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The Motorsport Brief: with Aussie actor Shane Jacobson discussing Ford v Holden · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:04
  When it's the festive season and most forms of motorsport are parked up for a well-earned break, you invariably find yourself looking for a fix of some kind, right?
• 0:13
  A very cool movie that hit the screens this year is about to have its home entertainment release.
• 0:19
  And today we will talk to a mate of the podcast who is the face and voice of this great story.
• 0:28
  Hi everybody, Greg Rust with you for this Christmas week edition of the Rusty's Garage shortcast.
• 0:33
  Hope you're starting to roll off the throttle and enjoying some family time, catching your breath a bit.
• 0:38
  Worth looking around for the movie we are about to preview, especially if you didn't get to see it on the big screen a few months back.
• 0:45
  And even if you did...
• 0:46
  A second viewing in the comforts of your home, or perhaps as you head off on a flight during the holiday period, will be perfect.
• 0:54
  Ford versus Holden was the much-anticipated follow-up from Wild Bear Entertainment, who brought you Brock Over the Top.
• 1:01
  It's a feature-length doco that explores the decades-long competition between two iconic Aussie car brands and how that almost tribal rivalry made you one or the other, red or blue.
• 1:15
  Which one were you?
• 1:16
  From the early days, the history, technology, the culture, racing, of course, and the impact that it had on Australians and our automotive landscape.
• 1:26
  There's interviews with all sorts of experts, including some very familiar faces who've graced the podium in supercars and the Australian Touring Car Championship, as well as those who became an integral part of the pit lane.
• 1:38
  And it's complemented by...
• 1:40
  incredible footage and photographs from a rich array of archives my guest well he could probably pass for santa he's a great aussie actor who owns cars bikes and his own racing and automotive adventures you can hear about in his rusty's garage feature episode shane jacobson beautifully narrates this feature length documentary and he is on the line hello mate it's nice to get you back on
• 2:06
  Good to see you and hear you.
• 2:08
  People at home listening don't know.
• 2:09
  I've got you on my screen so I can see your bonts.
• 2:13
  That's not a good thing.
• 2:14
  Hey, this project really was a labour of love.
• 2:18
  I know that's a kind of clichéd line in some respects, but it truly was for you.
• 2:22
  Yeah.
• 2:23
  Yeah, mate, it was, and I don't have to tell you, and to be honest, probably most of your listeners that when I got the phone call to say, would you be interested in narrating a feature documentary on Ford versus Holden on the rivalry?
• 2:38
  You know, I've done stuff about the manufacturing before, but this was about the rivalry and Bathurst and all the rest of it.
• 2:45
  I mean, anyone who's a motoring enthusiast, who wouldn't want that gig?
• 2:48
  And I said it would be my honour, it would be my privilege.
• 2:52
  I said it would be a pure joy.
• 2:54
  And then I said, I think if they said no, I was going to go to their office and burn it down.
• 3:00
  There's been a car industry in Australia for almost as long as there's been cars.
• 3:06
  From the outset...
• 3:09
  Two manufacturers have not only dominated the road, but helped to weave the social fabric of Australia's national identity.
• 3:18
  GM Holden and Ford Australia.
• 3:22
  How long ago did kind of Wild Bear make that approach?
• 3:25
  Because what you've created collectively in the end here, which we'll get to, with the people that came together to help tell the various aspects of the stories to the incredible archive of vision that you used, did this whole thing sort of start in discussion kind of pre-COVID or did it really accelerate since the pandemic?
• 3:45
  When did it kick off for you?
• 3:48
  Well, for me, it kicked off the edge.
• 3:50
  Well, you know, Rusty, because we were doing the grill together when it sort of started.
• 3:54
  You know, you knew the secret before many, and you're good at keeping secrets.
• 3:58
  But it's been well over a year, hasn't it, mate?
• 4:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:02
  But, and look, it's been on their, on Wild Bears radar for a while.
• 4:06
  They did a Brock doco, a feature doco, and so it's been on their radar for a while, as it has many people.
• 4:14
  So, yeah, look, it's probably been a year, maybe a year and a half in the making and the waiting, and these things can take time.
• 4:22
  You know, there's sometimes it can be really boring stuff, but, you know, it seems as the podcast where people want a little bit of extra info or, you know, with podcasts, particularly with you, Rusty, you always give people a little bit more under the bonnet.
• 4:34
  Sometimes the reason these things take time is they do a fantastic job of the edit, and you can get down to four or five photos or one bit of vision that you've got to wait for permissions for before they can sign off.
• 4:46
  Literally everything you see, every frame has to be approved by somebody, and so there's always delays with these.
• 4:54
  When you do documentaries...
• 4:56
  With a movie, you can do what you want.
• 4:58
  You're telling people, you know, this is out of – if you say inspired by true events, you can get away with murder.
• 5:04
  But, you know, when you're dealing with something that's a documentary and a topic that so many people know so well, it has to be right.
• 5:10
  So that's the only reason it took so long.
• 5:12
  Great group of people that – I mean, you narrated it beautifully, which I knew you would.
• 5:17
  And then separately, I mean, you had Bev Brock, Dick Johnson, John Bowe, my good buddy from the Channel 10 days in Billy Woods, a noted historian in Aaron Noonan, the V8 sleuth.
• 5:29
  I love the fact –
• 5:31
  that you brought back one of the iconic Channel 7 voices as well in Gary Wilkinson.
• 5:36
  And then there are people like Dee Madigan who has, you know, incredible advertising industry and campaign knowledge as well.
• 5:43
  And that was an important part of the storytelling, how they battled each other on the airwaves and for almost ad space too.
• 5:54
  And, mate, as you know, with all those people you just mentioned, you just turn the mic on, press record and shut up.
• 5:59
  Because the history of not only Ford versus Holden, but being in a motorsport in Australia lives within those people, you know what I mean?
• 6:07
  And that's why we've got to capture these stories now.
• 6:09
  But, yeah, look, you know, and they are some of those voices.
• 6:11
  There'll be so many people, myself included, when you're hearing some of those people who do what you do for bread and butter now, mate.
• 6:17
  You know, those people were the voices of racing.
• 6:19
  I imagine for you as they were for me.
• 6:22
  I mean, having said that, you've been doing this for so long now, Rusty.
• 6:26
  They were probably doing it.
• 6:27
  They probably started when you started.
• 6:28
  You're the old man now, whether you like it or not.
• 6:32
  Tell me about the archive of Vision.
• 6:34
  As you saw this project coming to life, as someone who's been around it and loved it for many, many years now, decades, even you must have been amazed at some of the things they unearthed.
• 6:48
  Yeah, and that's half the battle with these things is trying to find new footage.
• 6:53
  I've done things in the past, as you know, mate, which is, you know, with Shannon's, we've done End of an Era and stuff like that, but there's always footage out there that can be unearthed, and not only that, the technology now, the way they can kind of, I don't know, better the footage, they can take the shake out of it, they can bring the colours up in a colour grade, which they've always been able.
• 7:13
  you know, improve things with the colour grade.
• 7:14
  And these are all boring film terms, but the vision just seems so much richer.
• 7:19
  They can do so much more with it now.
• 7:21
  But it is, you know, I, like you, like so many, when you see the footage and the older ads in particular, you know, the songs come back and you see, I mean, and they seem, I mean, they take you back in a moment in history, but even hearing the voiceovers now, you know, Holden, you know what I mean?
• 7:40
  You hear that.
• 7:41
  that gravel in their voice.
• 7:43
  And it does...
• 7:44
  It's funny now that you and I have been on Earth standing on this, you know, this spinning planet for so long now that when you hear those voices now doing the ads, we go, my God, it was so different, you know, what...
• 7:56
  As you and I know in broadcasting back in the day on Australian TV, Australian broadcasters were people who were on radio and television that were told to mimic the people from the BBC because that is how we got news.
• 8:09
  So people were told to talk with that accent.
• 8:13
  So it's amazing when you go back and watch some of the old ads and hear the voices being used.
• 8:17
  But, yeah, it was great.
• 8:19
  It's very nostalgic looking back.
• 8:20
  It's a bit hard to look back now because I think we've had this chat many times and I always say for people who don't understand our passion for motoring that Paul McCartney just toured through Australia recently and the Beatles just released a new song.
• 8:35
  As we know, inconceivably, the Beatles have a new song out because they got an old recording and they fixed it.
• 8:39
  The Rolling Stones have just recently released new music.
• 8:43
  You and I know it will never happen again for Ford and Holden with an Australian manufacturer.
• 8:49
  We will never hear a new song.
• 8:51
  from Holden or Ford in this country.
• 8:53
  And I keep explaining it that way to people, and it kind of seems to be the only way that people who don't care about motorings tend to get it, that at some point when the Beatles are all gone and when all the members of the Rolling Stones are gone, we will never get to hear them release a new song again.
• 9:06
  And I've had to explain to so many people that that's the case with this.
• 9:09
  So when I do watch the footage now, as much as it's nostalgia and it takes you back, it kind of breaks your heart a little bit more when you look at it again.
• 9:15
  Why did it become for you, you know, such a thing in the fabric of Australian society?
• 9:22
  I mean, we built them here naturally.
• 9:24
  The Holden story, which you cover beautifully in the doco, actually goes back prior to the FX and prior to World War II in some ways.
• 9:34
  It was an intense rivalry off track and on, which we'll get to.
• 9:39
  Why did it become part of our psyche, do you think?
• 9:42
  As you said, the history goes way back.
• 9:43
  I mean, gosh, Holden or Holdens were making, you know, saddles in 1856.
• 9:47
  You know what I mean?
• 9:48
  Like, they've been an Australian company for a very long time.
• 9:52
  Look, I put it down to sport.
• 9:54
  Australians are great sport supporters, if you will.
• 9:56
  We're barricers.
• 9:57
  Even the term barric is an Australian term.
• 9:59
  The term barric only exists in Australia because...
• 10:02
  whether people in other states want to hear it, VFL football started in Victoria and they used to play at the Victorian Army Barracks and the people used to walk between the barracks to come and watch this game of sport and that's hence the term barrackers.
• 10:14
  That's why we don't say root, which is an American term.
• 10:16
  We say barrack.
• 10:17
  And, you know, whichever car was parked in the driveway that your dad was washing or your mum was washing or whoever it was, an uncle, that was the team you barracked for.
• 10:25
  And so we had two in particular players
• 10:30
  In other countries, I know we've spoken about this ad nauseum, but in any other country, if you go to, there's never two brands and two brands only that people fight over between or on either side of.
• 10:40
  And that is because you can go to Europe and, you know, there'll be Alfa and there'll be Ferrari, there'll be whatever.
• 10:44
  But in this country, we had two that were made.
• 10:47
  and two that were made by Australians, you know, for Australian conditions, all the stuff we've all heard a million times.
• 10:52
  And they competed and we, you know, we do state of origin.
• 10:55
  You know, I don't know that other countries do it like we do.
• 10:59
  In soccer they do certainly or as they would say in Europe, football.
• 11:02
  But we have a state of origin, but it's a state of the – the origin was the origins of the car that was parked in your dad's driveway.
• 11:09
  Right.
• 11:09
  And that for us was it.
• 11:11
  And if you don't have to drill too deep with anyone in Australia, even if they don't care about it, they will have a story about their father or their grandfather, which means they inherently lean one way, you know, red or blue themselves.
• 11:25
  So...
• 11:26
  It is unique to this country.
• 11:27
  Again, I know you and I have spoke, Rusty, about Jeremy Clarkson, always found it fascinating, and there's a man that we can just assume has met many people, and he's travelled this planet more than most.
• 11:37
  He was always fascinated by the rivalry between Ford and Holden by Australians in Australia.
• 11:44
  He said, there is nothing like it anywhere on Earth.
• 11:47
  And even if we never get to the crux or to the kernel of an idea that made it happen, who cares?
• 11:53
  It did, and I love it.
• 11:55
  The rise and fall of these two Australian icons became a rivalry unlike any other.
• 12:08
  For almost a century, it divided us.
• 12:12
  These beasts of steel, chrome and rubber have defined our tribes.
• 12:18
  What was it about these brands that made us fall in love with them and embrace them as our own?
• 12:25
  Attaday managed to not only survive, but thrive here for so long.
• 12:34
  Aussie blood runs red or blue.
• 12:38
  Which one are you?
• 12:42
  Hey, can we get you to hang on there just very quickly for us?
• 12:44
  A break here on the Rusty's Garage Shortcast.
• 12:46
  More with Shane Jacobson in just a few moments.
• 12:52
  We are back.
• 12:52
  Our special guest on the short cast in the lead up to Christmas is our good friend in Shane Jacobson.
• 12:58
  And the reason we are doing this because the Ford versus Holden brilliant movie that came out back in about October is due for home entertainment release.
• 13:07
  Something for you to enjoy over the Christmas holiday period.
• 13:11
  Let's continue the conversation now.
• 13:13
  You've got a great appreciation of the of the history.
• 13:16
  We've mentioned that, but I'm intrigued to know.
• 13:19
  Maybe something, a little something that you learnt along the way in this that you perhaps didn't know about the history of Ford versus Hyde.
• 13:26
  Yeah, the thing that I think I constantly, whether I can say I was shocked by anything, I don't know.
• 13:33
  I'd love to think I've watched enough now to know a fair bit of it.
• 13:38
  I do always get pleasantly surprised when you do go back to the fact that, you know, Holden, Ford, we're working together, you know what I mean, at the very start.
• 13:46
  You know, people go, really?
• 13:48
  You know, that always makes me giggle a bit that we're talking about this rivalry, and yet they worked for each other at one point, you know.
• 13:56
  Um, but it is the thing that I still, whenever you see all the old footage of Bathurst and I'm talking about Bathurst in particular, rather than the two, the two makes is just how rudimentary the racing was when it started.
• 14:09
  You know what I mean?
• 14:10
  There's just not a barrier.
• 14:11
  There's not even a hay bale.
• 14:13
  I mean, and when you watch the cars, the footage with Brock, when he went out on slicks, him coming out of the pits, I mean, shit.
• 14:20
  Yeah.
• 14:23
  The race was happening.
• 14:24
  I mean, the race always happens in the pits.
• 14:26
  We know that.
• 14:26
  But that terminology now means the speed of the tyre change and how efficient they are with their change.
• 14:33
  But back then, they were racing in the pits.
• 14:36
  I mean, you've got to be honest, Rusty, you would have been there.
• 14:38
  It's just I always get a shock now looking back.
• 14:40
  We know how safe the sport is now and for great reason.
• 14:43
  But I always, when I see, you know, when they had the multiple classes and you just see them tearing around,
• 14:49
  around a mountain and you know we've heard the term street circuit they were just country roads on this awesome little loop and these cars were just full bore and you're just looking at it going there was nothing about it that looked like a racetrack you know what i mean there was other than the fact there were people with helmets and then you see the in-car footage and there's just a belt across the shoulder and
• 15:12
  You're watching them come around the corner and they look more like a porpoise than they do a boat because they're rolling.
• 15:18
  I just see all that.
• 15:19
  How did they race them?
• 15:21
  I think I constantly – so to answer your question of what shocked me, I think I constantly get shocked by looking back at how rudimentary the cars were and just –
• 15:28
  And just how it was, literally a race that turned up in a town, turned up in a town with a road that happens to make a loop.
• 15:35
  Incredible.
• 15:36
  You've owned both.
• 15:37
  This is probably a bit like asking you to pick your favourite child, and I would never do that because your kids are beautiful.
• 15:42
  But are there in the range that both built over the years a couple of icons that you immediately sort of gravitate to or make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up?
• 15:54
  Yeah, they do.
• 15:57
  And so the first car I ever fell in love with, you know, is an EH Holden, and that will always hold.
• 16:03
  And it is – everyone has that first car that they had a love affair with, you know, a candy apple red EH Holden with a 400 Chevrolet into a –
• 16:12
  Into a car park where me and my mates were sitting in potato cakes on a BMX.
• 16:16
  I didn't have a BMX.
• 16:16
  We couldn't afford it.
• 16:17
  But that rolled into a car park.
• 16:19
  It was the first car that really got my attention.
• 16:21
  So EH Holden, Kingswoods have always been HQ.
• 16:25
  If I had to pick one, you know, HQ in particular, it kind of gets me more than excited.
• 16:30
  And now, weirdly, I've had to add a new car to my Holden list, like the VE Commodore.
• 16:36
  Like now, I would never have said it if they were still manufacturing, but now that they're not...
• 16:40
  It's funny, like, you know, I bought a VE race car.
• 16:45
  And, like, the VE, I now have this thing about the last sort of few ones because it was the best of everything they did.
• 16:52
  And I can't believe I'm now having to say it.
• 16:54
  But now they've stopped manufacturing sort of VE, VE.
• 16:57
  They, I don't know, I kind of love their shape.
• 17:01
  But then I want to jump the fence to the other side with Ford.
• 17:04
  The XB Coupe, I've said the toughest car that's ever appeared on a movie anywhere.
• 17:10
  Eleanor can go to hell.
• 17:11
  I don't give a damn.
• 17:12
  The, you know, Mad Max, the Black Coupe, if you put it in a boxing ring, I don't care about Steve McQueen, Bullock.
• 17:21
  If that XB walks into that...
• 17:24
  It's going to punch their head in.
• 17:26
  And the 1932 Ford I do think is probably the most attractive car I've ever seen.
• 17:32
  Designed when they get a car from a 1932 and they do it up now and put it on the road, I look at it and look at the shape of that thing and do go, I think it is the most beautiful car.
• 17:44
  car.
• 17:45
  And to be honest, I'm going to do one more thing, which is, and you mentioned Christmas.
• 17:49
  I mean, we all look forward to Christmas, so Ford's in that sense.
• 17:54
  But even Santa loved the ho-ho Holden.
• 17:57
  He used to stutter before he said it.
• 18:01
  Ho-ho-ho Holden.
• 18:03
  He just couldn't finish the sentence.
• 18:04
  But even as a Holden fan, you know I have the ultimate tribute with my HQ, which you've seen, mate.
• 18:11
  I mean, it has a Ford diff in it.
• 18:16
  Very good.
• 18:17
  Very good.
• 18:17
  Hey, a couple to finish here, if we can.
• 18:20
  Preserving this story, I mean, you talked about the closure of the plants before.
• 18:24
  I can very vividly recall being with Mark Scaife going to Adelaide with the staff at around that time.
• 18:33
  We had car clubs from all around the country representing every iteration that Holden had produced.
• 18:40
  And, you know, we went through town and so on.
• 18:45
  That is a heartbreaking story.
• 18:46
  Where I'm going with this question is how important was preserving this, preserving this story, which is when the plants are shut, we don't make these beautiful Australian design developed things anymore.
• 18:59
  How important was keeping that story, do you reckon?
• 19:02
  Yeah, very.
• 19:03
  So, you know, we know the dates were the 31st of December 2020 was when Holden stopped and the 7th of October 2016 for Ford.
• 19:10
  Like, they're dates that are etched in some of our minds.
• 19:13
  I think it's incredibly important.
• 19:15
  And, you know, in a weird way, people say you must be so happy to have got a chance to narrate the Ford versus Holden documentary.
• 19:23
  I'm equally as heartbroken.
• 19:24
  It would have been so much better that I wasn't required because it was still happening.
• 19:28
  That's right.
• 19:29
  So I do think it's important.
• 19:33
  And look, even if we don't say important, it means the world to me and people like you and me and everyone listening to keep telling this story.
• 19:42
  In 10 years' time, even now, kids now...
• 19:46
  It sounds like a weird conversation to have in light of what your question was, but people now, kids do not know what it's like to wait on the side of the road for a service vehicle because cars just work now.
• 19:57
  And the cars, as we know, we're going to go to electric and all that kind of stuff, and that's all fine.
• 20:00
  This is not a political comment or statement at all.
• 20:03
  But the kind of landscape of the way cars are perceived and the way we all stood around and stared at them in a driveway, that era has gone, whether we like it or not.
• 20:12
  And now, you know, we know even the future of racing in Australia is going to be different.
• 20:17
  Cars have ceasing to be manufactured that we've got running around Bathurst now.
• 20:20
  It's changing right at our fingertips, seemingly now,
• 20:25
  You know, stuff used to change at the new shape of a model of a car, and it would take years for that to happen.
• 20:30
  Now stuff seems to be changing in minutes, not months or years.
• 20:33
  So for my kids watching this, they're learning stuff.
• 20:37
  You know, in my own house, where the religion that I support the strongest happens to be the religion of motorsport.
• 20:44
  And my children sit there watching it.
• 20:46
  They got a preview, got to see a preview copy.
• 20:48
  And they look at this thing like I used to watch World War II documentaries.
• 20:52
  They think this looks like ancient history.
• 20:54
  And I'm like, no, it happened in my lifetime and I still think I'm young.
• 20:58
  And again, all the people listening to this, this is all yesterday for us, but I've got shit news for everyone.
• 21:04
  It wasn't.
• 21:05
  This December, when we get to the end of this year, it's been four years, already four years has gone since Holden shut its doors.
• 21:12
  As the Holden we know, as far as manufacturing.
• 21:13
  You know, there's still people with Ford and Holden in this great country of ours still working on doing things overseas.
• 21:18
  I want to mention that.
• 21:20
  It is already, four years has already gone.
• 21:22
  And so if you get, if you look in the eyes of an eight-year-old kid now, and I've got a kid who's nine, if you look in their eyes and ask them questions about Australian manufactured cars and stuff, so they were five and they already weren't paying attention when holding chartered stores.
• 21:36
  So already to them, this didn't exist.
• 21:39
  So there's kids in our houses now that know nothing about this.
• 21:42
  So, yeah, so, you know, I know your question was, is it important?
• 21:46
  I think it is.
• 21:48
  Is it romantic to look back?
• 21:50
  I think it is.
• 21:51
  It's like looking at photos.
• 21:52
  You know, people love looking at their wedding photos because you're young in them and it's young love and you're still in that honeymoon period.
• 21:57
  So that's what I love when I watch things like this and in particular this Ford vs Holden one.
• 22:02
  For me, it's like looking back at your parents' wedding photos
• 22:05
  They didn't even have wedding videos then.
• 22:07
  Thank God they had video for motor racing.
• 22:09
  Yeah, so it means the world to me and it means the world to many.
• 22:12
  And many people, many, many, many people have got to the end of that film and had a tear in their eye.
• 22:16
  I've had people who went and saw it.
• 22:18
  They said to me they got quite emotional.
• 22:19
  I said, of course, of course, you're watching.
• 22:22
  It's a documentary that documents the death of something.
• 22:25
  So it's going to evoke a lot of emotions in a lot of people and I think that's a great thing.
• 22:30
  Lastly, supercars are in a new era.
• 22:32
  They've gone Camaro, the Mustang, we cherish not just the automotive rivalry that we've covered, but also the racing rivalry.
• 22:41
  It played such an important part in what we know as Ford versus Holden.
• 22:46
  How they market that, how they push the new stars of the sport, I think is hugely important.
• 22:54
  But it is tough to think that Commodore and Falcon, in the true sense of what this movie embodies, will no longer go racing against one another, isn't it?
• 23:07
  Yeah, it is because, you know, imagine if Thai restaurants are told they can never cook with coriander again.
• 23:15
  It would never taste the same.
• 23:17
  Like if you had to take the pasta out of a tea and cooking and also take out the tomato, you go, well, hang on a moment.
• 23:23
  You've actually just taken out everything that we think embodies it.
• 23:27
  Yeah.
• 23:28
  I think you're right.
• 23:28
  It's about the stars now.
• 23:29
  If I told everyone we're going to remake Forrest Gump tomorrow with me in it instead of Tom Hanks, no one would be interested.
• 23:35
  And the difference, and it would be exactly the same body, if you will, the same script, but Tom Hanks is what we loved about that movie.
• 23:44
  And Peter Brock and Dick Johnson, hey, Lounsey proved it.
• 23:48
  We love the man, and for a good reason.
• 23:50
  Great driver, great guy.
• 23:51
  Yes.
• 23:52
  Now, he jumped red to blue, you know what I mean?
• 23:54
  Yes.
• 23:55
  He jumped back and forth, and we stayed with him.
• 23:57
  So I think, you know, Bon Jovi is more famous than the band, right?
• 24:04
  John Bon Jovi is more famous than the band itself.
• 24:07
  I know it's called Bon Jovi, but when you say the name of the band, they think of the lead singer.
• 24:12
  The lead singers in our game are the drivers, and so I think we've got to get back to, for a little while, the one thing that I actually thought was,
• 24:21
  Motoring enthusiasts love the badge and love the steel, and then they're interested to see who's going to get in and pilot them.
• 24:29
  It's time to get back to Top Gun.
• 24:31
  Let's root for the drivers and the pilots, because that's how this sport will survive.
• 24:36
  And Peter Brock and Dick Johnson, you and I both know, I love them as they were rock stars to me.
• 24:42
  So they could have literally dragged a coffee cart through a car park, and I still would have been cheering in a weird way for both of them.
• 24:50
  I was Holden, but I loved Dick Johnson as well.
• 24:53
  He was hilarious.
• 24:54
  We've had this chat with him when I said he was the best of everything to me.
• 24:57
  He was a comedian who raced cars.
• 24:59
  I mean, shit, could it get any better?
• 25:02
  So I think we've got to get back to the stars, the stars of motor racing, which are the people driving them.
• 25:09
  And they do it well.
• 25:09
  They do it now.
• 25:11
  When you watch a broadcast, and you know them all personally, Rusty, but as you know, when you watch a broadcast, every year you've got to run a package on all of them.
• 25:17
  That's what they do with football.
• 25:18
  Same game, same jersey.
• 25:21
  right?
• 25:21
  You can move a football team to any different oval.
• 25:24
  And that's not a blue oval reference, by the way.
• 25:27
  We follow the stars of the game.
• 25:29
  So that's what we've got to do to keep the sport alive, because I could think of nothing worse.
• 25:32
  Because once the eyes remove themselves from the sport, the sponsorship goes down, it all starts to shift.
• 25:38
  Broadcasters, people like you, as we know, Rusty, once the money leaves, the cameras leave, and it all goes downhill.
• 25:44
  You know, we don't want that.
• 25:46
  We certainly don't want that.
• 25:47
  So, yeah.
• 25:48
  So, you know, in my industry, I'll give people my sad warning.
• 25:52
  I used to love going to a VHS store.
• 25:53
  It was part of the experience of entertainment.
• 25:56
  That's done.
• 25:57
  It's dead.
• 25:57
  You know what I mean?
• 25:59
  So there's different things about industries that can disappear, and you don't even know you missed the moment.
• 26:04
  Yeah, so I think we focus on the stars, we focus on the superstars, the rock stars, the lead singers, the pilots, whoever you want to hear them.
• 26:11
  They're called racing car drivers and I think that's where we'll be.
• 26:13
  And there's some good ones in there with great personality.
• 26:15
  I think we're in a great spot now where we had some racers in the past that were so focused on winning and so they should.
• 26:21
  It's a very, very serious competitive sport and they're paid to do so.
• 26:25
  But now it's time for them to crack a few jokes and they're doing it.
• 26:28
  Well done, my friend.
• 26:29
  You keep cracking jokes.
• 26:30
  This has been a beautifully pieced together project.
• 26:34
  If people weren't able to see it on the big screens, that is a little bit of a shame, but there is a great opportunity over this Christmas holiday period now to enjoy it in a home entertainment sense.
• 26:45
  To you, to your lovely family, have a fabulous Christmas, mate.
• 26:48
  I look forward to catching up with you for a little lemonade and the new year.
• 26:52
  A lemonade, sure.
• 26:57
  You can have a lemonade if you want.
• 26:59
  That's like pouring milk into a V8, you piece of shit.
• 27:08
  Well, mate, Merry Christmas to you.
• 27:09
  Merry Christmas to everyone listening.
• 27:11
  I'll see him at a racetrack soon.
• 27:13
  If I don't, I'll see him on the road.
• 27:15
  It still blows my mind that I even have the opportunity to talk with him, to work with Shane on different projects from time to time.
• 27:22
  He is just one of us.
• 27:25
  It makes sense, doesn't it?
• 27:26
  Despite all the success, Kenny, he even had a part in one of the Bourne movies, you may recall.
• 27:32
  Charlie and Boots with Paul Hogan, just mega.
• 27:35
  I won't launch into news here because it's Christmas week.
• 27:38
  I just want to say a huge thanks to all of you who have listened this year.
• 27:43
  Winning the best radio show slash podcast category, which is peer voted, and an incredibly competitive division of the Supercars Media Awards this year is something we're hugely proud of.
• 27:54
  Very lucky to win it for a third time.
• 27:56
  Thank you to our commercial partners in 2023, to the race teams for giving us access and coordinating guests.
• 28:03
  And finally, to Thomas Dullard and Link Kelly from Listener, who weave the real magic behind the scenes.
• 28:10
  The stuff they do is absolutely world-class.
• 28:13
  Thank you, lads.
• 28:14
  to you and your families.
• 28:16
  Merry Christmas.
• 28:16
  Wishing you every success for the new year.
• 28:19
  Be safe.
• 28:20
  Keep an eye out on your feeds as well.
• 28:22
  We will continue to roll out episodes over the break for you to enjoy.
• 28:26
  That's it for today.
• 28:27
  Bye for now.