The Motorsport Brief | Mark Winterbottom's ripper weekend at the Bend!
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A listen up production.
Welcome to the motorsport brief.
There used to be an old saying, a butcher, a baker,
a candlestick maker.
How about a racer, a baker, a podium placer?
G'day, everybody.
Rusty here.
That was terrible.
Wasn't it?
Shortly to our guest, Mark Winterbottom.
Great to get him back on the garage.
Couple of pods that we did in the last week
that I'd like to let you know about.
We spoke with Dean Herridge, who I was following,
for a doco.
He went on to win Sunraja Safari for Subaru.
And I caught up with his dad, a former Australian rally
champion, Rob, in that Convo as well.
So too, Tony Quinn, who won that event in recent years.
His Dakar spec, Navara, is super impressive.
All three are in our feature library.
That's a nice little short cast.
And then Jaden O'Jada joined us
for a separate bonus episode for the week.
The tough path that he's taken all the way
to a Mercedes contract.
And he's returned to Walkenshaw and Dredi United
for the enduroes alongside Ryan Wood.
The youngsters did a very good job at the bend.
To our guest, let's get straight into it.
Fantastic to see him backracing a supercar.
Looked like a great weekend for him in South Australia too.
Hello, Mark Winterbottom.
Good day, Greg Ross. How are you?
I'm great, mate. Back on the podium.
What a way to start the co-driving chapter.
I felt pretty good, mate.
One starts one podium.
So I'm feeling pretty good at the moment, to be honest.
But nice to be back in a Tickford car.
It was pretty emotional, to be honest.
Like I had a really good career with those guys
and a lot of the same guys and girls are still there.
And then I just putting that suit on and walking in that truck
and brings back lots of good memories.
So, and not only that, all the Ford fans
that embraced it and took me back, you know?
So had a great weekend and had a lot of fun.
Tell me a little bit more about it,
perhaps what you're most pleased about
from a driving point of view.
And where there things, you know, because you've gone,
you've had such an amazing career as a full-timer
where you're doing it a bit more regularly.
Pardon the pun, was there anything that was rusty,
mate, that you needed to tune up?
Definitely. Like, when you're not in the car regularly,
there's little things...
I feel like I drove really well and mistake-free.
I felt OK in that aspect.
But just closing speed on cars
and that sort of awareness around you,
normally I wouldn't look like at the start,
I could hear or feel cars when I'm in it, in the mix regularly.
But when I started, I had a good launch,
but I had to visually look in the mirror a few times
of when I could cut across where,
when you're in it full-time,
you kind of feel those little, when to just,
you know, the little tap I'm ready to come across
or whatever it is.
But, you know, I think Taylor and Ben's a great warm-up
for Bathurst because there's a lot of mistakes
that Taylor and Ben's and you don't get away with them at Bathurst.
So I felt nice. I felt good to be back in the car,
but I've got improvement for sure and come Bathurst.
I think you'll see a, hopefully, a bit faster effort from myself,
but I felt pretty comfortable.
I love that. That comment just around, I guess,
the things that become a bit innate or autopilot
and just getting it back to that level.
Can I talk about, not co-driver pressure,
maybe they're not the right words,
but I mean, it was a mega performance by Scott Pie, who you know.
I mean, Todd Hazelwood, I thought, did a really good job as well.
What's the worth of a good co-driver, such as yourself,
perhaps a bit more evident at the bend?
It's funny. On the grid, gone are the days where you used to say,
who's the main and who's the co,
because they're all fast now and they're in good cars.
Like, the gap between the co and the main,
they're almost doing the same lap time.
So it's almost like two little races.
I had mine at the start
and I had to hand the car over effectively.
Your job is to hand the car over in a really good spot,
brake, still in check, steering straight, no panel damage.
You do your stint, you get out
and you give it to the big guys to bring it home.
That's kind of co-driver 101 spec, but they're all fast.
Like some of those guys in that first stint
that you just rolled out,
they're all worthy of main game drives.
It's just a little battle in itself, but I had a lot of fun
and you do feel the pressure a bit
because I feel like the Enduro Cup has more importance than ever
and the way the finals are structured,
the 25 point bonus, which is a bit complicated,
but the 25 point bonus that you get to win the Enduro Cup
to go to the guys finals chances is huge.
It's the same as what Feeney's done.
His whole first part of his solo sprint round stuff
in two races.
So we've got try and win, we've got to be consistent
and a DNF could lose your main guy 25 points,
which has championship ramifications come December.
So I think there's more in the line now than there ever has been.
Can I just drill into a little bit on those
that maybe went the alternate strategy
and started their regulars first?
Has that prompted a bit of conversation?
Are people now starting to think
whether that approach might have merit at Bathurst and so on?
Always is and I think the rule,
that was why the rule was so controversial
when it come in of starting your main, not your code
because you've got to have the option
and what it does do is you always do the check of flag
and then you come back from there
and that's how you do strategy.
You don't, although we put a lot of emphasis on the start
it's about the windows and the safety car windows
and all the numbers you can open to come home.
So Bathurst, there's a maximum driver time
that a driver can do for the main.
I think it's three hours and eight minutes.
So realistically, they can't get in the car
until 80 laps to go.
But if a safety car comes out with 85 to go,
80 laps to go, whatever the number is
and you haven't done your co-driver laps, you're in trouble.
So that's why you start co-drivers at the start
to try and get their laps out of the way.
But these days, if you have a good co-driver
it doesn't matter if it's winter, bottom, v-castecchi,
wind cup versus whoever.
It's, we can sort of hold our own a little bit now.
So strategy is very important and it depends on who you got.
How they want to play it, but effectively it's the last lap
and work its way forward.
So that's strategy 101 in a pretty quick nutshell.
Now, you've had a bit of time to ponder this next question.
Sandan has great rich history
in our endurance aspect of the calendar.
Fabulous new venue at Tailand Bend this time.
How do you feel a couple of days on having done,
you know, 500 around there in the weekend generally?
I like the track.
The tracks are really cool and the event themselves,
the Shaheens and the whole team there,
they really put a lot on for the fans.
So it would be nice if they had bigger numbers
because the amount of effort they put into it,
the numbers weren't as big as what they should be rewarded for.
The only thing it had against it was no safety car.
And I think the fact that it's too good a circuit
with all the runoff and everything,
there wasn't a safety car where Sandan has tire, dig,
bad weather.
Pretty cool.
It's a track that hasn't had any money spent on it.
It's hard.
You bounce off the curbs and reliability and everything.
So you get those safety cars and it narrows the gaps.
So, you know, I think Tailand Bend,
the only downside to the race was no safety car.
There was big gaps,
but at the same time,
you saw some pretty cracking battles, you know,
and you just had to look through the pack
to see them sometimes.
But yeah, I thought it was a great event.
I thought, you know, they did an amazing job
and that's year one.
So it's only going to improve, you know,
they can look at it, see what worked, what didn't.
I'd love to bring back that co-driver race
that they had at Sandan.
Remember that one where pretty well,
everyone just lost the plot and crashed into each other.
It'd be good if they had one of them at Tailand Bend
because you picture that run to turn one
in a sprint format with co-drivers.
That'd be pretty cool.
So there's probably a few other things I could spice up,
but for year one, I thought it was a success for sure.
I reckon that suggestion was something
that Scott Pye talked about on his part in the lead-up
and I second that suggestion.
Tweaks to the forward in the lead-up.
I'm a bit of a believer you need a few races
to really understand, you know, what that's like,
what it does and so on.
Could you feel that?
Do you think it will help at Bathurst?
I'm not sure, to be honest,
and I haven't been in it all year,
so I can't really comment on the car too much.
I'm out of that side.
I'll turn up on Thursday
and they gave me a race suit,
a calendar and an objective and I just drove the car, you know?
So, but it felt okay, but it actually,
I don't know, I drove the Camaro last year
and the Camaro is very smooth.
I think the engine in the Camaro
and the way it operates was very smooth.
And I think, you know,
I think the Ford's always been strong at tail and bend too.
It's hard.
I just don't know the answer to that one,
but come Bathurst, long straight, low diff ratio,
that's when we'll see if it's closer or not,
but 100%, there's been a deficit from watching.
You know, I think the chef teams underperformed
at tail and bend too,
which we didn't get to see Feeney go head to head
with Castecchi and Waters,
which he would have Cam Hill, you know, those guys.
So, don't know, we'll find out at Bathurst.
I hope my car's good.
I don't really care about the others too much, to be fair.
But always been a good track for Tickford.
Always been a good track for Brody.
Time will tell, you know, in a couple of weeks time.
Spoken like a true racing driver.
Hey, I want to continue this pod for a little bit longer
if that's okay.
Can we get you Frosty Des to hang on there for a bit for us?
100%.
This is the Motorsport brief,
wrapping up the bend 500 and a little look ahead
to Bathurst with the Baker.
Mark Winterbottom.
I was with Billy Brownless and James Brasior
from Triple M's Rush Hour recently.
They were really quick to tell me
that they'd spoken with you.
They loved the chat and so on.
But they were focused on this move.
When did this become a thing?
Are you any good at making croissants,
putting a knot in the knot rolls,
or do you just sort of step back
and worry about it from a business point of view?
I think Billy Brownless has any interest in motorsport.
But as soon as you talk calories and diners,
he was my best mate.
So I got his attention pretty quick.
But, you know, funny, motorsport's funny.
You race your whole career
and that's all you're qualified to do.
But when it stops, you have to do something.
And I'm good friends with a pastry chef
and he's had very good businesses
and he needed someone to come in to help
with the business side, the staff, the front of house,
the admin, Renee's doing the finances in the background.
And he's the man behind the tools
and he pumps out some of the best bakery items,
croissants, pies, donuts, whatever you want
in the background.
So it's really good.
And you've got to team yourself up
with really good, positive, happy, go-getting people.
And that's who I've found.
His name's Simon, he's a cracker.
So the happy bakers at Brunswick and Airport West.
So if you can push your way past Billy,
we can serve you well, mate.
But really fun, yeah, it's a lot of fun
and it's a whole new sort of side of business
that I haven't seen before.
I have a sweet tooth.
So I will check it out at some point.
That naturally leads me to the book
and we'll put more details on that in the app description.
It's gone incredibly well from a sales point of view
and I guess you'd call it like a ranking point of view.
How cathartic was that whole process for you?
You really opened up, mate.
I was chuffed when you came on the pod
for a feature episode late last year
but you went to a whole new level with the book.
Yeah, I think, you know, it's funny,
I'm very private person
but the book sort of says otherwise to be honest
because, you know, you open up
and a lot of the stuff I said in the book,
I've never even told my best mates.
So it was a nice way of putting pen to paper
and kind of having a bit of therapy
because there's some stuff you hold on to as a kid
and I don't know, it builds the person you are.
So when I did the story,
I thought it was really important to start
the good stuff, the bad stuff
because it all mould you as a person, you know?
So, yeah, it was tough.
It took about 18 months to do the book
and some of the chapters, you know, around mum
and that side was very hard to write
because, you know, it is someone that I miss every day,
you know, and I can't pick up the phone and ring your arm
and I miss those moments.
So it was really nice.
She never, when she passed away,
her last words were never forget me, you know?
And it was a bit of a, I don't know, tribute to her too
and just the battle she had
and I think it's important to cover that stuff.
So very tough to write down
but on the flip side, when I've done a few signings,
there's been one girl come up actually the other day,
18 years old, her mum's going through breast cancer,
exactly the same sort of story
and she said that the book gave her inspiration
and that was really important to me
because I think if people can connect and feel like, you know,
we're going through bad things,
if there's someone else who you can relate to,
it kind of gave her a bit of hope as well and it was nice.
I really enjoy those comments.
You know, Ross, it was nice to, you know, talk in depth
but have people relate to it.
That 18 months worth of work in that one moment
makes it all worthwhile, mate.
I hope that Phelpsie has a bit of time
and some column space for what hopefully will be
another bathyswim that you can add to this story.
You've been mentoring on the super two side of things.
Have you enjoyed that?
How have those drivers come along during the year?
They're good kids, they're really good.
Oh, young men, I'm worried.
One of them's 18, 19 and I've got an outlook
on what my 14 year old's going to be like
in five years' time.
So I'm trying to learn what they're doing
so I've got a bit of a hand on my young fella
but they're good kids, very talented, super respectful
and they're so passionate for the sport
and it sparked another little inner thing in me
that that was me on day one and they're just so hungry.
They're like a sponge, they ask you so many questions.
They give you a hug, they appreciate
what you're giving them and it's really cool.
Like I really, really enjoy it
and it's made me not miss driving
because I'm seeing other kids succeed
and try and live their dreams.
So it's been really good.
There was a lot of pressure on the weekend.
I raced three of them, three of the four of them
and I give them a rev up about their starts
because their starts haven't been that great
and I had to make sure I got a good start.
I can tell you on that start line at Tailum Bend
I have not been more worried about a start
because I were all watching
and I think I beat three of them
so I still have some street cred
but that was one of the most nerve-wracking starts
purely for that reason, just to show them
that what I've been telling them has some merit.
There was a bit of pride on the line for that one.
Leading by example, two to get us
to the finish line of this episode.
Austin Cindrick will be with Tickford at Adelaide.
Lot of chat around that.
I think he's talked about on a US pod
spending a month down under
which is awesome, cool wildcard story.
He's got NASCAR to think about in the interim obviously.
Will you kind of help there at all
with either some advice around preparations?
I mean, that's a massive grand final weekend, isn't it?
Yeah, I'm not sure what the team will get me to do
but I've got the Super 2 boys
which they're going for their own championship
so I'll be hanging out with them
but I'm not sure.
Like I think these endurance races, it's funny
you really build a camaraderie with the team
and there's aspects that I can bring
that I'm not emotionally invested
like I can kind of come in, see things and get out
where when you're there all year
you sometimes look at things and I don't know
they're in the back of your mind and they trigger
so I think at later I might be able to if Cam
is still in the mix which I really hope he is
just be a bit of a sounding board for him
that interim between the team and driver
and I really want to see him win it
so I'll do whatever I can to help him
and the Super 2 boys I think
if we can finish first, second, third and fourth
which we're currently sitting
that'd be huge for them.
So I'll get out Sunday night
let them party at the gala
because those young guys I don't want to be anywhere near them
once they celebrate with alcohol
because I can't keep up with them when we're sober
so I'll let them party
but it's massive weekend for the whole Tickford program
it's going to be huge.
And you have squeezed in this year some broadcasting
which I think you've done a super job at
an alternate kind of freshness that you've added.
Have you enjoyed that?
What's perhaps been the biggest learning
on that side for you?
Yeah, it's a new appreciation for
that I've always ranked you as one of the OGs, mate
so I have a new appreciation for what you do
and it's funny, you see good in everyone
which when you race them, you see them all as the enemy
when you commentate and talk about them
you actually see all the stuff they do well
so it's actually really nice to see good in people
not break down the weaknesses when you're competing
so really enjoyed it
even guys like Garth, when we raced
we went head to head
and I don't think we spoke much
it was a couple of grunts really at each other
where now you chat and
everyone's got so much in common
so you see the good side of people
and I've really enjoyed it
and then yeah chatting to the drivers
and watching a bit more in depth through the coverage
and taking that interest
it's been really cool so
but it is hard
some of that stuff when they say to you
we're crossing, ask a question and you ask it
and then they go one more and you go
oh that was a really good question
I can't come up with another one
it gives you that spare of the moment
what do I do with my hands type thing
so new appreciation but
sports cool
you're talking about something you love
and if you show that you love it
then people will be infectious by it
and very lucky to do what we do
so I've had a good time
Terrific it oozes through the coverage
so well done
go well at the mountain
I will see you up there
make sure
surely on Tuesday or Wednesday
there is time for a chin up competition against Cam
make sure you show him that you've still got the edge
against him there at the mountain mate
I've got him covered for chins
no worries
no worries at all
fantastic to get Mark Winterbot on the pod today
I will be there with the triple M team
for a special radio coverage of the 1000
that is it for today
we'll catch you next week
bye for now
About this episode
Mark Winterbottom shares his exhilarating experience at The Bend, where he returned to racing in a supercar and secured a podium finish. He reflects on the emotional significance of racing with Tickford again and discusses the evolving dynamics of co-driver roles in endurance racing. The conversation also touches on strategies for Bathurst, the impact of safety cars, and the importance of co-drivers in today's competitive landscape. Additionally, Winterbottom opens up about his new bakery venture and the cathartic process of writing his book, which resonated with fans facing personal challenges.
Original notes
Mark Winterbottom made a very memorable appearance on the pod 12 months ago but a bit has changed in his world since that Feature Episode.
His role now as a codriver netted a podium first time out with his old race family at Tickford.
The battle between the coey’s and was there any initial rustiness?
How much he’s enjoyed mentoring the team’s Super 2 drivers and the conversation he had with JB & Billy from the Rush Hour about his bakery buy.
Plus his best selling biography - Frosty - the depths he went to over the 18 month writing period and why it was so cathartic.
Will there be a new chapter to write after the Great Race at Bathurst next month?
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/search-results/?contributor=mark-winterbottom 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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