Latest / Rusty's Garage / Robbie Phillis | Part 1 - The larrikin motorcycle racer who took on the world!

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Robbie Phillis | Part 1 - The larrikin motorcycle racer who took on the world! · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
0:14
I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
0:27
For this episode, I've hit the road to the New South Wales Victorian border, Albury.
0:32
That's Brad Jones territory.
0:34
You can find his ep in our library.
0:36
That one is a beauty.
0:38
And I did it with the travel podcast kit that I brought here today too.
0:42
I think there's even a little connection between our guest and Brad of sorts.
0:46
From memory, Brad's father supported or perhaps even helped coordinate a sponsorship for Robbie Phyllis back in the day.
0:54
Robbie's a legend with a love of a laugh and an insatiable thirst for tinkering.
1:00
The Ideas Factory.
1:02
Robbie has come up with all sorts of innovations over the years, shoehorning a jet ski motor into a buggy and many more.
1:10
He was a natural on two wheels with that
1:13
fearlessness that the good bike racers so often have.
1:17
Some of you will fondly remember him riding for Team Green on the world stage, but Kawasaki is just one of many marks that he raced over the years.
1:26
In addition to finishing in the top three in the World Superbike Championship in the early 90s,
1:32
as its popularity was about to skyrocket, there are Australian titles on his CV.
1:37
Success in some famous endurance races that we held in this part of the world back then.
1:43
Wins in New Zealand, at the iconic Spa Circuit in Belgium, where you need a big set of you-know-what, plus success in Japan, where he was incredibly well-regarded.
1:54
We'll also talk about his friendship with Peter Brock and lots of fun yarns where Robbie and the crew invariably got up to mischief.
2:02
Keep those in what I like to call era perspective.
2:06
We're all a bit PC now, but you could do that and get away with it back then and there was never any malice intended.
2:12
So just frame it that way.
2:15
You can't kind of emulate Robbie in this area because he is a true one of a kind.
2:22
Now, we're not going to get to every story of his here.
2:25
I apologise for that straight away.
2:27
I've encouraged him to write a book because there are so many.
2:30
But there are some web yarns around if you're listening to him and that piques a bit more of your interest.
2:35
There's a great one by Mark Vittori, for example, on the bike sales site.
2:39
Go and check that out a little later.
2:41
I'm indebted to Robbie's mate, Roger Arnold, for hosting us today.
2:45
We're in one of Spud's sheds surrounded by bikes.
2:49
It is a perfect setting.
2:51
And there is a small gathering of supporters listening in too, including Neil Bird, who kick-started the NGK Superbike Series and worked overseas for...
3:00
urta the international racing team association albert tijenope a former racer and kawasaki dealer is with us and so is robbie's jack russells molly and herbie causing some chaos don't they say that dogs are a great reflection of their owners they're beautiful hope you enjoy this one as much as i did shining a bit of a light on a character and a career that spanned the globe it all started with cycling and dirt bikes
3:31
Hello, mate.
3:32
This is overdue, isn't it?
3:34
It is a bit, I suppose.
3:36
I'm nearly on desk door.
3:37
No, you are not.
3:38
Stop it.
3:38
Stop it.
3:39
How did it all kind of start for you?
3:41
I mean, in doing a little bit of homework for this, am I right in saying you were born in kind of Riverina, Wagga?
3:46
Wagga, Wagga, Wagga.
3:47
Wagga, Wagga.
3:47
So tell me about early life for you.
3:50
And, I mean, where we're recording now is basically Albury.
3:54
And I think a lot of your...
3:56
two-wheel stuff really kicked into gear in this part of the world.
3:58
It's my hometown.
4:00
I was born in Wagga in 56.
4:03
Dad was in the Air Force.
4:06
He was stationed there from, you know, met mum and she was a Wagga girl.
4:10
How long?
4:11
A Holbrook girl and then a Wagga girl, you know.
4:14
And then we moved to Corowa to the airport there in the 50s and then they built the new airport in Albury
4:25
in 61 or 62.
4:27
I think I had my sixth birthday at the Albury Airport.
4:30
You spent a lot of time there, didn't you?
4:31
Yeah, and the Albury Airport is 400 acres and there's no lights for landing lights those days, you know, and so I was pretty lucky I had 400 acres to spend time on after working hours, you know, that I could roll around on my motorcycle, you know, which is another story as well.
4:50
So, you know, like I had all the good stuff, um...
4:55
had all the hangers to hang out with, you know, like all the mechanics used to get me to help them do stuff, you know, and the aeroplanes.
5:02
And I learned a lot, you know, like just from hanging out at the airport with these guys.
5:07
That takes me to two things.
5:09
Firstly, the first bike.
5:11
What was that?
5:11
And is that in the lounge room at home or something?
5:13
No, no, no.
5:14
That first motocrosser I bought brand new sitting in the lounge room at home.
5:20
And I won my first two road races on it, the Hume Weir.
5:22
But no, my first bike was given to me
5:25
by my brother-in-law Tim, who's now 80 years old, so I'm nearly 70.
5:30
So he gave that to me, I think, in about 1969.
5:36
Uh-huh.
5:37
And, uh... Did you take to it like a duck to water?
5:39
Well, I was rolling around on his farm, which was about a mile away from the Humeweir circuit on the Murray River.
5:47
Yeah.
5:47
You know, and...
5:50
Never thought I was going to go through the Weir circuit back in those days.
5:54
Legendary.
5:54
I was only going to high school.
5:56
Just started going to high school.
5:59
Okay.
6:00
The dog's here with us while we're recording, but it's all good.
6:02
Keep going.
6:02
And, you know, so I've got this step through he's given me, and I've got the farm to roll around on and also the airport.
6:13
And, you know, I just...
6:16
I had a bitumen road and every bloody thing, you know.
6:18
It's still the same road there.
6:20
And after work hours, everyone used to go home at 5.30, 6 o'clock, you know, and summertime.
6:25
Off you go.
6:26
The way you'd go, you know.
6:27
You were pretty handy cyclists too.
6:29
Is that sort of happening as a young... Yeah, well, I sold that bike, that...
6:32
A little step through to our famous old speedway rider, Victor Mooker, who was building a speedway track at Barnawatha.
6:38
He wanted to get you involved, I think, too, didn't he?
6:40
Yeah, and he's going, Robbie, I make you world champion, you know.
6:44
Well, world speedway champion, you know.
6:47
He was a good old boy, but he killed himself in his tiger moth, which wasn't a good thing, so...
6:52
He bought this little step drew off me and I made up a push bike to go push bike racing with, you know.
6:58
Excellent.
6:58
So I was doing about 250 miles a week training and racing with all my mates.
7:05
And then when I started work is when I...
7:09
looked at buying a motorcycle.
7:13
Yeah.
7:13
What was that early job?
7:14
And did that stem from some of the tinkering you'd done at the airport?
7:17
Oh, all of that, yeah.
7:19
You would help them there, wouldn't you?
7:20
Yeah, well, I'd help them.
7:22
I'd clean or sweep the floors.
7:25
I'd get in the aeroplanes and the fuselage or wherever the tight spots were to help these boys out and do nuts and bolts up and stuff like that.
7:32
You know, I was only from about seven years on, you know.
7:38
Okay.
7:39
then I'd be using their lathe or their oxygen acetylene to make a minibike or a go-kart.
7:46
I had a billy cart with a sail on it.
7:49
I used to sail across the tarmac.
7:51
You were always an ideas man, weren't you?
7:54
The ideas factory.
7:55
And that step through, I rode across the runway one day when I shouldn't have.
8:00
And the guy in the aeroplane was learning to fly, was taxiing up the runway.
8:06
And he's the guy that I had to get my...
8:08
my licence through.
8:10
He was a copper, right?
8:11
And he remembered, I went four times to get my... My... Road licence.
8:17
My road licence, you know, because of that mumble, you know?
8:21
And so, that's, you know, like, I was a cheeky bastard as well, you know?
8:26
Were you?
8:27
Were you good at school or not?
8:28
No, I was useless.
8:29
Were you?
8:29
Yeah.
8:30
Metalwork, tech drawing and woodwork.
8:32
No problem.
8:33
I was the top of the class.
8:34
Okay.
8:35
Um, but...
8:37
maths was bad English was really bad social studies was shit I just wanted to tinker and ride
8:46
Well, I never did any homework and I was racing my push bike, you know.
8:51
It's sports.
8:52
I didn't do school sports.
8:53
The sports master used to let me go and ride my bike on sports days so I could train, which I did.
9:03
I never drank.
9:03
I never smoked.
9:04
I never did anything bad, you know, because I was always...
9:09
scared of the police, I guess.
9:12
Yeah.
9:13
So I just had a pretty good grounding.
9:21
My brother-in-law too has helped me heaps.
9:23
He's a farmer and used to do a lot of work out there on the
9:30
Was the early attraction more sort of dirt bikes, clearly, before the road racing adventures?
9:37
And were there idols?
9:39
Were there people you would look up to in that space?
9:42
Or you just loved the freedom of riding and doing that stuff?
9:44
I didn't know anyone.
9:45
I heard of Tom Phillips, who's my cousin.
9:48
Okay.
9:48
Okay.
9:48
And there was a memorial race that they used to have at the Hume Wheel.
9:53
And I won the Tom Phillips Memorial four times.
9:56
So that was pretty good because his mum and dad were there to present me with the trophy, you know.
10:01
And Elsie and Tom Senior, you know, and they were really nice people that lived in Sydney.
10:07
You probably met them.
10:08
I would imagine along the way, yeah.
10:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:11
Hume Wheel is legendary, mate.
10:12
Yeah, Hume Wheel is, yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:14
But...
10:16
It was a dangerous bloody place.
10:18
Was it?
10:18
Yeah, I broke a few bones there.
10:21
We'll get to your tally and things as we go here.
10:24
I want to come to the transition to motorcycle racing.
10:30
Yeah.
10:31
Of some kind.
10:31
So, I mean, clearly you're doing good miles in a cycling sense.
10:35
At what point do you go...
10:37
You know, this fascination with mechanical things, this love of bikes, now I want to go compete.
10:44
How did that start?
10:45
Well, see, I was actually an apprentice carpet layer with an old guy, Jack Summers, that raced pushbikes.
10:55
Here in Albury?
10:56
Here in Albury, yeah.
10:57
And he gave me a job, you know, and he used to train with him.
11:02
Were you good at that?
11:05
Ah, I was.
11:06
Okay.
11:07
I did a lot of work.
11:08
Most of the Housing Commission Development Corporation houses here, Albury Wodonga.
11:14
You laid the carpet?
11:15
I laid the tiles in them.
11:17
Did you?
11:17
Back in the 70s and 80s.
11:18
Did you?
11:19
I've done hundreds of houses, you know.
11:21
Okay.
11:22
Yeah.
11:22
So, you know, like a...
11:24
It was a full cover, a wall cover, you know, whatever, you know, ceramic, all the stuff, you know.
11:30
Anyway, I interrupted you, so you were working with him.
11:32
Yeah, and then I bought a motorcycle, a TS250 Suzuki.
11:37
I just bought another one the other week, you know.
11:39
Did you?
11:39
It was a 1971 model, you know.
11:41
And then my mates were rolling around on motocrosses and then I bought a TM250 motocross Suzuki, Suzuki motocrosser.
11:51
Then I traded that in on a KX250, which is what I was just talking about before.
11:56
It's in the lounge room at home.
11:58
Oh, nice.
11:59
And then there was a meeting on – I got my licence, my race licence –
12:06
in, I think I was 18, it was 74, 75.
12:12
And where I live now in Korawa, there was a dirt track, a hot rod track in Wagunya, which is across the river from Korawa.
12:20
Now, my father helped build that track when we lived in Korawa.
12:23
Excellent.
12:25
And so I had my first meeting.
12:27
So just describe it to the audience.
12:29
Is it flat track?
12:30
Has it got jumps in it?
12:31
No, no jumps.
12:31
It's just a flat track.
12:33
It had a couple of bends, a couple of lefts and a couple of rights.
12:36
Nice.
12:37
And straight, you know, it was oil track.
12:38
Yeah.
12:39
So we had a two-hour race there.
12:41
And my mate, Peter Pearsall, who has been helping us with the bikes as well, he's a mechanic, and he had a little 125 Yamaha.
12:51
So this two-hour we rode together.
12:54
And it's an oil track.
12:58
I've got knobby tyres.
12:59
It started to shower rain.
13:00
I was tapped out down the straight in fifth gear, and I've done a donut.
13:05
Oh!
13:07
You kept it upright?
13:08
I was leading the race.
13:09
So I've done this donut, slid down the track, got back on it, still running, let the clutch out and give it a rev, and it was in top gear.
13:19
Oh!
13:20
Kick, kick, kick.
13:21
We did the pit stop, put some fuel in it, Pete got on, and we finished second.
13:25
And Cole Brosser, rest in peace, Cole, he won the race on his CR250.
13:31
He's just a local guy as well.
13:34
Nice.
13:34
And that was my taste, first taste of racing.
13:37
And you're hooked?
13:38
You're like, I want to do more of this?
13:39
Yeah, I was hooked.
13:40
And then there was a club, in a club meeting, five different clubs from Victoria at the Hume, were you?
13:45
Mm-hmm.
13:48
I got a wheel out of a whole Honda from the Honda dealer.
13:53
It was a 250 front wheel with some old tyre on it, and a drum brake front end, you know, put it in my motocross bike.
14:01
I fitted it in all right, you know, and it worked.
14:04
Put a set of flat handlebars on the motocross and changed the gear ratio, and went out for the Yume Weir to do this inter-club meeting.
14:17
There was three qualifying races, a 250, a 500 and an unlimited.
14:25
So I got...
14:29
a first in the 250, a second in the 500 and third in the unlimited.
14:35
Limited, yeah.
14:35
And then I went out and raced and got the same result.
14:38
And I'll push darts and I'd run along with the thing in neutral, jump on the gear lever and the seat at the same time to start it.
14:45
And off I went, you know.
14:46
So I thought, this is me, you know.
14:49
I did a few meetings as a C grader and then it sort of...
14:53
It went from there.
14:54
I got a lap record at Hume Weir.
14:56
I got a lap record at Winton.
14:59
on this old motocrosser, 250, you know, against road racers.
15:03
I thought, far out, you know, what am I doing?
15:07
So you're working, you're clearly working a normal job to sort of make... Well, yeah, I was doing carpet.
15:14
Well, I ain't carpets like doing weights and aerobics all day.
15:17
You know, like you run around, you know, you've got to roll a carpet on your shoulder, you know, you can hardly lift, and then you're up and down on your hands and knees, you're kicking the kicker to stretch the carpet, you know.
15:30
Good workout.
15:31
It was, and then I'd jump and be pushed by, I can do 30 miles.
15:36
After work, you know.
15:38
It was crazy, you know, and then I'd go and race my bike as well on the weekend, you know, but the push bike thing sort of stopped after a while.
15:45
I did, I just, I was, I had too many things on the go, you know.
15:49
So what, what transpires in a racing sense here then?
15:51
I mean, you clearly you're, uh, you know, from, from podiums to, or to trophies and, and to lap records and so on, you've got...
16:00
You clearly have ability.
16:01
So what transpires next in this for you?
16:03
You've got a job to have money coming in.
16:06
At what point do you start going, right, I really want to zero in on some road racing here?
16:11
What grabs you?
16:13
Yeah, well, I don't know.
16:14
I don't know.
16:18
My... Like, I only...
16:20
I just wanted to have fun.
16:21
You know, like, I didn't...
16:24
I didn't realise that I was going to be okay at it, you know.
16:28
I just thought, oh, I'll just do this because it's something I'm good at, you know, and enjoyed it, you know.
16:34
So I bought...
16:35
I traded my...
16:37
My bike on my KX, which I bought back, and I traded in on the TZ350 Yamaha in 76.
16:47
I was only 20 years old.
16:49
I was 19, actually, when I got it.
16:52
And my 20th birthday was two days after I had my first race meeting on it and I crashed it twice.
16:59
Didn't realise I'd broken two vertebrae.
17:02
And until I broke the second two 18 months later.
17:07
And then I fell off it again.
17:09
Like, I made it to you and we are.
17:11
This is a race meeting.
17:12
Yeah.
17:13
I'd fallen off it on the Saturday in practice and then broken these, or cracked these two vertebrae.
17:22
And my back was aching, you know, like it was...
17:25
I was running it in, that's sorry.
17:27
Yeah, no, no, I fell off at Scrub Corner, yeah.
17:32
And then I fixed it, went back out.
17:35
This was on the Thursday.
17:38
Went back home and fixed her up and come back out on the Saturday and crashed again, come back under the bridge.
17:44
Didn't hurt myself.
17:46
And then we had six races on the Sunday and I won all six races and got the T-grade lap record.
17:54
Ronnie Bolden was there.
17:55
You're injured when this happens?
17:57
You're carrying an injury?
17:59
Yeah, I didn't know.
18:01
I went back to work on Monday.
18:03
I ain't carpet.
18:05
You know, with two... Vertebrae.
18:08
Two cracks in my spine.
18:11
And then I go...
18:14
That's another 18 months later that I found out I'd... Because I broke the next two at the Hume.
18:20
We were skinning along the wall under the bridge after I seized the engine, you know.
18:28
And they said, when did you break these ones?
18:30
Didn't know you had.
18:31
I didn't know.
18:31
So, yeah, but I couldn't work out why my back was so sore, you know, for...
18:38
And it's never got better.
18:41
The end tally in your career is something like 49 broken bones.
18:45
I think you told me before, was it 200 odd crashes I think?
18:47
Minimum.
18:48
Minimum.
18:49
You know, like you think about, I did 108 superbike races.
18:53
You know, I used to have, if I had 10 crashes a year... That was okay?
18:59
No, you think... On average you mean?
19:01
On average, and you've raced for 20 years.
19:05
You're chalking up.
19:06
No, I've raced for 20 years and I'm still crashing, you know, like even after I stopped racing and went back to doing the classic stuff, probably had a fair few bingles then, you know, like, and got hurt.
19:18
Probably the worst crash I had was in 2015.
19:20
Did anyone tell you in this period to stop?
19:22
Did you, were you just like not listening to them?
19:24
Like when the doctor opens you up and discovers that you've got a current injury plus two old ones you didn't know about.
19:29
What would they know?
19:34
They'd never had a life.
19:36
They've been busy fixing people that have a life.
19:40
So come forward in the timeline here for me.
19:43
So you have no fear.
19:48
You have an engineering mouse.
19:51
You have a natural sort of curiosity, if you like, around fixing things.
19:56
So tell me a little bit about that side of it as you're growing here.
20:00
Like you mentioned one of the early races there down the road.
20:04
You're already on to, I need to change the gearing or I need to do...
20:07
So you...
20:08
you were really into that side of it.
20:10
Yeah, I knew a lot about that.
20:12
My dad was really, really, he was a bit of a craftsman, actually.
20:17
He was an airframe welder during the war.
20:22
And, you know, he could make anything, he could fix anything.
20:25
My grandfather was the same, you know, like, and...
20:30
I learned a lot from him, but later in life, Dad turned to the drink and sort of stuffed him, so I had to do things by myself.
20:40
So by necessity, you were... Yeah, and hanging out at the airport, they taught me a lot too, all the blokes over there in the hangars.
20:48
They used to laugh at all the stuff I used to come up with, and they always wanted to help because I amused them, I guess.
20:57
And I was a cheeky little bugger, though.
21:00
I got kicked in the arse a few times.
21:02
I got grieved a couple of times, you know.
21:04
Okay.
21:04
But, yeah, you live and learn.
21:09
And I've built a few boats too over the years.
21:12
Dad was keen on building boats with woodwork.
21:15
And at school, I was good at woodwork.
21:17
And I was top of the class.
21:19
Metal work, same thing.
21:21
And technical drawing.
21:22
I loved drawing things.
21:24
I was okay sketching as well.
21:27
But tech drawing, the deputy headmaster was our tech teacher, who was also a pilot.
21:33
OK. And I got on so good with him, and he helped me heaps, you know, and I never ever got belted by him, you know.
21:40
Like, he used to give all the kids a cane, but I never ever hopped it off him.
21:44
OK.
21:45
This is the formation of what we affectionately call the Ideas Factory, isn't it?
21:50
So, I mean, give people a couple of examples of things over the years that you have devised or come up with.
21:57
Because there's been some beauties, hasn't there?
21:59
Well, yeah, I guess, you know, like I'm on my 18th house reno at the moment.
22:04
You know, like I built four...
22:11
I've done two extensions, the one in Sydney that you come to.
22:16
Yep, yep.
22:20
one in Melbourne and then two new houses as well that I've built.
22:25
But you went to do things that were, I guess, potential money-making schemes.
22:31
One of them, I think Aaron Slyt told me, was at the camping shower.
22:35
Did you come up with a camping shower?
22:37
Oh, just a copper coil there.
22:39
Yeah, it worked good, you know, and in the fire and everyone had a go at it, you know, and they had to pump.
22:45
And then we had that in Germany back in 1990.
22:50
It was snowing.
22:52
Yes.
22:52
And we were camping in the backyard at Kawasaki, Germany.
22:56
Uh-huh.
22:56
We're talking world superbikes here, aren't we?
22:58
Yeah, there's world superbikes, yeah.
22:59
But I had the copper coil in a 50-litre...
23:03
Drum.
23:04
Drum.
23:06
And then the Klein garage, the small garage, had all this wood in it, you know, all cut up to size.
23:13
And I had a six metre copper coil wrapped up in that with a 12 volt pump.
23:20
And then we had this crate from Kawasaki.
23:24
It was eight foot long, four foot square, you know.
23:28
And I put styrofoam packing in it, which was about a half inch thick, you know, and round the walls.
23:35
And this blue poly tarp, it covered the jet, mate, jet ski that they had.
23:40
Right.
23:42
In the factory, you know.
23:44
So I stole this tarp and duct taped it to hold the water.
23:50
And then we got duct tape and put some compressor hose around it with little holes in it and hooked that up to the compressor but it turned the water cold, you know.
24:01
So we give that the flick.
24:03
So we've got Peter Doyle...
24:09
Johnny Asher, Mark, Wolfrey and myself in this spa with the snow falling.
24:17
We've got the styrofoam floating on the top and we've got pieces broken out of it for our neck.
24:23
Your head, your head to pop through.
24:25
And then we've got a hand, a handhold to get to our can of beer or our stubby.
24:32
And the snow's falling out of the sky, it's midnight.
24:39
First of all, we started off in the afternoon, you know, and the girls next door, where Milli Vanilli did all the recording.
24:46
Oh, yeah.
24:46
Yeah.
24:46
They're hanging out the window looking at us, and we say, come on down, come on down, and they're all giving us shit, you know, in German or whatever.
24:54
And then...
24:57
there's another hole appears in Peter Doyle's piece of styrofoam and you'd never guess what come out of that hole.
25:04
I don't think I want to know.
25:06
I don't think I want to know.
25:11
Oh, my God.
25:12
Anyhow.
25:14
Later on, we've got a ladder alongside the roof of the caravan.
25:17
We're jumping off the roof into the spa bath.
25:20
We've grown men, you know, four of us.
25:22
It's running around.
25:24
It's snowing.
25:25
We've got the shopping trolley to put the wood in, which is across the other side of the courtyard.
25:30
So it's...
25:33
My shout, I run across, get the wood, then run into the caravan, get the beer out of the fridge and then jump back into the spa, you know.
25:43
So that was spa number one.
25:47
Then when Aaron came, I built bigger ones, you know, for the half of Kawasaki staff to use, you know.
25:54
It's just...
25:55
went on from there you know we're having fun yeah yeah harmless harmless good fun tell me about now the um we've diverted there to super bikes for a minute come back come back come back come back to australia if we can yeah come back to i guess we're talking now late 70s more or less or thereabouts yeah where are you in in a in in the pursuit of
26:18
At some point, this obviously becomes almost full-time obsession, if you will.
26:24
I still had to work, though.
26:25
You still had to work?
26:27
Yeah.
26:28
I never stopped working until late 80s, I guess.
26:34
Really?
26:34
Yeah.
26:34
So you were always juggling that?
26:36
Yeah.
26:36
Yeah.
26:37
Yeah.
26:37
Yeah.
26:40
I didn't get paid until... Ooh.
26:46
Well, Kawasaki paid me an 84.
26:48
Mm-hmm.
26:49
But it wasn't a lot of money, but I still had to work.
26:53
But in the late 70s, Roger Arnold helped me.
26:58
David Gow was another big help.
27:01
And we'd cruise around.
27:04
Milly's Yamaha sponsored me for a year, and that fell over at the end of the year because of drama within the camp and things.
27:11
But were you good at that, like knocking on the door and trying to get support, or were people jumping at the chance to help you?
27:18
I never really asked for much.
27:21
People used to, you know, if you did well, they'd... See, back in those days, all the dealers, motorcycle dealers who used to want to help because they had a big mark-up and they made a good dollar out of their business.
27:34
And, you know, they'd give you a helmet, they'd give you, you know, boots and gloves or a chain or...
27:42
Not cash, but it was something they had in the shop that they couldn't get rid of.
27:48
It didn't matter.
27:49
It helped.
27:51
But it wasn't that expensive to go racing like it is now.
27:57
And the technology they have now is what's stuffed racing.
28:00
Like it's racing now.
28:03
as shit compared to what it was.
28:05
Yeah, yeah, they all look good, but, you know, like, it's...
28:08
The expense of it all is just crazy.
28:11
So what are you doing here?
28:11
I think there's a great photo.
28:13
Mark Vittori did a story a couple of years ago on bike sales, and it's a great photo of maybe a ute that was in the family.
28:21
Yeah, Granny's ute.
28:23
Was that the tow vehicle, or what were you using back then to get around race to race and so on?
28:27
No, that's what I used to use.
28:28
You know, like, but... No, no, but Mick... Well...
28:31
No, I had the panel van, the HQ panel van, and the trailer.
28:35
I don't want to know those stories.
28:37
Keep going.
28:38
And we used to go off, and then we had a transit van, Dave O'Gauss transit van.
28:46
How far are you going here?
28:47
Are you mainly going to maybe Winton and Calder or something?
28:50
Where are you going for your racing?
28:51
Surface.
28:53
Perth.
28:54
Across the Nullarbor?
28:55
Yeah, across the Nullarbor with the panel van, yeah.
28:58
Yeah.
28:58
Yeah, and then we had the trailer on the back with a Honda 90 step through that I'd turned into a trike.
29:06
Roger tells a good story about this.
29:09
That was our pit bike.
29:10
Yeah.
29:11
So we're in the sand dunes at Eukla and I'm with Roger Arnold and his brother David and they come to help me.
29:18
So this is a stop across the Nullarbor?
29:20
Yeah, we've got the TZ350.
29:22
an IT175 and this little trike and my German Shepherd and Rod just got the old 8mm film.
29:33
What do you call it?
29:34
Like a handy cam or whatever it would have been back then.
29:36
Yeah.
29:37
And I think...
29:43
David had the trip meter on his speedo and we did about 40 k's through the sand dunes, you know, just around in circles, you know, at Eucla.
29:51
Yeah.
29:52
And the dog did a lot of those k's as well, Chosen, so I'm on this little trike.
29:59
I don't know how I didn't kill me bloody self, you know, because I was leaping off the top of the sand dunes and you don't know what's on the other side, you know.
30:06
But, you know, that was an interesting trip.
30:09
On the way home, the trailer started to fall apart.
30:12
Did you win while you were in WA?
30:16
I think I did win.
30:17
What bike did you win?
30:18
I was at TZ350 from Milly's Yamaha.
30:21
And I was leading the championship.
30:25
Is that bike still here?
30:26
Yeah, it's a bike that's here now, yeah.
30:28
Tell people a little bit about that.
30:30
Well, I rode that for Millie Jamaha, and then they sold it to Chris Oldfield, who then sold it to... We're getting an update here.
30:43
Guys here in Aubrey, two brothers.
30:45
Okay.
30:47
What's their last name?
30:48
Graeme.
30:50
Grant, yeah.
30:51
Anyway, the great thing is it's ended back up with Roger.
30:53
And the bike was sitting in the shed, and Roger went and found it, you know, $1,500.
31:00
It's probably worth $25,000 now.
31:01
Great.
31:02
That's so cool that it's been kept and preserved.
31:04
So I fixed it up...
31:09
Got it all back looking good, you know, and went one, two more titles on it in the classic class, you know.
31:15
I love that, yeah.
31:17
And it's still in good condition.
31:20
I could go out and ride it again now, you know.
31:22
Yeah, that's beautiful.
31:23
So anyway, you're coming back.
31:24
You were coming back on this trip.
31:25
You were coming back and the trailer falls apart.
31:28
We're all sleeping in the panel band together, you know.
31:31
In the middle of nowhere.
31:32
With the dog.
31:35
And we let the dog out for piss.
31:38
And he comes back in covered in maggots.
31:41
Oh, no!
31:42
No, no, no.
31:43
Rolled the dead kangaroo.
31:45
Just halfway across the Nullarbor.
31:47
Oh, no.
31:48
Yeah.
31:49
So he went in the trailer, Floydie, and all the way home because he had no water, nothing.
31:56
Yeah.
31:57
And David did all the driving.
31:59
He drove, like, it was a 44-hour trip or something like that.
32:03
So the trailer started, we lost sight of it.
32:07
It was covered in sheet tin, you know, like gall sheet.
32:13
And rivets, aluminium rivets were, you know, they... Popping out.
32:17
Popping out, so there's a street sign.
32:20
A road sign.
32:22
Okay.
32:22
We unbolded that and...
32:26
How the hell would we fit that?
32:28
I can't even remember.
32:31
We had rivets and we riveted this, fixed it up so that it would hold together to come home, you know, because we didn't want...
32:38
So you're doing things on the run to get home, basically.
32:41
And we had to weld the trailer up when we were over there as well because it started to break apart.
32:46
This is my welding, you know.
32:49
I wasn't... You know, my weld...
32:50
I started to weld when I was...
32:52
I think I was 11 years old.
32:54
And my father was a welder.
32:56
Yeah.
32:57
But my welding has never changed from that first day I started welding.
33:02
As in it hasn't gotten better, is that what you mean?
33:08
Yeah.
33:08
So you mentioned Mick Hone here.
33:10
At what point do you two – I mean, maybe there's other people along the way in this period.
33:14
Yeah, well, it's Colin O'Neill that owned Malvern Motorcycles.
33:17
I rode for him in 78.
33:22
and 1980, and he gave me proddy bikes and made me a super bike in 1980, which was a GSX.
33:35
So in 78, he organised with Kawasaki to ride a Z650 in the six hour with Rick Perry for Kawasaki Australia.
33:44
And we won the 750 class in 2018.
33:48
Legendary race for people.
33:49
On that bike.
33:50
Now, I had that bike at home here, roaring around on it, and Graeme Muir had one as well from Kawasaki.
33:56
He lived here at that time too, and we used to go trail riding it up Mitter, through the bush and crossing as well on these bikes, you know.
34:03
I hit a car with a mate on the back here in Albury.
34:08
The guy pulled across in front of us, and...
34:12
And it broke the engine cases, so we had to put new engine cases in this...
34:16
I didn't get hurt, but, you know, like...
34:20
It took a bit of skin off.
34:21
I'll bet.
34:22
But, you know, like, that was it.
34:24
So that bike won the six-hour.
34:26
Amazing.
34:26
Yeah, yeah.
34:27
And... What did that race mean to you back then?
34:29
I mean, like, you've come through...
34:30
It was pretty big.
34:31
Yeah, I was going to say.
34:32
That was probably the biggest race I'd ever won, apart from the Tom Phillips Memorials and the Harbour-Wilshire Memorials.
34:37
Take people to that race, because...
34:41
You know, fans of two-wheel racing will affectionately know that.
34:45
What was that like that day?
34:46
Well, Mike Harwood and I diced all day.
34:50
That's cool.
34:50
He was on the Ducati and Scazy was dicing with Rick.
34:53
Yep.
34:53
And Scazy...
35:00
come to grief because a gearbox blew up or something in the Ducati and he crashed over a bitchy pave, I think it was.
35:06
Yeah.
35:06
We're talking Orin Park here too, which is- Orin.
35:08
Amaru.
35:09
Amaru, sorry.
35:09
And both- Yeah, Amaru.
35:11
I said Orin, but both are gone now, both those tracks.
35:13
Yeah, yeah.
35:15
And I think Johnny Pace might have finished second or third.
35:17
No, Graeme
35:20
might have finished second with Alan Decker and Pacey was third or vice versa, I don't know.
35:26
And it was good.
35:28
I think it was about seventh out right or something like that because the 650 wasn't that fast.
35:32
They'd do 180k flat out, you know.
35:34
But still, Amaru, that was a... You know, set in the north-west of Sydney, little...
35:40
Dangerous.
35:41
But, I mean, like stop-go corner and stuff, pretty wild.
35:44
Yeah.
35:44
Yeah.
35:44
Yeah, so...
35:46
But that was probably the...
35:48
the biggest race I'd ever won, yeah.
35:51
Did that open doors for you?
35:52
Did that do... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:54
Well, yeah, it helped.
35:58
And what opened the big door for me was at the end of the year at Sandown, they had three one-hour legs of this race meeting, and I was on the GS1000 from all the motorcycles, Suzuki.
36:12
Yep.
36:13
And Bob Rosenthal was riding for Millie Jamo on the XS 1100.
36:19
Mick Hone was there on his Kawasaki Superbike and now on Decker on his Kawasaki Superbike.
36:27
And it rained.
36:29
And I've lapped the entire field in the first one hour, gone out in the second one hour and lapped the entire field again.
36:37
And then the third race...
36:41
Is this dirt bike skills?
36:43
Why were you good in the wet?
36:45
In the wet, at Sandown, I don't know.
36:48
It might have been the tyres, I'm restless.
36:50
I know they work good in the wet.
36:52
And then the last one-hour leg, I was leading it by a country mile, and then the coil wire and the condenser broke.
37:03
went back to two cylinders.
37:04
So I kept riding it on two cylinders.
37:06
You knew what it was and you just kept persisting?
37:08
No, I didn't.
37:09
I just kept going.
37:10
I finished seventh, I think.
37:12
And Bob Rosenthal won the race and he got second in the other two races.
37:17
So he won overall on the points.
37:19
But Milledge Yamaha, Gerry O'Brien was the boss.
37:23
Was looking at replacing Bob for the next year in 79.
37:27
And you caught his eye, clearly.
37:28
And that's where it all come from, yeah.
37:31
Awesome.
37:31
They offered me a deal to ride 750 and a 350 with AJ.
37:35
And it went from there and it turned into a disaster.
37:40
Why?
37:43
Don't get into details if you don't want to.
37:44
No, we don't need any details, but it was... Just not a good...
37:49
It wasn't good.
37:50
It was a...
37:52
Anyway, how did you bounce from that then?
37:55
Because that happens in motor racing.
37:57
It cost me a couple of years of my racing career, you know.
37:59
I went back to Malvern Motorcycles in 80, and Mick Hone was going strong with his business, and he wanted to stop racing or pull back a bit.
38:10
He had that GSX sitting out there in the shed there, and he said, he'd want to ride this.
38:15
That's where it all started.
38:17
Tell me, we've been and seen that bike today.
38:19
Tell me about...
38:21
it, what it was like to ride, give people a bit of a, you know, a summary of it and why.
38:27
Well, see, we had Alan Pickering, who, Al's 84, 85 years old now, but he was only in his 40s back then.
38:34
He was the boss of the overhaul department.
38:37
It was ANSAT, wasn't it?
38:37
It was ANSAT.
38:38
An ANSAT engine.
38:40
And he knew everything about a jet engine.
38:43
They knew more about jet engines and the whole lot of it than people that worked on one section, you know.
38:50
Like, he knew everything.
38:52
And the guy was a rocket scientist, you know.
38:55
Like, he was unbelievable how he built stuff and he did the heads and he ported them.
38:59
Pops Yoshimura was in awe of him as well, you know.
39:02
Fantastic, fantastic.
39:03
Yeah, he went...
39:05
Pops met him over in Japan when Mick rode over there with Dekka in the eight hour.
39:10
And Morawaki met him as well because Mick was the Yoshimura Morawaki distributor here in Australia.
39:16
Yep, yep.
39:17
And they had a lot of respect for Alan Pickering, you know.
39:20
And Alan's...
39:21
He's really good at doing his stuff.
39:24
So expand on that because this is...
39:26
The bike was fast.
39:28
And a combination of people too, obviously.
39:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:31
And we had Dave McGillivray, drag man.
39:33
Yep, yep.
39:34
He was a drag racer, right?
39:35
And he spent five years with me and...
39:39
He's still kicking around, you know, looking...
39:42
He helped with Geoffrey Sale and Phil Crump and all those blokes, you know.
39:46
Legends, yeah.
39:47
Drags must be nearly 80 now as well.
39:49
God.
39:50
He's just... You know, like, they had experience and they were a calming influence on me because I was...
39:58
Probably ADD infection.
40:00
ADAD or whatever you call it.
40:01
You still are, but anyway, keep going.
40:05
And Mick explained to me not to try and lead races, but to follow.
40:11
So I started doing that with Dennis Neil.
40:13
Oh, yeah.
40:13
Beat him, you know.
40:16
I really started to win from back then, you know, like with their coaching.
40:24
And Al could look at me riding around the track and say, oh, yeah.
40:28
And you're doing that wrong, you're doing that right.
40:34
And then with his fine tuning on the carburetors, because I was always picky
40:40
with carburetion.
40:41
I'm pretty good with doing the carburetion myself.
40:45
I need fine-tune it.
40:46
Even more.
40:47
Like with the air screw and stuff like with the carburetors.
40:50
I'm good with carburetors, I know how to wreck them too.
40:53
Okay.
40:54
On that new bike I just bought.
40:57
But you must have been good at...
40:59
I had a good feel.
41:00
Yeah, but then describing that to them as well obviously, what you wanted to do.
41:03
Yeah, as well as set up and all that stuff.
41:06
Yeah, I could...
41:08
I knew what...
41:09
I sort of knew a fair bit about what I was doing, you know?
41:13
So the bike was pretty special too, wasn't it?
41:15
It was good.
41:15
Yeah.
41:16
Tell people about it.
41:18
Well, it was fast.
41:20
It came off the turns good.
41:23
It handled good, you know?
41:24
And there was nothing special about it.
41:26
It had standard brakes in it because that's it there.
41:29
Look...
41:30
So we're looking at a photo of it.
41:31
Yeah, yeah.
41:33
That's standard brakes.
41:35
This is 82 NGK Superbike Championship.
41:38
That'd have to be Winton because we only, I think we only raced in Victoria.
41:44
Yeah, we did.
41:44
Thank you, Roger.
41:45
That's nice.
41:46
That's the championship poster with the calendar on it for the year from... 1983.
41:53
1981 that was but that was the following year 82 that the dates are on sorry I've got the microphone pointing with the microphone sorry guys yeah and like it was easy Mick paid for everything I didn't have to find any money you know I always had tyres and like I guess the competition wasn't
42:22
as stiff as what it could have been.
42:25
They were still good, though.
42:26
Yep.
42:27
That series, though, grew and grew into something really cool, didn't it, bicycling?
42:32
Yeah, well, it turned into Australian Championship.
42:44
In 2020, Rusty spoke with Robbie's great Maytaren Slyte, the world's super bike star who made a gutsy comeback after a serious brain injury.
42:52
The fatigue and the rest you need is incredible.
42:56
So that, yeah, for a good six weeks, I was sleeping all the time and I had to be in a dark room and all that sort of stuff.
43:03
But the focus was to get back to racing.
43:06
How did it feel when you got on the bike for the first time?
43:08
Tell us about that.
43:10
Well, there was two emotions there.
43:12
It was the V-twin.
43:14
So this is the bike I've been working on for 18 months to beat these f***ing Ducatties.
43:19
And I got on the bike and went, shit, this is easier to ride.
43:23
Search for Aaron's two-part episode when you're finished here.
43:27
His gritty rise, from New Zealand to Australia and taking on the world, plus some time in touring cars.
43:33
Probably the biggest medal slight he earned was just from surviving life around Robbie.
43:39
Come back a little step.
43:40
This chapter with the people you've just rattled off becomes a bit special for you, doesn't it?
43:45
Yeah.
43:46
Yeah, well, they're still all my friends, you know?
43:48
They're all still my friends, I mean, you know?
43:50
Like Mick looks after me like Roger does.
43:53
Yes.
43:54
Was it best mate, financial advisor, father, sponsor?
44:01
A lot.
44:02
Yeah, you know, like, you know, just all those things, you know?
44:05
Yep.
44:07
So what transpires in a results sense here while we're looking at this period, this early 80s period, and how significant is it for you in what is to come?
44:18
I guess it put me on the map, didn't it, really?
44:24
My question is leading, so I'm trying to get that from you.
44:26
Yeah, no, like, and the bike itself, though, was just...
44:29
I rode it at Adelaide this year.
44:31
Did you?
44:32
At the... At the festival?
44:33
At the festival.
44:34
Yeah.
44:35
And it was like I was racing it again.
44:38
Yeah.
44:39
And Roger Spud, his nickname, he was there with me, you know.
44:43
So all these memories come flooding back, are they?
44:45
I won the...
44:47
The festival.
44:47
Yeah, the festival, yeah.
44:49
I'm the old girl, you know.
44:50
That's excellent.
44:52
Lap Records.
44:52
Lap Records, yeah.
44:53
Okay.
44:53
Yeah.
44:54
So it gets you, I mean...
44:58
I'd like to be able to ride around the street on it.
45:01
Yeah?
45:01
Yeah, that's how good it is.
45:03
So it's not noticed, that's the wrong word for it.
45:07
It cements you here, basically, doesn't it?
45:08
Yeah, it does, yeah.
45:09
In terms of the Australian landscape, shall we say.
45:11
So what are we talking with this period with that combination of people?
45:16
Was it about five years or what was it?
45:18
Tell me how long... Five years I rode for Mick, yeah.
45:20
Yeah.
45:20
Yeah.
45:21
And then Kawasaki stole me.
45:22
Oh!
45:24
How did Kawasaki steal you?
45:26
What twisted your arm?
45:27
Tell us about that.
45:28
Money.
45:28
Money.
45:30
But, I mean, this is a combination of things because you've talked the emergence of what would ultimately become the Australian Superbike Championship and so on.
45:39
The dogs are here.
45:40
They're hanging around the microphones, which is all good.
45:41
Herbie and Molly are annoying.
45:43
No, they're good.
45:44
They're good.
45:44
So tell me about that.
45:47
What temperature away?
45:48
Because those people are still friends now to this day.
45:50
So that must have been an easy decision to...
45:52
It wasn't because, you know, like it was a step...
45:56
I thought that it'd lead to a GP... A GP ride.
46:01
Not a GP ride, but a better deal with the factory because Mick was a deal, it wasn't factory.
46:11
And it did, you know, like it got me into the World Championship.
46:14
Yep.
46:14
You know, like...
46:16
88 was the first time I did the World Championship.
46:19
I had to pay, and same with Wally Campbell.
46:23
We put our bikes in the same crate together.
46:25
Yep, Malcolm Campbell.
46:26
Yep, yep.
46:27
Yeah, and sent them to Austria to A1 ring, or Zeltwick.
46:31
Yep.
46:32
Red Bull ring as it is now.
46:34
Did you...
46:35
In this period, are you... Like, I mean, this is probably...
46:41
completely new to you, the notion of sending the gear over, is that all brand new to you at this point?
46:47
Yeah, well I didn't do that.
46:48
Peter organised it.
46:49
Peter Doyle organised it.
46:52
And Kow Sake Australia.
46:53
And they...
46:56
I had to pay to get the stuff there and tickets and stuff like that.
46:59
And then we got a little bit of start money and stuff from Flamini it was back then.
47:06
Yep.
47:07
Is this your first proper international experience?
47:09
Is that what we would call it more or less?
47:11
Yeah.
47:11
Yeah.
47:12
Well, I did four rounds in 88.
47:14
Mm-hmm.
47:15
And I had exactly half the points that Fred Merkel won the championship with.
47:19
Crazy.
47:19
Yeah.
47:20
Crazy.
47:21
And here, I think it was eight rounds.
47:22
Mm-hmm.
47:23
So I did Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Austria.
47:27
Mm-hmm.
47:28
Um... Give us a report card on that.
47:29
How did it go?
47:31
Well, you know, Austria, I got sick.
47:34
I don't know what had happened.
47:35
And I went to the doctor and they gave me the pills as German.
47:39
I've overdosed on these bloody... And I was off with the fairies, you know.
47:45
So practice wasn't good.
47:46
But I finished okay.
47:48
It wasn't great, though.
47:50
And the bike wasn't really competitive.
47:52
It was a GPX 750.
47:54
Then I raced that GPX in Japan and they gave me a radiator, which helped big time.
48:02
I fitted the radiator myself.
48:04
and cut the fairing to fit it in there.
48:08
There's only Peter and I there.
48:10
And Peter had a... What did he do?
48:15
He broke broken ribs.
48:16
He couldn't do anything.
48:19
So I had to do all the work.
48:20
Okay.
48:21
This is Peter Doyle he talked about.
48:22
Yeah, because what happened...
48:25
Mick Doohan's there with a factory Yamaha.
48:27
Yeah.
48:29
This is an 88 at Sugo.
48:31
Yeah.
48:32
There's a go-kart track in the middle of Sugo race circuit, right?
48:36
Yes.
48:36
All right?
48:38
Yes.
48:38
So $15 for 15 minutes or something like that.
48:42
Yeah, yeah.
48:42
So there's Mick...
48:44
Peter Doyle and me go down.
48:45
This is Thursday.
48:47
No, Wednesday.
48:48
Because you're all bored and you wanted to get here.
48:50
We go down to the go-kart track.
48:53
This is before the race meeting, right?
48:54
Yes, yes.
48:56
And we half a lap into this first...
48:59
This world championship.
49:00
This world championship.
49:03
Mick's behind me.
49:04
I'm behind Doyle.
49:06
We tip into this left-hand sweeper.
49:09
and Doyle slowed down and I've taken the engine clean off the back of his go-kart with my go-kart, right?
49:16
And it's hanging by the throttle cable.
49:19
Then I've gone off sideways, rolled three times.
49:24
I'm still in the cart with it upside down on me.
49:28
Mick's pulled the cart off me and I've got three broken ribs from the steering wheel.
49:32
Yeah.
49:32
Right?
49:33
And so then I'm in bed, can't breathe very well, you know, and Doyle comes in at one o'clock in the morning, covered in blood, holding...
49:52
His chest?
49:53
Holding his chest.
49:58
And... What happened to him?
49:59
He was in Mick Doohan's golf buggy that I'd hotted up for him.
50:02
LAUGHTER I hotted up all these golf buggies, because they were only going along at walking pace.
50:08
You put a washer in where the governor was, you know?
50:12
Yeah, hot them up.
50:13
Yeah, well, then they'd do like, oh, I suppose 25, 30 k's an hour, you know?
50:18
LAUGHTER
50:20
And they were in the fog at Tsuugo with Glen Willing driving and Doyle's hanging out the side like a passenger rider, like a sidecar passenger.
50:32
And they only had blinkers on the thing to see.
50:35
Yeah.
50:36
No lights.
50:38
And Suzuki's race transporter was parked on the side of the road in the fog.
50:42
No.
50:43
Straight into the back of it.
50:45
Oh.
50:45
And Doyle's gone flying out the side, caught his wrist and broke his wrist.
50:48
That's right.
50:51
And Glenn's got the imprint of the steering wheel on his chest.
50:57
Oh.
50:58
And the golf bug is bitten half.
51:03
I want to break into the convo here just briefly and remind you of what I spoke about at the beginning of the episode.
51:08
Keep this funny memory in the context of the era.
51:13
We weren't as safety conscious or as risk averse back then.
51:15
Not a good idea to try that sort of stuff now, obviously.
51:21
that some of the people that Robbie's mentioned were younger, adrenaline seekers back then.
51:26
Mick's gone on to some great success as a racer and in business.
51:30
And Peter Doyle's record, I reckon, speaks for itself.
51:33
Plenty of people will echo that.
51:35
He is doing a very good job at the helm of Motorcycling Australia now.
51:41
Enough from me.
51:41
We've ticked that box.
51:43
Let's get back to the chat.
51:46
So he's injured.
51:47
You're injured.
51:48
You're fitting a radiator yourself.
51:49
Yeah, and we're trying to change the spark plugs.
51:52
And we've got a hole of the tea bar.
51:56
I've got one side and he's got the other because I've broken ribs.
51:58
No, no, Grunt because of the ribs.
51:59
I've got broken ribs.
52:00
He's got a broken wrist.
52:02
And the Japs, they were just there, yeah.
52:05
What's going on here, you know?
52:08
Making a real good impression.
52:10
But I didn't do too bad in the race.
52:12
That's great.
52:12
I can't even remember where I finished, but it was okay, you know.
52:15
So summarise that year for us.
52:17
And is this the beginning of potential international or more regular international?
52:23
Yeah, well, I was already doing their test work.
52:25
Yep.
52:25
for Kawasaki.
52:26
See, I've done 53 trips to Japan, mainly with Kawasaki.
52:32
Yep.
52:32
Yoshimura and Morawaki.
52:34
Yep.
52:34
Are you getting a really good reputation over there at that stage?
52:36
Yeah, yeah.
52:38
I got an uncle with Pops.
52:39
Pops is like a grandfather, you know.
52:41
Lovely.
52:42
And Mamoru Morawaki was great, and his wife Namako, she's Pops' daughter.
52:46
Yep.
52:47
She was unreal, you know.
52:49
Okay.
52:49
And the kids were only little then, you know, like, and now they're all grown up and run.
52:53
Yep.
52:53
And Midori's run the race team, you know.
52:55
Yes, yes.
52:56
She was only about eight years old or something back then.
52:59
But, um, and I spent about six weeks at Pops' factory.
53:06
Did you enjoy that?
53:07
Were you a good test rider?
53:08
Were you, I mean, clearly, with your love of innovation and stuff like that and the feel of the motorcycle and stuff?
53:13
Well, I hated testing.
53:16
I'd rather just go and race.
53:19
And, Herb, get out of it.
53:20
It's all good.
53:22
It was, you know, like it was...
53:25
It was a good experience.
53:27
I was actually on Facebook over the eight-hour weekend with...
53:31
I love how you do that.
53:32
Little stories and memories every once in a while.
53:34
Yeah, yeah.
53:34
With...
53:36
With Steve, Steve, he's an American, young American kid working for Pops back then, right?
53:44
Yep, yep.
53:45
He's nearly 60 now.
53:47
Okay.
53:47
You know, he was an apprentice back then.
53:49
Yep.
53:50
He carried me off the bike, you know, because I couldn't walk because I'd broken my ankle.
53:54
on the on the wednesday crazy but you know like just talking to him about how things happened you know and what we did back then and how you got around you know it's just it was really japan is a great place and like i spent a lot of time at the kawasaki factory yep and you go and have lunch with all the mechanics i'll be porting our cylinder head all bloody over lunch
54:18
No.
54:19
I'd go and help them.
54:20
Yeah.
54:21
I'd be making subframes for some of the F1 bikes because I did a lot of F1 testing and racing and I'd be TIG welding up a...
54:32
a subframe to put on the bike.
54:33
My TIG welding was way better than my ARC welding.
54:37
I'm glad we clarified that.
54:39
But, you know, like, they loved it because most riders would never, ever stick their head in the door, you know, but I was just one of the boys, you know, and go and have lunch.
54:50
And then I had a remote-controlled aeroplane that I lost.
54:54
I'm told there's a story here.
54:56
I don't know if I've got the years right, so I might have the years out here.
54:59
But Slidy tells me you would get like allowance money or per diem money or something or other.
55:06
And it was all gone by the time you got to...
55:09
duty-free with remote control stuff or whatever.
55:12
And toys.
55:13
Toys.
55:13
You've got to have toys.
55:15
Me who dies with the most toys wins.
55:16
It's okay, righto.
55:18
He got a lot of enjoyment out of it, though.
55:19
Yeah, yeah.
55:20
I did this aeroplane.
55:22
It was an electric styrofoam aeroplane, and I lost it on the roof of one of the factories at Kawasaki.
55:28
Now, Kawasaki takes you...
55:31
It's massive.
55:32
Massive, right?
55:33
It's got a drag strip down the middle of it.
55:35
Yeah.
55:35
I mean, they had space research and all sorts of things, didn't they?
55:37
It was huge.
55:38
They got everything, yeah?
55:39
So, Michael Dowson's there with me and we've stolen this mule that looked like a Flintstone car.
55:46
It had wooden, wooden, wooden framework around it.
55:50
So, we're driving around looking, because I was over in the footy oval.
55:53
They got a footy oval, and, alongside the drag strip.
55:58
And then, or baseball as well.
56:00
Are they like, here are these crazy Aussies?
56:01
So we find this aeroplane.
56:05
I lost it on the roof and I just bought it.
56:07
I didn't want to lose it.
56:09
So we get into this Flintstone thing, this mule.
56:12
We're driving around looking for it.
56:15
So I've climbed up the outside of the building on the fire escape.
56:20
And I found all these new jet skis that were top secret.
56:24
Hadn't been released yet.
56:26
No, they have now.
56:27
There's some of them out the back of you.
56:30
But this is 1990.
56:32
1990, yeah.
56:34
90 or 89?
56:36
89.
56:36
Anyway.
56:36
Yeah, but...
56:44
So I find the aeroplane, come back down, and Mr Noda was our boss.
56:48
He was a really good little man.
56:50
He was a lovely man.
56:53
He'd never say no.
56:55
Well, the Japanese don't know what no means.
56:58
They don't say...
56:59
Always find a way.
56:59
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
57:01
And Rob's son, please, you cannot fly your aeroplane here anymore.
57:08
Security were about 10 minutes behind us.
57:10
So everywhere we went, they followed you.
57:13
But they couldn't catch us, you know.
57:15
We didn't know they were chasing us.
57:18
But, yeah, it's just things like that.
57:20
You just have a bit of fun.
57:21
Great life stories, great life stories.
57:24
Come back for me because you're doing a bit of this in parallel with things still in Australia, aren't you?
57:30
You're still racing.
57:30
Yeah, I still race in the Australian Championship.
57:33
So what I want to establish here is kind of the first...
57:38
proper title win that you had here and what it meant to you and things like that?
57:43
Well, I won those five titles with Mick.
57:53
Mick Hone.
57:53
Yeah, in Victoria.
57:55
Yep.
57:56
And I won four in New South Wales with Mick.
58:00
Yep.
58:02
The Can-Am Superbike Series and the Western Underwriters Superbike Series.
58:08
Can you remember, Neil?
58:11
NGK.
58:12
NGK, yeah.
58:14
So, look, there's about nine titles or something that I got just with Mick.
58:22
And then...
58:24
You don't have to get all the dates specifically.
58:26
No, but then with Kawasaki, then they changed it to Australian Championship.
58:31
And I won three of those.
58:33
Yep.
58:34
What was that period like, that emergence of what has become, you know, the Australian Series?
58:40
And I know it's gone through peaks and troughs.
58:43
But, I mean, that was a great period, mate, wasn't it?
58:45
You know, it came through, you know, you would ultimately get to the point where you've got...
58:49
A little later on, you've got Kawasaki, I mean, answered air freight Suzuki and all this sort of stuff happening, wouldn't you, later on in the 90s?
58:55
Yeah, well, yeah.
58:57
Well, in the early 90s, I was in Europe, you know, and then got the flick, basically, after...
59:03
But I want to come to that.
59:04
We'll come to the World Superbike chapter.
59:05
But tell us about, you know, what that success meant to you, and are you still between some stuff in Japan and international...
59:17
not exploration, it's more than that.
59:19
Are you still doing some other part-time work here as well to keep the doors... Yeah, son and off.
59:25
While I was living in Melbourne, I was doing that identity mark, you know, where you stamp motorcycles and cars and stuff.
59:34
Yep, ID them, basically, don't you?
59:36
ID them for stolen parts.
59:38
In Western Underwriters Insurance, we're giving cheaper...
59:41
policies, if you had this marking on it.
59:44
This marking on it.
59:45
I did all the Brock's cars for him.
59:46
Fantastic.
59:47
And he thought it was a good idea as well.
59:50
Yep.
59:51
Then, I don't know if Roger's car, I don't know if yours has got it on it.
59:54
He's got an SS, a Brock.
59:57
Yeah.
59:57
Yeah.
59:59
But, you know, like, so I was working, running around town doing that.
1:00:04
You've got a family at this stage too, haven't you?
1:00:05
You've got kids and things.
1:00:06
Yeah, I've got Georgia who was born in 85, and then Tom in 88, and Alex in 94.
1:00:13
Love it.
1:00:14
Yeah.
1:00:14
Yeah.
1:00:15
So...
1:00:16
So that success that is happening here, the impression you've made in Japan and so on, what...
1:00:25
What becomes the focus for you?
1:00:26
Does it become, I really want to have a crack at some international...
1:00:29
I mean, one thing we haven't talked about here, somewhere in the midst of this, maybe the dates are out in this timeline, you've written some 500s, and did you write one at Bathurst and places like that too, didn't you?
1:00:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:00:40
I wrote mixed 500 RG for a year.
1:00:42
What was that thing like?
1:00:43
No, it was good.
1:00:44
We bought it new, but it kept seizing.
1:00:46
Did it?
1:00:46
And Alan found out that it had porous crankcases, Alan Pickering, yeah?
1:00:50
Yes, yes.
1:00:50
So he took it out to Ansett and dumped the crankcase into this stuff at Ansett had, this sealer, this blue stuff, you know?
1:00:59
But they would use it in an airline sense or in an aircraft sense.
1:01:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:02
And it fixed the problem.
1:01:03
Crazy.
1:01:04
So...
1:01:07
I think was good after that.
1:01:08
Yeah.
1:01:08
Yeah.
1:01:09
So... What was Bathurst?
1:01:10
I mean, people... Bathurst, yeah.
1:01:12
What is it?
1:01:13
In 79, I rode the... Second time I ever rode TZ750 was at Bathurst.
1:01:19
Yeah.
1:01:19
Second time.
1:01:20
I'd come off a 350, you know?
1:01:22
What is that place like on two wheels?
1:01:24
Well...
1:01:26
I come second to Cros in one race and then finish fifth in the Grand Prix race.
1:01:31
Graeme Crosby.
1:01:32
Yeah.
1:01:32
Yep.
1:01:33
And, but, you know, you go over the last hump, which was there back then.
1:01:38
Yep, because there was no chase back then, was there?
1:01:40
No, 297 kilometres an hour.
1:01:42
Are you getting air?
1:01:43
And the back wheel had four inches of daylight under it, and the front was, like, up here, you know?
1:01:48
Yep.
1:01:49
When you did that then, you're talking like two or three feet off the deck, basically.
1:01:52
Yeah, yeah.
1:01:53
Crazy.
1:01:53
So, but I never rode Bathurst 100%.
1:01:56
You know, I just rode around there.
1:02:00
to do the job that I had to do, otherwise I wouldn't have a ride, you know?
1:02:04
So was that you becoming a bit wiser with age, or what is that, the influences?
1:02:09
Wiser with broken bones.
1:02:10
Well, yeah, I mean, maybe all of those things, maybe even the advice of the great nucleus of people that you had around you and so on, you know?
1:02:18
Yeah, but that, 79, was the second year I rode there.
1:02:23
78, I rode there on my 350.
1:02:24
Um...
1:02:29
And a super, not a super bike, but it was a GS 1000 that I crashed at the end of Conrod with Len Willink.
1:02:41
Yeah.
1:02:42
Luckily, the offence wasn't there.
1:02:45
They'd taken it away, you know.
1:02:47
You drew breath then?
1:02:48
Yeah, and I didn't really do much damage to the bike until we bump-started it because it was caught in the fence.
1:02:54
No, it wasn't caught in the fence.
1:02:56
It was caught in the fence after we bump-started it because the throttle was jammed wide open and at the clutch lever it was broken off and couldn't pull the clutch in.
1:03:04
Dave, there was side saddle on it and thongs.
1:03:07
And... Oh, oh, oh!
1:03:08
And were you there?
1:03:10
And he's done this speedway turn at the start-finish line.
1:03:14
Yep.
1:03:16
Across the track, the outside of the track, back to the inside of the track, and got hooked up in the wire fence.
1:03:24
On the inside of the track, got it turned off because I'd fallen off it, you know.
1:03:30
Didn't want to push it back to the pitch.
1:03:32
Bump started, you know.
1:03:33
It's taken off in the... You had skin from arsehole to breakfast, isn't it?
1:03:41
What did you tell me before?
1:03:43
49 different injuries, 200 crashes in your career.
1:03:47
And then there's been... Plus.
1:03:48
Yeah, plus.
1:03:49
There's been brain hemorrhages along the way, mate.
1:03:51
Three, no, five actually.
1:03:53
And one of them was caused by falling off a ladder, building a house.
1:03:59
Were you told no more?
1:04:00
You couldn't do any more?
1:04:01
Did you push back against that?
1:04:03
What transpired?
1:04:04
Everyone tells me everything.
1:04:05
I listen to everybody and do exactly what I want.
1:04:08
Like I always have.
1:04:12
But I take everyone's advice.
1:04:15
I'd never hang shit on them for it because they all speak the truth.
1:04:20
But it's what you feel comfortable with, basically.
1:04:23
It's what I think I can do.
1:04:28
Is it fancying yourself?
1:04:29
Would you call it that?
1:04:30
It's backing yourself, I think, isn't it?
1:04:31
I've got a fairly high opinion of myself, I guess, you know.
1:04:36
I don't know.
1:04:38
Yeah.
1:04:39
So...
1:04:42
Superbikes.
1:04:44
I don't call myself a big head, but I do have a big head.
1:04:47
But I don't mean it to come across like that.
1:04:52
I joke about stuff on Facebook, like how good was I here.
1:04:55
But people have to understand your personality to appreciate that, the way you're wired.
1:05:07
That's the end of part one of my feature episode with Larrikin Aussie motorcycle racer Robbie Phyllis.
1:05:12
A quick thanks to all of you who commented and messaged after our recent social posts on the day that we recorded this to let you know that it was coming.
1:05:21
You can find and follow Robbie on Facebook.
1:05:24
He does some cool posts from time to time where he shares some recollections and pics, and he writes those posts in the same way that he's talking here on the podcast.
1:05:34
Because he's crammed a lot into...
1:05:36
into his 70 years, we have a second instalment for you, all loaded up and ready to go right now.
1:05:42
Fire it up whenever you're ready.
1:05:43
From the World Superbike Championship to the Island Classic, some of the cool machines around us here in the workshop, still wanting to hold it wide open like he did at the peak, even though that was half a lifetime ago now, and developing a groundbreaking bike for Daytona.
1:06:02
All that and more right here on Rusty's Garage.