Latest / Rusty's Garage / Stephen Gall | Part 2 - Mr. Motorcross to Midgets & coach extraordinaire

Transcript

Stephen Gall | Part 2 - Mr. Motorcross to Midgets & coach extraordinaire · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day everybody, Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature episode with Stephen Gawle.
• 0:23
  If you've arrived here without cutting a full lap of part one, you really need to do yourself a favour and check that out first.
• 0:29
  From paddock bashing with his brother in makeshift carts and on fold-out bikes, before getting his hands on that first proper dirt bike that would set him on the pathway to Mr Motocross's success.
• 0:41
  how his dad wasn't keen on him going racing early on, a brief stint working around cars once school had wrapped up and then total immersion in motorsport, where he gets that trademark deep commitment from, some of the names that inspired on a trip to see the internationals at Oran Park and the great battles that he had with the likes of Anthony Gunter and witnessing the arrivals of Craig Dack and Jeff Leask.
• 1:06
  There's lots of great stuff here in part two, including a little known supercars test.
• 1:12
  And we focus on his excellent training models or programs too.
• 1:16
  Before we get back into it, a reminder about Gawley's excellent new book, The Stephen Gawley Story, No Easy Way.
• 1:23
  There is a link in the description, or you can simply go to noeasyway, all one word, .com.au.
• 1:30
  Off we go with part two now.
• 1:34
  Tell me about the light bulb moment for Academy then for schooling, for teaching and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:39
  Was there a moment where you did something when you, you realized a, the beauty in that, how much you loved and enjoyed it and how you wanted to embark on a bit of that?
• 1:48
  Well, as I said before, I just love to see people do better with some help and right from the,
• 1:54
  When I started my career in 77, 78, I started teaching at Hungry Creek.
• 1:59
  And I just really enjoyed seeing the young kids go faster and talk to you and respect you for your helping them.
• 2:05
  So that carried on from 77 right through to 2003, because the last 15 years I traveled Australia teaching the Academy of Off-Road Riding with Yamaha and many other sponsors.
• 2:17
  And there was no real light bulb moment.
• 2:20
  It was just enjoyment of seeing young people enjoy their sport.
• 2:24
  And, of course, when I got to a certain point with my racing where I wasn't making enough money and I had an overdraft, I had two kids to look after, they had to be fed, that was my job.
• 2:34
  Yeah.
• 2:35
  I knew to do that job, so I was out there coaching.
• 2:38
  My wife was handling the entries back at home with a knee brace business with two kids working.
• 2:45
  You know, like I say to people, you're never going to be very successful if you don't have a good team around you.
• 2:51
  And through all of my career, no matter what I've done, I've had good teams around me.
• 2:55
  Around you, yeah.
• 2:55
  Whether it's Dean and our helpers with Speedway, whether it's my wife for many years with being a team there, with my motocross racing, have a good team of mechanics and support there.
• 3:08
  If you don't have a team, you can't do it yourself.
• 3:10
  Right.
• 3:11
  Did that evolve as you go, not just maybe from a writing and a technique perspective, does it evolve around mindset?
• 3:19
  Does it evolve around dietary stuff?
• 3:23
  How did the courses kind of evolve and the teachings evolve over time?
• 3:27
  Yeah, good question.
• 3:29
  I certainly was a man before my time when it come to the curriculum of the schools because I could see that we had to teach kids off the track with certain techniques to help them on the track.
• 3:40
  So we would do balance exercise.
• 3:42
  We'd do front brake skids.
• 3:43
  We'd do front brake stoppies.
• 3:44
  We'd do circles, full lock.
• 3:46
  And a lot of that was taught to me, which I wish was across Australia now, at the Illawarra Minibike Club.
• 3:53
  That's right.
• 3:53
  And I did that stuff.
• 3:54
  There was no racing.
• 3:56
  There was slow riding.
• 3:57
  There was flag bending.
• 3:58
  There was hill climbing.
• 3:59
  There was who could wheelie the longest.
• 4:01
  All these basic skill techniques that minibike
• 4:08
  Well, that type of minibike activity is still very, very active in New South Wales.
• 4:14
  Not much in Queensland, not much in Victoria, nothing in WA, nothing in South Australia.
• 4:19
  And yet so beneficial.
• 4:20
  So beneficial.
• 4:21
  I'd really love to see that happen, as it would a few other goals in my life, but maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later.
• 4:28
  In time, in time.
• 4:30
  So...
• 4:31
  I'm glad you brought up Illawarra there a moment ago too.
• 4:33
  In the book, there is – you must get it.
• 4:35
  You must get the book and I'll tell you more about it at the end.
• 4:38
  There's a great photo.
• 4:39
  I think Sir Jack Brabham turned up one day, didn't he?
• 4:41
  You were very young.
• 4:42
  I mean the Formula One legend turned up awesome.
• 4:45
  From the Academy side of things and the connection with Yamaha and the –
• 4:51
  enjoyment of training if you will um there evolves an extension in this because i think in the early sort of foray with with atvs yamaha realized the need for safety and rural environments and things like that and you became involved with them around that sort of tuition too didn't you
• 5:09
  Yeah, exactly.
• 5:11
  Steve Cottrell again brought me in to when I handed, when I got out of the academy training, I sold that business to Lyndon Heffernan, who was my head coach for many, many years, a great guy, really knew what he was doing.
• 5:25
  So he took that on board and Steve Cottrell said, look, we've got a lot of dangerous activities with four-wheelers in Australia.
• 5:31
  There's a lot of people getting hurt.
• 5:33
  There's legal cases left, right and centre.
• 5:36
  So he sent me to America to become a coach with the SVIA, which is the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America.
• 5:42
  Okay.
• 5:42
  And they have ATV training because in the 90s when there was three-wheelers, people were dying all the time.
• 5:48
  And the government said to the American motorcycle industry, if you don't bring coaching and training in, we're going to change the design of these things.
• 5:57
  That's why they went from three-wheels to four-wheels to make them safer.
• 6:01
  But then –
• 6:02
  They'd put kids on them.
• 6:04
  They didn't realize they had to be rider active and shift your body weight around to keep the wheels on the ground.
• 6:08
  So I became an instructor.
• 6:10
  Then I went back and become the chief instructor both in ATV and motorcycle racing with the SVIA and bought that skill back to Australia to travel Australia doing –
• 6:19
  seminars at all the farm shows.
• 6:22
  So I'd ride around on the ATV with a microphone on my mouth and talk to people, loudspeakers.
• 6:28
  So I did that up to 17 farm shows for a couple of years.
• 6:31
  I got a little bit bored with it after a while.
• 6:33
  That's why I finished up going to America to train Michael Boone when he asked me to go across there.
• 6:37
  But...
• 6:38
  But, yeah, Yamaha believed in me to do all that.
• 6:41
  And Rodney Jenner, who was another coach, he went on to carry on to become a chief instructor and to carry those farm show exhibitions on after I left when I went to America.
• 6:51
  So something the Yamaha, again, before their time, they started doing that years ago to help safety, to help the sport, not only in racing but in just safety with the farmers.
• 7:02
  In daily life.
• 7:03
  Before Speedway, I think,
• 7:06
  What was it like...
• 7:10
  framing the decision to end kind of professional bike racing for you?
• 7:16
  When did that decision come in?
• 7:19
  You're still riding now.
• 7:20
  I mean, you talked about that at the beginning today, which I think is tremendous.
• 7:24
  But from the professional side, stopping that, how difficult was that?
• 7:27
  Tell me about that process.
• 7:29
  I think it was 86.
• 7:30
  I unfortunately tore my other ACL, my right leg, at Tony Hatton's place testing machine.
• 7:37
  a week away from the Mr. Motocross first round.
• 7:41
  So I went to the first round and, and, um, I, I, I got a whole shot in the second motor, I think, and I was leading it.
• 7:47
  I thought, Oh, I can go out with a win here maybe.
• 7:49
  And cause I was thinking about any, any, my career.
• 7:51
  And then I,
• 7:52
  tore the knee up again and that was it for the day.
• 7:55
  So I really at that stage I saw that the end was near.
• 8:01
  And that's why then I changed from doing racing to schooling, to jump the fence, so to speak, and go to work and earn a living.
• 8:10
  And that was the...
• 8:13
  the moment that I realized when I tore that knee up on the other side, I knew how long it would take to come good.
• 8:19
  That year wasn't going to work well for me.
• 8:21
  But I came back after that a few supercrosses.
• 8:23
  Yes.
• 8:24
  You know, in 87, I finished second to James Deacon at the Sydney Entertainment Centre at a supercross.
• 8:31
  So I was still having a go.
• 8:33
  I won the 86 Fink Desert Race with the knee, because you didn't have to put your leg out on the ground for the desert race.
• 8:39
  So it slowed me up a little bit in motocross, but I still did some other things.
• 8:44
  Excellent.
• 8:45
  Tell me about Fink.
• 8:45
  I've covered that a few times for broadcast.
• 8:49
  200 plus Ks from Alice Springs to Apertula, camp the night there, turn around from Fink and head back to Alice, all over the King's Birthday weekend, iconic event.
• 9:00
  race, mate.
• 9:01
  It really is.
• 9:02
  And it's a crazy race too.
• 9:03
  It really is.
• 9:04
  This year is the 50th anniversary of it, which I'm going to ride the adventure bike out.
• 9:08
  I'm going to ride the Yamaha Tenere out with two other winners, David Armstrong and Alan Rowe from the same era that we won.
• 9:16
  And when I first went there, let me tell you this story.
• 9:19
  I first went there the first year, invited out by Damien Ryan and Eddie Baldassero had a Yamaha for me all set up.
• 9:26
  And in those days, it was down the service track.
• 9:29
  Have you been there?
• 9:30
  Yes, I have.
• 9:30
  Well, the service track that you drive the car down, that was the racetrack.
• 9:34
  Racetrack, okay.
• 9:34
  I know it well.
• 9:35
  I know it well.
• 9:36
  It's as wide as a road racetrack and sometimes wider.
• 9:40
  And we'll do a Le Mans start onto the track and then two corners in 66 kilometers, you backed out of full throttle.
• 9:48
  Oh.
• 9:50
  So you're doing 160 to 170 the whole way down there.
• 9:54
  Two corners, you roll off a little bit and back on again.
• 9:57
  You're drifting through these corners.
• 9:59
  We didn't have any nose protection, so any little bit of sand coming off another bike, you'd be dodging the roost.
• 10:05
  It was just crazy.
• 10:06
  I still remember it.
• 10:07
  It was one of the iconic things that I did back in the day, you know.
• 10:11
  And I seized the bike one year going down there.
• 10:15
  But, yeah, just a crazy race.
• 10:17
  And I get people nowadays say to me, oh, I want to do the thing.
• 10:21
  And I say, really?
• 10:23
  You really want to do the thing?
• 10:25
  I said, do you know how hard it is?
• 10:28
  I said, did you start training a year ago for it?
• 10:30
  No.
• 10:32
  And more and more.
• 10:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 10:33
  It's really tough.
• 10:35
  It's really tough.
• 10:36
  Very hard on the lower back.
• 10:38
  But now they've got something called steg pegs that go onto the bike.
• 10:42
  Yes, yes.
• 10:43
  And people's rear of the boot can sit in the steg pegs and take so much load off the arms and the lower back.
• 10:49
  Okay.
• 10:49
  They really are helpful.
• 10:51
  If you don't have those that think you're going to suffer.
• 10:54
  Yeah, definitely.
• 10:55
  But it's a dodgy race, a crazy – I did it seven times or something and –
• 10:59
  Yeah, but the last time I did it was when I had a really bad concussion.
• 11:04
  I was trying to pass Kim Ashkenazi, got in bull dust, didn't see a washout on the outside of the track because it was just, couldn't see it.
• 11:11
  I was doing about 80 mile an hour, about 140 at the time, and I hit this washout.
• 11:16
  And a year later, there was an impression in this area where I hit it because the water hadn't eroded it.
• 11:22
  It doesn't rain too much out there.
• 11:23
  Yeah.
• 11:25
  Lately it has.
• 11:26
  But there was impression the bike went 90 metres.
• 11:29
  I went 60 metres.
• 11:30
  But would you believe I did not put a mark on my helmet?
• 11:36
  So I flicked through the air.
• 11:38
  Sailing through the air, mate.
• 11:39
  60 meters I went, and the bike went 90.
• 11:42
  If I could have, I could have picked the bike up and kept racing, but it wasn't that badly bent, so it went wheel to wheel through the scrub, so to speak.
• 11:52
  But that was the first time, and still today, I've ever been in an ambulance.
• 11:58
  Really?
• 11:58
  Yeah.
• 11:58
  Yeah.
• 12:00
  I got taken back to Alice Springs and Emmons.
• 12:02
  But I got concussed because my brain was flicked in my head so badly.
• 12:07
  Right.
• 12:08
  And recently I've had neck surgery.
• 12:10
  Oh, yeah?
• 12:10
  I've had three vertebrae fused by a legend surgeon here on the Gold Coast, Matthew Scott Young.
• 12:15
  He's a war-renowned surgeon.
• 12:17
  He goes in the front, pushes a trachea in the esophagus to the side.
• 12:21
  He plated three and put a hybrid disc in one.
• 12:24
  And that with a big sprint car crash at Granville, I don't know whether you saw this in your time, but I managed to ride a right rear wheel of a slower car once, being silly trying to set a track record on a heat race.
• 12:38
  And I finished up jumping from his right rear into the tyres on the pit wall and it comes to a stop again at about 80, 140.
• 12:46
  And that had no Hans neck devices.
• 12:49
  Back then, yeah.
• 12:50
  It was just a foam collar.
• 12:52
  So those two incidents really set sail to my needing this neck surgery recently.
• 12:57
  Yeah, okay.
• 12:58
  You've taken us to Speedway, which I'm so pleased that you have.
• 13:00
  And firstly, we share a little common family love of Sydney Showground.
• 13:05
  My folks took me there before I could even walk, mate, so I know why...
• 13:10
  the Gaul family hold it in such high regard, right?
• 13:15
  But my vivid memories are at Parramatta of you and other tracks too, but mainly Parramatta.
• 13:20
  Firstly, speed cars or midgets.
• 13:25
  I can't ride.
• 13:25
  I can't drive like you, but I've been allowed the chance to drive two midgets.
• 13:31
  I can vividly recall my father watching me do it this particular night because he loved them ever since he was knee high.
• 13:36
  Um,
• 13:37
  Just practice nights.
• 13:38
  I love those things, mate.
• 13:39
  They're unbelievably cool.
• 13:41
  you win a title in 87, 88 in that damn thing.
• 13:46
  What was the move like firstly into Speedway, the planning around that, the learnings around that?
• 13:52
  How did you – what made you hit the go button on that?
• 13:56
  Mainly because Dean had a bad accident in Mount Kembalah.
• 14:00
  And Dean was – well, Phil Golding was with him.
• 14:04
  He was one of our sprint car crew.
• 14:06
  Yeah.
• 14:07
  But Dean couldn't afford to be away from work.
• 14:09
  Okay.
• 14:10
  He had over, you know, he had money, had the pay, had overdrafts and things like that.
• 14:14
  So he said, Stephen, he said, do you want to have a drive?
• 14:16
  And I went, oh, yeah, why not?
• 14:18
  It's like a big go-kart, isn't it?
• 14:20
  I'll have a go at that.
• 14:21
  So Dean, you know, had an autocraft midget and it was a really –
• 14:26
  Good car at the time.
• 14:27
  And when we won that Australian title, that was Dean's own car design.
• 14:32
  He designed that chassis.
• 14:34
  How special.
• 14:35
  Yeah.
• 14:35
  He's very, very smart with all that stuff.
• 14:38
  And he may not – and he still could drive too, but he just – he did –
• 14:42
  He had a lightweight Mini Cooper S before that, cross low heads, developed full independent front suspension on it, was winning those races before he went to Speedway, which was done by Howard Revell, who was a legend back in the day.
• 14:57
  And then Dean got into the dirt and then he got me into it.
• 15:00
  And so that was the start.
• 15:03
  And then...
• 15:04
  In the midget, we just did well.
• 15:07
  Dean would set the car up really, really well.
• 15:10
  And again, I said to you before, without a team, you're nothing.
• 15:13
  Nothing, yeah, yeah.
• 15:13
  And Dean had the car really nicely set up.
• 15:16
  We had good equipment.
• 15:18
  Every time I went to America in the early 80s, I'd come back with a whole package of cylinder heads injection all the time where you could put that into your bags.
• 15:27
  You get to the airport at LAX.
• 15:29
  You got a lot of carry-on, Mr. Gawler.
• 15:30
  Yeah, and you bribed the guy behind the counter.
• 15:34
  I bribed a couple of times a black dude at the front, you know, one of the Negro guys at the front who was the baggage handler said, hey, buddy, can you get this on?
• 15:42
  It's a little bit overweight.
• 15:44
  Sure, bro, give him 100.
• 15:46
  No worries.
• 15:47
  So back in the day where you could do that, you can't do it these days.
• 15:50
  But anyway, I brought so much stuff back.
• 15:53
  But, yeah, it was a great career.
• 15:55
  Midgets were good.
• 15:57
  Then Sid Moore.
• 15:58
  Yes.
• 15:59
  He gave me a drive in Melinda's sprint car.
• 16:02
  Okay.
• 16:03
  I got out of that.
• 16:03
  I can still remember this.
• 16:05
  I got out of the sprint car after that race.
• 16:07
  I don't know where I finished or what I did, but I got out of it.
• 16:09
  I went, Dean, we need to do this.
• 16:12
  This is just so much fun.
• 16:14
  Fun, yeah.
• 16:15
  When you're talking the powder ratio of those things, and I know a lot of the touring car guys, the super car, they're scared to get in those things.
• 16:23
  Things, yeah.
• 16:23
  And because Gardner and Crompo did one night, I think, down there when you guys were in that era and stuff.
• 16:28
  But anyway, yes.
• 16:28
  Yeah, well, back that night, I started that.
• 16:31
  I went to the promoter, Dave Lander at the time, and said, why don't you bring a couple of the motorcycle heroes?
• 16:39
  I know them all.
• 16:39
  I'll get Doohan and Gardner and Leeski and Dak and have a little bit of a match race.
• 16:44
  Awesome.
• 16:44
  And that's what got those guys into it.
• 16:46
  And Wayne enjoyed it, so he drove our car a little bit.
• 16:49
  And that led me to having to drive his Coca-Cola car.
• 16:52
  Maybe we'll come back to that in a second with touring cars.
• 16:55
  And, yeah, they really enjoyed it.
• 16:57
  But it was, yeah, Wayne did pretty good, didn't set the world on fire.
• 17:00
  But then you don't in anything you first get into.
• 17:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 17:03
  And that leads me to when I got into his touring car.
• 17:05
  Go.
• 17:05
  Go.
• 17:06
  at Oran Park, Short Circuit.
• 17:10
  They say jokingly to me at the start, if you can do the same times as Wayne, you might get a drive in this thing.
• 17:17
  And I'm like, oh, I just want to get around the track.
• 17:20
  And in those days, the guys, I watch it these days a lot.
• 17:24
  And again, I watch it with...
• 17:27
  some respect yes like i i'm not trying to be cheeky here but they got it easy paddle shifters back in those days those boys had those holinger gearboxes that the gates were really really close and it was difficult to drive and of course you got used to but i got in this thing i never driven one of these things before
• 17:46
  The Hology gearbox, I was more worried about the gearbox and steering the thing.
• 17:49
  I got within about a second of a good time.
• 17:52
  That's pretty reasonable, mate.
• 17:52
  First time in.
• 17:53
  So I was okay.
• 17:55
  And I know Dick Johnson was looking at me at some stage because I had a year in a BMW Group E car supplied by Philip Christensen.
• 18:03
  Okay.
• 18:03
  They had a Speedway magazine, Phil Christo, and he did Supercross Masters for many, many years.
• 18:09
  And that's something I should have chased too, but I didn't because it wasn't dirty enough, I suppose.
• 18:15
  Okay.
• 18:15
  Okay.
• 18:15
  But the sprint car thing, you do chase significantly.
• 18:18
  Yeah.
• 18:19
  Well, again, because Dean really loved it and we had a great crew, Phil Golding and Rick Spence and all the boys around us, they loved it and they were prepared to help us do a lot of the work, which I wasn't.
• 18:31
  I was the great sponsor getter, the cleaner.
• 18:34
  Yeah.
• 18:34
  or Valvoline, I think back then, wasn't it?
• 18:36
  Yeah, one of their big sponsors, Valvoline, and Petters came on board when Dean was a Petters franchise.
• 18:41
  Excellent.
• 18:42
  So all that helped, and all the money we made, we put back into it.
• 18:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:46
  But...
• 18:47
  You know, I have regrets, and one of my regrets with sprint car racing is that I didn't chase enough racing on a variety of tracks.
• 18:55
  Okay.
• 18:55
  And that was the reason because we both had businesses.
• 18:59
  Dean just had a Bronco with a motor that sucked the juice like crazy.
• 19:03
  We did the World Sprint Car Series one year from Perth around the country.
• 19:07
  And...
• 19:09
  it was just too hard to fit into our lifestyle with raising a family and everything else.
• 19:14
  And, um, we just, after doing years of sacrificing the family, I wasn't prepared to continually do that to my family.
• 19:22
  So that's why we chased it at Granville and Newcastle, but we didn't go further afield too much.
• 19:30
  And, you know, I know I could have done better in the sprint cars than I did, but, um,
• 19:35
  you know, a fifth and almost a third in the Australian Championship when I got taken out in the last corner one year.
• 19:41
  We won't mention the person's name, but he said to me, oh, that was a legitimate oove goalie.
• 19:46
  Everyone does that.
• 19:48
  But I say at 80 mile an hour, a metre and a half off the fence, on the cush, and you're not focusing on what's coming up on your left.
• 19:58
  And the slide job wasn't done much back in those days.
• 20:00
  No, no.
• 20:00
  Hardly at all in the late 80s.
• 20:03
  And yet this thing comes up underneath me, wipes me out, puts me to the wall, tears the front off the car within nearly spitting distance of the checkered flag.
• 20:11
  And the way the officials handled that situation just left Dean and I with our mouths open.
• 20:17
  We went, you know what?
• 20:18
  What?
• 20:19
  We're not going to chase this anymore.
• 20:21
  I did one more year of it and I went, nah, I'm out, Dean.
• 20:24
  So I lost the love because of the way it was handled.
• 20:27
  Really?
• 20:27
  Yeah, I did.
• 20:28
  But I love racing those cars.
• 20:30
  It does.
• 20:30
  Yeah.
• 20:31
  Unbelievable.
• 20:31
  I got into Todd Kelly's car over 20 years later.
• 20:35
  Did you?
• 20:35
  Yeah, yeah.
• 20:37
  No, sorry, 10 years later up at Archerfield.
• 20:39
  Okay.
• 20:40
  And when it was a 410 instead of the 387 cubic inch and with a wall on the outside of Archerfield with a 410, 950, 60 horsepower, you had to give that thing a lot of respect.
• 20:55
  Anyway, that night I had a competitive lap time 10 years later
• 20:59
  You know, I still felt really, really cool in the car.
• 21:02
  You know, I got out and Todd went.
• 21:03
  It looked like it was just yesterday he got out of it, Stephen.
• 21:05
  So I was really pleased that I could do well from that time.
• 21:08
  And I'd love to be in one now, to tell you the truth.
• 21:11
  But I haven't got that sort of money.
• 21:12
  Nowadays, it is very, very expensive, like every motor racing.
• 21:26
  Earlier in this chat, Rusty and Steven spoke about Jeff Leask, who came on for a feature episode back in 2021.
• 21:33
  He's made the successful transition from racing to industry management roles, but there were learnings along the way.
• 21:39
  It didn't come easily, I believe.
• 21:42
  It definitely took some time, but, you know, you start to realise...
• 21:47
  I mean, I think when you're a racer, you have a certain element of selfishness, you know, about you, and...
• 21:53
  You have this huge blind spot, really, you know, sometimes, and at least I did, I think.
• 21:59
  Jeff has worked in senior positions at KTM and Husqvarna.
• 22:03
  Nowadays, he has his own leased moto imports looking after legendary brands like BSA.
• 22:08
  The reflections of his own racing career are candid and captivating too, a lot like this episode with Stephen Gall.
• 22:15
  Back to the convo now.
• 22:18
  The book talks about, you know, stopping...
• 22:21
  professional racing, however many decades ago it was, mate.
• 22:25
  Was that difficult?
• 22:26
  I mean, you light up with some of these stories that you're telling me here now, how much you enjoy it and so on.
• 22:31
  Was it a conscious decision to stop doing that stuff?
• 22:34
  How tough was that to make?
• 22:36
  Because it had been, other than the job at BMC and Jaguar there that you talked about, that it had been your life?
• 22:42
  It was my life, yeah.
• 22:43
  Motorizing across the board was my life.
• 22:46
  And I think it was only because of family pressures that I had to keep earning enough money to keep the wolves from the door, so to speak.
• 22:54
  That's pressure on yourself, though, too, isn't it?
• 22:56
  You're wanting to do that, not necessarily...
• 22:58
  what you're describing around what your wife might be expecting per se.
• 23:01
  That's the way you're... Yeah, I'm thinking, and of course, you know, Gay was suggesting that we're going to maybe get serious in life a little bit more.
• 23:10
  And I took on the knee brace distribution with the CDI knee braces out of America, which gave the family amazing opportunity to travel to America many, many times and experience some really good trips over there.
• 23:21
  So it wasn't all bad, but...
• 23:24
  I did so many years of it.
• 23:25
  It was sort of a natural thing to move on, I think.
• 23:27
  Okay.
• 23:28
  You brought up a bit of coaching there before and going to the States to help the likes of Matt Mladen and so on.
• 23:34
  What transpires there?
• 23:35
  You're getting a call from Peter Doyle or something or how did the connection come about there in that sense?
• 23:41
  Well, the initial reason why I go to America to train was a phone call from Michael Byrne, who's over there training the Lawrence brothers at the moment, amongst others like Johnny O'Mara.
• 23:51
  And Byrne rang me up and said, oh, I've got a factory Kawasaki contract.
• 23:55
  I need some help.
• 23:56
  He said, I really believe in you, Steve, and you helped me from a very early age.
• 24:00
  I taught him up at Claremont in central Queensland, a mining town up there a long time ago.
• 24:05
  And he said, would you come over and spend some time with me?
• 24:07
  And at that stage, I could only do three months at a time with the visas that was available.
• 24:12
  So I spent the first year about three months, came back for a week or two, then went across again and blah, blah, blah, got through the year.
• 24:17
  I did that for free.
• 24:19
  Didn't charge any money.
• 24:20
  What was Bernard like, mate?
• 24:21
  Because I have memories of him around kind of the Chad Reed era and things like that.
• 24:25
  What was he like to work with?
• 24:27
  Oh, a great guy.
• 24:28
  We got on really, really well.
• 24:30
  Heaps of natural ability.
• 24:32
  Maybe not the same want-
• 24:34
  that I could see that I wanted out of him.
• 24:37
  Okay.
• 24:37
  And unfortunately, it worked out that he was a little bit fragile.
• 24:42
  Okay.
• 24:42
  And when I say fragile, he got hurt easily when he fell off.
• 24:46
  Okay.
• 24:46
  Now, whether you deem that as bad luck or he was a bit fragile, because some people seem to roll with the punches.
• 24:53
  Like I've had a lot of back crashes in my time, and I've rolled out of most of them and stood up and walked away.
• 24:58
  I went, oh, yeah, that's another one of those.
• 25:00
  But some people don't.
• 25:01
  They hit the ground and they don't know how to fall.
• 25:04
  But anyway, Burner was a little bit that way, so that led me into it.
• 25:07
  And I was with Burner for a couple of years, and then I'm, of course, at the Kawasaki Factory Practice Track on the edge of the 15 freeway down to San Diego, and James...
• 25:20
  James Stewart is in the same team.
• 25:22
  So James is at the track and he sees what I'm doing with Michael as far as breaking the track down with lap times and lines and walking things and repetitiously doing things and probably overhearing some of my talk because we're in the same sort of area.
• 25:35
  And this is the time where, unfortunately, I'm...
• 25:39
  Michael broke a ligament in his thumb, missed two months, missed making any points in the outdoors.
• 25:46
  They put him off.
• 25:47
  Kawasaki put him off and put someone else on.
• 25:49
  I think it was Tim Ferry that replaced him.
• 25:51
  And I could see no future with him anymore, unfortunately.
• 25:58
  So this didn't happen at that time.
• 26:01
  But James, just before that, said, Stephen, would you be interested in coaching me next year?
• 26:08
  And I was blown away.
• 26:10
  That's a hell of a feather.
• 26:11
  Like this guy is one of the best in America with Ricky Carmichael and he's asked me to train him and I'm going, wow, that's special.
• 26:19
  Yeah.
• 26:20
  And that's really, really nice.
• 26:22
  And then Michael Singh come up and I went, oh, okay, so I have got a future here.
• 26:26
  And then a couple of weeks later, Matt Mladen rings me up and Matt goes, oh, Steve, and he said, um,
• 26:33
  my regular guy, Marty Craggles, going back to Australia, he said, would you join me to help me train and help motivate me?
• 26:40
  And I went, oh, God, I've got the best superbike racer in America and the best supercross racer arguably in America asked me to train them.
• 26:50
  This is unbelievable.
• 26:51
  And it really took me back.
• 26:53
  And what am I going to do?
• 26:55
  So I thought about a lot.
• 26:56
  I talked to Goat Brackett, who was a good mate.
• 26:58
  Goat says, why don't you do both of them?
• 27:00
  Yeah.
• 27:01
  And I went, oh, yeah, okay.
• 27:03
  But to my disadvantage, it was my fault that both of those fell in a hole.
• 27:09
  I should have concentrated on one, not the other.
• 27:12
  Okay.
• 27:13
  Again, spreading your wings too widely is a problem that we have in life.
• 27:17
  A lot of us get too greedy.
• 27:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:19
  And it wasn't about the money being greedy.
• 27:20
  It was about me taking on these notable people and trying to train them.
• 27:26
  And we come up with all sorts of special things with Bubba because Bubba,
• 27:30
  wasn't that fit.
• 27:32
  Although on a motorcycle, he was so efficient, just like Toby Price.
• 27:38
  He's another example of someone being extremely efficient on the bike and doesn't need a lot of training to get the job done.
• 27:44
  Well, James was the same.
• 27:45
  We put him through a beep test.
• 27:46
  You know what a beep test is?
• 27:47
  Where they run back and forth 20 meters to a degree of music and they've got to keep up with the beep?
• 27:53
  Well, he did 9.2 level, which is really poor.
• 27:56
  really poor and like i was in my 50s i was running 11.1 or something at that stage 9.2 anyway we developed a training program that would suit him but then going back i probably should have concentrated on just him and do what i know best and that's dirt bikes more so than being involved with matt with with road racing but you live and learn matt's pretty i mean that
• 28:25
  He was amazing.
• 28:26
  He had so much determination.
• 28:29
  And he comes from a European background.
• 28:31
  His dad was very aggressive, and he brought that aggression onto the track and that determination, and good on him.
• 28:38
  Seven USA superbike titles is no easy feat.
• 28:43
  That guy could certainly ride a motorcycle.
• 28:45
  And, you know, he was another one that my academies back in the day
• 28:49
  And I thought I had a bit more respect with Matt, but we fell out through, I won't go there white, we fell out.
• 28:56
  Okay.
• 28:56
  But there was something that happened in his program that I didn't like.
• 28:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:00
  And he didn't like me not liking what he liked.
• 29:03
  Okay.
• 29:04
  So I got turfed, unfortunately, which was a shame because I bought some special things into his program that he didn't think about that helped him.
• 29:12
  So, yeah, it was good fun.
• 29:14
  Yeah.
• 29:14
  Motocross of Nations.
• 29:16
  You talked before about the early years.
• 29:19
  Let's fast forward to what you're doing now, the joy of what you were able to achieve with the team in relatively recent time and so on to have...
• 29:31
  Reignited maybe isn't the right word, Gawley.
• 29:33
  I'm not sure.
• 29:33
  But you've put some good impetus into that, again, the group of you, haven't you?
• 29:38
  And it's fantastic.
• 29:40
  Well, again, Greg, it's a team.
• 29:41
  You know, Mark Lutzich, for instance, has been there from day dot just about 86.
• 29:47
  He was his first motocross of nations, 85, actually.
• 29:49
  He's a great fellow.
• 29:50
  I've often seen him with Christo and things.
• 29:51
  Yes, he's a great fellow.
• 29:52
  Mark, he's still very involved with MA of Australia.
• 29:55
  Yeah.
• 29:56
  He was the manager of the recent Oceana Australian team.
• 30:01
  He is the chairman of the board, so to speak, of us.
• 30:04
  So we've got Jeff Leisk, myself, and Mark Lusage, where the Australian team in conjunction with Peter Doyle, the boss of MA.
• 30:12
  And then we've got Gary Benn and...
• 30:15
  Michael Byrne, who handle the race situation.
• 30:18
  Gotcha.
• 30:18
  And they're the team, the race day guys, the managers on race day.
• 30:23
  So I still travel Australia to all the rounds of the pro motocross, selling the merch.
• 30:28
  A few years ago, I said after going to the France round at Ernais, which we're back this year to Ernais, there was 101,000 people in this small valley in France,
• 30:39
  It was the most outrageous event I have ever been to.
• 30:43
  You know, as far as the French love motocross, chainsaws with megaphones, engines being revved, flares going up, music blaring with huge speakers in the middle.
• 30:54
  It's just an amazing atmosphere.
• 30:56
  And like I said, 101,000 people there.
• 30:59
  It was just crazy.
• 31:00
  So I said to Jeff, I said, Jeff, we need to do a tour.
• 31:04
  You just did a tour to the Isle of Man with a guy in Sydney sitting
• 31:07
  And that Nick at Latitude Travel, he's now running the tours.
• 31:12
  The first year in Matley Basin, we had 42.
• 31:17
  Last year we had 63 at the Ironman Circuit in America.
• 31:20
  Excellent.
• 31:21
  And we've already got 53 this year.
• 31:24
  We're concealing it at 96, punters that come to the – and they love it.
• 31:29
  They have such a good time.
• 31:30
  We're in the VIP diamond area, the best view of the track.
• 31:34
  Perfect.
• 31:34
  At least you and I, we chaperone everyone.
• 31:36
  They get free booze.
• 31:37
  They get free food.
• 31:38
  Great stories.
• 31:39
  Great stories.
• 31:40
  Great stories.
• 31:40
  They see Australia win.
• 31:42
  And the Lawrence boys, they're just outstanding, those two.
• 31:46
  Tell me more about them, mate.
• 31:47
  I mean, we're enjoying –
• 31:50
  in one of the many, uh, different divisions of motorcycle racing in this country, we are enjoying two guys in, you know, the best form of it in the United States.
• 32:01
  And they're kind of once in a generation riders, aren't they?
• 32:04
  They certainly are.
• 32:05
  You know, they've come from the Sunshine Coast and, and Darren, the dad.
• 32:09
  you know, had them riding and, you know, Jet's just been this kid that's had a go over time.
• 32:16
  And then, you know, and then Hunter's a lot more focused like I was.
• 32:22
  Okay.
• 32:22
  You know, a lot more focused, thinks about things a little bit more.
• 32:25
  Jet just has a go.
• 32:26
  But he's got this amazing ability.
• 32:28
  Yeah.
• 32:29
  He's just amazing.
• 32:30
  And they've gone to Europe.
• 32:31
  They've done the hard yards in Europe.
• 32:33
  They've got good help over there.
• 32:34
  Stefan Evitz and others have helped him, which are notable names, huge names in the sport over there.
• 32:40
  And they've come back to America and they've tied in with good people like Johnny O'Mara and now Michael Burns in helping them.
• 32:47
  And so it's really good to see.
• 32:49
  It's doing so much for Australian motocross.
• 32:51
  And all these young kids now that watch.
• 32:53
  The Lawrence brothers in Australia, they're inspired so much, you know.
• 32:57
  To me, it's just I watch it every time, of course, and I'm just cheering for the boys, you know, hoping they do well.
• 33:03
  And Hunter won again last weekend, you know, in a day race at Nashville, and it was so cool to see.
• 33:10
  But, you know, we've got – we can win three in a row this year, and that's the first time, particularly if Kyle Webster is a team member again, like he was the last two years.
• 33:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:21
  Even last year we set a new record with the same team members won twice in a row.
• 33:26
  That's never been done before.
• 33:28
  And this year would be three times in a row if Kyle makes the team.
• 33:32
  So we'll see.
• 33:33
  We'll see what happens.
• 33:34
  But I'm out there just chipping away, raising some money.
• 33:37
  And it's not just the money, but it's also raising the –
• 33:42
  the importance and the whole aspect around motocross innovations that's an Australian effort.
• 33:49
  You know, we're out there doing it.
• 33:51
  Proudly in the green and gold.
• 33:52
  Yeah, and people love it.
• 33:54
  You know, like as part of the crew last year in the special VIP area, we had 65 of us.
• 34:00
  all in green and gold, all yelling, oi, oi, oi, no, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, all this was happening.
• 34:06
  I know that sounds bogan, but it's sort of stuck with us a little bit.
• 34:09
  And all the other countries in the VIP, we're looking at it, going, oh, you know, what are these bogans doing?
• 34:14
  But we're yelling and making a big scene, and it was just good fun, you know, just really good fun.
• 34:20
  If anyone wants to come to it, they should try to get onto Latitude Travel in Sydney and get their website, talk to Nick and get on board.
• 34:28
  It's pretty cheap to do it considering.
• 34:30
  And I just hope that they finish doing what they're doing in the Middle East so we can fly there.
• 34:34
  You can do it.
• 34:35
  Yeah, yeah.
• 34:35
  Do it with ease too.
• 34:36
  Get on the phone or make that happen.
• 34:38
  Yeah.
• 34:39
  Great experience with you lot.
• 34:40
  I know what that would be like.
• 34:42
  A couple of things here to finish.
• 34:45
  Firstly, are our stocks for the future, from what you're seeing of young kids riding, from what you're seeing of the passion for the sport, are we in a good place at the moment?
• 34:56
  Do we need to do more work?
• 34:57
  Where are we at, do you think, for the future?
• 34:59
  As far as skill and talent, it's everywhere.
• 35:02
  Is it?
• 35:03
  Yeah, it's everywhere.
• 35:04
  But the want I can see isn't quite everywhere.
• 35:09
  Where do they get that from?
• 35:10
  That's a self thing?
• 35:11
  That's a self thing that comes.
• 35:12
  A parental thing?
• 35:14
  Yeah, it can be a parental thing that's inspired, like Dazzy's done that for the Lawrence boys, you know, and they've done it hard.
• 35:22
  And the boys owe it to the family.
• 35:24
  That's why they're doing it so well.
• 35:26
  Okay.
• 35:26
  You know, so...
• 35:27
  There's a reason.
• 35:28
  There's not many rich families that do well at this game.
• 35:32
  Okay.
• 35:32
  Jeff Leisk was an exception.
• 35:35
  He just had that inner want.
• 35:36
  He wanted to do it so badly.
• 35:38
  He's Bob, his dad, rest in peace, Bob.
• 35:41
  He helped too.
• 35:42
  Helen, his mum, they helped out as much as possible.
• 35:45
  They had a bit of money to help in the early days, which was great.
• 35:47
  But Craig Dack didn't have any money.
• 35:49
  Glenn Bell didn't have any money.
• 35:50
  You know, all these people, they developed a want because they can see that they need to do it.
• 35:55
  And a lot of the...
• 35:57
  I think there's more money out there these days.
• 35:59
  You know, the base stations, the big SUVs are taking bikes.
• 36:04
  Parents buy everything.
• 36:06
  I think a lot of the time the kids just don't have the want because it becomes too easy.
• 36:11
  Normalised.
• 36:12
  Yeah.
• 36:12
  Normalised.
• 36:13
  It's too easy for them.
• 36:14
  They don't realise what they're getting.
• 36:16
  And even Todd Waters the other day said the same thing to me, that he helps these young kids and he still beats them at his age that he is and he has a go at them about and they go, what do you reckon?
• 36:29
  You know, they have all these excuses.
• 36:32
  And it's not about excuse, about getting onto it and getting out there and doing it, you know, and training hard, riding hard, riding in all conditions.
• 36:40
  And, you know, from my point of view, one of my things that I'd still like to do within the sport, we briefly talked about the Illawarra Mini Bike Club and the Gymkhana style events, which I think is totally important for kids to do under 12 years of age.
• 36:57
  I don't think there should be any racing under 12 because the parents start racing, not the kids.
• 37:02
  Gotcha.
• 37:02
  Half the time or most of the time.
• 37:05
  But the other thing I'd really like to see is the National Training Facility.
• 37:10
  But this takes money.
• 37:11
  Nice, yes.
• 37:12
  And we need to have a national training facility where these kids can come from probably 12 years of age.
• 37:18
  They're not missing school.
• 37:20
  They're still tutored with their school during the day.
• 37:23
  But it's like getting a...
• 37:27
  a university degree where you still learn the basics, but you get specialized in whether it's physiology, psychology, whatever.
• 37:35
  Well, then there's still physical training to do.
• 37:37
  There's still learning about the motorcycle.
• 37:39
  There's still out there in a track being trained by an expert.
• 37:42
  So,
• 37:44
  We're not far from this at a place like Queensland Motor Park where I was today.
• 37:48
  You know, with a million or so invested into that place with a gymnasium, a better restaurant, accommodation for the kids, a manager's position to be, you know, to be built.
• 38:03
  The infrastructure is there already except for those things.
• 38:07
  And I just need to try to find some rich individual that loves the sport that wants to put in.
• 38:13
  They can see that vision.
• 38:14
  Yeah, they can see the vision that I've got.
• 38:16
  And I can direct the vision.
• 38:18
  And a couple of years ago in Salt Lake City, I talked to Hunter Lawrence about this.
• 38:22
  And Hunter said to me, he said, Stephen, I think you're wrong.
• 38:26
  I think they need to go overseas.
• 38:28
  And Hunter, I agree with you, mate.
• 38:30
  But...
• 38:31
  They've got to learn about sports science and develop the want before they go overseas, you know, and totally agree with what Hunter said at the age of 15 to 16, yes, they need to go there.
• 38:43
  But prior to that, we need to give them direction.
• 38:45
  The building blocks.
• 38:46
  Yeah, got to be the building blocks.
• 38:49
  So anyway.
• 38:50
  Yep.
• 38:51
  keep chipping away at that one.
• 38:52
  Good.
• 38:53
  I'm not a believer in regret, mate.
• 38:54
  You used that once in our conversation today.
• 38:56
  Is there anything that you wanted to do that you haven't done that you feel Stephen Gore maybe should have done differently?
• 39:04
  Is there anything like that?
• 39:05
  Not really.
• 39:06
  I,
• 39:07
  If it was a different era, I'd love to have more of a go at road racing, both in cars and bikes.
• 39:11
  And bikes, okay.
• 39:13
  But that's a different era too.
• 39:15
  So it's a regret, but not really.
• 39:18
  Apart from that, I really have no regrets apart from a couple of injured knees, which could have been better.
• 39:24
  But you get that.
• 39:25
  You play this game, the motorcycle, and you've got to expect to get injured.
• 39:29
  Did you say they have to be replaced at some point or what did you say before?
• 39:32
  Yeah, I really need two new knees.
• 39:35
  There's a surgeon here, of course, Chris Ficciolo on the Gold Coast.
• 39:38
  He's an adventure bike rider as well.
• 39:40
  Okay.
• 39:40
  And he's been lining me up for an operation for about 20 years now.
• 39:44
  Why?
• 39:44
  You've, through fitness, been able to avoid it or are you ducking and weaving here?
• 39:48
  No, no.
• 39:49
  Through fitness is helping, through keeping muscles around the joint good.
• 39:52
  Also, would you believe, stem cell therapy.
• 39:54
  Okay.
• 39:55
  Okay.
• 39:56
  There's an osteopath called David Krasanik here in Ashmore on the Gold Coast, and he's treated me with stem cell therapy, which a lot of people don't believe in.
• 40:04
  But I tell you what, it's kept me going.
• 40:07
  I've lost the wear and tear in the knee to a degree.
• 40:10
  I have no pain in the knee.
• 40:11
  They look a bit ugly.
• 40:13
  They're off to some angles, but they're still working.
• 40:16
  And so there's things like that.
• 40:19
  You love that stuff, don't you?
• 40:20
  Like considering alternatives.
• 40:24
  You're not afraid of that, are you?
• 40:25
  No, I've had a go at alternatives a lot over time and a lot of them have been working well for me.
• 40:30
  So, for instance, regular doctors don't really suit me that much.
• 40:33
  I'd rather naturopaths than osteopaths and alternatives are nice.
• 40:39
  You've kept your youth, you bastard, so...
• 40:42
  I'm trying.
• 40:43
  Okay.
• 40:44
  I reckon you're doing pretty damn well.
• 40:46
  I rattled off, rather, some of the statistics before, mate.
• 40:49
  I haven't even touched on those.
• 40:50
  I'll put them in the introduction to this wonderful chat that we've had here today.
• 40:54
  There are inductions into the Australian Motorsport Hall of Fame.
• 40:57
  There is so much in the way of recognition for what you've done.
• 41:01
  I love the fact that you are still...
• 41:04
  getting out of bed every day, A, eager to ride, B, determined to see that next wave of kids coming through and doing well and with all the right skill set on and off the bike.
• 41:14
  I think that is just tremendous.
• 41:15
  The book, for those of you listening and watching this on YouTube, the book is called No Easy Way, The Stephen Gaul Story.
• 41:22
  It is edited by Andrew Clubby.
• 41:26
  and the legendary Speedway writer Dennis Newland has taken part in this too.
• 41:30
  It is a great work of art with some beautiful pictures in there.
• 41:34
  Look for it, find it, grab a copy of it.
• 41:37
  Thank you very much for coming into the studio and chatting with me today, mate.
• 41:39
  This has been long overdue and a joy to do.
• 41:42
  Yeah, thank you very much, Rusty.
• 41:43
  It's been great.
• 41:45
  Thank you.
• 41:52
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 41:56
  Series editor and producer is Joel Harrison.
• 41:59
  Audio production by Link Kelly.
• 42:02
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me on social media.
• 42:07
  The Garage, it's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fueled stories.