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The Motorsport Brief | Bathurst 12 hour preview with John Hindhaugh · Rusty's Garage

0:02
A listener production.
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It is kind of the proper start of the Aussie motor racing season.
0:08
For this edition of the Motorsport Brief, we're at the mountain ahead of the Bathurst 12 Hour.
0:15
G'day everybody, Rusty with you for this edition of the Motorsport Brief.
0:18
Joining us on Rusty's Garage today, the voice of Radio Le Mans, John Hindhoff.
0:22
You know him, of course, from IMSA Sports Car Racing, the American Le Mans series.
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His voice is indelibly linked to GT and sports car racing worldwide.
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Fantastic to have him on.
0:32
Just before we start our preview of the Maguire's Bathurst 12 Hour, a reminder too about the feature ep with Will Davison that we recorded over summer in the library.
0:41
You'll enjoy that.
0:41
We did that while he was racing in New Zealand.
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And we've just dropped one, too, with Craig Denya.
0:46
His son, Grant, is racing in the 12-hour this weekend.
0:49
But Craig's done some amazing things on the administrative side with TA2 and V8 Utes in this country.
0:54
And he's got his own racing story to tell, including a very funny story, a good story, around the win by Alan Grice in the great race in the mid-'80s in the Chickadee Commodore and how a bomb scare happened.
1:06
internationally almost thwarted his travel plans to get here for the great race.
1:10
He still went on and won it.
1:11
Remarkable.
1:12
Mate, welcome to you.
1:12
Thank you for being on the podcast.
1:14
What a summer you've had.
1:16
It's literally my pleasure.
1:18
I left home 5th of January.
1:22
It was minus six in the middle of the UK when I left.
1:25
Minus six Celsius, of course.
1:28
So that was Abu Dhabi, six hours, 66 cars, 33 GT3s.
1:31
The Michelin Dubai, 24 hours, 60 cars, 30 GT3s.
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Daytona.
1:40
60 cars, again.
1:42
That was three consecutive weekends and a fair bit of flying.
1:45
And then met up with you somewhere I wasn't expecting to go, down at Highlands Motorsport Park on the South Island.
1:51
For the New Zealand Grand Prix, which you really enjoyed, didn't you?
1:54
I loved it.
1:55
Very, very, very, very tiny amount of work with the NZ GT series.
2:01
And basically the rest of it, I was a punter.
2:03
I was wandering around.
2:05
Awesome.
2:05
Trying pies, getting the hospitality, the stuff that I don't normally get to do.
2:09
Yeah.
2:10
And meeting up with some good old friends.
2:12
And it was an absolute ball.
2:15
Fell in love with the South Island.
2:17
Fell in love with the New Zealand attitude.
2:19
Very.
2:21
very much reminds me of the northeast of England where I came from where strangers are just friends that you haven't said good day to yet and it really was like that I mean if we ever go back I can't say I'll ever have to pay for accommodation again because pretty much everybody has only much
2:36
come and stay with us.
2:37
No, no, come and stay with us.
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It was brilliant.
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Really enjoyed it.
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And then a week end off, which I went up to the Hunter Valley, met some friends in Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales.
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And then here for the Maguires 12.
2:50
And then I'm going to do some touristy things for a weekend.
2:55
And because I realised, for a few days rather, because I realised how the calendars fell,
3:02
I'm staying on for supercars.
3:03
Well applied.
3:05
Never seen supercars live.
3:07
Never seen supercars.
3:08
And I know that the night race in particular on Saturday night at Sydney Motorsport Park, which I want to call Eastern Creek.
3:16
I'm of an age.
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I just thought, what's another...
3:23
four or five days when they've been away for seven weeks.
3:25
Great stuff.
3:26
You'll thoroughly enjoy that.
3:27
I'm so pleased you're going to get to tick another bucket list along the way.
3:30
You would have seen the Highlands Museum in your travels there in NZ, but we are recording this episode at the National Motor Racing Museum at Bathurst, at the very bottom of the mountain, right by the final turn there.
3:41
Brad and the team are so good, so accommodating.
3:44
Little Birdie tells me you've already been in for a look last night.
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Is this true?
3:47
Well, that is true.
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It's become a better.
3:49
of a tradition in the last 10 years or so since Brad took over because it changes every time every year every time I'm here there's something different there's some cars that are the same it's 100 years of Ford in Australia of course and that's that was put together for the 1000 last year and most of the cars are still here there's a fantastic exhibit
4:11
for long distance rallying as you come in, where they've got some of the old, basically the old Grand Tour, the Round Australia Tour.
4:19
Yes.
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The trial.
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The Round Australia Trial.
4:22
Brilliant.
4:24
And very, very interesting.
4:26
Look at the difference between the Ford and the Holden mentality on the car.
4:32
Brockie won the,
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The version that we're talking about, I think it was 1979, I think, those cars are.
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And Brockie's car is literally, as it came off the end of the rally, and it's bent and knackered in places.
4:47
The Ford that could and perhaps should have won, it wasn't quite as well prepared, Ford Cortina, Ford or Ford.
4:54
at Mark 4, I guess that would have been in those days, with a straight six, which we didn't get here.
4:59
Okay.
5:00
We didn't get in the UK.
5:01
We didn't get the straight six.
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It was a four-cylinder or a V6.
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That one's been restored and looks pristine.
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It didn't actually finish the rally, but the contrast is great.
5:12
But you're right, coming here...
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This celebrates all of Australian motorsport, two and four wheels, on and off road.
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Speedway, all sorts.
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Speedway bikes right up my alley, right up my alley.
5:23
When I was young and at school, I used to go to what was then Newcastle Diamonds.
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They became Newcastle Larder Diamonds back in the day.
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and it was a badge of honour to get as close as you could to the fence and maybe get a bit of cinder rash on your face when you went back to school the next day.
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I love this place, and we've always done an inside story for Radio Show Limited days, and the one that I recorded yesterday, that'll be out before the race starts on Saturday.
5:49
Well done.
5:49
So we are now in the build up to a huge weekend of racing.
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It's the other big race at the mountain.
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They sort of book in the calendar year, if you will.
5:58
Where does this one rank for you?
6:00
What number is this for you in terms of how many times you've been coming to the mountain?
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And I mean, we're here, we're local, I guess you could say.
6:09
I feel like it's got a great vibe ahead of the 2026 running.
6:12
What is it?
6:12
36 cars, 12 different marks.
6:14
It's going to be huge, isn't it?
6:16
I first came here, this will be my...
6:20
15th event, so 14 years ago.
6:23
It took me 50 years to get to Australia in my life, and that was probably 48 years too long.
6:29
Don't even get me started about taking 60-odd years to get down to New Zealand.
6:35
This, in terms of our global audience at Radio Show Limited, Radio Le Mans, and you've detailed some of the things that we cover now, but even a decade and a half ago, this was the race that our listeners said
6:51
You should be covering that.
6:52
Even though it was in its nascent years.
6:54
Yes.
6:55
James O'Brien, Yeeha, he started it off.
6:59
We were put in touch with him by the guys at Creventic who do the Michelin 24-hour series.
7:03
So Abu Dhabi, Dubai, all those great races in Europe that we still do.
7:08
And we eventually had a chat with James and it was...
7:13
I think it was probably only its second and its third year because there was one 24-hour racing.
7:18
And that didn't really work out.
7:21
And I think it was his second or his third year and we put something together.
7:25
I spent some of my air miles.
7:26
We brought a small crew down and did some of the early session coverage.
7:32
And then we did...
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I'm trying to even remember what TV channel, and we streamed it.
7:36
I mean, that was quite innovative then.
7:39
We were streaming video.
7:41
And I always remember saying to James, when we put this on, by the way, you're going to need X amount of service base.
7:47
And he said, how many people is that that's going to be watching?
7:50
And I said, oh, probably 10 or 20,000.
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So he went, well, we'll not get that.
7:55
I said, no, you will.
7:57
So he put on enough, I think, 5,000 simultaneous views.
8:02
And the first time we turned the cameras on and turned the video on, we absolutely crashed the server.
8:07
Crazy.
8:08
And James, to his undying credit, said, Right.
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spoke to his IT people, put on all the servers, and every time we get to 85%, put another server on.
8:18
Okay.
8:18
Because I do not want it crashing during the race.
8:20
Yeah.
8:20
We did it with SBS TV.
8:24
It was a very different production to what supercars have now.
8:29
And obviously, national television has been a part of that.
8:33
And the international feed has always been without commercial and available everywhere outside of New Zealand and Australia.
8:42
We still do the audio for the early sessions that aren't televised.
8:47
And, of course, it all switches on on Saturday.
8:51
I think...
8:53
I remember...
8:54
I think it was the first year.
8:55
It was the first year.
8:57
We came down...
8:58
When we came down here and there was...
9:00
I think we brought three people that year.
9:03
And I bumped into Mika Sarlo in the pits.
9:08
And he went, yeah.
9:09
Yeah.
9:10
He looked at me, looked at the team, looked at his teammates.
9:14
He meant, this must be a proper race if these guys are here.
9:17
Which was a really nice thing for him to say for us.
9:22
But that's exactly what James wanted.
9:23
Yes.
9:24
And James was building this ultimately to a product he realised he couldn't take any further.
9:31
And we were on national television by then.
9:34
And...
9:35
It was an absolute, I think an absolute no-brainer for supercars to come along and say, look, we've got an events department that, all right, is building to the start of the supercar season, but we've got some spare capacity.
9:49
This is in our wheelhouse, isn't it?
9:51
It is absolutely in the wheelhouse.
9:53
And what's more, quite a lot of their drivers were already there because they wanted to prove themselves.
9:58
There was this ridiculous, and I mean this ridiculous, I've...
10:03
Creelty will tell you, Richard Creel, who we work with, obviously.
10:05
Does an excellent job too.
10:06
Oh, just brilliant.
10:08
He'll tell you that I've been watching supercars for years.
10:11
We saw the great race in the UK as a highlights package round about January or February.
10:17
And it was brilliant.
10:19
And all the innovation that that brought in car cameras, moving cameras.
10:23
I remember a three-way split screen one year with your prime minister, which I guess would have been Bob Hawke that year.
10:29
Pretty sure it was Brockie in the car.
10:31
And the America's Cup captain.
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out on the water and I'm sitting at home in the north east of England going how is this possible what was it really is this because that just didn't exist in British motorsport or sports coverage so I knew about Bathurst coming here has never disappointed and
10:50
The Supercars coverage is taken... Supercars TV coverage is taken to a new level.
10:54
And by the way, anybody who thinks that Supercars got involved with this race in order to shut it down, no.
11:01
No, no, no.
11:02
That's one idea of that.
11:03
One idea of that.
11:03
Completely.
11:05
There's no point in them doing that.
11:06
The parallel I'll draw here, Rusty, is...
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In the American Le Mans series in the Grand Am days, everybody said, well, Daytona's only taken over Dr Dunn to shut it down.
11:18
They don't want it to be... Sports cars are not in their wheelhouse.
11:22
They'll stay in their lane.
11:23
It's all about NASCAR.
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look where IMSA is right now.
11:29
Look at the money that it's bringing in for Daytona, for that group.
11:33
Look at the amount of manufacturers that they've got there across the series.
11:38
This was a smart move by supercars.
11:40
It absolutely fit what they're doing.
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It allows them to highlight...
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their stars.
11:48
And again, another thing, there was a, I think a misconception about some of these supercars that we've got behind us.
11:58
And I use the word unique properly.
12:00
It was a unique formula.
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There was nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
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A lot of people were a bit sniffy about that and said, oh, yeah, these drivers, these Aussie drivers, they can only drive these cars.
12:11
They won't be able to drive anything else.
12:13
And when the early pioneers like Chassis Mustard, SVG, obviously he'd drive his supermarket shopping trolley and racing around the corners, yeah.
12:21
and all, began to get into GT3 racing, even before this race was as big as it is now, people went...
12:30
Oh.
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They're proper.
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They're proper.
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They can drive.
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And we often talked in the early years, even in the early years of supercars, about, right, who has the advantage?
12:41
Is it the guys from Australia and New Zealand who race on the mountain and know the track?
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Is it the internationals who know the cars?
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You can't have that argument anymore now.
12:51
Because some of the internationals have been coming here for 10 years or more.
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and some of the guys here, the drivers from here, have been driving GT3s for 8, 10 years.
13:02
So it's levelled the playing field in every sense and that, I think, is why people are drawn to it.
13:10
And it's the mountain.
13:12
Yes, the mountain, yeah.
13:14
That naturally leads me to the question about, I mean, Shane Ruds and the team have taken it, doing great things with it from an event perspective.
13:21
You just said it's an iconic location or venue.
13:24
Where does it stack up for you relative to a spa, relative to a Nürburgring?
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And all of those places have their own unique...
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things that make them special.
13:34
But we're super proud of the fact that Bathurst is held by these internationals in a similar kind of regard.
13:40
I go back to that first year, talking to Mika Salo.
13:43
Obviously, he was driving a Ferrari that year.
13:46
Was that as far back as the 360?
13:48
It might have been.
13:51
Whatever Ferrari it was, he was driving.
13:53
I said to him, what's it like then?
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He went,
13:58
He said, I think it's scarier than the Nürburgring.
14:01
And I went, what?
14:03
He said, well, he said, think about it.
14:06
At the Nürburgring, you get to the really scary bits once every eight and a half or nine minutes.
14:12
Here, it's every minute and a half or two minutes.
14:14
And I thought...
14:16
He's got a point there.
14:17
And when you look, and I make this comparison purely for the reason that will become clear.
14:25
When you look at the lap times between supercars here and even the new generation of supercars, which have moved on a lot since even I first came here, and the GT3 cars, which have moved on a lot.
14:38
You look at the 296 now, that is a GT3 car that is built...
14:45
using a mentality and a mindset of a prototype resin.
14:52
In the way the car's put together, the modular nature of it, the way the aero works.
14:56
The difference in time, because GTs aren't as quick down the tubes, down Conrad, as the supercars, the big V8s.
15:04
but all the time's over the top.
15:06
And watching, I've always loved watching the supercars over the top, watching them float and the really best drivers getting the best out of them and making it look so easy.
15:17
You look at the GT3 cars across there, it's brutal.
15:19
Yes.
15:20
It's brutal.
15:20
They are flat for such a long time.
15:22
And a tiny bit offline, a tiny little mistake in where you turn in and you're going to have a big, big incident.
15:29
And we've seen some, haven't we?
15:30
And...
15:32
I make that comparison just because it's the same track.
15:36
It's a different challenge.
15:40
And I think that captures people's imagination.
15:42
In terms of where it stands, I hope it stays as a multi-class race.
15:49
There'll be people who'll disagree with me about that.
15:52
GT4 is beginning to grow down in this part of the world.
15:56
We've got a decent GT4 entry this year.
16:02
Is there a case at 12, 15 seconds off the pace that GT4 should be taken out for safety reasons?
16:10
I can understand why people talk about that.
16:12
But there are other cars that could go in, and you mentioned the Nürburgring,
16:17
The Nürburgring GT3s run as SP9s.
16:20
There's also something called an SPX class.
16:23
So the IRC cars, the old Glickenhaus, all of those went in there and had GT3-ish kind of performance, adjacent performance.
16:35
Because I think...
16:37
I think we would do this place and this race a disservice if this just became, quote unquote, another GT3 race.
16:46
Now, it would never just become another GT3 race because it's Bathurst and because it's the mountain.
16:52
But I like the multi-class element of it.
16:55
I like the challenge of it and of those overtakes that sometimes aren't for position, but I understand the safety.
17:02
I'm not a Luddite.
17:03
I'm not a dinosaur.
17:04
I understand sometimes as these GT3 cars are getting closer and closer to sub two-minute laps that we have to think longer term.
17:15
But the current leadership here, and by the way, we're sitting in a Bathurst Council-run and financed facility here, and Bathurst Council, for the safety upgrades they've made on the track and the infrastructure as well, I think they've all done a cracking job to bring it to where it is.
17:35
It is one of the must-dos for the internationals.
17:38
It's the one that people want to do.
17:40
When I first came here, the first five years, people would say to me,
17:43
you wax and lyrical about that Bathurst 12 hours.
17:47
Is it really that good?
17:48
And I go,
17:49
better because it is it is it never ever disappoints this race even if we get some safety car intervention even if we get some weather we might have weather this weekend 45 mil of rain last weekend here in Bathurst and the weather forecast seems to change every time I look at it throw a bit of weather in look what happened at the back end of last year in the great race you know and and I've got to sit next to it
18:14
I've been told I've got to call him Mr. Six now.
18:18
Mr. Half Dozen Garf Tander.
18:20
Yes, yes.
18:21
But look what a little bit of changeable conditions can do.
18:24
And of course, we've also got that brilliant 45 minutes or an hour on Sunday morning, which Krilzi always describes, and I'm right with him on this, as the best hour of endurance racing probably anywhere in the world when we start in the dark and then the sun comes up.
18:41
Comes up.
18:43
And...
18:44
And by the way, if you didn't know this, at this time of the year, it changed when we pushed it further back through the air in what the responsible adult, my wife Eve says, she calls that the long yellow flag.
18:56
It's two years of COVID, which I think is very good because everything kind of went on neutralisation.
19:02
If you come here this year as a rookie...
19:05
and your team say you're starting the race, you'll start the race on Sunday in the dark, having never driven a lap in the dark around Mount Panorama.
19:13
Only here could that happen.
19:14
Happen, yeah.
19:15
And do you know what?
19:17
I celebrate that.
19:18
I don't denigrate it, I celebrate it.
19:20
It's one of the many great aspects of this event.
19:22
Will you stick around for a little bit longer if you've got time?
19:24
We're going to grab a quick break here on Rusty's Garage.
19:27
More with John in a moment as we preview the Maguires Bathurst 12 Hour.
19:34
We're in the National Motor Racing Museum for this edition of the Motorsport Brief, joined by John Hindoff and the team that will be a part of the coverage this weekend.
19:41
He is front and centre of it.
19:43
You'll be basically locked in that booth for the whole 12 hours, more or less, won't you?
19:46
Well, you know I don't know.
19:48
I don't know.
19:49
The first year that Garth Tander came and sat with Richard Creel and myself, he sits in the middle.
19:54
Richard sits on the right-hand side.
19:55
I sit on the left-hand side, closest to the window.
19:58
I've got a little mixer where I'm submixing the sound for the audio feed that goes back to London and then subsequently to the world.
20:07
Garth would pop out and pop back and pop out and pop back, go and get something to eat, use the facilities, is all I'm going to say.
20:14
And Crills would pop out.
20:15
Sometimes we'd roll a driver in so they'd both pop out and I'd be sitting there with Mara Wengel or whoever, having a chat, watching the race.
20:21
And at the end of the race, as Garth's going out to go and do it, he went...
20:26
you've never moved, have you?
20:27
I went, no, why would I move?
20:29
It's too exciting.
20:30
You don't want to miss aspects of the story, do you?
20:32
Correct.
20:32
And in fairness, the 12-hour races, I'm the same at Sebring for the Mobile One 12 hours.
20:37
The 12-hour races, I think, is about as long as you really should do in one go.
20:43
When we do the 24-hour races, so we have an eight-hour race at Bahrain for WEC.
20:48
We have an 1,816-kilometre race at Qatar.
20:55
Sorry, 812 at Qatar, which takes about six or seven hours.
21:02
It can run to eight hours.
21:04
But when you go to the 24-hour races, so we just did Daytona, we'll do two, three, four...
21:11
hour stints depending on where you are i took a six hour stint in the middle of the night when we took over um so midnight to 6 a.m when we took over nbc and peacock i got 45 minutes of racing and then the fog dropped in and the rest of the five hours and 15 minutes i couldn't see we're up on a height i i got that binoculars out i could not see the pill that is when you earn that's when you earn your money earn your keep because you're talking through stoppage red flag whatever it might be when there's not a lot of action that you can cover but you're not going to be able to do it
21:39
But Rusty had flew over, and credit to our pit lane team.
21:42
So Duncan Vincent and Arjuna Kankapati and all the guys down there in the pit lane.
21:49
The chase stories.
21:50
All the drivers, of course, and you know this as a former driver, all the drivers went, oh.
21:55
Great.
21:55
So you're going to leave him in for two and a half, three hours.
21:58
That means I'm not back in for four hours.
21:59
I'm going for some kip.
22:01
So there was no drivers in the pit lane.
22:03
So we interviewed the tyre guys, the strategists, the people cooking the food, and we got some really good human interest stories.
22:11
And for me, before I handed over back to Lee Diffie at six o'clock in the morning on NBC Sport, um...
22:19
I enjoyed it because we were telling those human stories.
22:22
Those human stories, yeah.
22:24
Can we come to that?
22:25
If we're going to bounce through some aspects of this year's race here, I'm a huge believer in not just the contest but also the human interest stories.
22:31
There are two that kind of stick out for me here.
22:33
There'll be more because you'll know more.
22:35
Firstly, the Quinn entry.
22:37
Three generations, Tony, his two sons, his grandson Ryder.
22:42
In world sport, in motor racing generally, it is hard to think of anything like this.
22:48
What a cool personal moment for the family.
22:51
The only thing I've ever seen that comes near it, and there was only the three of them,
22:55
was Hans Stuck and his two sons at the Nürburgring in a Lamborghini.
22:58
Love it.
23:00
And that was only two generations.
23:01
Yep.
23:02
So TQ, as ever, has gone one better and got the three generations.
23:07
I think this is a great story.
23:08
And I think also...
23:10
It underlines why sports car racing, and particularly GT racing, around the world, GT3 and GT4.
23:18
And by the way, credit to Stefan Rattel, who probably doesn't get enough credit for this, for coming up with GT3 and GT4, which have become the de facto global formulas.
23:31
Yes.
23:32
giving us something that when I was coming through and when you were coming through, there was no ladder in GT racing.
23:38
There was in formula racing.
23:40
Now it's a proper option, a proper pathway.
23:43
Yeah, yeah.
23:44
And that...
23:46
simplification in some respects, even if it's only within the nomenclature of the classes.
23:53
I liken it to Moto3, Moto2, MotoGP.
23:56
And you know, if you're in a GT4 car, your next step will be to a GT3.
24:02
From there, potentially to a prototype.
24:05
Prototypes in itself,
24:09
P3, P2, P1.
24:11
And you've got sort of sub-P3, like the Radicals, which I love.
24:15
I had a little skidding one at Highlands.
24:18
Highlands.
24:18
I raced one a few years ago at Donington Park, and around Highlands it was a hoot.
24:22
It's a hoot.
24:23
I think that's really important.
24:25
But with Tony and his family, what you've got there is...
24:31
Let's be honest, what we probably all would do if we had the wherewithal and the financial wherewithal and the time to do it.
24:38
And the generational racing interest in driving.
24:40
Correct.
24:41
But, you know, you talk about dad and lad going karting.
24:45
Yes.
24:45
Or you might talk about dad and lad going fishing or some other sport, but for three generations.
24:52
Amazing.
24:52
I'm a big soccer fan.
24:54
My club is Sunderland DFC up in the northeast, doing not so bad at the moment in the premiership.
24:58
We're back in the EPL.
25:00
And what we think of in that area of the country is you think of a generational support of a sport where your granddad might have taken you and with your dad to go and see a football team, a rugby team, a cricket team.
25:17
You don't think about necessarily playing cricket, possibly village cricket, town cricket, maybe.
25:24
But then when you come to motorsport, you just don't think of it.
25:28
And here is somebody like Tony Quinn
25:30
who is competing in one of the biggest races in the world.
25:34
And you've got Kenny Abul as well, by the way, Bathurst resident, doing exactly the same thing as a non-pro driver.
25:42
These non-pro, he's, particularly his grandson, Ryder, he's got a future.
25:47
Totally.
25:47
He's a great little steerer.
25:48
Totally.
25:49
And...
25:51
You look at that, what other sport, even if you had all the money in the world... Could you do that?
25:55
Could you do that?
25:56
Yeah, yeah.
25:58
If I had more money than God and I bought my football club, we've got a very young owner, 28 years old, Kira Louis-Dreyfus.
26:08
He's from a billionaire French family.
26:10
They used to own Marseille.
26:13
So he can buy the football team.
26:15
He doesn't pull on the number nine shirt or the keeper shirt on a Saturday and go out and play.
26:20
You can in this sport.
26:21
That's a great parallel that you've just drawn.
26:23
Right up to world championship level.
26:25
So in GT3, in the World Endurance Championship, which includes Le Mans, and I'm sorry to say this to you, the world's greatest motor race.
26:34
But, you know, it is.
26:38
You can still do that.
26:39
So be part of a world championship where you're on the track with the hypercars and in your team you'll have works drivers
26:48
But you're there as what one of our good friends at AMG, Stefan Vendel, who's head of customer racing at AMG Mercedes, he says, I don't call them gentlemen racers.
26:58
He says, I call them late starting professionals.
27:02
I love that.
27:03
But you think about it, they're just going about it the way a lot of these professionals would tackle their other love, their golf that we often draw the parallel with, whatever it might be.
27:12
They tackle it with that same level of commitment that they would in business.
27:17
Rusty, you have to nowadays, even in GT3 and GT4.
27:20
The days of a non-pro driver turning up on the Thursday of race week, doing a full practice session, letting the pro qualify, and then doing his minimum in the race, that's not going to cut it anymore.
27:31
No, no.
27:32
And that's been the case for probably 15, 20 years now.
27:36
Let's go rapid fire as we've sort of worked towards the finish year to a degree, right?
27:40
Mauro Engel.
27:41
He was kind of an adopted Aussie there for a period of time back about 10 years ago.
27:44
We love him.
27:46
Been a bit of a hoodoo race for him.
27:47
Can that change here this weekend?
27:49
If anybody...
27:50
I know nobody should deserve... You shouldn't say deserve because that's not what we want to race.
27:53
If anybody deserves it, it's him.
27:55
It's him.
27:56
He and I have been travel partners.
27:58
We keep seeing each other.
27:59
We're doing exactly the same trip.
28:00
He didn't come down to New Zealand, which I'll give him a bit of stick for.
28:04
Um...
28:05
He is one of the best GT racers in the world right now.
28:11
And he will turn up at the Barcelona 24 hours.
28:14
He'll be at the Daytona 24.
28:15
He was at both the races in the Middle East.
28:18
He's here.
28:19
He is a works driver.
28:20
He's highly thought of.
28:22
I can guarantee it now on Tractortown, when I walk down there to do our show from there on Thursday in Bathurst, right in the centre of Bathurst, he'll be one of the first people to come up and go, how was your travel, John?
28:34
How are you doing?
28:35
Love it.
28:36
And for me, just a petrel head from Sunderland, that to me is incredible.
28:42
He's a genuinely lovely bloke,
28:46
I don't want to race him, mind you, side by side.
28:47
But out the car, can't find anybody nicer.
28:51
As I say, I don't like to say deserve.
28:53
Is he due it?
28:53
Possibly.
28:54
He needs a bit of luck.
28:56
Still need a bit of luck.
28:56
Yeah, in this game, over 12 hours.
28:58
Valentino Rossi, huge drawcard for the event.
29:01
I think it's fourth appearance for him or something along those lines.
29:03
He loves coming back, doesn't he?
29:06
WRT is one of the success stories with BMW, long time Audi team for Vincent Vos and the guys from Belgium.
29:15
Relatively recently moved into their new premises right opposite Liège Airport, which I call their global headquarters.
29:23
It's incredible, Rusty.
29:25
Get a chance to go
29:29
They are on the top of the world at the minute.
29:31
They've had a really good start to 2026.
29:34
Valentino is here because he wants to be, not because he has to be.
29:39
He's going to do some GT racing again.
29:41
He's come out of WEC.
29:42
He's going to do the European Championship this year, one of the European Championships this year.
29:48
He wants to win this race.
29:52
I want to see him do some demo laps.
29:54
Wow.
29:54
On a bike around there.
29:56
There's plenty of them that he could take in hand.
29:57
It'll be very, very cool to see him do that.
29:59
The relative recent past of this event has kind of been dominated by the internationals.
30:04
What chance of an Aussie this weekend standing atop?
30:08
Well, you've got Brock Feeney here.
30:09
Brock Feeney here.
30:10
I mean, he had a tough year from a supercast perspective last year.
30:13
This could open the 2026 account perfectly.
30:16
You've got the reigning champion in Chas Mostad here.
30:18
The line-up of supercars drivers is actually really cool.
30:21
You never rate Chasie off in a GD3.
30:23
Actually, in nothing.
30:25
At your point.
30:26
Brock was one of, well, probably three drivers who lost out in touring car stroke.
30:33
stock cars in the playoff idea.
30:36
This is a one-off race.
30:38
Maybe he has a different view towards that.
30:41
He knows how to drive these cars.
30:43
I've seen him at other races around the world, and he's been over to IMSA as well.
30:48
Not an Aussie, but I'll add in Earl Bamba as a New Zealander from across the ditch.
30:52
Antibodean.
30:53
Yes, indeed.
30:54
Yes, from the region.
30:57
He'll be adopted as an Aussie if he wins, obviously.
31:00
He's won in class, but not overall.
31:02
he's got a presidency with the race team and things like that.
31:04
But he's raced against his own team because, of course, the other big story, Ford versus General Motors.
31:11
That is going to be huge.
31:12
Corvette versus... Look, honestly...
31:16
Here's what his arm is standing up.
31:17
Honestly, they're two global sports cars that have forever been global sports cars.
31:24
The Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Mustang.
31:27
One each only, so only one bullet in the gun.
31:30
It could burn brightly and go out very quickly, that battle.
31:34
But in amongst everything else, I think that's something you've got to watch for as well.
31:39
What about Matt Campbell?
31:40
We didn't mention him there before.
31:41
I mean, he's a great story from Australia.
31:45
Matty Campbell is another one of the nicest people in the paddock.
31:50
He always has a word for the fans.
31:53
A bit of an odd time for him.
31:54
He's in a bit of a transitional period.
31:56
We don't really know what his future holds.
31:59
He's doing, we think, a part season with Porsche Penske Motorsport.
32:04
He's only doing, at the moment, the longer races in the 963.
32:10
Is he going off to one of the new manufacturers?
32:12
Is it going to be Genesis?
32:13
Is it going to be McLaren?
32:14
Is it going to be Ford?
32:15
We don't know, kind of, at the moment.
32:17
We're still trying to work that out.
32:19
What I do know is he loves this place, and he loves driving a Porsche around here.
32:24
He'll be in the conversation.
32:26
Cool.
32:26
Three to finish, if we can.
32:27
Firstly, the chance of an Aussie team.
32:30
Crousey and I obviously commentate on the on the GT3 championship in this country.
32:34
Rise Racing, they're a very good outfit, among others.
32:36
What chance of an Aussie team against the might of some of these international squads that are here that are just, you know, world class?
32:44
Honestly, they've all got...
32:47
It's like a roulette wheel, isn't it?
32:49
You look at it, every number has got the same odds of the ball dropping into its little box on the roulette wheel.
32:57
At the start of the race, everybody has got the same chance, for me.
33:01
We make a lot about qualifying, rightly so, because that historically has made a difference down through the years.
33:07
And the shootout...
33:09
one of the great all-time televisual sites of motorists.
33:14
I love it.
33:14
I really love it.
33:16
Genuinely, I think there's more teams with a chance this year.
33:20
The field is so deep in GT3.
33:23
And...
33:27
You can get laps back here, but you do not want to be on the back foot early.
33:32
I think you want the first half of the race, you want to be pretty clean.
33:37
And then you'll set yourself up for what happens after that.
33:42
The race proper, so much can happen over 12 hours.
33:45
Just sitting here and you and I saying, oh, you can roughly expect this, this and this.
33:49
So much goes out.
33:50
out the window.
33:52
But toughest question in the game for you, who wins this thing on Sunday?
33:55
Can BMW go back to back?
33:57
What is the likelihood, the chance of doing that?
33:59
Well, the new BMW is very, very good.
34:02
It's already won a couple of races out in the Middle East and not necessarily a canter, but at one stage we had four BMWs in the top four positions in the 24 hours at Dubai.
34:13
In fact, for most of the race, and two of those were privately entered, not the WRT cars, the Paladine Motorsport cars.
34:18
which was Daryl Young in that car.
34:21
They were robbed of a better position right at the end.
34:23
So yes, they can.
34:26
Don't count out Optimum with the Macca, with McLaren.
34:30
They've been, again, they've had a very busy start to the year.
34:34
Something's getting moved in.
34:37
And therefore their preparation's been excellent and they are race ready.
34:41
Okay.
34:42
For some teams, this will be their first big race of the year.
34:46
And I think sometimes that's a slight disadvantage.
34:50
Gotcha.
34:50
Because you can't come here cold because if you do have a problem, the other thing,
34:54
How do you react?
34:55
Yes.
34:55
How do you pivot?
34:57
How do you make the best of a bad job?
34:58
We've got to puncture.
34:59
Right, let's change the strategy.
35:00
Let's do something else.
35:01
Let's take that driver out.
35:02
Let's put the arm in.
35:04
All of that stuff is going on.
35:06
There's as much talent on the wall and in the bunker as there is behind the wheel.
35:10
And there has to be here because there's so many variables.
35:13
So BMW, yes.
35:16
What are the conditions going to be like?
35:18
Will it favour a mid-engine car?
35:20
Therefore, do you look at the market?
35:22
Do you look at the new Corvette?
35:23
Do you look at the new Mustang?
35:25
Again, these cars are unproven.
35:27
Those cars are unproven here.
35:29
If it's bad weather, then you look at Porsche, don't you?
35:32
It's really hot and it's slippery, or it's really wet and slippery.
35:35
Rear engine, thanks very much.
35:37
We'll take that.
35:39
Honestly, it is wide open.
35:40
It is so deep.
35:41
And if I mention one person, one team, one car, and I jinx them, then I'll never get hospitality from them again.
35:49
Well played.
35:49
So don't do that.
35:51
Come on, seriously.
35:53
Am I wrong?
35:53
No, no, no.
35:55
It is genuinely – it's kind of a stupid question in some respects because it's so hard to pick.
35:59
The quality, when you look at the entry list right the way through, there are great stories.
36:03
And from the top teams locally and internationally that are playing here, there are some genuine chances.
36:08
And so much unfolds over the 12-hour period.
36:11
And I didn't mention AMG.
36:12
Yeah.
36:13
And Kenny Abul.
36:14
You know, Kenny has a house on Conrod Strait.
36:17
He's got the dream team together again.
36:20
He is fit as a butcher's dog's personal trainer this year.
36:25
He is loving life.
36:28
has shown great... At the Raw, before Daytona, he was the fastest GT3 driver.
36:34
Not the fastest AM GT3 driver.
36:36
He was the fastest GT3 driver in the whole of the Raw testing of any drivers.
36:41
He's got Raw pace.
36:43
He'll more than pull his weight.
36:46
And...
36:47
There's somebody that you just say, keep an eye open for that number 75 because towards the end, last three hours, if they're there or thereabouts and they can plug one of the fast guys in, then happy days.
36:58
There is someone I need to get on for a feature episode of the podcast.
37:00
Great, great story that he's got from a business perspective as well.
37:04
Mate, this has been fabulous.
37:05
I've taken up way too much of your time.
37:07
Have a fantastic call this weekend.
37:09
I know the broadcast is going to be ace and it's so cool to have your voice as a part of the mix covering this event that we're so proud of.
37:16
I've been catching up on telly here with some of the reruns of the old thousands.
37:21
Oh, God.
37:22
Him in the pits with Barry Sheen.
37:24
And then I think it was 2000 you were calling the race.
37:27
You were in the pits in 99.
37:28
Yeah, I did.
37:28
I did 2000 in 2015.
37:30
And yeah, but Baz was very good to me.
37:32
I love, I was just watching that 2000 race, which was GT's first victory.
37:37
Of course.
37:37
Yes, correct.
37:38
In similar conditions with Jason Baguana's only victory.
37:42
Similar conditions to the Great Rest last year.
37:45
I'd forgotten how good you were in the booth, mate.
37:49
It was great.
37:49
Thank you.
37:50
I love the pits.
37:51
The pits is a bit of a fave for me as well.
37:52
Thank you, mate, for coming on.
37:54
That is it for this edition of the Shortcast.
37:57
There's lots of great reasons to check back in through the Rusty's Garage Library.
38:00
Hope you find someone in there that you'll enjoy the listen.
38:02
Been terrific to get this bloke on today.
38:04
Bye for now.