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The Motorsport Brief: with Australian Rally Champion Harry Bates · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:04
  Welcome to the Motorsport Brief.
• 0:06
  It's Tuesday the 5th of December 2023.
• 0:08
  While the season may be winding down for many categories, we thought we would continue the catch-ups with champions.
• 0:16
  Last week we spoke to the newly crowned Supercars champion Brodie Kostecki.
• 0:20
  Ripper chat that one.
• 0:22
  That gives you a sense of what makes him tick and how he enjoys every minute of the journey.
• 0:34
  record books.
• 0:35
  So, flat right, into six left over 50 titles, four, into very long, four right.
• 0:45
  Hi everybody, Greg Russ with you for this edition of the Rusty's Garage Shortcast.
• 0:49
  Don't forget touring car legend Gabriele Tarquini dropped last Tuesday.
• 0:54
  He is our latest feature guest and the Italian was in awesome form.
• 0:59
  Just so much passion in that convo.
• 1:02
  Recorded, fittingly,
• 1:04
  at Bathurst, which crazily he'd never been to before.
• 1:07
  It blew him away.
• 1:08
  We talk about that awesome Alpha 155 Super Tourer and that unforgettable era of the British Touring Car Championship in the early 90s against the likes of John Cleland and Paul Radisic, who you can also find in our library, plus the technically brilliant DTM car he raced and the lasting impression it left on him.
• 1:28
  And making it to F1, but mainly with Minnow teams and how frustrating that was.
• 1:34
  Today's guest recently added a second Australian Rally Championship to his growing trophy cabinet, but he had to beat his brother to do it.
• 1:42
  And it was one of the most exciting finishes in the history of the ARC.
• 1:47
  Harry Bates is proving to be a chip off the old block, but he's also doing some things differently to his legendary father, Neil Bates, who we spoke to mid-season.
• 1:57
  Search for that one later in our library if you haven't already heard it.
• 2:00
  This is an overdue catch-up with a young man who is incredibly well-liked in Service Park.
• 2:06
  He's a good human being.
• 2:07
  He's proving to be a good leader and who balanced the pressure of being a determined athlete but still incredibly mindful of the fact that he was battling football.
• 2:17
  family here, not an ordinary rival.
• 2:20
  Harry, welcome to the garage and a huge congratulations.
• 2:24
  Thank you.
• 2:24
  Thanks for having me.
• 2:25
  Hey, they say the first title is the one to savour, but that must feel off the charts.
• 2:32
  I mean, such a nail-biting finish.
• 2:35
  Oh, absolutely.
• 2:36
  I mean, you never expect a championship to come down to one point.
• 2:39
  So many things happen throughout a season, you know, and to have ended up in that situation on Sunday and four of it to have literally come down to the power stage, the final round of the Australian Rally Championship, it was...
• 2:52
  It was exciting for some, I would say, completely stressful, but it was a pretty cool thing to be a part of.
• 2:58
  Can we just rewind a fraction coming into Canberra, right?
• 3:01
  So correct me if I don't have the numbers right here, but I think your brother Lewis and Anthony McLaughlin, they had a 23-point lead coming into that final event.
• 3:10
  Seven stage wins for you.
• 3:12
  What the heck did you say to yourself, or was there some advice that you took in to Canberra to help you kind of turn that around?
• 3:23
  Yeah, that's right.
• 3:24
  So they had a 23-point lead coming in.
• 3:27
  Coral and I basically had to win everything at Canberra to do it.
• 3:31
  We had to win the event and the power stage.
• 3:34
  And only then you have a 24-point advantage over second place, which is what gave us the one point we needed, the one-point advantage we needed to be champions.
• 3:46
  Yeah, there was various times this year where things were going our way and also various times this year where things weren't going our way.
• 3:54
  The one thing that Coral and I really focused on coming into Canberra was just enjoying being in the car and, you know...
• 4:02
  We're two people who love the sport, love what we do, and as soon as we're enjoying it, everything flows on from there and the result really comes off the back of that.
• 4:10
  So we just tried to have a really fun weekend in the car.
• 4:13
  It was at times stressful, but that was sort of the main goal coming into the last rally.
• 4:19
  Without going back over it again, can we just highlight that intensity for a moment?
• 4:25
  One point...
• 4:27
  between you and Lewis at the end of a national championship, at the end of the final round, at the end of the final stage in your own backyard in Canberra.
• 4:37
  That is nuts, mate, isn't it?
• 4:39
  Yeah, the whole scenario is pretty unbelievable.
• 4:43
  To paint the picture for everyone...
• 4:45
  going into the last stage of the rally, you have a big, what's called a regroup.
• 4:50
  And so that's where you go and sit for an hour because they need time to prepare for live TV and everything so that the power stage is all ready to go.
• 4:58
  So we then had before that last stage, an hour to let our nerves and all the energy build up for the sort of crescendo, I guess.
• 5:06
  And we
• 5:07
  That was a pretty intense moment because Lewis and I were sitting next to each other for that entire power stage regroup, knowing that we were about to go in and compete for a championship and the whole championship ended up hinging on the last six and a half kilometres of the year, which was the total length of the power stage.
• 5:24
  So...
• 5:25
  Pretty incredible thing.
• 5:27
  But like you say, to do it in Canberra was a dream for me.
• 5:31
  All of my family, my friends were all there.
• 5:34
  There were thousands of Canberrans out there to support, you know, everyone.
• 5:38
  But I think especially Lewis and I, it was a pretty exciting thing for the fans to see.
• 5:42
  And it was just an incredible atmosphere and one of those pinch yourself moments.
• 5:46
  There is a brilliant photo of you hugging your co-driver, Coral Taylor, Molly's mum, as we often joke now.
• 5:54
  The goat, what is she?
• 5:54
  I think she's five-time champion now.
• 5:57
  And Jack Martin, who's a very good photographer, loves Rally, I think beautifully captured the moment.
• 6:03
  The pride that you have, the emotion that she really had too.
• 6:09
  Yeah.
• 6:10
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:11
  It's an incredible feeling to hear over the commentary that you've just won your first title.
• 6:17
  Harry Bates is the champion.
• 6:18
  He wins the stage and the championship with Coral Taylor on board.
• 6:23
  You win the Australian Championship by 2.1 seconds.
• 6:27
  Coral Taylor on the screen, a five-time champion now.
• 6:31
  Tip your hat, everybody, to Neil Bates.
• 6:32
  To hear that you've won the title over the commentary for the first time was a very unique thing and
• 6:39
  for Coral and I to be standing there together, waiting in anticipation for that moment.
• 6:44
  Yeah, we were both overcome with slightly different emotions.
• 6:47
  For me, it was probably a mixture of relief and elation that we'd done it.
• 6:50
  For her, it was emotion straight away.
• 6:52
  She's obviously been around this sport for a long time and probably never thought she would be in the position again to win an ARC.
• 6:59
  Her last win came in 2008 with dad.
• 7:02
  So here she is 15 years later,
• 7:05
  achieving her fifth Australian Rally Championship.
• 7:07
  It's pretty staggering, I reckon.
• 7:09
  I mean, she's 62 years old now, still so capable in the car, so perfect on the notes and such a top co-driver and for me also a great friend to have in the car this year.
• 7:20
  So, yeah, we had a great year and achieved what we wanted to achieve.
• 7:23
  Yeah.
• 7:24
  they tell me that you could almost hear a pin drop.
• 7:27
  I mean, obviously there's commentary going out over the PA and what have you.
• 7:31
  The emotions, it comes out at one stage, would you believe it?
• 7:34
  They were glued to it stage side, weren't they?
• 7:37
  Yeah, that's right.
• 7:38
  Coral and I went first.
• 7:39
  So we laid down the time that Lewis and Anthony had to beat.
• 7:42
  So they sort of went out into stage right as we finished and it was about a four-minute stage.
• 7:48
  So for four minutes, the entire crowd was just waiting to see when Lewis would appear.
• 7:53
  over the finish line, and then they had to wait and hear his time.
• 7:56
  And, yeah, it was a lot of nervous energy.
• 8:00
  Certainly from our team's side, they were going to be happy either way, but they were very, very keen and eager to hear who had done it.
• 8:07
  It was, yeah, the whole thing's surreal, to be honest.
• 8:10
  It's difficult to describe.
• 8:11
  Can I add a little fraction to that story you've just told?
• 8:14
  Because Coral was actually still in the car, kind of getting some things organised.
• 8:17
  She tells me you opened the door when you learnt one of the splits, right?
• 8:21
  I think you said something to her like...
• 8:23
  Lewis and Anthony are down 1.9.
• 8:25
  And at first, because she was so focused on the job she was doing, she didn't actually register whether that meant they were up or behind relative to you guys.
• 8:34
  It didn't quite sink in.
• 8:35
  And you were letting her know that...
• 8:38
  you guys had the upper hand, albeit in a small way.
• 8:41
  That's right.
• 8:42
  So I got out of the car first, which is common.
• 8:44
  Coral's normally making sure everything's done with time cards and putting her notes away neatly and taking her glasses off and just taking her time.
• 8:52
  I got out of the car because I was desperate to know exactly what was going on.
• 8:55
  And I heard Dean Herridge, Australian Rally Championship commentator, say over the PA, you know, Harry Bates and Coral Taylor are up at the split 1.9%.
• 9:07
  So I just lent into the car and said to Coral, they're down 1.9 or wear up 1.9, something like that.
• 9:15
  But she, that natural human reflex took over where she wanted to be sure that what she heard was correct.
• 9:21
  So she didn't want to assume that it was a positive thing.
• 9:25
  She sort of wanted to assume that maybe it was a negative thing so that she didn't get overexcited prematurely.
• 9:31
  But I must say that moment when I heard that split time,
• 9:35
  Deep down, I probably knew at that point that we'd done it because I knew the first half of the stage, Coral and I almost nailed it but didn't quite nail it, maybe only 98% I'd give myself for the first half of the stage.
• 9:47
  But the second half of the stage, I knew that no one could beat us in there.
• 9:51
  And so when I heard that first split time,
• 9:56
  You never want to get excited ahead of time.
• 9:58
  But I had a pretty good feeling from that point on that we were going to do it because I just couldn't see them pulling back that amount of time in the second half of the stage.
• 10:06
  And, yeah, but having said that, I can only say that on reflection.
• 10:10
  At the time, I was still in a total freak-out mode.
• 10:13
  Oh, bet.
• 10:14
  In the past...
• 10:16
  you might have, for example, been 10 tenths over rougher sections and Lewis perhaps might have treated those with a little bit of caution.
• 10:25
  But your dad, Neil, has told me that you both changed it up in the way you've kind of done this season and the way you even went about Canberra and perhaps did the opposite of what we would have expected of you each in the past.
• 10:41
  Such was the intensity.
• 10:43
  Yeah, it was an interesting event to follow because at various points, we both had the upper hand.
• 10:48
  So in Canberra, we traded the lead multiple times.
• 10:51
  And it almost felt like every single time one of us had the lead, we then felt the need to conserve and maybe look after the car as best we could.
• 10:59
  But such were the gaps that there was never actually enough of a gap that you could back off.
• 11:04
  So every single time one of us did that, the other would peg the time back and then end up in the lead.
• 11:09
  I think on Sunday, the lead changed four times from memory.
• 11:12
  So...
• 11:13
  It was a very intense event.
• 11:14
  And, yeah, Canberra is a tough event.
• 11:18
  I was probably still scarred from the 2022 championship where I was in a position to win the title and had a big accident on the final day.
• 11:25
  I didn't want to end up in a scenario again where something silly took us out of the title fight.
• 11:29
  I wanted to make sure we were still in it at the end.
• 11:32
  And so I did have in the back of my mind that I needed to look out for punctures, not damage the car, those sorts of things.
• 11:38
  But...
• 11:39
  I mean, what Dad told you is dead right.
• 11:41
  Every single time I backed off, even just a little bit, Lewis and Anthony would take time out of us and take the lead of the rally.
• 11:47
  So there was, at some point, you have to throw caution to the wind and really on those last few stages, especially that's what we had to do.
• 11:55
  what did he say to you before the event, to the both of you?
• 11:59
  And that's a little bit of a loaded question.
• 12:00
  I think he's shared a bit of that with me.
• 12:02
  And he did speak to you both in that regroup before the final stage.
• 12:06
  It was words like, right, you've both got my attention now kind of thing, wasn't it?
• 12:12
  Basically, I do remember before the event, Lewis and I had dinner together on Friday night and the rally started on Saturday morning.
• 12:20
  And...
• 12:21
  It's a funny thing, you're sitting across the dinner table from, well, for me, my little brother, but also my teammate and the guy that I'm about to go and take on for an Australian Radley title the next morning.
• 12:31
  So that was a pretty unique situation.
• 12:33
  But Dad actually ended up coming and sitting next to us at dinner and just said something along the lines of, I want you both to go for it this weekend, but I just want you to remember that you do have to be there at the finish.
• 12:46
  to do the job, to take the title.
• 12:49
  I can't remember exactly what he said.
• 12:51
  There was also something in there about Slippery Roads and the fact that, you know, sometimes you have to break a bit earlier on Slippery Roads.
• 12:57
  But I have learned over the years, when I was younger, I might have gone, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, and then just gone and done my own thing.
• 13:05
  But nowadays I've learned that a lot of what he has to say is actually valuable.
• 13:09
  Yeah.
• 13:09
  which for many people in motorsport would think is a given.
• 13:13
  When Neil Bates gives you advice, you listen.
• 13:15
  But for when it's your dad, it's always a bit different.
• 13:19
  Coral reminded me that despite the fact, I mean, in motorsport, you want to beat your teammate, right?
• 13:26
  That just happens to be, in your case, your brother, which makes for an interesting dynamic.
• 13:30
  Neil Bates Motorsport has always had...
• 13:33
  a lot of long-termers, they're very much like family, the staff that are working on the cars and so on.
• 13:38
  So you were going head-to-head, but you still managed to preserve that beautiful thing about your team.
• 13:47
  I don't know whether that was by design or you just left it alone, but it's remarkable that you could do that, I think.
• 13:52
  Yeah, it is.
• 13:54
  You know, the team were unbelievable on the weekend, I have to say.
• 13:58
  They were put in a position where they had two cars going head-to-head for the Australian title.
• 14:03
  And really, they all put an incredible amount of priority on making sure that both cars were prepared to within an inch of their life so that the title could only come down to who did the better job on the day.
• 14:14
  All the team wanted, every single last one of them, was for nothing external to affect, you know, that title fight.
• 14:22
  And I have so much admiration for the guys for that because, you know, a lot of people potentially could have got to that point in the season and gone, oh, well, we've sewn up the title either way.
• 14:33
  Time to just cruise to the finish and see who wins.
• 14:35
  But the team just did such a good job of making sure that Lewis and I had the tools we needed to go and fight for the title and, you know,
• 14:43
  Yeah, they're an incredible group of people.
• 14:45
  As Coral correctly pointed out to you, we've got guys here like Daryl Bush who've been here since Dad and Coral won their first title, and that was in 1993.
• 14:54
  So 30 years later, he's still in our team, and he's now been a part of four titles for Dad and Coral.
• 15:02
  two titles for me, one title for Lewis and two titles for Simon and Sue Evans as well.
• 15:08
  So there's quite a few championships that he's been a part of and it's just incredible to have that sort of experience around you in the service park.
• 15:16
  Awesome.
• 15:17
  You've watched him grow as a driver and as your brother.
• 15:20
  You've watched him grow as an athlete.
• 15:22
  What is kind of Lewis's greatest strength and perhaps the thing that you were mindful of going into Canberra?
• 15:29
  His greatest strength nowadays used to be his biggest weakness and that was his mental toughness and his sort of doggedness.
• 15:36
  I think Lewis, in his early days of rallying,
• 15:40
  had a tendency to bow out of a fight, in particular probably against me.
• 15:45
  He maybe had the belief that Harry was just going to come along and take a second a kilometre out of him on the next stage or whatever, so he would almost have that preconceived idea that that's what I was going to do, and he would just go into conservation mode and try and protect second place or third place or whatever it was.
• 16:02
  Nowadays, he's definitely a competitor and probably my fiercest in the ARC at this point, and...
• 16:08
  you know, his biggest strength now is his ability to actually go in and take time out of me on a stage.
• 16:14
  And if you look at the weekend, he did that multiple times and I haven't had many people do that to me in Australia in a long time.
• 16:21
  So to have him come along and...
• 16:25
  and actually do that now and really take it to me is an incredible thing.
• 16:29
  But his development and so on over the last few years has been something to watch.
• 16:34
  And there are times almost where I regret putting in the amount of effort I did to helping him, but it's...
• 16:41
  Honestly, it's mutually beneficial because while he's doing well, it's pushing me to do better.
• 16:45
  And from that point of view, we can only grow stronger together.
• 16:49
  And that's the mantra we take into everything we do together, whether we're playing tennis or whatever.
• 16:55
  We push each other hard and that's always the goal.
• 16:58
  That's a fantastic mantra.
• 16:59
  Your dad came on for a feature episode this year and you kindly helped me with some backstories, which I loved.
• 17:04
  He talked at that stage about the ARC's health, right, the quality of the competition, how it's growing in its current era or chapter.
• 17:13
  How tough is it going to be, Harry, to defend this?
• 17:15
  It's getting tougher every year.
• 17:17
  I mean, if you look at this year, Lewis and I didn't win every round between us.
• 17:21
  Nathan Quinn won in Western Australia.
• 17:23
  And then we had Eddie Maguire in Escoda, who is a target Tasmania winner, turn up and he podiumed at all four of the last events.
• 17:31
  And that was his first year in the Australian Rally Championship.
• 17:34
  So he's a debutante who turned up and set some incredible stage times up.
• 17:39
  I think a lot of those sorts of guys are going to be really tough to beat in 2024.
• 17:43
  It's getting harder and harder and that's just testament to where the sport is in Australia at the moment.
• 17:48
  It is in a real growth period.
• 17:50
  And Lewis, Dad and I, we're very passionate about the Australian Rally Championship.
• 17:55
  We really believe in its place in motorsport in Australia.
• 18:00
  And to see it after I've personally been involved in every ARC since the beginning of 2015,
• 18:08
  to see it in its current state is a real rewarding thing for me because I just feel that it's a sport that deserves a bigger profile and deserves a bigger platform.
• 18:19
  And to see it now starting to get there and starting to gain momentum is really rewarding.
• 18:25
  So, yeah, it's a great championship to be a part of and I'm very grateful to be part of this sort of renaissance period, I suppose.
• 18:33
  Yeah.
• 18:34
  A quick break on this edition of the Motorsport Brief.
• 18:37
  More with the Australian Rally Champion, Harry Bates, right after this.
• 18:44
  You're listening to the Rusty's Garage Shortcast, a catch-up with another champion, this time the ARC winner, Harry Bates.
• 18:52
  It's his second title.
• 18:53
  Let's continue the convo now.
• 18:56
  We've talked, team.
• 18:57
  The Yaris itself is such a well-sorted package now.
• 19:01
  Does anything change from a line-up standpoint for you, for your side of the team for next year?
• 19:06
  It sounds as though it's, you know, leave a good thing alone and off we go.
• 19:11
  Yeah, very much.
• 19:12
  We're in talks about whether or not we'll be in the GR Yaris AP4 next year or in new cars.
• 19:17
  Toyota globally have the GR Yaris Rally 2 coming out in 2024 and it would be our intention to get into those at some point, but we have no confirmed plans yet.
• 19:29
  We're still trying to work on that and get things sorted.
• 19:31
  We just think that that car really is the future of rallying, not only here in Australia but across the world and it would be something that as a team...
• 19:40
  we would really like to be a part of.
• 19:43
  The good thing then is we might see a couple of GRS AP4s drop down to some privateers and it would be our goal to keep those cars in the Australian Rally Championship.
• 19:54
  But, yeah, as far as my side of the stables go, I'll still have Coral in the co-driver's seat next year, which I'm looking forward to.
• 20:01
  So she's going round again.
• 20:03
  Vying for a sixth title, which would be pretty cool.
• 20:06
  And certainly my number one mechanic will still be Sam, who's been the number one mechanic on my car since 2016.
• 20:12
  So he's another guy I've got a very longstanding partnership with and we've now collected two championships together, which is a pretty cool thing.
• 20:19
  Brilliant.
• 20:20
  You recapped a knowledge of statistics or history there a moment ago.
• 20:24
  I know you've got a great appreciation of that when it comes to the ARC or the Australian Rally Championship, right?
• 20:30
  Just pause for a moment here.
• 20:31
  You join names like Colin Bond, Ross Dunkerton, your dad, Possum Bourne.
• 20:38
  Cody Crocker, Simon Evans as a multiple Australian rally champion now.
• 20:43
  And I know, Harry, some of the names I've just rattled off have more titles to their name, right?
• 20:49
  But to think that you are in that rare club now with more than one to your name, have you stopped and soaked that in?
• 20:55
  Yeah, someone said that to me on the Sunday night, straight after the event, actually, and I hadn't stopped to think that at that point.
• 21:00
  But you're right, the Australian Rally Championship is a difficult thing to win once.
• 21:05
  So the club of multiple winners is pretty small.
• 21:08
  As you just pointed out, all those names you just mentioned have more than two.
• 21:12
  So it's certainly my goal to join them in the threes and the fours.
• 21:16
  But it is special.
• 21:18
  I mean, it's...
• 21:21
  It's something that I've dreamt about for years.
• 21:23
  And, you know, certainly since I was a kid, I mean, we've spoken before about the fact that I went and did other sports as a teenager and wasn't always on track to be a rally driver.
• 21:33
  But once I started in this sport and fell in love with it, winning the Australian Rally Championship became the goal pretty quickly.
• 21:40
  So I'm very, very...
• 21:43
  Grateful to be, you know, to be given these opportunities to go out there and vie for championships.
• 21:48
  And, yeah, I certainly want a few more.
• 21:51
  I don't want to stop at two or three.
• 21:53
  There's hopefully a couple more on the horizon.
• 21:56
  Great work.
• 21:56
  Few to finish here.
• 21:57
  You tackled the WRC.
• 21:58
  event in New Zealand just over a year ago now.
• 22:01
  There were stage wins there up against the likes of Shane Van Gisbergen, Hayden Padden and so on.
• 22:05
  What else is on the wish list for you?
• 22:07
  And my question goes beyond the dirt, beyond rallying as well.
• 22:12
  I mean, your dad did supercars enduros.
• 22:15
  Is a Bathurst 1000 or a 12 hour perhaps on the wish list?
• 22:19
  There's plenty of things on my motorsport wish list.
• 22:23
  The big two at the moment for me would be putting together a WRC2 campaign.
• 22:28
  So rather than having a one-off like I did at Rally New Zealand, which was a great experience, I'd love to build on that and do five or six rounds in Europe to actually try and cement myself in that field.
• 22:39
  And I think only once you do a few of them can you get better and better results.
• 22:45
  Doing the European Rally Championship is also a goal of mine, so I'd love to get over there and do that.
• 22:50
  But as far as the tarmac goes, I haven't thought about, you know, more circuit racing.
• 22:55
  I've had a few goes now in the Toyota 86 Racing Series and absolutely love the opportunity to do it when I can.
• 23:01
  But...
• 23:03
  The whole door-to-door racing thing is something that I have to wrap my head around all over again when I do it.
• 23:09
  And, yeah, I haven't had the exposure to circuit racing at this point in my career that maybe Dad did when he was my age.
• 23:15
  So, of course, I'd love to drive something like a supercar.
• 23:19
  I'm a big fan of my cousin, Zach Bates, who does Super 2.
• 23:22
  And I often remind him when he has a down day that he probably should remember that not very many people get to drive a supercar.
• 23:29
  And that's a pretty cool thing.
• 23:30
  So just go and enjoy it.
• 23:32
  So yeah, driving a supercar would be a dream as well.
• 23:35
  Great work.
• 23:36
  You have come a long way from that first event where I think Molly co-drove for you and you guys got in trouble in a quiet zone.
• 23:44
  What did she say?
• 23:44
  No one cares about that in Europe.
• 23:46
  And then you were leading, I think, your second ever event in Narooma.
• 23:50
  And they went looking for your dad.
• 23:52
  Because they couldn't believe the times.
• 23:53
  They were wondering if he was kind of subbing for you, weren't they?
• 23:57
  You know, it wasn't all that long ago we were in these moments.
• 24:00
  Yeah, that's right.
• 24:02
  2014 Narooma, so I must have been 18 years old and it was my second ever rally.
• 24:06
  Coral was co-driving for me in that one.
• 24:08
  So she's actually been in my career since the start as well.
• 24:11
  And the organisers didn't basically believe my stage times, didn't believe that this...
• 24:18
  kid who's in his second rally could be leading the event outright.
• 24:22
  I was in a front-wheel drive Toyota Corolla and my competitors were in WRXs and Evos, which were certainly the quick cars of the day.
• 24:31
  And yeah, the clerk of course actually went to search for dad in the service park, assuming that when he got to our service area, he might find me.
• 24:42
  And his thoughts were that dad was the one out on the stages.
• 24:44
  But I remember dad was quite horrified that
• 24:48
  anyone would consider that we would even do that.
• 24:51
  Certainly not our style.
• 24:52
  So, no, no, I just, yeah, I guess I just had a little bit of natural flair to begin with, but that had to be toned down slightly over time for me to actually finish events.
• 25:03
  But, yeah, it's just a sport that's captivated me from the very start.
• 25:09
  My love for this sport actually started with co-driving for Dad at Rally Queensland in 2013 and then, yeah,
• 25:16
  Yeah, that was probably a big mistake from Dad to get me to do that because immediately after that I went and bought myself a Toyota Corolla rally car.
• 25:23
  Yep.
• 25:24
  Let's finish with that.
• 25:25
  You've kind of headed us down that path, which is terrific.
• 25:28
  People, you raised it a little bit in this conversation, but people probably forget that you trained at the Institute of Sport, right, before an injury and things made you change direction.
• 25:40
  It's fair to say you had Olympic ambitions.
• 25:43
  Have the Aussie titles...
• 25:45
  filled the void of a Comm Games or even an Olympic medal that you perhaps dreamed of as a young bloke?
• 25:53
  And what would the Harry Bates of today look back and tell that kid now?
• 25:58
  The Harry Bates of today has learned a lot.
• 26:01
  Definitely, I think winning Australian Rally Championships has filled that void.
• 26:05
  I think anyone with sporting ambitions...
• 26:08
  whether it's race walking, tennis, or in my case, rallying, your goal is just to achieve the best that you can achieve.
• 26:15
  And I certainly feel like I've gone and done that now.
• 26:17
  And, you know, I want to keep continuing to do that.
• 26:21
  But the Harry Bates...
• 26:23
  of today would have a lot of lessons about the ups and downs of sport for the Harry Bates of 15 years ago.
• 26:30
  A few years ago.
• 26:31
  You know, back then I wanted every single thing I did to be a personal best or an Australian record or whatever I could do.
• 26:39
  And in reality, there's so much that goes on that affects an outcome of something sometimes and really what I've learned to deal with is...
• 26:48
  that when it doesn't go well, you have to see those moments as character-building moments.
• 26:51
  You have to learn from them.
• 26:53
  And I think particularly over the last couple of years of my career, I've been able to do that.
• 26:58
  And, yeah, just learning a few lessons in patience.
• 27:02
  I was fortunate.
• 27:03
  At the beginning of my rally career, everything went really well and I was almost blessed with this perfect start to my rallying career
• 27:12
  and then I had to learn about setbacks a bit later.
• 27:14
  But, you know, there's definitely...
• 27:17
  It's true what people say.
• 27:19
  The bad days definitely make the good ones sweeter.
• 27:21
  That is a perfect ending.
• 27:22
  Congratulations.
• 27:23
  It was an epic finish, a very, very memorable end to a championship that will stand out in the record books for some time.
• 27:32
  Well done.
• 27:32
  Enjoy some family time.
• 27:33
  I know you're a young dad, so enjoy that over summer.
• 27:36
  Go well in 2024.
• 27:38
  And importantly, mate, where you can, try and stitch that program that you'd like to do together for either some European events or whatever it may be.
• 27:46
  Go well.
• 27:47
  Will do.
• 27:47
  Thanks for having me on, Rusty.
• 27:52
  The battle between he and Lewis next year is going to be epic, as if it wasn't already exciting enough in Canberra.
• 27:58
  Great that a good friend of the pod, Molly Taylor, has been back in the ARC in a Subaru in recent events too.
• 28:05
  Now, we won't worry too much about news in this edition with things easing up on the run to Christmas.
• 28:10
  Keep an eye out for notifications, though, on our next...
• 28:13
  feature episode with Marty Kragle.
• 28:16
  That's due out next Tuesday.
• 28:17
  How this battling privateer turned heads with some big names in the motorcycle community offering encouragement to him when he was coming through the ranks and the comeback from a crash that makes you wince when you hear about it even now.
• 28:32
  We'll catch you next week everybody.
• 28:33
  Bye for now.