah, so Mark worked for us for probably nearly 12 months.
• 28:07
  And then obviously at the end of the 95 season, he packed up and headed off to Europe to trace the European dream and, yeah,
• 28:15
  And yeah, the rest is history.
• 28:16
  It's sad that Rodney Crick is gone, mate.
• 28:18
  He was just a great human being.
• 28:19
  One of the first people I ever really interviewed.
• 28:23
  I'm glad you've kind of connected to Formula Ford there because your career by and large is around tintops.
• 28:29
  Okay.
• 28:30
  But there is a bit of open wheel dots on the CV there that we should talk about.
• 28:33
  And one of them that springs to mind is Formula Ford, but in New Zealand.
• 28:39
  Tell us about that.
• 28:40
  So, yeah, look, I've only ever done two open wheel races in my life, both of them, as you said, in New Zealand.
• 28:46
  And, again, it's that sort of crisscrossing path of just opportunities that have come across over the years and just being in a position to be able to sort of take those opportunities wherever they might be, driving pretty much all anything.
• 28:59
  Like I think sort of especially in those early days of my career, there's very little that I hadn't driven.
• 29:05
  And same with Formula Ford.
• 29:06
  The opportunity came up one year to go to New Zealand.
• 29:08
  It was actually –
• 29:09
  the New Zealand Formula Forward Festival, obviously that was trying to, trying to sort of copy what they did with the British Formula Forward Festival, which was incredibly successful for many, many years.
• 29:19
  Um, so New Zealand had their own Formula Forward Festival and, um, out at Taupo and,
• 29:24
  And so for me, it was a first opportunity I had to race in Formula Ford.
• 29:29
  So it was a bit sort of probably jumping in a little bit at the deep end.
• 29:31
  But through Dad's driving school, I had driven sort of our Formula Fords that we use at our sort of regular track days.
• 29:38
  So I'd done a little bit of driving.
• 29:39
  But for me, it was a real interesting sort of crossover because –
• 29:44
  in all the racing I'd done, you had doors and guards and everything like that.
• 29:47
  So if you have to lean on someone, you've got that bit of protection.
• 29:49
  But now I remember just in the first couple of practice sessions when you're having to pass people and do all that sort of stuff in Formula Ford, I remember that feeling of vulnerability of just as to how, I suppose, how much more exposed you really were.
• 30:01
  But, yeah, that first weekend in Formula Ford for me actually turned out half all right.
• 30:04
  I finished second for the weekend.
• 30:06
  So it was definitely, again, one of those sort of career highlights that never having raced Formula Ford.
• 30:13
  Went over there, got to know the car, got to know the team, got to know the track, and through all the different sort of heat racing that they had over the weekend to make the final and to finish second was fantastic.
• 30:28
  going forward 12 months, went back 12 months later.
• 30:30
  Didn't quite have as good a weekend.
• 30:32
  Got taken out in one of the heat races by my teammate.
• 30:36
  And from there, it was kind of you're trying to really sort of struggle your way forward.
• 30:40
  Got through to the final.
• 30:42
  I think we finished just inside the top 10 in the final.
• 30:44
  So the second year didn't quite go to plan.
• 30:47
  But, again, still great memories and great opportunities.
• 30:51
  And, again, it's just that sort of...
• 30:53
  in those early days, just grabbing any opportunity that I could, just getting behind the wheel of anything.
• 30:58
  And still to this day, I just, like I said before, it's just that love of driving in cars and anything I can sort of get behind the wheel of, I'll have a go at.
• 31:16
  How come it's easier to dismantle a carburetor than it is to install new windscreen wiper blades?
• 31:22
  Gosh, those things are fiddly.
• 31:24
  One of the first televised series that I can recall with you in Australia was, of course, the Suzuki Swift series.
• 31:32
  Lee Diffie actually had one of those cars as a road car at the time.
• 31:36
  And I remember thinking they were a cool little thing.
• 31:39
  You got to go to Bathurst.
• 31:41
  and, and roar around in them at Bathurst.
• 31:43
  It was some of the toughest racing that I can, I can recall some young blokes all trying to make their, or young racers all trying to make their mark.
• 31:50
  What was the, what was the lap time at Bathurst?
• 31:53
  How, what did it take you?
• 31:55
  So I remember 95, the, as you said, the Suzuki GDI series.
• 31:59
  Um, yeah, the racing was so cutthroat.
• 32:01
  Like I think the first round there was 30 cars on the grid and, and that was right throughout the year.
• 32:05
  There was, um, some really, really tough racing, um,
• 32:08
  but they certainly weren't the fastest car in the world.
• 32:10
  But I remember at the time thinking like, hey, this thing's like we're on it here.
• 32:14
  And so Bathurst, we went up there.
• 32:17
  I actually had pole position.
• 32:19
  And I remember like at the end of the lap in qualifying thinking like, man, this is fast.
• 32:23
  And it was a three minutes and one point something.
• 32:26
  Yeah.
• 32:27
  But the irony is, you look at how technology has changed in that over the years.
• 32:32
  I can't remember what supercars are doing at the time, but someone actually said to me, back in the 60s, the GDHO Falcon had pole back in the late 60s at a three minutes and one as well.
• 32:43
  And that was before the Caltech's chase.
• 32:45
  Chase.
• 32:46
  But then funnily enough, you go forward sort of some 20 plus years.
• 32:49
  I remember one of the first years driving the McLaren at the Bathurst 12 hour.
• 32:54
  It was when we still had the open tyres, especially for qualifying.
• 32:57
  So you had like a quality spec tyre that was literally good for one or two laps at best.
• 33:02
  And I remember qualifying third, Shane Van Gisberg was on pole in one of the other McLarens, and I did a two minutes and 1.8.
• 33:11
  I think Shane had pole at a two minutes and 1.4.
• 33:14
  So fast forward 20 plus years, and I'm now going a minute a lap fast around Bathurst, whereas, as I said, in 1995, I thought a three minutes and one lap was just the fastest time possible to get around Bathurst.
• 33:26
  But yeah, look, the Suzuki Series was great, a lot of great racing, and still some friendships
• 33:31
  formed back then still to this very day.
• 33:34
  And again, I look back on those sort of early years of racing and the hard-fought racing in series like that and the Mirage series and the Ute series and probably some of the lessons and the driver that I am today are definitely because of those early years.
• 33:51
  We will get to that, McLaren.
• 33:52
  A two-minute lap of the mountain, mate, is ridiculous.
• 33:55
  white knuckle stuff you absolutely know you're alive um when i would imagine you're you're you're doing that let's stay with the the bathys theme for a moment if we can because your name does appear in this sort of late 90s part of your of your cv with super touring so you got to race in a super tour at the mountain didn't you
• 34:14
  Yeah, so 97 was the – so it was that famous year when sort of the split between sort of V8 supercars, super touring.
• 34:22
  Super touring was that emerging category here in Australia.
• 34:25
  It had been around obviously for a couple of years.
• 34:27
  But, like, you certainly think back to those sort of mid-90s and the British Touring Car Championship.
• 34:32
  Like, it was kind of the –
• 34:33
  that was the touring car championship around the world that everyone wanted to race in.
• 34:37
  It was massive.
• 34:38
  You had Murray Walker commentating.
• 34:40
  You had manufacturers involved.
• 34:42
  Like, there was big dollars over there, all big-name drivers.
• 34:45
  So Super Touring was kind of in that sort of mid-'90s, really starting to kick on here in Australia.
• 34:50
  And for me...
• 34:51
  that first opportunity to race sort of in the 1000 race, obviously in the Super Tourer, again came through relationships that were forged sort of through the driving school.
• 34:59
  So a guy by the name of Daniel Wilkie was at FAI Insurance at the time.
• 35:04
  He was one of the sort of head honchos there at FAI Insurance.
• 35:07
  He'd been along, done a lot of regular track days with us and all that sort of stuff.
• 35:10
  And he was the one that created that opportunity for me to race the Honda Record at Bathurst and also the final two rounds of the Super Touring Championship that year.
• 35:18
  So, again, it's that relationship sort of through sort of drive days and everything like that created opportunities for me in racing.
• 35:24
  And so…
• 35:25
  Yeah, to go to Bathurst and to do the 1000 in the Super Tour.
• 35:29
  I had Julian Bailey, ex-Formula 1 driver, ex-British touring car driver.
• 35:33
  He was there as my teammate.
• 35:34
  So he was a really good guy to learn from because obviously he was well-versed in sort of the ways of driving Super Tourers and all that sort of stuff.
• 35:41
  So, yeah, it was a great time and a great championship to be a part of as well.
• 35:47
  There have been some unbelievable racetracks around the world that you've been able to compete at.
• 35:53
  So we'll come back to Bathurst because it features prominently for you.
• 35:56
  But there is another one while we're on this strand here, and that is Macau.
• 36:01
  What is that place like to drive in a race car?
• 36:05
  That place is unbelievable.
• 36:07
  So 98 was an opportunity for me to go to Macau.
• 36:11
  So with the Ford Mondeo team here in Australia.
• 36:14
  So I'd done a couple of races.
• 36:16
  And, again, it was through a relationship that I'd sort of had over a couple of years.
• 36:20
  One of the guys working on the team sort of created the opportunity and everything like that.
• 36:24
  So I'm...
• 36:25
  Look, went to Macau, and one of the guys that I raced in the Suzuki GDI series, Andre Povicevic, he was racing in British Formula 3 at the time.
• 36:34
  And so he was racing in the Formula 3, which is obviously the main race over there.
• 36:39
  And Andre had been back here in Australia and we're on a flight together on the way over.
• 36:43
  And I remember sitting on the flight and he was kind of showing me a bit of data of what the F3 car looked like around there.
• 36:49
  And I remember him famously saying to me, and I still remind him of this to this day, he said to me, he said, mate, I've told the team at the end of the weekend, they're just going to open the doors of the crate and just throw bits of the car in.
• 37:00
  And he wasn't too far wrong because he had a monster crash in.
• 37:04
  He had this monster crash in practice, and it was just actually before one of our super touring sessions.
• 37:09
  I remember standing there in the pits, and they've panned across to sort of what looked like this, like a bomb had gone off on the track, and it was Andre's car scattered into a million pieces across the track.
• 37:18
  He'd unfortunately had a really big shunt, and I think it was on the Friday that he had the crash, and he woke up in hospital on the Monday.
• 37:27
  So it was a very, very serious accident.
• 37:29
  He unfortunately did spend a few days in a coma.
• 37:31
  And still to this day, he's got no recollection of the crash.
• 37:35
  He remembers the morning, remembers getting into the car that morning, but doesn't remember any of the practice session or anything like that.
• 37:42
  So, yeah, I remember standing there watching not only a monster crash happen on track but to a friend and to sort of go like, wow, this is pretty serious, but also...
• 37:52
  I had my own experience of Macau because it's a bit wild and a bit sort of crazy over there.
• 37:57
  And I remember in, I think it was practice or qualifying, coming down sort of close towards the end of the lap, and I remember just seeing something get lobbed over the fence and land literally right on the track in front of me.
• 38:08
  It was one of those moments where you didn't have time to swerve, and with walls around, you don't get much of a chance.
• 38:13
  But I remember just like this sound of almost like a mini explosion and hearing metal and dust and everything like that, and I'm kind of like...
• 38:20
  had no idea what had gone on.
• 38:21
  I've kind of slowed down through the last few corners, came into the pits, and the crews come over.
• 38:26
  They're like, what's the matter?
• 38:26
  I'm like, something landed on the track in front of me, no idea what it was, and all I could hear was metal.
• 38:33
  And they've looked in the front splitter, and there's all nails through the front splitter.
• 38:36
  Someone had thrown a nail bomb over the fence, and it just, like, shattered all into the front of the car.
• 38:42
  So thankfully the car was okay.
• 38:45
  But, yeah, that was my sort of...
• 38:48
  my sort of eye-opener to sort of the streets of Macau.
• 38:50
  But, look, as a track, like we talk about street circuits here in Australia and obviously Eclipsville 500, albeit it's not there anymore, but that's a pretty sort of unforgiving track, especially turn eight because if you get it wrong through there, it obviously can go wrong in a big way.
• 39:05
  And obviously here on the Gold Coast, like the streets of the Gold Coast, is pretty tough and rather brutal.
• 39:10
  But Macau takes that to the next level.
• 39:13
  Like it's just such a wild circuit.
• 39:15
  Like there's some really fast sections where...
• 39:18
  Again, it's like you've got turn eight at Adelaide, but you've got that about six or seven times within the lap.
• 39:24
  Obviously, you've got...
• 39:26
  the the melco hairpin which it's the the only uh also not the melco the the hairpin up the up the top section where it's a permanent yellow zone where there's no overtaking because it's so tight you literally can't can't get two cars through there so it's um it was a great opportunity to race the super tourer there um disappointed i haven't had the chance to go back as yet um but yeah it was um it was a lot of fun there it was a great weekend and um and great to sort of be able to sort of watch not only the form of the three but i'll tell you who are the crazy guys
• 39:54
  Like you think it's wild in a car around there.
• 39:56
  They race super bikes there.
• 39:57
  Yeah.
• 39:58
  And like the super bike guys, they come in like with marks on their leather and on their helmets where they've been like brushing the arm code with their shoulder and just bumping it with their head.
• 40:07
  So, yeah, I thought it was crazy in a car, but those guys, they're next level crazy.
• 40:12
  That's an amazing place.
• 40:13
  We'll stay with the international theme in a moment, but I just want to digress a little for a second.
• 40:18
  There is around the sort of turn of the century –
• 40:21
  a chance for you to do another one-make series.
• 40:23
  We talked Suzuki GTI a minute ago, but I want to talk about the Mirage series.
• 40:27
  This is a bit of a step up on GTI, which is probably a bit more production-based.
• 40:32
  Tell us about those cars, what mods, what it was like to drive them.
• 40:35
  And you won the title twice, I think, too, didn't you?
• 40:37
  Yeah.
• 40:38
  God, turn of the century.
• 40:39
  You make us both sound so old, mate.
• 40:41
  I am old.
• 40:44
  Yeah, look, the Mirage series was a lot of fun.
• 40:46
  So these were cars brought out by sort of Mitsubishi Australia from Japan.
• 40:50
  So they weren't the Mirage that we get here.
• 40:53
  They had the MyVac engine, which I think was like 128 kilowatts.
• 40:57
  So again, in front-wheel drive cars at the time, like if you had
• 41:00
  like 90 or 95 kilowatts in a front-wheel drive road car here.
• 41:03
  Like that was big horsepower back then.
• 41:05
  So the Mirage with like 128 kilowatts, whatever it was, stripped out, super lightweight, minimal roll cage, they were a really fast little car for their time and a lot of fun.
• 41:17
  And similar to like so many other one-make series, very limited with the modifications, very heavily controlled.
• 41:23
  And like the GDI series, it was all sort of run by the series organizers.
• 41:26
  So they transported the cars to each round.
• 41:28
  They had the mechanics there.
• 41:30
  um slight difference you had a little bit of adjustment in the shock absorbers on them but i think like a there was three adjustments between soft medium and hard so there wasn't a huge amount of sort of uh change that you could make uh but everything else was controlled by the series so uh so again a lot of fun um got to drive at some cool tracks we got to race them at sort of bathurst and actually dad um had a guest driving in one of the cars at bathurst and um
• 41:55
  I remember sort of going to Bathurst kind of sort of being not intimidated, but I suppose a little bit nervous about it.
• 42:00
  It was probably one of the first times Dad and I had actually really properly raced against each other.
• 42:04
  We'd already sort of done a few races together sharing a car, but this was the time when we were sort of like we were pitting against each other and,
• 42:12
  As you know, Dad's never shy on confidence.
• 42:15
  So he talked a pretty big game in the lead up to Bathurst.
• 42:18
  So I think on the psychological game, he definitely won on the psychological game.
• 42:24
  But I remember we gritted up for the first race with myself on pole and him on second.
• 42:29
  And I think I was like just over two seconds faster, 2.3 or 2.4 seconds quicker than him in qualifying.
• 42:34
  So yeah.
• 42:36
  The confidence certainly came back a little bit on his part after we'd got through sort of practice and qualifying.
• 42:41
  And it was a great experience to, again, race that car at Bathurst, but to certainly sort of to be on the front row of the grid and Dad's still got the photo somewhere at home up on the wall where it's the both of us on the front row.
• 42:55
  But thankfully to say that I did sort of beat him in all the races up there and did so quite comprehensively.
• 43:01
  Again, it's a bit of a sore point to him, but I still love reminding him of it to this day.
• 43:05
  Very cool that you got to do that with your dad, mate, nonetheless.
• 43:08
  You talked about Nürburgring before and that great road trip through Europe with Motor Magazine.
• 43:12
  Let's talk racing there.
• 43:14
  Mega, mega joint.
• 43:16
  We're talking a lap that is 20 or so k's.
• 43:19
  You've driven all sorts of cars there.
• 43:22
  I want to get a sense of the best car that you drove there.
• 43:26
  But also, too, is there a story on how you...
• 43:30
  got to know the place because it must take some learning, you know, to get to the point where it's a busy race with so many cars entered in it for a starter, but then to just to get acquainted with it, to get to know the place.
• 43:43
  Yeah, so like my first race at Nürburgring was back in 96.
• 43:47
  And again, it's that sort of, it's how opportunities come about sort of throughout your career.
• 43:52
  And certainly in my career, like sometimes you don't know how opportunities are going to come out.
• 43:56
  So at the end of 95, after the Suzuki Series, I got the opportunity to go race in New Zealand as a guest of Peugeot.
• 44:02
  They had a one-make Peugeot Series over there.
• 44:05
  Again, similar to the Suzuki Series, similar to the Mirage Series, all very heavily controlled.
• 44:09
  So a little Peugeot 106, again, perfect.
• 44:10
  Not a very fast car, but a lot of fun to drive.
• 44:13
  So the first round was at Pukekohe, and there was a guy there from Germany.
• 44:19
  He and I sort of were involved in a pretty tight battle.
• 44:21
  I think we were racing for second and third at the time.
• 44:24
  We've come down the front side at Puke, and the Peugeot was flat through turn one there quite quickly.
• 44:28
  Not comfortably, but it was not too bad.
• 44:31
  And as we've tipped in there going flat, I was on the inside, Peter was on the outside.
• 44:35
  He's had this monumental slide.
• 44:38
  And I remember seeing him out of my peripheral vision sort of disappearing off what I thought was the outside of the track.
• 44:44
  But in true Peter fashion, he's just kept his foot into it like you do in a front-wheel drive car.
• 44:48
  He's come sailing back onto the track and has ricocheted into the side of me, which straightened him up and kept him going, which is great for him, but then put me onto the grass.
• 44:56
  And I've kind of gone disappearing off on the wet grass straight through the horse railing fence and did all sorts of damage to this car that Peugeot had kindly given me for the weekend.
• 45:04
  So...
• 45:05
  I remember being a little bit dejected about it and there was some very heated words between Peter and myself in the pits shortly thereafter and Dad was rather sort of hot under the collar as well.
• 45:16
  But out of that came actually this really cool friendship with Peter and I because we both agreed that we'd never back off in a situation like that.
• 45:23
  So we sort of became these two little kindred spirits sort of racing in New Zealand together and he actually won the championship through that sort of summer series.
• 45:31
  And at the end of that, he offered me the chance to go to Nürburgring for 96 and come to the 24-hour race with him.
• 45:36
  So I remember that first sort of getting to Germany.
• 45:41
  He's picked me up at the airport.
• 45:42
  We've gone to Nürburgring.
• 45:43
  And, again, you've got to think back to at that point in time, there's no PlayStation.
• 45:49
  There's no YouTube.
• 45:51
  There's no internet.
• 45:52
  There's no – so my understanding of what Nürburgring was was basically that it was a really long track.
• 46:00
  Um, and Nicky Lauder had a really big crash there sometime in the sort of the seventies.
• 46:04
  And that was basically about it because there wasn't a lot of videos available as to, as to what the track was like.
• 46:08
  So I pretty much all turned up there, not knowing very much about the track or certainly where it went or anything like that.
• 46:15
  But, um, as a lot of people know, you can turn up during sort of the weekdays and pay and go and do a lap of the old circuit.
• 46:22
  Um.
• 46:23
  pretty much all as fast or as slow as you want.
• 46:25
  The only rules are cars and bikes have to be road registered and bikes have to wear full leathers and a helmet.
• 46:31
  Otherwise, it's pretty much all go yardage.
• 46:34
  So you see a lot of people, they'll sort of pay their money, go through the toll booth and park sort of on the other side and wait for their mates and pretty much all have a race for sort of the duration of the lap.
• 46:43
  So it's nothing to be like you'll come over a crest of a blind hill and here's sort of like your...
• 46:49
  your English tourists in their camper van with like video camera at arm's length doing 60 kilometres an hour filming each other, whilst you're sort of going along in your little road car doing 160, 170, and you've got five or six guys going past on motorbikes doing 240, 250 kilometres an hour.
• 47:06
  So to say it's a wild joint is pretty accurate.
• 47:10
  So Pete's picked me up.
• 47:11
  We've got to the circuit.
• 47:13
  So remembering I've just done like a 24-hour flight, so a little bit jet lagged.
• 47:17
  We've paid the money and we've driven the first lap of the circuit.
• 47:20
  And I remember this lap just kept going and going, and I'm just driving around like trying to look at where the corner, and so many corners are blind there and there's crests and there's off camber and there's just, it's a crazy kind of a track to try and learn.
• 47:33
  And I remember at the end of the lap, like to be honest, he could have driven it in the wrong direction for all I knew.
• 47:37
  Like I just, I was blown away with the circuit thinking like, how on earth am I going to be able to learn this, let alone do it at race speed or race, and then you've got night and weather and everything like that.
• 47:49
  So Pete's like, okay, come on, we'll do another lap.
• 47:51
  So we've taken off and we get like not far into the lap and you get down to a place called Adenau Village, which there's another gatehouse down there.
• 48:01
  There's another ambulance station down there and everything like that.
• 48:04
  And prior to getting down there, there's this really fast series of sort of left, right, right, left corners.
• 48:09
  And as we've come through one of the corners, there's this big guy standing in the middle of the road in his motorcycle letters kind of waving us down.
• 48:16
  And so Pete's like, oh, this is bad.
• 48:18
  This is not good.
• 48:18
  And as we've come around the next corner, so we've slowed right down.
• 48:21
  It was like a bowling alley of motorbikes.
• 48:22
  There's bikes just scattered all down the road.
• 48:25
  Like, obviously, these guys had a monster crash.
• 48:28
  And the ambulance, because it was literally stationed about 400 metres away, obviously got to the scene very, very quickly.
• 48:34
  So it's probably been three or four minutes since the accident when we've arrived there.
• 48:39
  Now, you don't have to be a genius to figure out, but like when the ambulance guys, as you're going past, when they're starting to pull the white sheet over the guy that's laying there on the ground, I remember just my eyes just thinking like, wow, like I've just flown 24 hours.
• 48:54
  I've driven around a track where I've got no idea where I'm going and now on the second lap, there's a dead body on the track and I'm just like, I remember looking at Peter and him looking at me and he's like, oh, we'll go for a coffee now.
• 49:04
  They'll shut the track for a while and then we'll come back.
• 49:07
  And I just, at that point in time, I literally could have got on the plane and gone home.
• 49:10
  I was just, I was definitely spooked.
• 49:13
  But Peter then left me there at the track.
• 49:16
  I just stayed in a little bed and breakfast down the road.
• 49:17
  And I think I spent three or four days there just going back.
• 49:20
  He left me with his car and his sort of season ticket.
• 49:23
  And just every day, just going back and just driving lap after lap.
• 49:26
  And I remember in my head, I basically tried to sort of think of it as fast.
• 49:30
  four Bathurst tracks, trying to basically just split it up into quarters and just learn the first quarter of the track and then just drive the rest and then learn the second part and slowly start to link it together.
• 49:41
  But the weird thing was after a while driving in the road car, I was like, yeah, I'm pretty comfortable with this.
• 49:49
  Then you hop in the race car and you're trying to learn it at much faster speed and you've got all these other much faster cars around you.
• 49:57
  It was pretty, that first year was really intimidating, but it was also my best result in the race.
• 50:02
  And it's actually the only time I've managed to finish a race there.
• 50:04
  So we managed to finish second in class and 15th outright.
• 50:08
  And I think still to this day, it's the only completely dry 24-hour race that they've had.
• 50:13
  It's like the race is famously known, even this year, there was red flag stoppages for massive amounts of rain and fog and everything like that.
• 50:20
  But
• 50:22
  Here I am thinking, hey, this 24-hour racing, this is rather easy.
• 50:25
  You sort of fly halfway around the world.
• 50:27
  You take a while to learn a track, but you get a trophy.
• 50:30
  Like, this isn't so hard.
• 50:31
  And as I said, every subsequent race I've been back, I haven't finished a single race since.
• 50:35
  So it's an amazing track, and it's amazing just the whole atmosphere.
• 50:40
  Like, even for the start of the race, like, when all the cars are out on the grid and they do a grid walk, like as we see at Bathurst and some of our bigger races here, when you do the grid walk, you get quite a lot of people out on the grid.
• 50:51
  Yeah.
• 50:52
  Over there, like your grid walk, which is like 180-odd cars for the start of the race, there's like nearly 15,000 people on the grid for the grid walk.
• 50:59
  Like it's just – it's this sea of people and it's just jammed like sardine packed.
• 51:04
  So it's just – it's a really cool event to be a part of.
• 51:09
  And it's been one of those probably bucket list races that I'm so glad that I've been able to do.
• 51:14
  Would love to try and sort of go back and do a few more races there because it's one of those ones.
• 51:18
  Once you've been once –
• 51:20
  you definitely want to go back because it's a really cool track.
• 51:24
  I hope you get that opportunity.
• 51:25
  You have ticked the box also on the Spa 24-hour.
• 51:29
  Tell us about that.
• 51:31
  And is there, again, another legendary track, not quite as long as Nürburgring, but still a massively cool place to go and race?
• 51:38
  Yeah, so through the Peugeot team that I raced at Nürburgring in 96, I went back and did Nürburgring again in 97 and also did Spa 24 hour with the same team as well.
• 51:50
  And again, Spa, it's one of those tracks, again, there's so much history and it's such a beautiful town and just the area where the track is.
• 51:58
  And again, it's a track that's.
• 51:59
  the weather is forever changing there and anything like that.
• 52:02
  So, yeah, Spa was amazing and it was cool.
• 52:06
  I actually got to do the start in the car that we were in.
• 52:09
  So you're out there sort of battling.
• 52:11
  I think I did a double stint at the start of the race.
• 52:13
  And, look, unfortunately for us, though, I think it was about eight or nine hours in that we had an engine, a rather catastrophic engine failure in the car.
• 52:20
  So we didn't get to complete the race.
• 52:22
  But, again, it was just –
• 52:25
  So cool to do one of those iconic races and to be there to, and even still to this day, like I love watching the Formula 1 there every year or when WEC race there or anything that you can sort of watch some racing there because you sort of think back to when I got the chance to sort of race there.
• 52:40
  And again, it's still one of those races I'd love to sort of go back.
• 52:43
  I've been back and watched a bit of racing since then a few different times when I've been over there for Nürburgring and there's been like, I remember in 08,
• 52:51
  We were there the weekend before the Nürburgring 24-hour, and there was an historic F1 and Group C race meeting on over there.
• 52:58
  So we went to Spa, and some of the cars that you got to see there, like on the historic F1 grid, like there's a whole bunch of Alan Jones old cars, old McLarens, Ferraris, Tyrrells, like, and these guys take it really serious.
• 53:10
  Like the setups that these guys have, and same in the Group C cars, like,
• 53:15
  And the Australian guy, Rob Sherrard, he had the Sauber Mercedes that he had at the time.
• 53:19
  That was there.
• 53:20
  But, again, a whole bunch of old Rothmans, 956, 962 Porsches, Nissan IMSA GTO cars, and just some really, really cool cars.
• 53:29
  And, again, like in the Formula 1 and the historic Group C grid, you're talking 30 to 35 cars on the grid.
• 53:35
  And, again, these guys, for cars that are worth, like,
• 53:39
  almost irreplaceable.
• 53:40
  These guys love getting out and racing them super hard.
• 53:43
  So it was great to see them used for what they should be used for.
• 53:46
  And on a circuit like Spa, it was really cool to see.
• 53:50
  Before we focus on the supercar chapter, can we just touch on Brute Utes?
• 53:56
  V8 Utes.
• 53:57
  That was a great series in Australia.
• 53:59
  I've seen the Commodore and the Falcon even in New Zealand in recent time.
• 54:04
  There's still some of them going around.
• 54:06
  You were there in a halcyon period, I guess you could say, for that –
• 54:11
  for that class.
• 54:12
  It was Mad Dog Denier, and someone had the nickname Handlebars.
• 54:16
  Were you just Woz?
• 54:17
  What was your nickname?
• 54:18
  What was your card?
• 54:19
  Tell us about it, come on.
• 54:20
  So again, it was a funny story how that came about.
• 54:23
  So 2002, Adelaide 500, we managed to pull a deal together just to do a one-off race.
• 54:29
  It was in a Commodore ute through a guy in Sydney that I knew, Rod Nielsen.
• 54:34
  He had a Commodore, but he also had a Ford ute that he was running for the duration of the championship.
• 54:38
  And so we managed to put a deal together, again, through a bunch of sponsors that I'd met through drive days and were keen to sort of help me with my career and just did a one-off round.
• 54:48
  So there was no intention or there was no money to do the rest of the championship.
• 54:52
  So we went to the Adelaide 500 in the Commodore.
• 54:54
  I think my name was the Rock Dog.
• 54:57
  The team came up with that one.
• 54:58
  So...
• 55:00
  hadn't done any testing in the car, literally arrived at Adelaide and hopped in the car and sort of, and went and look, the weekend went really well.
• 55:07
  We actually managed to qualify on pole, won the weekend, had a lot of great racing.
• 55:11
  And, and out of that, then the opportunity came to drive Rod's other ute, which had a sponsor on board Dow Street Smash for the remainder of the 2002 season.
• 55:21
  And yeah, still some of the hardest fought racing I remember because that was in the days when you had the, what they called the Chook Lotto,
• 55:28
  So where you do qualifying and that was, I think that set the grid for race one.
• 55:33
  And then they basically either inverted the grid or you, you drew numbers for where you would start sort of in race two.
• 55:39
  And then it was a, uh, then they basically just, it was the combination of those sort of results, uh, for the final race.
• 55:45
  So I remember starting off pole in the first race.
• 55:48
  And then I think it was like, I started 28th or something like that in the second race, um,
• 55:53
  So certainly for the remainder of the championship, when I was in the Gow Street car, it was very helpful to have a panel beater as a sponsor because there was many a time there where we would always turn up with the best-looking car.
• 56:05
  We didn't always leave the track with the best-looking car, but thankfully the guys at Gow Street were really good sort of turning the car around.
• 56:12
  But, again, two great years in that championship, won the championship two years in a row, and it was actually out of that drive at Adelaide, that very first drive in the Commodore Ute,
• 56:22
  that the opportunity came to go to a test day at Orem Park with Trevor Ashby and Steve Reid with the Landsville Smash Repair team because they were looking for someone to be able to partner with Cam McConville in that year's endurance races.
• 56:34
  So, yeah, if it hadn't have been for that sort of very first race in the Ute Series, then the opportunity to partner with Cam in the O2 series.
• 56:45
  endurance races wouldn't have come about.
• 56:47
  So it was a great time in my career and certainly probably that one that really started the journey as to where I am in supercars.
• 56:56
  That's a nice little story in the sense of planets aligning because obviously they were –
• 57:01
  Very well known in Sydney.
• 57:04
  Privateers in touring car racing that had been around for some time.
• 57:07
  Big Bird, Steve Reid and Trevor Ashby, the Landsvale Smash crew, you know, around Oran Park, obviously, while you were there significantly in your teens and, you know, doing the training and so on.
• 57:18
  That coming together must have been quite a cool thing.
• 57:22
  Yeah, it was.
• 57:23
  And like you said, I'd already known Trev and Steve for a long time through them being out at Oran Park for test days, or they used to do a lot of go-kart days out there as well for their sort of corporate days.
• 57:33
  So I'd known them for a long time, and obviously they'd sort of watched and sort of paid interest in my sort of career up until that point.
• 57:41
  But it was that race at Adelaide that sort of got the phone ringing for them to sort of ring Dad, and they're like, look –
• 57:48
  Why don't we throw Warren in the car?
• 57:50
  Look, we're going to do a test day.
• 57:51
  And they had a few guys that they were going to give an opportunity to, to have a driver of the car.
• 57:56
  And they said, look, no promises, but we'll see how he goes.
• 58:01
  But if he does all right, this is what we're looking for.
• 58:04
  So there was that opportunity to sort of go along.
• 58:07
  I'd known Cam for a long time already previous to that, sort of through, again, through driver training days.
• 58:12
  And he'd worked with us a bit through sort of dad's,
• 58:14
  school and also up at the Porsche Sport Driving School here in Queensland, sort of in the late 90s.
• 58:19
  So, um, Cam was already a good mate of mine and, um, and yeah, so did all right and got the opportunity to partner Cam in the Enduros that year, which was actually at, uh, Queensland for the Queensland 500 and then obviously at Bathurst.
• 58:31
  So, um, yeah, it was, it was a great time and, uh,
• 58:34
  And great to not only make my sort of debut in the supercars at Bathurst with a good mate of mine in Cam, but also with Trev and Steve, who I'd obviously looked up to for a very long time.
• 58:44
  They were good friends and had known them for a long time through sort of Orem Park.
• 58:49
  So, yeah, without them giving me that opportunity, who knows where my career would have gone.
• 58:54
  Did you do that test on the South Circuit or the Grand Prix track at Oron Park?
• 58:58
  And I want those, it may not have been that test, maybe it was another one, but I want your early recollections of getting in a supercar, because back then they probably would have been H-Pattern, unlike now.
• 59:09
  What were they like to drive?
• 59:10
  As a young fellow, what were you thinking?
• 59:12
  Well, I'd already driven a couple of supercars.
• 59:14
  So a guy by the name of Simon Emazidis, who was a privateer sort of in sort of the late 90s, early 2000s.
• 59:19
  I'd had a drive of one of his cars at Orem Park sort of, I think, the year before that.
• 59:23
  So I had a little bit of experience around there.
• 59:26
  But...
• 59:27
  But obviously I'd done a million and one miles around or in parking, all sorts of cars.
• 59:31
  But a supercar around there is really different.
• 59:34
  Obviously I hadn't driven anything that quickly around there sort of previously.
• 59:39
  So even just the nature of the circuit and your perception of corners and the undulation and the bumps under braking and that really change when you start going a lot faster.
• 59:50
  It was like that first time I raced at Bathurst in the Suzuki GDI.
• 59:54
  To go back a couple of years later in the Super Tourer, the perception of corners where like across the top of the mountain, everything was just completely flat in the Suzuki GDI.
• 1:00:03
  You go around there in a Super Tourer and all of a sudden, hang on, you've got to start to lift for corners or you've got to start breaking for corners that previously had been flat.
• 1:00:09
  And it was the same in that first test that I did with the Lansvale guys at Orham Park.
• 1:00:14
  it completely changed my perception of driving around Orem Park because not only were you incredibly busy, as you said, it was sort of still in the days of the H pattern and everything like that, but it's just, yeah, it just, the way that the car rode the kerbs and bumps and everything like that, it was a real eye-opener for me.
• 1:00:31
  And as I said, that was a circuit that I'd done thousands and thousands and thousands of laps around.
• 1:00:37
  But again, it changed my perspective of the circuit from that day on.
• 1:00:41
  But again, obviously I did enough...
• 1:00:43
  on that first and then the second test and got that opportunity to partner with Cam.
• 1:00:48
  Before we talk Stone Brothers, can you just share with us, Ross Stone has always been great at keeping an eye on talent, in a quiet sort of talent scouting sense, you might say.
• 1:01:00
  And you talked Peugeot before, I don't know where it was, what track, but it might have even been Adelaide, I'm not sure.
• 1:01:05
  But I know that he tapped your dad on the shoulder somewhere and he'd been keeping an eye on you, hadn't he?
• 1:01:09
  Yeah, that was in the Ute days.
• 1:01:11
  We'd had some great runs at Adelaide over the two years of doing sort of the Ute series there.
• 1:01:17
  And like, again, when you're in those formative years of your career and you desperately want to get noticed by sort of up and down the V8 supercar pit lane to have someone like sort of Ross Stone sort of let dad know that, hey, like your kid's doing a good job out there.
• 1:01:31
  We've been watching and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:01:33
  It's nice to know that people are sort of out there sort of paying attention and seeing what you're doing.
• 1:01:40
  And even to this day, a lot of the coaching that I do with sort of some of the young guys that I coach through sort of McElroy Racing and Carrera Cup, that's the one thing that I'm always saying to those guys is, yeah.
• 1:01:50
  It mightn't feel like it, but people are always watching.
• 1:01:54
  You don't know what they're watching you do, whether it be just the way you conduct yourself in the pits, the way you interact with fans and sponsors or anything like that, or what it is you're actually doing out on track.
• 1:02:03
  People are always watching, and you don't know how that's going to influence you later on in your career.
• 1:02:10
  Yeah, for me to sort of find out that, yeah, like Ross was sort of a bit sort of paying attention and was giving me a bit of a thumbs up was a cool thing.
• 1:02:19
  And then to a few years later to be able to sort of drive for them was a great sort of moment in my career.
• 1:02:25
  Although, as we know, Bathurst 2005 didn't exactly quite go to plan for Marcus and I.
• 1:02:34
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with Warren Luff.
• 1:02:37
  Don't worry, we are just getting started on the Stone Brothers and the 2005 race, which, for all sorts of reasons, is one of the most talked about in history.
• 1:02:47
  Head back to the library and hit the gas on part two as we pick up that convo, plus co-driving for Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander, how he manhandled a very special car called Nemo at World Time Attack, and his insights on the No Second Chance program are gripping.
• 1:03:04
  a powerful initiative he works on with McElray Racing to help teenagers make good life choices and his world-class talent for race driver coaching.
• 1:03:20
  Listener.