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Brand
Metzler
Metzeler is a tire brand used on motorcycles. The point here is that the right tire choice can give better grip and help the bike stay fast for the whole race.
Term
throttle open
“Throttle open” means keeping the gas pedal/throttle held far down. The faster you can stay on it without stopping, the more time you save in a race.
Term
changing geometries
“Changing geometries” means adjusting how the bike is set up so it handles differently. Small setup changes can make the bike turn in better and feel more stable, especially when tires are the limiting factor.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a luxury car brand from Germany. Here, it just means Kevin had a Mercedes as their ride.
Term
pits
The pits are the team area at a race track where mechanics and riders hang out and get ready. It’s where bikes are lined up and worked on.
Brand
Yamaha Australia
Yamaha is a well-known motorcycle brand. “Yamaha Australia” here means the local Yamaha team/people who were involved with the event.
Term
motorbike
A motorbike is just a motorcycle. The speaker is saying he shouldn’t be expected to ride one while he feels awful.
Term
Megatrack
“Megatrack” sounds like the name of the race track they were talking about. It’s basically the venue label for that event.
Concept
production bike
A “production bike” is basically a motorcycle that starts life as a normal street bike you could buy. For racing, they may tweak it, but it’s still based on the regular model.
Term
endurance style of racing
Endurance racing is when you race for a long time, not just a short sprint. The trick is staying consistent and keeping the bike healthy the whole way.
Brand
Toshiba
Toshiba is a company that sponsors racing. When someone says “the Toshiba year,” they usually mean the season when Toshiba was the sponsor.
Brand
Honda
Honda is a well-known motorcycle brand. Here it’s mentioned because the riders were working with Honda bikes and their setups in racing.
Person
Wayne Gardner
Wayne Gardner is a famous motorcycle racer from Australia. The host brings him up to describe the kind of top-level factory racing setup being discussed.
Concept
endurance racing
Endurance racing is long-duration racing where the bike and riders have to stay consistent for a long time. The point here is that if two riders don’t work well together—especially with how they set up the bike—it can cause problems later in the race.
Term
bike setup
Bike setup means how a rider tunes the motorcycle to feel right—like suspension and other adjustments. If two riders want different setups, the bike may not work well for both during the race.
Brand
Kawasaki
Kawasaki is another big motorcycle brand. The speaker is saying an opportunity came up with Kawasaki after Yamaha.
Person
Wayne Rainey
Wayne Rainey is a famous motorcycle racer who was at the top of the sport. Here, the speaker is saying that some riders were already performing at that elite level.
Person
Kevin John Kaczynski
Kevin John Kaczynski is a motorcycle racer. The speaker brings him up to show that other riders were already getting the best opportunities in Europe.
Term
Australian Grand Prix
The Australian Grand Prix is a big race in the MotoGP season. Where you finish can help your reputation and chances of getting picked up by better teams.
Term
MotoGP
MotoGP is the highest level of professional motorcycle racing. The riders who do best get noticed by the top teams and often get better opportunities because of their results.
Person
Acosta
Acosta is a top MotoGP rider (Pedro Acosta). The speaker is saying that when one rider is clearly better than everyone else, teams all want to sign them.
Term
Superbike
A superbike is a very fast, high-performance motorcycle. It’s the kind of bike you’d associate with racing and serious speed, not a casual commuter bike.
Brand
Kawsaki
This is referring to Kawasaki, a motorcycle company. The rider says he signed with them and went to Japan to work with their team.
Term
750
“750” is shorthand for a motorcycle with about a 750cc engine. In racing, that engine size puts the bike into a specific class, which changes what kind of setup and development the team focuses on.
Term
250 Grand Prix bike
A “250 Grand Prix bike” refers to a smaller-displacement Grand Prix racing class (about 250cc). In that era, teams often recruited riders for one class but used them to develop a different class bike’s performance.
Term
Formula One bike
He’s not talking about Formula 1 cars. “Formula One bike” here means a top racing class for motorcycles with specific rules that teams build the bike around.
Car
TZR 250
A TZR 250 is a Yamaha sport motorcycle. It’s built for fast riding on tracks, and here it’s the bike the rider is using during qualifying.
Concept
high speed left hander
A high-speed left turn is a corner you’re supposed to go through fast. Going fast leaves less room for error, so if the bike loses grip, things can go wrong quickly.
Term
drifted sideways
Drifting sideways means the bike or car is sliding sideways instead of gripping straight. It can be controlled, but it’s risky—especially on a motorcycle—because you can lose traction and crash.
Term
berm
A berm is a raised mound along the edge of a track. It’s there to manage runoff, but if you hit it at the wrong angle, it can throw the bike or car.
Term
Cartwheeled through the air
That phrase describes a crash where the bike and rider get launched and start flipping while airborne. It usually means the impact was strong enough to send them off the track.
Term
traction
Traction is how well the tires can “hold on” to the road. When you’re pushing beyond the traction limit, the tires start to slip, and it takes real skill to stay in control.
Concept
beyond the limit
“Beyond the limit” refers to operating past the point where tires can provide stable grip for the vehicle’s current speed, steering angle, and acceleration/braking forces. In motorsport terms, it often means the rider is working at the edge of tire slip and balance rather than staying comfortably within grip.
Term
limited contact patch
It means the tire only touches the ground in a small area. With a motorcycle, that small grip area has to do everything—so it’s easier to lose traction or stability.
Term
chassis engineers
Chassis engineers are the people who help design how the vehicle handles. They focus on how it feels when you turn, brake, and accelerate so the driver can control it better.
Term
engine engineers
Engine engineers work on the motor and how it delivers power. In racing, they help make the bike or car respond the way the driver wants when they accelerate.
Topic
Australian motorcycle Grand Prix
This is a major motorcycle race in Australia. Riders earn points based on where they finish, and “ninth” is a real result against other top competitors.
Topic
Australian Touring Car Championship
This is a high-level Australian race series for cars that are based on production models. Driving in it is different from motorcycle racing because the cars are heavier and handle differently.
Topic
Bathurst 1000
The Bathurst 1000 is a very well-known long-distance race in Australia. It’s hard because you have to keep the car working well for a long time, not just go fast for a few laps.
Car
Toyota Corolla
The Toyota Corolla is a small, everyday car made for regular commuting and errands. It’s popular because it’s generally easy to live with and simple to maintain. When someone mentions a Corolla in a story, they’re usually talking about how it performed in that particular driving situation.
Term
on two wheels
“On two wheels” means the car or bike is balancing on only two tires. It’s dangerous because if the balance shifts, it can tip over quickly.
Term
Formula Group C production cars
“Group C” is a set of racing rules for cars that are based on regular production models. Teams can modify them for racing, but they still start from a road car.
Person
Johnny Faulkner
Johnny Faulkner is a racing driver. Here, he’s the experienced driver you’d get to race with if you were selected through the program.
Term
wet weekend
A “wet weekend” means the track was wet during the event. When it’s wet, cars don’t grip as well, so driving has to be smoother and more careful.
Term
grid
In racing, the grid is the starting order/positioning of cars for the race. Being “third on the grid” means he started near the front, which matters even more on a wet weekend where early track position can help avoid traffic and hazards.
Term
qualifying
Qualifying is the session where drivers set their fastest lap times to determine starting positions for the race. A wet track can make qualifying especially tricky because grip changes lap to lap, so drivers often need to balance speed with control.
Term
brake
The brake pedal slows the car down. When the track is wet, braking has to be smoother because the tires don’t grip as well.
Term
clutch pedals
The clutch pedal is used to change gears. It helps the car shift smoothly instead of jerking when you’re driving quickly.
Term
five point harness
It’s a racing seatbelt with five straps that hold you in place more securely than a normal seatbelt. That extra restraint helps you stay put when the car is sliding or if something goes wrong.
Term
pole
Pole means you start the race from the very front. It usually comes from having the fastest time in qualifying.
Term
drifting sideways
Drifting is when a driver intentionally makes the car slide sideways while still trying to keep it under control. It’s not an accident—done right, it’s a controlled maneuver.
Term
full throttle
Full throttle means the driver is pressing the accelerator all the way down. That tells the engine to make as much power as it can.
Term
kink
On a race track, a “kink” is a quick bend or twist. It can feel sudden, and it can make the car harder to control at speed.
Place
Lakeside
Lakeside is a race track in Australia. In this episode, they’re talking about a specific 1989 touring car race there that got flooded because of heavy rain.
Concept
track flooded
When the track is flooded, there’s water on the racing surface. Tires can lose grip, so cars become much harder (and riskier) to control.
Term
class cars
“Class cars” means the cars are competing within a defined class (a ruleset) inside the overall race event. That typically affects what modifications are allowed and how cars are grouped for fair competition.
Term
drier weather
If the track is wet, tires don’t grip as well. When it gets drier, cars can usually go faster because the road surface is more predictable.
Company
Cams
Cams (now Motorsport Australia) is the organization that runs and regulates racing in Australia. They investigate crashes and incidents after events.
Company
Motorsport Australia
Motorsport Australia is the main racing authority in Australia. It’s the group that handles rules and investigations for racing events.
Car
Andrew Medici Sierra
The Ford Sierra is a car model that was used in racing. In this story, Andrew Medici’s Sierra is part of a big crash and fireball incident.
Term
fishtails
“Fishtailing” means the back of the car starts sliding and wagging left and right. It usually happens when the tires lose grip, making the car hard to keep pointed straight.
Term
Pit Lane
Pit Lane is the area beside the track where teams service cars during a race. It’s referenced here because the host says viewers can see the Sierra’s damage from the broadcast angle taken in Pit Lane.
Term
left foot braking
Left foot braking is when you brake with your left foot instead of your right. Some racers do it so they can keep the car balanced and still control the gas at the same time.
Term
heel and toe
Heel-and-toe is a race driving move used when slowing down and downshifting. You brake and “tap” the gas at the same time so the engine speed matches the new gear and the car doesn’t jerk.
Topic
pit in next lap
It means the team told the driver to pull into the pits on the very next lap. In endurance races, the timing of pit stops matters a lot.
Term
fully adjustable
“Fully adjustable” means the bike could be tuned with settings you can change. In racing, that helps you dial in the handling so the bike feels right to the rider.
Term
factory MS1 division
“MS1 division” sounds like a particular racing team/category within the factory program. The point is that the factory crew allowed them to change the bike’s setup.
Term
two strike outboard marine engines
A two-stroke engine makes power with every two piston movements, so it can feel punchy and simple. “Outboard” just means the engine is mounted on the back of the boat instead of inside it.
Place
Suzuka
Suzuka is a well-known race track in Japan. It hosts major motorcycle and car races, so racing there is a big deal.
LIVE
MUSIC
A Listener production.
G'day, it's Rusty here.
I'll set the part two of my feature ep with Michael Dowson.
This one isn't just for bike racing fans.
Although Two Wheels was his first love,
you'll hear about his two-ring car exploits
in this second part as well, what he's doing now,
and some of the standout moments
at the peak of his bike career, not just in Australia.
Now, if you've arrived here and somehow missed part one,
make sure you check that out first.
It should be immediately prior to this one
in the Garage Library list,
from being wowed by Greg Hansford at Wannaroo
to the sage bike prep fundamentals
that his father instilled in him,
the incredible support of his family,
who moved east when it was clear that the Colonel had talent.
We talk about those nicknames and more as well,
and reminisce about racing bikes at Bathurst.
Man, they were brave.
Let's crack into it now with part two.
In order to come to the Japanese and international chapter,
if you will, I want to wrap up a couple of things.
Firstly, Roger Freeth I can remember from the rally days
with Possum born and so on, and what was he like as a bike racer?
Lovely guy.
Lovely guy, but you put his helmet on like most people,
and now they reckon you put your helmet on the button.
The button goes on your head and you change to a beast.
That was him.
He was one of those guys.
So in the pits talking to him was just like talking to,
again, I'd used to go to church with my mum a lot.
So priests, you'd talk to priests a lot and he'd talk like a priest.
Really?
Yeah, very very friendly, soft tone guy, amazing.
So, yeah, it was a bit of a surprise after meeting,
got the likes of Andrew Johnson.
Yeah.
Because he was a real ratbag.
And they have someone that you think,
well, okay, this guy is the same level as that.
And to be talking like a priest was a bit bizarre.
Yeah, before he goes and dons the helmet and away he goes.
Yeah, turns into an animal.
The results in some of the national stuff are amazing.
You've reminisced about Bathurst, which I love.
We haven't really talked about things like Swan series or Six Hour
and some of those things.
How important in shaping you for some of the chances
to go overseas and do some things were the races there?
100%.
Back in our days, we did a lot of production racing.
So there was GP style bikes.
That was one class.
And then there was super bikes, obviously, that started to take off.
And then the big thing and the big money thing for guys to make good income
was the production racing because that was directly related,
especially the eight hour, the six hour.
It was related directly to sales.
They had to believe that if you the bike won on Sunday,
you'd sell on Monday type.
So many names came through it, too.
Didn't they?
Absolutely.
So production racing for me was again,
being with Warren, who was able to manipulate production bikes
to get the most out of them.
And that to me, I think was the main thing for us was
his capacity to make adjustments and stay within the rules and make it work.
And we had situations where
tire manufacturers wanted us to have their brand.
But in a lot of cases, like the 87 Castro six hour,
we had one brand on the front and another different brand on the rear.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. And he was never really liked for it.
But he said, well, we don't care about your tires.
We want the tire to win.
So we end up running in the 87 one.
We had a rear tire.
I think it was a Metzler, a rear tire off an RZ 350.
So it was a rear tire for the RZ 350.
But we had that on the front of our FZ1000,
which everyone said, oh, that won't work.
That's crazy.
You know, I put it on at the start of the eight hour, the six hour.
It did the whole race, had more grip than anyone the whole race.
So the Metzler at the time front, it was available.
We would have been having to at least change two or three times.
Wow.
So we put this front tire on that did the whole whole race.
Again, whoever's got the throttle open the longest without being in the pits
or off the throttle is going to win.
And that's what Warren, how he was about.
He just looked at whatever we could do to keep you on the track
and not on the pits and not wasting time.
So that sort of thing, suspension abilities,
changing geometries.
And he was able to listen to what like Kevin
and I completely different the way we would express ourselves.
But he was able to manipulate the bike
and understand what we're saying to make it make it work, make it work.
Just just tell me about about a take away from each of them, maybe,
maybe from the pitmans and then even from Warren willing that that really
you know, you talk through the rest of your career.
Was there something along the way where you were talking technically about a bike,
the way you were going to ride it?
You mentioned even swapping the the shift pattern around before.
Is there a there are a couple of takeaways that were, you know, really
significant for you?
I just think everything was everything was about evolution.
You know, how could you evolve?
How could you ultimately reduce your lap times?
And then having guys in the with history,
it's always the same.
It's the same now.
You got guys that have got the history.
Like I remember looking at the factory racing team,
you watch some other GP or GP racing from mixed era or before.
You'd see the engineers and the pits and they didn't change much
because the evolution of those guys
is what was making the bike and the rider gain in what they want trying to do.
So I think for me was Warren and Malcolm
were the guys with all the tools in the toolbox
to be able to help me to go forward and looking back at my time.
That's exactly what happened.
I was able to say, well, I'm not happy with this.
I'm this is giving me an issue.
And there was always a way of making of listening, listening to that and fixing it.
Yeah, right. Yeah, you said before you you were really kind of committed,
dedicated racer, running the track, whatever it may have been.
But you you paused and you said, oh, there was a time where I wasn't.
Can I tell you about that?
Was there a brief moment where you you what what happened there?
OK, so the early 86 period,
we had the opportunity to go racing on with the Maori Amaha teams.
So we were the first Maori Amaha guys.
One of our first races was in Victoria down at Calder.
So Kevin was still living at Horsham.
I was living in Brisbane and we'd come together and start a hotel
and then go racing not far from the hotel to the Calder racer.
Anyway, we hadn't met or somewhere or wherever you might have been.
I don't know. Yeah, just a little, little, little, little hotel, whatever.
And Yamaha booked it for us and we're feeling pretty Hollywood.
The fact that we've made it, we've got the Maori Amaha.
They're the guys.
So the race was coming up.
We got there a day or so before the event started.
And I'd got a rental car and Kevin had his Mercedes.
And we both pulled up and stayed at this hotel.
And I think it was like a Thursday night.
Kevin was working, had already worked for Trevor Flood.
Trevor Flood done a lot for Kevin in his early, in his early career.
Anyway, Trevor had come out one evening after I think we hadn't even started
riding and he'd come out to see us and say, look, I'm just coming.
I'm going to take you out tonight for a celebration because you guys have made it.
And we thought, yeah, OK, so we've parked our cars at the hotel,
jumped in the Mercedes, Travis Mercedes went into Melbourne
for way too long and drank way too much.
So we get back and I'm not a big drinker.
So I'm beside myself, get up with a hangover in the morning
and I'm so laying in the pits basically in amongst the bikes.
Boys boys are flat stick in the bikes ready
because they only just sort of prep them to go racing
and they're still getting the team together.
So they run around like blue-ass flies and Kevin's sitting there
and I'm sort of laying comatised.
And long behold, the main guy from Yamaha Australia come in, George Pine.
George comes in and he goes, you boys, come out here, I want to talk to you.
And straight away, we thought, oh, no, he knows we've been out
with Trevor Bloody Flood.
Floody must have told him.
And I'm comatised in no no no way I should be riding a motorbike.
And George gets us out the back and he says, look, I just like to tell you
that I am so impressed with you, young blokes.
I've turned up at the hotel that I booked for you.
I've noticed both your cars are there.
All the lights are out and that is so professional.
And I just like to thank you.
Oh, fantastic.
And Mugu and I are looking at each other and thinking, oh my God.
That's all Trevor Flood's fault.
Oh, fantastic, fantastic.
Your first international result at the at the eight hour.
I think it's second with Mugu, wasn't it?
But it's a race that you would you'd been in love with already
before you even got there.
What was it like to do that, mate?
So you can you can watch the podcast.
You can do the Suzuki eight hour now is just so good.
Back in those day, you really had to pull some strings
to get any information about the eight hour of those days.
But we had Crosse and we had guys Tony Hatton.
We had all these guys who were already doing it.
So the media was we had to wait for the monthly magazine to come out
in a lot of cases to see what was going on in the international sort of program.
But the eight hour was always something that was very intriguing.
And as we started to do in production racing
ourselves, it become even more interesting to us.
And Kevin saying, Kevin already been over and I think he wrote from Marawaki earlier.
So he already had a background from the eight hour that we got to go there.
So the contract for 86 was we're going to the eight hour.
So the eight hour situation happened through Yamaha Australia,
through the Japanese of Australia, and then we got to go over there and do that.
And probably the biggest thing for me with the eight hour was the amount of people.
I've never been to a place where so many people was like a carpet of blackheads.
And the temperature, the temperature in the eight hour was their summer.
90 percent humidity, 40 to 45 degrees Celsius.
Megatrack. Megatrack.
Megatrack. So yeah, it was a eye opener for sure.
What's the zenith moment in that race?
I mean, Joe's very kindly reminded me of some some some standout stuff
along the way from you from, you know, multiple six hour winds at home here.
Some of the stuff you've loved about Bathurst and so on.
What about at the eight hour?
This is a circuit itself is some it's like Bathurst.
You know, it's an extremely high speed circuit.
It's extremely dangerous.
What's the race that stands out is what I mean.
Sorry, I probably did not articulate my question.
Well, the eight hour to be there at the eight hour to even get the opportunity to go there.
But the first year we went, we were on a pretty much a production bike.
It's just a road bike with the lights on it.
So we rode the wheels off that.
And luckily, a lot of teams fail, like all the Kenny Roberts was there.
Mike Baldwin, whole whole Apertop riders were there, but their bikes failed.
So Gardner and Sarron, the Dominic Sarron, I think they end up a lap or two ahead of us.
But we're on a production bike.
We got second bottom line is we got at home.
We didn't crash.
We didn't do anything wrong.
Our guys work like our our Yamaha guys from Australia were in with the.
I think it was just a production type crew that weren't even racing people.
So our guys from Australia pretty much pointed all that in the right direction.
Nice. So yeah, it was it was pretty damn cool to be second on the
to be second on the podium with all these people and knowing that we were on a
bike that wasn't competitive was extremely valuable to us.
I think from from the Japanese point of view and as and also for us,
we really I think that really helped us in the future for the Japs to say,
well, you know, these guys are obviously pretty good.
These that we know that bikes not competitive.
Did you enjoy the endurance style of racing?
I mean, clearly some of the longer races and the results that you've had.
Yeah, I just like racing.
So short distance stuff, long distance stuff, always.
So at that point in 86, we'd already done quite a bit of endurance racing.
Kevin and I in the Toshiba year in 95, 85,
we already done all the main production races in Australia.
And so we've done a lot of racing together and that was yelling.
So that was something that we could always work with.
We always had similar bike setups.
We could work within the realms of, you know, my my requirements,
where Kevin's work and we're able to make it work.
So without being sort of polar opposite, so to speak.
And that happened a lot, you know, talking to Mick Dorn in his factory years
with the the Hondas, you know, that I think he was with Wayne Gardner
and they had pretty much polar opposites in regards to requirements on the bikes.
And I know they had all kinds of issues.
So it was nice to be able to do the stuff that we did and go,
well, we don't we don't have that problem.
Fundamentally complement each other.
You might have had subtle things that you wanted, but fundamentally.
And I think that is a huge issue for endurance racing.
If you've got two riders that can't ride each other's riding style or bike setup,
you know, you can only think that that's going to harm them at some point in the race.
So we never had that.
You have at this point a Korean from wrong.
It's a quite a good association, quite a close association with Yamaha.
But somewhere here an opportunity emerges with Kawasaki, doesn't it?
Can you tell me about that?
OK, so I had a really good year in 8089
So Kevin and Mick who were my teammates previously, they'd both gone to Europe.
And I was still the Aussie guy.
We're still getting plenty of opportunity from 86 through
had plenty of opportunity to race in the Formula One bikes in Japan.
So he used to go to Japan whenever we we didn't have commitments in Australia.
We'd gone race in Japan.
So the Japanese got to know us quite well in their sprint racing and endurance racing.
So 89 had a really good year in Australia and in Japan.
So I raced a lot in the sugo and some few other circuits and had good results.
So that give me the the opportunity to sort of go into the factory side of things.
And then knowing the management, knowing the mechanics within the factory side,
we got along well.
They understood that we understood.
And that overall package worked for quite a long time.
89 said, I had a really good year.
Then they said, but we want you to ride the Australian Grand Prix.
On a 500
And it was Takahisa Takahisa Taira's bike, his second bike.
So I got to ride that finished ninth.
And my whole game plan for the Australian Grand Prix,
I'd been once to Japan to have a ride of the test circuit
and then go back to Phillip Island, which is Phillip Island is
is a different animal to most circuits.
So that was really difficult.
I had the B level tyres, but I was up against
Mickey and Gardner and that's still in balance
and a pretty damn good result, don't you think?
When you when you look at it in that perspective.
Yeah, so I was happy with that.
But getting back to what happened with 1991.
So I really thought I had a good year.
But I also knew that Wayne Rainey, Kevin John Kaczynski,
there was a bunch of guys that were already in the top seats for Europe.
And I knew that in my situation, I was going to miss out.
So I was looking at where I could do what I could do, where I was going to go,
had a really good year, ninth to me at the at the Australian Grand Prix.
To me as a rider, it wasn't very good.
I look back at it now and I think with all things looking at the past,
it wasn't a bad result, but I wanted to be able to be
for me to feel like I was going to get a chance to go to Europe.
I would need to be knocking on the door of top five and being there, you know,
second or two of the of the front guys to be considered from all the
what normally happens with MotoGP now, even now,
if there's a standout rider, four or five teams want him.
And that's what elevates your position.
Yep. And that's the guy that goes for it.
And probably the best way to the guy to explain now is Acosta.
Yes. Now, he's he's been a standout.
He's blown all his teammates away.
He's been at a different level.
So now everyone wants him.
So that was that's what that's what you wanted to be.
Yeah, you needed to be like that to be able to go to MotoGP.
Anyway, end of the year happened, nothing really happened.
So we had still had a bike shop in Bumbry.
I'd actually gone home and talking to my parents, not sure what to do.
And Peter Doyle.
He started to give me a call and he goes, look,
there's some opportunities in Japan for you with us,
with Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
And I still hadn't heard anything from Yamaha.
I thought, no, I'm not going to ring him.
I'm just going to, you know, I've had a good year.
I should be getting a phone call every year up until then.
I've got a phone call early in the piece.
You're doing that next year. That's it.
And I've not got anything.
So we're in Bumbry and talking to Doyle and they're saying,
what are the the plan is we've got a 250 project
going going back into MotoGP in the 250 class.
And they said, we want you to start that and the Japs want you to be in it.
So yeah, that sounds pretty good.
And then you can lead development of it.
You can do all these things around it.
Yeah, yeah, right. OK.
R&D, a 250 Grand Prix bike, which was, you know, that was that was me.
I've been riding 250, 350, 500 cc, two strokes forever.
And you sleep. Yeah.
So I thought, no problem. That sounds that sounds great.
And it's an engineering thing.
It's a development thing.
I'm going to get me fingers into the nitty gritty of the bike itself.
So that that was very interesting.
And then he said, and then also race the Formula One championship
on a 750 ZXR while you're doing this.
Anyway, so, yeah, you know, yeah, that sounds good.
Still haven't heard from Yamaha.
And then eventually I still had an ear from Yamaha
and was in Bumbry mid-summer.
He was I said, well,
I haven't heard from him.
So I rang Peter Doyle up and said, right, I'm in.
So to 1990 and 1991, I'll do it.
Sounds great.
And two weeks later, my mum comes out from the retail shop.
She goes, Michael, there's someone on the phone.
I think it's Maekawa.
I've gone, oh, really?
Yeah. So Maekawa from MS1 Factory in Japan.
And I said, oh, there you go.
Yeah, he's got good English, speaks American English.
And he goes, right, oh, we've we've just put our plans together.
And we've got a ride for you next year in Japan.
What do you want to do?
And I said, what do you mean?
What do I want to do?
He said, what do you want to ride a 250?
Do you want to ride a 500?
Do you want to ride a Superbike?
What do you want to do?
And you know what?
I stood there thinking he's giving me a frigging gold and
frigging village. Oh, right, right.
Oh, that's what I'm thinking. OK.
So I'm thinking he's saying, well, you know, we're happy with what you've done.
Yeah, I think at that stage, this will be like a swan song kind of thing.
You know, yeah, right. That's how I took it. OK.
Fricking ticket. So in fact, it was like Charlie
in the chocolate factory with the golden ticket.
Is that what you're saying, mate?
It was it was funny how you think and look at things differently.
But that's what happened.
So I'm I'm thinking, I'm still thinking,
oh, you're setting me up for a time in here.
So I was a bit angry.
So I said to him, no, look, Mike, Mike, son,
I've I've actually taken a factory ride with Kawsaki.
And he goes, oh, are you sure?
I said, yeah, I've signed.
And so I haven't spoken to anyone from Yamaha up until now, which is Christmas.
And I really thought that I was on the out.
Yeah. So kind of figure that rather than calling you and see what's going on,
I just I got someone that's all over me.
And then you guys hadn't said anything.
So I've signed with Kawsaki.
So be it or be it.
Well, it was a good and a bad thing.
I got over to Japan with the Kawsaki boys.
And unfortunately, again, if you talk about it,
it's like earlier about what I saw
Greek hands for do on the green meanies, the green meanie 250,
the 350, the 500 of my iconic days was the bike.
But in that time and till my time, they'd been out of racing.
So all their people had gone, moved on to other things.
So when I got over to the factory and started riding their bikes,
you are at ground zero here.
I realized too late after signing that I've signed with a team
that really had no idea.
OK. And the 250 thing I saw never wrote it.
Really? So that didn't happen.
So that was another sort of negative for me.
I'm thinking, well, there's this poxy looking 250 thing
that looks like it's somewhere to start, but it never never slung a leg over.
So to me, it sounded like they just wanted me to be
in the 750 thing because I've done good in Australia, in Japan with Yamaha
three years earlier.
So, you know, without them saying as much, that's what I think.
I think that they said, well, we'll throw the little bait out,
saying there's a 250 Grand Prix bike for you to develop.
But all they really after was developing their 750.
A Formula One bike was called back in those days.
So I did that for two years.
And I remember at the end of the first year, I just crashed my brains out,
had all kinds of issues.
I had two teammates, Japanese teammates.
I had no Japanese language knowledge.
They had no English, but I ended up getting an interpreter,
a friend of mine that's still I communicate with from Kobe.
Chandry Matani is an Indian guy that lives lived in Japan.
So an old factory rider who lived in Kobe, had a bike shop there.
He got in touch with Chandry and said,
we need this guy needs an interpreter.
Would you take on the job?
So halfway through the first year, Chandry give me a hand.
Then I could start understanding what the hell's going on.
I could see that they had no frigging idea.
So at the end of the first year, I said to them, you know,
I really beat my head against a brick wall, I've broken all kinds of bones.
And I think that either you release me from my two year contract
or you give me a satellite team.
So I don't have any influence from your two Tsukamoto and so on.
To me, we're not good for the team.
They'd put new tyres on every ride.
They'd go out in practice.
They go in qualifying with new tyres, go and hold their breath,
do a lap time and then ring the factory and say what lap time they did.
Become race day when you needed to do 30 laps.
They were nowhere.
And at the end of the first year, I was sick of this
because I'll be using my old tyres, trying to work out what I'm going to be
do at the end of the race. What the box like.
And these guys had no frigging idea.
So I said, well, at the end of the first year, here's the deal.
Let me have the contract or give me a satellite team
that I'm not influenced by the other two guys and give me the opportunity to move forward.
But on your own separate to a degree, degree.
Yeah. And they said, yes, OK, which is good.
So I got my own engineers.
So I sat down with what was his name, his name now.
So I sat down with the team of engineers and said, well, right.
Your Formula One bike that we're riding this year,
you tell me why you've come up with crank position,
crankshaft, counter sharp position, swing arm position,
all these things that contribute to the bike's usability.
Why have you set at these points?
Why is this bike got this all these dimensions and specific specifications?
None of them knew.
So what was the history behind why these things are in these positions?
So I got on to the head engineer that spoke good English.
I said, well, look, here's what I want to do.
Like it might be my reflection on Yamaha, but I don't care.
Here's what I think.
Here's what the engine made heaps of horsepower,
but he just couldn't put it down on the track.
OK. So I got him to change things around.
My son, I think he's my son, he was the top engineer.
So I said, well, here's the things that I need for us to start.
So I said, well, going to the start of the second year,
and we'll do this.
So they ticked the box and said, yeah, you can have a satellite team.
We'll put this together.
These guys will build you the bike you need.
My son come in not long after the new year and said,
thoughts and some we have a problem.
It's going to take me most of the year to make these changes,
to make the bike as you see fit, because it was major.
And at that stage, the Japs move so slowly.
So I rode my ass off on the old crappy thing
for like most of the season.
And then the last race of the second year for my contract
was a race at.
Near Tokyo.
So, yeah, I'm not Sendai.
So, Kuba.
Yes, thank you.
Sorry, thank you. Yes, yes.
So I got to scuba and now McKenzie had been doing good in Europe.
Doug Pullman just won the World Championship on in Ducati.
All these guys were at this big bike race at scuba
and my bike that I wanted arrived.
And we smashed them, finished the finish the race.
I can good 15 seconds, 20 seconds ahead of everybody
after a 30 up race.
I was stoked, got on the on the rostrum.
Took all my cows, hockey stuff off, threw it into the crowd,
walked back to the Pizzi Mounties, got in my civvy
so close and said, um, that's me.
I'm done. Wow.
And the issue, the reason, the reason at the end of it,
there was a bunch of things that was leading up to it.
But when they sort of talking about to 1993,
they threw my interpreter, Chandru.
He was able to understand that the factory had appointed
already for the next season a new team manager.
And it appeared that the timber, the way Chandru was speaking
to the the team, the racing team,
they reckon that the the guy that was getting the job
for the next year as team manager had was an engineer.
But he had produced a power product,
which is an auxiliary motor that sold sold really well in Asia.
So his reward from making really good money
from this thing was now you've done so good with this.
Run the race team.
And that was my main reason for leaving.
OK, because as I said earlier, talking to you,
the Yamaha, the Honda guys, the racing guys that you've seen
for 20 years in there, you know, they might be really old,
but they keep them there just to keep everyone on.
I know we've done that in the fabric of the whole thing.
Evolution is that way.
And when they did that to me for potentially,
I could have easily signed for another two years and said,
well, right, I need to move forward.
The bike now looks like it's going to be a good thing.
But when they told me that this guy that made power products
and he's going to be our new guy, I said, no,
I don't need more egos coming in pretending to know which way to go.
That's that's it.
That's pretty massive, mate.
So did you, you know, some people do a Nellie Melbourne,
they come back and do another race.
Did you was that literally it from a two-wheel professional standpoint?
Goober was my last race.
And then Mel Pittman rang me for 93.
And I did Peter Jackson, Yamaha team with Sean Giles.
Giles. Yeah. Yeah.
So Giles and I did that year. Nice.
And then that was the end for me in a 93.
How do you frame that now with the benefit of time, right?
When you look back on it, I'm not a believer in regret.
I say that often here on the podcast because you make the best decision
with what you have at the time in the Yamaha Kawasaki example.
You'd held out a long period of time.
There was no phone call.
You moved to what you thought was a project, a project,
a logical thing that you could sink your teeth into and so on.
Yeah, correct.
This time times past, right?
So but but when you look back on that,
how do you feel about that whole thing now?
Yeah, there's just so many of our racing is always a dangerous thing.
We know that Nagai, a young guy called Nagai,
was my team rider in Yamaha in 88 and 89 and didn't know very well.
He didn't like us.
Ozzie's very well.
He just, you know, we're at a Japanese championship.
Really had not much to do with him, but good rider and again,
never really socialized with him.
He wasn't interested in learning any English.
And I really was struggling with Japanese.
So we never really had a relationship.
But I just know that he went on from my career.
And I think it was 95.
He was killed either at Aston or somewhere at a World Subway race.
So there's just so many ways of reflecting your path.
Yeah.
And I think when that and Wayne Rainey having his paralysis situation
and he was way more talented than I ever would be.
So all these things.
Provides a perspective or something.
I did a pretty good job out of kneecap.
It was never any good for my whole series of racing.
I struggled without every race.
So really for a guy from 11 Thage or a guy from Bumbring,
Western Australia, didn't do too bad.
Yeah, we're better than that.
That's you undersell that.
You did way better than that.
Yeah.
Can I come to a couple of things to finish the two wheel chapter?
And there is a natural crossover to four wheels
that we've almost sort of ventured into already.
Firstly, on the two wheel side,
somewhere along the line in the in the Ozzie period,
you come across this almost rag tag guy in a in a Holden Ute
with the German shepherd called McDewan.
But you introduce him, I think, to the team camo guys.
You might have even encouraged him to go and get a haircut along the way.
So did you pay for it?
Did you?
He speaks.
He's he, among others that I've spoken to in the lead up to this
speaks glowingly about you, mate, and and the, you know,
the things that you did to sort of help open the door.
The McDewan story, I'm just the fortunate one to be around at the time
and things align for me to look for a young guy.
Someone would have picked him up
and he would still be five world championship.
The owner of five world championships with or without me.
I know that I was just bloody fortunate to be the guy
that was asked to look for somebody.
So the team camo guys were all gay thornium are guys.
So Robbie Asink and all his mates, they come to me and said,
look, you're the guy in Australia.
Find us a writer.
We want to give a writer an opportunity to go racing.
And I said, yeah, no worries.
I said, we don't care where you get him from.
Just a young guy.
And the guys from Gaythorne
and the guys that stay with Mick Three's racing career, still my friends.
Yeah, nice.
And John O, Eden, all those boys, guys.
I miss lost contact with them a lot, obviously living over here.
Speak to Eden a fair bit because we have we got the AMA series
sort of thing in in connection.
But yeah, those guys gave me the opportunity to look for someone for them.
You know, Mick Dorn.
I remember watching him.
He'd turn up at Adelaide.
He turned up at Victoria.
He lived in the Gold Coast.
I knew that I watched him ride at
at the service Paralyze Raceway.
He'd come to Lakeside.
It was everywhere in that old you.
The youth must have done 100,000 kilometers and the dog.
So I just remember watching him at service Paralyze.
I'm standing up on the Maori Amha truck, watching him.
I finished for the day and he's on a TZR 250.
I'm pretty sure.
And he was out there amongst his group doing his qualifying for the weekend.
And I don't know if you know of the service Paralyze way out.
So the back straight and then you've got a high speed left hander
and the back before you go into that tight stuff around the hill.
So coming through the left hand at extremely high speed
and then it's got a burn like a curve on the outside of the circuit
for cars to stop going in the bush and rolling over, whatever.
Mick's come through that thing that on a TZR 250.
And, you know, most people have slowed down for corners.
He never did.
And he's come through this turn, lost it, drifted sideways, hit this
like a berm on the outside of the track.
And both he and the bike of Cartwheeled through the air
at pretty much whatever speed he went into the corner at before he had the brakes.
It's launched off the burn that way.
He was still doing that.
Hadn't changed.
And here he is, him and the body Cartwheel and so, oh, my God.
So go and find him at the ambulance, broken collarbone.
And I went home, he went home and kind of figured that he's the guy.
OK, so I went back to the Gold Coast, lived in Brizzy.
And went down the Gold Coast, didn't know where he lived.
Spoke to Donnie Pask.
Donnie Pask was a bike dealer, a Suzuki guy, and he also supported him.
And I said, look, I'm after Mick.
How do I find him?
He said, well, his mum's lived, lives with a policeman.
He's he's he's stepdad's a policeman.
So give me a hand there, found his mum, went to his mum's place.
Where's Mick?
Hi, here's his address.
Went around to this address and the front door was hanging off.
The grass was up over the fence.
Walked up the door, Mick comes out and said, how are you going?
How's your shoulder?
Oh, yeah, it's manning.
It's just going good.
I said, are you are you keen about this stuff?
Is this what you want to do?
I said, oh, yeah, I do.
So I got a bunch of guys that are keen as to meet you.
Are you are you free?
He said, yep.
And obviously I had time.
We would have made the line, I think, but he decided he had time.
The lawn could wait.
So stuck him in the car, went into Brizzy, got him a haircut,
took him to Team Camo.
Excellent. And there we went.
That's the way it went.
That's how that started.
You told me off mic today before I hit record.
And maybe it's an extension of that crash you described before
and the way that he could ride it.
But those boys and there's a few of them that do this thing
that end up playing, I called it rarefied air.
You gave it a better description than that.
But they can play fundamentally beyond the limit
is what's above traction.
Just describe that.
Well, I think it's not something not everyone can do.
I think we can all do it in a car.
We can all do it on gravel.
But to do it on two wheels is a completely different ballgame.
Limited contact patch, blah, blah, blah.
Just just, yeah, you know.
And my analogy of car racing and bike racing,
you know, it probably changed now.
I like I look at what Brock's doing with all those guys
and they're all 15, 20 guys within half a second
of a lap time of each other.
That's damn cool.
And that's pretty much where it's at.
If you can have 20 vehicles on the track
and they're all within half a second, that is off its chops.
And therefore for you to be able to.
So racing now, I think in the formula one, whatever,
it's all of that level now.
So that's the thing.
Like I think bike racing and car racing will always have
that difference, I think, in what it takes to be able to do
both sports, you know, to be able to be beyond traction
in a car.
I think we all can have a crack at that.
But the guys that that are really good at it,
the guys can do it for three or four hours at a time.
That's your fitness level and your capacity.
Your awareness, yeah.
Yeah. And I'm not saying that cars aren't there now,
but bike racing now, bike racing before, doing,
beating, all the guys from Australia, you know, Bayless,
all these guys that have got there, you know,
I think they've got this special capacity to ride beyond traction.
OK. And there's not many people can do it.
Dowson quietly helped open some doors for McDoohan at a pivotal moment of his career.
What followed is the stuff of legend.
Five straight world titles in what we now know as MotoGP.
But I never tried to be too technical.
I just give the feedback of what I wanted the bike to do.
You know, I didn't tell them that I think we should change to this spring.
Or, you know, we need to adjust that like this.
It was I'd be speaking with Jeremy Burgess and the and the chassis engineers
and the engine engineers just telling them what I'd like that.
No nonsense, but ultra competitive nature still serves making business today
and has no doubt rubbed off on his son, Jack, who is waiting in the F1 wings.
Let's get back to Mike Dowson now.
In describing before about contesting the Australian motorcycle Grand Prix,
getting the chance to do that finishing ninth and so on.
You have a rare statistic in that year,
and that is that you got to race a car in the Australian Touring Car Championship.
And I think even did the Bathurst 1000 that year. Did you not?
Yeah. So that's amazing, mate.
Firstly, how did the chance to go and play on the four wheel side?
When did that really first entertain the idea of that?
How did that come about?
Again, I had a really good year in 89.
My profile was high.
Joe has just handed me this awesome shot of you in a Corolla.
That thing is within a whisker of rolling over.
It is on two wheels.
Safe as a judge, mate. Safe as a judge.
Where are you? Is that Oran?
Turn one at Bathurst. Bathurst. It is two.
That's crazy, mate.
So what's happened is the year before or the earlier earlier in the year
or the year before, I think, 88, 88, yeah, yeah.
Toyota decided to have a star search competition, didn't they?
Yes. So they had Neil Bates,
Graham Bailey from four.
I think it was Terry Sawyer in there, too, and a few others.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ronnie Crickey had his name in for it.
So they put all these people together to drive a Formula Group C production cars
at certain events around Australia.
So you'd be invited, they'd fly you in, give you a suit, you drive this car.
Then they'd ascertain if you were able to be competitive in any way.
And then from there, they would pick who would race a Corolla.
Tom's racing Corolla wasn't and wasn't a bloody shopping car.
Joanne, no, no.
If you're going to have a full name, she's in trouble there.
But yes, no, I know it's it's damn good that she goes, that's a Corolla.
It's a shopping vehicle.
So so the deal was if you get through the group C stuff
and they think, well, you're compatible, you're competitive,
will put you in the group to have a crack at driving with Johnny Faulkner.
In the other Toyota Corolla in the Touring Car Championship.
So I raced the Touring Car.
I drove the group C, I think it was Salika, I think,
in a production thing at Calder, which I love.
It was great fun.
And then then I went back to be doing my road racing stuff.
Again, a great year in 89 was racing in Japan and Australia.
Pretty busy period.
And then I got a phone call to say, yeah, we got you.
You you can drive the Corolla at the Touring Car Championship at Lakeside,
my home track.
Yeah, that sounds great. I'm available.
I'm not I'm not stuck doing my bike stuff.
So that was that work, the gap was there.
So yeah, I'll be in that.
So I get there and Faulkner is my teammate and get out on the track.
And it was a wet weekend.
I think it was on Friday or I think it was Friday afternoon.
I was third on the grid amongst the Sierra's because it was wet.
Yeah, yeah, I could drive that.
I could drive anything around like a blindfolded around Lakeside.
So I'm a third or fourth and here's this Corolla in on in amongst all of the V8s.
Sierra's I would say.
All the turbocharged stuff.
So anyway, that's all right.
I'm thinking that this is great.
And the boys are quite happy and they think it was pretty good
and getting along nicely with the mechanics and stuff.
And they could see that I had an input with knowing what's going on.
And qualifying, I think, on Saturday,
still wet and all the guys like to have their throttle
and their brake and their clutch pedals, just shiny metal.
And, you know, when I saw him getting in their car,
with the five point harness on, this is still wet, though, you're talking.
Obviously, yeah, yeah, something.
And they get in and they wet.
They dry their feet off and they get in the car.
So I get in the car, get out in there in the wet
and getting in to it and getting faster and faster
and get down through the chase and into their first right hand
or at the end of the straight.
In way deep under brakes, foot comes off the pedal.
Get back on the pedal, trying to slow it.
But now I'm in the air and now I'm flying through the air
into the tyre barrier, right down the Corolla.
Get out of the car thinking, well, that's it now.
These boys won't like me anymore.
Anyway, they said, man, you qualified on pole.
So you're in.
So they busily put the car back together.
And then Sunday, the Sunday race comes
and it was me and Faulkner.
That's amazing, mate, against RS 500 Sierras
and everything like that.
Oh, man, it was pretty funny.
Anyway, so Sunday comes.
Thing was dry.
The track was dry, but it was still wet, wet grass and stuff.
We're into it.
So I'm going for it down through the chase.
And unbeknownst to me down through the kink
on the main straight on the outside is Toyota dealer team
people with a big on the on the like, yeah.
Just watching the race.
Hold your mic.
So are the outside of the track.
Big bunch of guys from Toyota.
Sorry.
And then so I didn't know this.
So I'm coming through.
We've done four or 5610 laps, whatever.
And Faulkner's all over me.
No big deal.
Early in the race.
And we're coming down one lap.
He's got a bit of a run on me down the straight.
So he's poked his front wheels alongside my right hand wheels.
And I'm inside the white line.
So here I am drifting sideways through the kink full throttle.
And John's tapped me on the back wheel, spun me around.
Now I'm spinning around out of control in the grass,
taking out the 300 200 100 metre marks, the foam markers.
Yes, yes.
And now one of my wheels, I'm just spinning around out of control.
As I get back on the track, because that's the way the car was going.
One of the Sierra, I think the Texas Sierra's was coming through from a bad start.
OK.
And he just ran into me and wiped us both out.
So now one weekend, I've had two major wipeouts.
Not a Celtic Sierra?
Which one was it?
No, it was the Celtics.
The Texas was bathed at the international event there.
Yeah, no, you might have been Celtics.
Anyway, so anyway, yes.
So anyway, he, you know, doing his own thing.
I'm running around and spinning around because Faulkner ran into me.
That was his fault.
A little footnote here.
Round three of the 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship at Lakeside
was originally scheduled for early April, but it was wet, as Dawson said.
So much so, the lake eventually overflowed and the track flooded,
forcing the postponement of the event by a fortnight.
Now, you can find the legendary Gary Wilkinson, Wilco, for example,
telling seven network viewers that the first attempt to run the meeting
is off and they'll take you back to normal programming, et cetera.
The running prior to the postponement, the sessions, the times, et cetera,
where Dawson recalls being quick, well, they were scrubbed from what I can gather.
The Toyota team's Corollas, understandably, because they were class cars,
actually qualified 24th and 25th when they came back in drier weather
a fortnight later, Dawson, a head of Faulkner.
Man, that race meeting had some incidents across different categories.
Auto action ran a headline Black Sunday.
Thankfully, everyone was OK, but Cams launched an inquiry into the various incidents.
Cams is now known as Motorsport Australia.
The touring car race was actually stopped because of a huge accident
and fireball involving Andrew Medici Sierra, Glenn Seton,
the John Lusty entry and Murray Carter were part of that story, too.
The seven coverage doesn't have much on an earlier incident,
which Dawson is describing.
It's in fact Ken Matthews in the second Caltech CXT Sierra
that he's talking about, where we were a little unsure.
What isn't clear is what triggered it.
Now, I've left my guest in his own words because that's how he remembers it.
I prefer to do that.
I am a huge believer in balance, as you know,
so I really need to get John Faulkner's take on it, too.
So just bear that in mind and we'll do that at some stage
because I'd love to get John on the pod.
The only reason I've broken in here is that one media race report suggests
the initial tangle was, in fact, with Joe Somariva's BMW.
Dawson then fishtails in the AE82 Corolla from the kink
to almost the carousel at Lakeside,
taking out the meter markers, as he said,
and then having contact with Matthews Sierra,
which you get a glimpse of damaged back in Pit Lane on the seven broadcast.
As it unfolded, Faulkner and Ross Burbage in a Nissan Gazelle
sneaked through and basically escaped the wild into it all.
That's how it was reported,
but I can't verify the accuracy of the journalist's account either.
Regardless, Toyota was still clearly impressed
and Dawson got the Baptist call up.
A little thank you to Aaron Noonan
and the incredible V8 Sleuth archive for their help on that
as we take you back to the Convo.
And then walk back to the pits holding our helmets
and I've just gone home because I think the Toyota boys
don't want to talk to me, so I'm done.
That's it.
So I didn't even talk to anybody.
They had my car on the outside of the track,
so I went home.
So I wasn't living far from there.
The Y-Sense go in there and talk to them
because they don't want to listen.
They've got a broken car for the second time in a weekend,
so that's done.
They've got to be done.
Okay.
Now I've just got to think about going back to Japan.
Anyway, some time later I get a phone call
from I think a guy called Michael Breen.
Yes, that's correct.
He was the marketing guy for Toyota.
Very much so, yes.
And he goes, no, you're in.
We want you to go to Bathurst with Neil Bates.
I say, sure.
I've totaled to...
In that day, bike racing, you total a bike, borderline...
Job over.
Job over, yeah, yeah.
End of your career.
So I took it very seriously that these guys
probably don't want to talk to me.
You know, I said Tony Lavoritt for something
was the team manager.
He supported me.
He said, yep, you're in.
He said, the reason I'm telling you why we're letting you in
is at the end of the race, all the guys from the Toyota dealer
team that was in the tent all come into the pits and said,
who's that dickhead that took out the leading car?
So the boys in the pit couldn't see it.
So they got onto the team and said,
the guy that was behind took out the lead guy
and that's why it crashed.
So they've taken that on board and said, you're off to Bathurst.
I'm thinking, really, excuse us.
Batesy's been on the podcast and I was with him at the weekend
for the rally and he can fondly recall, I'm certain it's in this race,
that at some point there is maybe a bit of nerves around,
we just got to get the car to finish or something and they're trying
to calm everything down at a team or a management level.
And he said, I'll never forget how almost like serious or stern
you were with him.
You were like, mate, we are here to win this thing.
Don't you dare roll off or do whatever they've told you to do.
You give it 11-10s or something along those lines.
So what was happening was I understood very limited car racing,
but understood what it took to get a car.
Again, it's all about being able to control a car when it's floating.
So how you can make a car float at high speed above traction
or beyond traction and stay away from things that will wreck your car or your life.
So that's very important.
So you watch now, the cameras now have got a lot of cameras on the guy's feet.
How busy they are in a car like throttle, brake,
and you got your feet doing multiple jobs.
And I was very much a part of left foot braking.
Left foot braking was me because that allowed me to manage the car
at this period beyond traction.
So I said it's important and I think one of the guys was sort of saying,
keep your left foot off the brake.
It's just for the clutch.
And you got to do the old foot throttle with your right foot.
Heel and toe. Heel and toe you talk about.
Is that what you mean or?
Yeah, whatever it was.
They said, do not use your left foot for your brakes.
And I said debates.
He said, well, I don't know what they're talking about,
but I think that's what they mean.
But as far as I'm concerned, you got to do what's going to make that car finish the race,
mostly. And you also need to do what you've got to do to make the circuit,
the vehicle do the fastest times you can do.
And that's a part of it.
And I said, I won't let them, they might tell me not to do that.
But I think they were thinking that you're driving with a throttle on and you're pushing
on the brake and you're going to, you know, the clutch is going to burn out
and the brakes going to burn out the time because you're pushing because most people.
So you'll compromise it mechanically is what they're worried about or something,
were they?
Yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah, without understanding exactly what we're doing,
they're just thinking you're torturing the brakes, clutch.
How can it be any good over a thousand cars?
Those things aren't going to last.
And so, well, if you, if you don't know what you're doing, I agree.
If you're going to pull the steering wheel off and you're pushing your foot on the throttle
on the brake, that is dumb. Give me a break.
You know, give us a little bit more sort of consideration of what we're capable of.
And that's why I said debates here.
I said, I do it and I'm not going to stop it because that's the only way to control the vehicle problem.
So there was little things on that.
So, I mean, I mean, if I'm wrong here, because Joe has kindly helped me here,
class win, lap record, I mean, very cool.
Okay, so this is where this fire to come in.
So that was when we won.
And there was, Batesy had to do the last hour, I think it was.
So I come in, they give me the pit sign.
So right, I pit in next lap.
And at the end of the stat straight, when they give me the pit in sign,
there was a Commodore that was smoking like a, like was on fire, obviously,
filed engine.
So the guy that was driving, it saw me coming.
So coming into the first turn, he's actually pulled infield and allowed me to stay online,
go around him and then go up into the hill.
But when he's done that with all these smoking stuff, I've lost all my braking markers.
So I'll come in way too deep with no tyres left, empty fuel tank that was on the crow,
across the rear axle.
So I've gone, oh shit, there's the corner.
So I've just flicked it in.
It's oversteered, slid sideways.
So I've got tapped the throttle back on.
Now I'm sort of running the curbs here and I'm running like that, drifting.
Let's tap the left hand inside wheel.
And that's boarded up on the two outside wheels.
Now I'm balancing it, got it back onto its feet,
went in through the last part of the gravel trap,
into first gear and got going.
By the time I got back going again, the guy in the Commodore was going,
Yeah, me thumbs up.
Man, that was cool.
And I'm like, my heart's going, oh God.
And straight away I'm thinking, I can't tell these guys that I've done this to their car.
You know, I've smashed it back on the ground.
We have photographic evidence.
What have I done?
What have I done?
Come in the pits, pull up, get out, bait you, gets in.
The guy that's on the pit sign eventually comes over and we go, say, look,
that last lap when I do the pit in.
What happened when you went through the corner?
I said, nothing more.
I never told him.
Really?
I never told him anything.
But the crowd must have cheered like crazy, mate, or something.
That's what he said.
He said, the crowd went mad.
Something must have happened.
I said, it must have been that car,
must have been the Commodore on fire or whatever.
So that diffused that because I thought, I can't tell these guys,
because I want to do this again.
Can't tell them.
Anyway, not that long after, Michael Brain rings me.
Mate, have you seen racing car news or
racing car news or something?
Have you seen that magazine?
No, I don't get them car magazines.
Go and get it.
Anyway, he says, I go and get it.
Ring him back.
He goes, oh, my God.
I didn't really want you guys to know about that.
And he goes, doesn't worry to me.
He says, I'm in marketing.
I don't care, because I explained to him that I'm really sorry.
It was a mistake I made.
And I hope I didn't hurt the car.
We got it home.
Bait you did another hour.
No problem.
I obviously didn't hurt it.
He goes, I don't care.
Bottom line is we want that to become part of our service programming.
So they did a poster and put it all through their marketing for their shops.
And they said, if you don't race, rally, or roll in this photo,
you can have our extra care warranty.
I love it.
So that's how that come about.
Anyway, so I went back in 1990 and drove from again.
And they bought out a young guy from OpenWheelers in Europe, Aussie guy.
The car broke for whatever reason.
I can't remember why.
So we never finished again.
Then the next year, they said, look, we're keen for you to go.
We want you to be our driver.
But there's six guys that are talking five figures to have your seat.
So if you can bring some money, it's yours.
I said, see ya.
Yeah, yeah.
Was there a point though?
I mean, in the midst of juggling two-wheel stuff in this period, obviously, as well.
Was there a door opening beyond the money scenario that you're talking about?
Was there a door opening at Toyota maybe early on where you could have ended up in a...
And well, again, that's an interesting thing.
The Toyota thing sort of got some inertia in Japan.
I got a phone call from Tom's Racing in Japan.
Tom's Racing.
I've gone, what's Tom's Racing?
So now it's touchy and Aussie motorsport.
I met him.
Mega mate.
Yeah, yeah.
I met these guys.
It was amazing.
So I was up there at Mount Fuji and doing some stuff with Yamaha.
And they were there doing stuff as well.
And Toyota had made a connection, so I got to meet them.
And they said, oh, we've heard what you've done in Australia.
And they said, we've got to open wheel like a little four-cylinder engine.
Have a drive with this.
But he said, the only problem is it's not going to go anywhere because we're off to Europe.
So that was before Tom's went to Europe and did the endurance stuff.
And went into their Formula One stuff.
OK.
So that was right up the cusp.
But they've said, we've got all this money.
And the two of them that I spoke to that spoke really good English, touchy and Aussie.
He said, you know, if we were staying here, we'd probably give you a crack.
But we're off to Europe.
So yeah.
So, but at least I got to see.
Now I know that they went to Europe and that was them.
And they never asked me to come, but anyway.
I have a few to finish here.
You've been great with your time, mate.
And we're probably starving for a little bit of lunch.
But let's couple of things.
Doily tells me to ask you about go-karts and golf buggies.
Have you got some stories?
No, no, we're near as many as he and Phyllis have got.
That's out that period.
There was a go-kart thing.
Phyllis again was always the ringleader.
Let's go and race the go-karts.
So we'd gone up to Sugo.
This is one I remember.
And Pete might remember more, but I tried to wash it from my mind.
But we went to Sugo and there was a big race there.
I was on Yamaha.
They were there with Carl Sarky.
We're all buddies.
And by the way, Rob's a lovely guy.
You know, he was a really hard fought competitor.
I caught up with him in the last 12 months.
He's been on for a chat.
But what a sweet person.
You know, a lovely guy.
I broke my leg at a lakeside and broke my fimbos.
But when Duane got his real first chance to go to Japan,
me and Wine were all set to go in 87.
87, 88.
Can't remember which one it was.
It was 87.
I broke my fimbos and Mick was coming along,
being involved with the Yamaha thing.
Broke my leg at the turn one at Lakeside.
And I remember I knocked myself out.
I come up with Robby Cradling me crying.
Oh, wow.
Really concerned for me.
And because I was out, I come to it.
And here I am, cradled by Robby Phyllis.
And he was just super concerned about, you know,
dropped his bike.
Can see he was just behind me when I crashed.
Can see that it was pretty bad.
And, you know, I never really thought of him
like that until that day.
But that's the kind of guy he is.
Yeah, because beneath all the craziness,
all the fun and stuff, there is, yeah.
Yeah, it was the real serious.
But yeah, going back to the go-karts,
so Robby goes, there's Go Racing the go-karts at Sugo.
You know, it's a Yamaha-owned circuit.
And I'm a factory Yamaha rider.
Anyway, we're out there cracking around on these go-karts.
And anyway, we come together and I've put mine over the fence.
Wrecked it and had to go and see the circuit manager
who was also running the hotel area.
Okay.
Spoke good English, unfortunately.
He said, Dawson Son, you've broken these go-karts.
No, very expensive.
You're going to have to pay.
I said, well, at that stage I hadn't,
didn't think I was going to do any good that weekend,
so I couldn't see any extra money coming in.
So I'm thinking, oh no, now I'm going to have a debt
for the Sugo circuit for a go-kart that I wrecked.
Anyway, end of the weekend, I win.
So I won the weekend.
And I'm thinking, oh, now I'm thinking,
shit, this freaking go-kart is going to come over.
The manager's going to come over and say,
well, right, you know, that money you just won.
I'm taking it.
He comes and finds me.
And I'm thinking, oh, here we go.
And he goes, Dawson Son, congratulations.
Congratulations on that at all for the race win.
Don't worry about the go-kart.
Thank God, yes, I don't know.
We would have taken it all, I guess.
Yeah, but there's some great, I know.
Oh yeah, don't get me started about
doily and bloody...
Shenanigans.
Oh, Shenanigans, oh my God.
No, it was a good time.
It was a great time.
We had a bit of fun.
They had probably more fun than I did, but I was,
you know, we're all pretty serious.
Come time when it comes to racing, all the jokes aside,
you know, we all tried to tam hard.
Yeah, definitely.
And it was a good thing to reflect and look back on.
What's the bike?
If I said to you now, what's the bike?
I mean, Joe's got these amazing pictures
all in front of us, great memories.
What's the one that you maybe have a, you know,
a fondness or an attachment to and why?
I think it would have been the factory Formula One Yamaha
750 in 89, 88, 89.
You know, they initially, when we rode and we weren't happy,
it turned out just to be adjustment.
The bikes were very capable, fully adjustable.
And at that time, we had the full respect
from the factory MS1 division boys
to allow us to do any adjustments.
And a thing had, like we were racing 750s in Australia
and 750s over there.
And these things like had a third more power.
And through the range, usable.
It was just, it was just amazing to think that
we were struggling in Australia against most of the competition
without what we thought was pretty good superbikes.
But the Japanese stuff was just at a different level.
So when Mick and I raced superbikes at Orrin Park,
he was first by a mile, I was behind him
and I'd gap the rest of the field.
But they were on factory spec bikes.
And they're excellent, they're just so usable.
Yeah, so there's a bunch of stuff.
All the Japanese Yamaha factory machinery was just so cool.
Actually, another good story,
engineer that was always a dyno guy.
I can't remember his name, but he had good English.
We spoke often over a three year period.
I love to hear his stories about how they're developing or whatever.
In 89, he come and said to me that I'm leaving the factory.
I said, what are you doing?
He was off to start the development
of Yamaha Marine four strike engines.
So I was there then.
So good.
Because a pretty, pretty cool bunch of stuff, including
was all two strike outboard marine engines.
And it was probably three or four years later.
This stuff is going to start coming through.
Wow.
But this guy was actually taken from the factory dyno team.
And he was like, right, you're one of the guys in
for our marine engines to go forward.
Yeah, so that was some pretty cool stuff.
The race, the place you've talked about.
Suzuka and some of the special memories there.
What Bathis was like.
What's the race and the place?
Yeah, it's always the ones that you win, which unfortunately
compared to Dylan and Beatty and Stoner and bloody
Baylis and Corsa and all the guys that are around now.
My career pales into significance compared to what
they've done.
So for me, looking back on my career, Bathurst, I think,
I just love Bathurst.
I rode from 1980 through to 89.
Got to ride Mel Pitman's machinery.
Got to ride Warren Willing's machinery.
And we're very successful.
And yeah, I think those bikes, that circuit to me,
was probably the pinnacle of what I've done.
What you've done.
Finally, we are here on the outskirts of Perth
at a beautiful farm.
But you spend a lot of your time south of Perth, don't you?
And I think you've had a charter boat and so on.
Tell me what life is like now.
What are you doing now?
So Joanne and I married about 10 years ago and got a commercial
river vessel that we...
If Barry Sheen was here, he might say,
did Jo draw second prize there?
Yeah, yeah.
Thank God he's not here.
Oh, Barry used to call me Ace.
I thought, oh my God.
Barry's calling me Ace.
But then I started hanging around with him.
He called everyone Ace.
When he couldn't remember you,
when he couldn't remember your name, he would say that.
Hey, hey, hey, go on, Ace.
He would say, who's that geezer over there?
And you know, Barry, Barry, that's...
So yeah, I thought I was very special for about five minutes.
So yeah, so you've got a...
So we've got our little river boat.
Specialised in taking retirement villages, people out,
Zimmer frames and all kinds of stuff and give them a bit of entertainment.
Look at dolphins, cut the river and do barbecue cruises with them.
So that's what we do.
We do that.
It's kind of part time because it's really a seasonal thing over summer.
And a friend of ours has got a couple of farms and a big commercial boat.
And we've been involved with the commercial boat.
That's the big girl.
And like you go right up the kind of West Coast kind of thing, do you?
So we've been through from Freemantle all the way through to Wyndham.
Amazing.
In the Kimberley, taking guests to and from the Kimberley.
So we did that for seven years.
And now we're basically...
We're off that boat.
I still do engineering to that boat.
I love it.
Got a couple of big M2UV-12s.
Nice.
So I still do the engineering to it.
A friend of ours is still operating it.
And so still involved with the boat, but not as much as we used to.
And we just help out here at the farm to give the boys a hand with their farming equipment.
Love it.
Daz tells me, and I don't know if this is an old story,
whether it's been coloured up or whatever,
was there a little moment with a great white shark?
What is that story about?
Well, yeah, it wasn't to me.
It was in the period from probably 93 through to 2008.
My brother and I had a retail business where we had bikes, boats, and diving.
We had diving facilities.
We had an instructor.
And over summer, again, seasonal stuff.
So one of our clients, Kiwi Guy,
Alan O. Parties, his name is.
Lovely guy.
He's actually a prison warden.
He was one of our clients.
Would come and go getting air for servicing his diving equipment requirements.
And eventually he was on the news.
He was attacked by a great white.
And he was out with his Kiwi mates, big rugby guys.
And they're out on his boat.
And they'd done a whole heap of diving, got a bunch of craze.
And then they had one tank left, one full tank.
And Alan said to his mates, well, you guys, who wants the last tank just to observe
this new reefer we're looking at with their sounder?
And the boy said, no, Al, it's your boat.
So yeah, you do it.
You can do the observation of the new area before we come back and hit it for craze.
So Al puts the tank on, beautiful clear day, no wind, and didn't even anchor.
They just dropped him over the side.
And he was making his way down in about 30 meters of water.
And he was coming down, blowing his BCD valve off.
So he was basically going feet first down.
And he observed a shark on the bottom.
And he said, when he looked at it, he said, it looks like it's looking for something.
And once he saw that, I bet a power inflate and stopped ascending and then head to the surface slowly.
So he's done the old, as soon as he's hit the trigger for his inflator,
this shark's identified him.
Now the shark's coming at him.
So it's open its mouth and put his feet and fins and everything in its mouth.
And hit him with so much force, it took him to the surface, bend his knees.
His knees hit him in the chest.
His mask come down around his face.
And he come to the surface right alongside his boat.
Luckily there was wind or anything.
The boat would have been moved.
So this thing had come to the surface.
Luckily he had his spear gun down in his jaw and he reckoned it released him.
And it's cut him up.
He ended up having 300 stitches.
But luckily his Maori mates were able to pick him up.
I think he said to me, don't let me die, boys.
Something to that effect.
They're probably big units too.
So they grabbed him, did they?
And with Bill Adrenaline.
Yeah.
And they just picked him up, put him in the boat and a story.
Off the hospital, stitches and the guy lives today.
To tell the tale.
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure I told Darryl that one.
Amazing.
Was around that period, I reckon.
Amazing.
You're a great storyteller, mate.
And it's been a joy for me to spend a couple of hours with you.
So from me and particularly for the deep bike racing fans
that have been around for a long time,
it's been nice to share a bit of your story.
Thank you for doing that.
I hope you're proud of what you've done.
There are some fantastic achievements
and there are many more I know than what we've covered here today.
Congratulations.
And thank you for letting me share a bit of that today.
No, thanks for that, Rusty.
I think it's...
So what you've put into the sport has been amazing.
I've watched you, I've not known you,
but I kind of feel like I've known you
because I've been watching you on telly for so long.
I feel like I know you.
So you guys like yourself and Lee Diffie and those sort of guys...
You follow the Supercross Supercross,
that you love his nature.
The Lawrence brothers and Col Daybees.
So I'm talking to Diffie every day.
We watch AMA.
I know he does a lot more than that,
but he does an exceptional job with the two goats.
Ricky Carmichael.
And Barbara Stewart.
They do a great job and it's great to see.
We've got Aussies over there kicking their ass on the track.
We've got Kiwis kicking their ass on the track
and we've got guys in the commentary kicking their ass.
What a great thing.
And you're still as passionate about it
as ever and watching all this.
Absolutely, watch it religiously.
We know exactly what's going on.
Cool stuff, mate.
Thank you very much.
Pleasure.
Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
Series editor and producer is Joel Harrison.
Audio production by Link Kelly.
If you've got a guest suggestion,
get in touch with me on social media.
The Garage.
It's where a journey begins
with a tank full of passion-fueled stories.
About this episode
Michael Dowson’s Part 2 swings from bike racing roots to two-wheeling a Toyota Corolla. The conversation revisits production endurance racing, tire-and-throttle strategy, and how riders and engineers evolve setups to cut lap times. It also tracks Dowson’s path through Yamaha and Kawasaki development work, plus his later shift into car racing via Toyota’s “star search.” Wet-weather touring-car drama, edge-of-grip driving, and the “on two wheels” Corolla photo keep the story grounded in real risk and real technique.
Original notes
Conquering the Castrol 6 hour and success in the legendary Swann Series. Making his mark internationally at events like the famous Suzuka 8 hour.
Doing double duty - the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix and the Bathurst 1000 - in the same season!
Nearly rolling a Corolla and how it became a national marketing campaign.
Going from Yamaha to Kawasaki and reflections on that move now with the benefit of time.
Quitting out of frustration in Japan but not before proving a point.
And how he quietly helped introduce Mick Doohan to some well connected types, a pivotal moment as ‘Mighty Mick’ headed for Honda and a string of 500cc World Titles.
Plus ‘Golf Buggy Derbies’ and the gripping tale of a Great White Shark!
Straight talk, some laughs and wonderful recollections from a diversely talented world class racer.
Head to Rusty's Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and give us your feedback and let us know who you want to hear from on Rusty's Garage
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