Latest / Rusty's Garage / Brooke Tatnell | Part 2 - Sleeping in cars & outlaw wins.

Transcript

Brooke Tatnell | Part 2 - Sleeping in cars & outlaw wins. · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:18
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my feature episode with Aussie Speedway star Brooke Tattnall in the United States.
• 0:25
  As always, if you've arrived here and not fired up part one, jump back to the library and try that out first.
• 0:32
  From his early days growing up in San Susie in Sydney and memories of his late dad George, a true legend of the sport and a real showman.
• 0:41
  How proud Brooke is even now of what his dad achieved, but why he learned to be a
• 0:47
  his own man, to bring his own personality to the story of his career.
• 0:53
  Overtaking the great Steve Kinzer on one of his first outings and how school holiday work with family gave him the foundation, the framework that would serve him well in professional racing life.
• 1:06
  Plus, recollections of growing up around the great tracks, providing he got his homework done.
• 1:12
  Let's continue the convo now.
• 1:16
  Your dad, Gary Rush, that was an amazing era with some great names in it.
• 1:20
  You emerge.
• 1:22
  There's a bloke called Max Dumsney there.
• 1:24
  There's a guy coming through called Gary Brazier.
• 1:26
  I mean, that chapter for you guys on the Australian scene, and there's more to that.
• 1:31
  I mean, I've mentioned just a couple there.
• 1:34
  There was some pretty cool battles.
• 1:35
  And can we start with a memory and a thought on Max first before we come to Gary?
• 1:40
  Gary?
• 1:41
  Max is a later aspect because there was never a rivalry between Max and I, but there was a rivalry between Max and dad.
• 1:48
  And in saying that, there was a lot of respect there.
• 1:52
  Like when dad got cancer, Max was one of the first guys to come over to the house and sit down with my dad and talk to him.
• 2:02
  But there was a lot of respect there.
• 2:04
  Max's thing later on in life, I ran my own race team in 99 on the Outlaw deal.
• 2:10
  was broke and sold everything to do it.
• 2:13
  Couldn't have done it without Roger Johnson funding to be able to do it.
• 2:19
  I was at the PRI trade show in 99 and wandering around, bumped into Max.
• 2:25
  Max says, what are you doing next year?
• 2:26
  I said, I don't know, I got nothing.
• 2:28
  I said, I think I'm done.
• 2:30
  I think I just got to come back to Australia.
• 2:31
  I can't get a ride.
• 2:32
  There's nothing going on.
• 2:34
  And Max turned around and said to me, don't quit now.
• 2:38
  you are at that crest of the hill.
• 2:41
  If you can just get over this little hump, it'll be a downhill sail from here on out.
• 2:45
  And Max's words of encouragement is what kept me here.
• 2:51
  Because if a guy like Max Dumsny believed I could do it, that's what drove me.
• 2:56
  And that's where, when I talk Max Dumsny, like the Rival Ruth World Series, the battles we had, like,
• 3:04
  Max and I barely banged.
• 3:06
  I don't, Max and I didn't bang wheels too often.
• 3:09
  Wheels.
• 3:09
  Um, but we never had an intense rivalry with Max.
• 3:13
  It was a respective rivalry.
• 3:16
  Now Gary and I raise, we had an intensity rivalry.
• 3:21
  Um, it was, and, and we came in an era where Mike Raymond was,
• 3:28
  wanted a good guy, bad guy.
• 3:30
  And, um, he, he needed a marketing tool to promote us both.
• 3:35
  And we just, neither one of us knew how to go about it.
• 3:39
  Um, I think Bray's ended up as the, the bat, the, the guy wearing the black hat and I ended up as the.
• 3:46
  cocky kid that didn't want to speak or was arrogant or whatever um there was never a good guy there um but we just had that rivalry but a respectful rivalry and i most people would would never even know that uh i think gary brazer and i've only banged wheels twice in all the years we raced um i'll get a message from braze every now and then um
• 4:11
  I will always say Gary Brazier was the most naturally gifted race car driver I have ever seen.
• 4:17
  And to be honest, we talked the new, the new guys, the Kyle Larson's, the Christopher Bell's and, and the Jay, like those guys with, and, and McFadden.
• 4:30
  Um, yeah.
• 4:31
  Bray's had the talent to be as good or better than any of those guys in a sprint car.
• 4:37
  I know whether the diversity was there, but he was always very good on a motor, on a motorbike.
• 4:42
  I remember Stephen Gall telling me when Bray's used to go to his clinics, he said, this kid is just mad.
• 4:47
  And he just, he's wide open.
• 4:49
  He's telling me he's going to be the best.
• 4:52
  And he said, I think he was seven years old at the time, but strong, intense rivalry.
• 4:58
  I could not stand that.
• 5:01
  The losing a race to Gary Brazier and vice versa.
• 5:06
  But just an absolute respect for each other.
• 5:09
  You've rattle off so many names here.
• 5:10
  I've got to get Gawley.
• 5:11
  I've got to get Brazier.
• 5:12
  I've got to get Max on the pod.
• 5:13
  And I love the reflection of Mike Raymond and...
• 5:18
  what he did, what we continue to benefit from in the sport, and not just Speedway for that matter.
• 5:24
  Just on the relationship with Brazio, I think I was talking to Dean Neal, one of the boys in the lead-up to this, for a bit of background, a bit of backstories, and he said, I can't remember the race here, right, but you can perhaps join the dots for me.
• 5:36
  You're engaged in an epic battle, the pair of you.
• 5:39
  I think someone spins, there's dust, dirt going everywhere.
• 5:42
  You both keep it absolutely wide open, refuse to lift up.
• 5:47
  As you said before, a bit of almost days of thunder, drive through it, cold kind of thing.
• 5:52
  That was a great underscore, if you will, of that intensity between the pair of you.
• 5:59
  No one wanted to yield or give, did they?
• 6:01
  If it was someone else, you probably would have left it to be smart.
• 6:04
  But, yeah, no, there was no – and the problem we had, we took so many races away from each other.
• 6:11
  Yeah.
• 6:12
  If you look at our careers, Gary Brazier would have won so many more aces.
• 6:16
  I could have won a lot more if Brazier wasn't there.
• 6:19
  But I don't think we ever would have got the – I know I never would have got the fullest potential out of Brooktatton if it wasn't for Gary Brazier because I couldn't win that Australian title.
• 6:30
  It just eluded me and eluded me.
• 6:33
  And he was very well how much it meant to me.
• 6:37
  And not that he could, he never ever got into my head, but he used to love to rub it in that I never had an Australian title.
• 6:44
  So when you get him on this podcast, I will turn around and call him and say, hey, Braze, I was on there before you.
• 6:50
  He'll probably come back and say, yeah, but Rushy and McFadden were on there before you.
• 6:58
  No, but yeah, there was an intensity there that just drove each other.
• 7:01
  And part of it goes back, I mean, a lot of people don't realize that in 1983 Australian titles at Newcastle, Steve Brazier didn't want Rush to win the Australian title.
• 7:14
  So Steve Brazier said, George, I'm going to come and be your crew chief.
• 7:17
  And I remember Dad just like, again, that work ethic, Dad was at work at 6 o'clock in the morning, but they'd be at Steve Brazier's shop working until 3 o'clock in the morning.
• 7:27
  And by the time he got to the Australian title, he was so wore out.
• 7:32
  But Alan Falsch had been Steve Brazier's crew chief.
• 7:36
  Alan Falsch was now my crew chief.
• 7:39
  There were just so many similarities and rivalries.
• 7:42
  There was times that...
• 7:44
  We both probably should have missed the A main because neither one of us would put a tire on the car
• 7:51
  until the other one had theirs on and it would move.
• 7:54
  So no one, because we're always playing the game, trying to see what tie, yeah, all this, that, the other.
• 8:00
  And we're always trying to be the last one out and no difference of starts.
• 8:04
  I don't think Gary Brazier and I ever went to a start line and got the green flag on the first attempted start because either he would jump or I would jump.
• 8:14
  The next start, you could guarantee the other person was going to jump.
• 8:18
  And then the third one, we'd have a perfect start.
• 8:20
  But it always took three attempts to get him and I to start together on a front row.
• 8:26
  Just to delve a little into what you've spoken about there, right?
• 8:30
  I think if I have the years right, you win basically everything, 94, 95.
• 8:36
  But Brazier beats you.
• 8:39
  to the Aussie title and I think there's picks of you understandably gutted afterwards because it would have been the sweep, the lockout if you like and you held it together.
• 8:50
  You were pretty remarkable on the podium in the wake of all of that, weren't you?
• 8:54
  Mount Gambier.
• 8:55
  Mount Gambier Australian titles.
• 8:57
  I'd let it.
• 9:00
  And there was a red flag.
• 9:03
  We were off a little bit, and we had the red.
• 9:07
  And Alan and I were talking, and I remember Jeff Murphy saying, you guys are going to tighten up, or Breezy's going to pass you.
• 9:13
  You guys are going to tighten up the...
• 9:15
  And we tightened up and, uh, we just didn't get the job done yet.
• 9:20
  It was, it was hard.
• 9:21
  I mean, it really, really, and it wasn't cause I lost to Gary Brazier.
• 9:25
  Yeah.
• 9:26
  I hated to lose to anyone, especially Brazier, but it was that picture that was missing from the wall.
• 9:32
  Yeah.
• 9:33
  That big Australia one on my race car that just meant something to me because I listened to my dad talk about the prestige of being an Australian champion.
• 9:41
  I grew up watching Gary Rush hog the damn thing that no one else, and I'm thinking, Brazy's going to do the same damn thing.
• 9:47
  So, yeah, no.
• 9:50
  But look, it goes back, I think, the one-on-one, one-night intensity of
• 9:59
  Gary Brazier probably had it over there, over me.
• 10:02
  But if you want to talk about a season, I had, I had it over Gary Brazier.
• 10:08
  I was more calculated.
• 10:09
  I was, I think I was a smarter racer.
• 10:11
  Um, he was just more of a brash racer.
• 10:14
  Um, and I say that with all, all, all respect.
• 10:17
  I wish I could have probably been more of a brash racer than a points racer and a smart racer.
• 10:22
  Um, yeah.
• 10:23
  But yeah, no, the Australian ties still stinked.
• 10:26
  I'll bet.
• 10:27
  And it wasn't for everything.
• 10:29
  Let's come to the breakthrough then on the flip side.
• 10:32
  That story of getting the first one at Murray Bridge is a story that I'd love you to share.
• 10:37
  I mean, it is remarkable.
• 10:41
  You basically turned around after landing in the US.
• 10:43
  I think there's some sort of visa issue of some kind.
• 10:47
  You ring your dad maybe and on a whim...
• 10:50
  They prep a car, they take it there for you.
• 10:53
  You're racing a family car.
• 10:55
  You hadn't moved to the cricket car, I think, at that stage.
• 10:58
  It wasn't even on your schedule.
• 11:00
  You're probably going into it with a completely open mind because it wasn't something you were planning to do.
• 11:07
  No, I'd come over, I'd been over here, like I've been coming back and forth since 91 and had all my visas in place.
• 11:14
  That was one thing that was always stipulated.
• 11:17
  Have your paperwork, have your paperwork, have your paperwork.
• 11:19
  And I just got the biggest opportunity of my life.
• 11:23
  I had...
• 11:24
  got my world of outlaws ride i did the world of outlaws as a rookie my own car but now i've got this rush this new team rush racing and uh i got my big break finally i've got this break the break i've been looking for the break that max dumps and he said just hang out for a little bit longer kid it could it when you get over that crest and here i was uh i got on the plane landed in la at 6 30
• 11:51
  got interrogated, got interviewed, interviewed, interrogated.
• 11:55
  This went on.
• 11:56
  I got put in a holding cell.
• 11:58
  I was interrogated for hours on end, wasn't allowed to make any phone calls, just kept on getting hammered and hammered and hammered.
• 12:07
  They're like, you've got an overstayed visa.
• 12:09
  I said, can I ring Memphis where there's an office?
• 12:11
  All my paperwork was there.
• 12:12
  I can get this clarified because I've never overstayed a visa, had always done it.
• 12:16
  Like my visas had been anywhere between $5,000 to $10,000 every year to do the visa aspect, you know, from 1991.
• 12:25
  And this is 2005.
• 12:28
  And wasn't allowed to make a phone call.
• 12:32
  Got marched through, didn't have a return ticket to Australia.
• 12:36
  And they marched me through the airport with two security guards, maybe buy a ticket on the spot at $4,500.
• 12:44
  um they walked me back up put me in a glass holding cell put me on a march me through the airport that night at 10 30 10 o'clock at night to put me on an old most terrifying deal i've ever gone through um march me through and they get on the pa system ladies and gentlemen we move to the side we have a passenger we need to board
• 13:05
  And right just prior to this, I got to ring my dad and said, ring the carers, tell them they're deporting me.
• 13:12
  So my dad started making the phone calls to get, because I only got to make one phone call at 7 o'clock at night.
• 13:20
  Like, you can't ring an attorney or anything at that point.
• 13:25
  They're...
• 13:26
  turn around and they're making people part ways to board me on a plane.
• 13:30
  And fortunately, uh, dad's one of dad's best friends, uh, Roger Lunderman was a hierarchy of Qantas and they cost put up into business class and I'm on that plane and waitress, the host, he walks out, puts a bottle of Jack Daniels in front of me.
• 13:46
  So this is Mr.
• 13:47
  Tap and I've heard you've had a rough day.
• 13:49
  And, um, we on that flight, um,
• 13:53
  Because it all just keeps building.
• 13:55
  So the anxiety, and I didn't believe in the word anxiety at the time.
• 13:59
  I didn't, you know, that was like stress.
• 14:02
  That's a cop out for laziness.
• 14:05
  And as I sat on the plane, there was a father and a daughter sitting one side and there was another daughter further back.
• 14:12
  And I could see him talking two rows behind.
• 14:14
  I leaned back and said, if you're trying with them, I'd swap seats with you.
• 14:18
  And the dad says, the dad looked over and says, you don't speak to my daughter, you criminal.
• 14:23
  We saw you get boarded on a plane.
• 14:26
  At that point, it really kicked in.
• 14:28
  So now I get back to Australia.
• 14:31
  Our race cars were all pulled apart.
• 14:33
  My brother-in-law, Tim Gleeson, ran over, built the cars like when Joe jumped in the truck.
• 14:38
  He went to Adelaide.
• 14:39
  I'm on the phone with immigration attorneys trying to figure out what was going on.
• 14:45
  Just the three days of absolute stress going to that Australian title.
• 14:51
  Like, I shouldn't have even went.
• 14:53
  I shouldn't have even been.
• 14:54
  Was it meant to be that?
• 14:55
  Should never have gone because I mentally wasn't.
• 14:58
  The first night there, I just sat on the floor of the truck.
• 15:02
  And I probably couldn't have even spelt my own name at that point.
• 15:05
  And then to get...
• 15:07
  The following night, Dad just sat down, hey, let's get your head in the game.
• 15:13
  You've got to flick that light switch.
• 15:14
  Now, my dad was always about a light switch.
• 15:17
  When you put that race suit on, you flick the light switch, work, relationships, every problem you've got in life gets shut off until you take that race suit back off.
• 15:27
  And, uh, yeah, we got there and, um, the way it panned out, I knew we were fast and I always had been very, very good at Murray Bridge.
• 15:35
  We've won a lot of world series races there.
• 15:38
  And, uh, we were racing Harby Kerry Madsen.
• 15:41
  I'm like, this thing's going to take rubber.
• 15:43
  So I backed off.
• 15:45
  trying to play a calculated game.
• 15:47
  I told you I wasn't that brash one-night specialist.
• 15:51
  I was more about the smart points.
• 15:53
  And I backed off.
• 15:54
  And luckily for us, I don't know, three laps to go, Kerry blew a tire, Max blew a tire, and here we are.
• 16:03
  Gone from third in the lead to finally win the Australian title after 17 years.
• 16:10
  That's what I mean, mate.
• 16:11
  It had been so elusive, so difficult.
• 16:15
  Didn't you say there was a line somewhere along the way, maybe, it's a race for egos, I've got one as big as anyone's or something or other.
• 16:23
  I mean, it meant a huge amount to you.
• 16:26
  The Australian title is a race for egomaniacs, and I'm one of the world's biggest.
• 16:31
  That was always the thing.
• 16:32
  But look, I always used to say I don't want to be one of the greatest players
• 16:38
  to never win an Australian title.
• 16:40
  And I don't say that to say I was one of the best.
• 16:43
  What I'm saying is I didn't want to be classified as such a good, be classified as a good racer, but never fortunate enough to win an Australian title.
• 16:53
  And that was one of my biggest fears.
• 16:57
  Like one world series, one classics, one, basically everything there was, but could not, had one world of outlaw shows, still couldn't win that damn Australian title.
• 17:08
  Rush always says, you win the first one, the rest of them come easy.
• 17:14
  Well, I don't know if it came easy, but it certainly wasn't as hard as the first one.
• 17:19
  Oh, that was my next kind of question, because in some respects what Gary said, it did open the floodgates in some ways for you, because there's multiple wins in the wake of that, isn't there?
• 17:30
  Yeah.
• 17:30
  Oh, yeah, look, and at that time, I'd already had a conversation with Shane Cricky about driving for them.
• 17:38
  And I said to Shane, I can't do it.
• 17:41
  I said, I need one.
• 17:43
  I need to run my, like, I need to run our family car with Australia 1.
• 17:47
  I can't do this.
• 17:48
  I've got to run it.
• 17:49
  And Shane says, really?
• 17:52
  And I said, yep.
• 17:53
  If I can't, I've got to run Australia 1 with the family.
• 17:58
  And actually, sorry.
• 18:00
  Yeah, it was that year I'd won it.
• 18:03
  And I said, I've got to run Australia 1.
• 18:06
  and Shane's like, I want you to drive my race car.
• 18:09
  I'd asked you two years prior to race and I said, I can't do it.
• 18:12
  And then I said to Shane, all right, we agreed on everything.
• 18:15
  At the night where I sit in Knoxville, in my motor home at the Knoxville Nationals, agreed to drive for crickies the following year.
• 18:20
  I said, there's one question and there's one stipulation.
• 18:24
  That car has to have Australia 1 on it or I won't drive it.
• 18:27
  And Shane said, you're willing to throw away a great offer all over a number.
• 18:32
  I hate that damn number one.
• 18:33
  It's always bad luck.
• 18:35
  And I said, I won't drive a race car unless it has Australia 1 on it.
• 18:39
  And he said, that's your stipulation.
• 18:42
  He said, if you don't drive the race car this year, I'll never ask you again.
• 18:46
  I'll never come back.
• 18:48
  And I got to drive the Australia 1.
• 18:49
  And I always turned around and told him...
• 18:51
  Cricky Motorsports cars have never looked so good because it had an Australia 1 on it.
• 18:55
  And for us, it wasn't an unlucky number.
• 18:58
  I know Max had said in the past, he wins an Australian title.
• 19:01
  When he'd won Australian titles, they'd been some of his worst years of racing success-wise when he had Australia 1 on it.
• 19:10
  So some guys said it was a little bit of a voodoo, but for me, it was like that sense of relief and honor and pride and I never wanted to let go of it.
• 19:19
  so many things to explore there.
• 19:21
  I want to come to Rush in a minute because, you know, an amazing team, the quality of the machinery to race for, I want to come back to that and, you know, recovering from what had happened there at immigration and so on.
• 19:33
  Firstly to Shane and to Cricky Motorsport, that opportunity there.
• 19:37
  I mean, I think in some respects there might have been just handshake deals.
• 19:42
  You guys were great mates.
• 19:44
  I mean, that...
• 19:47
  not just in a racing sense, Brooke, but in a life sense was very special for you, wasn't it?
• 19:53
  Yeah, yeah, look, I'd known Shane through racing.
• 20:00
  My first introduction to Shane on more of a friendship level was the King of Wings in 1994, I think it was, 94, 95.
• 20:12
  Shane's leading it, and I drove around the outside of him at Claremont on the last corner to win it.
• 20:18
  and the next night we go to Bunbury to race, and I broke a crank, and it blew the whole motor apart.
• 20:24
  Like, the motor, the block fell apart.
• 20:27
  Like, it blew the whole side off.
• 20:28
  You could see the cylinder liners, and Shane walked by.
• 20:33
  Couldn't happen to a nicer prick.
• 20:36
  And he said, you don't realize how bad winning that King of Wings was.
• 20:39
  So it became a running joke.
• 20:41
  Like we had such a great brotherhood relationship, um, with him.
• 20:49
  Yes, we were a year apart, but he was almost that way older brother, that 10-year-old brother because of the business sense that he had.
• 20:58
  And just the respect.
• 21:00
  I mean, like I said earlier, when all the boys said that Crickies had fired me after one year, Shane said, no, I reckon he'll ask two before we fire him.
• 21:10
  But yeah, the respect there was always a handshake deal.
• 21:14
  Um, there was never anything.
• 21:18
  Uh, I think, I think Shane and I only ever got into one argument.
• 21:23
  Uh, what, what an even argument was a disagreement.
• 21:26
  And Shane turned around and told me, you know, what the hell was that?
• 21:29
  You drove like a dumb ass.
• 21:30
  I said, you know, and I just piped up, you don't think I know I drove like an idiot.
• 21:34
  I'm pissed at myself.
• 21:35
  You don't need me to tell me I'm an idiot.
• 21:37
  I can tell you I'm an idiot myself.
• 21:40
  And the...
• 21:44
  years going on, I could always rely on him.
• 21:48
  for that call.
• 21:49
  I could, and he knew when to call.
• 21:53
  He turned around.
• 21:55
  He loved my family like it was his own.
• 21:58
  Him and Jody took my family in, the whole Fett Crickey family.
• 22:02
  You walk into that Crickey Motorsports, you're a part of that family.
• 22:07
  And, you know, with his passing, it hit me as strong as losing my dad.
• 22:13
  I lost a best mate.
• 22:16
  I lost a guy that was,
• 22:19
  a mentor in a lot of aspects of different things.
• 22:22
  His greatest, uh, talent was putting the right people in place and letting go of control.
• 22:30
  Um, at, at prior to Shane's second bout with cancer, we'd be, we'd actually had conversations about Amy and I packing up and leaving America and coming back to Australia to live.
• 22:41
  And Shane said, you run the race team.
• 22:43
  Yeah.
• 22:44
  Dylan wants to go to America to race as a crew chief.
• 22:47
  You come back, you run the race team, and we'll figure somewhere for you during the winter to drive a piled truck or do whatever.
• 22:54
  And that's when the cancer came back, and he said, well, what are we going to do with this?
• 22:59
  I said, we're going to talk about it when you get healthy.
• 23:03
  Unfortunately, it didn't happen.
• 23:04
  Probably one of the hardest decisions I have had to make was the fact that I couldn't get back for his funeral.
• 23:11
  Funeral.
• 23:12
  Still something that digs deep.
• 23:15
  You had some amazing years with them.
• 23:17
  The bond, even in the wake of not driving for them now, I think is still pretty tight.
• 23:25
  The Cricky Boys shootout win.
• 23:26
  Can I come to that?
• 23:27
  Was it 2015?
• 23:29
  I think the emotion in that, the job they've done generally with that event and what they do in the West and the coverage and so on.
• 23:37
  It's amazing, mate, isn't it?
• 23:39
  I think the Cricket Boys race lifted.
• 23:41
  Like, Con Migre was so good for the sport.
• 23:43
  Like, he was every part of Mike Raymond.
• 23:48
  What Con did for Claremont to the...
• 23:55
  boys when they started the boys race at Bunbury then that built up and built up and built up and I never I'm one of the drivers that can I was there when um uh the boys were racing and my connection with the crickies with was with racing against wrong cricky and um
• 24:15
  So I never really knew the boys as well, but what they took that race, it goes back to like when I said about David Mills, they built that thing, not just as it wasn't just a race man.
• 24:28
  It was an honor of life.
• 24:32
  It was a spectacle.
• 24:33
  It was a fan appreciation.
• 24:35
  It was just everything.
• 24:36
  They just built it up so much.
• 24:37
  And.
• 24:38
  to then know what it meant to the Crickey family.
• 24:42
  And I'd always told Shane that I'm going to win that damn race for you, bud.
• 24:46
  And I'd led that race and had cars fall out of the sky on top of us and take us out and different things.
• 24:54
  And we didn't crash very often with Crickeys.
• 24:58
  But I tore up, I'd say, probably three cars at the boys' race trying to win that thing.
• 25:03
  I mean, there was one race with Kerry Madsen there.
• 25:06
  I think it was a year prior to us winning.
• 25:09
  We had no brakes, and I was not left.
• 25:11
  And I was going to win that race and get around the outside of Kerry just to win it because it was the boys' race.
• 25:17
  And I always used to say to the crew guys that were with me, Little Pete, I'd go,
• 25:22
  To win it all, we're at night, he says.
• 25:23
  That's why it's the last race of the year, buddy.
• 25:26
  But no, to win it that night, knowing different things with Shane and everything else.
• 25:34
  I'd actually said during that day, we had the fan appreciation day, and I said, hey, Colbert, do you mind if I don't go to the fan appreciation?
• 25:42
  I've never not gone to a fan appreciation.
• 25:45
  I said, I just want to stay away from the hype.
• 25:48
  I want this race so bad.
• 25:51
  And, uh, I didn't go to the fan appreciation.
• 25:53
  Shane said, Shane was cool with it.
• 25:55
  He said, no, you get your head where you want to be.
• 25:58
  And, uh, I didn't go to the fan appreciation that day.
• 26:02
  Uh, and I was adamant that night we were going to win.
• 26:07
  And when I crossed that finish line and he's undoing the Polish victory lap and he's Shane Cricky standing in the middle on the front straightway in front of me, uh,
• 26:18
  It brought a tear to both of us and, you know, the picture of us all up on the wing.
• 26:28
  That night, Shane said to me, I've seen you when, and it's on the video, when you see him hugging me, he said, I've seen you win many races in your life for us and against us.
• 26:41
  He said, I've never seen you drive with so much passion.
• 26:45
  This is your greatest victory I've ever seen you have.
• 26:49
  I love it.
• 26:50
  Yeah, it meant a lot to me.
• 26:52
  Coming from him, that meant so, so much.
• 26:56
  in a collection of things in your life, some significant moments in your career.
• 27:03
  And it's so cool to hear you recount that and what it means to you even now.
• 27:09
  Before we come to the US chapter, and you've delved a little bit on that already, I just want to just break out on the circuit racing side for a moment.
• 27:16
  We crossed paths a little bit around a Vauxhall Cavalier.
• 27:19
  I think Graham Moore ran that car from memory.
• 27:21
  You did some super touring.
• 27:25
  Just explore the circuit racing path and how big that lure was.
• 27:30
  I mean, could it have expanded into other things?
• 27:33
  How serious did that chapter get?
• 27:35
  And we're talking kind of late 90s here, basically, aren't we?
• 27:37
  Mid to late 90s.
• 27:39
  88 was the Toyota Star Search that I got to do with the Corolla trying to get a ride for Bathurst and Michael Dowson and Bates.
• 27:50
  He ended up with that.
• 27:52
  The Bateses.
• 27:53
  Yep.
• 27:53
  And that was a super cool experience.
• 27:56
  I found out later on in life that having a Shell sponsorship did not help the process.
• 28:03
  We were in that final...
• 28:06
  three for the ride and what went against us was the the shell sponsorship because toyota had castrol um so it was always something that i really enjoyed like i came for go-karts with pavement race and with fari and um got to drive for factory teams and uh a race against a lot of good races and yeah
• 28:27
  made it on the world scene, um, in, in circuit racing, but was later on, I got to do a, uh, test for, um, Bob, Bobby Pearson, um, in his, uh, product, product, at Emmeroo park.
• 28:47
  Um, I then turned around, uh, then the next step was the, uh, with, with Graham Moore, um,
• 28:56
  In between that, I got to go and do a test with Ian Thomas in a NASCAR at the Thunderdome.
• 29:04
  And you just talked about how things are different.
• 29:06
  Just quickly, Ian put me in the car.
• 29:11
  on the floor.
• 29:12
  I held onto the roll cage.
• 29:14
  He says, we'll go around.
• 29:16
  And when I, you'll see where I lift and where I turn in.
• 29:20
  So every time I'd watch his feet and his hands, I'd look up and look at the fence to see what the marker was.
• 29:25
  So I got to do that test.
• 29:27
  Um, but then, yeah, the legends of motorsport with the go-karts came up that, uh, Cromper Cropley and, uh, Wayne Gardner ran at the entertainment center.
• 29:37
  And we got to win that.
• 29:39
  And then, uh,
• 29:41
  I don't know if GM had had, Graham Moore had had any intentions of putting us in a car prior to that, but it was not long after that that I got to do the two-liter touring car with GM.
• 29:55
  Peter Molley was the crew chief or engineer, whatever you want to call him these days.
• 30:00
  Had some great people there, but always different worlds.
• 30:05
  I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• 30:07
  Yeah.
• 30:09
  Um, we had the car, we didn't have a shift lot.
• 30:12
  We had the, didn't have the shift light to tell you what gear it was in and a sequential box.
• 30:16
  You used to have to sit there and count where you were shifting gears and, uh, column shift too, wasn't it?
• 30:22
  Was it a column shift?
• 30:22
  Yeah.
• 30:23
  Yeah.
• 30:23
  Yeah.
• 30:24
  And, um, we turned around and, uh, rem malala the first weekend.
• 30:31
  And then the second race, we were at Winton, and it had been raining for, like, all week.
• 30:39
  And I'm like, are we going out for practice?
• 30:43
  And they're like, well, you know, we've only got one set of wets.
• 30:47
  And GM's like, don't worry, mate, it's going to dry out.
• 30:49
  There's no point going out there.
• 30:50
  I'm like...
• 30:52
  I don't even know which way this racetrack goes.
• 30:55
  And it dried up.
• 30:56
  We went out there and we're running around.
• 30:58
  And I wasn't, we weren't very good.
• 31:03
  And it came to qualifying.
• 31:05
  And Jim Richards had the sister car.
• 31:09
  He had the sister car to us.
• 31:12
  And Jim was like in the top four and we're, I don't know, 12th, 13th, whatever we were.
• 31:18
  We weren't good.
• 31:20
  And it was more that the time frame were off the pace, not the position.
• 31:24
  And we went back to the hotel we're standing at.
• 31:27
  We're sitting there.
• 31:28
  And I'll forget, I'll be at a different hotel than the rest of the team because they'd
• 31:34
  It was the only way they got me in a hotel room.
• 31:36
  And we were sitting there and I'm in the car with Peter Malloy and GM's gone to get my room key.
• 31:43
  And Molly's looks at me and says, how many gears are you coming back at turn whatever?
• 31:49
  And I'm now having to sit there and I've got the head going, the hands going, doing my counting back and forth.
• 31:55
  I said, I'm in third gear.
• 31:57
  Molly's there, he yells at me, there's no way you dumbass can be in third gear.
• 32:02
  I said, well, I don't know what vintage you went and did math in, but five minus two is three.
• 32:08
  That's how many gears I'm coming back.
• 32:11
  And I said, I'm running out of speed.
• 32:14
  I don't have enough speed at the end of the straight.
• 32:16
  We're gear bound.
• 32:18
  There's no way you're gear bound because you can't be doing this.
• 32:21
  And we just went through it.
• 32:22
  And I'm like, oh, this is probably not good.
• 32:27
  So we then turned around and I'd gone to the room.
• 32:30
  I rang my dad.
• 32:31
  I said, hey, don't worry about coming tomorrow.
• 32:34
  I think I'm going to get fired tonight.
• 32:36
  I said, I just had an argument with Molly.
• 32:39
  And dad's like, oh, really?
• 32:42
  You got into it with Molly already?
• 32:44
  Really?
• 32:45
  And I then get a phone call, and it's from GM.
• 32:50
  And Graham rings me and says, hey, bud, what's happening?
• 32:53
  And I said, hey, mate, I'm apologizing.
• 32:56
  Sorry, I shouldn't have got into it with him.
• 32:58
  I shouldn't have told him.
• 32:59
  He was old and couldn't count and everything else.
• 33:02
  And GM said, so it's true?
• 33:04
  I said, yeah, bud, if you've got to find me, I understand it.
• 33:06
  And he says, hell, no.
• 33:08
  You've got a spare bed in your room.
• 33:10
  I'm sending a text down to stay in your room.
• 33:12
  He said, because you've just become a legend with these guys that someone stood up to Bolly.
• 33:16
  And he said, I'm coming down to get you for dinner.
• 33:20
  And I went down there and we sat there and Pete was not going to let it go.
• 33:26
  He was going to prove to me that I was wrong.
• 33:28
  And we went through and the next day the boys went, hey, why don't we run up to tell we've got the in-car camera?
• 33:35
  And they watched.
• 33:36
  And here I am.
• 33:39
  One, two, three, four, five, six.
• 33:44
  Well, there's no seventh gear in this thing, but I tried for seventh and eighth trying to find another gear.
• 33:48
  So I was actually correct.
• 33:51
  And I can't remember the car chief's name, but I was sitting on the grid and he said, Brooke, you love racing.
• 34:00
  this is not your style of racing.
• 34:01
  What are you trying to do?
• 34:03
  Go try this like a damn sprint car.
• 34:05
  Let the ass slide around.
• 34:07
  Throw it around.
• 34:08
  Be aggressive.
• 34:09
  Stop trying to be so smooth.
• 34:11
  He said, just get after it.
• 34:12
  He said, all I want to do, but you make sure you come back and you've got a smile on your face.
• 34:18
  I've gone out in that practice and we were a rocket ship.
• 34:20
  We were fast.
• 34:21
  We were back.
• 34:22
  We would have qualified up the front.
• 34:24
  Everything was good.
• 34:25
  And I've got tires that have got like 500 laps on them.
• 34:28
  And, um, they're just like, and I went way faster than that with, than I did in qualified.
• 34:33
  So now we're all happy again.
• 34:34
  And, uh, that race we had, um, we'd had a battle with, uh,
• 34:39
  Added in, uh, the, like the Peugeots, the BMW and, and, and Brockie and, um, uh, yeah.
• 34:49
  Yep.
• 34:49
  And, uh, I got wide gone.
• 34:53
  I was got shuffled out with, uh, added and got into me.
• 34:57
  I got into Brock and punted it Brock off sideways and I got onto the dirt and it actually broke an oil cooler line.
• 35:04
  or had a crack in it and the motor ended up seizing up.
• 35:08
  We'd had a good run that day and unfortunately the motor seized up.
• 35:12
  GM didn't have any sponsorship.
• 35:13
  He was doing it out of his own pocket and that was the end of it.
• 35:17
  The car got sold.
• 35:18
  So was it a serious thing that we were going to divert to that way?
• 35:23
  Yeah, I was serious that I was prepared to put Speedway on hold to go and do that thing.
• 35:29
  Wow.
• 35:30
  So that would have been, you know, like –
• 35:33
  more time perhaps towards maybe supercars and, and, and Bathurst and so on.
• 35:37
  But that, that, that was certainly something on your radar.
• 35:40
  Oh yeah.
• 35:40
  Yeah.
• 35:40
  Look, I, like you remember, I'd done the, I came through circuit racing.
• 35:44
  I love circuit racing.
• 35:45
  I still love circuit racing.
• 35:47
  Every year I'd go to Bunbury with crickies.
• 35:50
  Um, I'd go and see the guys and go the Bunbury go-kart track.
• 35:54
  And, uh, where Garth Tandy used to race and Shane used to race.
• 35:57
  And they'd give me a cart and they'd fill it up with fuel.
• 36:00
  And I'd go out there and run this thing till it ran out of fuel.
• 36:03
  They'd come back in.
• 36:04
  I'm like, how long we got to wait for this thing to fill till it cools down and fills it back up.
• 36:08
  They fill the tank up and I'd go back out and I just go out there on my own all day long.
• 36:13
  I just loved it.
• 36:14
  But, but,
• 36:14
  Yeah, the road racing was something that I took serious and wanted to have a crack at and looked at pursuing.
• 36:23
  But, you know, always thought that I can always come back to Speedway.
• 36:27
  But it just didn't eventuate.
• 36:30
  But I was blessed to at least had the opportunity to do it.
• 36:33
  The Bathurst, not getting to do Bathurst was something that I really regret never getting the chance to do.
• 36:41
  No regrets because you did some amazing things in the United States.
• 36:44
  You've covered the sacrifice already.
• 36:47
  I'd love to expand a little bit on that.
• 36:49
  You said at one point there, I think you slept in a car and things were just real touch and go, were they to begin with.
• 36:55
  pontiac grand am i used to uh turn around and you could park at walmart's sleep sleep there i remember jumping from i'd actually turn around and i'd go to a hotel and i didn't couldn't afford to stay in a hotel um i was trying to prove that i could make it on my own and i had to other people or to yourself
• 37:19
  To myself, to my dad.
• 37:23
  My dad was my biggest supporter, but he was always going to make sure, if you want this dream, you've got to earn it.
• 37:28
  It's not going to be handed to you.
• 37:32
  And I'd park at a hotel, catch a shuttle bus to a Greyhound bus stop,
• 37:41
  get to a bus stop, catch a bus to whatever state I was going to race in, then turn around, I'd get my bags, I would figure out how I was getting to the closest airport near a racetrack, and I'd sit at that airport and wait till I saw someone come down to the conveyor belt with a sprint car shirt on and go over there, pretend I'm getting my bags, start talking about sprint car racing, see if they'll go into the races that night to see if I could get a lift with them to get to a racetrack.
• 38:06
  And, uh...
• 38:07
  So, yeah, look, it was tough.
• 38:10
  I live for Tuesdays because on Tuesdays it was $1 meal at McDonald's, so I could eat three meals that day.
• 38:18
  Crazy, mate.
• 38:19
  Crazy.
• 38:20
  But it's all part of the learning and, yeah, maybe questioning yourself how bad you want it.
• 38:26
  But, yeah, no, like, yeah, look, trying to go ride to ride, I mean,
• 38:32
  It was a lot of times you'd be traveling and I'd work for a pit pass just to keep going the next thing.
• 38:42
  It was an era where you would wake up and it goes back to early days with...
• 38:52
  I wasn't as talented as Gary Brazier, so I drove, pushed harder in many aspects.
• 38:58
  Doug Wolfgang once said to me, Wolfgang would be out running at Knoxville in 100 degree heat.
• 39:02
  And I said, hey, Steve and Sammy are still in their motorhomes.
• 39:05
  How come you're out running and working?
• 39:06
  So he says, I'm going to have an edge over those guys.
• 39:10
  I may not be as good as them as a race car driver.
• 39:12
  I'm going to have the edge in my physical fitness as my edge.
• 39:15
  And I took that to heart and I used to get up and go running and
• 39:22
  you'd get up running in the morning, you'd run past the hotel room and you'd be looking along there to see if there was a driver's seat outside the door because there was times where there was a driver in bed
• 39:35
  And his seat and helmet bag left outside his hotel room and his truck had left.
• 39:39
  So you knew which – you're like an ambulance chaser.
• 39:42
  You were chasing that race rig trying to find out who the next driver was.
• 39:45
  Can I get in there?
• 39:46
  Yeah, yeah.
• 39:47
  So, I mean, others had tried – other Australians, Australians have been generally so well respected there.
• 39:54
  Others had tried the path.
• 39:55
  But you break through the ceiling, mate, to have success in Outlaws, to do that stuff with all that sacrifice in the background.
• 40:07
  Yes, the Cricky Boys win is a special one for you.
• 40:11
  But to do that, to be the Aussie that gets that first marker, that's amazing, mate.
• 40:19
  We did it with a...
• 40:21
  Thomas the Tank.
• 40:22
  It was, I think I can, I think I can race team.
• 40:25
  It was, uh, Myron Powerpour Racing, Court and Sarah Grandstaff, um,
• 40:30
  We had two complete cars and motors.
• 40:33
  The spare car was pulled apart, and that was our spares.
• 40:36
  And I was fortunate enough to drive for Court.
• 40:39
  It looked like a big operation.
• 40:40
  We filled up 66 sponsorship and all the things that they did, but it was just basically a small team.
• 40:49
  Again, Court and I were the crew chief.
• 40:52
  We worked together.
• 40:53
  And to what was so cool about that first outlaw win,
• 40:58
  Not the fact that an Australian did it, but what was so cool was I passed one of my mentors on the very final corner to win the Fitch Race.
• 41:08
  I drove around the outside of Sammy on the last corner to win that race.
• 41:12
  And what was like, dad had just got to America a couple of days earlier.
• 41:17
  So dad got to be a part of it with us.
• 41:20
  Just so cool.
• 41:20
  And I just, I just relived this story the other night and it was sitting there.
• 41:28
  And I get a phone call from Wade Orcher.
• 41:30
  And I said, I said, and congratulations, how awesome is this and how awesome is that?
• 41:34
  And I turned around and said, I didn't even get a damn trophy.
• 41:40
  And, uh, Wade said, you just want all of Outlaw's show and you're worried about a damn trophy.
• 41:45
  Is that what would make this perfect if you had a trophy?
• 41:48
  And I turned around and said, no, what would make it perfect?
• 41:52
  is if I got a phone call from Gary Rush to tell me he was proud of me.
• 41:56
  And five minutes later, that phone was ringing in the hotel room.
• 42:00
  It was Gary Rush ringing to call and tell me congratulations and how proud of me he was.
• 42:05
  Because he knew how tough it was.
• 42:07
  I mean, a lot of people don't realize that Max was nearly the first...
• 42:12
  full-time, what of Outlaws driver, he got the ride in the Hamilton motorsports car after Stevie Smith, but the business commitments took him back home.
• 42:24
  But yeah, to end up with a small operation and then to get the opportunity to do the Outlaw deal with the Rush Racing, and I owe a lot of thanks to me getting that ride to Peter Murphy.
• 42:37
  Yeah.
• 42:39
  Peter Murphy was the guy that threw my name in the hat for that ride There's so many things here I'm conscious it's probably dinner time there So if I've held you up, I'm so, so sorry No, we're good, mate Cool Can I come to Amy on that basis then?
• 42:52
  Your lovely wife Massive supporter of yours Benny Bishop says for me to ask you Did marrying an American girl change your career path?
• 43:03
  Not marrying an American girl.
• 43:05
  Well, it changed my path of where I live.
• 43:09
  Uh, cause there's no damn way I would want to live in Minnesota.
• 43:14
  The only white stuff I want to see is sand.
• 43:16
  I tell Amy every year, if you ever question how much I love you, I live in this frozen tundra during winter.
• 43:23
  And I refuse.
• 43:25
  I'm ignorant.
• 43:26
  You talk about pig headers.
• 43:27
  I refuse to buy snow gear.
• 43:29
  I refuse.
• 43:30
  Because we were always getting on the plane going back to Australia.
• 43:33
  And then I refused to buy snow gear because that meant that I was conceding that I was going to live here.
• 43:38
  Well, COVID hit and I had to buy bloody snow gear.
• 43:41
  So, but yeah, no, look, it's,
• 43:45
  You talk about when I changed as a driver earlier and it was I'd found peace within myself.
• 43:52
  I'd got that Australian title.
• 43:56
  I was with the love of my life, a person that is so much like my dad.
• 44:01
  She's my biggest supporter and my harshest critic.
• 44:04
  Um, the sacrifices, like she was a, um, a world's triathlete.
• 44:10
  So I used to took, so that's where, like when we're on the outlaw deal, she was trained for triathlon.
• 44:16
  So I do the, I do the training with her, um, you know, and a lot of it, but yeah, no, it's just, uh, I've been so blessed with her.
• 44:24
  Like she just, it didn't change the career path.
• 44:27
  Um, it certainly changed where we lived.
• 44:29
  If my dad was alive, would we have.
• 44:32
  move back to Australia.
• 44:33
  Yeah, because he could sell ice to Eskimos and he could convince her that we're moving back to Australia and she'd be like, all right, George, we're on a plane.
• 44:41
  Just a little footnote to this story on Amy too, mate, for circuit racing people and people that perhaps follow rallying and so on.
• 44:48
  It's worth noting that she's from a proper racing family, you know, Hall of Fame.
• 44:54
  I mean, this is in every sense, not just your own family in Australia and the history we've spoken about there, but you are literally surrounded or immersed in this, aren't you?
• 45:04
  Yeah, like her dad was in just about every Hall of Fame over here, was the second ever Knoxville Nationals winner.
• 45:13
  He's a four-time INCA champion.
• 45:17
  Yeah.
• 45:20
  Just, she grew up around it.
• 45:22
  And like we talk about it, and it's funny because I can come up and I can YouTube and stuff will come up of old racing stuff.
• 45:29
  And this is what I love about it.
• 45:31
  Australia, we're still passionate.
• 45:32
  We put up the old video clips and I can see my dad racing.
• 45:36
  There's video stuff I see of the show around.
• 45:38
  Yeah.
• 45:39
  And because Australia was so far advanced in TV and having races on TV, we don't find a lot of stuff of her dab.
• 45:51
  But yeah, she definitely came from a royalty family in Speedway in America.
• 45:58
  Most definitely.
• 45:59
  You talked about the perhaps more underpowered Aussie cars when you first started and how good that grounding was and so on.
• 46:10
  Just a thought on when you first sort of stepped into the American cars, perhaps how different they were.
• 46:16
  And even in the time of your career in the States there, just the evolution of sprint cars and where they are today.
• 46:25
  Oh, back then you actually got to have a choice on tires, different brands, different compounds.
• 46:31
  Like I came over here.
• 46:32
  Yeah.
• 46:34
  I remember I-96 that very first night and I'm like, all right, you just go out there and you hold a light open.
• 46:39
  And I'm like,
• 46:40
  holy crap, it's fast.
• 46:44
  And it's like, so again, when I burnt the tires off the damn thing, cause I didn't know what rubber rubber down racetracks meant, but, um, no, look, they was, they were quick.
• 46:53
  But if you sit there and look at what I raced in 1991, when I first came here, um, horsepower wise for a four 10, that's probably what the three sixties are putting out today over here.
• 47:06
  Um, yeah.
• 47:06
  It's just ridiculous how far we've gone.
• 47:09
  It's got to a point now where a lot of guys are detuning motors because we've got so much horsepower.
• 47:18
  The big thing now, 99% of your...
• 47:23
  racing advantages come through shock technology.
• 47:30
  Go back to being my own crew chief.
• 47:32
  There's a shock dyno out there that I wear out, dynoing shocks, trying different things, trying to figure out how this and how that and why it does this and why it does that.
• 47:42
  And the numbers can confuse you so much.
• 47:44
  There's a point some days where you just got to go, sit down, shut up, drive it.
• 47:50
  Because the evolution of shock technology, torsion bar testers, ride heights.
• 47:55
  When I, like when we started, you bought the shock off the shelf and that's what you got.
• 48:01
  The box said it was good.
• 48:04
  Now you buy that same shock, you put it on your shock, you're getting it revalved, you're redoing stuff.
• 48:10
  But it's not just the horsepower.
• 48:12
  It's refinement in the cars.
• 48:13
  It's the acceleration factor, what Lytton Jeffries did with changing the wing game over here with his input and working with guys like Donnie Schultz and Ricky Warner.
• 48:29
  Yeah, there's so much into that.
• 48:30
  They keep trying to slow us down, put rules in it to take the innovation away, but...
• 48:38
  The guys out there working are smarter than the guys writing the rule books.
• 49:04
  you let it get to you too much, maybe without knowing at the time, but sitting here and talking about it now, I probably think, you know, I expected myself to win every race and that's just not going to happen.
• 49:14
  So you try too hard, you crash or you make too many mistakes.
• 49:17
  And the older I've gotten, the more I've learned, I just race at 70 or 80% now because then I can keep that 20% in reserve and
• 49:26
  What he's achieved, especially in the US, is something to really admire.
• 49:30
  And Brooke Tattnall has been a huge source of inspiration for drivers like Jay Mack and that next wave of Aussie stars trying to make it in America.
• 49:39
  You've mentioned Pete Murphy, Skip Jackson, Wade Oranger, who does an amazing job on the commentary on both sides of the pond.
• 49:47
  Can we spend a moment, because he talked about it in his feature episode on James McFadden, and you're very proud of him, mate, aren't you?
• 49:55
  Yeah, I am.
• 49:58
  Don't get the beard thing, but whatever.
• 50:00
  You want to be Ned Kelly, be Ned Kelly.
• 50:04
  No, I am.
• 50:06
  I've had a very good rapport with James.
• 50:09
  James's mum actually used to do book work for my dad back in Sydney.
• 50:14
  But, and I knew Dave, like, I didn't know Dave.
• 50:18
  All I knew about Dave McFadden was, God, that guy was fast, but boy, did he crash a lot.
• 50:23
  That was my introduction to Dave McFadden was watching him come back on a, on a wrecker.
• 50:28
  But yeah, no, I'm, I'm proud of the affiliation and the respect.
• 50:34
  We race for wins.
• 50:35
  We race for ego.
• 50:36
  We race for the love.
• 50:37
  Yeah.
• 50:39
  But at the end of the day, we race for each other's respect.
• 50:43
  That's why I think Hall of Fame is so important.
• 50:46
  At the end of the day, that's the highest accolade you can ever get, is that you're being respected by your peers.
• 50:51
  And I've been very fortunate with James.
• 50:54
  I've been able to guide him a little bit, give him some advice.
• 50:58
  Yeah.
• 51:00
  There's times where it's been on the flip side.
• 51:03
  I've been down and out, questioning no crew chief.
• 51:06
  Like, I've had a crew chief since 2006.
• 51:09
  I've had to do it on my own.
• 51:12
  And so trying to be it all, and with the evolution, the tyre's changing.
• 51:16
  Every time that Hoosier brings out a different tyre or the new batch of tyres, they're different to the old one.
• 51:22
  And if you're not racing 60, 70 times a year, it's hard to stay on top.
• 51:26
  So then I've had to push on James.
• 51:29
  to get information from him.
• 51:32
  But yeah, no, I'm very proud of the relationship we have.
• 51:34
  I'm very proud of what he's achieved.
• 51:37
  I'm very proud of, you know, what all Australians do, but you know, to have a very small part of communication with James is something I'm really proud of.
• 51:45
  Have we got good stock coming through?
• 51:46
  I mean, we've seen Jock Goodyear and, and, and others.
• 51:49
  Have we got, have we got enough talent coming through?
• 51:51
  Do you think that that would, that would,
• 51:53
  perhaps follow in your footsteps and do what you've done?
• 51:55
  Yeah, we have the talent.
• 51:57
  We definitely have the talent there.
• 51:59
  There's a part where they haven't been groomed on the media side to make themselves household names.
• 52:10
  That's something that we're lacking.
• 52:11
  That's something that I know Wade and Speedway Australia, when we were running World Series, used to do.
• 52:17
  They used to try and bring their kids in.
• 52:19
  I know they do it with their –
• 52:22
  golden star, young star thing that they take to the Institute of Sport.
• 52:26
  We need more of that.
• 52:27
  We've got the talent on the racetrack.
• 52:30
  We've just got to get that marketing side.
• 52:33
  And I think people aren't working hard enough
• 52:36
  on the marketing side, let's face it, everything you do is, there's so much, for a small country of population, there's so much entertainment things to do.
• 52:46
  So you've really got to drum it up and build names.
• 52:49
  And I don't think we had the names.
• 52:51
  We had the stock of ability and stock of talent.
• 52:54
  Jai Corbett's another young kid that is over here racing, doing a good job.
• 53:00
  But it's also coming to a point now where it's a dollars and cents world.
• 53:06
  The last three of the last four rides that I've lost, I've been bored out by someone bringing sponsorship money.
• 53:14
  And that will be...
• 53:17
  these younger talents, that'll be the hindrance.
• 53:20
  We're getting, it's more what you used to hear about when you talked about the Mark Webbers and guys going to Europe to chase European dreams of road racing.
• 53:31
  They had the talent, they just didn't have the financial backing and I think that's where, unfortunately, where it's headed over here too.
• 53:38
  Is there unfinished business for you?
• 53:40
  Is the eye of the tiger still there?
• 53:42
  I sense from this conversation, mate, that there's,
• 53:45
  there's things that you would still like to do, perhaps on both sides for that matter, not just in America.
• 53:51
  And I ask that in a little bit of a loaded sense, Brooke, because I know lots of Australian fans listening to this would love to acknowledge what you've done and to see you come back down under and do some running down there that allows you and them to do that.
• 54:10
  Yeah, look, COVID totally changed everything.
• 54:13
  It changed everything on the planet for us.
• 54:17
  I have frequent conversations with Kerry Madsen, how it's changed.
• 54:23
  The cost of racing over there is out of control.
• 54:26
  My last campaign, when I went back there to drive for Sean and Andrew Dobson, we struggled with a car.
• 54:34
  We could not get this.
• 54:35
  We put a brand new car together, and all of a sudden, the light switch went off, and everything's great.
• 54:39
  unfortunately we junked it that night at the classic and so the last campaign really just didn't was a bad deal for us the talk about motor programs motor programs that program was built around sean sean's race team i didn't like the motor program not that they were bad motors they just didn't suit my driving style so yeah there's a lot of unfinished business in australia um the opportunities are getting smaller and smaller it's even getting harder and harder now that
• 55:08
  Like I said, we just lost another ride this season because of another driver bringing sponsorship to...
• 55:15
  So that cuts me from probably 60 races a year to right now, I've got 15 races lined up for this year and that's it.
• 55:23
  Mates are tough to stay on top of the game, especially, again, I've got to be my own crew chief.
• 55:27
  But look, I haven't...
• 55:29
  I've got the desire.
• 55:31
  I've got the passion.
• 55:32
  Nothing has changed.
• 55:33
  Last year we went through... Last year was a hard part.
• 55:36
  We...
• 55:38
  I think we got in a five-week span.
• 55:40
  I think I had three concussions.
• 55:43
  Probably took me until that happened in May or June.
• 55:50
  We got into a wreck at Ogley at an outlaw show.
• 55:54
  We'd caught fire early in the night, so we had to run the BMA and came from the back.
• 55:58
  We were up to, I think, seventh going forward.
• 56:03
  Got involved in a wreck upside down, and a guy's wheel came out.
• 56:06
  When I was on its side, the wheel came in and got me in the head.
• 56:11
  I didn't realize anything was wrong with me.
• 56:15
  And then things were worse.
• 56:18
  I then started weeks later realizing, hey, I'm not good.
• 56:24
  And it took me until probably, I would say, February to fully recover from it.
• 56:31
  And every time I'd keep trying to jump back in the race car, it just...
• 56:35
  My eyes couldn't keep up with my brain.
• 56:38
  I knew what I wanted to do.
• 56:40
  I knew what I was looking at, but I just couldn't make it happen.
• 56:42
  And it took a fair bit.
• 56:45
  So the first race I did this year, I went into that going, this is make or break.
• 56:49
  This is going to tell me if I can still drive a race car and do it with the capacity and the potential to win races.
• 56:56
  Because I don't want to just be a fuel filler.
• 56:58
  I'm not interested in that.
• 57:00
  I know what we're capable of.
• 57:01
  And that night I turned around and went,
• 57:04
  I can drive a race car.
• 57:05
  It's just, you know, and everything was back to normal.
• 57:09
  But I lost all of last season.
• 57:12
  And it was hard because I know I've raced over the years with concussions and
• 57:17
  Um, it was just that we took a couple of hits straight up, but that with the wheel in the head was the one that got to us.
• 57:24
  And, uh, Donnie shots his nieces, the Eisenshanks were one of the girls had just got a concussion.
• 57:30
  I was talking to Deanne, their mom, and I'm like, don't let these kids get back in the race car.
• 57:34
  Don't let them be as dumb as their uncle and as dumb as us older guys.
• 57:39
  We know more today.
• 57:41
  And it wasn't until I spoke to a therapist, um, um,
• 57:45
  And we were sitting in and she said, well, when did you start to notice you had changed?
• 57:49
  I said, I haven't.
• 57:51
  And Garrett piped up and said, three years ago when you crashed it, you sits at that big wreck.
• 57:57
  That's when dad started to get mad and grumpy.
• 58:00
  And it then took me back to go, hey, I've got to have a look at this thing and...
• 58:06
  Yeah, maybe try to be smarter because what am I teaching these kids?
• 58:11
  I raced hurt with broken backs, broken bones, crutches, all that broken hands.
• 58:18
  I did it because that's what my dad did.
• 58:21
  That's what that generation did.
• 58:23
  Did.
• 58:24
  And I wanted to prove that I could make it in that generation.
• 58:27
  It was never necessarily about being smart, but...
• 58:31
  Once again, I can get solar track, but no, I've got a lot of unfinished business.
• 58:35
  I want to come back to Australia.
• 58:38
  I'm actively trying to search for sponsorship right now.
• 58:41
  I'm actually searching for rides.
• 58:43
  I actually have spoken to Wade.
• 58:47
  at the cost of racing and what it costs for us to come over there as a, cause I, I, I won't go racing without my family, my family are a big part of them.
• 58:56
  That's why all the years for Cricky, you know, we made a lot of money with Crickys.
• 59:01
  Um, but I spent a lot of money bringing the family to do that whole trip.
• 59:04
  And that's what builds that bond.
• 59:06
  That's what drove me.
• 59:07
  That's what made me a better racer.
• 59:10
  And, but I'd like to certainly come back.
• 59:12
  Whether it's a thanks for the memories tour.
• 59:16
  Hmm.
• 59:17
  that's going to win damn races.
• 59:18
  I keep telling McFadden, I'm going to drive his car and he's going to crew chief for me.
• 59:24
  I've said that.
• 59:26
  But there's certain things, like if I go to Sydney...
• 59:29
  I want to drive Steve Brazy as number 58.
• 59:33
  I want to drive for Brazy one night and have steamer crew chief for me, have Alan Felsch.
• 59:41
  Yeah, I want to get back to where I can race with Pete Caporn, my crew chief from the Cricky Days.
• 59:48
  He's another guy that could bring something out of me as a race car driver because of the trust and respect that.
• 59:55
  where Ray Scott hired me.
• 59:57
  He said, I can hire you to drive my race car.
• 1:00:00
  I can give you everything.
• 1:00:01
  But if you don't have the crew chief that believes in you, it's a waste of time.
• 1:00:05
  And he flew Pete Cape Horn in for me.
• 1:00:07
  So, yeah, I still want to get back there.
• 1:00:09
  I also know that I still want to get back there because –
• 1:00:12
  It's probably not going to be that many more years and I'm going to be getting on a plane and maybe I'll be carrying some young kid's helmet bag if he gets to live his dreams.
• 1:00:23
  Let's make that happen.
• 1:00:25
  Love to see you back down under and doing more racing in the States.
• 1:00:28
  And don't take this the wrong way, mate, but I'm proud of what you just said there about...
• 1:00:32
  realizing you needed to do something and the example that shows the young kids around recovery from that injury and I'm pleased that it has resolved itself because it is a brutal game.
• 1:00:44
  And I know you told Stu McCarthy about a fire I think at Knoxville in 2018 and Skip Jackson didn't want to let you in the car and stuff like that.
• 1:00:54
  So just that mentality of –
• 1:00:57
  how they would have done it back in the day in your dad's era, and then also realising what we need to do now.
• 1:01:03
  Particularly, because I want to come to Garrett, right?
• 1:01:05
  This is a nice way to wrap this chat up.
• 1:01:08
  This is a generational story now, mate.
• 1:01:11
  So tell us about...
• 1:01:12
  your son.
• 1:01:14
  I love the fact that the GT acronym gets kept.
• 1:01:16
  I think that's super cool.
• 1:01:18
  Just tell us a bit more about how he's going and where it's headed.
• 1:01:22
  Look, the GT acronym came about is I wanted to carry on my dad's initials.
• 1:01:28
  And I said, we're not having a junior.
• 1:01:31
  I can't stand these junior things.
• 1:01:33
  I'm like, that Joe's the parrot hasn't got any intuition to come up with a name.
• 1:01:37
  And I laughed because...
• 1:01:39
  Amy's dad's Jerry Richard Sr. My brother's Jerry Richard Jr.
• 1:01:42
  So I get a lot of grief for that statement.
• 1:01:46
  And we looked at different names.
• 1:01:47
  And Amy won a grant.
• 1:01:49
  And we came up with Garrett.
• 1:01:51
  So I'm very, very fortunate.
• 1:01:53
  Like, I've got two great kids.
• 1:01:55
  Like, my daughter, Emma, was into horses.
• 1:01:59
  And she dabbled with the go-karts.
• 1:02:01
  But, I mean, she's probably the one that if she would have drove a go-kart.
• 1:02:04
  She followed racing.
• 1:02:05
  Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  There's the intensity that would have made Brooke Tattnell look like he didn't care because her intensity is ridiculous.
• 1:02:13
  But she probably would have killed herself and someone else because she doesn't know when to lift.
• 1:02:19
  But no, I'm lucky with him.
• 1:02:21
  Look, I've always said that I don't care if my kids follow motor racing or want to get into motor racing.
• 1:02:27
  For him, though, like he went racing with me.
• 1:02:30
  Amy and Emma would be off with the horses.
• 1:02:32
  Garrett and I would be in the truck on the road to Knoxville.
• 1:02:35
  And there was a lot of races that I was taking him at five years old.
• 1:02:39
  And...
• 1:02:40
  He couldn't even drive them, couldn't even see over the mule, but he was my only crew guy.
• 1:02:45
  So we borrowed crew guys to drive the mule to push me on the racetrack.
• 1:02:48
  But when I come back to the pits, he's this little five-year-old with his tire gauge and he's in there.
• 1:02:52
  And, you know, so he's had, he's done a lot of it.
• 1:02:55
  It's where I come back to, he's worked on it his whole life.
• 1:02:59
  I think he was seven, eight years old and I had a car in a roomie.
• 1:03:04
  What are you doing?
• 1:03:04
  What?
• 1:03:05
  I was just teaching Garrett to run the valves.
• 1:03:07
  And he says, what?
• 1:03:07
  I said, teaching Garrett to run the valves.
• 1:03:09
  He said, on what?
• 1:03:10
  I said, your motor.
• 1:03:12
  He's like, I've got a seven-year-old kid working on my $60,000 motor.
• 1:03:17
  I said, yeah, it'll be all right.
• 1:03:18
  But no, very fortunate he's...
• 1:03:22
  Very, very calculated.
• 1:03:24
  And like all these kids these days, they've all watched YouTube.
• 1:03:27
  They've all done iRacing.
• 1:03:28
  They, they study it.
• 1:03:30
  Um, and he's got the mechanical knowledge.
• 1:03:34
  I will never, ever let him go racing where he has got to be his own crew chief.
• 1:03:39
  He does with the go-kart a little bit.
• 1:03:41
  Um, he started with the go-karts and.
• 1:03:45
  He's never had new stuff.
• 1:03:48
  We've always taken older stuff, made it look brand new because that came from the marketing side of things.
• 1:03:55
  But I always looked at it, even though I said I don't care if my kids go racing, I've groomed him and trained him a little bit.
• 1:04:02
  So when he gets into good equipment,
• 1:04:04
  he's going to go, wow, this is easier, but I know how to adapt.
• 1:04:08
  Um, but yeah, no, he's, uh, what, 14 years old now.
• 1:04:12
  Um, we've done six years in go-karts.
• 1:04:16
  Uh, he's, he's one of the biggest race.
• 1:04:18
  He can win a go-kart.
• 1:04:19
  The, the max daddy got fortunate to, to win that.
• 1:04:23
  Um,
• 1:04:24
  as I was jumping on a private plane to Todd Creering's private plane to get to a racetrack and we're sitting on my race pass trying to watch it and he's going forward and back and forward and back and forward and back.
• 1:04:36
  I'm not a very good spectator.
• 1:04:37
  I'm absolutely shit.
• 1:04:41
  I pace, but we put a sprint car together.
• 1:04:45
  It's a limited sprint car.
• 1:04:47
  It's an LS sprint car.
• 1:04:49
  They're probably 450 horsepower.
• 1:04:52
  He's just started to have a run in that.
• 1:04:54
  He's just had his eighth race meeting, and on his seventh race meeting, he just won his first feature race.
• 1:05:01
  So he's had two.
• 1:05:03
  Out of eight races, he's had two wins.
• 1:05:04
  He's leading points right now, which...
• 1:05:07
  is creating issues.
• 1:05:08
  We've got my daughter's graduation party this weekend.
• 1:05:11
  He's like, we're going racing, aren't we?
• 1:05:12
  I've got to go.
• 1:05:13
  I'm playing points.
• 1:05:14
  We've got to go racing.
• 1:05:14
  But no, I'm proud of the work ethic.
• 1:05:21
  His first win, I will sit there and tell you, I will trade any feature race that I've ever won, including my World of Outlaws wins and my Australian title.
• 1:05:31
  won't give me none of those races could give me the same satisfaction of what I got to witness was him watching him winning his first ever race um look I'm not that dad I'm not the one that's out there gonna tell you he's the best in the world but he's got as much natural talent as Gary Brazier that's what I will tell you um and he's got the ability he works hard for it he has to work hard he
• 1:05:58
  I come back to him being a bit more like my dad.
• 1:06:01
  He's got to chase his own sponsor.
• 1:06:02
  He's got to work that side of things.
• 1:06:04
  He's got to do all the maintenance on the race car.
• 1:06:08
  Where it goes from here, we've worked off a basic four-year plan.
• 1:06:14
  I got a four year, four year plan for him.
• 1:06:17
  Um, after that, it's, I'm sorry, kid, I'm out of money.
• 1:06:22
  Uh, that's what it boils down to.
• 1:06:23
  So it's, it's up to you to keep going.
• 1:06:26
  Um, but yeah, no, very, very, I love it.
• 1:06:28
  I, I love going racing.
• 1:06:29
  A lot of people think I'm not racing this year because his racing's taking over and it's not the case.
• 1:06:34
  It's a,
• 1:06:35
  Um, so no, I just don't have the rides, but yeah, no, very, very, very proud of both kids, but very, very proud at the way he goes about it.
• 1:06:44
  Unfortunately, I sit back and go, Oh God, where'd you learn that from kid?
• 1:06:49
  And it's the intensity that you got this kid.
• 1:06:53
  Yeah.
• 1:06:53
  You having fun?
• 1:06:55
  I'm not here for fun.
• 1:06:56
  And I'm sitting there looking at a mirror.
• 1:06:58
  Um, yeah.
• 1:07:00
  Wade Oranger pointed out.
• 1:07:01
  It's coming back to get you.
• 1:07:04
  It really is.
• 1:07:06
  Wade Oranger pointed out, hey, Brooke, have a look at this photo.
• 1:07:10
  And I looked at it, and he's like, he even stands like you.
• 1:07:14
  He understands the rule book like I understood the rule book.
• 1:07:17
  He reads rule books to understand every niche and crook and cranny of how that works.
• 1:07:25
  But, yeah, very, very fun.
• 1:07:28
  Yeah.
• 1:07:29
  Loving getting to do it.
• 1:07:30
  And again, I was fortunate after his first win, my first phone call that I made was to Wade Oranger after ringing my mum.
• 1:07:43
  But I spoke to Wade and said, Rory, we're reliving this thing.
• 1:07:47
  Because I remember I was laying in the hotel and I could not sleep.
• 1:07:49
  It's 4 o'clock in the morning.
• 1:07:51
  I'm still sitting there.
• 1:07:51
  He's over there snoring past doubt.
• 1:07:53
  And I'm like, yeah, this is awesome.
• 1:07:55
  We just won a race.
• 1:07:56
  And...
• 1:07:59
  We were sitting here, like, he's had a lot of people call and congratulate him, and I got that phone call.
• 1:08:06
  Gary Rush called me to tell me, congratulations.
• 1:08:09
  He said, did you cry?
• 1:08:11
  I said, damn right I did.
• 1:08:12
  And he said, and Gary said, I cried the first time that Junior won his first ever race.
• 1:08:17
  So that's the thing that's pretty cool, and so many good things.
• 1:08:21
  I mean, I watched the four-wide parade lap the other night.
• 1:08:26
  And Amy and I both say the same thing.
• 1:08:29
  When you ever watched your dad do the four wide salute and they were there waving to the crowd.
• 1:08:34
  And I always thought my dad's only waving to me.
• 1:08:37
  He ain't waving to you.
• 1:08:38
  He's waving to me.
• 1:08:39
  And I was watching the four wide salute the other night with Garrett.
• 1:08:42
  And he's got this little hand up there waving.
• 1:08:44
  I'm like, yep, my kid's waving at me.
• 1:08:47
  It's just called the old school.
• 1:08:49
  There's a lot of old school stuff there, but the work ethic is what I'm proud of.
• 1:08:55
  I see different things.
• 1:08:57
  He gets so mad at me because, and I'm like, dude, I'm a clean freak.
• 1:09:02
  But you are OCD.
• 1:09:05
  You are bad.
• 1:09:06
  And I'm like, I remember having these arguments with my dad.
• 1:09:10
  Have I turned into my dad?
• 1:09:13
  I'll get it in a minute.
• 1:09:14
  I got some other shit I'll do.
• 1:09:15
  I'll do it when I get home.
• 1:09:16
  I'll do it later.
• 1:09:17
  I'll do it later.
• 1:09:18
  And I'm like, oh, boy, I'm just – I really am turning into George John.
• 1:09:23
  Yeah, I love it.
• 1:09:24
  Mate, this has been unreal, Brooke.
• 1:09:26
  It's been way overdue.
• 1:09:28
  I'm so grateful, especially to Amy because of all the time I've taken.
• 1:09:33
  It's sort of –
• 1:09:34
  early to mid part of the evening there.
• 1:09:36
  So I'm taking you away from family.
• 1:09:38
  I'm conscious of that.
• 1:09:40
  Congratulations on everything, mate, from what you've done down under to what you've broken through and achieved in the United States.
• 1:09:49
  I greatly admire the hard graft, the fact that there were...
• 1:09:54
  sort of no frills on track or off on many occasions.
• 1:09:58
  It was pure hard work.
• 1:10:00
  And I cannot wait to see in the coming years the story and how it evolves for Garrett, mate.
• 1:10:08
  Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
• 1:10:10
  This has been a ripper.
• 1:10:11
  No, thanks, mate.
• 1:10:12
  I told you a couple of things.
• 1:10:13
  I've listened to every podcast you've done.
• 1:10:15
  I thoroughly enjoy them.
• 1:10:17
  I love listening to the stories of how people have got there.
• 1:10:20
  I love that.
• 1:10:21
  I told you I can talk longer than Roberto Marino.
• 1:10:24
  You know, so...
• 1:10:27
  I've succeeded at everything just as I had to come after James McBadden.
• 1:10:31
  That's the biggest disappointment of this whole thing.
• 1:10:36
  I think it's time that he becomes my crew chief.
• 1:10:38
  But no, I appreciate everything, mate.
• 1:10:39
  I love what you do.
• 1:10:40
  And I'm honored to do this, to be honest.
• 1:10:43
  I really am honored to do it.
• 1:10:45
  And as I said, I'm not done yet.
• 1:10:47
  We'll catch up in Australia.
• 1:10:49
  I look forward to that immensely where we can sit and chat.
• 1:10:53
  I found a fantastic photo of you and I at Parramatta deep in conversation and thought recently, which I'll use for the cover on the Ebb description here.
• 1:11:02
  But thank you, mate, for coming on and sharing your story, and we look forward to the chapters to come.
• 1:11:07
  No, I appreciate it, Matt.
• 1:11:08
  I just, as I said, I'm honored to do it.
• 1:11:10
  I'm very proud of what we've been able to achieve and fly this Aussie flag over here.
• 1:11:23
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 1:11:27
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 1:11:32
  The Garage, that's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fuelled stories.
• 1:11:37
  The Garage.