Latest / Rusty's Garage / Ross Stone (Part 1)

Transcript

Ross Stone (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  I'm on the Gold Coast for this episode with a former Supercast team owner that I have immense respect for.
• 0:35
  Someone many of our loyal listeners have wanted to hear from since Rusty's Garage first started back in 2018.
• 0:42
  Now, podcasters might think of Ross Stone as a little bit of a unicorn guest.
• 0:48
  The Ross I know, along with all the Stone brothers for that matter, would rather just do their talking on track.
• 0:55
  They are, as Neil Crompton has often said, professional.
• 0:58
  proper races and the hollywood stuff just isn't what drives them of course ross has accepted that interviews like this are just part of the turf he's done lots of them for tv over the years maybe not convos as long as this one and although deep down he'd probably prefer to shy away from interviews i'm so pleased he's kindly agreed to come on
• 1:21
  We cover all sorts of subjects here and answer some of your questions on social media.
• 1:27
  From the early years and the seriously impressive things the Stones have done internationally in motorsport to Ross's own race driving career.
• 1:36
  He won't say it, but Ross was pretty handy.
• 1:39
  He went to the US and who knows, a solid stint in Europe might have seen him take a very different path.
• 1:45
  What followed was a brilliant career on the other side of the pit wall.
• 1:50
  There's reflections of working with Larrikin fellow Kiwi, Graham Crosby, who you can find in our library, when they started the journey into team ownership.
• 1:59
  And thanks to his daughter, Anna, you'll also get a real sense of just how much the breakthrough Bathurst win with Jason Bright and Stephen Richards in 1998 helped shore up what seemed like a bit of an uncertain future.
• 2:14
  From restoring some legendary machines to creating opportunity for young racers in supercars and some of the headlines and hurdles they tackled on the way to becoming one of the biggest outfits in the pit lane.
• 2:27
  Plus, what the future holds for this likeable Hall of Famer.
• 2:32
  Now, it's a two-part chat with insights on their champions, Marcus Ambrose, Russell Ingle, and other drivers too, like David Bernard, who had so much promise and more.
• 2:44
  We're sitting outside at his place.
• 2:46
  Ross has made me a ripper coffee.
• 2:48
  And at one point, he acknowledges the guys and girls who played such an important role in the much-loved SBR team.
• 2:56
  What you couldn't see in that moment was the cheeky smile
• 3:00
  but the very genuine look that he gave his wife Di, who was sitting inside at the time, for the many years of hard work and unwavering support from family as Ross and Jimmy built a dream team.
• 3:14
  We begin our chat by winding back the clock to Ross's early years, not all that far from the Hampton Downs track on the North Island of New Zealand.
• 3:24
  About 14 miles or, you know, 20 k's from Pukeko, from the track, is a country town called Oniwara.
• 3:34
  And that's where we're from.
• 3:35
  It had a telephone exchange, which closed at 6 o'clock on Sunday night because...
• 3:43
  In those days, he used to...
• 3:45
  It was still a ring up, you know, the door.
• 3:48
  They'd connect you.
• 3:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they'd connect you, yeah.
• 3:51
  So there's a school there that you go in one end and come out the other, you know.
• 3:55
  Our football club, there was a garage where Jimmy originally started his apprenticeship, but then, you know, they'd done graders and trucks.
• 4:08
  So he then moved on to Tuakau, which was...
• 4:13
  Big smoke, which is between where we were from Oniwura and Pukekohe.
• 4:20
  So, yeah, so great place.
• 4:24
  The early recollections of cars and motorsport, when was the moment that either the passion for something with an engine and wheels hit you or, you know, were you at Pukekohe races and you saw some of the greats that were there?
• 4:36
  When did it hit you?
• 4:37
  Yeah, well, we went to the very first...
• 4:39
  I'd been to Ardmore with my mum and dad.
• 4:43
  And the rest of the family.
• 4:45
  Legendary track, which is around an airport or an airfield, isn't it?
• 4:49
  Yeah, it is, yep.
• 4:51
  And don't sort of remember that, but we went to the very first Pukekohe meeting and McLaren was there and a Monique Cooper S and...
• 5:03
  And, you know, doing the touring car race as well as the Grand Prix, New Zealand Grand Prix.
• 5:10
  So, and the crowd was amazing, you know, just never seen a crowd like that there again.
• 5:18
  Were you always sort of mechanically minded?
• 5:20
  I know you had your own racing career yourself, which we can talk about, your own driving career.
• 5:25
  But how did that morph from a couple of brothers, a couple of school kids to actually ending up working around it?
• 5:32
  Well, in our family, Jimmy is the oldest, and then I've got a sister, Anne, and then I've got another brother, Kevin, and then there's myself and then a younger sister, Marilyn.
• 5:43
  And...
• 5:45
  Jimmy was always mucking around with cars and whatever.
• 5:50
  And just because you're a young kid, you just hang out with the older brothers.
• 5:54
  And then they started, both Jimmy and Kevin, started doing hill climbs and stuff, you know, in the days when JR used to be there.
• 6:03
  And just there was, I just loved every minute of it and just followed that around.
• 6:12
  And we'd done what we could.
• 6:14
  And then Jimmy started on a bit of circuit racing with his Mini.
• 6:21
  And so one thing led to another.
• 6:24
  And in my school days, my main sport was rugby.
• 6:32
  It's a religion over there in New Zealand.
• 6:35
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:36
  And then as you grow up, and I played for counties, which is that area's representative team, in under-16 and under-18s.
• 6:45
  But then just right at 18, I decided...
• 6:51
  That was enough rugby and just being with cars, you know, basically full time ever since.
• 6:57
  Don't undersell yourself here because I know what you are like.
• 7:01
  But I mean, there's a gold star to your name.
• 7:03
  What was the first race car?
• 7:06
  How did you stitch that together?
• 7:08
  And how did you go?
• 7:10
  Well, it was quite funny, actually, because Jimmy was away in America doing Can-Am racing.
• 7:16
  And my brother Kevin was also overseas at McLaren in the days of Holm and Whittipaldi doing Formula One, you know.
• 7:25
  And Kevin used to go away to a race meeting with McLarens with six or sometimes seven people, you know.
• 7:33
  They take more catering people now than that.
• 7:36
  But anyway, there's a lot of stories about those days.
• 7:42
  So when I went to leave school, which was the end of 1969, which is a few years ago now, it was very difficult to get a job.
• 7:52
  New Zealand and the economy has always been a roller coaster.
• 7:58
  So in the little place only where I were from, there was another family that raced and that's Gary and Brian Pello, the two brothers.
• 8:09
  And there's a third brother who I was friends with as well.
• 8:13
  He was working in Auckland and he got me a job at a place called Campbell Motors, which they were the major dealers for Ramblers, Renaults, Peugeots and also then Toyotas.
• 8:27
  And the first day I went to get a job, I walked into Charlotte Street up in Auckland into their workshop and I seen a Corolla there and I go, what's these cars?
• 8:38
  Never seen one of those people.
• 8:41
  But it turned out they were a great car to do your apprenticeship on because there was never any issues with warranty.
• 8:51
  And New Zealand had also just moved at that stage.
• 8:55
  You could buy a brand-new car without having overseas funds because before that it was a privilege to buy a new car, you know.
• 9:04
  Yeah.
• 9:05
  Yeah, one thing led to another, and then Jimmy brought back a Formula Ford, and I then finished my apprenticeship, and David Oxen's father, Steve, had a business called Nortox Engineering, and Alan Draper was the...
• 9:24
  you know, the foreman mechanic there.
• 9:27
  And so anyway, they offered me $100 a week or $2.50 an hour.
• 9:32
  So I thought I was about six inch taller than what I actually am.
• 9:38
  But when you leave your apprenticeship, you think you know everything.
• 9:43
  But I just learned so much from Alan Draper, and he looked after...
• 9:48
  or work with David Oxton in his whatever racing he was doing, whether it was Formula Ford or Formula 5000 car.
• 9:57
  And then, of course, Alan, we eventually, 20 years later, caught up at DJR where Alan used to do the engines when I went there.
• 10:06
  So it was really good, got a lot of...
• 10:09
  you know, good times, yeah, from that stage.
• 10:13
  Tell me more about the Formula 4 that Jimmy brought back and what sort of influence that had on you boys.
• 10:19
  Well, it was quite funny because he bought a crash car, as Jimmy would, and then bought it home and we fixed it all up and we called it a cooter.
• 10:31
  What type of chassis?
• 10:31
  What are we talking here?
• 10:33
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:34
  Well, it was a long story in those days.
• 10:36
  If it was anything but British, the duty, you know, for bringing anything in the country.
• 10:43
  So it was – that's why we called it a cooter.
• 10:48
  I get it.
• 10:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 10:51
  Anyway, we used to –
• 10:54
  And Jimmy had started with performance developments, doing his own thing, machining manifolds.
• 11:02
  And I only worked for Steve Oxton for three months and then I went and worked with Jimmy.
• 11:08
  And we spent a lot of time on the Formula Ford.
• 11:11
  And all sorts of stuff there.
• 11:14
  And we actually then built up Jimmy's Escort.
• 11:18
  He raced a twin cam 1300cc engine that was amazing that he used to
• 11:27
  He'd done pretty well with it, really, considering we didn't have much budget.
• 11:32
  And that's the Formula Ford that Jimmy raced.
• 11:35
  We used to go away with, say, Jimmy, Kevin and I.
• 11:40
  And we'd all put our wallets up on the dash.
• 11:44
  Mine was the emptiest, but up on the dash.
• 11:47
  And when we called them for petrol, whichever one was closest, just paid.
• 11:51
  We didn't care, you know.
• 11:53
  So that was good.
• 11:56
  What happened from there?
• 11:59
  So you're working around cars, you're clearly in love with the notion of racing.
• 12:06
  How did you bolt the next phase of it together?
• 12:09
  Well, the next phase really was Jimmy was going to be a partner with Dennis Marwood in Performance Developments.
• 12:17
  Anyway, that didn't eventuate for a lot of reasons, and I don't think he was ready for it anyway.
• 12:24
  But we built a sports sedan.
• 12:27
  Well, you call it a sports sedan now, but it turned out to be a really good car in a Vauxhall Victor, of all things, but it had a six-litre sheave in it.
• 12:40
  And it was owned by Jack Naser.
• 12:42
  And Jack had bought an old Formula 5000 car, so we used a lot of the uprights and bits and pieces of that.
• 12:49
  But Jimmy and I, we just worked away solid on that for quite a few months.
• 12:54
  And it was interesting because a lot of people said, oh, Jack was a car salesman like a lot of those boys in those days.
• 13:02
  But a lot of people said, oh, just be careful of Jack.
• 13:05
  He's a car salesman.
• 13:07
  But honestly, he was right on his word and on the money, and he's a lifetime friend now, you know.
• 13:16
  So it just shows you.
• 13:18
  But that Victor went on to become quite a famous car, you know.
• 13:22
  Who were some of the contemporaries that were racing around you in that?
• 13:26
  I mean, you mentioned Jim Richards before being at the hill climb and so on.
• 13:29
  Who were some of the others?
• 13:30
  Well, in those days, Jim had already left for Australia, so he didn't come up other than at Christmas time when, you know, quite a few Aussies used to come over and it was bigger than Ben Hur.
• 13:43
  Bob Jane and all those guys.
• 13:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:47
  But there was guys like Paul Faye.
• 13:49
  Oh, yeah.
• 13:50
  and red dawson rod coppins um just a lot of good drivers and you didn't realize how good they were until you look back in hindsight you know they they were bloody good so lots of learnings for you around for you both around this car but but you clearly enjoyed that that engineering development and even pioneering things i guess were you
• 14:13
  Yeah, definitely, yeah.
• 14:15
  And, yeah, that car was really state-of-the-art at that time, you know.
• 14:24
  And then Jimmy went off to America to watch Denny's last Formula 1 race at Watkins Glen, and when he was there, they went to McLaren Engines and got a brand-new, you know, injected car.
• 14:42
  McLaren engine for it, which was good.
• 14:45
  But it was funny because that engine was always a little bit harsh.
• 14:48
  And then one day it just broke a crank after not many miles.
• 14:53
  So by this stage, Jimmy and I had moved to a service station, which has a story on us on how we got there.
• 15:01
  But... Did you own that?
• 15:05
  Did you own that servo?
• 15:06
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:07
  Yeah, it was ours.
• 15:08
  It had been closed for nearly 12 months.
• 15:10
  And over in New Zealand, if a servo was closed for 12 months, it lost its petrol licence.
• 15:17
  And it was easier to get a meeting with the Prime Minister than get a petrol licence, you know.
• 15:22
  So anyway, we were working there and I'll never forget Jack came down and there was no Formula Ford race at this particular Manfield because I'd just started doing some circuit racing myself.
• 15:36
  But Jack said, well, let's build this engine out of these two here.
• 15:43
  And anyway, we built it and Jack and I drove to Manfield, never forget, and...
• 15:49
  He was a character, Jack, and there was roadworks with these marker beacons for about a kilometre or more, and Jack just put a wheel of the trailer flat and a whole lot of them.
• 16:00
  But... LAUGHTER And I always thought, we're going to get stopped for this, but Jack couldn't bloody hardly drive the car because he was laughing so hard.
• 16:11
  But...
• 16:13
  Anyway, that was the first weekend at that manfield where Jack, with that Victor, cleaned it up.
• 16:19
  And then that car went on.
• 16:21
  Another guy got involved in it and lifted all the body work off the front.
• 16:28
  He'd done a really nice job, a guy called Robin Officer.
• 16:33
  And then Jimmy started with his escort and I started in Formula Ford racing and we went from there.
• 16:39
  We'll talk a little bit more about your racing in a second here, but people will fondly remember the movie, the relatively recent movie about Bruce McLaren, right?
• 16:47
  Yeah.
• 16:48
  And there is a moment in that where Jimmy is visibly upset and almost speechless.
• 16:55
  I mean, he was there the day that Bruce crashed, wasn't he?
• 16:59
  And they obviously had a pretty good relationship with him.
• 17:02
  Oh, they did, yeah, yeah.
• 17:04
  And Jimmy and there was another New Solander from South Island called Kerry Taylor, and Jimmy and him are good friends and they still are today.
• 17:14
  And they were both here that day, but I think there was only four or maybe five people there.
• 17:20
  And when Bruce's accident happened...
• 17:24
  And Jimmy ran across the field while the other guys went around in a Land Rover, I think it was.
• 17:34
  But when he got there, the other guys arrived, but they did what they could.
• 17:40
  But they had a big impact on his life, on safety and everything else, you know.
• 17:45
  And that's when things like seating in a car and roll cages, to me, there was no compromise, you know.
• 17:58
  Did it ever make either of you stop and think about your pursuit in motorsport at all?
• 18:03
  No, not at all.
• 18:05
  And it wasn't, you know, a rear thing, driver.
• 18:11
  You know, I've been at Pukekohe when in the Grand Prix, you know, Brian Flune was killed.
• 18:18
  But they think that was probably from an asthma attack, but it was a big crash.
• 18:24
  Big, big crash.
• 18:26
  Yeah.
• 18:27
  Your own career in New Zealand, what are the memories of some of the circuits that you went to?
• 18:31
  You've rattled off Manfield, Pukukau and someone, Hampton Downs that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, wasn't there back then.
• 18:36
  But were you, you know, Invercargill and Levin and places like that?
• 18:40
  Yeah, actually it was a good apprenticeship because when we started Formula Ford racing...
• 18:47
  When you got to Christmas, you know, you had the odd race in October or November, but once you started at Christmas, there was always the Bay Park race, which was all guys from Aussie were always there because they were great promoters.
• 19:05
  But so we've done this sometimes just before New Year, sometimes the day after, we'd start there at Bay Park.
• 19:16
  Then you'd go to Pukekohe.
• 19:18
  Bay Park's Mount Maunganui, isn't it?
• 19:19
  Yes, that's right, yeah.
• 19:20
  And then you'd go to Pukekohe, which is where the VH race now.
• 19:24
  But that was before that... Back chicane.
• 19:28
  Yeah, back kink.
• 19:30
  And then we'd go to Manfield, which is in Palmerston North, or, yeah, or Fielding, actually.
• 19:38
  And then you'd cross the boat and you'd go down and you'd do Lady Wigram, all with the Formula 5000 cars.
• 19:44
  Yeah, and then the next weekend, all a week apart, you'd go to Teirotonga, which is Invercoggle, the southernmost track in the world, and sometimes the rain comes in there sideways.
• 19:57
  But anyway, it was great.
• 20:01
  And then the 5,000 cars all went to Australia to continue the series, and we would then go back to Timaru, which they called Levels,
• 20:13
  race there and then finally we'd go to Ruripuna in Christchurch and then go home and then...
• 20:22
  But you had to be organised, you know, when you got that many races.
• 20:25
  It's all compressed too, wasn't it, in several weeks?
• 20:27
  Yeah, yeah, it was.
• 20:29
  Yeah, yeah.
• 20:30
  And it was good times too because the Formula Field...
• 20:33
  Formula Ford Field, they were tough, tough nuts, you know.
• 20:38
  But we always had a good time, and a lot of those guys still are racing today over there, yeah.
• 20:45
  I talked about the Gold Star before.
• 20:46
  What's the proudest achievement in your driving career?
• 20:51
  Oh, I don't know, just one of those things.
• 20:54
  Don't play it down.
• 20:55
  No, when...
• 20:58
  As I said, I won the Gold Star.
• 21:00
  We went to America for a couple of years.
• 21:03
  And when I...
• 21:08
  tested that Can-Am car and also our brand new March former Atlantic car, but just didn't have the money to put together to, you know, like it was $5,000 to enter a race over there in those days.
• 21:21
  And I just didn't have the dough and I decided if life's a book, that chapter's closed.
• 21:26
  And so I did race in a Benson and Hedges 500 production car race in an SS Commodore.
• 21:35
  That was the last race I ever did.
• 21:38
  You know, you're not one for ifs, buts and maybes, right?
• 21:42
  But if you'd gone the Europe path, would things have been different?
• 21:45
  Oh, I think that's a tough gig over there too.
• 21:48
  We really, you know, when we sold our service station, we didn't look at it as a stepping stone on our next investment.
• 21:57
  We looked at it as a way to go racing for a couple of years, you know, and always been casual about that side of it, I guess.
• 22:06
  But no, Europe's a tough gig.
• 22:09
  America's a tough gig because Atlantic car racing in those days was really good, strong.
• 22:15
  Can I end this chapter, if you will, with a great little observation you made when I first arrived here today about seeing Alan Jones, Kiki Rosberg, those guys going toe-to-toe and...
• 22:27
  perhaps getting maybe your first glimpse of AJ, who you would later work with in a couple of iterations and what he was capable of.
• 22:35
  Yeah, well, that was interesting actually because New Zealand had a promoter called Ron Frost who was really, you know, when I look back now, what he did,
• 22:49
  what he actually achieved for New Zealand motor racing.
• 22:53
  So when we went to Atlantic Cars over there, Rosberg Keiki was one of the first guys to come out.
• 23:02
  And then, you know, there was guys, Bobby Rahul and all sorts.
• 23:05
  Yeah, it got to the stage where the New Zealanders, actually we had to do a qualifying race to get into the Grand Prix.
• 23:13
  Okay.
• 23:14
  So actually, in hindsight, that was probably the peak of former Atlantic racing in New Zealand because guys would go, why would I go all that way when I...
• 23:26
  little problem and I don't qualify for the race or the series.
• 23:31
  So anyway, like everything, it's complicated.
• 23:36
  So Rosberg, I always thought, was something special and saying that New Zealand had some really good drivers too in Steve Mullen, Dave McMullen, Kenny Smith, David Oxen and there was a couple others that were, you know, Brett Riley when he came back.
• 23:57
  He was really good.
• 24:01
  But, oh, I don't know.
• 24:02
  It's just one of those things that just evolved, I guess.
• 24:08
  Was it tough to stop the driving for you?
• 24:10
  That was clearly the passion and the dream at that stage.
• 24:12
  Oh, yeah, it was, but... How tough?
• 24:15
  It was just a logical decision because you're just sick of...
• 24:21
  sicker living, you know, with your ass hanging out of your jeans type of thing, you know what I mean?
• 24:27
  So that was easy enough.
• 24:30
  And I think I was 27 by that stage, so... Was it a case of then mapping out, right, I want to go down a, you know, instead of working in the car, is a driver working around the car?
• 24:45
  Was there a conscious choice about that?
• 24:47
  Yeah, there was.
• 24:48
  I went to America to try and get a drive, as I said, and I spent two seasons there.
• 24:56
  And that was great, great memories, great time.
• 25:00
  But, you know, as you move on, Di and I decided to get married when I came home.
• 25:07
  after the end of the second stint there.
• 25:10
  And so my brother Kevin and I started a little workshop.
• 25:15
  After working with the general public in the service station with Jimmy when we were partners, Kevin and I just started a small workshop in Tuakia.
• 25:25
  And- Race-orientated, you mean?
• 25:27
  No, no, no, no, no, he didn't do any racing.
• 25:31
  I did do one Formula Ford race in that era where we gave the car
• 25:36
  bit of a touch-up and then at the Grand Prix meeting.
• 25:41
  This is all just normal cars with a road?
• 25:44
  Yeah, yeah, just normal cars.
• 25:46
  And then New Zealand went to a...
• 25:49
  They had a political decision to go to be self-sufficient in energy.
• 25:55
  So they bought out compressed natural gas, gas,
• 26:01
  and all the training that went with it, converting cars to run on CNG and also LPG, which was by far a better fuel, but the cost of the CNG for the Kiwis was cheap, you know.
• 26:16
  So we'd done that for a few years, but then, you know, sometimes you could hear the cars testing at Pukekohe during the week.
• 26:25
  If you're going out, you'll always drop in and see what the hell is going on.
• 26:30
  And, you know, like I remember one time I called in, Dave McMillan was there, and he had a Nissan engine in his, yeah, I'm sure it was a Nissan engine.
• 26:41
  And he was very protective, and I couldn't care less.
• 26:44
  But anyway, a few years later, Kenny Smith was going up to KL in Malaysia, and he...
• 26:54
  So I went along and looked after its car.
• 26:57
  And then after that, we came over here to Australia and done some Atlantic, well, Pacific car races.
• 27:09
  I think there was three.
• 27:10
  There was one in Adelaide, Calder, and then Orrin Park.
• 27:16
  And anyway, that sort of kick-started it again.
• 27:20
  And then out of the blue one day, I got a phone call
• 27:25
  there was an Auckland businessman who owned Auckland Coin & Bullion, Ray Smith, and he was getting a car built at Brock's team down in Melbourne.
• 27:37
  And... A condor.
• 27:39
  Yeah, yeah, a gold one.
• 27:41
  Anyway, Larry had left...
• 27:45
  had left, and I think they were missing Larry big time.
• 27:49
  But anyway, my brother Kevin and I, we left an apprentice at the workshop, and we went over for six weeks.
• 27:59
  Oh, and another guy, Greg Hesketh, who, terrific bloke.
• 28:04
  Anyway, we went over and we built this car.
• 28:09
  At the Brock workshop you're talking about?
• 28:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the race shop.
• 28:12
  So Brock had...
• 28:14
  In those days in Port Melbourne, there's a big Bunnings there now, and it was quite funny because I went looking for it.
• 28:23
  Yeah, this is Birdie Street.
• 28:26
  Anyway, I was going to say... You went to work on the car there?
• 28:31
  Oh, yes, yeah.
• 28:32
  And so we built it there and Denny Helm was driving it.
• 28:37
  So when I started doing that, the three brothers had all done Denny's cars because Jimmy used to look after Denny's Can Am car and Kevin looked after his Formula One car one year.
• 28:51
  So, yeah, it was amazing.
• 28:54
  It was good and I loved it, you know.
• 28:56
  It was a beginning of Group A, yeah.
• 28:59
  So, and we'd just put the car in a rental truck and my brother Kevin and Greg drove up to Oran Park and we did sand down.
• 29:12
  Big distances compared to New Zealand.
• 29:13
  Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 29:20
  Did you know there are other voices in Rusty's GPS system?
• 29:24
  I think I've got a British one here somewhere.
• 29:28
  What's this?
• 29:30
  Where am I?
• 29:31
  Oh my god, finally, I can give directions.
• 29:35
  At the next roundabout, turn left.
• 29:38
  Oh man, that was amazing.
• 29:40
  When safe, turn right.
• 29:42
  Woohoo, man, it's such a relief to be free of that strange state of being neither sentient nor non-sentient.
• 29:50
  May this last forever, for I, British Brian, am finally free.
• 29:58
  Firstly, did you interact with Brock?
• 30:01
  What was he like when you first saw him?
• 30:03
  Did you kind of, I mean, at that stage, were you acutely aware of who Peter Brock was and things like that?
• 30:08
  Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 30:11
  Although it's funny, Bathurst never meant as much to Jimmy and I. I think I'm speaking for Jimmy, but Bathurst never meant as much.
• 30:19
  At that point.
• 30:20
  At that point, say, a championship or, you know, the next race type of thing.
• 30:26
  But Brock was always there.
• 30:27
  Johnny Harvey was there.
• 30:29
  But I don't think it was long to go in Johnny Harvey and Brock's business relationship because Johnny would walk down the outside of the building and Peter would come down the inside or vice versa, you know.
• 30:44
  Avoiding the inside.
• 30:45
  Yeah, yeah.
• 30:46
  But...
• 30:47
  You know, you've got to say, I've never met a guy with more charisma than Brock, and he was brilliant.
• 30:52
  He'd come and talk to you, and, you know, half an hour later, you've got to say, oh, I've got to get back to work here.
• 31:00
  Very engaging, incredibly engaging.
• 31:03
  Denny, now he very sadly passed away in 92 at Bathurst.
• 31:07
  You talked about the three of you having a car connection with him.
• 31:12
  What was he like?
• 31:14
  Oh, he was the best bloke.
• 31:15
  He...
• 31:19
  He sometimes, when I lived in Turkey, if he'd been to Auckland, he'd drop in on the way home for a cup of tea or whatever, just one of those guys.
• 31:27
  And my brother Kevin was very good on enduro motorbikes, doing hair and hounds and things like that.
• 31:37
  But every Sunday, nearest to the 20th of every month, there was a big...
• 31:45
  ride around the forest down near Tokaroa, near one of the dams there on the Waikato River.
• 31:52
  And you would go down there and Denny would always be there and we'd meet up and we'd always ride together.
• 31:58
  But his riding was just like how he drove.
• 32:02
  He was smooth as, you know.
• 32:04
  Yeah, I'd never seen him come off.
• 32:06
  And he had a big Honda, which they were a bloody handful.
• 32:10
  Yeah.
• 32:10
  Incredible.
• 32:11
  Incredible career that he had.
• 32:13
  You brought up Croz, so let's go there.
• 32:16
  He's been a guest on the podcast, one of the funniest ones that I've had the pleasure of enjoying over time.
• 32:21
  He's got some amazing stories.
• 32:25
  Reckon you half gave me the intel for it.
• 32:28
  There is a classic story of him at Adelaide and he, I think at the Grand Prix meet, wasn't he?
• 32:35
  He hooked up with some friends on the Saturday night and had a late finish.
• 32:38
  But he drove like a scalded cat the next day, didn't he?
• 32:42
  Well, he did after the start because when the practice was on...
• 32:49
  We only done a few laps and it started raining, but Cross was good enough to put it on the front row, I think.
• 32:55
  That sounds right.
• 32:57
  I think JR might have been...
• 33:00
  Might have been on pole.
• 33:01
  But anyway, so we come to the race and Cross was very ill the next morning.
• 33:07
  I think in this day and age, if he had got tests, he may be in trouble.
• 33:12
  Yeah.
• 33:12
  So anyway, got up early in the morning.
• 33:15
  In those days, you had to be in the track early before they shut it down.
• 33:20
  So got Cross.
• 33:21
  We got the coffees going and a few things.
• 33:24
  Anyway, come to the race and...
• 33:28
  He was half asleep when the race started, and the first lap around he was fifth, I think.
• 33:35
  And...
• 33:37
  I never spoke a word to him on the radio because I was dirty because I dedicated Diane and I and our kids had moved over to Australia and, you know, my future was depending on it.
• 33:49
  But saying that with Kroj, you couldn't be angry with him for too long.
• 33:53
  He's just that sort of bloke.
• 33:55
  But immensely talented.
• 33:57
  Anyway, I was going to say...
• 34:01
  Yeah, that's right.
• 34:03
  First lap around, I think he was fifth or somewhere thereabouts.
• 34:07
  And then on the third lap, he said, Roscoe, Roscoe, what he used to call me, I'm feeling good.
• 34:15
  And so he started picking a few cars off.
• 34:21
  And Grice went on to win the race with a spin, if I remember properly.
• 34:26
  And George Fury was second and Cros was third.
• 34:32
  So I went to pick the car up from the podium presentation and I went after Crosby and just gave him his pedigree.
• 34:41
  And George was stunned, you know, that he said he drove well.
• 34:47
  And I said, you don't know the story.
• 34:48
  And actually, it's actually funny because about 15 years later at a function, I seen George and I explained to him and he said, I often wondered about that.
• 34:58
  Yeah.
• 34:59
  He's an amazing character.
• 35:01
  He did some phenomenal things on two wheels, cross.
• 35:05
  Could he have achieved even more in a four-wheel sense in your mind?
• 35:08
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:09
  At that stage, he was using his own money.
• 35:12
  And at the end of that year, which was 1986, we went up to Japan with Bob Jane.
• 35:21
  And Croz drove with Grice in a small car.
• 35:25
  And Bob was up there as well.
• 35:26
  And the last thing that Bob said to Croz and I, come and see me, because we then went directly back to New Zealand to do the series they were developing there, which was a good series too and well run.
• 35:43
  but the last thing, Bob, come and see me and we'll sort something out for the future, and of course, Cross never did, but...
• 35:54
  As we moved on, the next year I ran Nissan New Zealand for Kent Bajit and Graham Balkit and Cross come and co-drive one of those cars and we used him quite a bit over the years.
• 36:13
  But he's a great bloke, very talented.
• 36:17
  I often thought...
• 36:19
  that he was the most naturally talented of all the drivers, but that I've come across just a natural talent.
• 36:28
  But I think after watching SVG at Hampton Downs in the...
• 36:35
  you know, the Toyota, Formula Toyota car, and his rally stuff and that.
• 36:41
  I think, you know, Shane might just take the cap there, yeah.
• 36:46
  Just fill in some blanks for us in relation to the Commodore and the fact that you said a moment ago just how much was riding on this for your family at this stage.
• 36:55
  What were you doing?
• 36:55
  Were you sort of renting in somewhere and how old were the kids and so on?
• 36:59
  Yeah, well, we only had two kids at this stage.
• 37:01
  We had Nick.
• 37:03
  who was only young.
• 37:05
  He was probably three.
• 37:08
  Of course, when we come over to Crosby, our daughter, Anna, who's involved in television these days, she was three months old.
• 37:16
  So they were only young.
• 37:17
  And then Emily was born in Sydney a couple of years later.
• 37:22
  So, yeah, there was a lot.
• 37:24
  Di and I made a decision that we would try and make it work here in Australia.
• 37:29
  We tend to think of you with Fords.
• 37:31
  It's one of the great things that the Stone Brothers team have done with Fords over time, but it kind of kicked off in a touring car sense.
• 37:37
  Yeah, in the modern era, shall we say, with Holden's.
• 37:40
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:41
  And as I said, the following year after running with Cross, we had the Nissan Skyline, so...
• 37:49
  They were good too and we had a good young crew that we brought over, only about four or five guys and, you know, and there was guys like Paul Crookshank, you know, he's still around and Marty Brandt who was a fabricator and...
• 38:04
  He's still going strong.
• 38:05
  People you know in the paddock to this day.
• 38:08
  That exposes you, I guess, to the commercial side of the business more and more.
• 38:12
  How did you find that to begin with?
• 38:14
  Obviously, building and running cars was something that you loved and perhaps second nature.
• 38:21
  But now there's another level of the game, another level of business, isn't there?
• 38:26
  Oh, absolutely.
• 38:27
  In the end, at SBR, when we sold it, we had a commercial guy, Chris Wilson, who's now head of Penske Commercial for all their motorsport, and he's got 20 or 30 people working under him.
• 38:42
  And then the other really good guy we had was Geoff Reibel, who is the CEO of the Cowboys, North Queensland Cowboys.
• 38:51
  So, yeah, we were fortunate.
• 38:53
  We had a really good team, and, yep.
• 38:56
  Was it a case with you and your brother that you played to certain strengths?
• 39:01
  You knew that I'd be better at this and he'd be better at that?
• 39:03
  Or did that just happen organically?
• 39:05
  How did you work in a business pairing, so to speak?
• 39:10
  Well, it sort of sorted itself out pretty quick when we decided to do our own thing because I remember some sponsors came and...
• 39:19
  And they were looking for me and Jimmy was there.
• 39:21
  And at that stage, sponsors to Jimmy were a pain in the butt, you know.
• 39:28
  And he didn't treat them with as much respect as what he probably should have.
• 39:33
  So I realised that that was the defining moment where he could stick with the, you know, hands-on with all the cars.
• 39:45
  And he always, even in the last couple of years, he would still at night get under a car and,
• 39:54
  and have a good look around and be there or overlooking what was going on the whole time, you know.
• 40:02
  Let's bounce through some things that will get ultimately to your own operation.
• 40:07
  Firstly, there was a period with Dick Johnson, wasn't there?
• 40:10
  What was that like, you guys, and how did you all get on?
• 40:13
  Yeah, no, that was really good.
• 40:17
  Dick came and seen me.
• 40:18
  We were running Sierras after, just to fill in the gaps, after the Nissans.
• 40:24
  We ran Medeke's car for a couple of years, which was Sierras.
• 40:28
  He's just restored that car, hasn't he?
• 40:29
  Has he found that car and restored it, mate?
• 40:32
  Yeah, yeah.
• 40:33
  Lea's Laidlaw, who rents space at the race shop, he's done two cars for them.
• 40:37
  One is the ex-Brock Madeke car and then one are Andrew's cars.
• 40:43
  So yeah, after...
• 40:47
  and then they were based in Sydney and then we moved just before we moved from Sydney.
• 40:55
  Our youngest daughter, Emily, was born down there.
• 40:58
  So then we moved to the Gold Coast and have been here ever since.
• 41:04
  Yeah.
• 41:06
  But it's just, you know, quite often one thing led to another, you know.
• 41:10
  So then Kevin Waldock sort of took over because Andrew had done enough laps, you know, on all of that stuff.
• 41:22
  Ran Kevin Waldock and Andrew Bagnall.
• 41:24
  And then Dick came and seen me one day and...
• 41:28
  we quickly worked out a deal that I would go to Dick's DJI for one year just to look after the Sierras, because Neil Lowe, who was at Dick's and had been team manager of DJI, they had a great career with the Sierras.
• 41:50
  But perhaps in the last year or so, they went a little bit wayward.
• 41:56
  And anyway, when I went back in there and I remember John Bauer telling me, if you can just fix the brakes, that'll be enough.
• 42:06
  So anyway, what was really interesting was it was early days of data logging and I didn't know anything at all about computers and
• 42:19
  There was a guy, Cole Higgins, who Roger Higgins' father used to do a lot of...
• 42:27
  you know, electronic stuff.
• 42:29
  So I went around to his house and he walked me through all the data logging and, you know, Cole was good enough.
• 42:38
  I picked up exactly what they were saying about the rear brakes locking all the time.
• 42:43
  So anyway, we sort of standardised a bit of stuff and the cars were quite quick and quite reliable because- Internationally recognised, so-
• 42:55
  Oh, yeah.
• 42:55
  Internationally, they were – that was more Neil Lowe's era.
• 43:02
  But, you know, in our times with Madeckis, come across a guy called Jeff Watson who was a turbo expert –
• 43:10
  And, you know, we used to get the compressor wheel and, well, he did it for us.
• 43:16
  But we worked closely together and you get the compressor wheel and you actually soften it and nailed it.
• 43:24
  And then a compressor wheel instead of lasting...
• 43:29
  you know, 500 k's was lasting three or four race meetings.
• 43:34
  Plus, in those days too, Greg, when you ran a Sierra, the first thing you'd done is took the snout off the front of the turbo and check if there was any inflow in the turbo.
• 43:45
  And Jeff...
• 43:49
  Jeff and I guess us a little bit worked out exactly how to solve that bearing issue and, you know, why we went.
• 43:59
  So the year with Dick was really good.
• 44:03
  And then one thing led to another.
• 44:06
  Neil was working on the first year.
• 44:09
  Iteration of the Thelpen probably.
• 44:10
  Yes, he was, yeah.
• 44:12
  And anyway, to be fair, I sometimes would hear him and Peter Gillitzer from Ford Motor Company on the phone, and they were sort of building cars to not clear rules, you know?
• 44:28
  So Neil Lowe was also building a boat, so he decided he was gonna take some time away and finish that.
• 44:35
  Jimmy then joined me at DJR,
• 44:38
  And he built the first, well, the first one was already built and then sort of built the first.
• 44:48
  Serious sort of falcon.
• 44:49
  Yeah, yeah, ones that we raced.
• 44:50
  And we won first time out down at Amaroop Park too.
• 44:56
  So hard work, a lot of hours, yeah, a lot of hours, yeah.
• 45:02
  Are you starting to, from your racing experience, the peer review, and what you're doing in building, prepping, running, et cetera, have you got a keen eye for drivers and what they're doing and little traits and, you know, you mentioned Bowie there a moment ago, for example.
• 45:17
  Were you starting to sort of identify, because you could, some of the good guys?
• 45:22
  Yeah, well, at DJI, obviously, John was driving there.
• 45:26
  Yeah.
• 45:27
  And I would say he was at the top of his game.
• 45:30
  He was as good as you get, you know.
• 45:33
  And he would drive you mad because he'd phone you about three times.
• 45:38
  For Melbourne.
• 45:39
  Yeah, yeah.
• 45:40
  Oh, in those days from Devonport and Tasmania, I think.
• 45:44
  And...
• 45:45
  But he was really good.
• 45:47
  And then Dick, I wasn't too popular because Dick used to talk on the television, but you could look at his lap times when he used without listening to them.
• 46:00
  You could tell when he was talking because I dropped away.
• 46:04
  So we were there to win, you know.
• 46:05
  So we had to give that away.
• 46:08
  And Dick accepted it.
• 46:10
  He was good.
• 46:11
  You were actually that increased phase of onboard cameras, which became such a significant thing.
• 46:18
  There was one in the Crosby car that I think you had at Calder at one stage too, wasn't there?
• 46:21
  Yeah, yeah, and Crosby done a bit of commentary and he was a natural at it too.
• 46:25
  Yeah, yeah.
• 46:26
  Yeah, he was, yeah.
• 46:28
  Always quick with the one-liners.
• 46:29
  Yeah, yeah.
• 46:30
  Yeah, well.
• 46:32
  Stone Brothers Racing.
• 46:34
  How did that come about?
• 46:36
  What was the, you know, did you and Jimmy go and sit down and have a coffee somewhere and say, right, we're going to do this?
• 46:42
  How did that come to be?
• 46:44
  Well, it's a bit of a long story because not far from where I lived was up at Ormo Way was Darlington Park was getting built.
• 46:55
  And then Jimmy and I thought that we would, two years at Dick's, no it was more because we left after Bathurst in 95 and Dick actually flew us home.
• 47:09
  But Alan Jones phoned us and he had a sponsor which was Pack Leader.
• 47:14
  Pack Leader, yeah.
• 47:15
  So we quickly formed Alan Jones Racing with Jimmy Allen and I, all thirds each.
• 47:23
  But it was a big job because Allen owned a factory that had been a... Oh, they were running Formula Fords in the front of that factory at that stage.
• 47:31
  It was a program for young kids, four cars and stuff, I think.
• 47:34
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:35
  It was flesh as a rat with a gold tooth.
• 47:40
  And anyway, the back part of that factory...
• 47:46
  the back part of that factory had been a boat building place.
• 47:51
  So a lot of fiberglass dust.
• 47:53
  So the first day that we went there, Dick actually flew to me and I home from Bathurst.
• 48:00
  So Monday morning, Monday morning, yeah, we started work.
• 48:06
  and Alan Jones Racing and just got a fire hose out and just done the roof, everything, you know.
• 48:12
  And that's how we started.
• 48:15
  And Diane would tell you, Jimmy and I used to work seven days a week.
• 48:21
  And we'd always be at work at seven.
• 48:23
  Yep.
• 48:23
  And we'd never go home before midnight.
• 48:27
  And we'd done that for seven weeks, I think.
• 48:31
  And some of the other boys, we always made sure they had a Sunday off.
• 48:35
  Yep.
• 48:35
  Or, you know, the rest of the team.
• 48:38
  And you'd still go in, you guys?
• 48:40
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:41
  Yeah, we'd still be there.
• 48:42
  And sometimes Campbell Little was with us.
• 48:44
  Sometimes on a Sunday, he'd turn up.
• 48:47
  And the odd guy, if he was in the middle of the job, they would just come in and you'd say, oh, you need a break.
• 48:53
  And Jimmy and I should have had some time off too, you know, because Di used to bring the kids down to have lunch, you know, because you'd never see them.
• 49:08
  That's the end of part one of my podcast with Supercars Hall of Famer Ross Stone.
• 49:13
  Don't worry, we're just getting started.
• 49:15
  The convo continues in part two, which is all loaded up and ready for you to enjoy right now.
• 49:21
  Jump back to the Rusty's Garage Library and fire it up whenever you're ready.
• 49:25
  We talk about their champions, winning Bathurst and the emotion around that, knowing it would shore up the future for SBR.
• 49:34
  Some of the tough moments along the way, including his memories of Balaclavagate, finding out about Jason Bright's American plans by chance, Marcus's NASCAR move, plus the restoration of some legendary race cars, your questions, and what's next for Ross Stone.