0:00
/
0:00
The Motorsport Brief | On Safari with the Herridge’s and Tony Quinn
The Motorsport Brief | On Safari with the Herridge’s and Tony Quinn
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
About this episode
Rusty takes listeners on a journey through the Sunraiser Safari Rally, the longest rally in Australia, featuring guests Rob and Dean Herridge. They share their experiences of competing in this challenging event, highlighting the unique terrain and family bonding it fosters. The episode also includes Tony Quinn discussing his Dakar-ready Nissan and the thrill of rallying in remote areas. The conversation touches on the mental aspects of racing, the camaraderie among competitors, and the evolution of rally cars, making for an engaging and insightful listen.
Topics:
sunraiser safari rally
family bonding
rally car modifications
mental aspects of racing
remote rallying experiences
dakar-ready vehicles
camaraderie among competitors
Full disclosure - there is nothing short about this edition of the shortcast.
Rusty is in the middle of nowhere (actually near Mildura) for the Sunraysia Safari.
Just before competitors set off for 1200ks of cross country he caught up with Rob & Dean Herridge under Maximum Motorsport E-Z Up.
What brings them back to this gruelling event and the ‘David n Goliath’ fight they wage in their Subaru’s including a new WRX.
It’s a cool story of Father and Son rallying together in truly unique countryside on the edge of the desert.
Then Tony Quinn joins us and we know how much you love a TQ catch-up.
He’s come straight from Tailem Bend where his grandson Ryder turned heads with an epic drive in GT4.
Tony talks about trying to win Sunraysia again in a Dakar spec V8 powered Navara.
And he’s still keeping an eye on The Bend this weekend as his Triple 8 team tries to win the first of the Supercars enduros this season.
Rally fans, Supercars supporters, GT enthusiasts. There’s something for all of you in the ep. Enjoy.
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Subaru BRZ
"...ve very capable cars. The whole fleet, apart from BRZ, are all drive. And that's sort of where I think"
Car
Toyota Supra
"...e tracked down someone who's gone from salubrious Supras to the almost outback in a Nissan that is absolut..."
Select text to request an explanation
Alisna, production.
Good day, everybody. Rusty here with a special edition of the Motorsport Brief.
I'm coming to you from Wentworth, about a half-hour drive away from Mildura, only 270
Ks from Broken Hill.
We are on the edge of the desert, and I am here for one of the longest, in fact,
the longest rally on the Australian Motorsport calendar, 1200 Ks, a safari that
takes you through all sorts of terrain.
And I am with the record breakers for longest podcasts in the Rusty's garage library
in both Rob and Dean Herridge.
This is a short cast, full transparency.
I only need like 15 minutes here.
Boys, what are we doing here?
And what is it that keeps bringing you back?
This is actually really cool.
Motorbikes, cars, and some remote parts of Australia.
Well, he's the blame.
Dad's the one that, I don't know, I feel like a decade ago decided that when he'd
retired that he wanted to have a little bit of a crack at doing some
endurance style events.
And then, of course, as the story goes in the podcast, as you mentioned, that
we had to do it in a Subaru, and that's where it sort of all formed from.
And then, as my career changed a little bit and the option came up to do
something like Sunraiser, Dad encouraged me to come and do it.
I then stole what was his Evo II, the cross-trek that I now drive and
put him back in the Forrester.
And we've done three years to this point, and maybe we thought that might
have been where it ended, but we've still got an appetite to come back.
And different challenges each time, I think that's the thing for us, even
though it's an amazing event to do.
And as you just covered in regards to the length, and it amazes me
what it's like, there's still a bit of a story to tell.
And every time we come here, we either come with a newer car or
an upgrade and try and go as fast as we can in an outright term.
But this time, rather than Dad sort of take the old Forrester,
which has been tried and proven, we will give you a different challenge.
Lovely. We'll talk about that in a second.
Is it nice for you to get back behind the wheel?
Well, I'll be behind the wheel because I've just done 10,000 kilometres
in my yoke time, my caravan.
And I'll probably want to try and drive a bit faster than I have been
because I've been holding all the truckies up.
It is nice, but it's been a year between drinks.
And I sort of said last year might have been my last event
because it was a great event.
Dean went close to winning the rally, came second,
and I finished in the top six.
I was pretty happy with that.
The year before, it wasn't quite as successful for me
with a few problems.
But Dean conned me back out of my holiday
and my long-suffering wife, Debbie,
has put up with the fact that I went home for a week of that time
to work on the W-Rex that we're going to run.
And yeah, it's a challenge for us.
So always up for a challenge.
I love that. So, I mean, you're young at heart.
You're still doing lots of things that keep you active.
Are you saying that there's, you know,
maybe only a couple of years left,
and how nice to be able to do this with your son
to be competing together?
Well, it's great to be able to compete
in the Sun Races Safari Rally in the W-Rex.
But what better than doing it with your son?
And of course, what you've seen on social media
is by Dean's eldest daughter, Olivia.
So it's a three-generation thing.
It's great, and that's what keeps you in the sport.
I've been in the sport now for 40 years,
and it's the people that keep you involved.
And in my instance, it's mostly my family
that's kept me involved.
And who would have thought when I started running
just for something to do for a little bit?
OK, so he's in the W-Rex Challenge car.
We ordinarily, you know, see the fleet of those
that you bring to the Australian Rally Championship Rounds.
How different is that to what you would ordinarily
campaign in the ARC?
Well, it's almost a W-Rex Challenge plus car.
You know, I think what I proposed to Dad was,
would you prefer to come around and do it in the forest
and not do it at all?
Have a challenge of trying to take a W-Rex.
And I think all those seemed appealing,
depending on the day that I asked him in that regard.
But I think the thing for us,
and why I think Dad's the perfect person,
is that it's a massive challenge to get
what is basically a current model, W-Rex.
That's not one of our SUV in the range.
It's a W-Rex and take on the most demanding, longest event.
And I think that's where, you know, his storyline is.
So I'm in the same cross track.
I'll do the best I can in an outright terms
and we'll see how the cards fall.
But the storyline for me this time is,
well, let's see, you know, we have very capable cars.
The whole fleet, apart from BRZ, are all drive.
And that's sort of where I think
that's the cool part of Sunraiser.
And the bit that I think we're trying to get out there
is it's an adventure.
And, you know, just merely finishing this event
is a feather in your cap.
And the fact we've done it strongly before
is amazing from an outright term, both Dad and myself.
And now for Dad, if you can complete this event
with Chris, you know, that'll be amazing.
Doesn't really matter where they finish outright.
But if you finish, you'll be doing a great job.
We've got a story to tell, the terrain we go on,
the people we're around.
And probably for me, it won't fully hit home, I reckon,
until into the future.
But, you know, it makes us stop and do an event
and we're around each other for a week.
You know, there's no pressures of the workshop
or daily lives or anything else.
You know, we literally camp and, you know,
we've got a great crew behind us
and even the extension of the media crew
that comes with us each round.
Aaron and Sam have been with us the last few years.
It's a great week.
And I think we probably, you know,
we'll look back and go, what a great period of our lives
to be able to go off and do, you know, an amazing event,
you know, four to five days all together.
Not quite camping.
We don't fully camp it out,
but it is becoming more special
as we get a bit older, I guess.
You've been great across your career
at looking after machinery and, you know,
taking a long view of the event
and ensuring that you finish and finish strongly.
I hear he's demanded a special handbrake.
Is this true?
Well, I can't.
I did back in the day.
He might have demanded that,
but I didn't see that on the email, I've got to tell you.
I don't think the event's quite long enough for that.
I did have a reputation with that in the early days.
And in the early days, that counted for a bit,
but as the last 10, 20, 30 years has gone on,
it's less of that
because the ARC is a bit shorter.
We don't rally through the night,
although, you know, the last rally was a small exception.
And the rallies have got a bit shorter
for the encroachment of society
and the problem I'm getting in the forest.
So this is a chance for the long-distance rally
to come back out.
And I hope that I have been sympathetic
with cars in the past
and I hope I'm sympathetic enough to do the WX Justice.
It's a tremendous road car
and has proven to be a tremendous rally car.
But now we're asking you to go up another level
and I reckon it could surprise a few people.
I reckon it could too.
He's kind of rolled back from, you know,
the business side of things
and you're very hands-on there now.
But he alluded to the fact before
that you roped him back out of family travels to come home
and he was hands-on, wasn't he, in the build?
And I think, apart from the driving,
I mean, Max from Motorsport has an amazing reputation
for the quality of the cars we build.
And that's basically that at the end of the day.
You know, a lot of the engineering side
and the attention to detail
has been that over many, many years,
you know, whether that be the early days of, you know,
WXs and things.
And I'm still amazed at some of the ads and stuff
that go, you know, it's a Max from Motorsport built car.
I hope you haven't seen them for 15 years,
but it was one of our original cars.
So we're very proud of that.
And right up to the point that the WX challenge
and the way those cars have built
the Do The Australian Championship
has Dad's fingerprints all over it.
And so, you know, I hand on heart.
I actually can't think of anybody else
who would be the ideal person to give the WX
a real chance that, you know,
first and foremost, finishing knows
where the strengths and the weaknesses
of any of the cars or automotive cars
are gonna be in this event and give it its best chance.
And like I said, the fact that has a cool family element
is just, you know, the sharing on top.
How demanding is this thing?
And it is a safari in the sense of,
I mean, you're going through rural properties,
you've got gates and things to come in.
It's quite different to what we would normally think of
in a traditional ARC event.
Well, it is, it can be rough
and it can change quite quickly.
We don't get to go and see the course beforehand.
That's the biggest problem.
We're running blind.
We have enough information to keep us on the road or the track.
You get it at seven o'clock the night before the book,
do you? Is that right?
Something like that.
I don't get involved in that too much.
I've only been rallying 40 years.
What would I know about that?
But I think the biggest weakness
might be the driver and the co-driver
because we're both in our seventies.
We both do okay for our age, I suppose.
Our first battle was to get back in the driving seat.
So I haven't actually tried that yet,
so that might be the first job.
Yet is different.
And we were told at the driver's briefing last night
that this will be by far the toughest safari,
the toughest sun raiser safari yet out of the last,
since it's been re-rigged and that's in the last eight years.
So I have that in the back of my mind.
I'm not at least car one.
Dean's car one, that's something for him to consider.
But it is tough.
And I think as long as we don't get caught out tremendously,
you know, we have a bit of an eye for what we're looking for,
but we've got to try and generate the speed as well.
I mean, if you drive slow enough,
you can finish anything, can't you?
Absolutely. Motorbikes in the field, I mean, it's quite...
What happens when you come up on,
there are rules and regulations around that up?
Yeah, well, what happens late in the day
is the bike guys who are doing an amazing job
and on their own adventure, you may catch in stages.
We do with rally safe nowadays
and technology have a push to pass,
but there's a fair bit of old school rallying mentality around it,
which is something I'm still getting my head around a little bit.
And to the point, dads are downplaying it,
but I think that's where his experience comes in
on knowing when to push, how to push,
when to back it off, et cetera.
You know, us a bit more younger, enthusiastic,
tend to get a bit carried away with some of that stuff
and you're thinking more so in sprint terms.
So, but it's the Australia's mini version of Dakar.
I mean, it's nothing, you know, Dakar's unbelievably tough
and, you know, anyone who sort of pays attention to that stuff.
But it's our version of it.
It's 1200 competitive Ks.
The longest stage is 250 Ks.
And there was a lot of concentration
and there's a lot of camaraderie between the teams
because, you know, we're all on our own adventure.
Some are aiming for outright.
We've had some amazing cars here,
like really specifically built, purpose built cars,
almost worth a million dollars
when this event in the past, you know,
last year, a case in point,
right down to the adventure motorcyclist
and, you know, in this case,
even some rally cars and things.
So, that's cool in itself.
And, you know, like I said, I think it's just,
it's something different and it does take you some time
to get your head around how to tackle an event like this
and take on 1200 competitive Ks.
Quickly about the team.
I mean, the trucks come across the Nullarbor,
two cars that you're running
and so on, final preparation literally happening
behind us as we speak.
And they are still unmistakably Subaru
but a little tougher in stance and wheel size and so on
and geared for me, even the snorkel
on the WRX Challenge Car geared for this event.
Yeah, I mean, the WRX is a,
seems like I said, a Challenge Car Plus.
It's got slightly longer suspension,
a little bit of changing in the rear arms
to make for a bigger tire.
So, I'm wondering the same wheel, actually,
would you believe, 15 inch,
but trying to take advantage of a good all-terrain tire.
The, you know, the snorkel in the front nudge bar,
a little bit of a throwback to the late 90s and early 2000s
and, you know, the tinting and things.
So, we've, you know,
this is a sort of event
that can maximize those little mods.
I mean, it's exactly the same as the, you know,
the African safaris of back in the day.
And like I said, when Subaru did that,
so there's a bit of a throwback there.
But there, the bit that we, that I'm amazed at,
and I mean, dad's the one who took the Subarus on
and built them over the years to be as competitive as they are,
you do look at them and they're a family of parts.
There's nothing bolted on them.
That's a, you know, out of Europe,
you know, sequential gearbox, whatever else it is.
It's literally from the family of Subaru parts,
from the lower arms to the gearboxes
to the, you know, drivetrain and everything,
apart from the normal specs that you change,
suspension wise, that on any rally car,
it's a Subaru through and through.
And that's why I think this is the one event
where, you know, back in the day,
when Dan and I both been sort of works drivers,
you know, you've got the target on the back
because you're in the works car,
or the best car of the period.
We're the underdogs here in a lot of ways
because the fact that the Subaru's finished,
I think Amaze is the most people.
The fact that they can win stages Amaze is the most people.
And that's cool.
It's David versus Goliath,
but we're the David on this one.
And I think, you know,
people in our corner and I feel like we punch above our weight.
Yeah, you sure do.
Okay, finally, you have always in just about every sporting
pursuit that you've done over time
and even still do to this day,
had an interest, let's call it,
in the mental side of the game.
How important is that here
and what is the key to surviving
and succeeding over the 1200Ks of Sunraja Safari?
Well, of course, it's the psychology of winning
or the psychology of losing, isn't it, really?
Yeah, it is important.
It is especially important on this game
because we could put a young tear away kid in the car
and probably the car might last five kilometres
until it broke or he broke it or...
But by the same token, it is a rally
and we go as fast as we can when we can.
But I think the key to it is go,
and it sounds so basically simple, it's ridiculous,
go fast when you can and slow when you can't.
I love it.
Simple philosophy.
Go well to the both of you.
Thank you.
I was just about to say,
you know that Dad's sat with me three times
from my whole career,
but the big point he made was the mental side.
He said this sport is 50% mental.
That's when I was like 17 or 18
getting involved in rallying at that point.
So it really stuck with you, sunk in, didn't it?
Yeah, because I never had a driving lesson from Dad.
And I think I got more lessons from Nana
actually in the old days when I was 14,
as from driving point of view,
but because, one, we're not great passengers.
And actual fact, most people would do this adventure
together, right, in the same car.
We don't want to sit with each other.
So that's what costs a bit more
because we've got two cars, but it is.
It's a big part that I learned very early.
There's times that absolute speed will make the difference
and an ARC is probably a point to reference there,
but this is rallying motorsports mental game, ultimately.
Great story. The pair of you go well over the coming days.
We'll look forward to seeing how the cars go.
We'll grab a break here on the short cast more in a moment.
For the second part of the short cast,
we have tracked down someone who's gone from
salubrious Supras to the almost outback
in a Nissan that is absolutely Dakar ready.
Hello, Tony Quinn. This thing is a beast, isn't it?
Yeah, it's it's meant for Dakar.
It was built for Dakar and we actually bought it.
Me and Harry went to South Africa and bought it just before covid
and covid was just breaking out globally
when we were on the return and we thought,
Christ, I hope we get out of South Africa.
Yeah, it was it was right in the start of it, you know,
and we managed to get out.
In fact, I would say that Johannesburg Airport was far more
aware of covid than Sydney was.
And anyway, we got out, ordered the car, drove it around the streets
of Johannesburg to be fair to test drive it.
And because the factory where Red Line is is right beside Kailami track.
And so we drove it around the streets of there.
And it was it was cool.
Yeah. And the thing that that sort of happened just before that
was that me and Harry talk to each other about what are we going to do?
You know, where are we going?
Are we carrying on or because we were at the point of
should we retire and just hang up the boots?
And Harry basically said to me, well, what are you going to do?
And I said, well, look, I'm kind of committed.
I've got some tracks and things.
You know, I can have to keep on going.
And he said, well, I'll keep going if you keep going.
And here we are, you know, what, five years later, still going,
albeit a lot slower and a lot.
But the deal was that we would buy brand new equipment
and not muck around with fixing things and developing things.
Because, you know, to be fair, the two of us don't have that much
time left to do that.
So we decided to buy brand new stuff.
So that's why we've got the brand new, I think maybe an Aston or some of the time
we've got this thing brand new so that when we go to an event,
at least it keeps going, you know, because we've been to plenty of safaris
and stuff and bits break and stuff like that.
So we just decided we'd buy something that would last.
And look, I think that I could sell it
today for as much money as I bought it for, you know, basically.
I think they're pretty prized sort of weapons for this kind of stuff.
As always with you, savvy investment.
Tell me about the event and what draws you to it.
I mean, it's the antithesis of anything circuit racing
that we were doing a week ago, isn't it?
It's it's stupid, to be fair.
And it's great for one day.
And, you know, it's a great change and it's a great challenge.
But the second day, it's like again.
And the third day, it's like not again.
So what brings you back there?
I know in the fourth day, well, stupidity, really.
But I think the fourth day is just one more day and that's it.
But, you know, when you go and do a rally stage in World Rally,
you know, the longest you'll do is maybe about 40 Ks, maybe, or whatever.
Average being about 14 or something.
These things here, I think there's one on Saturday
that's 250 or something.
And I remember last year or the time before
we did 95 kilometres on one person's property.
Like it's crazy.
And the thing that gets me about doing this event,
because I did it in Western Australia a few times
and I've done it here a few times, there is nothing out there.
And you come across a broken down house,
shack and you think, who built that?
When did they build it? Why did they build it?
And it's just run down, broken down, water tanks around it.
And you rally past it and stuff.
It's just, it's a real eye-opener, to be honest.
I mean, people that live in Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane
on the Gold Coast have got no idea what's out there
and how the people live.
You know, it's really weird.
I like it because it's a different discipline to circuits
and even rallying is quite different.
The people are different.
There's no room for, for walk, sort of, for some values.
There is no value in walking here.
And it's just your good old bloody fly swatting,
you know, like, like cobbers, you know, that want to go racing.
And there's some really fast guys and stuff like that
and some really good guys.
And, you know, it's they're all characters, you know,
and it's enjoyable any longer than three or four or five days.
I don't think so. It's not worth it.
Harry's done the DACA and he said never again.
Yeah, he said that was way too long for for what it was.
So I have no, no ambition to do the DACA.
This is long enough for me and it's good.
I've won it. I've tried it, I don't know, 10, 15 times.
I have no idea. I won it two years ago.
And then last year we came back as defending champions
and went 11 kilometres into the first stage
and hit a gatepost and that was the end of it.
So, you know, who knows what is going to throw up?
But, you know, you run over.
Well, I've run over sheep, but they were dead before I run over them.
But you run over bloody animals like dead animals
and logs and you dip down into riverbeds.
And, you know, it's just it's incredible.
I've rolled the way in the beginning.
I rolled and had to wait for the the guys to come along
and tip you back over and it's just it's a real
it's a it's a it's a boy's stroke man's trip.
You are a long way from Aberdeen.
It is a very it's very unique, but very cool countryside out there.
Can I reflect on last Sunday?
I want to talk about your grandson.
What Clark did in that GT four race,
that was one of the best races we've seen in a packed and stacked field.
His drive in the BMW was remarkable.
Yeah, to be fair, I could not believe what he was doing.
And it was it was.
Reminded me of like, I remember watching
Rick Kelly at Sandown in the wet and a former Ford just picking off drivers every lap.
Marcus Ambrose and Perth picking off drivers every lap.
You know, Shane Van Giz picking off people every lap.
It reminded me on that.
And he just, you know, I know he's my grandson and he's a handy driver.
But that was, you know, that was pretty professional.
What he was doing this weekend, you're here.
The team are in Adelaide for the 500.
Are you keeping an eye on things as you go?
Are you going to duck down there on Sunday when this is all done?
What will you do?
Look, that's been an absolute pleasure to the the triple eight team.
And it, you know, every talks about the drivers and stuff.
But to be fair, I am proud of the whole team.
It's a whole team effort.
And, you know, when you go up and do pit lane,
I just think that triple eight are a level above.
They don't need me there.
I mean, they like it when I'm there or whatever.
I don't even make the coffees.
I don't even do anything.
But, you know, I think we all get on well together.
And, you know, I think they'll do well for sure.
You know, Brock, particularly this year, has has risen.
You know, he's the cream of the crop at the moment.
Will's a good, you know, a good second driver,
if that's what you want to call him at the moment.
But, you know, I'm second in the championship or whatever.
I mean, but in general, the team's just way up there.
My plan is absolutely if we don't make it through today, three or four.
I'm heading down there and I'll spend a day or so there.
But, you know, honestly, I don't need to be there.
And there is quite a bit going on in V8 land at the moment
that we're all sort of in tune with.
But, you know, during race weekend, the guys are
singly focused on the weekend.
So, you know, I think I'll leave them to it
unless they form me up and want me to step in for Scotty Pie or something.
You know, I'll reluctantly have a look at it, you know,
depending on what they pay in me, of course.
He and Will were mighty at the 500 last year.
They're they're a good combo, aren't they?
And I know Brock's in red hot form at the moment.
Can we talk just state of the nation of supercars?
Generally, James has come back, new TV deal and so on.
Yeah, look, I guess I don't know.
I don't know what the TV deal is that hasn't been shared.
There is discussions at the moment.
There's still there's still sort of discussing about the 14 rounds,
but they've come out loud and proud and said we're doing 14 rounds.
And now they're trying to make the teams help pay for doing it.
It all seems a wee bit cock-eyed to me.
And I if I was, you know, I think there needs to be a couple of changes
in the whole thing.
Maybe that's just my view, but I don't think that it's just
I don't think that the balance in supercar land
is quite right at the moment.
And I think it needs to needs to be a few tweaks, I'd say.
OK, I sense that's a conversation for a way from this forum.
That's I appreciate that. No problem.
Queensland Raceway, what you guys did for that round was mighty.
You should be massively proud.
The turnout of people there and everything was incredible, wasn't it?
Yeah, I mean, but it's pretty obvious.
It's like a simple formulation, isn't it?
Like you fish where the fish are.
And, you know, it's which is the capital.
It's it's it's the raw material is all there.
And, you know, the facilities now you can take your wife and children there.
And, you know, they're not going to want to go home within five minutes.
So I think I think it's poised for a long term
position in the calendar, just as a as a decent warm ish winter event.
And, you know, it'll continue to draw large crowds.
I mean, it's I loved what Paul Morris said about the car park thing.
I mean, and I remember we used to go to race tracks
and events and we used to queue for an hour to get out
because there were so many people there.
And if you want to have an easy car park, you go to an event
that there's nobody going to go to it, you know.
And we were fortunate that a lot of people wanted to come.
A lot of people enjoyed it.
We do have plans for next year.
I'll give you a wee snippet, you know, the V8 guys
and God bless them, they're good guys.
But they were looking at plans from 2019.
And that's how they were setting the place up.
And we tried to sort of advise or consult or whatever you want to call it.
But, you know, it was their venue, it was their event for that week.
But I think next year it's going to be a little bit different.
And we have some plans to make that whole thing a bit easier.
But, you know, I can't I can't help that people want to come
and they want to come in the cars.
I mean, we'll put on buses next year.
You know, we left there.
We left it too late to apply
for the necessary public transport to take people from the.
That was too late in the piece.
And we didn't have time to do that.
Whereas next year, obviously, if they come into Coondon Race,
we will make sure that there's ample public transport from train stations
and all that stuff.
It'll be a lot better for people to use.
And yeah, we'll maybe just maybe the V8s, a sponsor of the V8s,
might give everybody a bottle of beer as they're leaving the car park
just to keep them happy. I don't know.
One thing about you guys, I know from New Zealand,
even first year with Topor and so on, you're great at reviewing
whole experience, good or bad.
And what can we tune it up for the following year?
So I know that you'll do that.
Let's finish with New Zealand.
Some are going to be ace for all sorts of over reasons over there.
I'm looking forward to the next gen series and so on.
And you've wrapped up some great meetings recently around TQF
and so on. It's got a good feeling about this summer, doesn't it?
Oh, look, you know, I mean, behind the scenes that taking on that project
a year ago or 14 months ago to rescue the summer series was a massive
unfair task on Josie, particularly.
And, you know, it is true that I had to bring her back from the brink
a couple of times, you know, seriously, because it's just
it's a tough gig to turn that thing around.
And we did it.
We lost some money, but we knew we were going to lose some money,
so it wasn't unexpected.
But this year we've had great support from
existing and new people, which hopefully means that we won't lose money
this year, but we'll reset the business or the the the programme,
the the the events so that they're and it's a horrible word.
Every user, but so that they're sustainable, you know, that's
the important thing with with any business.
You need to make it sustainable first.
And then if you can make a little bit of profit, then that's fine.
And in motorsport, profits are very hard to find.
But what people don't understand is that profit is a marvelous thing.
It's a great thing.
Profit enables companies to pay their employees, to pay their suppliers
to develop the community.
It helps the community, helps people pay mortgages.
It's a very positive thing.
Profit, the opposite of that is the exact opposite
where you can't pay your people, can't pay your suppliers.
The community suffers and the whole thing's an absolute negative.
So I've always been and I'm sure people will know that.
But I've always been I've always celebrated profit and
you know, not excessive profits, like the miners seem to make.
But it's just got to be, I mean, you use the word.
It's got to be a workable, sustainable thing.
100 percent, because that's what pays the bills.
And everybody knows now that, you know, coffee used to be three dollars a cup.
It's now seven or six or, you know, in the world's marching on.
And I don't know where it's going to stop,
but we need to keep pace at the very least.
And we need everyone rowing in the right direction, less politics, good for the game.
We are out of time for this edition.
We've exceeded what the definition of a short cast is by many, many minutes.
Who cares?
Hope you've enjoyed the catch ups with Rob and Dean Herridge
and with Tony Quinn as well.
If you haven't already, check out the short cast recently with Ant-Man, too.
We beamed into his Gold Coast Studios where he has been painting away
and making some world class pieces of art helmets for racing drivers,
mainly for this part of the world,
but also for those on the international scene, too.
That is a great chat.
That one. Catch you next week, everybody. Bye for now.
Request an explanation for:
3 cars
3 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
Help improve this episode
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark. Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
Report incorrect info
Suggest better explanations
Flag missing cars