Latest / Rusty's Garage / Jack Perkins - Part 1

Transcript

Jack Perkins - Part 1 · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:17
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:23
  I'm Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  For this episode, I'm on location at the workshop where my guest lovingly restores some very special race cars with the kind of attention to detail that words and voiceover don't really describe well enough.
• 0:40
  Jack Perkins intimately knows the legendary cars his famous dad, Larry, built and raced over the years and has brought several of them back to brand new.
• 0:50
  He's also raced successfully himself and has turned his hand to broadcasting too with colleagues
• 0:55
  at Channel 10 a few years back, and these days with the Seven Network, covering the Bathurst 1000 and much more.
• 1:03
  He's even hosted some great old races from the vault, even though some of them were before he was even born.
• 1:09
  But he's watched them.
• 1:11
  countless times as you'll hear he basically grew up at the racetrack hung out with the commentators including the legendary barry sheen who had a soft spot for him jack badgered lp for a cart for years and did the hard yards learning to prep and maintain so he understood what they were doing underneath him to have a connection with them that helps when you drive them at the limit
• 1:36
  He also learned to hustle to find ways to pay for it and discovered ambush marketing at a very young age.
• 1:43
  Jack is a proud dad these days too and he's a champion of living and racing with diabetes.
• 1:50
  He has really changed the landscape on this through dedication and research and working with the sport so it was treated seriously but not a kind of barrier like it used to be.
• 2:03
  More on that later.
• 2:04
  I really enjoyed this chat, particularly some of the detail around the family racing history and his grandfather's racing exploits, escaping to the farm and how Jack has preserved an industry icon, Perkins Engineering.
• 2:19
  There's also a bit of chat dedicated to LP's time in F1, but we begin by talking about podcasts and how Jack helped a mate here at Listener think seriously about diving in.
• 2:34
  Hey, welcome.
• 2:35
  It is good to finally get you on.
• 2:37
  It has been nearly 10 years since you and your dad did an ep of the Howie Games, also on Listener, 2016.
• 2:44
  I couldn't believe it.
• 2:45
  You were ep 7, recorded in the lead up to Bathurst, so 7, maybe a little bit of synergy there.
• 2:51
  Am I right in saying a pot, a palmer, a pub somewhere, you, LP and Howie, and Howie sort of has this epiphany of like, shit, these stories are too good.
• 3:02
  I have to do something here.
• 3:04
  It was a bit of the genesis of Howie Games, wasn't it?
• 3:06
  Yeah.
• 3:07
  And g'day, Rusty, obviously.
• 3:08
  But it was.
• 3:09
  It was funny.
• 3:10
  We were there doing a story for – up at the farm, he's there, sorry, doing a story for Channel 10 for the Bathurst coverage.
• 3:18
  And we were at the pub having a feed and Dad was just telling stories about Europe and whatnot.
• 3:25
  And I didn't know at the time, obviously, but Howie just – like you say, he just felt like those stories needed to be told and that there would
• 3:31
  preserved.
• 3:31
  Yeah, and there'd be millions of those stories for different sports people, athletes, artists, whatever, and I won't say it's the complete brainchild of the Howie Games because I can't take credit for that, but I think it's certainly helped kick Howie along to get it happening, and then he got Dad and myself on there.
• 3:47
  I think it was more me to help egg Dad along to tell a few stories because I don't think there's been many Howie Games with two guests at once, so...
• 3:54
  But, yeah, I mean, Howie's – Howie games, like your podcast, Rusty, I listen to both of them and they are good stories, good chats and good yarns.
• 4:01
  Thank you, mate.
• 4:02
  I love the fact that you have certainly helped with what is a great success story and what Howie's doing now.
• 4:08
  And I love just the essence of what you said before about preserving the story, right?
• 4:12
  So let's kind of look generationally here, right?
• 4:14
  But, yeah, I mean, how he's –
• 4:16
  Where we're recording, you've kept a bit of really important family memorabilia, right?
• 4:20
  Let's start with your granddad, with Eddie.
• 4:24
  He played a significant part in the Perkins Racing Dynasty.
• 4:28
  Some of the pictures you've shown me from newspaper clippings and so on here, we're talking hill climbs in the early 50s.
• 4:34
  There is round Australia stuff too, isn't there?
• 4:36
  Yeah.
• 4:37
  It kind of pisses me off a bit, Rusty, that Grandpa hasn't got the accolades that he deserves because there's a lot of guys like Jack Murray and all those people people know about.
• 4:47
  But a lot of people don't know grandpa's story and dad was busy doing his own stuff and never kind of got to pay too much respect to his dad either until dad got inducted into the Most World Hall of Fame and he sort of did say that he wanted to thank his dad for teaching him everything he knew.
• 5:04
  So grandpa was a wonderful man, unfortunately passed away in 2006, but I did get to spend a lot of time with him as a young fella and he was deaf from the war.
• 5:13
  So it was always tricky as a kid to talk to him because one ear was proper deaf and the other ear was hearing aid deaf.
• 5:20
  And, uh, but he would tell so many stories.
• 5:22
  So I was lucky enough to have a few VHS tapes of those Round Australia Trials and I was
• 5:27
  And they were a big deal.
• 5:29
  So they were not a rally per se.
• 5:30
  They were a time trial.
• 5:32
  So if you got to a checkpoint too early or too late, you got penalized.
• 5:35
  So you needed to be on time.
• 5:36
  Time, yeah.
• 5:37
  And he was, you know, big into Volkswagens.
• 5:40
  So I think he was initially a Chamberlain tractor dealer in the Cowengi area where Dad's from and went over to the war and came back.
• 5:51
  Served in Darwin, Papua New Guinea and whatnot.
• 5:53
  Yeah.
• 5:54
  so sort of post-war I'm talking about.
• 5:56
  Well, that being said, I found his old records online and I found his entrance letter and it said that he'd converted a tractor to LPG.
• 6:03
  So he was a mechanic, right, and a bit of an engineer.
• 6:05
  And Dad always tells a story.
• 6:07
  He was actually a terrible farmer.
• 6:09
  He was not very good at growing wheat and he was just not good at it, but he was really good at fixing everyone's –
• 6:14
  Stuff.
• 6:14
  Yeah.
• 6:14
  Yeah.
• 6:15
  So, yeah.
• 6:16
  And then after the war, he was – and I may often get the details wrong, but the general story's kind of right.
• 6:22
  Yeah, Chamberlain Tractor deal and then became a Volkswagen, either dealer or service, but never had a yard, so to speak, but just a bit of a, you know, fix the cylinder heads and that sort of stuff.
• 6:31
  And those rallies and the Red X trials, they were big, like 10, 15, 20,000 pounds prize money, which in today's money is probably – That's huge.
• 6:39
  Yeah, big bucks.
• 6:40
  Yeah.
• 6:41
  Um, you know, and you, you get them, uh, you see photos of them at the awards nights after.
• 6:45
  And I think he won three of them.
• 6:46
  He won a mobile gas trial in 56.
• 6:48
  Can't think of the other one of them.
• 6:51
  His, his brother actually got really sick on the rally and, and died at a young age, uncle Leslie or dad's uncle Leslie.
• 6:57
  Um, so I think that kind of hampered their performance in that rally.
• 7:00
  Um, but again, you know, he had cancer and no one knew.
• 7:02
  And I think he was only 26, 27, something like that.
• 7:05
  Um, but there's stories of the Perkins special that he built, which was this open wheeler kind of race car, I guess.
• 7:12
  Um, Lancia powered.
• 7:14
  Yeah.
• 7:14
  There's one that was Lancia powered.
• 7:16
  I think one might've had like a Porsche 356 engine in it as well.
• 7:19
  And there's a story of him just rocking up to Phillip Island in his car and qualifying on the front row of a race next to Stan Jones, who was in a factory Maserati.
• 7:27
  And you know, this is a guy that just built this for the better term.
• 7:31
  Home special.
• 7:31
  More shitbox.
• 7:32
  Yeah.
• 7:33
  Or it's home special.
• 7:34
  Yeah.
• 7:35
  Now, the unique thing was my uncle and dad kind of mucked around.
• 7:38
  They'd found the original chassis and they decided, my uncle Peter decided to build a bit of replica.
• 7:45
  Would you believe the throttle pedal was in the middle and a brake on the right?
• 7:49
  So we had it set up with a Volkswagen engine in it and flogged around the farm.
• 7:53
  And it is the hardest thing to wrap your head around swapping pedals.
• 7:56
  I'll bet.
• 7:57
  But that's how heel and toe started.
• 7:58
  It was toe on the throttle and heel on the brake.
• 8:02
  And I never knew.
• 8:02
  And then so we were mucking around the farm and you get to a corner and you mentally go to the brake pedal and you're back on the gas.
• 8:08
  So anyway.
• 8:09
  That gave you a scare.
• 8:10
  Yeah, so the original chassis has been preserved and they built this little replica.
• 8:15
  You know, I think one day it would be nice to get it all going but it's just too much stuff missing.
• 8:20
  But long story short, it was a very successful car and –
• 8:23
  to come up against Stan Jones and a factory Maserati.
• 8:25
  I mean, you just wouldn't see that today.
• 8:28
  And all of those things that my grandpa was able to achieve, yeah, people don't know those stories.
• 8:32
  So I've got to work out a way to try and preserve them because I want my kids to know what he was doing.
• 8:38
  Definitely.
• 8:38
  Because it's pretty cool.
• 8:40
  And there are tapes around and people have given us some 9-inch film and there's a lot of slides and things.
• 8:45
  So I've just got to...
• 8:46
  Time's everything, but one day put it all together.
• 8:49
  You must do that.
• 8:50
  Just in finishing some stuff on him, if we can, I want to say he was a mechanic on Mitchell's or were they B-25s?
• 8:57
  What was he a mechanic on?
• 8:58
  I'm trying to remember.
• 8:58
  There was planes though and bombers basically in World War II, wasn't it?
• 9:03
  Yeah.
• 9:03
  So we saw before there was a poster that he'd written to me on a B-25.
• 9:06
  Yep.
• 9:07
  And I think they'd done some stuff on –
• 9:10
  I said Catalina before.
• 9:11
  It may or may not be right.
• 9:12
  Kitty Hawks.
• 9:13
  Oh, wow.
• 9:15
  And I think he's had some remnants of Mustang aircraft.
• 9:18
  So I think he either worked on them or worked on one once before because they grabbed the fuel tanks and a few things out of them and I remember seeing them as a kid.
• 9:26
  Um, so yeah, he was sort of ended up as a aircraft mechanic in the war and in the, in the air force.
• 9:31
  And that was my memories of grandpa was coming down for Anzac day because he moved from the farm to Harcourt, which is just short of Bendigo, um, a bit further up the Calder highway.
• 9:40
  And when we were kids, he would always come for Anzac day and do the march.
• 9:43
  So you still represent him now.
• 9:44
  I think that's terrific.
• 9:46
  So I've got his medals and I've done two marches in the last three or four years.
• 9:51
  Obviously with COVID and that, it kind of didn't happen, but we'll always try and preserve that history because it's very important.
• 9:57
  And he used to always say to me, you know, if they didn't kind of do the war and win the war, you and I'd be speaking Japanese now because that was the way it was headed.
• 10:05
  So it's pretty important to remember the sacrifice they made.
• 10:10
  For your kids to understand that too much.
• 10:11
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:12
  And not to talk war and peace, but that's the reality.
• 10:15
  And he was just a really nice man.
• 10:19
  I remember, you know, spending a lot of time on weekends and just loved being around him and trying to talk to him.
• 10:25
  And, you know, kind of he used to come and watch a couple of my go-kart races.
• 10:30
  He'd come to Newmerca, which is short of Shepparton or north of Shepparton.
• 10:33
  And he was a mad photographer and used to always take photos.
• 10:36
  And it was pretty cool.
• 10:37
  So, yeah, I often –
• 10:40
  You know, wonder if, you know, what do you think of the world at the moment?
• 10:43
  At the moment.
• 10:44
  But also what we've gone on to do.
• 10:46
  Hold on, you're a bit, you're a bit, well, that's a bit there, mate.
• 10:49
  Yeah, you do a bit, like I'm, you know, I don't have grandparents now.
• 10:53
  My wife's still got hers and you think, well, that's, you know, it's pretty cool, but it's just, it makes you think of the good times, mate.
• 10:58
  Definitely.
• 10:59
  Can we talk about a car of his that I think might've been a bit, a little bit, not racing influential, but just in, in the family lineage.
• 11:06
  Did he have a Land Rover and maybe your dad sat on his lap and drove it round?
• 11:11
  And the car remained in the family.
• 11:12
  Perhaps it still is.
• 11:12
  I don't know.
• 11:14
  Yeah.
• 11:14
  Yeah.
• 11:15
  So a lot of the tractors and Land Rovers, dad's still got.
• 11:19
  And dad's been restoring the Land Rovers, which they're a funny machine.
• 11:22
  They've got positive earth and all sorts of stuff.
• 11:25
  They're an incredibly difficult machine to work on.
• 11:27
  But dad's still got one that the family bought new from New York.
• 11:31
  what are we talking about, mid-40s.
• 11:33
  So dad then went on a bit of a fetish to try and get a few of them and get some spare parts together, and he tinkers away with them on the farm.
• 11:40
  And then dad's still got one of the original D4 dozers, I think, and then a lot of the tractors that dad collected, a lot of people remember dad collecting tractors.
• 11:49
  Some of the original ones dad's still got are his grandpas.
• 11:52
  And, you know, there were stories where –
• 11:54
  Dad would go out with his dad on the tractor and grandpa would just hop off and just walk back home and the kids had to figure out how to drive home.
• 12:01
  Off you go.
• 12:03
  School of hard knocks.
• 12:04
  But, you know, and I just remember stories like he used to ride a horse to school when he was in school, which is we're talking born in 1920.
• 12:11
  So you go on a school in the 20s and 30s and, you know, I just will never forget all the stories because it's such a different world, mate.
• 12:16
  And, you know, if it wasn't for them –
• 12:18
  You know, we wouldn't have the dynasty we've got and, you know, like I said, I just want to try and preserve that and want people to understand where our lineage doesn't start with dad, it just continues there.
• 12:29
  And, you know, where we've got the farm was a soldier settlement for his grandfather.
• 12:34
  So there's so much history there and it's a good part of the Australian –
• 12:39
  background when you connect all the rural dots and the family names.
• 12:42
  Just because of the footprint we have with the pod, can you take people there?
• 12:45
  So we're basically going to kind of northwest Victoria.
• 12:49
  We're almost border, sort of in the direction of Mildura, nearly South Australia kind of thing.
• 12:55
  The reason I ask that is because you post these beautiful pictures at times where you are harvesting.
• 13:00
  And so you're not just Melbourne-based restoring cool old race cars.
• 13:05
  You're actually active around the farm still, aren't you?
• 13:07
  Yeah.
• 13:07
  Yeah, so dad bought the farm back off his uncle, I'm going to say 25 years ago.
• 13:14
  We've sort of been involved with a good friend of mine in a share farming arrangement for maybe 10 years.
• 13:19
  So to paint the picture, like you say, it's top northwest corner of Victoria.
• 13:23
  So it's about a five and a half hour drive from Melbourne.
• 13:25
  It's only three hours from Adelaide.
• 13:26
  Hey, what's the – I'm a New South Wales.
• 13:28
  Is it Cowangi?
• 13:29
  Cowangi.
• 13:29
  Cowangi, cool.
• 13:30
  So people from New South Wales or South Australia will know when they're driving Adelaide to Sydney or vice versa because there's a sign on the road that says hometown of Larry Perkins.
• 13:38
  There's a population of two people, three people, if you don't include the kind of farming districts.
• 13:44
  And, yeah, it's like I said, it's where my grandfather's father got a soldier settlement.
• 13:48
  So basically they came back from World War I and they all lobbed back into the capital city of Melbourne and –
• 13:55
  here you go, here's your slice of land.
• 13:56
  Yeah, it was like, what do we do now, you know?
• 13:58
  So the king gave them – the king at the time gave them all a land title to help promote the rural districts, the agriculture side of things, and quite often all the roads in the area are named after the first settlers.
• 14:08
  So our farm is on Perkins Road, which is kind of neat, especially because my driver's licence is Perkins Road now as a result of COVID, and the –
• 14:21
  when I get a rental car, it's like Jack Perkins in Perkins Road.
• 14:24
  They're like, are you serious?
• 14:25
  They're like, yeah, yeah, I'm serious.
• 14:26
  So I'll leave it like that for a while.
• 14:28
  But yeah, it's, it's a cool part of the world for our family.
• 14:31
  It means a lot to us.
• 14:32
  And we've got about seven to eight kilometers of fence line on the big Desert National Park.
• 14:37
  So it's quite big four driving and, and things like that.
• 14:40
  So, um, yeah, really cool part of the world and very sentimental to the family.
• 14:44
  Big harvesters.
• 14:45
  What machinery are you using up there?
• 14:46
  Yeah, Big John Deere.
• 14:47
  So none of the machinery per se is ours, but we do a lot of service work and we drive them and we've got more of an arrangement than just a simple share farming arrangement because you've got what we call Collins Street Cowboys.
• 14:59
  Someone that lives in Melbourne that owns a block of dirt just gets a paycheck from owning the farm.
• 15:04
  We wanted to do more than that.
• 15:05
  Uh-huh.
• 15:06
  So we do active service work.
• 15:10
  We do a lot of labor and then provide labor through harvest.
• 15:14
  So the big John Deere machines, the 60 series and the 70 series, they're actually old machines now, sort of 2014, 2015.
• 15:23
  but big 40-foot combs on them.
• 15:25
  So we grow predominantly grains and cereals, wheat and barley predominantly, but also lupins, which is like a pig feed, and some lentils and little bits and pieces like that.
• 15:36
  So, yeah, I do enjoy it, especially if it's good rainfall and whatnot.
• 15:41
  It's always been for me from Bathurst finishing to Christmas, it gives you a good chunk of work if things are like a bit quiet everywhere else.
• 15:48
  Gotcha.
• 15:49
  That's super cool that you do that, mate.
• 15:51
  We have three microphones on the table in front of us.
• 15:54
  We're only using two.
• 15:55
  The reason there is the third is because you have ventured into podcasting around this.
• 15:59
  And I have a feeling that you talked Melbourne before and what have you, unlike kind of studio and whatever else, it's, is it some blokes and coronas and sitting around talking to describe, tell us about this pod.
• 16:11
  Yeah, so I got involved.
• 16:13
  A John Deere dealership, predominantly Mildura, Sheppard and Echuca called Heusler's, reached out to me to sort of talk about how ambassadors kind of roles work.
• 16:23
  And, you know, my dream has been to wear a John Deere truck out and go to a trade show and represent John Deere.
• 16:28
  So when they called, I was like, hey, this is pretty cool.
• 16:31
  And there's a guy there by the name of Jordan Lee who's quite heavily involved in the digital side and he's been involved in agriculture for a long time.
• 16:38
  Part of what they wanted to do was kind of promote the industry to actually help try and find workers.
• 16:43
  They were sort of struggling to find staff in rural areas, which is a common problem throughout Australia.
• 16:50
  So they wanted to kind of promote the business and just promote farming and kind of shed light on what farmers do and John Deere dealers do.
• 16:58
  And they thought that I was kind of a neat fit.
• 17:00
  And I sort of think the same because I've driven the machines.
• 17:04
  You get an AFL player to come and be an ambassador for a tractor dealer
• 17:07
  Yeah, but you're walking the talk, mate, basically.
• 17:09
  I'm not using the right phrase there.
• 17:10
  Yeah, I mean they can wear the hat and everything, but they don't know how the machine operates and you can kind of relate to the farmers.
• 17:15
  You're from the land.
• 17:16
  So anyway, part of what we're doing there was maybe wasn't the whole idea, but Jordan came up with this idea we should have a podcast.
• 17:25
  And I've listened to podcasts and don't need to sort of do another motorsport podcast because I like the ones that are out there.
• 17:32
  And I thought, well, yeah, I'll have a crack at this because this is completely different and I want to learn, you know.
• 17:37
  So we just, yeah, a couple of podcasts, we've had a couple of beers and just sort of talked about the products and some of the things that are coming online through John Deere.
• 17:46
  And there's a lot of this technology coming through.
• 17:48
  The next step for farming is autonomy.
• 17:51
  Is it?
• 17:51
  So it kind of scares farmers, especially generational farmers that, I mean, when auto steer came along, so auto steer is a device in the tractor where you basically don't have to touch the steering wheel and it just goes in a dead straight line.
• 18:01
  When that first came online, farmers just didn't want to know about it.
• 18:05
  And now those same farmers can't go without it because it's just too hard to drive, you know, four kilometers in a straight line, turn around, back and forth, fly.
• 18:13
  You can kind of GPS map it and it does its thing, doesn't it?
• 18:15
  Correct.
• 18:15
  You know, yeah.
• 18:16
  So the next step is autonomy.
• 18:17
  So it's kind of, you know, boundary mapping your paddocks properly, setting up all the kind of digital infrastructure to prepare for that next phase.
• 18:24
  So I feel like I'm learning a hell of a lot.
• 18:27
  I'm also enjoying sort of integrating with growers and farmers and the dealers.
• 18:32
  And yeah, so it's a shameless plug.
• 18:34
  It's called Häusler's Cab Confessions.
• 18:36
  Hopefully one day a listener will pick us up, Rusty, and we'll be on the same network.
• 18:39
  We love that.
• 18:40
  We love the thought of that.
• 18:41
  LP has kind of never been one to focus on like obstacles, right?
• 18:47
  And in doing that pod with Howie back in 2016, he shares a little bit of it.
• 18:51
  I really have to get him on the pod one day and hopefully get him to open up with some of the yarns I know you've enjoyed in the middle of Australia when you've gone and done a Darrell Beatty adventure and things like that.
• 19:01
  He made his way to Europe.
• 19:02
  He had a crack.
• 19:04
  He kind of lived in the back of a truck for his truck for a while there, but he's
• 19:09
  I'm sure there are lots of stories that fascinate you.
• 19:12
  Is there kind of one that you're super impressed by, that you gripped by from that period when he was doing that stuff that you can share?
• 19:20
  Well, I mean, I'm very, very proud of what Dad's achieved.
• 19:24
  I think the big thing for me was, you know, when he left Australia, I think he had about $160 on him.
• 19:31
  And made it to Formula 1.
• 19:32
  Crazy.
• 19:33
  Imagine doing that today.
• 19:35
  You know, and I got a taste of it when I was potentially trying to go over and do some open wheeler stuff.
• 19:39
  You know, teams wanted $30,000 to test a car.
• 19:42
  No, I didn't have any money either.
• 19:44
  But to actually go and do it was the big thing.
• 19:47
  So I guess to come from where he come from, this tiny country town,
• 19:51
  Make it to Formula One is just one of the biggest Australian success stories.
• 19:58
  A little bit one-eyed, but if you look at the history books, it hasn't been a lot of Australians race Formula One.
• 20:03
  Correct.
• 20:04
  And so to do that and have just sheer talent and determination to get there is pretty impressive.
• 20:11
  And then I guess to come home and I feel like the biggest thing with Dad was sometimes I think he didn't actually like the driving that much.
• 20:18
  He just preferred working on the cars.
• 20:19
  Really?
• 20:20
  Well, he went and worked for Brock.
• 20:22
  He wanted to run a race shop.
• 20:23
  He wasn't actually interested in driving.
• 20:24
  And then when it came to Bathurst, Brock needed a co-driver, so he jumped in and won three Bathurst.
• 20:28
  But I think he actually got more enjoyment out of the fact the car didn't break down.
• 20:31
  The build.
• 20:32
  Yeah, and running the guy.
• 20:33
  And you see that with him today.
• 20:35
  He's still in his 70s and every day he gets up, puts overalls on, walks into the workshop and is like, what can I do?
• 20:40
  What can I pull apart?
• 20:41
  He doesn't go and jump in an Austin Healey and go for a fang around the Great Ocean Road because he doesn't.
• 20:46
  It's not him, he wants to fix mechanical problems.
• 20:49
  And, you know, in COVID when we were all living on the farm full time, we just had our first baby.
• 20:54
  We serviced anything that had like a bearing in it and then like anything because, and he's just in his element, mate.
• 21:00
  And, um, so I think that's probably what he's more proud of than he's driving stuff, to be honest, is that engineering side.
• 21:06
  In telling a bit of that, and we'll cover a bit of ground here, but,
• 21:09
  People probably don't realise, and please correct me if I don't tell this right, but he fundamentally pioneered like a black box system for helicopters, such as his brain.
• 21:20
  Yeah.
• 21:20
  Yeah.
• 21:21
  So what happened, the background story for that is he was learning to get his helicopter pilot's licence and he was using, you know, school machinery, school helicopters.
• 21:29
  And he landed one on a beach as part of his training, and then he realised when he was pushing one of the pedals or pulling one of the collectives or whatever –
• 21:36
  He's like, man, this is not doing what it's supposed to do.
• 21:39
  And it kind of something happened.
• 21:41
  It didn't crash or anything, but he just noticed that something had happened and then there's sort of instances where other pilots could do the wrong thing by the machinery and then the next minute you're flying around and that thing couldn't fall out of the sky.
• 21:53
  But no one's logged that.
• 21:55
  How do we know that?
• 21:56
  Correct.
• 21:56
  So dad then used his race car mind from the data logging where you pull all the data out of a race car and he thought, well, I'm going to interpret that and make it in the pilot sense.
• 22:07
  And so you can watch what – see if the pilot's overrever the engine or over-tempt the turbine on startup.
• 22:12
  So he used a guy called Colin Higgins who was the original motorsport electronics guy who made the TIGA monitors in the race cars to monitor the revs and everything and they made a unit, made a data logging unit and it was called the DAM, D-A-A-M Data Acquisition and Alarm Monitor.
• 22:29
  And it was quite good and quite a lot of units went out there, especially in spray tractors and – Helicopters.
• 22:35
  Helicopters.
• 22:37
  But it probably just needed big bucks to go somewhere proper.
• 22:40
  He sold it to a company and it wasn't –
• 22:44
  $100 million deal or anything silly, just sort of sold it for what it was worth.
• 22:46
  But we've probably looked back on it and thought if it got floated on the stock exchange or something, you can raise some capital, that it probably would have been very successful when, you know, you look at black box data recorders in aviation.
• 22:57
  If you said, hey, I designed that, you probably would have a nice house and a nice holiday house and a few other things.
• 23:03
  But, you know, Dad's probably not heavily motivated by money either.
• 23:07
  But, yeah, it was just from an initiative come from race cars.
• 23:10
  I love that he's still so active in that regard mentally and physically for that matter.
• 23:14
  Let's just keep talking about him a little bit before we get to you, mate, if you don't mind.
• 23:17
  Jochen Rint, Jimmy Clark, legends like that, hugely powerful influences for him.
• 23:22
  He would be teammates with the likes of Carlos Pache.
• 23:25
  Bernie Eccleston was the team boss.
• 23:26
  I mean, when he talks this stuff, that is kind of surreal, mate, really, isn't it?
• 23:30
  It really is.
• 23:31
  Rusty I mean the names and unfortunately a lot of them pop up now as they sort of pass away because it's that genre and you know you can see that as a moment of reflection when you say oh such and such looks like he passed away or something like Chris Amon and those guys and I guess you know it
• 23:48
  I'd love to get some of the stories down because I remember when he came to one of the races when I was driving for Walkinshaws, which was Andretti United, and Michael was there, and he's telling Michael a story about, yeah, they were laying by the pool in South Africa or something.
• 24:01
  Yeah, him and Mario, yeah, yeah.
• 24:03
  And they were laughing about this or doing that, and there'd be so many yarns of just people that were – I did a clip on my YouTube video the other day of an old race suit I found, and it's a Parmalat.
• 24:17
  race suit that Nelson Piquet gave dad.
• 24:20
  But dad picked all the badges off because dad wanted to use a race suit.
• 24:24
  Now, that's a world championship winning Formula 1 driver's race suit.
• 24:26
  But he needed the suit.
• 24:27
  He needed the suit.
• 24:27
  So it's got a little parmalat.
• 24:30
  I hope I'm saying it right because I did say it wrong on a YouTube channel.
• 24:34
  It's got it on the neck.
• 24:35
  Yeah.
• 24:35
  But all the other badges have been pulled off.
• 24:37
  Because he needed the suit.
• 24:38
  He wanted the suit.
• 24:39
  He's just been resourceful.
• 24:40
  So, yeah, the guys, and that's, you know, when I listened to your pod with Greg Siddle, those guys, they were all mates and friends and foes and, yeah, good stories.
• 24:49
  Amazing.
• 24:51
  Perkins engineering history that we're around here we're going to take people on a little bit of a tour as we go um is there a piece of memorabilia from your dad's time in Europe that you cherish and I think even out the back here you showed me before uh like early helmets from open wheelers which are open face and and I'm awesome that you have retained all that
• 25:11
  Yeah, so one thing that I noticed when I was a kid was that all dad's driving gear was incomplete.
• 25:17
  Like there was bits missing and there still is, you know, Bathurst winning helmets and whatnot.
• 25:20
  So I've always thought I'm going to keep all my stuff and just keep it because I liked it as a kid.
• 25:25
  So I want my kids to be the same.
• 25:26
  Yeah.
• 25:27
  I don't have a lot of his F1 stuff.
• 25:29
  I've got one of the helmets, which, to be honest, he wouldn't have had a heap of helmets, probably one or two.
• 25:33
  So I've probably got 50% of the F1 helmets.
• 25:36
  But, yeah, not all the race suits and things like that.
• 25:39
  But there's, you know, there's a briefcase around with a few photos and some old Coke bottle glasses and business cards and a couple of sketchy old watches and things like that.
• 25:49
  But, yeah, what we've got I'll preserve and keep.
• 25:52
  There are things, you know, if people –
• 25:55
  you know, like someone owns an old Formula One car, you know, I'm a big believer of things belong with, with whatnot.
• 26:01
  So, um, one of those, um, cars is actually in Australia.
• 26:04
  A guy reached out to me, um, one of the BRMs and, uh, it's in the wrong body spectrum, but, um, it's the right chassis number.
• 26:12
  So, you know, guys like that, if it, if, if, if it ends up in a museum, it, it belongs to sit on display with the car.
• 26:17
  So, um,
• 26:17
  Same with the silk-cut Jaguar stuff.
• 26:19
  You know, that car recently sold in Europe somewhere.
• 26:22
  You know, if those guys, you know, reach out and say, hey, we'd love that driving gear, well, it belongs with the car.
• 26:28
  And then I'd love to go.
• 26:29
  One thing I've never done, Rusty, is go to the Canberra Museum where the solar car is.
• 26:33
  Yeah, cool.
• 26:33
  I've never been there.
• 26:35
  So I'd love to go there one day and if I've got anything that belongs to that, sit it on display, it'd be pretty cool.
• 26:39
  Yeah.
• 26:39
  I love that you bring that up.
• 26:40
  I mean, there's another great feat achievement of his, right, which you did talk about with Nunes, I know.
• 26:46
  What he did in touring cars, in post-F1 life, in post-European racing life is incredible in many ways, especially at Bathurst, which he had such an affinity with.
• 26:58
  Some of them, you...
• 27:00
  probably weren't born for the success that he had there.
• 27:02
  I know because I've seen VHS tapes downstairs and so on, you'll have watched every inch of film relating to those.
• 27:07
  What's the one that stands out for you?
• 27:10
  Maybe it's one where you were a little tacker on the grid.
• 27:12
  I don't know.
• 27:13
  Yeah, it's hard because I've got memories from all of them, especially like the first one I've got memories of is just a photo.
• 27:19
  I'm a one- or two-month-old baby in 86 out the back of the NZ garage.
• 27:23
  Yeah, cool, cool.
• 27:24
  So I think, well, that's – I don't obviously remember that, but I see that photo and that's my first memory because of the timeline.
• 27:33
  I guess, you know, the 93 win.
• 27:35
  I've been to all the Bathurst since I've never missed one.
• 27:38
  So I'm up one of my 30 –
• 27:40
  I'm getting old now.
• 27:41
  I'm still 38 this year.
• 27:42
  Still a young bloke.
• 27:43
  So it's my 38th appearance there.
• 27:44
  But, yeah, 95 obviously last to first.
• 27:49
  97, those guys, they won again.
• 27:51
  You know, the wins, you remember.
• 27:55
  I couldn't pick one, but the three wins come to mind, you know.
• 27:59
  I know, Dad, winning those three with Brock was cool, but winning the three with Perkins Engineering was probably even cooler.
• 28:03
  We've...
• 28:05
  been able to cross paths on many occasions since you were a little tacker, right?
• 28:09
  I've got very vivid, very fond memories of you at places like...
• 28:12
  Bathurst specifically Winton actually really springs to mind there's a great picture that you shared not long ago of you your sister your mum and dad Castrol I mean you're tiny I don't know what age you were at the time sort of ginger hair glasses on and so on and I can always remember you coming to places like the commentary box laughs with Mark Osler Lee Diffie Barry Sheen took a real shine to you too mate have you got a Baz kind of memory
• 28:38
  I do and you and I do get to talk about Baz a lot.
• 28:42
  I mean I really enjoyed that part of my childhood was hanging out with you guys at Channel 10 because, you know, I do a bit of commentary now or whatever and people say, oh, where did you learn that?
• 28:51
  I think it was from you guys, you know.
• 28:54
  sitting in the back of the commentary box.
• 28:56
  But, yeah, in particular, I mean, I don't know why, but I really got to spend a lot of time with Baz.
• 29:01
  You know, it was a time in my childhood which was a bit tricky because my parents kind of split up and things like that and getting to the racetrack and just hanging out with the boys just took you away from other stuff.
• 29:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:14
  And, you know, Barry just kind of so interested in my kart racing.
• 29:19
  He just had so much time for me.
• 29:20
  He probably had time for a lot of people too.
• 29:22
  It's not just me.
• 29:23
  But, you know, we got to spend a lot of time talking about that and he was always revving up Jeff Gretsch at HRT to give me a drive to piss off my old man and just stuff like that.
• 29:34
  And, you know, I saw the other day on Barry's daughter's Instagram.
• 29:39
  It was 20 years since he passed away.
• 29:42
  And, you know, I really wished I got to spend some time with him as an adult because the stories are probably more… Not for this podcast.
• 29:50
  Yeah, not for this podcast.
• 29:52
  And there's one thing that I'll ensure my kids learn and that was Barry taught me because he used to ride the scooter around everywhere because he didn't like walking, I think because his legs were stuffed.
• 30:03
  And from all the motorbike crashes.
• 30:06
  And so he's, you know, jump.
• 30:07
  We're at Winton or somewhere like that.
• 30:08
  And he's like, jump on.
• 30:09
  We'll go for a fang up the commentary box.
• 30:11
  So I'm sitting on the back of the scooter and just got my hands on the chair beside it.
• 30:14
  And he stops.
• 30:15
  He goes, mate, why aren't your hands around me?
• 30:18
  And I'm like, I don't know.
• 30:19
  It feels a bit weird to have my hands around an old man.
• 30:22
  He goes, mate, doesn't matter who it is.
• 30:24
  Wrap your hands around them.
• 30:25
  If they're going to be a dickhead on a motorbike, you pull them off with you is what he said.
• 30:30
  He said if they're going to pull a wheelie or do something silly, he goes, pull them off with you.
• 30:34
  It just sticks true.
• 30:35
  I would have been, I don't know, 11, 12 years old and I just think that was bloody good advice.
• 30:40
  And, yeah, I've got fond memories of Baz.
• 30:43
  You know, I always find myself on YouTube.
• 30:46
  Just looking up, Baz.
• 30:46
  Looking up, yeah.
• 30:47
  Some great memories there.
• 30:48
  Oh, Jeff, you've got to give Jack a go.
• 30:50
  Oh, I could listen to you doing those.
• 30:54
  You could do a whole episode as Baz.
• 30:55
  I'd love to listen to it.
• 30:56
  We will, I promise.
• 30:57
  And that's half the reason I've just asked you this question, that we will do a kind of memories of Sheenie episode this year, given that it is as you...
• 31:05
  rightly pointed out there with Sydney's post before.
• 31:08
  The Grices, the Hansfords, some of the Brocks, you kids would hang out together growing up in Pitt Lane and the paddock area really, wouldn't you?
• 31:17
  Well, there's a funny story actually.
• 31:19
  I've probably never told anyone this, but it was with Freddie Sheen when he was real young.
• 31:23
  And it was the first time I'd ever smoked a cigarette, Rusty.
• 31:27
  He was smoking it.
• 31:29
  I don't know what year.
• 31:30
  We were 14 or 15.
• 31:32
  And he says, you know, you want to have a son?
• 31:34
  I pretended I'd tried it.
• 31:36
  I'd never tried it in my life.
• 31:37
  And I think it's probably the only time I've ever done it.
• 31:39
  I can't stand it.
• 31:39
  But there we were down the horse stables at Sandown having a fag.
• 31:43
  I thought, Jesus, this is interesting.
• 31:45
  But anyway, that's a funny memory of Freddie Sheen, which I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him.
• 31:49
  I spent a lot more time with his dad.
• 31:51
  But, yeah, the other kids, the main one I spent a lot of time was actually Peter Faulkner, John Faulkner's son.
• 31:56
  Oh, yeah.
• 31:57
  And Peter was a good lad.
• 32:00
  But you touched on, obviously, Rhys and Ryan Hansford.
• 32:02
  We spent a lot of time with them, probably not as much after their father passed away, which, you know,
• 32:08
  makes me upset that they don't have a father to share these stories with these days.
• 32:12
  And we often share text message and photos of these cars we were restored.
• 32:16
  But yeah, we just always ran around.
• 32:18
  And I remember there was a guy at Bathurst, like sold model cars.
• 32:23
  And he used to have this credit system with us kids.
• 32:26
  If we got posters signed, he'd give us a value of like $2.
• 32:30
  So I'd run around all day and get Dick Johnson, Peter Brock, Alan Grice, everyone to sign these posters, and you'd work up like $120 credit.
• 32:38
  He's flogging these for probably $100 each, mind you.
• 32:41
  And then you'd get the model car to the value.
• 32:43
  So, you know, cool, I'll grab that one, you know.
• 32:46
  It's actually Jeff Sheriff, Sheriff's Mini Cars.
• 32:48
  He's still around.
• 32:49
  So we all used to run around and kind of do that, you know, Dick Johnson, why are you back here getting another autograph?
• 32:55
  But I mean –
• 32:56
  That powerful period, Mo, because that area becomes your playground, probably a bit more normalized than other kids.
• 33:03
  How much did that influence what's become your life?
• 33:06
  Because you were surrounded by it.
• 33:08
  Yeah, it's funny because it was just such a good thing to kind of like, I loved playing cricket and footy at school, but I also just wanted to go go-karting and I loved being away with the pit crews, you know, guys like Curl, Barry Abitmeyer, Sean Hockey, these guys that worked for dad for a hundred years.
• 33:28
  You know, looking back on it, I was probably a bit of a smart aleck, but I just loved hanging out with those guys.
• 33:33
  They seemed to just live the cool life.
• 33:34
  They'd travel around working on race cars, telling me to sweep the floor and clean the car.
• 33:38
  And I just thought it was awesome.
• 33:39
  You know, I just thought that was awesome, being part of a sporting team and doing that stuff.
• 33:44
  And, yeah, it's funny now.
• 33:47
  It's a bit sad because it's turned into more of a job.
• 33:50
  But, yeah.
• 33:51
  You know, I wouldn't change it, but, you know, I just loved when I looked back on it.
• 33:55
  But now I think, you know, I wouldn't really want my kids running around the pits and annoying everyone.
• 33:59
  So, I don't know, Rusty, it was bloody good fun.
• 34:02
  And, you know, just think about it.
• 34:04
  I grew up with Dick Johnson and Peter Brock and Jim Richards and Mark Scafier.
• 34:09
  I got to know a lot of those guys very well.
• 34:14
  And that was just normal to me.
• 34:25
  Okay.
• 34:26
  If you're enjoying Jack, check out James Small who's in the garage library too.
• 34:30
  Jack's legendary father gave him a test in a supercar for finishing his engineering degree.
• 34:36
  And while he loved driving, it was on the other side of pit wall where James really made his mark.
• 34:41
  I'm like, it's gonna fucking rain.
• 34:44
  Like, I know it's gonna rain.
• 34:46
  And I said to Lee, we're starting on wets.
• 34:49
  I actually think we had the wet setup in the car too.
• 34:52
  And so I think we finished the first two races in the dry, like around fourth or whatever.
• 34:59
  Then we changed the car as well, and it's gonna rain.
• 35:01
  So we put the wets on, literally on the parade lap back around to the grid, it started raining.
• 35:06
  And like everybody, like all these gurus that all went on slicks and whatever, they're all peeling off.
• 35:13
  I think there was only a few of us that started on wets, and we just killed the field.
• 35:20
  That race with Gary Rogers Motorsport and Lee Holdsworth really put the young engineer on the map.
• 35:26
  And James has since gone on to work successfully in NASCAR.
• 35:30
  The closest trust he has come to NASCAR is going round in circles here in the office.
• 35:35
  They tell me you're a pretty handy forger, that you can do a good Russell Ingle and a good Larry Perkins and that one Stephen Johnson, who I also need to get on the pod, can actually do a pretty handy Dick Johnson and John Bow signature.
• 35:47
  Is this true?
• 35:48
  So, and I shouldn't advertise that because I sell a bit of memorabilia.
• 35:54
  This is really Larry's signature.
• 35:57
  It is funny.
• 35:57
  I mean, Dad's signature got me out of a bit of trouble at school.
• 36:00
  I did it.
• 36:01
  For obvious reasons, writing notes and whatnot.
• 36:03
  But I remember kind of watching.
• 36:06
  I used to go with Dad and Russell to, you know, it might be a Burson store appearance or this or a super cheap or whatever.
• 36:11
  And, you know, you'd just watch them sign millions of autographs.
• 36:14
  And I just loved being there and watching them.
• 36:16
  And so I could kind of do it.
• 36:18
  And then a lot later in life, I was at an autograph session sitting next to Stephen Johnson and we just started talking about it.
• 36:25
  And then we thought, I said, oh, I can do dad's signature.
• 36:27
  Can you do Dick's?
• 36:28
  He's like, yep, yep.
• 36:29
  All of a sudden, I think there was only four of us drivers, but posters were going out the door with about eight signatures on them.
• 36:34
  There was Dick Johnson, John Bowe, Russell Engle, LP, Stevie J, me, and whoever else was there.
• 36:40
  And Steve would have lived, you know, Steve Johnson and Steve Richards and James Moffat, we've all lived a similar life.
• 36:46
  Right.
• 36:47
  I mean, I remember practicing my autograph when I was at school thinking, I'm going to need to know how to do this one day.
• 36:52
  But, you know, the Perkins was always the same.
• 36:54
  I just had to figure out how to write my name.
• 36:55
  So, yeah, they're great memories.
• 36:57
  Like I said, it's normal to me, mate, but for a lot of other kids, it would have been a dream, I guess.
• 37:02
  But I didn't get to choose it.
• 37:04
  That's what it was for me.
• 37:08
  In that normalisation, can you remember, like, family barbecues and people coming around?
• 37:13
  I mean, yeah.
• 37:15
  You know, for us it would have been like, oh, my God, that's so-and-so coming around, but it was a regular occurrence for you.
• 37:21
  Yeah.
• 37:22
  My first memory is going around to Brock's house and we're all sitting in the back of a trailer driving across the paddock, flicking cow dung with our toes with Peter's kids.
• 37:32
  So that was obviously pretty cool when you look back on it because I don't actually have a lot of Brock memories per se.
• 37:39
  But it was also people would ring the landline at home.
• 37:43
  So one that really annoys me a bit is the Mike Cable trophy that supercars have because Mike Cable would ring dad all the time.
• 37:52
  Love it.
• 37:52
  And no one ever talks about who Mike Cable was.
• 37:54
  Cable is, yeah.
• 37:54
  And he was a journo that used to give young drivers airtime.
• 37:58
  Yes.
• 37:59
  But,
• 37:59
  But again, no one knows that.
• 38:01
  He was a big champion of that, wasn't he?
• 38:02
  Yeah.
• 38:02
  A real, yeah, yeah.
• 38:04
  And, you know, I don't go to the awards nights, to be fair, because I don't have to, but they always just talk about the awards, but I don't think anyone gets any education on why.
• 38:12
  And it's the same with the Barry Sheen medal.
• 38:15
  So, yeah, you know, guys like Mike Cable, I think Mike Cable was the one, and I don't know if I answered the phone, but rang dad to say, hey, Greg Hansford's had a crash.
• 38:24
  Wow.
• 38:24
  Or rang the home phone.
• 38:25
  So you're talking when Greg passed away, Super Touring, Phillip Island.
• 38:29
  Yeah, some dad's at home and someone's rang him and, you know, you're going to have to find a co-driver sort of thing.
• 38:33
  So I've sort of digressed from your question a bit.
• 38:37
  But, yeah, like we used to always have – I mean, Russell Ingle was probably the big one that used to come around a lot when we were kids.
• 38:44
  And he was, you know, pretty new to Melbourne and whatnot.
• 38:48
  But guys like Grant Steers, the spear, and it's funny because he was a diabetic and as a kid he used to come around and mum used to have to cook something special.
• 38:57
  We never knew much about that and then later in life that would become more apparent.
• 39:01
  But the spear would always come around and it was often whenever dad was getting a new loan car, he'd swap the cars around and it was always good when the spear was coming because we'd get a new car.
• 39:10
  Stuff like that.
• 39:12
  But I guess Dad was never the most social bloke around either, to be fair.
• 39:18
  He would always get home late from work.
• 39:19
  We'd have to press the tape on the news so he could watch the news later.
• 39:23
  But I'm sure there would be other guys that would have come around.
• 39:28
  There's some other figures.
• 39:29
  Ron Barnicle was a good friend of Dad's, former Ford champion, and some other guys like that that would come around.
• 39:37
  But, yeah, I guess Dad was probably –
• 39:39
  Not as social as some might have been.
• 39:41
  Maybe it was a break from the racing, but being around family and so on.
• 39:45
  We're going to come back to Spear because we'll talk about your diabetes as we go here.
• 39:49
  I love separately, again, another thing I need to talk to your dad about is the pursuit of outback pioneer stories.
• 39:55
  I mean, he's got some amazing tales around that stuff.
• 39:59
  You must have badged him for quite some time for a go-kart, did you?
• 40:02
  And give us a sense of his reluctance to – Yeah.
• 40:06
  I mean I would have asked for a go-kart every birthday, every Christmas for a long time.
• 40:11
  But mum and dad kept giving me golf clubs.
• 40:14
  And I remember I had a little trolley with three poster tubes that was my golf bag, cardboard poster tubes with, you know, a wood, an iron and a putter.
• 40:23
  And every time I wanted a go-kart, here's another – Here's golf tees or whatever.
• 40:29
  And I look back on that and I can see why.
• 40:31
  I mean motor racing is so tricky to get involved, especially now, you know.
• 40:35
  Money creates opportunity.
• 40:37
  But when I finally got my way, we bought a go-kart out of the trading post, an old demon.
• 40:43
  There's a photo of me and we had a Toyota 4Runner.
• 40:45
  The back seats are folded down.
• 40:46
  The kart's in there and I'm sitting in the driveway at home.
• 40:49
  I think I might have tried to sleep there.
• 40:52
  And I actually seen some photos not too long ago either.
• 40:55
  We had the first race.
• 40:56
  Oscar Firinotto was working for daddy.
• 40:58
  He came out to the kart track and helped.
• 41:00
  You know, I think half mum's family turned up thinking I was going to win and I would have finished last.
• 41:04
  But, you know, I just – from a young age, all I wanted to do was race.
• 41:08
  I just wanted to be the guys that I had grown up around.
• 41:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:14
  And yeah, when I finally got that go-kart, it was cool.
• 41:16
  But, you know, dad was pretty adamant.
• 41:18
  He wasn't going to, you know, buy the best of the best and you had to figure out how to lube the chain and mechanically do all the work, you know.
• 41:24
  And I had to come in after school and prepare it as a young guy and I look back on that now and, you know, I learn a lot mechanically.
• 41:32
  Because of that.
• 41:33
  Because of that, yeah.
• 41:34
  You forged some great lifelong friendships in that period too, mate.
• 41:37
  I mean, Tim Slade is a great mate to this day.
• 41:39
  If I've joined the dots right here, probably James Small and people like that.
• 41:43
  I mean, he's off doing amazing things in NASCAR.
• 41:45
  There's some good mates that you formed too, isn't there, mateships?
• 41:48
  Yeah.
• 41:49
  So, I mean, James Moffat was one we spent a lot of time with as kids.
• 41:54
  Was it a grass cart you guys were mucking around with?
• 41:56
  Yeah, so we had a fun cart at work and, you know, the guys, we'd fang around in school holidays.
• 42:01
  At Moorabbin Airport, we were on the tarmac, mate.
• 42:03
  We were out with the planes.
• 42:05
  I don't understand how that would fly today.
• 42:07
  But the mechanics would come out and pour kerosene on the thing and watch the spin off.
• 42:12
  Yeah, yeah.
• 42:13
  And then I remember when the tires were wearing out, I thought, oh, well, I'll get a bit of life, I'll wrap a roll of race tape around the tires.
• 42:20
  And then that was just silly.
• 42:21
  It didn't make any better.
• 42:23
  But the front tires on that go-kart were the same as a tire trolley out of the supercar team.
• 42:27
  So I'd just pinch the tires off the tire trolley and then the guys would go to the track and the tire trolley tires were shagged and stuff like that.
• 42:34
  So James Moffat and Ben Small, James' younger brother, so Les Small's two sons, were probably my two longer friends that I can think of.
• 42:43
  Slady come along a lot later in go-karting terms.
• 42:46
  And I actually pit crude for Slady in go-karting because… You were a mechanic for him, weren't you?
• 42:51
  That's right.
• 42:51
  Yeah, so we won the Junior Intercontinental A Championship.
• 42:54
  I was just a mechanic because my old man never wanted to pay to do the big national series.
• 43:00
  So I learned a lot about go-karting and mechanic-ing and engineering then and I was only probably 14 or 15.
• 43:06
  But, yeah, you're right, lifelong friends, people with the same goals, same goals, same interests, you know, nothing against kids I went to school with but they weren't interested in going kart racing on weekends.
• 43:14
  They all, you know, as we got older, go to parties and go to university and that wasn't for me, man.
• 43:18
  I wanted to go racing.
• 43:20
  Yeah.
• 43:21
  And you start to develop the same interests with these kids at the go-kart track.
• 43:26
  You know, everyone's that keen about their racing and you love talking about it.
• 43:31
  And, yeah, so go-karting, as much as I don't know if I want my kids to get involved, I've had good chats with Murph about this because for many years you don't want to be that dad at the kart track.
• 43:42
  But I can sort of see how it's worked for me, but I'd have to work it out to pay for it, Rusty.
• 43:47
  Bullying's a serious thing, right?
• 43:49
  I don't like it at all.
• 43:51
  I do feel at times for people that experience it, the good ones that come through it actually power out the other end of it and become stronger.
• 43:58
  You got a little bit of that at school around being the son of a great and so on.
• 44:04
  I think now what you've achieved, what you've done as a family man, as a racer and so on would send a big message to those freaking bullies, mate, wouldn't it?
• 44:11
  Yeah.
• 44:11
  And like I don't play a victim card but you mentioned that.
• 44:17
  We got a bit of that, you know, which is weird because of what dad did, you know, and maybe it's jealousy or whatever else.
• 44:22
  But on the other side of that too, you know, there were people we bullied as kids and I look back on that now and I'm pretty disappointed with myself that you were on both sides of that.
• 44:31
  Yeah.
• 44:32
  I think a lot of that happens is just playground stuff.
• 44:34
  But, yeah, certainly, I mean, to think that, you know, if my daughter or son got bullied, I'd be disappointed.
• 44:40
  And if they did the bullying too.
• 44:42
  So, you know, and that's when I talk about spending that time with Barry and you guys.
• 44:47
  It just took you away from all that stuff.
• 44:50
  Um, but yeah, I can look back on that and, you know, be the bigger man if you like, but it's a terrible thing.
• 44:57
  Like I said, I'm disappointed that I was on both sides and for, for that, uh, you know, it's life lessons, man.
• 45:03
  I feel like every day you don't stop learning.
• 45:06
  Exactly.
• 45:06
  Where I'm going to here is that it's, it's a, a beautiful, um,
• 45:12
  thing having the Perkins surname, right?
• 45:14
  And some people might think, oh, that would instantly open doors.
• 45:17
  Your dad was very big on you opening your own doors.
• 45:20
  And I think probably still is in that regard.
• 45:22
  So it is a kind of mixed emotion thing, isn't it?
• 45:27
  Because it's something you're immensely proud of in the one sense.
• 45:30
  And on the other hand, when you're this young kid at the
• 45:36
  Yeah, you're right.
• 45:37
  And like I said, like, you know, mum's family come to my first go-kart race.
• 45:40
  She's from a family of nine, I think, isn't she?
• 45:42
  Yeah, yeah.
• 45:42
  So there's bloody cars of thousands there and, you know, there's expectations straight away that you're going to be as good as your dad.
• 45:50
  And, I mean, there are expectations that someone like Sebastian Vettel probably never had because his dad wasn't a race car driver.
• 45:58
  And look, it's like you say, it works both ways.
• 46:02
  It certainly helps create opportunity, but equally there's expectation there.
• 46:09
  And I look at Mason Kelly, Clay Richards, those kids going through, and I feel for them because they're going through the same stuff that I've gone through.
• 46:17
  I'm out the other side now.
• 46:18
  I mean, my racing career has got less years ahead of it than more, don't get me wrong.
• 46:23
  But...
• 46:24
  I feel for those kids because, you know, they're open to criticism now with social media, you know, and people just go, oh, he's not as good as his dad.
• 46:30
  And I still cop it, but I laugh now.
• 46:33
  I do find myself kind of writing back to a few people because I sort of say, well, where do I put my trophies, mate?
• 46:38
  You know, you're not as good as your dad.
• 46:39
  I go, well, yeah, I might not be, mate.
• 46:40
  But...
• 46:41
  but I've actually still done a couple of things that I'm proud of.
• 46:43
  What am I supposed to do?
• 46:45
  Give me trophies back or, you know.
• 46:47
  And you continue, mate, with some of the stuff that we're going to get to around looking after the cars and keeping that wonderful history alive, right, which is so important.
• 46:57
  Your mum and dad.
• 46:58
  Made you stop karting for year 12, though, didn't they?
• 47:01
  They were big on you.
• 47:01
  You've got to finish school.
• 47:02
  You've got to have yourself in a position where you could have been an engineer if you wanted to, I think, couldn't you?
• 47:08
  You did a day of uni at the end, didn't you?
• 47:10
  You've done your research, Rusty, as I'm not surprised.
• 47:12
  But, yeah, always with the racing, the karting, mum and dad just said, like, if the school marks are down or you're not doing school, the go-kart stops.
• 47:21
  It's simple, you know.
• 47:22
  You're not going.
• 47:23
  Yeah.
• 47:24
  And year 12, I think my parents saw that as a really important year, your final year of schooling.
• 47:29
  And looking back on it, I kind of wish it was the last two years and I wish I got more into the final year of school sport and stuff like that because, you know, I played in the first footy squad but never got a game for the ones.
• 47:41
  But our coach was Glenn Manton, an AFL carton player.
• 47:44
  And I used to be the runner for the ones after playing in the twos because I was like, oh, I don't want to get fit.
• 47:48
  So I'll just, you know, keep – anyway, I digress.
• 47:51
  But I did get into mechanical engineering at uni.
• 47:54
  But what I really didn't like was just that classroom environment.
• 47:58
  You were hands-on.
• 47:59
  Yeah.
• 48:00
  And I kind of got back in there and it just reminded me of being at school and I thought, I hated school.
• 48:05
  You know, I don't want to be here.
• 48:07
  I've just done a year of it.
• 48:08
  So, no, I'm going to go do something else.
• 48:10
  So, yeah, I went in the class, walked in the classroom and I sort of sat there for a bit, listened to some guy talk and I was like,
• 48:14
  I don't want to listen to you, mate.
• 48:16
  Like you might teach me a bit, but I'm not interested.
• 48:19
  And I just went and started working for dad at the race team.
• 48:22
  I was on $265 a week and living at home, I thought I was a millionaire.
• 48:26
  That business side of it though, I mean, maybe that's another thing he instilled in you in finding ways to help pay for the motorsport ride, for the karting and so on.
• 48:35
  There's a very cool story you shared with Noons, which I love, about you –
• 48:40
  writing, this is probably pre-internet, pre-email and what have you, to John Crennan, Ford Cardstars, but HSV, Holden Special Vehicle Sponsorship, and you rocked up with a briefcase and everything, didn't you?
• 48:53
  That was the ambush marketing story.
• 48:55
  There's a funny one before that that I was telling someone the other day because I used to just go through Dad's phone book of faxes and just write to people asking for sponsorship.
• 49:06
  So I'd written to Dale Rogers at Revolution Race Gear and
• 49:09
  And I think I only was looking for $500, but I've got all the numbers wrong and asked for $50,000.
• 49:14
  The decimal.
• 49:15
  The decimal's out.
• 49:16
  Yeah, I've done something wrong.
• 49:17
  And he goes, yeah, we're not giving you $50,000, but thanks for your sponsorship proposal.
• 49:22
  But, yeah, the John Crenner one, that was year 11 at school in my last year of karting.
• 49:28
  And for the Kart Stars thing, it was really good.
• 49:30
  You all got the same go-kart and everything, but the entry fee was $15,000.
• 49:35
  But you got your go-kart, everything for the year.
• 49:36
  You just had to get yourself to all the events.
• 49:38
  Yeah.
• 49:39
  And I thought, well, this is great, but, you know, Dad's not going to give me a $15,000 check.
• 49:42
  So I've got to try and figure out how to pay for it.
• 49:44
  And it was the Ford Card Star Series.
• 49:46
  So I, yeah, I bought a shirt and I bought a briefcase because I thought you needed to have a briefcase in the meeting.
• 49:52
  And I went to John Crennan and I just remember his office chair being so cool.
• 49:56
  It was like a chair out of a HSV road car.
• 49:57
  And I thought, man, that's sick.
• 50:00
  And, um...
• 50:01
  Anyway, I presented to John and told him what I was thinking and how Holden could benefit or HSV could benefit from being in the Ford series.
• 50:09
  And he said, how much do you need?
• 50:11
  I said, well, the entry fee is $15,000.
• 50:12
  He goes, all right, we'll sign it away.
• 50:14
  And I don't know if I said this on Noons' podcast, but –
• 50:18
  That sponsorship agreement came through on a TWR letterhead and not long after that company all folded.
• 50:26
  Wow.
• 50:26
  So if you're a V8 sleuth for TWR, I could be the last ever TWR sponsored driver.
• 50:34
  I'd have to find the letterhead, but I remember it at the time because it was when that whole scape ended up with HRT, arrows went belly up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 50:42
  I could be, which is pretty cool.
• 50:44
  It means nothing in the scheme of things, but just getting the TWR led ahead.
• 50:48
  And I think a bit of that was also like because, you know, Creno and HRT always had a rivalry with dad and whatever else.
• 50:54
  So, you know, and then I remember meeting with Scaife after that to try and get a drive with HRT and stuff like that.
• 51:00
  But, yeah, the Creno is great to me and I've seen him a couple of times since.
• 51:05
  There's another story.
• 51:05
  I know you've been onto me on the phone about that.
• 51:07
  Yeah.
• 51:08
  And I can't say a bad word about Crenno.
• 51:10
  He was ripper to me and I learned a bit of stuff off him.
• 51:13
  And you kind of, I mean, you still have immense love for Perkins Engineering and what your dad did and so on.
• 51:18
  You got to race for them, which is really cool.
• 51:20
  But HRT were a thing for you, weren't they?
• 51:23
  Yeah.
• 51:24
  I think you described them with news as like Ferrari for you, weren't they?
• 51:26
  Oh, yeah.
• 51:27
  And you grow up and even just, you know, you think of the stuff with Barry Sheen and Jeff Gretsch and everything.
• 51:31
  Like, you know, Jeff used to work for Dad, but he was running HRT.
• 51:34
  They were winning all the races.
• 51:35
  You know, Perkins Engineering would win the ones that they didn't win every now and again.
• 51:39
  But you just think, wow, you know, like that's where it's at.
• 51:42
  You know, Holden Racing Team.
• 51:45
  And, you know, I mean, like I said, I went to see Scaife at some stage to try and get a drive there and we obviously didn't get anything happening.
• 51:52
  I was probably still too young to be fair, but Mark was great to me in that sense.
• 51:57
  And, yeah, when that opportunity finally came up, it was after my last full-time year driving for Charlie and I was at Phillip Island and I kind of knew James Courtney but wasn't super close with him.
• 52:10
  And he knew that my drive was coming to an end with Charlie and he's like, what are you doing next year?
• 52:15
  Murph helped a bit here too, I think, didn't he?
• 52:16
  Yeah.
• 52:17
  Because I was co-driving with Murph in the New Zealand Super Tourist.
• 52:20
  So Murph was co-driving with James at the time and everyone sort of knew I was running out of a gig and I didn't know what I was going to do next.
• 52:26
  Murph wanted out early too for TV stuff, I think, didn't he?
• 52:30
  Correct.
• 52:30
  And he put my name forward, I believe, to James and the team or whatever.
• 52:34
  And James bailed me up and said, you got anything?
• 52:37
  I said, well, no, I don't actually.
• 52:38
  I haven't
• 52:40
  The penny dropped to me through that season to try and win Bathurst, which is what I wanted to do.
• 52:46
  You've got to get in one of these sort of half a dozen cars that are winning every week, whether it was an FPR car, which I'd sort of got into, but it was the fourth car.
• 52:55
  You drove a triple eight car at one point and the first thing you went was like, holy.
• 52:58
  Yeah, yeah.
• 52:58
  Wasn't it?
• 52:59
  How long has this shit been going on?
• 53:01
  Especially, yeah.
• 53:03
  But that's another story.
• 53:04
  And then, yeah, so then James said, come and co-drive me.
• 53:06
  And, you know, there's a good synergy there because dad sponsored James back in the day when he was.
• 53:11
  He sent him some money when he was carding, didn't he?
• 53:13
  Yeah, and James talks about it today and I think James feels a little bit in debt to that, which he doesn't have to be, but Dad just knew that it was a struggle in Europe and he'd read about James Courtney, you know, couldn't pay for his rent or something and Dad just sent him five grand.
• 53:26
  I mean, Dad wouldn't have had five grand lying around.
• 53:29
  Nor did he make noise about it either.
• 53:30
  Correct, correct.
• 53:31
  And James to this day talks about it and…
• 53:34
  Yeah, I mean, to me, Rusty, that 2015 year was the one that got away.
• 53:38
  If I look back at it, because, you know, like I said, my career's coming to an end.
• 53:42
  But I didn't get to drive with James that first two races, Santa and Bathurst.
• 53:46
  I drove, no disrespect, I drove with Russell Ingle.
• 53:48
  We were both effectively co-drivers.
• 53:51
  And we finished in the top 10 at Sandown.
• 53:52
  I think we finished 11th at Bathurst.
• 53:54
  But I think if I got to do that with James, we would have done a lot better.
• 53:58
  Again, no disrespect to Russell or myself, but we were just two co-drivers.
• 54:02
  And then when James turned up, we won a Gold Coast.
• 54:05
  That's great.
• 54:05
  And it's great that that car is literally just down beneath us.
• 54:09
  He says very fondly looking over the ledge.
• 54:12
  Let's just –
• 54:14
  What you did with Nunes is brilliant and it's a proper timeline.
• 54:17
  We'll do a snapshot of things here.
• 54:18
  I want to just quickly have a little look at the window of Formula Ford before you got to supercars.
• 54:24
  You get a little 92 Formula Ford.
• 54:26
  Needs quite a bit of work.
• 54:27
  You're quite hands-on in that regard.
• 54:29
  But, I mean, there's some cool yarns in there.
• 54:31
  I mean, you came up against Daniel Ricciardo at one point.
• 54:35
  Yeah.
• 54:35
  Pretty cool.
• 54:36
  Yeah, it was.
• 54:36
  So we got that former Ford.
• 54:40
  It was a bit of a shitter, a 92 car, and they had a monoshock, single front shock absorber.
• 54:45
  So, you know, Dad would just look at that and go, wow, how does that work?
• 54:48
  You know, it can't be an independent rear end with only one shock, independent front end with only one shocker.
• 54:54
  And we went testing and mucked around and it was, yeah, we were sort of not nowhere, but it wasn't easy.
• 55:00
  You bought some Kent engines and dynoed them yourself and built them, didn't you, and all sorts of things.
• 55:04
  So, yeah, I had to find a motor.
• 55:06
  So I found two at a wrecking yard in Adelaide and one was out of an automatic transmission, so the thing was brand new.
• 55:12
  And because Perkins Engineering actually built the former Ford engines for guys like Stephen Richards and that, there was some old parts lying around and the old dyno attachment was there.
• 55:19
  So we...
• 55:20
  I worked with the guys.
• 55:21
  I can't take the credit for all of it because I wasn't an engine builder, but I learned how to do it.
• 55:25
  And we built one motor out of the two.
• 55:29
  We dynoed them.
• 55:29
  They were, you know, they were okay.
• 55:31
  But as it turned out, you know, the category had changed a lot and we were a fair way off.
• 55:35
  But –
• 55:37
  The one race that year, so we twin-shocked it ourselves.
• 55:40
  We put two rear rockers on the front and bought another shocker and made that work and the car was better.
• 55:45
  And then I raced a couple of national rounds and just the motor was just not there compared to some of the other guys.
• 55:50
  So we leased an engine.
• 55:52
  A guy that was helping me who's still a close friend of mine today, Craig Konecki from K&A Engineering, whose dad Dale actually worked on dad's former 5,000 cars back in the Elfin sort of era.
• 56:06
  They supported you quite a bit, didn't they?
• 56:08
  Yeah, yeah.
• 56:08
  Craig's a good friend of mine still to this day.
• 56:12
  And anyway, he convinced Dad, let's just get him another motor and we'll give him no excuses.
• 56:17
  So we rocked up at Sandown for the National Series in a 92 model car, 2005s a year.
• 56:22
  So it's 13 years old, qualified second.
• 56:26
  And thought, oh, God, this is all happening a bit easier.
• 56:29
  Dan was in a 92 as well, I think, wasn't he?
• 56:31
  Yeah, and that's what I laugh about because everyone's like, oh, Dan was just in this old shitbox.
• 56:34
  I'm like, well, so was I.
• 56:37
  And it actually came up on Twitter maybe 10 years ago, a few blokes, because the engineer that James and I had at HRT was Terry Kerr.
• 56:45
  He's the technical director at Walkers.
• 56:47
  He was racing Formula Fours that weekend.
• 56:49
  Guys like Dale Wood, Dean Fiore.
• 56:51
  Good line-up.
• 56:52
  Yeah, Tim Blanchard, lots of good guys, and Daniel Ricciardo.
• 56:55
  And I come up on Twitter or something and Dan Ricciardo replied to all of us and said, yeah, I'm glad everyone's got paddle shift or something.
• 57:02
  And I've been really fortunate to – I got to meet and interview Dan working with Channel 10.
• 57:07
  We went go-karting up at Puckapuny with the Ricciardo karts
• 57:11
  And, yeah, he's a cool dude.
• 57:14
  Very.
• 57:14
  Very impressed with what he's done with his career.
• 57:16
  And, yeah, I love mentioning it when I do public speaking to sponsors and stuff.
• 57:21
  I'm like, yeah, you know, I raced against Daniel Ricciardo.
• 57:24
  I'm here talking to you blokes.
• 57:26
  And he's over – He's in Monaco.
• 57:28
  Yeah, he's earning $15 million a year or something.
• 57:31
  I said, but, yeah, you know, if anyone ever goes back to 2005, at least I had the last laugh then sort of thing.
• 57:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:36
  Yeah, I mean, I've got no jealousy whatsoever there, but it's a nice moment in time.
• 57:41
  Awesome, mate.
• 57:41
  Trajectory.
• 57:42
  Sorry, just to tell you, the thing that annoyed me about not being able to do formal Ford the second year was they got rid of that Kent engine.
• 57:48
  That's right.
• 57:49
  And they wanted, and this is a bit of Larry Perkins coming out in me, they wanted $16,000 for the new engine.
• 57:55
  The road car was $17,000 or something, and it just didn't make sense.
• 57:58
  So it was cheaper to jump in a supercar because we had ones lying around.
• 58:03
  Anyway, that was just a dot the I's off of that.
• 58:04
  But I would have loved to have – I look back at my driving career and I would love to have had a proper crack at the championship because I actually tested Daniel Elliott's Van Diemen after he won the championship and matched his times at Malab.
• 58:18
  Yeah, it was just – you had to have a car post-2001, so we would have had to go and buy a new car off Greg Sutil probably for –
• 58:26
  you know 30 40 grand and an engine for 15 grand it was like 65 grand could just about run the you know the the disposables yeah run because you already own all the infrastructure so um we went down that route but yeah that's probably one of my little regrets not even crack about it is that just in wrapping up that formula forward stuff is a bit of that because of the lineage because of what your dad and i think your uncle had achieved and so on in the in the australian formula forward scene
• 58:49
  Yeah, so both dad and Uncle Terry won the Formula Ford Championship.
• 58:52
  And for me as a kid, that was a rite of passage.
• 58:54
  You win the Australian Formula Ford Championship.
• 58:55
  It sets you up.
• 58:56
  You're going to win Bathurst or you're going to do this or you're going to do that.
• 58:59
  So for me, yeah, just – but I can see I didn't – I personally had no money just coming out of high school.
• 59:07
  I'd saved a bit here.
• 59:08
  It's a funny story.
• 59:09
  We organized a few formal after parties at school and did a few cashies and didn't have liquor licenses and whatnot.
• 59:15
  But that –
• 59:15
  A bit of that money.
• 59:16
  Bringing in DJs and all sorts of things.
• 59:17
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:18
  It was quite funny.
• 59:19
  I was telling the story to someone the other day and I said, that's actually how I helped pay for a bit of my Formula Ford, you know, just had some money in the bank.
• 59:25
  But I didn't have 100 grand to go and give to a Sonic or a, you know, or a Brett Lupton to go for more.
• 59:31
  And dad wasn't going to give me the money because, you know, it was easier to kind of run things through your business, you know.
• 59:38
  That taught you, mate, too, didn't it?
• 59:40
  That teaches you.
• 59:40
  Yeah, and I see it a bit – Mason Kelly's probably in a similar situation.
• 59:44
  I mean, if your dad owns a milk bar, lollies don't cost you much.
• 59:47
  Much, yeah, yeah.
• 59:49
  But if you go to the other milk bar, you have to pay for them.
• 59:51
  So it's kind of – that's the sort of thing and people think, oh, you just got it easy but it actually makes a bit more financial sense as well.
• 59:58
  Definitely.
• 59:58
  When was the first time you drove a supercar and where were you and what feeling did that leave you with?
• 1:00:03
  Winton?
• 1:00:03
  Yeah.
• 1:00:06
  It was either 2004, 2005.
• 1:00:09
  We had a ride car that I think a couple of guys like Alex Davison were doing some laps in.
• 1:00:14
  And I remember not getting every gear, Rusty.
• 1:00:18
  That H-pattern was tricky.
• 1:00:20
  And, yeah, I kind of – I think I did a minute 30 or a minute 31 and I was miles off the pace and I just thought, there's just no way I can do this.
• 1:00:27
  This is too hard.
• 1:00:28
  It's all happening too fast.
• 1:00:29
  It's, you know, how the hell can you talk on the radio and change the sway bars?
• 1:00:32
  I'm flat out just looking at the gear stick.
• 1:00:35
  Um, and then a few ride days, I sort of started to do a couple of laps at the end of the day because I'd go away with the ride car crew.
• 1:00:42
  We had an old car that ran on Bridgestones when the category was on Dunlops.
• 1:00:45
  So the second time I drove it was Oran Park Short Circuit.
• 1:00:47
  Oh, wow.
• 1:00:48
  And I remember going, right, I'm going to have a bit of a crack here and start getting my head around this.
• 1:00:51
  And, you know, dad said, you know, let Jack do 10 laps to the boys at the end of the day.
• 1:00:55
  Dad wasn't even at the ride days.
• 1:00:56
  And then I'd jump in and...
• 1:00:58
  go for a fang and just start to get up to speed.
• 1:01:01
  And, yeah, eventually kind of – well, I wouldn't have done – you know, there's stories about Craig Lowndes in his first year doing like 20,000 kilometers testing.
• 1:01:09
  I wouldn't have done that.
• 1:01:11
  But I was able to do 10 laps a year, 20 laps there and just pick it up.
• 1:01:13
  And then by the first sort of race meeting we did when you guys were covering trackside and you were commentating there, I think.
• 1:01:20
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:21
  2006 development series.
• 1:01:22
  You know, by the time we got on the grid, we were sort of, yeah, we were going pretty good.
• 1:01:26
  I think we finished third in the championship that year.
• 1:01:36
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with Jack Perkins, but we are not done yet.
• 1:01:41
  We have another instalment for you, all parked up in the garage and ready to fire up whenever suits you.
• 1:01:47
  We take a walk around some cool old race cars and talk about them, the memories they evoke, and the lengths he goes to in the pursuit of the perfect restoration.
• 1:01:57
  The ups and downs of his own career, reuniting for another shot at the supercars endurance races,
• 1:02:03
  with a great mate, but this time behind the wheel of a Ford and what the future holds for his own driving ambitions.