Latest / Rusty's Garage / Marty Craggill - Part 1

Transcript

Marty Craggill - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:10
I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
0:27
For this episode, I'm in the listener studios in Melbourne.
0:30
My guest has kindly swung by because in post-race life, he is busy on some major projects in the city here and at the airport at Tullamarine.
0:40
Marty Kragle is a former Australian superbike champion who also raced in the United States, and he made appearances aboard those amazing 500cc Grand Prix bikes too.
0:52
More on that shortly.
0:54
As you'll hear, he was steered in the direction of two wheels as a young fella, but family thought cycling was actually a better option.
1:02
Marty fell in love with bikes, that's for sure, but especially those with engines.
1:07
He was hooked, and Kragle wasn't afraid to take a punt with his finances to make it happen.
1:13
He backed himself.
1:14
That's a quality I admire.
1:16
That was then.
1:18
Now he is running an impressive business that in essence provides building solutions in all sorts of sectors.
1:25
The parallels with motorsport are uncanny.
1:28
As you'll hear, the University of Motor Racing has served him really well.
1:33
From the early life experiences with family and doing it tough...
1:37
to having his riding talent spotted by some big names and a well-documented crash with Phillip Island wildlife that affects him to this day.
1:47
How he got through the dark moments and the support framework he would like to see the sport get behind when the dream for a rider suddenly takes a massive turn.
1:58
Oh, and we'll tackle his nickname too.
2:00
What?
2:01
Mad eyes.
2:02
I can recall being on the grid with Marty in the 90s when we were both a bit younger from two plus four events in the Australian Touring Car Championship, the World Motorcycle Championship and a major Australia Day weekend event at Eastern Creek called the Triple Challenge.
2:19
Let's get into the convo.
2:22
Marty, welcome.
2:23
It's good to catch up with you again.
2:24
Thanks, Greg.
2:24
Great to be here.
2:25
Hey, I found in my photos, this is an audio medium, right?
2:31
But we'll do a little description here.
2:33
I reckon it's early to mid-90s.
2:39
I'm on the grid.
2:39
I've got no gray hair, unlike now.
2:42
You're in Shell Colors.
2:45
Yes, I do.
2:45
That's Eastern Creek, yes?
2:46
That is Eastern Creek.
2:47
City Motorsport Park there.
2:48
Yeah.
2:49
What are we talking then, mate?
2:50
I'm looking a little bit younger too.
2:53
And what are we talking?
2:55
Australian Superbike Championship?
2:56
No, that's 500.
2:56
Oh, there's two, mate.
2:57
There's two.
2:58
That's 500 GP.
2:59
Walker.
3:00
Eastern Creek, 95.
3:03
I was on the Shell bike.
3:05
That was...
3:07
Wayne Rainey's first foray back at the track and I was his rider after his accident.
3:14
He put a little team together with Shell and I rode the bike at Eastern Creek.
3:19
Mate, that's awesome.
3:20
It takes me back because I immediately thought of your superbike titles, which we'll get to, and I thought that's what it would have been.
3:26
I'm in a crook tie and a shirt.
3:28
God knows what I was doing.
3:29
Yeah, Shell was a serious sponsor for us in the superbikes and I was going pretty well and Shell
3:35
Yeah, put a deal together for me to ride a 500 at the GP.
3:41
Awesome.
3:42
Awesome.
3:42
I didn't finish, but I, yeah.
3:45
That's a big, big day.
3:46
That was, yeah, 100,000 people.
3:48
Yeah, it was huge, wasn't it?
3:49
Huge.
3:49
I can remember, is that the day, is that the day Dewan and Creville crashed?
3:54
That they hit each other.
3:55
Yeah.
3:55
Yeah.
3:57
It was a turn nine.
3:58
Turn nine.
3:59
Turn nine.
4:00
Mick had the blue with Alex.
4:02
I can remember.
4:03
That's famous.
4:04
It's famous.
4:05
I can remember going to try and interview him afterwards, and he was seething, absolutely seething in the Honda team.
4:13
It might have even been Jeremy Burgess and those guys said, hey, just give him space, give him time.
4:18
And-
4:20
you know, the Aussie organizers were hoping for him to be on the podium.
4:23
So we got him out for a special thing on the podium afterwards.
4:27
And I'll never forget the energy in the crowd that day.
4:30
It was a huge turn up of people there, wasn't it?
4:32
Yeah, he was.
4:32
So that's cool.
4:33
Mate, that is cool for you.
4:34
Can we come full circle in the discussion a little bit later and come back to this?
4:37
Absolutely.
4:38
We should tell the story for you.
4:41
What was the early connection to motorcycles?
4:43
How the heck did that all happen?
4:45
I was just a kid who grew up in the western suburbs near the airport, funnily enough.
4:49
Where you're working now.
4:50
More on that later.
4:51
Yeah.
4:53
My uncle was into bikes.
4:56
My dad was a professional cyclist.
4:58
He wanted me to ride push bikes.
5:00
Yep.
5:01
And I had no interest in that.
5:02
Are we talking long distance cycling, velodrome?
5:04
Velodrome.
5:05
Velodrome.
5:05
Okay.
5:06
And, yeah, with...
5:09
So my uncle sponsored Kenny Blake, who was a very famous road racer back in the day.
5:14
He got killed at the Isle of Man.
5:15
Yeah.
5:15
And I went to a couple of races with my dad and my uncle.
5:19
One of them was Laverton.
5:20
They had a big event there, another 100,000.
5:24
Crowd.
5:24
Crowd.
5:25
Um, Agostini was there.
5:27
Oh, fantastic.
5:28
And it was on the airfield at, um, Laverton.
5:30
Laverton.
5:31
Aerodrome.
5:31
How old is Marty Craig?
5:33
Oh, very young.
5:34
Yeah.
5:34
Yeah.
5:35
I was very young.
5:36
But it left vivid memories for you, did it?
5:38
Yeah, and I just, all my dad and my uncle and his mates, they were there to watch Kenny, and they had a bit of a truck set up and an awning and all this sort of stuff, and they were drinking beers and having a good time.
5:48
And I was just watching these guys have a great time, and we were there to watch Kenny, and I didn't.
5:54
And he won.
5:55
And I was hooked.
5:57
The sound, the smell.
5:58
The sound, the smell, and the speed.
6:00
And I'm like, oh, how good's this?
6:02
And I've just basically worked my butt off.
6:08
Come back before we...
6:10
What were your memories of Aggo?
6:11
Because, I mean, he's a proper legend.
6:14
There was 100,000 Italians that day at Labrador.
6:17
No, the whole of Melbourne Italian community was there.
6:20
And he, yeah, local bloke beat him.
6:24
Incredible.
6:24
And we were with him.
6:25
Yeah.
6:26
And that was, yeah, he was humble.
6:29
He, yeah.
6:29
Yeah.
6:31
Crazy.
6:31
I mean, he won all those titles.
6:33
He's still a damn good-looking fella to this day.
6:36
I think he's still got the record for the most wins.
6:39
Yeah.
6:40
Yeah.
6:40
And it's in the era that we now face or that we enjoy.
6:44
It's one that's unlikely to ever be beaten.
6:47
So, okay, you get this visceral thing that impacts you that you are then drawn to.
6:54
What's the next thing?
6:55
Is it like, get me a motocross bike?
6:57
What happens next?
6:58
Well, so dad...
7:00
buys me a push bike one christmas his second prize yeah and yeah i remember and then i'll get this cool bike and he's like oh you know go and race push bikes and like take it back i don't want it he's like he was shattered i like no i want a motorbike and he said well we can't afford a motorbike well i said well give me the money i'll go and get a couple of paper rounds and i'll
7:24
I want a motorbike dad.
7:25
So you were a worker, entrepreneurial kind of even then, were you?
7:28
Yeah.
7:28
I said, sorry, I don't want it.
7:30
And mum was like, you know, motorbikes are dangerous.
7:33
I said, well, I want a motorbike and let's just.
7:35
His goal, his goal was to get you where, mate, so sort of velodromes and potential Olympics or something.
7:42
Is that what he was?
7:42
Just velodromes.
7:43
He was, yeah, he was a pro, but he was.
7:47
you know, ended up being a laborer with four kids.
7:49
He didn't do very well out of it, but he made money as a young bloke.
7:53
Bloke?
7:53
Yeah, race and push bike.
7:54
Did you cobble together enough from paper runs or whatever to make this happen?
7:58
Yeah, yeah.
7:59
So, yeah, got it.
8:00
What was the bike?
8:01
It was a TY80, which was totally the worst bike I could have bought.
8:07
It was a trials bike, and I was running to race motocross, and I've…
8:12
You know, we had no idea and my uncle sort of set us straight and did a little bit of dirt bike, made him across as a kid and yeah.
8:19
Excellent.
8:20
That stopped and started a lot because of lack of money.
8:24
And then.
8:25
Were you good at school?
8:27
No.
8:27
Were you?
8:28
No.
8:28
What school did you go to?
8:29
I went to St Albans Tech.
8:30
Did you?
8:31
It was a tech school, so it was a trade school.
8:33
So it was very trade-based, which was good for me.
8:36
Ironically, it serves you well now, doesn't it, in later life, which we'll come to.
8:41
Yeah.
8:42
And then, yeah, just, yeah, became a boilermaker and a shipbuilder.
8:47
Yeah.
8:48
What were you working on?
8:49
Uh, building ships, repairing ships, which was really good for me as, you know, some discipline.
8:55
And we basically, you'd spend six months with the carpenter and six months with the Sparky, then six months with the plumber and you learned how to build a ship.
9:02
Yeah.
9:02
So I became, you know, a builder basically.
9:05
If you can build a ship, you can build anything.
9:07
You can build anything.
9:08
Yeah.
9:08
Even more so, cause it's gotta be watertight.
9:11
Mm-hmm.
9:12
But I had no interest in being a builder or a shipbuilder.
9:15
I just wanted to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week and buy motorbikes.
9:20
I was addicted at that stage.
9:21
At that stage.
9:21
Yeah.
9:22
So in order to fulfill that, how did it go from being sort of working, putting money in the bank, trying to buy bikes and so on to ultimately merging into something professional?
9:35
How did that happen?
9:36
How did that transpire?
9:38
I was racing motocross at a very low level.
9:43
off and on, and I injured my left knee quite badly.
9:48
I had it reconstructed three times, and I couldn't basically ride motocross anymore, and I had a couple of years off, and I got a bit depressed and sort of wasn't happy and all that sort of stuff.
10:01
How'd you get out of that?
10:03
That's a funk some racers face, mate.
10:05
Yeah, yeah.
10:06
We'll tell you a little bit more about that as we...
10:10
So then I...
10:13
decided to have a go at road racing because it wasn't so hard on your knee.
10:17
But I couldn't bend my left knee properly, but I could sort of put up with it.
10:20
Were the doctors saying, don't do this?
10:21
Or what were they, you know?
10:23
Not really.
10:23
No?
10:24
No.
10:25
Three recos is pretty decent.
10:26
Yeah.
10:27
And it got a lot worse after.
10:28
Anyway, so I had a go at road racing and I was really good at it.
10:35
And I was always good at motocross on the really fast stuff and dirt track on the fast stuff.
10:41
And I didn't, I hadn't picked up on that.
10:43
And then I went road racing.
10:45
I did a couple of road races on a 250 proddy at Winton.
10:49
And I was a, I was a, like I'm six foot two, but I was 104 kilos at the time.
10:53
And I was racing against Buster Saunders, who's legendary, legendary, you know, he'd be 50, 48, 50 kilos.
11:00
And after half a dozen races, I was racing with him, crashing all the time.
11:06
Anyway, one thing led to another and I thought, geez, am I right at this?
11:09
Okay.
11:10
So I took a massive punt and everyone thought I was absolutely crazy.
11:14
I was working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, all riding.
11:19
I was, you know.
11:21
That's all you did?
11:21
That's all I did.
11:22
And, you know, my mates are like, you know, what are you doing and all that sort of stuff.
11:26
I said, this is, I'm going to have a proper go of this.
11:29
So I went to the bank and I borrowed $45,000.
11:32
Oh.
11:34
That's a lot of money.
11:35
Back then it was a lot of money.
11:37
So I basically told him I was going to buy this, you know, super duper car.
11:41
And I had to, I had to work.
11:43
To justify.
11:43
To justify it.
11:45
And I told him I'm buying this, you know, car.
11:50
Plunged it.
11:51
Plunged, plunged.
11:52
I bought a TZ250 in 1990 and spare wheels and spare barrels and all the stuff that I needed because I'd learned a bit about what I needed.
12:03
You've posted a pic of that bike on your Facebook too, I reckon.
12:08
I went to the first national in Tasmania as a C grader and finished on the podium.
12:14
ran off the track half a dozen times and all, you know, crashed.
12:18
Simmons or Baskerville?
12:19
Baskerville.
12:19
Baskerville, yep.
12:22
And then basically by the third round of the championship, I'd gone through all my spare parts and I didn't know the thing, you know, had an ignition problem and I had to miss out on a couple of rounds because I ran out of money.
12:36
Then, yeah, my dad who had sort of,
12:40
Didn't want anything to do with it.
12:42
Sort of said, I'll give you some money to go to Queensland.
12:45
And he'd never been to a race.
12:47
And he came up and I did pretty well.
12:51
I think I think fourth or fifth.
12:54
And then we went to Eastern Creek for the last round, which was the first major race that Eastern Creek had just been built.
13:00
And I won.
13:02
Awesome.
13:02
Yeah, so that was, yeah, I was away.
13:04
Then a couple of people, Malcolm Campbell and Robbie Phyllis came to my van after the race and all that.
13:12
And then they gave me a few tips and had a couple of days on the bike with a couple of things that they'd said to me and we went to Phillip Island for the 250 GP.
13:22
Yep.
13:25
And I qualified really well.
13:30
I improved my previous lap time there by three seconds in qualifying.
13:36
I qualified really well.
13:37
I forget where I was, but I came back to my pit box.
13:39
I'll never forget it.
13:40
I came back to my pit box.
13:41
I knew I'd done a ripper lap and I came back to my pit box and I was one of the first pit boxes as up there, up the end where you come off, off the track.
13:52
And my pit box was full of Kenny Roberts, Malcolm Campbell, Robbie Phillips, Peter Doyle, Greg Hansford.
14:01
Like legends.
14:03
Yeah.
14:03
And then I'm like, I did all right.
14:08
Jeffrey Sale was there and they're like the guys that I was racing with were there, you know, and they go on.
14:15
What you had done.
14:15
What, what I've done.
14:16
Yeah.
14:17
Yeah.
14:17
And I, I'm like, yeah, this is cool.
14:20
And then Kenny Roberts started talking to me and.
14:25
Anyway, long story short, I raced on the Sunday, got into the top 10, and I'll never forget it.
14:31
Darryl Beattie was riding a 250 that day as well.
14:34
He was at the front.
14:35
He was on the NSR 250.
14:37
Those things were just jets.
14:38
And Darryl was obviously very good.
14:40
Kaczynski was the man.
14:43
And I got up to about 10th.
14:47
And I, it was a, it was a, um, Mexican wave.
14:53
It was, it was.
14:55
The fans were reacting, were they?
14:57
Yes, to me.
14:57
I was 10th and I was coming past and they were just.
15:01
Because it was David.
15:01
Australians love that stuff, mate.
15:03
David and Goliath stuff.
15:04
You are fighting with, with a, with a machine that's not.
15:07
And I got up into the top 10 and I was watching the crowd.
15:11
I could see they were, as I was going past, they were standing.
15:15
And anyway.
15:15
You're feeding off that, mate.
15:16
You can feel that.
15:17
Yeah, you can feel it for sure.
15:18
Yeah.
15:19
And anyway, the bloody bike stopped.
15:21
The clutch fried.
15:22
Because I was actually riding it like a motocross bike.
15:24
I was clutching it.
15:25
Okay.
15:26
And I fried the clutch.
15:27
Okay.
15:29
You've triggered a couple of things in me.
15:31
This has immediately made me want to ask a couple of questions.
15:33
Firstly, I reckon I've been on the beers with Buster Saunders in a pub in Wangaratta.
15:37
That's a story for another time.
15:40
Firstly, the dirt track and motocross skill set does serve you well in road racing.
15:46
I mean, you often hear Wayne Gardner and others talk about...
15:49
how good that is from an Australian, even now, an Australian foundation standpoint.
15:55
How does it help you as a rider?
15:57
What does it do?
15:58
Is it a feel thing?
15:59
What does it do?
16:01
You get used to the bike moving around.
16:03
Yeah.
16:03
And I was always the guy, even now, always thinking a little bit out of the box.
16:08
The guys, there was nobody who was really any good at road racing from Victoria.
16:14
I was the only one back then.
16:16
Everyone who was...
16:18
Mick, Darrell.
16:19
Queensland.
16:20
They're all Sydney, Queensland.
16:21
Even now you go back to, they're all Sydney, Queenslanders.
16:24
Wollongong.
16:24
Yeah, but all the tracks are in Melbourne.
16:26
It was weird.
16:27
So I could ride at Calder Park or Winton.
16:30
Yeah.
16:32
But in the early days, I was going to Sydney a lot and riding dirt track on oil to try and learn how to get those skills.
16:40
Because I was going, these guys have got a different skill set.
16:43
And I was pretty good at dirt track.
16:46
So I would travel and chase it.
16:48
I was...
16:50
Had no idea about setup, had to ride on the oil and all that, but I, you know, I picked it up pretty quick and I did, I did pretty well.
16:57
Ended up racing against Anthony Gobert, who was a really good motocross dirt tracker and I could run with him straight away.
17:03
And I'm like, I've got to get my act together here.
17:07
I've got a good opportunity.
17:09
And then I was sort of the trailblazer with guys leaving Melbourne, going to Sydney to dirt track.
17:15
And in the early 90s, if you looked at the 500s, they were all, the Australians were dirt bike riders or dirt trackers and the Americans.
17:25
There wasn't many Europeans in the 500s.
17:27
It was mainly...
17:29
Americans and Aussies.
17:30
And Aussies.
17:31
Yeah.
17:32
And that was their track.
17:33
So you said before, I mean, you quite rightly point out in a description sense, you're tall, you know, you probably carried more weight then than you do now and so on.
17:41
If you look at the current crop of like MotoGP riders, that is the antithesis, Marty, of what you really need, isn't it?
17:49
So did people sort of say to you, hey, I'm glad you're enjoying it, but you're not built for this, you know, like, you know.
17:55
My uncle, who we were talking about earlier, who was Kenny Blake's sponsor at one point, he said to me as a kid, he said, you're never going to be a road racer, mate.
18:02
Get over it.
18:03
Really?
18:04
Yeah.
18:04
I was shattered.
18:06
You're too tall.
18:07
You can't do it.
18:08
And I took that.
18:11
Wanted to prove him wrong.
18:12
Yeah.
18:15
This does filter through in the podcast, Marty, with a couple of people.
18:18
I think Greg Murphy, the four-time Bathspinner, he had a similar thing at school where a teacher said, hey –
18:24
You know, you need to forget this stuff and focus on something here kind of deal.
18:28
So a few people do go through that at times.
18:30
It does motivate them.
18:31
Bring people back to that wonderful thing in qualifying where you've come back into pit lane, first garage there as you come off.
18:40
the entry road off that final turn and so on.
18:42
And there's this group of people, right?
18:45
Like you rattled off some, in the motorcycling community, some really good people.
18:49
And they're all there.
18:50
Yeah.
18:51
What were they saying?
18:53
When you got off the bike?
18:53
Awesome.
18:54
And yeah, I could get emotional talking about it.
18:56
It was unreal.
18:59
And was it because you were...
19:01
on this bike that they knew wasn't necessarily capable of being a front-running machine, and here you were doing something that was pretty significant.
19:12
Yeah, I rode the wheels off it.
19:13
I was sliding the front and the back, and I didn't have the bike or the tyres.
19:18
I was me and my dad operating at the back of a van, and Kenny Roberts came over and looked at the bike and looked at our setup and sat there for hours and said, oh, we're
19:30
give you a go on a 500, because you're too tall, but we'll give you a try.
19:35
Hell.
19:36
Yeah.
19:37
And he used Greg Hansford as an analogy because Greg was racing with him and Greg was quite tall as well.
19:44
Yep.
19:46
So Harry was the yardstick mate, so he knew that if you had a similar kind of style or traits to him.
19:51
Yeah.
19:52
And also Hansford was,
19:58
my idol, I suppose you would say.
20:00
I watched Harry as a kid at Calder Park, you know, I too, and I became a green guy as well.
20:05
Did you?
20:05
I think because of that.
20:06
Of that, yeah.
20:07
Yeah.
20:07
He was a Kawasaki guy, wasn't he?
20:09
Yeah, he was awesome.
20:10
Yeah.
20:10
Great guy, much missed in many ways.
20:13
And he was...
20:14
Kind of in – modern era is not the right word for it, but in the names that followed, he was sort of the early trailblazer, one of the early trailblazers for us, wasn't he?
20:26
He was really good.
20:28
So did you get that test that Kenny promised you?
20:30
Yeah, I had a ride on a 500.
20:33
Where at?
20:34
At Phillip Island.
20:35
Yeah.
20:36
Nothing come of it.
20:38
That blow your mind?
20:39
I mean, you've had this rapid rise in road racing terms.
20:43
I ended up riding a Honda, a 250 Honda the following year for Malcolm Campbell, which was unusual to be riding for another rider.
20:51
And that didn't work out well at all.
20:53
I got the sack halfway through the next season.
20:55
Okay.
20:57
Come back.
20:57
Come back.
20:57
We'll go to the sacking in a second.
20:59
Yeah.
21:00
What was that first impression when you rode out of Phillip Island on a 500?
21:04
What did you think?
21:04
Oh, it was awesome.
21:06
I can just remember the horsepower.
21:09
Was it brutal?
21:10
It was brutal.
21:11
Yeah?
21:11
Absolutely brutal.
21:12
Yeah.
21:13
Those two strokes sort of had a reputation, didn't they?
21:15
Yeah.
21:17
I didn't get to ride it a lot.
21:19
I only did a day on it and it was just the, you know, the bike that they had hanging around at a test.
21:24
But we were, I was used to riding a CR500 on dirt track that had 70 horsepower.
21:30
So I sort of could pick up riding it relatively, you know, quickly, but I didn't really.
21:38
Yeah, I didn't really have a proper go at it.
21:40
That's the type of thing you need to spend.
21:43
Time.
21:44
That was, yeah.
21:45
You just felt like you're going to get thrown out of the seat.
21:47
I rode a 500 a few times after that, but.
21:51
Did you have any wild moments in that first ride?
21:53
Yeah.
21:53
Did you?
21:53
Yeah.
21:54
Like where?
21:55
At a Honda mainly.
21:56
Uh-huh.
21:56
Yeah, because we.
21:57
Yeah, all or nothing sort of thing.
22:00
Yeah.
22:00
And I was being a dirt bike rider using the clutch to.
22:04
So, so tell when you, when you fried the clutch in that race that you talked about before, what we just explained to people that may not be two wheel listeners, what you were doing wrong and what you learned out of, out of that when you fried the clutch.
22:17
Because you said you were motocrossing it.
22:18
Yes, yeah, just basically feathering the clutch to try and get it going a little bit better out of the slow corners, which is not...
22:28
I was down on power a little bit, maybe a bit too heavy, and just a habit.
22:32
And, yeah, I fried the clutch and pulled over to the side and that was it.
22:38
Watched the race from the side with my bloody hands, had my hands.
22:43
Yeah, that was...
22:46
Not good, but anyway.
22:47
But that bike, though, as I said, you've shared it on your social media over time and so on.
22:53
That was a special thing in where you would ultimately kind of go, wasn't it, that machine?
22:59
It was, yeah.
23:00
And learnt a lot and ended up – I'm glad I did it.
23:06
I was –
23:08
Well, I borrowed all that money.
23:09
I didn't want to be a guy to get to the age of where I am now and go, Sitting on the front porch going, shoulda.
23:14
I don't know why I shoulda, shoulda, woulda, coulda.
23:16
And I, it's turned out okay.
23:19
I learned a lot from racing.
23:22
And how'd you go with the – because you and your dad, as you said at one point, you know, trekking around, how'd you go on the mechanical side with maintenance and work and how'd you go with all that?
23:32
Learned a lot.
23:32
Had to just learn on the spot.
23:34
My dad was –
23:38
sort of mechanically minded a little bit, but my uncle was pretty good at just learning.
23:43
I always gravitated towards people who've got mentored, always somebody a bit older, always had an older girlfriend, always had older mates, always looking for somebody to learn off and I'm still the same.
23:54
Okay.
23:54
Yeah.
23:55
Rather than out late night with crazy young blokes doing silly things.
23:59
No, we all had to be here, but always trying to, I've got good mentors now.
24:05
I've always been around people.
24:06
I've always been mentored.
24:17
One of the people who inspired a generation of Aussie riders was the Wollongong whiz, Wayne Gardner.
24:23
In his episode with Rusty, WG vividly recalls riding a 500cc bike for the first time.
24:30
And I went, Jesus, these things are fast, you know, and they stop on a dime too because they're light.
24:36
And I went, this is amazing, the thrill, the thrill of something that's got, you know, two horsepower per kilo.
24:45
Don't forget, think about that.
24:46
Per kilo of the bike and the rider together, you had two horsepower per kilo.
24:52
So, in other words, it's a bit like driving a car that's,
24:55
you know, call it 2,000 kilos, we'll call it average, that's like having 4,000 horsepower.
25:04
They are brave, those riders, and nothing in post-race life can come close to that buzz.
25:09
From the wisdom at eyes, more from Marty Kragle now with Rusty.
25:15
You mentioned Malcolm Campbell, I mean, another guy in the Australian two-wheel scene that is enormously respected as a racer.
25:24
So you said you ended up riding for him, which is good.
25:27
What happened there and why did that not pan out?
25:30
Why did you?
25:31
I was pretty much the only Honda in the field.
25:33
Honda wanted to promote their bike.
25:35
So they supported Malcolm.
25:37
He was their guy.
25:38
He was the Australian Superbike Champion on a Honda.
25:43
So he put a deal together with Honda and I rode for him, but I still hadn't got to the point where I knew enough about the bike and how to set it up.
25:52
So you feel like you were there too soon almost or in growth terms or crazy?
25:56
Yeah, it happened too quickly and I wasn't ready for it.
25:59
And I shouldn't have been on a 250.
26:00
I was way too tall.
26:04
And they'd tuned the bike and I hadn't picked up on, because it had been modified before I even got on it.
26:10
So I didn't get to ride it as a standard bike.
26:14
So after a couple of races, I was gone from winning and being, you know, at the front.
26:21
Yep.
26:22
I was struggling to finish in the top 10.
26:24
Sugar.
26:24
And then Honda's going, what?
26:26
So I got the sack pretty much and replaced by another guy.
26:31
How'd you take that?
26:32
Not well.
26:33
No.
26:34
Oh, yeah.
26:34
I was.
26:36
devastated is an understatement.
26:38
Are you saying if you understood the tuning and the way the bike, what it was capable of, you may have modified how you went about racing it and so on, that would have had a different result or not?
26:49
If I had have known what I know, a couple, it even took me five years later still to figure out what happened.
26:54
I couldn't, I was devastated.
26:56
I was always what the heck.
26:57
Hmm.
26:57
Hell happened there.
26:58
Hmm.
26:59
Um, and it came out later that, that, you know.
27:02
Yep.
27:03
They told me that they'd made a mistake and they'd modified the bike in the wrong way.
27:08
And they picked up on it.
27:09
Later.
27:09
And started again with the new guy and he, he did okay.
27:14
Mm-hmm.
27:14
Um.
27:16
So how'd you rebound, how'd you rebound from that?
27:18
Because when that happens and, and, uh, you know, you've had a rapid trajectory, you've got a great opportunity there, obviously, and you still want to keep going with it.
27:26
What'd you do?
27:27
That, they gave me a shitty old super bike that I basically rebuilt myself and did a couple of races with me and that again.
27:38
So it was a setback, mate?
27:41
Oh, major, major.
27:42
Oh, yeah, major.
27:43
Um.
27:45
Did okay again on a super bike.
27:46
That was just something I put together with myself, me and dad back in the van again.
27:51
And the bike was not competitive.
27:53
It was, but I, yeah, I always knew that I could ride a bike.
27:57
I never had any trouble with the speed.
27:59
Never at all.
28:02
My biggest problem was always fitness.
28:05
So then Peter Doyle said to me, we'll help you out.
28:11
He was running Kawasaki Australia at the time.
28:13
He said, we'll help you out with basically just a stock road bike and we'll give you some bits and pieces and see how you go.
28:21
That was for...
28:23
92.
28:23
I was going to say early 90s.
28:25
Yeah.
28:25
So, I mean, you talk mentors.
28:27
There's a great, great example right there.
28:29
So current CEO of Motorcycling Australia has done great things on the American scene and so on.
28:35
Terrific bloke.
28:36
Terrific bloke.
28:37
So he kind of gets that started for you.
28:40
But was it the advice and other things from him that you really benefited from that?
28:45
Oh, absolutely.
28:46
Yeah, going back to the first race on the TZ at Tasmania, I qualified on the front row as a C grader.
28:56
And after that, Peter Doyle came up to me and I was, you know, 90 kilos.
29:01
And he's like,
29:03
How are you doing?
29:04
How are you going?
29:06
So I got to know him a little bit with the story we just told about Eastern Creek and Phillip Island.
29:11
And then he'd seen what had happened with me and Honda.
29:14
And he was awesome.
29:18
I'm still good friends with him now.
29:19
Yeah.
29:20
And he's taught me a lot.
29:22
Yeah.
29:24
He's dad as well, Neville Doyle, which people probably don't remember the story with him and Greg Hansford and what they did in the World Championship tournament.
29:32
Together.
29:33
Together, which was incredible.
29:36
From an Australian point of view, people just traveling the world and kicking ass.
29:43
It would have been so hard back then.
29:46
So I had Neville helping me.
29:48
I had giving me a little bit of advice.
29:49
I had Greg Hansford.
29:50
I had Peter Doyle just giving me little snippets.
29:56
I was always looking for...
29:59
I built my own bike and I got involved with a guy, Paul Hallam, who is probably one of Australia's best tuners.
30:06
Yes.
30:06
He's not with us anymore.
30:08
His dad was Frank Hallam that built the Repco Brabham that won the World Formula One Championship.
30:13
Amazing.
30:15
The people that I've been around is just incredible.
30:17
Incredible.
30:17
You love soaking those stories up too when you get going, don't you, mate?
30:20
Yeah.
30:21
But these guys were...
30:23
gods.
30:24
They could, Frank Allen built an engine that was one of the best in the world and didn't leave Australia.
30:32
Peter Doyle was, you know, son of a legend and he's teaching me.
30:37
I was very lucky.
30:37
In 92, I did really well.
30:41
Um, top 10 a few times in a big, very competitive field, competitive field.
30:50
There was tobacco sponsorship.
30:52
You had, you know,
30:54
Malcolm Campbell, Robbie Phyllis, Michael Dowson, tobacco sponsorship with Marlboro.
31:01
Great names, mate.
31:03
Great, great names.
31:04
Winfield and Peter Jackson and Rothmans.
31:06
There was plenty of money around.
31:07
We were racing with the touring cars in the early 90s every now and then, so big crowds.
31:16
And then in 93, Peter gave me a little bit more support
31:21
What's the bike you're on here?
31:22
Tell people the bike you're on.
31:23
Kawasaki ZXR 750.
31:24
Yep.
31:26
Still a privateer in 93, but the first race of 93, we went to the Winfield Triple Challenge, which was- Eastern Creek.
31:35
Eastern Creek.
31:35
It was huge.
31:36
Straight a day long weekend.
31:37
Yeah.
31:37
It was a really cool event that, because it brought everything together, mate, didn't it?
31:41
There was drag racing, bikes, touring cars, and then often a bit of crossover with some of those things and other categories as well.
31:49
It was a very, very cool race meeting.
31:51
Yeah.
31:52
And back to me and that in a van again.
31:56
Against all the, there was 10 factory bikes.
32:00
Everyone had, all the manufacturers had a factory team.
32:04
And I finished third, me and dad in a van.
32:08
Crazy.
32:09
Yeah.
32:09
And yeah, I remember battling with Dowson.
32:12
Oh, I can't believe I'm riding around with this bloke.
32:14
Yeah, yeah.
32:16
Um, a couple of days after that event, we went to Phillip Island for a Kawasaki test, which was an international test with Kawasaki, France and Japan.
32:26
Awesome.
32:28
Americans and Italians and every, all the Kawasaki factory teams are at Phillip Island for four days.
32:34
And on the, on the fourth day at the, after lunch, I hit a, I hit a bird, uh, Pacific gull of 300 kilometers an hour.
32:43
And that basically, that's, that's the bird story that everyone knows about.
32:47
Yeah.
32:48
Yeah.
32:48
And, um, 4th of February, uh, 1993 at about 2 PM, pretty memorable moment.
32:57
I, I,
32:58
uh, what got ripped off the back of the bike.
33:02
Just flung.
33:03
Flung.
33:03
I, I, I, during lunchtime on the day, I was talking to Scott Russell because it had been wet in the morning and he was the world champion.
33:12
He was the man.
33:13
I got along with him pretty well.
33:15
I said, Hey Scotty, can you give us a tow after lunch?
33:17
If it dries up, we had these tires that lasted one lap and I was, I was doing pretty well.
33:21
He said, yeah, I'll give you a taste.
33:22
So we rolled out of pit lane.
33:25
And as we rolled out, there was these two birds on the side of the track.
33:29
And I thought, oh.
33:33
So you banked that in your memory.
33:34
Yes.
33:35
I thought, oh, shit, imagine if you hit those.
33:37
Hit those.
33:38
Anyway, concentrate and get into it.
33:41
And they flew off.
33:42
We spooked them.
33:43
Yep.
33:45
Well, we've got one lap to warm up, and I'm sitting a metre off his duck tail.
33:51
Well, then the next flying laps we've completed, the birds had come back.
33:56
And I'm just looking at...
33:58
So you can see this like at your helmet, 300k an hour, and you'd notice they're there.
34:03
No, I didn't notice the birds.
34:04
I noticed, the only time I noticed them as we rolled out of the pit lane and we spooked them.
34:07
I thought you'd seen them again.
34:08
Okay.
34:08
Yeah, I hadn't seen them again other than, I didn't see them.
34:11
When I hit it, I didn't see it.
34:12
So I was looking, I was, I'd kept up with him and I'd...
34:17
Just as you go under the bridge and you start to go down the hill into one, he just turned hard right and the bird, he just missed the bird and it got sucked into the draft where I was.
34:28
And I… Flung straight into you.
34:30
So it hit me in the shoulder and I got ripped off the back.
34:34
I don't know what happened.
34:35
I can't remember.
34:36
I was out to it.
34:37
And I wake up down at turn three in the paddock, like 500 metres away.
34:42
So I don't know what happened in between.
34:45
I was a rag doll.
34:46
Yep.
34:48
So I didn't realize it was like a Monty Python sort of moment.
34:55
My arm was around my back and over my shoulder.
34:58
My hand was hanging over my opposite shoulder.
35:01
Which hand?
35:02
Right hand?
35:04
My right hand was over here on my left.
35:08
My shoulder was around my back and my arm was over here.
35:11
And because I had nerve damage, I couldn't feel it.
35:15
My mouth was full of rocks and I'd broken my teeth and my nose and my leg.
35:20
And I went to get up and as I went to get up, I fell down again.
35:24
Not computing.
35:27
No, I didn't realize that my arm wasn't there.
35:30
It was over there.
35:33
And there was no pain because I'd damaged, had nerve damage.
35:38
And Aaron Sly turned up.
35:40
He beat the ambulance there.
35:42
And he's like, you all right?
35:43
You all right?
35:44
And I'm like, yeah, I'm all right.
35:46
I was pretty screwed up.
35:48
And I'm like, yeah, but where's my arm?
35:51
In no uncertain terms.
35:53
He goes, no, no, it's all right.
35:54
It's there.
35:54
And he pulled it up from the opposite side.
35:58
Yeah, and I was out to it.
36:02
Woke up in the ambulance and...
36:04
And what happens next, mate?
36:05
That's a decent road to recovery from what you've just described.
36:08
Yeah, I was paralyzed.
36:09
My left arm, my right arm was paralyzed.
36:10
So basically for a year, my left arm put my right arm in my pocket for a year.
36:15
It was paralyzed.
36:16
They said I'll never ride again.
36:17
That was pretty hard to deal with.
36:23
That screws you up.
36:25
How did you deal with that?
36:27
Not well, yeah.
36:29
having dreams about having an arm that works and waking up in the middle of the night telling your parents, my arm doesn't move, moved.
36:36
And they're going, your arm didn't move, mate.
36:38
Get used to it.
36:38
It's like phantom.
36:40
Yeah.
36:41
Yeah.
36:41
Phantom.
36:42
Um, and I'm like, nah, it twitched and like it didn't twitch.
36:45
And then a couple of months later it twitched during the day and I'm like, it twitched and like, cause you have a lot of microsurgery, but the surgeon will go.
36:53
we just joined a hundred wires together.
36:56
They're not color-coded.
36:57
We don't know if this is going to work.
36:58
It's going to...
37:00
So a lot of steroids.
37:02
I'm going to the gym twice a day, trying to... Kickstart it.
37:05
Kickstart it and moving it with my other arm, trying to get it to go and all this stuff.
37:11
And it's still not right.
37:12
It's pretty...
37:13
It was... What are you limited with now?
37:16
You just raised your hand and said it's still not right.
37:18
Yeah, well, I can show you.
37:19
It's...
37:22
So it's all distorted.
37:24
Okay.
37:24
I was, it was, yeah.
37:28
It's okay for business and typing emails though, isn't it?
37:31
Which is good.
37:32
There's plenty of photos of me in America walking around with an ice pack on my right arm.
37:35
I never told anyone how bad it was, but yeah, it was.
37:38
And how long you had to battle with it beyond this moment.
37:41
Yeah, I was never the same.
37:42
I won a championship, Australian Superbike Championships.
37:46
Yeah, but I was riding with one and a half arms.
37:48
Crazy, mate.
37:55
That's the end of part one of my podcast with former Australian superbike champion Marty Kragle.
38:00
Despite some text messages creeping through because of the busy business he's in, Marty kindly stuck around for a part two.
38:07
We've filled the tank and it's in the library for you to enjoy whenever you're ready.
38:11
From the origins of his nickname to the bike that he's kept from his race days that he's about to throw the leg over once again.
38:19
That's happening very soon too.
38:21
and how difficult the crash you have just heard about was mentally.
38:26
They breed him tough in motorcycle racing, but he's keen to see a support system for others when they're confronted with a similar set of circumstances.
38:35
All that and more here on Rusty's Garage.