Latest / Rusty's Garage / Bill Woods (Part 2)

Transcript

Bill Woods (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:19
  G'day, it's Rusty here, getting ready to fire up part two of my chat with TV presenter and broadcaster Bill Woods, who for a long time headed up Channel 10 Motorsport in Australia.
• 0:30
  He covered all the big events, so if you haven't already heard part one, make sure you check it out.
• 0:35
  Some great fun and untold stories from that chapter.
• 0:39
  I began this second instalment by asking him about his long-term relationship with a Japanese manufacturer, one that's well known for rallying, but Billy's no rally driver.
• 0:51
  You kindly met me downstairs today for this chat, and I think I saw you driving in a Subaru.
• 0:56
  You've had a relationship with Subaru for a long time, haven't you?
• 1:00
  Yeah, they're fantastic people.
• 1:02
  I don't do many things like that because I'm not a corporate kind of guy.
• 1:06
  But of all the companies I've dealt with, they're just such nice people.
• 1:10
  You know that because they sponsored our show.
• 1:11
  That's where it all began.
• 1:12
  Before Subaru, you did have another commercial relationship with Subaru.
• 1:16
  And I'm bringing this up.
• 1:18
  They stopped making cars in 2012, Saab, but you were a Saab ambassador and we regularly took the piss out of you, didn't we?
• 1:25
  You copped it from Baz, from us.
• 1:28
  What did you have?
• 1:28
  Was it a 900?
• 1:30
  What did you have in the end?
• 1:31
  I can't remember.
• 1:31
  I had a 9.3, which... No, you're right.
• 1:36
  I had a 900.
• 1:37
  You're right.
• 1:37
  I had a 900 six-cylinder, which is actually a bloody good car.
• 1:40
  I don't care what anyone says.
• 1:42
  It was a nice car.
• 1:43
  I remember... Oh, I shouldn't say these things.
• 1:45
  I remember...
• 1:47
  Matty White and I had a race once somewhere in Sydney.
• 1:51
  It wasn't a street race.
• 1:53
  It was on a more secluded stretch of road.
• 1:55
  And I overtook him at a speed that he was surprised.
• 2:01
  He was driving a BMW and I just wanted to prove to him that the Saab actually had balls.
• 2:05
  So I overtook him at a ridiculous speed.
• 2:07
  Anyway, it was a long time ago.
• 2:10
  Anyway...
• 2:11
  Do not do that at home, kids.
• 2:13
  But anyway, it was such a funny thing because the people who were sort of running SARB at the time, and this is a funny thing, but just as a matter of coincidence, I met Danny Frawley's wife, Anita.
• 2:26
  Wow.
• 2:27
  through that relationship.
• 2:28
  And that's how I got to meet Danny, which was so sad just recently, what happened.
• 2:33
  And I first met him at a Saab function in Melbourne.
• 2:39
  Anyway, at that time, the people who were running it had a thing that, like, let's get a motorsport kind of guy to drive the car and talk about the performance aspects of it.
• 2:47
  Because it actually, as much as Top Gear took the piss and other people, I actually...
• 2:52
  thought it was quite a good car to drive.
• 2:54
  And so I drove quite a few, mostly they're turbo models, but the six-cylinder that I actually owned, I bought it, I finished up selling it years later, but it was a good car.
• 3:04
  And I did a story.
• 3:06
  I did my provisional racing driver's licence with Peter Mc... Peter McFarland.
• 3:14
  Peter Finlay.
• 3:15
  Sorry, I was not going to say Peter McKay, our mutual friend, Peter Finlay.
• 3:18
  I did my mutual provisional racing driver's licence in a Saab 900, which was, you know, we had guys there who'd built their own race cars.
• 3:25
  You know, there was a guy with an FJ that was all souped up and another guy had this little racing thing.
• 3:30
  They're all sedans, though.
• 3:31
  They weren't open wheelers.
• 3:33
  But all these young blokes wanting to become race drivers and they had really cool little cars.
• 3:37
  And I had this Saab 900.
• 3:39
  That was hilarious.
• 3:40
  And I didn't finish last in the official race we did.
• 3:42
  I had a bad start.
• 3:43
  And I chased this guy down and waited for him to make a mistake, outbraked him, and I got up to ninth place out of ten drivers or something at the end.
• 3:51
  And I thought I did pretty well considering the lack of power.
• 3:55
  And it was a front-wheel drive and all those things.
• 3:57
  Anyway, but everyone I ever interviewed in pit lane in the supercars or any of that stuff who knew would give it to me as soon as I was –
• 4:07
  How's the sob going now?
• 4:11
  We are proof, both of us, about commentators, reporters, presenters, maybe not trying to venture off and be racing drivers.
• 4:20
  It's great for us to experience that side and to try and convey to the average Aussie, the average viewer, what it's like, because the pros, the Setons, Cromptons, Scafes, whatever, they make it look like child's boy, they make it look easy.
• 4:34
  But, you know, you and I get this experience of, man, this is hard.
• 4:39
  But...
• 4:41
  I successfully yanked a steering wheel off an Aussie racing car at Winton.
• 4:45
  I kept that somehow.
• 4:46
  The onboard guys were awesome to me.
• 4:48
  They kept that secret for three years.
• 4:50
  And I can still remember we had an end-of-season awards night in 2006, and they played it.
• 4:56
  And Crompton was crying with laughter because, you know, I'm going into the final turn at Winton with no steering wheel connected.
• 5:02
  Anyway.
• 5:04
  Is it true, mate, is it true that you had an incident in a racing car at Amaru, and if so, what happened?
• 5:11
  Because I don't reckon this has ever heard the light of day.
• 5:14
  Yeah, I did.
• 5:14
  I crashed a... Was it a Formula Ford or a Formula Holden?
• 5:20
  Formula Holden.
• 5:20
  It was a Formula Holden.
• 5:22
  I've driven Formula Fords on a number of occasions for various reasons.
• 5:27
  And, look, don't get me wrong.
• 5:30
  I have no pretense to be any good at race driving.
• 5:32
  I just drove them for fun at my own sort of capability.
• 5:36
  And I, you know...
• 5:37
  never had any pretensions to be any good at it, but I wanted to learn about what I was doing.
• 5:42
  And you know, Rusty, I was never a mechanical motorsport enthusiast.
• 5:47
  I was much more interested in the human side of things.
• 5:49
  I could never build my own car.
• 5:51
  I used to service my own car, but nothing more than that.
• 5:53
  I was not into assembling vehicles.
• 5:55
  I just didn't have that kind of engineering bent.
• 5:59
  I love the human side, mate, so keep going.
• 6:01
  I know
• 6:01
  Yeah, and that's, you know, but that's why we have the Cromptons and those people to sort of explain all that stuff in more detail.
• 6:09
  But anyway, yeah, again, it was Peter Finlay, the poor bugger.
• 6:13
  He just bought a Formula Holden.
• 6:15
  And I must have put years on that bloke's life.
• 6:19
  Was it Amaru?
• 6:20
  Yeah, it was in Amaru.
• 6:21
  It was in Amaru before they shut it down.
• 6:24
  And you know that the back's straight and then you go into that hard right-hander and there's a concrete wall.
• 6:29
  And anyway, I remember Peter saying to me, I'm an idiot, I remember him saying to me, if you do get into any trouble at all, don't be a bloody hero and try and drive out of it.
• 6:38
  Put the brakes on and just let it all settle down and come to a halt.
• 6:41
  And it's funny, you know, but I can't remember who it was, but I heard one of the Formula One drivers saying that just the other day.
• 6:48
  So even the top guys are still doing it.
• 6:51
  Anyway, I come up to the stop-go corner and I braked quite well and I just got on the gas a little bit early.
• 7:01
  And this thing, he'd only just bought it.
• 7:02
  He hadn't really tuned it and it was a little bit sensitive.
• 7:05
  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
• 7:06
  Anyway, it was very powerful and very sensitive.
• 7:09
  I got on the gas a bit early and I spun it.
• 7:12
  And I'm thinking to myself, oh, yeah, I'm really good here.
• 7:14
  I can just drive out of this.
• 7:15
  I won't have to just, you know, I'll try and get out of it.
• 7:18
  spun it into the wall.
• 7:19
  And luckily it wasn't that bad a crash.
• 7:22
  I mean, I eventually, you know, this all happens in a split second.
• 7:26
  My brain eventually thought, you idiot, break.
• 7:28
  But by that time it was too late.
• 7:31
  Anyway, I crumpled up the nose.
• 7:33
  I didn't hurt myself or anything.
• 7:34
  Bit of, you know, bit of a jolt, bit of a scare.
• 7:37
  But anyway.
• 7:37
  You had to tell the bosses at work what you do.
• 7:39
  Yeah, it cost Channel 10 $7,000.
• 7:41
  Oh!
• 7:41
  How did that conversation go?
• 7:47
  With me on my knees pleading.
• 7:52
  I, yeah, I must say the bloke you mentioned earlier, David White, was fantastic about it.
• 7:57
  He sort of put it down to, I don't know how he wrote that off, on the budget.
• 8:03
  I hope I bought him a few dinners for it.
• 8:05
  I can't remember, to be honest.
• 8:06
  In the broadcast of some of the events that we've done over time, mate, perhaps people don't realise it takes...
• 8:12
  an army.
• 8:13
  You know, at Bathurst, it can be anywhere between 260 to 300 people to make that whole thing
• 8:20
  It looks seamless.
• 8:21
  It isn't always seamless behind the scenes, but that's what it takes, doesn't it?
• 8:25
  Yeah.
• 8:25
  And look, don't get me wrong.
• 8:29
  I mean, we might have stayed in nice hotels.
• 8:31
  And as a commentary team, we were a core unit.
• 8:34
  We hung together.
• 8:36
  It's impossible for all 250 people to hang together all the time.
• 8:40
  And we did it for a reason because all the social time we spent together, a lot of that time was spent discussing things.
• 8:47
  Our correlating information.
• 8:49
  Yes.
• 8:49
  I heard this in pit lane.
• 8:51
  Do you think this?
• 8:51
  Do you think the setup's gonna be this?
• 8:53
  What, blah, blah, blah.
• 8:53
  Everyone would be trading information and you might come up with something and we'd say, well, Rusty, tomorrow, let's do that.
• 9:00
  Let's do something on that.
• 9:01
  So we were working all the time and we were genuinely enthusiastic about our jobs.
• 9:06
  And that's part of the reason why I think the end product was pretty good.
• 9:09
  But I must say, without all those other people,
• 9:14
  you know, being all those links in the chain.
• 9:16
  And fortunately, we would get a chance to see them because we'd have lunch with them and breakfast with them at the track.
• 9:22
  And we'd often sit with the camera crews and other people as part of the process.
• 9:25
  And I think that's a really important thing, no matter what you're doing in life, is to appreciate the people who are working around you, even though they might have a lower ranking or pay grade or whatever you...
• 9:36
  you call it, is to appreciate what they do, make sure they feel part of the team.
• 9:40
  And also, you know, if they're so inclined, give them the feeling that if they want to do what you're doing or what, you know, the producer's doing at some other time, then they've got the ability and the opportunity to do it.
• 9:52
  They really were a family mate.
• 9:55
  It was a period of my life like you that I cherish and it's probably an overused word but there was great kind of camaraderie there and for people listening there are some people that work behind the scenes that you've perhaps never heard of that are as passionate and properly into it whether it's bikes or cars that you will ever meet.
• 10:14
  They are genuine enthusiasts.
• 10:17
  Along the way our
• 10:19
  it's an always evolving game, broadcasting.
• 10:22
  We're always trying new things, graphics, cameras, whatever it might be to enhance the broadcast.
• 10:27
  And we had, you know, Scotty Young, who's now the head of Formula One for Sky in the UK, he was with us.
• 10:34
  And I can remember him pioneering the Bunnings Forest stage coverage.
• 10:40
  The rally stuff had largely been super special orientated and then they would get various bits of vision from the forest.
• 10:46
  But a live coverage of a stage in the forest
• 10:50
  pretty groundbreaking.
• 10:51
  So you and Baz, there was a hosting position for you and a kind of finish line area where I think you would do some crosses.
• 11:00
  Mark Osler and I were dispatched, I think, to the start line.
• 11:03
  And in the challenge of doing all that, we had a couple of funny things happen.
• 11:08
  firstly Mark Osler was on a cabled microphone and we crossed to him but it wasn't quite long enough the cable to stretch to the doors he's trying to reach down to the possum born and it was like you know like that's as far as it'll go we had to sort of reset that that was one funny thing and then this proves that
• 11:29
  how professional you are, how professional Baz was, and even Lee Diffie.
• 11:35
  We came out of a commercial break and something happened.
• 11:38
  You guys were relocating from one position to another and you weren't quite there at the end of the commercial break and Lee commentated blind.
• 11:46
  He wasn't in a position where he could see a monitor.
• 11:48
  That's right.
• 11:48
  They had a whole range of replays and things until you guys could get in place.
• 11:53
  And they just kept saying to him through his ears, hey, okay, that's Colin McRae on screen now through the water.
• 11:59
  And he did it blind, mate.
• 12:01
  Yeah, he stood next to a truck with basically a white painted...
• 12:10
  side so that there was nothing to distract him and that basically he had nothing, he could close his eyes, I think in some cases, and just visualise what they were telling him was going on and then convey that to the thing.
• 12:24
  Yeah, it was a masterful piece of commentary.
• 12:26
  There's no doubt about it.
• 12:27
  We'll always remember it.
• 12:28
  I mean, and I felt so for him because we're scrambling something.
• 12:31
  Yeah, we're trying to get from one position to another and it was further away and things weren't ready when they were supposed to be.
• 12:36
  So yeah, that's some crazy stuff.
• 12:40
  used to go on in those days.
• 12:41
  You just reminded me, remember the scooter crash up at the Gold Coast?
• 12:45
  I didn't know if you wanted to share that.
• 12:47
  We were all staying, my wife, my now wife came with me because it was too good to refuse.
• 12:52
  I think we were staying at the Versace, and we had to ride from the hotel down to where the park was, directly opposite, kind of where the start-finish line at Indy is.
• 13:02
  And our outside broadcast truck used to be there, and we would ride scooters every day.
• 13:05
  Yeah, you wouldn't.
• 13:06
  Yep, and it was all my own work.
• 13:08
  I must admit, I'm just glad Peter Finlay didn't lend me the scooter.
• 13:12
  But, yeah, there was about four of us.
• 13:16
  There was Marco, there was one of our great producers, Michael Heaton.
• 13:20
  I'm not sure if Daryl was there.
• 13:23
  He would have been coming from home.
• 13:24
  He would have been coming from home.
• 13:25
  So somebody else was there anyway, and there was four of us.
• 13:29
  And we finished up being separated by some traffic circumstances, a roundabout or something, and there was two...
• 13:34
  It was like the Grand Prix riding to work, though, wasn't it?
• 13:36
  It was a little bit.
• 13:37
  Perfectly legal.
• 13:38
  We didn't... Yeah, one of those little...
• 13:40
  I think they were governed or something too.
• 13:42
  They weren't very powerful scooters.
• 13:44
  Anyway, we got separated.
• 13:45
  So there's two in front and two in the back, and then I got separated from the front three.
• 13:49
  And I remember that we always had trouble merging onto the – I think it was the Gold Coast Highway at that point.
• 13:56
  And I was actually –
• 13:58
  concentrating on seeing where there was a gap in the traffic so I could veer, uh, turn left and merge.
• 14:03
  But, and I saw the three guys ahead of me and I must say, I saw two of them ride off and I'd assumed all three had ridden off and got into their spots and didn't realise that Michael Heaton had not taken the opportunity or, or, or was a bit cautious and was still parked waiting for his chance.
• 14:19
  And all I'm doing is looking at the traffic to see where the gap was and, uh, thinking there's nothing ahead of me and I'm starting to turn left, uh,
• 14:26
  getting ready to merge, and I actually gunned it and went straight into the back of Hedo's scooter and went cartwheeling over the top of his...
• 14:34
  I literally went right over the top of Hedo.
• 14:37
  Thank God.
• 14:38
  The wheel, my front wheel, hit his rear wheel, smack on, dead on.
• 14:43
  There was no...
• 14:45
  it just stopped dead.
• 14:46
  If I'd run up the side of him, I could have busted his leg easy or done some serious injury.
• 14:50
  As it turned out, he just copped the bump from behind and my scooter just crumpled and I went cartwheeling over the top.
• 14:58
  The police person was a woman, police woman who walked over or ran over, saw me on the ground.
• 15:05
  She said, geez, you were airborne for a while.
• 15:10
  I said, well, I have done parachuting.
• 15:12
  But anyway, there was a dent in the helmet.
• 15:16
  I'd hit the ground pretty hard.
• 15:18
  I couldn't believe there was barely a mark on me.
• 15:20
  I was so bloody lucky.
• 15:21
  I got up, I was a bit sore, but all I could think of was we're on air in about an hour, so I had to get to work.
• 15:28
  Smashed my sunnies and, yeah, just off we went.
• 15:31
  You were a total promo because it was the Sunday, I think, of race day.
• 15:34
  It was for the Indy race too, wasn't it?
• 15:37
  Yeah, yeah.
• 15:38
  So anyway, it was all sorted out.
• 15:41
  I think it was deemed a racing incident.
• 15:42
  No one got arrested.
• 15:45
  I wasn't black flagged or anything.
• 15:47
  I don't think there was anything they could charge me with.
• 15:51
  I'm not sure.
• 15:51
  It was just an accident and it was all sorted out.
• 15:55
  And thankfully, Hito went on to produce us in MotoGP and he's never lost his love of motorcycles.
• 15:59
  He loves them.
• 16:00
  Lost his love for me for a while, but I don't.
• 16:14
  The rotary engine was an early type of internal combustion engine in which the crankshaft remained stationary in operation, with the entire crankcase and its attached cylinders rotating around it as a unit.
• 16:27
  But the most special part about it is the sound it makes.
• 16:30
  Right?
• 16:32
  You did a book.
• 16:33
  It should do the John Laws, ring the bell here, blatant plug, but it's for a good reason, mate.
• 16:38
  It's for a good reason.
• 16:38
  You've done a couple of books for that matter.
• 16:40
  The first one that springs to mind is called Legends of Speed and it contains some great interviews and stories of people that have now sadly left us in many ways and others that have finished their careers.
• 16:53
  Mark Webber who stopped racing in Formula One and things like that.
• 16:56
  What for you were the kind of...
• 16:59
  Nuggets that you unearthed that you perhaps didn't know about or the stories that really perhaps impressed you?
• 17:05
  Okay, well, the single greatest thing about it was when HarperCollins commissioned me to write the book, their concept was pick, say, 20 drivers and do separate chapters on each one.
• 17:21
  And that all seemed fairly straightforward and reasonable.
• 17:24
  But when I started to research it, something started to emerge that...
• 17:29
  that there was a narrative that linked all the drivers, not just those 20, but all the others who were just sort of on the edge of that greatness, so to speak, or notoriety, put it that way.
• 17:42
  So it actually alleviated a big problem for me because I then went to all the experts that you and I work with, you know, your Cromptons, John Smales, Peter McKay, all those sort of guys.
• 17:53
  And I had a chat with them about who should I include in this list of drivers.
• 17:57
  And ultimately, and of course there was a lot of conjecture about, because as you well know and we all know, there are people who are actually terrific drivers, but because they didn't necessarily get in the right car or bike, actually it was only drivers, it wasn't on bikes.
• 18:10
  But because they didn't necessarily get in the right machinery, they probably didn't get the notoriety or credibility they deserved and vice versa sometimes.
• 18:19
  So that was a difficult equation.
• 18:21
  And to a degree, it's always subjective.
• 18:24
  But this...
• 18:25
  This concept that I finished up with actually solved the problem a little bit because what I said to Harper Collins was, this is just one big story.
• 18:34
  And all these guys, I can give you 20 drivers, and I will interview 20, 25 drivers as the main sources of all the information.
• 18:42
  But bottom line is they're all incredibly linked together.
• 18:47
  And that is a story.
• 18:48
  So let's not have chapters on individuals.
• 18:51
  Let's actually tell the story from Tony Gaze.
• 18:54
  I told the story from two people, basically.
• 18:56
  It was Tony Gaze and Harry Firth, who both were in the Second World War.
• 19:00
  They served in the Second World War.
• 19:02
  Harry was a dispatch rider on a motorcycle in the Desert War, and Tony was a fighter ace, fighter pilot.
• 19:08
  So the book starts with their war experiences to a degree and how their mechanical sympathy and their relationship with racing grew from there.
• 19:17
  Tony was a race driver before the war started.
• 19:20
  He was interested in race driving and Harry had always been an engineer mechanic, so to speak.
• 19:27
  But they really, I wouldn't say honed their skills, but their experience in the war very much made them what they were after the war.
• 19:35
  And then from those two threads...
• 19:37
  Everybody else is linked.
• 19:38
  And I'm sure anyone who knows anything about motorsport knows where I'm going with this.
• 19:42
  You know, Tony Gay is our first Formula One driver and he gets to meet Brabham and Gardner and all the guys from there on.
• 19:49
  And Harry, of course, gets to forge his way through Cortina's and then, of course, through Holden, the whole production car side of things.
• 19:58
  But also, as you know, back in the 60s and 50s, the great drivers were driving all sorts of vehicles.
• 20:03
  They weren't just driving in Formula One.
• 20:04
  No one stereotyped anyone in those days.
• 20:07
  So they all got to meet each other through that cross-pollination of makes too.
• 20:12
  And so all these stories emerged where people keep saying how, oh, yeah, and I raced against so-and-so.
• 20:19
  And I'd go, oh, yeah, well, he's in the book too.
• 20:22
  Oh, yeah, I've known him for years.
• 20:23
  I sold him a car.
• 20:24
  There was a funny one there where Frank Gardner and Frank Maddich had traded a car and they still to that day had disagreed.
• 20:32
  They had a bit of a dispute over it.
• 20:34
  can't remember what it was, but one sold a car to the other.
• 20:39
  And I said to Frank Maddich, what happened?
• 20:42
  Frank goes, oh, yeah, I was a bit upset with Frank.
• 20:44
  And I go to Frank Gardner and he says the same thing.
• 20:47
  So in the book, I'm pretty sure in the book, I've actually put both sides of the story because no one could agree.
• 20:52
  It wasn't a major dispute.
• 20:54
  It was just, you know...
• 20:55
  These things happen.
• 20:57
  But apart from that, there was this beautiful story of how everybody knew each other.
• 21:01
  And I think even Firth and Brabham had had a connection because there was a Grand Prix held at Albert Park where Harry was doing some...
• 21:08
  I think he did some work on one of Jack's cars or at least was involved in some way, you know?
• 21:14
  And so...
• 21:16
  From those two strands, everybody basically came.
• 21:19
  It was like the roots of a tree.
• 21:22
  And I just said to the people here, we've got a great story.
• 21:24
  And I must admit, the only critical, I'm not saying it's the greatest book of all time, but the only critical...
• 21:32
  thing I've read about it, and I think it's a valid criticism, is that it's not deep enough.
• 21:37
  The book could have been twice as deep, and there's a lot of stuff that I only had to deal with superficially.
• 21:41
  And the guy who was writing the critique said, look, nothing against the book, but Bill led me in areas that I wanted to know more about.
• 21:49
  And I totally agree with that.
• 21:50
  I mean, you've got to draw a line somewhere.
• 21:52
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  And so I'm sure there's areas that the real motorsport fans would have loved to have known more about.
• 21:57
  But basically, in this case, I had to keep going and tell the story of how this led to this and on it goes.
• 22:03
  And obviously, there's so many more chapters have been written since then.
• 22:06
  I think it finished with Marcus Ambrose winning.
• 22:10
  Mark Webber, as you say, was in Formula One.
• 22:13
  And...
• 22:15
  Gee, was he with Jag then?
• 22:17
  And Marcus had just won the – was it Supercars then?
• 22:21
  Yeah.
• 22:22
  And so, yeah, that's kind of where it finished, which had been, I think, 04, 05 or something like that.
• 22:27
  So, yeah, and there's been so much more happened since then, obviously.
• 22:31
  And Mark – well, Mark – a lot of those guys have gone on to have their own books, which I think is terrific because they do thoroughly deserve their own books.
• 22:40
  We mentioned Baz earlier in the podcast.
• 22:42
  You've also had the chance to work alongside the great Neil Crompton during the Formula One coverage.
• 22:48
  He's agreed to come on the podcast in the episodes to come, which will be good.
• 22:53
  What was it like working with him?
• 22:54
  Fans are always in great admiration of everything about him, and you got to see firsthand his preparedness and his proper, proper passion for it, didn't you?
• 23:07
  Yeah, in fact, I think we were a really good fit because he and I were, I wouldn't say opposites, but we were very complementary.
• 23:14
  As I said before, I was more interested in the human element of motor racing.
• 23:20
  And while I'd always make sure that I'd done my homework on, you know, the car preparation, the technology, the development, all those things, I didn't have the depth of understanding of it.
• 23:30
  that that cromley had and um of course my job too as you well know is basically to be the storyteller as well you know i'm the presenter i'm the link between the fans and the experts i i don't pretend to be an expert um i might have a lot of knowledge that i've acquired but i never i never feel like i i'm gonna say well greg russ is not a good driver because that's not my place to say that um so
• 23:55
  The good thing about it was with Neil and I, he has this extraordinary, like, ten more layers of passion for it than I do.
• 24:04
  Because even though I'm a lover of motorsport, I'm a lover of a lot of other sports.
• 24:09
  It's only so far you can go.
• 24:11
  That's why you work so well together.
• 24:13
  It was a great balance, mate, wasn't it?
• 24:14
  Yeah.
• 24:15
  I mean, I was happy to, as I say, be the link, tell the stories, have, you know, all the research I'd done.
• 24:21
  But for him to correlate, understand, interpret the research, I could throw at him something like, you know, so-and-so's tweaked the car this weekend.
• 24:31
  What's going on there, Neil?
• 24:32
  What's it all about?
• 24:33
  You know, they've done this.
• 24:34
  They've adjusted the springs.
• 24:35
  Why?
• 24:36
  I could...
• 24:36
  present the facts.
• 24:38
  Neil could interpret them.
• 24:39
  And, you know, look, I wouldn't know why.
• 24:42
  I mean, I'd have a vague idea, you know what I'm saying.
• 24:45
  And Neil would have, he's got this incredible retention of engineering knowledge as well as all the other stuff.
• 24:53
  And comes armed with a suitcase of rules and everything that he could put his hands on, doesn't he?
• 24:59
  The ability he's got to recall stuff, and you know, you and I are pretty proud of how we can recall stuff, but honestly, this guy's next level.
• 25:06
  And admittedly, it comes from a lifetime of specialising in the sport.
• 25:10
  I mean, if you took Neil and asked him to do a commentary on rugby league, it'd be a different story.
• 25:15
  But that's why Neil's Neil, and that's why he does what he does.
• 25:17
  We need people like that to complement the people like me.
• 25:21
  And so, yeah, it...
• 25:23
  It never ceased to amaze me, his retention, and his ability in commentary to listen to team radio and still call a race.
• 25:33
  And I had the luxury of calling with him.
• 25:35
  There was one year there when Matty White unexpectedly left Channel 10, went to Channel 7, and I got thrown into the deep end doing commentary for the V8s for one season, and I did a Formula 1 race or two with Murray.
• 25:49
  I did one with Murray, and I did, I think, one race with Neil, and I did a bunch of indies with Neil.
• 25:56
  But the...
• 25:57
  commentary was never something that I was such a jack of all trades that commentary was never something I focused a huge amount of time on because I always felt like it deserved specialists, if you know what I mean.
• 26:09
  So I, I certainly did it when I had to, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I loved it, but it was almost like if I was to do it justice over a long period of time, I would have had to sacrifice other aspects of my career.
• 26:20
  So I was always a bit sort of dabbled in it more than anything else.
• 26:24
  But anyway, Neil was just, uh,
• 26:27
  It just made your job so much easier.
• 26:29
  There wasn't any hole he could dig you out of.
• 26:31
  You know, like if you'd sort of were looking at race strategy and you'd made a bad call because you'd neglected to mention they'd field up at a certain pit stop or something and you'd sort of made a bit of a suggestion.
• 26:43
  You know, anything like that, I'm thinking off the top of my head.
• 26:46
  But if you'd questioned a strategy or something, Neil would go, well, actually, no, they field up there, so they will be right for this next stint.
• 26:54
  Although just little things like that, and I never tried to be judgmental, but if ever I made an error of assumption, put it that way, or something like that, or even just set up a scenario like, gee, Neil, what's going on here?
• 27:09
  Steer it the right way.
• 27:10
  He'd nail it.
• 27:10
  He'd nail it.
• 27:12
  And not only that, not only that, but his ability to articulate it.
• 27:17
  He had a wealth of not only knowledge but really interesting phraseology.
• 27:22
  Yep.
• 27:23
  analogies and things like that.
• 27:24
  Yeah.
• 27:25
  He could put it together in a very clever way.
• 27:27
  Would your lovely wife, Leanne, would she let you have a resto project, a car of some kind in later life?
• 27:34
  Is there a car that you would like to have in the garage one day?
• 27:38
  Oh, there's a good question.
• 27:40
  You know what?
• 27:41
  I've always been the type...
• 27:42
  I know blokes who've gone and tried to test drive cars at showrooms and whatnot with absolutely no intention of buying them.
• 27:51
  I couldn't do that.
• 27:53
  I can't do it.
• 27:53
  I'd only drive a car I could afford.
• 27:56
  But even then, if I could afford a Porsche or a Ferrari...
• 28:00
  I am a bit of a Porsche fan, I must admit.
• 28:04
  But with a resto, I mean, I would probably pick...
• 28:08
  I've got to be really careful here because I must admit some of the – I was up at – Neil and I were doing a Shannon's one year and I was up at that beautiful museum up on the – Bowden's maybe.
• 28:22
  Bowden's, yeah, it was Bowden's.
• 28:25
  There were a couple of...
• 28:26
  There was a Mustang.
• 28:27
  I'm pretty sure it was a Mustang.
• 28:28
  And there was that GT Falcon, the form finish Falcon from 77.
• 28:37
  That was a nice-looking car.
• 28:38
  And some of those cars still look good today.
• 28:41
  Not many do, but some of them do.
• 28:43
  If I was to do a resto, it might be one of those.
• 28:46
  I'd hate to betray my roots, so I'd have to throw in a Tirana there.
• 28:49
  Oh, no, I know.
• 28:50
  I would put a Monaro in ahead of the Tirana, even though it hasn't got the racing heritage.
• 28:53
  Um...
• 28:55
  I think a Monaro.
• 28:59
  And it was the one that was around the same time as I was driving my HQ.
• 29:05
  It would have been around that time.
• 29:07
  That would have been maybe the first one.
• 29:09
  That would be probably to keep the faith.
• 29:12
  Okay.
• 29:13
  A Monaro, but I must admit those Fords, those two Fords, would be right up there.
• 29:18
  All right.
• 29:19
  Road rule that drives you mad when you've... Well, a rule or a behaviour?
• 29:23
  Or a habit.
• 29:25
  I'm a bit... People might be surprised.
• 29:29
  I don't like right-lane hoggers, but it's not my biggest beef.
• 29:32
  What's your biggest beef?
• 29:34
  My biggest beef is basically aggression and tailgating and lack of manners.
• 29:37
  That's actually a lot of beefs, isn't it, really?
• 29:41
  I think lack of...
• 29:46
  Okay, let's combine lack of situational awareness, which encompasses a few things, but primarily the ignorance of those around you and other possible things is, I think, it embraces a lot of stuff.
• 30:00
  But I think we see it most often in lack of courtesy.
• 30:04
  In other words, when you let someone in to a line of traffic and they don't wave because they have no bloody idea that you've actually done them a favour,
• 30:12
  You see the left lane running out.
• 30:14
  You know there's a car parked up the road.
• 30:15
  You can see it.
• 30:16
  This idiot on your left hasn't seen it.
• 30:18
  You actually start creating a space for them before they even know that they need to change lanes.
• 30:24
  It's those things that I try and encourage people as drivers to do all the time.
• 30:29
  You would do it more so now having got your bike licence.
• 30:32
  Even though you originally were a good driver, I'm sure you're even better.
• 30:36
  My son said the same thing.
• 30:37
  He got his bike licence.
• 30:38
  He rode for a couple of years and he's going to ride again.
• 30:40
  He had to sell his bike.
• 30:41
  But he said he improved as a driver after being a rider.
• 30:45
  But just that whole situational awareness thing is a massive problem and it's a combination of...
• 30:53
  with ignorance and also lack of care and consideration for people around you.
• 30:59
  I think that's two of the biggest things.
• 31:01
  And tailgating too is... God, I hate tailgating.
• 31:04
  Aggression on the road makes me aggressive.
• 31:07
  Yeah.
• 31:09
  Let's finish with a funny.
• 31:10
  I'm going to tell a bit of a yarn here because in our chat here, reminiscing about Baz going down memory lane, I've remembered a couple of incidents when we were commentating the bikes.
• 31:22
  So to put you in perspective listening, we would do some studio calls at Channel 10 in Piedmont where we were.
• 31:29
  Baz and Billy would do the 500ccs and Daryl and I would do the 250s and then 125s.
• 31:35
  Baz arrived late, or not late, he came in in the cab from the hotel one night and he'd spilt something all over his jeans.
• 31:42
  And Wardrobe, they were awesome there.
• 31:44
  They said, okay, go down to Billy's dressing room, get a pair of his jeans, you can wear those kind of thing.
• 31:51
  Well...
• 31:52
  You know, you and I are 80, 90 kilos, whatever.
• 31:55
  Baz was about 50 ringing wet.
• 31:58
  So that was no good.
• 32:00
  Daryl and I are commentating the 125s or 250s, and we lost it because Baz came springing into view behind us.
• 32:07
  People watching the coverage would never have seen this, but Daryl and I can see it out of the corner of our eye.
• 32:12
  He's in Jessica Rose denim skirt prancing through the...
• 32:15
  prancing through the studio, which cracked me up.
• 32:20
  And the shenanigans did not stop there because it was like this little kid that constantly had to try things, test things, experience anything mechanical or whatever and understand it.
• 32:30
  So they had a scissor lift in the studio and the height of the studio we used to operate in was quite tall.
• 32:36
  So to get to the lights in the roof was a challenge.
• 32:39
  So Daryl and I are calling and the next thing we can hear, meep.
• 32:41
  meep, meep.
• 32:43
  And he's fired this thing up.
• 32:44
  He's pulling levers left and right, and the thing is going for the roof.
• 32:48
  And next thing I hear him say, oh, oh, Jesus.
• 32:52
  And then he's trying to stop it from going through the roof.
• 32:58
  That's a good point.
• 32:59
  He was, he was, he did have a mechanical bent that way.
• 33:04
  He was interested in how things worked.
• 33:07
  He, yeah, he was, he was always ready to thrash a hire car, that's for sure.
• 33:13
  That time, oh, do you remember the time at Rally Australia where he got booked for speeding?
• 33:18
  Yes, I do.
• 33:18
  Yeah.
• 33:20
  I was in the car, and I'll tell you what, it was so funny because they had this, I don't know whether it was training day and the WA police or not, but there was this young copper came up, and Barry's just about talked his way out of this speeding fine.
• 33:33
  He brought out every trick in the book.
• 33:35
  It was Rally Australia, we're working for the media, we're presenting WA to the world, so we're doing you a favour, we're paying you a wages.
• 33:41
  He went the full Monty.
• 33:42
  Anyway, I was...
• 33:43
  I think he just about got over the line.
• 33:45
  But then this big, beer-gutted old cop got out of the car, swaggers up to the thing.
• 33:50
  And basically I thought, oh, we're Gonski now because he didn't want to have a bar of it.
• 33:54
  He just wanted to nail Barry's hide.
• 33:56
  So he wrote the ticket anyway.
• 33:58
  And Baz was furious.
• 33:59
  So he complained about it all day.
• 34:01
  And then I think either that night or the next night was the end of our...
• 34:06
  coverage and the end of rally australia so the usual big presentation night in the center of perth and and baz is sitting down and um who's here from the government then oh i don't know baz i think the tourism minister's here right wait till i get hold of him
• 34:25
  Baz goes up to the tourism minister.
• 34:27
  If you want people coming to your state and putting money into the coffers of your government and the people of Western Australia, stop bloody booking people for speeding on their way to a rally.
• 34:39
  Oh, it was hilarious.
• 34:40
  And he did everything he could, you know.
• 34:43
  I want you to find out who wrote that ticket and tear it up.
• 34:46
  They made him pay for it, though, didn't they?
• 34:47
  They did, yeah.
• 34:48
  Didn't go down to it.
• 34:49
  Well, final yarn.
• 34:50
  We've got to wrap this up.
• 34:51
  We've had some great old yarns here.
• 34:53
  Occasionally, because he always tried to get to the closest possible parking spot.
• 34:58
  I can remember driving into Adelaide one year and there was...
• 35:02
  the pre-marked parking spots.
• 35:03
  It was Premier of South Australia, Mr Tony Cochran.
• 35:07
  You know, it was all laid out.
• 35:09
  And we drove in on the Thursday and he goes straight to the Premier's parking spot.
• 35:12
  He goes, he won't be here today.
• 35:14
  This is fine.
• 35:14
  He just parked it.
• 35:15
  He parked it straight there.
• 35:17
  And if ever the security guys stopped him,
• 35:20
  They would say stuff like, Mr. Sheen, Mr. Sheen, I love you, mate.
• 35:23
  I know who you are, but I can't let you park here.
• 35:27
  And at which point to diffuse the situation, he would go, oh, okay, no worries.
• 35:32
  I'll just back back then.
• 35:33
  And he'd look over his shoulder, but he'd hit the gas and go straight forward.
• 35:38
  They thought he was backing out of it.
• 35:39
  By that stage, he was a couple of hundred metres up the road.
• 35:42
  Mate, I've held up your time.
• 35:44
  You're here at Fox Sports working your way.
• 35:46
  It's been awesome to catch up with you and tell some great old yarns, which I'm sure everyone will enjoy.
• 35:51
  Keep powering with the riding.
• 35:53
  You taught me some amazing things here in my career, which I appreciate to this day, mate.
• 35:58
  You're an amazing wordsmith, the most...
• 36:03
  unflappable presenter.
• 36:05
  I know the calmest bloke in that role.
• 36:07
  And you've been great for a number of up and comers that have learned from you along the way.
• 36:11
  So thank you.
• 36:12
  I'm proud of what you've done, Rusty.
• 36:13
  You're a goldmine.
• 36:15
  Thank you.
• 36:20
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 36:24
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 36:28
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 36:36
  Listener.