Latest / Rusty's Garage / Dean Herridge | Part 2 - Subaru Loyalty & Success In Asia

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Dean Herridge | Part 2 - Subaru Loyalty & Success In Asia · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here.
• 0:20
  All set for part two of three of my feature ep with Dean Herridge.
• 0:25
  Rally driver, team owner and someone I commentate with.
• 0:28
  He is bloody good at it too.
• 0:30
  Now, as I always say, if you've arrived here and not heard part one, jump back to the library.
• 0:35
  and enjoy all the grounding, the early, the formative years that helped him on the path to the Australian Rally Championship.
• 0:42
  Paddock bashing in the backyard, vivid memories of watching touring car legends at Wanneroo, the competitive spirit that runs in the Herridge family, and how a car that was used for some filming ended up a perfect launch pad as he switched from a career in conveyancing
• 1:01
  to that addictive pathway of professional driver.
• 1:05
  Time to shift into part two now.
• 1:09
  Coming back to your time with Les Walkden here, you said earlier in the podcast that you don't necessarily feel, perhaps compared to your dad, that the mechanical side is a strength, but you always paid attention.
• 1:20
  You paid attention to what changes do to a car, and one of the things that I think you always sort of aimed for was consistency.
• 1:29
  There's a good story here about doing a blind test with the Les Walkden team.
• 1:33
  You probably want to tell non-rally people what you mean by that blind test and how it went for you.
• 1:39
  Well, both Les and I had very good support through Bridgestone.
• 1:44
  They were producing rally tyres and Mort, which a lot of people would know from Bridgestone Motorsport, was supporting us and was supporting probably Les via Ed back in the day, et cetera.
• 1:52
  But they weren't the most competitive tyre.
• 1:54
  I feel like that wasn't their main focus, of course.
• 1:56
  You were sort of half pushing for Michelin or something.
• 1:58
  No, no, I'm sure it's a Pirelli to try and square up with the other people who are running those tyres.
• 2:01
  And I think as part of that, you know, it was going to cost – we could probably get Bridgestones for free or as a deal and we were going to pay for others.
• 2:08
  And so at some point I go to Tasmania, you know, it must be near Launceston, somewhere near Liz's place, and they had a cool bit of road that we could have a short run on and then do long loops to almost replicate a 30K stage.
• 2:20
  But, of course, as part of that, I don't know whether it was why Les did this or whether it was to truly test what that was.
• 2:26
  It was what they called a blind test.
• 2:28
  So he obviously had a set of Pirellis there and maybe Michelins and then Bridgestones, clearly.
• 2:33
  You weren't to know that.
• 2:34
  You weren't to know what's going on in the car.
• 2:35
  I knew they had them around.
• 2:36
  I knew they were going to bolt different ones on.
• 2:37
  I think Scotty Nichols at some point was being involved with this new brand called Silverstone coming to Malaysia.
• 2:42
  He wanted us to test them as well.
• 2:43
  So my job was literally to sit in the car.
• 2:46
  Don't look outside.
• 2:47
  I don't know what they were doing.
• 2:49
  And then make notes.
• 2:50
  And literally drive the car, make notes, drive the car.
• 2:52
  And I do distinctly remember at one point driving through for the opening 5Ks of a stage going, God, I hope these are Michelins.
• 2:59
  Oh, these are turning in good.
• 3:00
  And I could because I could feel the difference.
• 3:02
  I didn't know what they had on there but I could feel that a bit sharper on turning and all those sort of things that drivers feel.
• 3:06
  only to be revealed later that they were Bridgestones.
• 3:10
  But what we found out was that they were good for five kilometres but they started to taper up over 30.
• 3:14
  Gotcha.
• 3:15
  So, you know, if you were going to go and do a super stays like I talked about with Ed there, bolt those on because they're clearly going to be good.
• 3:20
  And there was no, you weren't influencing the decision because if I'm aiming for Michelin, I'm clearly going to put them on and go, oh, they're better, whether they potentially are or not.
• 3:29
  So I think I also learnt something then as well because,
• 3:32
  I'm not an engineer.
• 3:33
  I didn't profess to be an engineer.
• 3:35
  What would I tell someone about a change when I'm not mechanical?
• 3:38
  And I think all I ever tried to do was give driver input.
• 3:42
  Now, there's lots of talented, more talented people than me who are the engineers in the team.
• 3:46
  So all I ever tried to do was deliver good, consistent driver feedback.
• 3:50
  I never tried to engineer the car myself.
• 3:52
  You learn a bit over time about what might change, what might do what.
• 3:55
  But literally in that stage, and that's 20 years ago, I would just deliver what the car was doing.
• 3:59
  And I'd go, I don't like this, but this is doing that.
• 4:01
  And then they'd make the change.
• 4:02
  And I'd go, oh, that's worse.
• 4:03
  Oh, we went the wrong way.
• 4:04
  Oh, we did this.
• 4:05
  And so I was able to give good, clear feedback and not be influenced by getting faster and faster on a run.
• 4:11
  Could you imagine a rally road?
• 4:13
  it changes potentially every run.
• 4:15
  So it's important that when you're testing that you almost treat run one the same as you treat run 20.
• 4:20
  There's no point going through there and going, well, now I know I can go through there flat and forth.
• 4:24
  If you don't do that the first time, you're probably not going to do it in the rally.
• 4:27
  So no point testing a car flat and forth on that corner because when you get to it for the first time, it's just one of hundreds of corners, you're going to go back to third.
• 4:35
  So I would always replicate the run and then even later on with Subaru, you know,
• 4:39
  And we had really talented engineers and people coming in, helping us make some really good group N cars, like David Potter.
• 4:46
  I'd go to New Zealand and do a lot of the testing of those cars.
• 4:49
  There is a story of legend.
• 4:50
  I don't know who the driver was around real subtle refinements, a click or whatever of change.
• 4:56
  And this is a whole long day of testing.
• 4:58
  And I think the mechanics were getting the shits.
• 5:00
  And they didn't, whoever it was, they didn't make the change, did they?
• 5:03
  Was it Tommy?
• 5:04
  No, no, no.
• 5:06
  It was Tommy Mackinac.
• 5:07
  Because there for a while, Graeme McKinley worked for us and he was an ex-Rally Art mechanic and when he'd sort of come back to Australia to live, he worked for Maxon Motorsport for a little while and he was reciting the story because, you know, he was working with Rally Art Europe for a number of years with Tommy Mackinan and I think he did say he recited the story to go, look, we're thinking, how can you feel one click change?
• 5:23
  God, we've been out here, we're over it.
• 5:26
  It's either hot or cold and I think they've gone, we'll show him on this one.
• 5:29
  He wants a one-
• 5:30
  One, I click it down on the whatever and they go tick, tick, open the bonnet and whatever else and send him and go, well, there we go, let's see what happens here.
• 5:37
  He came back and they said, how did you find that?
• 5:38
  He says, I don't think you'd change anything.
• 5:42
  And so a big lesson as well to go for me.
• 5:46
  The other part, if I couldn't feel something, don't tell the engineer.
• 5:50
  Okay.
• 5:50
  Just in case that happened because there's no point trying to be smart about it or make something up.
• 5:55
  Sometimes I couldn't feel the difference and they did make a change but I didn't feel it.
• 5:58
  So I never bulldusted the engineers.
• 6:01
  I'd always give just honest advice because if I had done that and looking like I'm smart and going, oh, I think I can feel it, and they did test me like that, trust goes out the door.
• 6:10
  Like trusting is everything from whether it be your co-driver in the car and trusting everything that you're just not full of it.
• 6:15
  So from that point of view, all my data was trying to be just genuine.
• 6:18
  And if they did a big change and I didn't feel it, I'd just tell them, I don't know, I'm not feeling whatever you've done.
• 6:24
  And I sort of stuck by that as well, maybe based on stories like that to go you might be tested one day.
• 6:29
  Before you get embedded in kind of factory colours and possum-born motorsport, there is one final test of your loyalty, if you like.
• 6:41
  And that is you, Scott Petter, Spencer Lowndes, I think even Steve Shepard, you all get invited to a Mitsubishi shootout.
• 6:48
  And I think Dave Boddy was the co-driver, Ildir Dinsky, who you mentioned before, he's there.
• 6:53
  Just tell us about that.
• 6:55
  And it did lead to, might have been by fax, I don't know, but it led to an offer, it
• 6:59
  didn't it?
• 6:59
  Yeah, it did.
• 7:00
  So I think Les had recommended it because I was probably the only non-Mitsubishi guy that I can think of apart from being young that was invited to that.
• 7:07
  I was probably a bit around Subaru.
• 7:09
  Scott and Steve would have both been in Mitsubishi, wouldn't they?
• 7:11
  Yeah, I think David Hills and those sorts of people.
• 7:12
  It was quite a few.
• 7:13
  I think there was upwards of 10 of us who were going to go and do this test with Rally Art.
• 7:16
  So we all got invited to Canberra.
• 7:18
  I think they probably had a couple of day tests and, you know, on the first day they invited five and then, you know, you had to make your own way over there, et cetera, and get this opportunity.
• 7:24
  So I think Les was encouraging of giving me a chance, one, through Bob Riley and saying you should give Dean a crack and, Dean, you should go and have a crack at it.
• 7:32
  And so, you know, you got bundled into an Evo 6 from memory.
• 7:37
  So that's probably about the only time I've driven a red car, I reckon, like that.
• 7:40
  And...
• 7:42
  Dave bodies your co-driver.
• 7:43
  Poor Dave.
• 7:43
  Jeez, you would have to have a few different pace notes.
• 7:45
  So you made your pace notes around this little track and then you had a crack.
• 7:49
  And I don't know.
• 7:49
  I assume they timed.
• 7:50
  I assume Dave gave the feedback, et cetera, and then they digested it in a big melting pot.
• 7:55
  And, I mean, the other side note of that is that the end clearly is a bit of a thrill for everybody.
• 7:59
  You know, a lot of young guys there.
• 8:01
  We got a chance to run with Ed in the – To your passenger.
• 8:04
  Yeah, which I'm not great at, as you know.
• 8:06
  In the Evo 7 and we can get to that story again.
• 8:10
  But that was another telling point for me to go, Chivas, I'm with Mr. Group N, Mr.
• 8:16
  Smooth.
• 8:17
  He's the Group N master.
• 8:18
  He's won it at international level so many times.
• 8:21
  His record's unbelievable.
• 8:22
  But for me...
• 8:24
  I'm thinking he is super sideways here and he's tagged the bank with the rear and over that jump that I'm lifting for, he's crashed through it a little bit.
• 8:31
  And it was a real eye-opener for me to go, wow, is this what it takes to run one of these cars quick?
• 8:36
  Up to that point, I reckon I could make a front bumper last a season because, you know, oh, God, every time you have to change a bumper and paint it, it costs bloody money.
• 8:42
  It was just you're in privateer mode.
• 8:44
  There's something about when you're in works mode, bumpers are secondary.
• 8:48
  You know, even one of our crew members at Subaru many years later said to me, yeah.
• 8:53
  Dino, they still make them.
• 8:54
  I said, what are you talking about?
• 8:56
  They still make bumpers.
• 8:57
  Yeah?
• 8:57
  Well, knock them.
• 8:59
  They don't know how much you've got left.
• 9:01
  They said, no point coming forth and having the car come back like it's a showroom car because that's not what we're here for.
• 9:05
  We're here to win.
• 9:06
  Now, if you're knocking it around, it's a balancing act, but we make some of that peripheral stuff.
• 9:11
  Don't get too caught up on it.
• 9:12
  Cracking a bumper ain't a big deal if you're winning stuff.
• 9:14
  But if you bring it back and it's just give it a quick clean and you're not winning, we can get someone else to do that.
• 9:20
  So going back to the test, that was an eye-opener.
• 9:22
  And then, yeah, I don't remember the timeline now, but I did get offered the spot to be the second car with Erdodinski.
• 9:28
  I mean, this is an awesome opportunity.
• 9:31
  Would have made a move to Sydney for you and Nat, wouldn't it?
• 9:33
  Yeah, well, at that point, yes, because it was the end of 01.
• 9:36
  Nat and I got married in March of 01, so we're newlyweds sort of nine months in.
• 9:41
  I think Nat's been awesome.
• 9:42
  She would have backed it.
• 9:44
  And what an opportunity to drive for a works.
• 9:47
  That's what we've been aiming for, right back to when we were trying to sort of half do a deal with Nick back at the Opal Co.
• 9:52
  So what happens?
• 9:53
  Do you then think, well, I better do the right thing here by Subaru and call them or
• 9:58
  Yeah, it's twofold.
• 9:59
  And look, in the early days, Dad's making the phone calls for you, so I'm secondaring the, you know, trying to get the courage up to ring Nick Senior about it.
• 10:07
  So I think I must have sat on that and thanked him very much for the opportunity and can I just have a little bit of time to digest it because particularly the move, it was,
• 10:15
  Second car with Odinski, come across and work in the Rally Art office.
• 10:20
  I don't know what they were going to get me to do, by the way, and move to Sydney.
• 10:23
  And what a great opportunity.
• 10:25
  That's fantastic.
• 10:26
  I'm delighted by the offer and the fact that I had that chance.
• 10:29
  And I think it then incited a phone call to Nick to say, look, I'm not going to bat one against the other.
• 10:34
  I'd love to stay around the Subaru brand, but I think the next part of my career is to be a works driver.
• 10:40
  And, you know, I'd love it to be with Subaru, but if not, you know, I have been offered a gig with Rally Art.
• 10:45
  And I don't remember if it was that day or the next day or how long that was, but I think basically Nick came back and said, well, what if we created a third car for Subaru?
• 10:54
  We can't pay you, but we'll create a third car and would that be enough to get you across?
• 10:59
  And I chose the non-paid Subaru gig.
• 11:01
  I mean, I got to stay in Perth, which is probably a bonus.
• 11:04
  to be the third car, which you could argue, shit, you're going to be the third car rather than the second car and potentially someone who could take over from Ed maybe because I thought it had better longevity to it.
• 11:13
  Did you?
• 11:14
  It probably felt like that's where I wanted to go, but I never really thought about whether it was the right or the wrong move too much.
• 11:21
  Would it have been the final kind of Subaru offer?
• 11:23
  Because there'd been a couple of- Oh, I'd say so.
• 11:24
  Yeah, I'd reckon if I'd at that point, particularly when you make the phone call, if I'd gone rally out, then you're making that, you've made your bed, you're lying.
• 11:31
  And then you'd have to respect that.
• 11:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:33
  So I go, well, I've got to make the most of this.
• 11:35
  And I get reunited back with Glenn.
• 11:39
  I said sort of Glenn and I had touchpointed since sort of 99 and stuff.
• 11:41
  So I've got Glenn McNeil.
• 11:42
  And I think Nick wanted that.
• 11:44
  Nick wanted Glenn in the car because, like I said, at that point he's done quite a bit of stuff and been with Greg Graham back in the day and doing a lot internationally.
• 11:52
  So I think they felt like...
• 11:53
  Yeah, probably even Glenn was getting paid.
• 11:54
  No, it wasn't for the first year.
• 11:55
  I'm not sure.
• 11:56
  You have to ask him.
• 11:57
  But that gave them some reassurance because it was important that they had someone in the car that had experience with me, et cetera.
• 12:03
  So, yeah, I take up the third car with Subaru.
• 12:06
  So Possum Bourne is there, huge for Australian motorsport to have the Kiwi legend.
• 12:11
  Cody Crocker's already there.
• 12:12
  We've detailed that.
• 12:13
  The first test I think happens in New South Wales, but there is a rush on to get the new cars for Possum and Cody.
• 12:18
  Yeah.
• 12:19
  So yours is the only one there.
• 12:21
  Is that right?
• 12:21
  The other thing to think about, 2002 is our first year that our championship is going Group N. Yeah.
• 12:28
  So this decision for me is quite important too because I've just got an opportunity with Rallyart who clearly have a good group-end car.
• 12:33
  Possum had run the XWRC thing and Neil Bates had the Corolla.
• 12:37
  So they now call it, we're going group-end only, no more WRC cars.
• 12:40
  So they obviously thought there was going to be more competition and it probably proved that that was the right call for the series.
• 12:45
  So, yeah, there's going to be two brand new.
• 12:48
  We're talking now the Subaru Impreza has now gone to its second generation, sort of affectionately known to be sort of the bug eye.
• 12:55
  And they built one for Cody at the end of 01 that he just debuted in Rally Oz.
• 12:59
  It actually had clear headlights and the STIs that came later sort of had a darkened headlight in the front of them.
• 13:05
  So two cars being built, brand new for Possum and Cody.
• 13:07
  It's so late in the build.
• 13:09
  You know, at some point they have to probably put the cages in, send them from New Zealand, get to New South Wales.
• 13:13
  They're still putting them together from memory.
• 13:15
  And, you know, there's probably hardly any stickers on the cars, et cetera, and we go to a forest test.
• 13:20
  But, of course, their cars aren't ready, so all three drivers get sent to the same test in my car effectively and we're going to share it to God knows what we're going to test.
• 13:28
  So I do remember Possum saying, all right, well, this is your car.
• 13:31
  You may as well go first.
• 13:32
  And I'm going, holy shit, you know.
• 13:35
  And this goes back to the point I was saying about eventually I worked out I was okay at testing.
• 13:39
  But at that point I'm going, I'm not an engineer.
• 13:42
  I've never really had to test anything.
• 13:44
  I was genuinely fearful on how I'm going to look here because if I get to the end of a run-off and they go, what change do you want to make?
• 13:51
  I'm going to go, I've got no idea.
• 13:52
  I don't know what I'm supposed to do with suspension of bits and pieces.
• 13:54
  Were you overawed by the situation, do you think, or not really?
• 13:57
  He was such a legend.
• 13:59
  No.
• 14:00
  No.
• 14:00
  No, probably not.
• 14:01
  I mean, it was big.
• 14:02
  I do remember pulling the blue suit out of the bag at one point.
• 14:05
  That's huge.
• 14:06
  Yeah, which was an awesome moment.
• 14:07
  I mean, that was pretty cool.
• 14:09
  Remembering that Dad drove with Possum back in the early 90s, so I feel like I'd been in and around him a little bit, so I wasn't completely... Overruled, okay.
• 14:17
  completely, but very much respected him.
• 14:20
  I mean, I did one test with him in that Group N car.
• 14:24
  Like, I never sat in the WRC car with him as a ride.
• 14:26
  And as you know, I'm not a great passenger.
• 14:28
  I went with him maybe a couple of rallies later in the Group N car.
• 14:32
  Holy smokes, I'm thinking, Christ, I'm holding on to the centre of the seat, guys.
• 14:35
  shit, this is how you're supposed to drive one of these, et cetera.
• 14:38
  So I'm glad now in hindsight that I did that because I guess I've had a run with Possum in a grouping car, et cetera.
• 14:44
  So, yeah, long story short, that's my debut in the team as car number three.
• 14:48
  Was there a bit of a tough start around some testing stuff?
• 14:50
  What happened there?
• 14:51
  Well, Possum, to be honest, everybody had a tough start to the year.
• 14:56
  I mean, Possum, I think, got zero points in New South Wales.
• 14:59
  Like here he is transitioning.
• 15:00
  How good will Possum be now without his WRC car?
• 15:02
  He has zero points.
• 15:04
  Cody, I think, did okay.
• 15:06
  I was doing okay.
• 15:07
  I'd smacked the wall on the harbour super stage, and I think it did some timing belt issues, so I missed heat two.
• 15:13
  The car then next gets sent across to Perth, which is going to be the next round of the championship, and a ball joint breaks in testing.
• 15:18
  I tip it over onto its roof.
• 15:20
  Like I haven't crashed a lot because I probably don't drive fast enough, but to roll that, I don't think it's shit.
• 15:25
  I haven't got off to the greatest of starts and put the phone call into Nick because it's the week of the rally and they're now going to work their backsides off to get the thing ready for Forest Rally, et cetera.
• 15:35
  So, yeah, it was a little tough start.
• 15:36
  Obviously, being third car is also difficult because I wasn't getting the best of everything, that's for sure.
• 15:41
  And I was probably lucky to have Glenn...
• 15:44
  helping there because he... Because of his experience.
• 15:46
  Yeah, and they respected that.
• 15:48
  If I was barking on a lot as a young driver, so Glenn would take the lead there a little bit.
• 15:52
  They probably actually hated him for it, but he sort of could see, well, Dean can't arc up here.
• 15:56
  So he was always pushing to try and give us an opportunity.
• 15:59
  And there's two parts I'll tell you about that year that I have memories of.
• 16:03
  One is just how much admiration I have for Possum to win that championship because I think most people, possibly me included, go, well, now that is World Rally Car and you're now going to take on Ed Ordinsky, Cody Crocker, all these guys in Group N cars.
• 16:16
  What they've been doing for three years, how are you going to go?
• 16:19
  Well, after not getting any points in New South Wales,
• 16:22
  He moved heaven and earth to make sure that car was competitive despite the business, despite everything.
• 16:27
  He is a racer's racer and he comes through to win the championship.
• 16:30
  You know, his seventh title in a Group N car.
• 16:33
  I go, hats off, Possum.
• 16:35
  You can steer.
• 16:36
  And almost one, like,
• 16:39
  One mind, one vision was just make it work.
• 16:42
  I'll work the rest hour later.
• 16:44
  Like most people, we're making calculated decisions and how much budget you got, et cetera.
• 16:48
  So that was a big thing for me to go, wow, he's the real McCoy.
• 16:53
  Regardless of whether you thought he did or didn't, it was him and Neil for a long time, so it's hard to gauge apart from doing some stuff internationally.
• 16:59
  So I go, that's one memory.
• 17:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:01
  The other one was around, of course, back in those days, we didn't have control tyres, so we were sponsored by Pirelli.
• 17:05
  I'm getting fantastic customer tyres, you know, many as you want, brand new, et cetera.
• 17:09
  But I remember on one rally in Victoria, Ben and I were just struggling.
• 17:13
  We're like, we're seventh, but feeling like I've got nothing left.
• 17:16
  Like, I'm using all the road.
• 17:17
  I don't know where it's all going.
• 17:18
  And Hossam and Cody were getting this sort of – I do remember the code name for it.
• 17:22
  They were called TJs, which would just seem to work dynamite in the wet.
• 17:25
  Yeah.
• 17:25
  And he and I, Glenn and I are desperate to try and try these things, but, of course, there's not enough allocation.
• 17:29
  They go, what are you whinging about?
• 17:30
  You've got these brand new ones, as many as you want.
• 17:32
  They're soft.
• 17:34
  And I think through sufferance they eventually just go, oh, for God's sake, you two, take some opossums, fall off his car, which look knackered, right?
• 17:41
  They look buggered.
• 17:43
  we bolt them on and we got third quickest or something like all of a sudden.
• 17:47
  And that was something that I remember for a long time.
• 17:49
  Compound is everything on a gravel tyre.
• 17:52
  Compound is king more so than what the condition of the, or what the tyre looks like.
• 17:56
  A bit like you would expect in Formula One when it's more obvious that compound's important on longevity or quickness and stuff.
• 18:02
  And,
• 18:03
  There for a long time, someone like Kevin Sanderson who ultimately ran and was successful with possible motorsport, he would use that phrase with me occasionally when we were in Asia and stuff going, compound's king.
• 18:11
  Because I didn't think they knew that at that point.
• 18:13
  It just looked like it was just the most obvious thing in time for me to go, well, here I am thinking I'm driving as committed as I can and we're seventh and battling away and then we bolted on something that was better and we could improve with it.
• 18:25
  And I've held that with me.
• 18:26
  I've talked about that to some of our clients quite regularly and trying to get the right tyre for the job depending on what your series is.
• 18:32
  Did it teach you about, I mean, super competitive period for the sport too, did it teach you about mongrel?
• 18:39
  Did you learn?
• 18:40
  Did you feel like you needed more mongrel?
• 18:43
  I probably did.
• 18:44
  Nick said that to me once.
• 18:45
  Really?
• 18:46
  Yeah, because you'd sort of do a bit of a, you know, when you catch up in Sydney or something, particularly after the first season.
• 18:51
  So the next season, so I'm with them in 2002.
• 18:55
  So 2003 is a bit of a transition year.
• 18:58
  I think Possum's going to try and do PWRC because clearly he's, you know, very good at Group N and he's still got an in with STI, et cetera.
• 19:04
  okay, he's won the championship.
• 19:05
  I think Cody's expectation now, you know, you've won a couple of the group N titles and I don't remember where Cody finished in 0-2.
• 19:11
  He was now expected to probably take the lead and win some rallies and Dean was probably expecting you to start getting podiums, et cetera.
• 19:17
  And one thing he did say to me, he said, you're –
• 19:19
  They need a bit more mongrel in you.
• 19:21
  Okay.
• 19:21
  And I don't know whether that's just my personality or not.
• 19:24
  I think I, you know, now later as you get older and you talk to people like Glenn and stuff who's been with a lot of people, I think I was technically a good driver but I always, if the car reacted to what I wasn't inputting or reacted by itself, I didn't like it.
• 19:38
  I could catch it and I had enough skill to catch it.
• 19:40
  Glenn would go, what are you talking about?
• 19:41
  You caught that slide.
• 19:42
  I said, I didn't input it.
• 19:44
  And it just...
• 19:45
  you're therefore not confident with it.
• 19:46
  And I think I was a confidence driver.
• 19:47
  I think that's why I could be technically good.
• 19:50
  I didn't make a lot of mistakes, and that probably helped me in Asia-Pacific rounds and WRC.
• 19:54
  That was my yin to the yang in the story here, because clearly when you look at some of the statistics and things, I mean, Rally Japan, Rally New Zealand and so on, like some of the –
• 20:03
  let's call them longer distance things, that approach by not being too aggressive clearly worked for you, didn't it?
• 20:11
  I remember your colleague Bill Woods doing an interview with me on RPM once saying he's almost done it backwards because would you believe I won WRC Group N
• 20:20
  I won Asia Pacific in Canberra before I won an ARC round.
• 20:23
  Crazy.
• 20:24
  So I won WRC Group N in 04 and then Canberra followed up in Canberra and then I didn't win an ARC round until like 06.
• 20:29
  So, you know, I was there or thereabouts and poking away at it and stuff but clearly that Super Series part didn't work for me all the time.
• 20:38
  I was there or thereabouts and I could get podium results and everything
• 20:41
  eventually won a round, but I think I was particularly strong in those other rounds because I could be consistently fast and go close to my edge without making a mistake very often.
• 20:50
  But was that enough when you were taking on the likes of Possum and Cody and Simon Evans and those people?
• 20:55
  I would now chat to Neil Bates who was in that era as well with their group NP cars.
• 21:00
  And I think he and I were similar on the fact that on the right road, on the right day with the right confidence, we could match anybody and you could win against all of them.
• 21:09
  But it probably wasn't enough of those combinations where someone like Cody, and I know more about him, being a teammate, he could muscle a car.
• 21:18
  Like to be honest, it could be not quite right, but he had the mongrel in him and he could just make the car work.
• 21:22
  And we had very different styles, even though –
• 21:25
  I would be used probably more for the testing than Cody was because maybe his testing was a little bit more inconsistent because of how competitive or how robust he was as a driver.
• 21:35
  But ultimately, he was very hard under brakes.
• 21:39
  Like, you know, when Greg might sit with me, he's going to Greg for a letter, he'd say, geez, Dino, you and Cody are completely opposite.
• 21:45
  Really?
• 21:45
  We are under brakes.
• 21:46
  He said, Cody, I'm in the belts, in the belts, in the belts, and then snap transition into attack.
• 21:51
  I was almost a lot smoother on brakes, so my mid-corner was always on point.
• 21:56
  So I could have mid-corner speed on Cody, like I'd have a high mid-corner speed, but of course I'd broken a little earlier than him.
• 22:02
  And then by the time you get to the other end, your time's probably the same because you accelerated out.
• 22:06
  But how you do it, how you deliver that.
• 22:07
  It was different, yeah.
• 22:08
  And so styles were different.
• 22:09
  And I think that style for Cody actually helped him out, been able to work around the car or the tyres or the conditions more so than I could potentially.
• 22:29
  I just want to focus a little bit on Possum here for a moment.
• 22:32
  Firstly, I don't know how widely known this is, I don't know if I'm meant to even talk about it.
• 22:36
  There was a suggestion when Toyota wanted to build a group in car, but there really wasn't the kind of platform for Neil to do that.
• 22:47
  Naturally, in motor racing, there's often a bit of politics, a bit of pushback on all that sort of stuff, and how could we ensure a level playing field and so on.
• 22:56
  I think the story goes, I mean, Possum was proper blue, proper Subaru, but he could see the bigger picture again.
• 23:03
  for the game.
• 23:04
  And I think he basically said, we need to help this happen for Neil.
• 23:09
  It's better for the sport, I think, in some ways.
• 23:11
  It wouldn't surprise me.
• 23:12
  I don't know particularly that detail, but you would speak to even Neil now, they would stay at each other's places.
• 23:20
  Literally, that is the camaraderie and the respect they had for each other.
• 23:23
  So although fierce rivals on the...
• 23:26
  But, yeah, I would suspect that's true because Possum was a big picture guy and he loved rallying just as much as he loved Subaru.
• 23:31
  So, you know, he wanted to win the fight.
• 23:34
  I mean, you talk about, you know, some of Dad's sayings and bits and pieces about mental, you know, one thing Dad's always said is, don't tell me what you won, tell me who you beat.
• 23:41
  Oh, wow.
• 23:41
  Because it was, I can give you all the stats in the world of some of the rallies I've won in bits and pieces, but some of it comes down to, well, if I'm P1 here and won this championship and I've only beaten blowjogs you've never heard of in a bloody front-wheel drive car, well, it's almost a hollow victory, you could argue, where some of those wins, and go back to New Zealand, the bit that I'm the proudest of is that... Alistair McRae and all sorts of stuff you're up against, weren't you?
• 24:03
  Yeah, Gigi Garley and all these sorts of people and Manfred Stoll and Cody and Chris Atkinson, those are the bits that I'm proud of.
• 24:11
  even Scotty P and I now talk about stuff and that era of ARC, there was probably eight to 10 guys who could win on any given day there.
• 24:19
  So if you won a stage or you won a heat or even you're lucky enough to win a rally, you earned it on that.
• 24:24
  And that sometimes means more than just
• 24:27
  If I'd won a championship and I didn't have to beat too many people, well, that'd be great.
• 24:30
  I'd love to call myself an Australian champion.
• 24:32
  But I feel like to be involved in what is now being talked about, and it goes in cycles.
• 24:36
  It's not the only golden era.
• 24:37
  But I have had people ask me, say, what was it like to be involved in a golden era of Australian rallying?
• 24:43
  And that was one of them.
• 24:45
  And it was cool.
• 24:46
  It was very cool.
• 24:46
  It was hard, but good.
• 24:47
  It was very hard.
• 24:48
  I mean, I reckon Scott was leading somewhere or close there to it.
• 24:52
  Had a spin on a stage and that was enough to knock him back to sixth or something or other.
• 24:55
  It was so close, wasn't it?
• 24:56
  Yeah, he talks about it often.
• 24:57
  I think it was in South Australia.
• 24:58
  So that half spin dropped 20 seconds.
• 25:00
  I went from fighting for the lead to being sixth.
• 25:02
  Crazy.
• 25:02
  And that's how close it was.
• 25:03
  And that's what we love.
• 25:03
  We love that part about the sport.
• 25:05
  I don't know how hard this is for you to talk about.
• 25:07
  Where were you?
• 25:08
  when you learned about Possum Bourne's crash and that happened at Race to Sky in New Zealand, I reckon you and I were actually shortly thereafter in Canberra.
• 25:18
  We were doing some pre-event stories before that there.
• 25:23
  I can vividly recall it being a very sombre mood, but like a worrying time.
• 25:28
  We didn't know whether he would or wouldn't come through it.
• 25:32
  Even my cameraman, Dean Henderson, who I've worked with for years, I think he even pulled me aside and said, hey, mate, just...
• 25:38
  Just watch the tone here and what you're asking because we don't know.
• 25:41
  We don't know.
• 25:42
  But we were worried, weren't we?
• 25:45
  You went away, I think, for something, didn't you?
• 25:47
  Yeah, I'm not much of a camper.
• 25:49
  Probably the only camping thing I've ever done down south, Nat and I.
• 25:52
  Because we're talking like 03.
• 25:55
  So, you know, Livy wasn't born until 04.
• 25:56
  So we, you know, lose some fancy free, go down south with some friends.
• 26:00
  I think we're not in mobile range and even then probably only just had mobile phones, to be fair.
• 26:04
  And...
• 26:05
  I think a message has come through after us being out for the day at the caravan park where we were sort of half camping with friends that I've got to try and contact dad.
• 26:14
  So I contact dad and dad says, Nick Senior's chasing you.
• 26:18
  And I'm like, oh, okay.
• 26:19
  So I think Nick's reached out, you know, workshop, how do we get a hold of Dean?
• 26:22
  I think ironically that next morning we were sort of leaving anyway.
• 26:26
  So when we got into phone range, I pull over on the side of the road, ring Nick up and
• 26:30
  He takes a call to give me the news about that.
• 26:32
  At that point, I hadn't heard the news that he'd been in an accident.
• 26:34
  I think he was still in hospital at that point, potentially remembering a coma.
• 26:38
  And I think he wanted to know, I feel like at that point, we were probably only a week and a half away from Canberra running.
• 26:44
  And...
• 26:46
  One, you know, I'm speaking to everyone in the team and I've spoken to Cody.
• 26:48
  What's your thoughts?
• 26:49
  Where are you at with this news?
• 26:50
  How, you know, think about it.
• 26:52
  It's important that you make a good decision.
• 26:53
  Do you want to be there or not?
• 26:54
  Or, you know, what's your situation?
• 26:56
  And so I don't remember the exact details of it, but obviously we all chose to be there.
• 27:02
  And I feel like Canberra did happen while Possum was still fighting for his life in New Zealand.
• 27:07
  We ran on the flanks of the rear quarter panels doing it for Possum.
• 27:11
  And...
• 27:12
  We had a great rally results-wise while all that was going on.
• 27:17
  Rally Camber was a remembering Asia Pacific ground.
• 27:20
  You got a podium.
• 27:20
  Good timing.
• 27:22
  Cody won.
• 27:23
  I think Scotty Petter was ironically second and I was third, and that would have been an early day podium for me, particularly around that level of an event.
• 27:30
  So that's cool, but of course at the same token we've now lost or at that point we've got our leader suffering.
• 27:37
  And the thing, going back to the point I said before,
• 27:41
  Possum wasn't just the teammate.
• 27:43
  He ran the business and the operation, like, I think even months later when he'd passed.
• 27:47
  They'd go, what deal do we have with these?
• 27:50
  No one knew.
• 27:50
  He was just a handshake guy.
• 27:52
  And I really got to tip my hat to all the crew and particularly some of the key members like Kevin Sanderson who basically took that business on.
• 28:00
  And kept it going.
• 28:01
  Christine Possum's sister who was always involved in logistics and Barry Game and those people and Phil Rogers who was sort of team managing and things.
• 28:08
  So, yeah.
• 28:10
  That would have been tougher for them than for us, I feel like, to be working in and amongst and they all just rallied around.
• 28:17
  And, of course, Boston won in 2002 and in 2003, Cody wins the championship for that team and stuff.
• 28:23
  And then it got marked up in texture on the side, not doing it for Boston, done it for Boston.
• 28:28
  And I think...
• 28:31
  03 was transitioning for Cody and I anyway because Austin was starting to look in and around production world rallies.
• 28:37
  So I think he did forest rally from memory and then was going to bail out and almost let the two-car team go.
• 28:43
  So maybe there was enough confidence that Cody and I could do okay while he chased that.
• 28:46
  I don't remember the exact period of time there.
• 28:48
  So Cody and I have been...
• 28:50
  Yeah, because we've done a lot of drive days together and stuff like that.
• 28:53
  More than possible.
• 28:53
  Possum didn't really do the drive days in Australia.
• 28:55
  You know, Code and I were doing that.
• 28:57
  I remember having a conversation going, geez, Code, with Possum gone, we're going to have to fill that gap.
• 29:02
  Like he would push and make the engineering change.
• 29:04
  He would push to, you know, change the supplier.
• 29:07
  You know, we're now going to be expected to step up basically and try and help, you know, help the guys forge this team and continue on, you know, this era of this Group N series, et cetera.
• 29:18
  And, you know,
• 29:19
  I think we did that to good effect now looking in hindsight.
• 29:21
  And Cote and I have been good mates.
• 29:23
  That's why we probably beat me because we're too friendly, but forever, right up to, you know, he stayed at my place last year on a drive day stuff.
• 29:29
  So that is cool as well.
• 29:31
  I mean, I prefer to still be mates than enemies, et cetera.
• 29:34
  We were obviously competitive and on the stages.
• 29:37
  Did you have time to process the thing with Possum?
• 29:39
  What did that sort of effect have?
• 29:42
  I don't really remember.
• 29:43
  And like I said, I'm probably slightly removed from it being in Perth.
• 29:46
  And that's why I really think the guys and girls who suffered the most or who would have gone through a bigger part was people who had been with him for a long time.
• 29:53
  Like, I mean, Kevin Sanderson, for instance, and Ellie, his wife, to take that on, I think back now and go, wow, that's a real interruption to where they were.
• 30:01
  He was trying to phase out of being involved in rallying, let alone now grab this business and try and forge it forward.
• 30:06
  And you now think of the success they had and how they worked with Phil Rogers to make that work even in Asia Pacific and all sorts of stuff with Motor Image.
• 30:12
  because Kevin was servicing for Possum and doing stuff when Dad was running in the 90s.
• 30:17
  So it was those guys.
• 30:18
  They did more.
• 30:19
  I mean, Possum was a teammate and a bit of a mentor and also Nick.
• 30:24
  Nick at that point when I think about it, he's lost Roger Freeth in the accident in Rally Australia in like 1993.
• 30:31
  Yeah.
• 30:33
  or 92 and 93, and then to lose Boston.
• 30:37
  They were friends of Nick's, by the way.
• 30:38
  There wasn't just an association through doing sport.
• 30:42
  They were true friends.
• 30:43
  I don't know.
• 30:44
  I think statute of limitations has probably passed on this now.
• 30:49
  Within a year, this is a very lesser-known story that I think may be okay to share because we're big on safety in certain situations now and there's lots of process involved and so on.
• 31:01
  But there is a moment that must have given lots of people heart failure, and it involves kind of the three big names in blue here at that stage.
• 31:10
  You, Cody, and the emerging Chris Atkinson.
• 31:15
  I don't know what you can or can't share.
• 31:16
  This doesn't happen in an event, but it happens in the lead up, doesn't it?
• 31:21
  Yeah, sorry, Atko and Code for sharing this.
• 31:23
  I don't know.
• 31:24
  Maybe they shared it at a dinner party or something.
• 31:26
  We're testing as we did quite regularly.
• 31:28
  The team was based out of Melbourne, so I think we've gone to Wombat Forest.
• 31:32
  I don't know how far that away is now to test in the lead up for 04.
• 31:35
  So, you know, we talk about all that stuff from 03 and we're building some new cars, you know, the next year's version of 04 cars.
• 31:42
  Atko got invited to this.
• 31:43
  I mean, Atko is an opposition, you've got to remember, at the time.
• 31:45
  He's running his own team.
• 31:45
  He's this young emerging guy.
• 31:47
  They bought a pro-drive car out of the pro-drive group end car and they're going to be competing.
• 31:52
  And we're doing a test in the Wombat Forest and it was a one-way bit of road so you drive up and back and it was bunted off and, like you said, all the safety measures were taken.
• 32:00
  And I think we'd done a day and I think we put Chris on a road closure for a little bit.
• 32:05
  He didn't like that very much, I don't think, from memory.
• 32:07
  You go balsa back after an hour going, this is bullshit.
• 32:09
  I'm going to either drive or do something else.
• 32:12
  So we rock up the next day so the truck goes back there and we sort of just drop the bunting and stuff.
• 32:16
  And so you're setting up at the beginning of the day and Jeff Becker, who was there for the safety, had gone, right, we're going to go down.
• 32:22
  Dean will take me down in a row going out back and we'll meander down the hill talking like you and I would do, setting up the bunting, et cetera.
• 32:30
  Well, the team were getting stuff organised and we get down to the bottom, we put the bunting up and then what he and I didn't know at the time was there was obviously slight miscommunication at the top when the engineer, David Potter, has probably gone to code, oh, at some point before the end of the day, I want to try and get a video of the road.
• 32:46
  So I've got that for my notes.
• 32:47
  Like a GoPro.
• 32:48
  Yeah, and we weren't using an onboard camera for the test.
• 32:51
  So I think they literally grabbed David Potter's digital camera and Akko is going to just sit in the...
• 32:56
  Oh, we'll just do it now.
• 32:58
  Just get it done so you've got it.
• 32:59
  And so Atko's holding the camera up near the dash.
• 33:02
  Ko's driving along and he's, you know, okay, there's the right hander here, you know, just relaying the info from the engineer.
• 33:07
  So what they didn't know or they weren't advised of, and I don't remember the breakdown, I wasn't on that end, is that we're now technically on the same bit of road.
• 33:16
  Myself and Jeff Becker coming up and they're just in a road car as well.
• 33:18
  And as fate would have it, the probably worst corner, blind corner on the whole bit of stage we had was,
• 33:26
  We come across each other on the exit of it for me.
• 33:28
  You're going one way, they're going the other towards each other.
• 33:31
  And, of course, it's on camera because that goes filming it.
• 33:34
  And I think from the time you could see the glimmer of a headlight to the time that we were sort of impacted is less than a second.
• 33:42
  But you did both kind of take evasive action.
• 33:44
  Yeah, so Code was tucked up to the left-hand side.
• 33:46
  I mean, you just go into distinctive mode.
• 33:49
  I've managed to get the front swung across enough to the left on my side to get the front end past Code's front end, but that leaves my rear end hitting.
• 33:58
  So he's hit the rear right of my car and flicked me sideways into the trees on the outside of the corner, and I think broken trailing arms on my car, and he's impacted on the right-hand front of his.
• 34:09
  Enough that we could limp them back up to the top.
• 34:11
  They weren't stuck there and no airbags went off or anything like that.
• 34:14
  But that creates police explains, doesn't it?
• 34:16
  I mean, you think about it now and you go, God, can you imagine being management at Subaru?
• 34:22
  Getting a call like that.
• 34:22
  Getting a phone call to go.
• 34:23
  An incident's happened.
• 34:26
  Oh, who's involved?
• 34:26
  Oh, Cody.
• 34:27
  Who else?
• 34:28
  Yeah, Dean.
• 34:29
  Oh, Hacko.
• 34:31
  Who's the fourth?
• 34:32
  Oh, the safety officer.
• 34:33
  Jeff Becker.
• 34:34
  And, yeah, just one of those.
• 34:36
  And it was...
• 34:38
  It's probably embarrassing realistically that can happen and like you said, you put a lot of effort into those things and you learn from them but I don't think anybody knew.
• 34:48
  Like it was obviously there was some team members there and they obviously knew how important it was and they must have their own conversations on it.
• 34:54
  how that was going to be kept under wraps as it should have done.
• 34:57
  And, yeah, I'd reckon there's probably people listening right now that have never heard that story before.
• 35:01
  Yeah, so there was a head-on between, you know, Atko, Cove, myself and Jeff Becker in an outback.
• 35:07
  Glad you're all okay.
• 35:08
  There are, we should point out, that's 20 years ago, right?
• 35:11
  And there are very, very good measures around how days like that are run now, we should point out.
• 35:16
  So let's come back here to Glenn McNeil.
• 35:18
  GMAC is, you know, a constant in your competitive level.
• 35:21
  and business life.
• 35:23
  Toward the end here, I might be fast-forwarding a fraction here, he gets an opportunity with Chris Atkinson, doesn't he?
• 35:29
  I wasn't happy about it at the time.
• 35:31
  So this is the same year, 04, and clearly Atko's got pace.
• 35:34
  He's rocked in and he's fighting for the championship win, et cetera.
• 35:36
  With international aspirations, which we've talked about.
• 35:39
  Yeah, and I think I probably didn't know about what was potentially on the radar for him.
• 35:44
  I mean, and why would I?
• 35:45
  I mean, I'm doing my own thing, running in the team, et cetera.
• 35:48
  And, you know, I had a great season in 04.
• 35:50
  Like I said, won New Zealand, won Asia Pacific with Glenn.
• 35:53
  We probably weren't really in the championship fight.
• 35:55
  I actually assisted Code on the last round.
• 35:59
  I actually wedged between him and Atko on the first heat to give Cody a few more, a bit more buffer for coming in the last round.
• 36:06
  So I did a good team play act there.
• 36:08
  And remembering, of course, Chris dropped all his points for round one.
• 36:12
  He was probably fighting for the champion.
• 36:13
  He was clearly a class act.
• 36:15
  But leading into Rally Oz, which is the final rally of the year, I get a phone call from Glenn.
• 36:19
  I don't remember the exact details, but look, I'm going to be jumping.
• 36:21
  I think I'm going to have to bypass Rally Oz.
• 36:24
  I'm going to sit in with Chris.
• 36:25
  I'm like, you're kidding me.
• 36:27
  And this is doubly awkward because Chris's brother Ben had been co-driving for him at that stage too, hadn't he?
• 36:32
  Ben must have got his own phone call on that at some point.
• 36:34
  And I even half remember not being entirely happy about it and trying to probably bring Nick Senior up about it, who'd probably orchestrated the whole thing.
• 36:42
  So he's probably not really helping me too much.
• 36:45
  And look, ultimately time's time and I ended up getting Mark Stacey on board who of course was Possum's co-driver in the latter years and won a couple of titles and so it was the only rally that Stacey and I ever did.
• 36:56
  And we literally then, I think Code had some early problems and like we say, we had some of the best group end drivers in the world.
• 37:02
  So Atko, myself and whoever was in Rally AUSA that year for 04, we were battling it out and at one point I was leading, Atko had a few diff problems, we were backwards and forwards
• 37:15
  Chewing through some oil.
• 37:16
  It was breathing really heavy.
• 37:18
  Just to add a little thing here.
• 37:19
  Sorry, I'm diving in.
• 37:20
  Group N Full Stop is super competitive at this stage.
• 37:24
  Some awesome names in it.
• 37:25
  Yeah.
• 37:27
  Really impressive what you were all doing within that group of competitors.
• 37:31
  Yeah, if you go back to the entry list.
• 37:32
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:33
  And like I said, I think a proud thing that we could – and I also think whether it be our cars, clearly ACCO had bought a pro drive car and Rally Art Australia were doing their own thing.
• 37:44
  I think we produced some of the best group N cars in the world.
• 37:46
  Amazing.
• 37:47
  And they could battle anywhere out.
• 37:48
  And that's because our series was grouping as well.
• 37:50
  So remember, and we had support from STI and they built a great base car.
• 37:54
  So I cut you off there.
• 37:54
  Did you say it was breathing heavy or something was wrong with it?
• 37:56
  Yeah, so would you believe, I remember actually the WRC commentators coming up to me, I was literally tipping litres of oil in this thing on the ladder two-stage.
• 38:04
  Started breathing, I think, on probably Friday night super stage running.
• 38:08
  So I'd done a day at that point.
• 38:10
  It was okay or it might have even been Saturday night, started to blow.
• 38:13
  And so I was carrying, I think, 10 litres of oil in the car.
• 38:16
  And we were, you know, like it was 15Ks and you'd put in two litres and all that.
• 38:20
  And then anyway, we're still in the mix or podium.
• 38:23
  I think Chris might have just got back in front of us.
• 38:25
  But, you know, the last day was held at the Bunnings area or Satika or whatever it was called, you know, the famous Bunnings jumps.
• 38:30
  And I was okay on the 15K stages and...
• 38:33
  In hindsight now, probably should have pulled over.
• 38:35
  We had a 34K stage as the penultimate stage and, of course, didn't pull over and I think with about 7Ks to go, the engine expired.
• 38:43
  I mean, to pull over and try and put oil in the car was going to cost minutes and, you know, I could have finished it.
• 38:49
  I guess we were trying to win and you rolled the dice and here I am stuck about 7Ks short of the penultimate stage.
• 38:54
  Oh, nice.
• 38:55
  And like I said, because I think we're in the mix to win Group N and back up what we've done in New Zealand, that was pretty difficult.
• 39:01
  And I actually remember licking my wounds, stuck out there, engines gone, you know, stakes to bases, who knows, calling people through.
• 39:08
  And then just out of nowhere, I don't know how you guys used to do it, Channel 10, cameraman comes out of nowhere.
• 39:13
  Who turns up?
• 39:13
  Is it Smilesy or me?
• 39:14
  Who turned up?
• 39:15
  No, it was just the cameraman.
• 39:17
  But probably Scott Young's gone, well, Dino's at the end of how, God knows how you found us.
• 39:21
  I think he was just filming, you know, put into a part with his off-sider.
• 39:25
  I love it.
• 39:25
  So there was no commentator.
• 39:26
  So, of course, you know what's really weird about when that happens?
• 39:28
  They, of course, know to go, well, I've got to interview him now.
• 39:31
  I'm at the scene.
• 39:32
  But, of course, there's no reporter.
• 39:34
  No reporter.
• 39:34
  So I can't look at you, Rusty, and talk to you.
• 39:36
  So guess what he says?
• 39:38
  Just look at my colleague, Bob or whatever his name is, and Bob's bloody seven foot tall.
• 39:42
  So he says, and just look at his chest.
• 39:45
  Like, no, I'm going.
• 39:47
  I'm licking my wounds from this stuff and I'm now being told by the camera to go, act like you're talking to a Rusty or someone.
• 39:52
  And he's holding the mic and I'm literally looking at the seven-foot bob at his breast trying to, so how do you feel?
• 40:00
  Well, not flipping great at the moment, I can tell you.
• 40:03
  So anyway, yeah, so that was that.
• 40:05
  And then, look, the next thing that happens is in 05,
• 40:09
  The next year, clearly Glenn and Chris got an opportunity with the Subaru World Rally team.
• 40:14
  I have a little story about he was great at finding things, Scotty, like that.
• 40:18
  And I don't get to fly in helicopters all that often.
• 40:22
  But I got dispatched one year at WRC there.
• 40:24
  Someone had gone off big time.
• 40:26
  I'm trying to remember who it was.
• 40:28
  I reckon it was one of the Fords.
• 40:30
  Anyway, so two choppers land in a clearing in the middle of nowhere here.
• 40:37
  It must have been Ford's helicopter and the one that we were using.
• 40:41
  So I go down to do the interview and I turned around and I look back to the helicopters and
• 40:47
  And in all the noise and commotion and everything else, a brown snake had been rattled.
• 40:54
  And this thing sort of rose its head up and scooted between the two helicopters to try and get away from all the noise.
• 41:02
  And it was the biggest snake I've ever seen in my entire life.
• 41:05
  What I do know about you, Rusty, you do know my snakes.
• 41:08
  I hate snakes.
• 41:08
  I hate snakes.
• 41:09
  I reckon you were back in the chopper and gone, gone, done, done, done.
• 41:13
  Wins in China for you against some good names.
• 41:15
  What?
• 41:16
  Were you like teammates to some massive star up there or something like that?
• 41:20
  Oh, yeah, and I still don't recall his name now.
• 41:21
  I think he was a famous writer.
• 41:23
  Oh, was he?
• 41:24
  Yeah, and then he became a movie star.
• 41:26
  Look, I think he even became a teammate with Atko because Atko went to China a little bit and people like Moskett was co-driving over there.
• 41:31
  Yeah, mega.
• 41:31
  Like there was just – there's a lot of people in China full stop, but ultimately I've got some – yeah, for three years or four years of doing China, I reckon I had more stories –
• 41:41
  I want to prod you with one.
• 41:43
  It's a loaded question.
• 41:44
  I mean, you've been up around close to the Russian border and rallied in all these remote places there.
• 41:50
  In 2020, the world learns about lockdowns and learns about quarantine and learns because of the pandemic about all these things that we've never been confronted with before.
• 42:01
  Is it right to say that you are an early adopter...
• 42:06
  of quarantine.
• 42:07
  Yeah.
• 42:07
  And you have a story which happened years before we were even subjected to this.
• 42:12
  What happened?
• 42:13
  So for 12 years I was dining out on this story that everyone thought was fascinating until COVID hit and everyone's like, you can stick that up, you jumper, Dean.
• 42:19
  I've done way more than you've done.
• 42:20
  No, it's correct.
• 42:20
  No, it's correct.
• 42:21
  I was travelling up to China probably six, seven, eight times a year.
• 42:25
  And as part of that, my co-driver at the time, Chris Murphy, was from Queensland.
• 42:30
  I had Ben Jones, my engineer, was from New Zealand.
• 42:32
  So they'd fly out and we'd sort of all meet up, et cetera.
• 42:34
  And for this particular one, would you believe Tully Chalice, who's WA title winner and Malaysian rally champion, et cetera, and probably a friend, I guess, nowadays, was doing some media.
• 42:44
  He's a good at.
• 42:44
  filming and then doco.
• 42:45
  Yeah, he was coming to do a bit of a doco with us.
• 42:47
  So he's going to come up on this trip.
• 42:49
  So he and I travel together and we go via wherever we go to go to Beijing.
• 42:52
  Anyway, unbeknown to us, we do testing and, you know, Tully's filming and I'm with the boys and stuff and we do some, well, part of this, we've got half a day off, we'll go into Beijing City and film a bit of us walking around town and whatever else.
• 43:02
  Well, on the way back, I get a phone call from the team coordinator who says, where are you?
• 43:07
  And I said, well, we are running late.
• 43:08
  We're on our way back.
• 43:09
  He said, oh, hang on.
• 43:10
  The health department are here.
• 43:12
  I'm like, what?
• 43:13
  They said, apparently, you've been within two rows of someone who's been confirmed to have swine flu.
• 43:19
  On the plane.
• 43:20
  Yeah, because when we're landing in those years, it was like in China, stay seated, a heat gun coming through, big stat decks on where you're sitting, how you're feeling.
• 43:30
  You were getting thermal imaging as you were getting checked into hotels and all sorts of stuff.
• 43:33
  And I think it was off the back of when they had –
• 43:36
  something to do with another virus.
• 43:38
  They didn't do really well with it, et cetera.
• 43:41
  Like an avian flu or a churping flu or something.
• 43:43
  Yeah, like a bird flu or something.
• 43:43
  So they were really ramping up looking after this stuff.
• 43:45
  So if you were within three rows, you could have got it because you're on the plane.
• 43:49
  But China being China, they've gone –
• 43:52
  First of all, we're going to send you to the team hotel and what they basically did is go, right, I know all four of you have been travelling together but it's only Dean and Tolly who have been affected by this plane trip.
• 44:01
  So Ben, you hop out and Chris Murph, you hop out.
• 44:04
  That's crazy.
• 44:05
  They've been with you.
• 44:06
  But they're not being recalled in here.
• 44:09
  So before we arrive to the health department, we'll get those two out.
• 44:11
  We can save their bacon.
• 44:13
  And they literally put probably the most junior guy in the car with us from the team.
• 44:16
  We go, he was your driver all day.
• 44:19
  So when we rock up, it's like, oh, here they are.
• 44:22
  Where have they been all day?
• 44:23
  Oh, this is our driver and Tully and I have been together.
• 44:26
  Now, is this like a scene out of a movie?
• 44:27
  I don't know whether it's quite megaphone-like, but it's like, please hop out of the car.
• 44:31
  Yeah, it was, like hostage.
• 44:33
  No one was coming up and saying, hey, how are you going?
• 44:35
  Even the team threw their hands going, Dean, just go back up to your room and someone will be there shortly.
• 44:39
  They're like, what is going on here?
• 44:41
  So, I mean, we were lucky.
• 44:43
  I had a translator and stuff and they said, no, someone from the health of mine is going to come up to your room shortly.
• 44:48
  To recap, this is days before the event too.
• 44:50
  Like you're nearly.
• 44:51
  Yeah, so we're probably only three or so days away from running because we've done testing, et cetera.
• 44:55
  So they rock up, knock on the door, and I am met with a guy in a full hazmat suit.
• 45:01
  I'm like, what is going on here?
• 45:02
  He comes in, he's taking swabs, which now we all know is normal, et cetera, and then puts them in the little thing and you sign your name on it and everything else and then hands me my gear, which is all the same stuff, a hazmat suit, a mask, goggles, like goggles and all, and I'm going back on the blower.
• 45:19
  What are we supposed to do with this?
• 45:21
  They're telling us you need to put all that on and come downstairs.
• 45:26
  With luggage?
• 45:28
  Yep, you can bring luggage.
• 45:30
  Tully and I walk downstairs with our hazmat suits on, masks on, goggles on with our luggage and get ushered into the back of an ambulance.
• 45:37
  And this ambulance then is basically closed behind us, we're in the luggage, they take off and we're off back to Beijing City.
• 45:42
  And Tully thinks he's hit the jackpot from a doctor's standpoint.
• 45:45
  He's trying to secretly film.
• 45:46
  I think he's got a hole in his bag and he's trying to film.
• 45:48
  We don't know what's going on but he would have a vision somewhere of us in the back of the ambulance talking about it and, I mean, until we got, you know, you could sort of just see through a little window slit in the ambulance to go,
• 45:59
  Where are we now?
• 45:59
  Oh, we're at a toll booth.
• 46:00
  That's why we're stopping.
• 46:01
  And then we took off.
• 46:02
  No joke, the doors still open at the back.
• 46:04
  Oh, they thought you were trying to escape it.
• 46:06
  So we bang on the window going, mate, and they walk around going, why are the doors open?
• 46:10
  Oh, two guys, some bags.
• 46:11
  Well, they're still here.
• 46:12
  They close it up.
• 46:12
  Weird.
• 46:13
  But we ended up at a hotel that they had quarantined the whole hotel, the government.
• 46:18
  But just like we did in 2020.
• 46:19
  2020.
• 46:19
  They came and this was where you were going to quarantine for the next, well, it was seven days from the time you landed to the minute and at that point we'd been in the country for 48 hours.
• 46:27
  So TC and I spent five days in a Chinese hotel where you were literally confined to your room, you got tested morning, noon and night and they obviously kept an eye on your temperature and if you'd hit a certain spike you'd end up at a hospital.
• 46:41
  And even as part of that you were almost –
• 46:46
  The team worked really hard for 24 hours, I reckon, to try and get us out.
• 46:50
  God knows what they were trying to do, who deal, and which government agencies.
• 46:53
  But they couldn't do anything about it.
• 46:56
  And eventually, you know, I've got Skype or something at the time and I'm communicating through phone and stuff.
• 47:00
  They've gone, ultimately, we don't think we can get you out.
• 47:03
  Who should drive the car?
• 47:04
  Now, this freakishly, is Simon Evans inbound or something?
• 47:08
  Yeah, so Simon Evans had done a little bit in China.
• 47:11
  And so he's, because you've got to get a visa to get there.
• 47:13
  So you can't just sort of pop on a plane and be there 20 minutes.
• 47:15
  You have to put a visa in place.
• 47:16
  So Simon Evans is going there and they were talking about Japanese drivers and all sorts of stuff.
• 47:21
  So I think Simon was coming across to scout out, chat to some of the Mitsubishi teams, get a contact with FanFan over there.
• 47:26
  And, of course, they go, you're our guy.
• 47:28
  Let's use Simon Evans.
• 47:29
  Why wouldn't you?
• 47:30
  Yeah.
• 47:30
  Probably the worst round for our car, by the way.
• 47:33
  Okay.
• 47:33
  Subaru, not as powerful as the Mitsubishis on Yokohama tarmac tyres, and poor Simon gets thrown in the deep end in my car and probably comes P5 or something, quite good for the experience.
• 47:43
  Circumstances.
• 47:44
  Flies back to Australia, never to be seen again in China.
• 47:46
  I think, correct me if I'm wrong here, he'd flown out and you get let out in time for the post-event wrap party or something or other, do you?
• 47:52
  And my mum and her partner Malcolm were coming across to see me compete in China for the first time ever.
• 47:57
  And they literally land into Beijing with the, oh, Mrs. Herridge, you'll have to ring up your son.
• 48:02
  And I said, Mum, I'm in quarantine.
• 48:05
  So she's there.
• 48:05
  So my mum supported Simon Evers on a rally.
• 48:07
  Did she?
• 48:09
  And Murph co-driving because he was clearly clear and okay still.
• 48:13
  But, yeah, how surreal.
• 48:14
  Here we were feeling sorry for ourselves that we were stuck for five days.
• 48:17
  My inbox on my computer and files never looked so clean because you've got nothing else to do but to muck around and do that sort of stuff.
• 48:23
  And TC and I spent lots of time together, you know, shooting the breeze about all sorts of things.
• 48:28
  because the corridor was starting to fill up with other internationals who were clearly in the same situation as us.
• 48:33
  So every morning when you get knocked on the door, there'd be a couple of other bodies, you know, heads that you hadn't seen before sort of peering out the other side.
• 48:39
  Oh, where are you from?
• 48:40
  Oh, we're from the US.
• 48:41
  And some of them, you know, we were at our hotel and had our luggage.
• 48:45
  Some didn't even have their passports with them.
• 48:47
  They literally said, we're on a tour bus.
• 48:48
  The tour bus got pulled over and we'd been taken from the tour bus to here.
• 48:51
  Yeah.
• 48:52
  And then you're downstairs and you're starting to get to know the staff and the people serving you food.
• 48:57
  There was air that was going in but no air going out.
• 49:00
  They had it all taped up and stuff like that.
• 49:03
  And then you're down the bottom going, are you from the health department?
• 49:05
  They go, no, I'm the sales manager of the hotel.
• 49:07
  So they're stuck there too.
• 49:08
  They quarantined the whole hotel.
• 49:10
  So the government go, this is the hotel.
• 49:11
  I said, well, how long have you been here for?
• 49:13
  Oh, six months.
• 49:14
  So some of the staff in the hotel had been there for six months and hadn't seen their family.
• 49:18
  Right.
• 49:18
  Crazy.
• 49:19
  So we were on the air for five days, and they did not let us out until the one-minute strike of the hand, and then we had a Subaru rock up, pick us up, and took us to the arthropy, where I think most of the team were plastered after about two beers.
• 49:28
  So, yeah.
• 49:36
  That's the end of part two of my feature episode with Dean Herridge.
• 49:39
  Now, the convo is flowing, so we're going to do something that happens pretty rarely.
• 49:43
  There is a part three for you.
• 49:46
  Yes, fire it up when time permits.
• 49:49
  The 20-plus year association with Subaru and how it extends well beyond motorsport.
• 49:56
  A karting business project that his former co-driver, Glenn McNeil, has very cleverly driven.
• 50:02
  Working as a broadcaster on the sport he loves and a whole lot more right here on Rusty's Garage.