The V8 Sleuth Podcast May 15, 2026

The Undercut – Should rivals be friends?

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Term

pole

Pole is the front starting position in a race. It’s usually earned by being fastest in qualifying, and it gives you a better chance to lead early.

Term

three tenths

“Three tenths” means about 0.3 seconds. In racing, even a fraction of a second can be a big deal.

Term

pit stop

A pit stop is a scheduled stop in the pits where the team changes things like tires or adds fuel. When you pit (and how long it takes) can make or break your race.

Term

“Under green” means the race is running normally with no caution period (no safety car / yellow flags). Pit stops under green are riskier because you can lose more time relative to cars that stay on track at full speed.

Car

Ford Edge

The Ford Edge is a midsize SUV/crossover made by Ford. It’s built for regular driving and carrying people and gear comfortably. In the podcast, it’s referenced as part of a promotional message.

Car

Ford Falcon

The Ford Falcon is a Ford car model that has been used for performance and racing. People modify them for track driving, including drifting. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because a Falcon was involved in a dramatic skid.

Term

champ car

“Champ Car” is a name for a specific kind of American open-wheel racing series. It’s the kind of racing where you’ll hear about Indy-style cars and specialized engines.

Term

V8 turbos

A “V8 turbo” is an engine with eight cylinders arranged in a V, plus a turbo that helps it make more power. The turbo basically squeezes extra air into the engine.

Term

Target liveries

A “livery” is the car’s paint and sticker design for racing. “Target liveries” means the cars were wearing Target’s branding and graphics.

Term

Indy cars

“Indy cars” refers to American open-wheel race cars associated with the Indianapolis 500 and the broader IndyCar-style racing. The phrase “proper Indy cars” suggests a particular era/style of those cars rather than a generic description of race cars.

Car

Toyota 86

The Toyota GR 86 is a two-door sports car from Toyota. It’s made to be fun to drive on roads and tracks. The podcast brings it up because it’s used in racing categories and events.

Term

simulator

A simulator is a racing video setup that lets you practice a track without driving the real car. Drivers use it to learn where to turn and when to slow down before the actual race.

Term

slipstream

Slipstream is when one car benefits from the air pushed aside by the car in front. If you stay close behind, the following car can feel like it has an easier time going faster.

Concept

lap traffic

Lap traffic is when faster cars have to navigate around cars that are on different parts of the circuit due to being lapped. During qualifying, it can ruin a driver’s attempt at a clean, uninterrupted lap because they can’t hit their ideal racing line or timing.

Car

Chevrolet Camaro

The Chevrolet Camaro is a popular American V8-style car. Here, the hosts are saying a racing team brought a new Camaro to the track for a specific driver.

Car

Tickford Mustang

A Tickford Mustang is a Ford Mustang that a racing team (Tickford) has built and tuned for competition. The hosts are pointing out that Cam Waters has a brand-new one for the event.

Car

HRT Commodore

An HRT Commodore is a Holden Commodore that HRT prepared for racing. They’re using it as an example of a new race car debuting at Tassie before doing well at Bathurst.

Term

cabra

In this context, “cabra” sounds like a cover or blocker they put in front of the car to warm things up before racing. If it’s left on, it can reduce airflow and make the car overheat.

Car

Mazda RX-7

The Mazda RX-7 is a sports car that uses a rotary engine, which is different from the normal engine most cars have. Here, they’re talking about a race-day trick that helped warm things up before the run.

Term

rotary engines

A rotary engine is a type of engine where a spinning part makes power instead of pistons. In this story, they’re saying that engine type was involved in a race problem.

Topic

Queensland Raceway

Queensland Raceway is a race track in Australia. The hosts mention it because the licensing and fines they’re talking about relate to an event round there.

Concept

on-track penalty

An on-track penalty is a punishment for something that happened during the race itself. Here, they’re saying the fine they’re discussing isn’t really about driving contact rules—it’s more about not showing up for the event.

Topic

Phillip Island

Phillip Island is a famous race track in Australia. They’re mentioning it because the incident happened there and resulted in a penalty.

Term

contact

In racing, “contact” means one car physically hits or bumps another. Depending on how it happened, officials can punish it with a penalty or fine.

Topic

Bathurst

Bathurst is a famous Australian motorsport venue and event, strongly associated with touring-car racing culture. When someone says “your Bathurst things,” they’re referencing that specific racing world and its traditions.

Topic

undercut

In racing, an “undercut” is when you pit sooner than another driver. Fresh tires help you run quicker laps and potentially get ahead when the other car pits later.

Topic

Darwin

Darwin is a city in Australia. Here it’s being used to say the next race weekend is happening there.

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Hey everyone, it's time for another undercut with thanks to Castro.

We've got plenty to talk about on the episode this week.

James Moffat, welcome back to the studio.

It's good to be back, Nunes. Thank you.

I'm worried though, because I don't think your hairstyle's quite in place for that chair, by the way.

Oh well, this is as good as it gets for me. Sorry to disappoint everybody out there.

But Perko is setting a very elite bar at the moment with the hairstyling, so fair play to him.

YouTube views have gone off off the back of the last episode because of Jack's amazing slicked back hairstyle.

It's seriously impressive.

Well, he's a slick operator.

He is. That's true. That's true.

We've got a lot to cover off. We've got burning questions.

Kai Allen's going to join us on the show this week.

We've also got a look at some of the biggest finds in the history of supercars racing.

That's a challenge for you to try to remember those and figure some of those out.

Castrol Performer of the Week is our first segment of every episode anyway.

But before we get into who yours is and who mine is, I think we've got a little bit of a combined performer of the year award.

Literally, we have an award.

This is the Newspress Australia Award for Best Podcast to the V8 Sleuth undercut for our work last year and this year.

So to you, to Jack Perkins, to our producer, Mark Walker, to those who voted.

Thank you very much.

That is Newspress Australia.

That's the major motoring awards in Australia every year.

So have a look. Have a feel.

Oh, does it feel?

Thanks very much.

You feel like the winner?

Thanks to Mum and Dad and everybody else involved here.

Everyone I've ever met.

Great stuff.

And really, and honestly, congratulations to yourself and Mark Walker for putting this all together.

Perko and I are just along for the ride.

We need people to ride with.

Yeah, that's a fantastic accolade.

So well done.

Right out.

Enough of the self-congratulatory stuff.

I've got my performer of the week.

In fact, it's a former teammate slash boss of yours.

That narrows it down a little bit.

Todd Kelly, TK, 2005 Bathurst winner, came within this close of winning the Australian offshore Superboat Championship on the weekend.

He had Mason, his son alongside.

They won two of the three races in the last round just off Adelaide over last weekend.

They ultimately fell short by two points in his rookie years.

So not too many Bathurst 1000 winners nearly winning offshore Superboat championships.

No, and TK has always loved his water sports and particularly the speed boating.

So it's not a surprise to see him doing a bit of that offshore stuff.

So almost grabbed the title, which would have been great to see, but it would have been through a lack of effort.

There's no doubt about that.

Loves tinkering.

It's a Kelly thing, isn't it, boys?

They just love tinkering.

Very much a family thing for them.

I know that when we were racing the Nissans back in the day, Todd would always ski behind the boat that Rick would drive.

And John Kelly, the father, he would be the navigator.

So I know that when the boys were racing, Rick and Todd, that that was always the deal.

That if they went speedboat racing, that John had to be the navigator.

So, but yeah, nutbags, really.

Do they bolt a Nissen V8 engine into the boat at one stage?

I think an 18 degree Chev might have got a bit of a run there when they were no longer the engines in the supercars.

So really cool.

So Todd Kelly is my Castrol performer of the week.

I've got a feeling that yours is pretty hard to top.

Yeah, look, mine's probably predictable with what's happened in racing in the last week or so.

But Shane Van Guise Bergen's absolute throwdown beating that he gave the NASCAR Cup Field at Watkins Glen.

Man, that was just, I don't know how else to describe it other than just seriously, seriously impressive.

He just laid one down on the competition there.

One?

Oh.

About a hundred.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think it wasn't he.

So he got pole.

So he was doing the three tenths.

Clear.

On pole by a country mile.

By the time he does his last pit stop, he has to do it under green.

So he comes out miles behind.

So he's, I had to write this down so I got it right.

He's 26th in the race.

He's 29 seconds back from the lead.

And in the next 18 laps, he gets to the lead and builds a margin and gets the 7.3 in wins.

Lead 74 of the 100 laps.

Thank you very much for the rabbit.

See you later.

Bye.

Thanks for coming.

See you later.

No wonder they wanted less road course races on the calendar.

Oh my God.

No, like, you just, all you can do is tip your hat to Shane.

It was just, it just reminded me of some of his, like clinics he put on in the back end

of the Gen 2 era where he was just so dominant.

Untouchable.

Just the tyre management, just the whole execution of the race from start to finish.

You just couldn't do anything better.

And, you know, it looked when they pitted with that sort of 18, 19 laps to go that they might

have chosen the wrong strategy versus the competition.

But, you know, just the way he was able to peel through the field and build that margin

like you said at the end.

You just sit back there and even my young bloke, Max, he's a nine year old and we were watching

it on the couch.

And he just feels like, dad, what's he doing?

This is out of control.

This is crazy.

Yeah, I'm like, mate, he is special.

Yeah, he's racing like you.

He's, he's something very special.

And it's awesome that we can see him now putting it on the world stage against some of the best

in the United States.

So, Todd Kelly and Shane Van Gisburgen, they are our Castrol performers of the week.

Thanks to Castrol, our amazing partners here on the undercut.

Unlock the edge of performance with Castrol Edge.

That's what you need to do.

What we need to do though now is get into the burning questions.

Let's roll in.

Moff, should rivals be friends?

Discuss.

Well, I think for it to be a fair-to-income rivalry, then no.

They can't be friends.

Because how can you be going hammer and tong on the track?

I'm going into each other doing whatever and then hanging out away from the track.

It just doesn't happen.

But is this a reflection that the world's different now?

I mean, so what we're talking about, so we've had the, you know, we had in New Zealand,

obviously Chas Moster, Brodie Kastec, you get together in the aftermath.

There was a bunch of the boys that got together into Wumba from what I've seen.

There was a photo on socials and Brodie was there.

Chassie was there.

Well, Brown was there.

Of course, he's the Wumba mayor.

Jackson Walls.

Woody, Woody was there as well from memory.

So it raises an interesting point that's been raised.

And yeah, I, the rivalries can start and stop.

I guess when you're at the track, it's different when the heat comes out in the aftermath.

But I guess from their perspective, those drivers are saying that will, it's being beaten up.

These rivalries are being beaten up by the media, by the sport to try to fuel the interest.

But that's probably a byproduct.

If you want it back of the fact that there's barely any racing for a long period of time.

There's nothing else to really write about.

Talk about.

There's no testing.

There's no technical development.

There's no, it's not the AFL where a coach is getting sacked every now and then and stuff

like that.

There's nothing to talk about.

So, but there's also got to be a bit of buy-in here too, I reckon, where you don't take

the mask off the Lone Ranger, but I reckon if you, you can still be friends.

You can still be mates.

But when you pull the helmets on, absolute war.

But then what does the public see?

But I think the public's pretty cluey these days.

Well, there's so much access now, obviously, with social media.

So much.

So I think that's probably what is part of the reason why we don't see those sort of

fierce rivalries that we sort of always reference, you know, that sort of mid-2000s between Murph

and Marcus Ambrose, Scaffing Eagle, if you want, after Eastern Creek in 2003.

That was before social media.

So it took effort to have a swing if you were a fan and you wanted to express your opinion

or who you thought was in the right or wrong.

You had to write a letter into a magazine or you actually had to do some effort to do it.

But now you can just whip out your phone.

You can send a direct message.

You might not make it to the person involved.

It's a very different world now.

So I understand why in a lot of these cases, the drivers just go, if we do anything or say

anything or fuel anything,

Oh, you just get smashed.

It just gets smashed back at you.

So why would you bother?

But I still stand firm.

You know, I think if you want that fierce rivalry and no, you can't be friends because

the rivalry, if it's fed income, it carries over into you.

You can have respect.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'll probably think about my father, Alan and Peter Brock in the 70s.

You know, that was Ford versus Holden.

And they were fierce rivals because it was, you know, red versus blue.

Obviously, yeah, the landscape of motor racing was very different back then.

But I know for a fact that as Peter and Alan got older,

although there was a mutual respect between them and eventually they developed a friendship.

You know, they drove together in the mid 80s.

But it wasn't a rivalry born out of crashing into another and verbals and finger pointing.

It was that they were opposite in every way.

Holden Ford, he's had a Canadian guy with the specs, Brock the good looking sort of playboy

Melbourne bloke, they were opposite in all the angles.

But that's what formed the rivalry because they were literally on opposite sides.

Whereas now that's not so much a thing.

The manufacturer divides not there like it used to be.

So it's a very different time.

But then you didn't get the background access that you do now, as we mentioned before.

So those rivalries were rivalries in the sense of opposites,

but not in terms of hand-to-hand combat on the track or disagreements.

You know, the HTT blokes in the Ford mode company blokes would end up at the mulberry tent on the Sunday night for a beer or two here or there.

But you didn't see it.

You didn't see photos really of it.

You didn't see it in your, you didn't have a mobile phone in 1975 or whatever it was.

But, you know, like you just can see it more now.

So we live in different times.

So we're never going to have it like we had it before.

I think that's how it should be kind of viewed.

But is there part of it that the drivers need to come to the party a little bit here to be, well, you know what, we get it.

We need a bit of rivalry.

The sport needs a bit going on.

There's not enough racing.

There's not enough this.

We can't fix that straight away.

But what we can do is have a bit of fun with this.

And if the world thinks that we've got something going on fine,

as long as the two people or three people involved are fine,

then can it hurt to play a bit of theatre to it all?

Definitely, the drivers have to come to the party on this.

And, you know, Woody and Brock Feeney.

It's a perfect example.

It's got all the organic elements.

You know, it obviously kickstarted at Adelaide.

But, you know, now I'm hearing, I've read a report that, you know, they've made up and, you know, the differences are assorted.

I don't think it's sorted.

I think they've spoken.

And I think there's understanding.

Brock's not going to be Ryan's best mate anytime soon.

I'll hang it out for a beer.

No.

But Brock doesn't sort of strike me like that type of character anyway with most of the field.

I could be completely wrong on that.

But yeah, obviously we've got sort of something brewing there with Chaz and Brody.

They've sort of come together a few times now.

And clearly Rua Puna is the most recent one.

But I feel like it's almost like a default now for the guys to try and sort of diffuse it.

Yeah.

Straight away.

Yeah.

And that's all off the back of social media.

I'm convinced on that.

And I understand it totally.

I'm convinced on that.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

If you took away the social media element, I reckon it's a different conversation.

But back to your social media is here.

It's here to stay.

It's going nowhere.

It's always going to play a part.

So how can this be changed?

How can it be modified?

You need the organic things happening on the track to start with.

The fact is we don't race often enough to have these things happen often enough.

So if we went racing a week later, two weeks later, the storylines move on.

The news cycle moves on.

Football plays every week.

Exactly.

You could get thumped the previous week, but you've got 567 days before you

can come back and maybe have the redemption story and either stop the drama or make the

drama worse, depending on how well you go or you don't go.

So I don't think there's a simple answer to this one.

But I think you and I, we would like to see more rivalries, wouldn't we?

Oh, absolutely.

It's what the whole thing's predicated on.

If you put a hole out there, I think it would be favored more in yes than no.

Yeah.

But I understand that when you're one of the people who is being put into one of these

things in the current landscape of the world, in the 1970s, water off a duck's back.

Don't see it.

Don't read it.

Don't hear it.

Don't know it, but very different for the drivers of today.

So it's an interesting one to try to, how do you balance here and there?

I think, look, to answer the question, I think rivals can be friends.

It's just how much of it that they show the world is the real topic here.

I think you can be friends.

You don't have to be best friends.

You don't have to have dinner every week.

You don't have to swap Christmas cards.

It's almost a line between respect versus friend, friend.

Yeah.

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It was your greatest rival in your career.

Greatest rival?

Do you have anyone that you had the most angst with?

Put me on the spot there, Nunes.

I'd like to do that.

Probably a few, but yeah, to your point, when I was full time, there were several guys that

I was friends with outside of the track, but you put the helmet on and you race hard against

each other.

So Perka and you were side by side in 2014.

Come together a couple of times, but we weren't rivals at all.

We were mates, but you move on from it pretty quickly.

So you know that it's never intentional.

Slady and I, for example, were very good friends and we had a coming together on a slowdown

lap of all things.

I remember that.

That was at Winton in 2013.

You know, I think I was aggrieved or Tim was aggrieved at me as something that happened

during the race and it sort of came out of the blue and you know, yeah.

But so yeah, I've never probably had a fierce, fierce rival.

There's always guys that you want to beat and maybe you race a bit harder as opposed to

other people, but nothing springs to mind in terms of a fierce rival.

Hold that up your sleeve.

We want to see who you can come back to and figure out a little bit later on, but I think

rivals can be friends.

It's just a case.

It's a challenging topic.

Matt Payne, what should he do?

Because I've got a theory here.

Nothing.

No, do nothing.

Go nowhere.

Don't worry about what's out there.

Get the job done at Grove Racing.

Good team.

Great team on the build still.

He's in a very good situation where he is.

There's not a question of their car performance.

Their speed, particularly at Rua Puna, was like that race on Sunday.

Just dominate.

Dominate.

Almost like what we're talking about Shane at Watkins Glen.

Just really spank them.

It's not a team that's, they're strong.

And a lot of people are making the discussion about the lure of GM and overseas and possibilities

and money and all that sort of stuff.

But like, it's so different he to say Shane Van Gisburg.

Shane had been here for 16 years in supercars before that whole Chicago thing happened,

before the door opened to go to Trackhouse.

Matt, yes, he's won at Bathurst.

He didn't even make the finals last year.

He's won some races.

There's just way more stuff to do where he is right now than worrying about.

And he's contracted, I think, for the rest of, until the end of next year.

I'd see it out.

Okay, you're always going to get advances.

There will always be sniffs of money.

There will always be other things out there.

But when you've got it so good where you are right now and probably one of the best two teams in the pit lane,

or in large, you'd want to have a really, really, really good reason to leave.

Yeah.

And certainly at the moment, lack of performance isn't one of those reasons.

No.

And there's nothing to suggest that the Grove Racing organization won't continue to go up.

And that's even with a few of the pieces.

Obviously, Grant McPherson is going to share and sort of serving out some time.

David Couchy departing into last year.

It's just rolled on.

And that's the key to any sporting team is okay.

People will get poached.

People will move on that's life.

But keep developing, keep the process and the core structure moving forward.

And they've been able to do it.

Yeah.

But the thing for me, Nunes, is where there's smoke, there's fire.

So this story just won't go away.

It won't go away.

So at some point, it needs to be either just put to bed or from mat side.

So we can just...

Is this a pistol distract championship run later in the youth?

This keeps going.

100% it will.

And it will start to destabilize the team as well, which they don't want.

But yeah, the only thing that I can think of if these discussions are real is the carrot

that GM are able to sort of put in front of mat or international races through whether

it be IMSA or something like that.

But now sure, Groves have the ability to also offer him that sort of international carrot

through their GT3 stuff that they do overseas wise, but it's not quite the same lure as

a factory program or something like that.

But would GM even be able to offer a guaranteed level of some...

I mean, this is all stuff that's been out there in the mainstream press.

Some of the IMSA stuff and the NASCAR stuff.

And I think you get that opportunity down the track though when you put more on your resume.

And I felt that the whole time throughout the year of sitting back and reading and hearing

all this stuff.

So I think to answer the question, what should Matt Payne do?

Nothing.

But when you're performing at the level that he is, it's only natural that you're going

to be in demand.

So that's a good problem.

That's a good problem to have.

And look, GM, they need a star.

They need to get a bit of power and a bit of weight back across to their side of the

manufacturing divide.

They've got to do whatever they can do to try to grab someone because the only way they're

going to grab a big fish is to go fishing with a really big hook and reef that thing

out.

So it happens.

Moff, what's the best celebration in supercars slash touring car history?

Because Carson Hockiver had a bit of a crack at Russell Engel sort of, you know, burn out

out the side.

Phillip Island 2005.

It took him a while to get to it though.

Didn't really get it going like Russell did.

I think Russell had it nailed when he, when he let it lob.

But we've had a few good efforts here in Australia over the years.

What stands out?

Who are the, who are the podium runners of celebration?

And it doesn't have to be burnouts.

Burnouts are kind of the normal, but there's other ways to celebrate.

I think for me, the OG is Russell in 2005 down at Phillip Island celebrating that, that

championship because it sort of came out at like solid burst that we'd sort of seen.

I don't want to have done anything like that.

At that time, but Shane's effort at Adelaide in 2022 when he jammed the boot in there and

got up and stood on the roof.

Up against the wall.

That's pretty hard to contend with.

That took the cake.

Yep.

I've also got Shane for Darwin in 2011 in the SB Tools, SBR cars.

Stones Falcon.

Where he basically did a big drift skid for the whole lap.

That, that time.

That was good.

Yep.

That was good.

He did that with Techno, I think in, at Eastern Creek one day too in the VIP Pet Foods car

and it was a wet race.

It was in the wet race.

So he was just driving around in the rain on the slowdown lap.

Just go for it.

But I'm going to put one before you nominate your contenders.

What about failed celebrations?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I've got Wing Cup at Simmons Plains when he was yapping on the commentary to Matty White.

2008.

Been coming out of the hairpin.

Straight into the bank.

I've got Will Davo up there at Townsville, I think 2013.

Yep.

And then probably more in recent times going off Supercars, but Conor Zillich last year

at Watkins Glen.

That was scary.

When he knocked himself out and subsequently.

That would have been so worse.

Yeah.

He obviously won the O'Reilly race at Watkins Glen.

He's come out through the roof hatch.

So he learned his lesson.

He did learn his lesson.

Safety first on the dismount there.

I've got a couple of others.

Wing Cup features again.

So remember when he won the championship in 17?

That last race, all the drama in that last one.

So I think that fountain that he jumped in when they had, where the car was, the podium

was.

He jumped in that fountain.

I don't think that was a good fountain to jump in just quietly for various reasons.

But the bit that a lot of people didn't see was there was a boat.

A Red Bull boat.

Alongside the pit straight moored out on the water.

Bit more than a boat actually.

Well, yosh.

Yeah.

A big birther.

Yeah.

So old mate, Wing Cup, who I love the fact that a lot of people in fan world think that

he's so straight laced and so, which he was so focused as a driver on trying to achieve

what he achieved.

He's a lad.

Like he knew how to have fun too.

Launches a backflip off the top of this thing.

Like out of the blue just goes, yeah, right bang gone in the water.

I reckon that as a combined bit of effort was solid.

But Reynolds is hard to go past to.

Yeah.

23rd and Gold Coast.

First win with him in Kanto.

You know, what did he do?

Pop plants off the podium.

The armour all bloke.

He had his hammer stolen and that was a weapon.

Dino Kanto and the Jazz Crackers.

Dino got the small modification to himself.

I think lucky that Dino had his children by that point.

Yes, yes.

I think that was a very good idea.

So there's quite a few to choose from here.

But what's the best?

Well, what do you go with as, yeah, it's pretty solid.

What do you wish you could have done?

I think Russell's to be fair.

Yeah.

It sort of set a very big benchmark.

Yeah, exactly.

It set the benchmark and others have sort of come and gone and tried.

And there's been some good ones.

But I think to sort of be the first of that.

Yeah.

Hard top.

Yeah.

And then the other one going sort of completely out of tin tops.

Alex and Artie obviously did some awesome burnouts back in the cart days.

Yeah.

Good cast to do it.

Yeah.

And I'm glad you mentioned that because obviously Alex and Artie passed, you know,

very recently and his story beyond his racing story is incredible, isn't it?

Insane.

I mean, what that man went through in his relatively short life.

And he jammed a fair bit in there, didn't he?

That's one way to jam it in, you know, like what 50 odd years.

Yeah, certainly an inspirational person.

That's for sure.

Those Honda engines in champ car.

Two and a half litre, 2.65 litre V8 turbos.

Yeah.

Gold Coast 98.

Go and look it up.

It was.

It was pretty impressive.

Target liveries.

Lightning bolts down the side.

All that.

Rain on Hondas.

Tick tick tick.

Yeah.

When Indy cars were proper Indy cars.

One little one before we wrap that topic though.

It's outside super cars.

The late great Anthony Gobert motorcycle race.

I think there was a world super bike round at Phillip Island.

I'd have to look it up.

Yeah.

When he knew it up basically.

He knew it up.

Down to the jocks.

He just threw off all the gear.

The the letters went.

Gloves went.

96.

I reckon.

Round that era.

Late 90s, early 90s.

I'm not sure of it.

Almost when it was a peak super bike.

Yeah.

He literally was in his undies on the podium.

And I think Reynolds was always threatened to do that sort of stuff.

But he's never quite gone that far.

Which is probably safer.

Well, let's hope Dave Reynolds gets back up on the podium in the middle step so he can

actually turn that thread into.

Any step.

Just let it rip.

Let it rip.

Cause he's probably the only one in the field that would actually go through with something

like that.

Yeah.

Probably.

Actually.

For good reason.

So we need to ask ourselves whether we actually do want to see that.

We do.

We really need to see this.

That's probably another question.

I don't have that on the burning questions this week.

But what can be done to fill the gap.

Jack and I talked on the last episode, a previous episode about super two, maybe doing a standalone

round.

But there's nothing happening.

Yeah.

There's nothing happening in the landscape at the moment.

You've got your racing Trans Am.

How many rounds have you done so far this year?

One and we're the middle of May.

Yeah.

When's your next one?

Middle of June.

So we're about a month there.

So you've done two in six months?

Well, I will have done two.

Will have done.

Super two's done one.

The next race at Darwin.

Carrera Cup's done one.

It's crazy.

And we're at May.

Yeah.

I know we've got a really big back end of the year with all those marquee events, which

is an awesome time of year, but it's dead.

Yeah.

There's nothing.

There's nothing to write about.

There's nothing to talk about.

You know, luckily at VA Sleuth we've got a bit of car history and old stuff and we do

history and heritage as part of what we do.

So we can maybe dial that up a little bit here, but for the sport, it's, I mean, the

news press awards, which are, which is where we won that award, so many motoring people

who used to work in motor racing, whether they cut their teeth in magazines in the 90s

or stuff like that.

So many people like, what's happening?

I don't know what's going on.

Who's winning?

Who's like the motoring media of Australia?

And I know the motoring landscape is very different to the racing landscape these days,

but we'll listen to what's going on.

Yeah.

And it's, I guess, maybe just to help our listeners out there, maybe understand, obviously,

why we have such a void is, yeah, clearly we went over to New Zealand for the back-to-back

races, which for me, that was a massive tick, you know, the back-to-back weekends.

You've got to go for one.

You may as well stay for two.

But the fact that we're on, you knew, okay, you're watching Taupo, but next weekend they're

going to be at Rua Puna.

That for me was just...

But for television timing for Australia, it's not very good.

It's not great.

You've got to be hardcore to know what's even there.

But the fact that we have such a big break is because the cars are shipped over now.

So they go by sea freight, whereas in years gone by, the cars were air freighted, so they

could be over there in, you know, not even a day.

So the turnaround time was a lot quicker.

So we don't have that luxury now because there's obviously a huge cost involved in air freighting

the cars versus sea freight.

So that's why we have this big lull.

And then, of course, they come back to the mainland and then they go much shorter trip,

but still on the boat to Tasmania.

So that's only, thankfully, an overnight trip.

But yeah, we've spoken about this several times.

This is not new news, unfortunately, but I think, you know, a super two round where they're

the main category, get your Carrera Cups along there, Trans Am, Toyota 86, whatever.

There's enough categories in the country that you can put on a great weekend's worth of

racing, peel the broadcast back, take all the fat out of it.

It doesn't need to be the big fancy production that the supercars is.

Just, you know, it's a perfect example as to how you can put an event on at Wynton.

Now, like, we are almost sounding a bit like a broken record.

It is, but it's a problem.

It is.

It's a massive problem.

Every other will never race every week.

No, we'll never race 20 times a year.

We don't have the population.

We don't have the race tracks, really, to sustain it, to be honest.

No, and the way that the agreement's forced, that's been done between the teams and race

that own supercars, every time you add another round for main game, you've got to pay the

teams more, which is just how it's kind of got to work.

So they're reading that structure, and that's how that's going to be.

But if we're going to go to New Zealand for two rounds in a row, but yet have a 10, 11

week overall period, either side of nothing, we've got to put something on because there's

just not that regularity that the sport needs the momentum.

So either we've got to forget about starting so early in a year, getting a few rounds in

and then we go off and, you know, do those far away rounds because they're always going

to have gap between them too.

It's not a perfect scenario.

I don't know what the perfect scenario is, but how do you find a way to fill gaps when

you can't go and make more supercar rounds?

Come up with another event.

Yeah.

A super two standalone round.

Yep.

Dump one off the main game, make them the star.

Pretty much every main game team has a spare car.

Send some spare cars along to that event, call it a mini test, call it a demo, do whatever,

get some stars there, just put in another event.

Yeah.

Like seriously, if you, if you found a date at Winton somewhere in April, May, half the

teams are based in Melbourne for super two anyway.

But I, you know, I never thought about it.

A bit of imagination, a little bit of big thinking.

Yeah.

Do you put a test day on, you know, a main VCS test day, but it's a rookie test day,

a valuation day where it has to be somebody outside of the chairman's chair.

That's probably a good way to do it.

You know, and you can do one at Winton and one at Queensland Raceway.

Mandatory, mandatory evaluation day.

You know, something like that.

But just, we need cars on track.

We need cars on track.

It's like not having people kicking footballs around.

Current prediction for the final four.

Who do you think is going to make it?

Who's not going to make it?

I know we're, we're four down.

We've got five left in the sprint cup.

There's two Enduro cups, but for me, Feeney, Payne, Allen, Kostecki, two groves to be in.

Yeah.

So, you know, we can only go on current form at the moment and it is a long way out.

And all sorts of stuff that happened in Enduros.

Absolutely right.

But yeah, I've got Rody, Brock, Woody and Payne.

So Woody and Allen are the only two that we miss on.

Yes, correct.

Yeah.

But Wood's chance.

You know, we're going to sort of throw in maybe wildcard predictions in there at the moment.

He's brown done.

He's not that far behind in Queensland.

I know.

I know he's nice coming into Tassie, but.

But I wouldn't, you know, for me, a wildcard that would be somebody like a James Golding.

Solid Enduro campaign got Richie Stanoway there alongside him.

You know, they're proving that they are close to the real deal.

Eight in the points.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you'd say at the start of the year that Blanchards were going to be 18 points

with Golding after four rounds, you were gone war, really?

But we're saying final four.

So obviously, a bit has to go.

Yeah, a bit does.

But they had a good year.

A few laps that have to be played before we get too carried away.

They had a really good Bathurst last year.

So if they have good Bathurst and other people in the mix have bad Bathurst.

Yeah.

And you know, if you've got momentum coming off the Enduros and you carry that

into Gold Coast, you know, anything can happen as we saw last year.

So true.

A lot to play out.

But I think the story will be more about who's going to make it into the top 10.

Yeah, I think that's the next.

Already a big points difference, say, like you're Randall in 12th, you know.

There's a jump to getting to 10.

150 off 10th.

So big time, big time.

Speaking of 10, I've got a question for you and we need to unpack this little bit.

Right.

What are you doing on October the 10th this year?

October the 10th.

Well, nothing at the moment, noons other than probably watching the Great Race,

which, you know, hurts me a little bit to say that I won't be competing in it.

But, you know, there's still a few things to unfold that might see a scenario that

I'm not putting it all in or I'm not putting a line through it right together.

But it's unlike I would say it's unlikely.

But yeah, we'll wait and see.

But yeah, a few things would need to seriously come together to see me on the grid.

But that's just how it is.

So if that is how it works out to be, what do you think?

What do you feel?

Are you content?

Do you look back on your runs up at the mountain every October?

And I know you didn't quite get the bit that you're looking for.

You've got the podium quite a few times and really competitive

and drove a bunch of different cars with a bunch of amazing people.

What's your feeling if it is that you're on the couch this year?

I haven't really thought too much about that.

And I think that's probably maybe because I'm fortunate enough outside of racing.

I'm very busy and, you know, I'm sort of go, go, go with that side of things

that you don't sort of have time to sort of sit down and really reflect on things

or dwell on things.

I'm sure that scenario would be a bit will different for me.

Come October 10th, if I'm not there up at Bathurst,

you know, and I'm sort of forced to turn on the television and watch instead of compete.

Maybe there'll be some different thoughts that go through my mind.

But yeah, like I said, I haven't completely put a line through it.

So a couple of little things that I'm doing in the background that might see a possibility.

But apart from that, there's not really too much to elaborate on.

Are you open to last minute motors?

If there's someone ill, if there's a last minute change between enduro's

that you would get thrown in without maybe doing a test stay or things like that,

would you steer away from that if that scenario was potentially?

I think I would steer away from that just because I think it's underrated the commitment

that is needed to be put in by a co-driver, you know, especially because the level is so high.

You know, that would be probably doing everybody an injustice if you just got thrown in without

any any laps and pretty hard, you know, you don't do the right thing by the team you might be driving

for, you don't do the right thing by yourself.

So yeah, we'll wait and see.

We will wait and see.

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Well, on the undercut on this episode, we have a supercars race winner in James Moffitt.

But we also have another, the most recent supercars race winner,

Kyle Allen. Does that sound good to you?

Does.

Supercars race winner capital.

Do we have to run a capital on everything?

Probably.

Yes.

If I've even gone formal.

No, it does.

It sounds very good, doesn't it?

Well, we got good heavy here.

No, thank you very much for having me, guys.

This is awesome.

There's a lot to unpack here, James.

There's a lot we've wanted to catch up with Kion.

But that winning real puna.

In a way, it's great.

I mean, you've scored your first race win.

You've been trying to do this for a long time.

You've been dreaming of this day and you go and win on a bloody Friday and you can't get on it.

I know.

Yeah, that was a weird thing.

It sort of didn't really feel like a race win because obviously I was thinking about

how to improve the car for the next day and all that stuff.

Like, don't get me wrong.

It was absolutely awesome and a lifetime goal that I ticked.

But yeah, it was quite weird.

And it was that Friday where we just did practice in the morning

and then I won a race in that afternoon.

So my mind was spinning in that evening.

But now definitely a very cool way to get that one done,

and especially for the first race in Christchurch as well.

But did you just save it up for Sunday night?

Or does it just peter out by the time you get through the race weekend?

Yeah, the problem was I think we flew out at like 6 a.m. on Monday morning.

But you're still young, man.

Yeah, no, I wasn't out of bounds back.

I was after two big weeks in New Zealand.

I thought I'll just have a few drinks with the boys and get some good night sleep.

But no, definitely, yeah, definitely haven't had too much time to celebrate it.

But definitely celebrated it from way over the family in that as well,

which has been really cool.

Have you had time to sort of ponder all this?

So you had a schedule.

Is this where you kind of hope you would be a year and a bit into your full-time main-game career?

Yeah, 100%.

Like, I think obviously getting that race win then, I didn't really expect it.

And I only look back to sort of a week before at Taupo.

And it's sort of, you know, I was like, oh, you know, can I get a race win over here in New Zealand?

And I wasn't really sure, but it also just come together and did a lot of work.

Obviously, pre-race at Rua Puna trying to learn the track on the simulator and

did a lot of research.

So I thought that, you know, that Friday race is probably a really good shot for me to

sort of try and work a bit harder and get a get a step up on everyone.

And you're talking to some of the other boys.

I didn't know no work or no real prep.

They went over and drove a Toyota 86 or whatever.

They quietly went over and had a steering wheel.

Yeah, yeah, but we actually developed.

But you didn't go?

I did, but then we did.

Where did you go and drive?

A little 86.

No, it was great fun.

So then, yeah, we obviously developed on the simulator and did so many laps, which is really cool.

So, yeah, that helped me obviously get in there.

But then, yeah, we just definitely had a really fast car and Maddie obviously dominated as well.

So it was a great weekend for the team.

And yeah, super proud of that one.

Moffie's in the race winners list now.

Have you got a, do you get a welcoming pack or what do you get when you win a supercar's race

from the brethren who've been there and done it?

I haven't won enough nerds to welcome anybody into the club.

And it was a long time ago, unfortunately.

So, you're on the list.

But I know, I guess that first win obviously means so much.

What was your overriding feeling and emotion after the race?

Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Like once I sort of saw Mum and Dad and gave them a hug, like I know how hard and how much

they've sacrificed for me.

With their tears?

To get tears.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Who's the crier?

Who's the emotional one that triggers it for everybody else?

Well, I don't know.

I think, I think Dad said Mum was prancing for about five laps to go.

Couldn't even talk to her.

She was just running back and forth.

But no, I think obviously, yeah, they're both very emotional and they probably don't

show it until it actually happens.

And they've done that in the past where I was eight years old racing go-karts.

And then someone's going, oh, he's going to win.

And then I get really excited.

And then my spark like shot at the top of the motor three laps to go.

And I lost my first day title.

So Mum's like, no.

Nobody hasn't forgotten about it at all.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah.

So Mum's like, no, no, it's still not over.

It's still not over.

So it's, yeah, but definitely Mum is probably more emotional.

But still Dad shed a tear, which is just something very special.

But yeah, just the, just the relief.

It's like a, you know, almost a monkey off the back when you get that win.

And there's so many things that, you know, you've seen other guys win it in their first year.

And I didn't get that first win.

And, you know, like, you know, these things just go through your head of,

am I doing something wrong or whatever?

And then they get that one.

It's like, all right, no, it's all just come together.

And it's such a competitive place at the moment.

So to get that one.

And I'm like, oh, cool.

I can just, just continue on my journey in March forward.

And obviously also with the fact that, you know, Maddie, your teammate has been,

you know, winning races as well.

That's always sort of hard to sit back and watch.

So now you're both race winners.

And yeah, you know, onwards and upwards for you.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

So now it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's absolutely awesome to have Maddie as a teammate.

Like he's one of the best drivers I've ever come across, you know.

Does he have a heart rate ever lift?

I think it's about, it's got a very flag.

I think it's about 60, like the whole race.

Yeah.

No, he's just...

Might have gone to about 65 when that wheel came off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Small little spike.

Even here in his radio, he's like, yeah, I've lost a wheel.

And it's like, he's not stressed whatsoever.

I've still got three.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I'll bring it back.

But no, he's just, he's just a cool dude.

And he's just great to work with.

Like there's no ego involved there.

Obviously he's super competitive, but yeah, he won't hide anything from me.

And I won't hide anything from him.

And that's why I think we're working really well together at the moment.

So it's quite a good...

Toe was great was the aftermath of the race win.

Tell me the story.

I did hear the radio chat between you and Ricardo,

you're a Toeian engineer who worked at Ferrari.

That's been said many times in the last little while.

But Chocolato, what's the story there?

Because I feel like there's, at the very least,

there's a food story here.

And I like food.

And I want to know what the story is.

He's Italian, so I'm guessing he's good with food.

Yeah, yeah.

No, so that's a pretty funny story.

So obviously, yeah, Ricardo, I took him home to MacGamey for Easter.

Do you put a bit of Italian twinge when you say his name?

Hey, there you go.

You got to get that roll, like the tongue roll.

Yeah, yeah, Ricardo.

So no, he's cool.

So yeah, obviously, we're heading home in a five-hour drive.

We're running out of stuff to do on the way home to MacGamey from Melbourne.

And he's like, oh, I've got a song for you.

And I'm like, all right.

And it was the gangster rap.

And I didn't understand the words because it was in Italian.

But I heard Caramello, Chocolato and Marshmello.

And I'm like, that doesn't sound like gangster rap.

That doesn't sound too bad.

Yeah, I was like, but this is a lot better than what I listened to.

He's a master chef for gangster rap.

Or so it's pretty funny.

So obviously, this Italian rapper was rapping about boasting about food

and about chocolate, Caramello and Marshmello.

So anyway, so that's we over the weekend.

We'll just, I don't know.

It's one of our little razors.

We'll just say, and you're like, Chocolato.

And we're just screaming it all weekend.

So it's pretty funny.

So then, yeah, I don't know, it came out.

Yeah, when he won, he's just like, that was Chocolato.

And I'm like, oh, well, there you go.

So the thing is though, before we start this interview,

before we have any chat before we camera, camera.

So you're now living solo here in Melbourne.

Yes.

We're living with one of your sisters, I think, from memory

who was playing super nipple here, but it's not playing this year.

So you're, you're batching it.

You're solo.

So I don't understand what you're doing here

because you've got this great race engineer

that you really need to bond with.

He's Italian.

He can cook.

Mate, sign him up, get him into your place.

This just make it happen.

Make it happen.

You don't eat like a king.

I know.

And that's where I need to, I need to get some,

yeah, definitely get some meals from him

because he did whip up some carbonara

and it's some of the best carbonara I've ever had.

So.

Really?

Yeah.

Did he have to go like special?

This is not like rabbit off the supermarket shelf.

This is like get the bits from here.

Yeah, I reckon he honestly travels across Melbourne

to find each bit.

And it's like, get the, you know, like the,

I don't know what it is, the bacon from here,

then the cheese from here, then that social pass

so he cracks me up.

But he's, he's passionate about it as all Italians are,

which is really cool.

So.

One of the things I think that we probably have forgotten,

we've had some international engineers over time,

obviously Ludo Lacquaze, this, you know,

he's been for a long time, he's virtually Australian now,

but still don't understand him.

But there was actually a rule brought in many years ago.

I'm not sure if it's still in the ops manual,

but it probably is that you have to speak in English.

Yes.

So you can't do the whole code thing, which I think.

Yeah.

I think we had that way back.

Maybe it was Alex Prema.

Yeah, maybe.

But I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about that

guy because I've had it myself when I was at JRM,

I had Manuel Sanchez, who was my engineer,

who spoke reasonable English,

but the thick accent made it challenging sometimes.

Have you had any communication issues with Ricardo,

probably more so in the car so far,

or has it been pretty smooth sailing?

It's been pretty smooth sailing.

There's a couple there at Sydney and,

and the thing that we worked out with him,

it's, it's obviously very hard because obviously

English is his second language, but he's actually,

when he's processing stuff, you know,

quickly and trying to understand stuff,

he's thinking in Italian in his head,

but when he goes to communicate it,

it takes him a while to communicate the words.

Yeah, yeah, to English.

It's going to run through the English filter.

Yeah, which is quite funny,

and I didn't really think about that.

So then obviously we've,

we've put a few things in place,

but yeah, he's actually,

he's come along a really, really good way.

And it's, it's such a hectic job to come straight in

and be race engineer in a super car

with our tight practice format

and the way we got going on to trying to throw,

trying to learn the car,

then learn the sessions, learn the rules.

So obviously he hasn't been thrown in the deep end.

We've had some, some good people around him,

but yeah, I sat sitting here, there's a couple of times

where I'm like, what was that?

I just go, copy.

Exactly. So, but no, he's been really good.

He's been working really hard on,

and I have as well trying to work on our communication and,

you know, what I want from him in the race as well,

like in the sessions and what I want to hear as well.

So it's not just new since it's productive feedback.

And yeah, going back to that, that role,

we actually did look at it

because it would have been a cool thing

of having a few little, little keywords there

that you can, you know, like you could do boxes lap in Italian

or something different to, to try and work it out.

A lot of teams have code for no is yes, yes is no,

and all sorts of other things.

What, did you ever have code? Did you ever have any?

Nah, there's too much going on for me.

He just kept it simple, hey?

You know, the old, the old kiss method.

Stupid, stupid way.

Yeah, actually, I actually downloaded Duolingo

to try and learn Italian on the app.

And yeah, it was good, but I was only learning

about coffee, dog, cat, croissant and other things.

That's not going to help you in a race, guys.

I deleted it.

The, the code words that you need.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Croissant means two laps to pit.

I was like, yeah, it could be all the code words.

The only, only sort of code word stuff that we've used was

with Potsy at Tickford.

Sampotto, who engineered scam orders, yeah.

Yeah, we had Sapporo.

Sapporo, your business.

Yeah, our business, but also, you know, find Japanese beer.

True.

We had that as a, that was a pit opposite, basically.

So if, if, and then also when we had the 40Ks,

the limiters, you know, practicing that.

On the track, when it went back to 40.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the only code word stuff that I've ever used.

Otherwise, yeah, just simple.

Impulsive.

Even simple.

No, that's good.

I like that.

It seems that, since last year, mate,

when you got that breakthrough podium was Darwin.

Yeah.

And then you go and get another one.

It's funny how when someone gets one,

then they would get another one straight away, but it was like

literally the floodgates opened and bang,

we started seeing you up there on the podium.

Had you, I've talked to Garth Tanner a little bit about this

and you know, he's got so much experience from over the years.

He's been there and he's done it.

And he's lived your life kind of thing very much.

That whole, it'll come.

When you're young, you're keen, you're eager,

you want to just get going and get results to make it happen.

And it wasn't happening.

But then once it happened, does that make you start to go,

there's something in this?

So I will subscribe to this theory from here on in,

because it's right.

Yeah, 100%.

And that's a big thing that Garth's been very influential on

getting me to this point as a first few rounds where

I had my first qualifying at Sydney.

People forget I was 10th in qualifying and I'm like,

all right, I'm here to race.

This is awesome.

Come on.

And the next qualifying 23rd.

So I'm like, okay, there's a bit more to learn.

But yeah, as we trucked on and had to really understand

and get through that tough few rounds of that rookie status

and getting turned around and beating up, it's quite brutal.

But then I sort of got to Darwin and the track,

obviously suited my style and the car was really good.

And I sort of was just in a bit of a flow state.

And I got that podium, which is great.

And then, yeah, backed up on Sunday.

And then I probably went back into that of like,

right, I can get my first race win, yeah.

Rocked up to Townsville and didn't have that good of a round.

So that's where it was that reality check.

Okay, start this easy.

Just keep working away.

Just keep chipping away.

Don't think about the result.

And yeah, like last year, you know, Garth,

you know, we used to talk before and after every round

about what are our goals, all this stuff.

And we had this full procedure and we stuck to that.

And then, yeah, once I got to the finals,

it was, I really found this good mentality

of coming into the round and just going out and executing

every time I drove, no matter if it's,

if the car's good enough for fifth, just finish fifth.

Get the fifth.

Thank you.

Call off high fifth.

If you cannot, if you can't get a second,

just do the lap that put your fifth.

Don't lock a break, run wide and you're 16th.

Oh yeah.

So that's where, and I've had a few,

it's, you know, in this time in supercars where, you know,

like, I'm like, oh, I'm going well now.

I can really execute and do a good job.

But I just tip it over the edge a little bit too much.

And we saw a bit of that at the start of the year.

And obviously, there was some other stuff going on,

trying to, you know, find our feet with, you know, Riccardo

and all that stuff.

But yeah, it's sort of now that I've got,

had that break between obviously Grand Prix and NTA Po.

I sort of just, you know, wanted to get back into that rhythm of,

now make sure I'm top five every qualifying.

Don't try to aim for pole.

This is very hard.

And after a lot of things have to go right.

So, yeah, I did that obviously at Tau Po.

I think every, every, every qualifying I was top six

and then did the same, you know, that was the same goal.

All right, I've done top six now, just chip away to four.

Don't aim for pole.

Just top four.

And I did, you know, I did that, I think one qualifying,

I was fifth or whatever.

So, and then, yeah, that's, that's the way I'm still going now.

It's like, I've still got my race win, but just park that aside.

You know, I'm still on this process to then not think about this year.

It's more about next year and the years to come is,

is keep learning and keep evolving.

You can't take too big of a leap.

You forget, you know, what took you to get there,

if that makes sense.

You've got to understand the process to get there.

So before we let you go, I wanted to quickly cover off,

we're going to cover this in a second on number crunching

our segment about stats and data and info.

But one of the things that really caught my eye this week,

and we're going to dive into it when you, when you depart us,

but I wanted to flag it with you that in the Gen three era,

Simmons Plains guys is the worst track for qualifying average

for both Dick Johnson racing and Grove racing.

Clearly you're not in going, we know, we know we're on it.

Qual average for all Grove cars for the three years of Gen three is 16.3.

It's their worst track for qualifying.

Now, what do you do?

How do you change that in the next round?

Yeah, it's obviously very tricky.

And that's a topic that we've had a good break to work out.

And we've learned a lot.

Like we've, we've, we probably evolved very quickly as a team.

After, as if that makes sense after we had another year last year,

we had a pretty shocking round and even though Matt won,

that was a massive strategy call and the boys did an unreal job.

So don't get me wrong.

We still had success, but just car speed.

We were not, not there.

But you hadn't been there before, had you?

No, no, I hadn't.

I hadn't been anywhere else from time last year.

And that was the key to my success.

It was like, yeah.

I don't know anything.

Yeah, it's just 100% no expectations.

So yeah, but I think, yeah, just as we, we struggle there

and the boys have done a lot of work and learn a lot from sort of

that point last year to where we are now with the car development

and philosophy.

So yeah, it's obviously one of those tracks

for your rock-up car analysis is going to be one of those weekends.

And for us, it's, if it is, we've just got to maximise

whatever we can and our goal is down the track in one round.

I don't think we'll, we'll hurt us.

We will still chip away and I think we're good enough to get to the front

no matter what we do, but we just got to really stick to our processes

and make sure we, yeah, we find out what's, what's bad

and why we've been bad and then yeah, keep moving forward.

Hopefully you find the chocolate in Tasmania.

I'm not sure where you can find it, but

if he says Caramello on the radio, we're claiming it, we're claiming it.

Congrats on the season so far.

You're well and truly in the game in that hunt for the finals

and thanks for taking some time, Joyce, on the undercut.

Thanks boys, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

There is Kai Allen here on the undercut.

It's time now though to do some more crunching here on Number Crunching.

Plenty of numbers to look at here on the undercut.

Moff, I want to talk about Simmons Plains next round of the championship.

Down in Tassie, we mentioned it with Kai before,

but the qualifying averages in the Gen 3 year in Tassie really interests me

and we've, we covered off with Kai that Grove,

this is their worst track for qualifying in Gen 3

when you just average out the qualifying position for these teams.

So Dick Johnson Racing, they're even worse,

but you would expect it with the form they've got to be better.

Triple A.

With one car at least.

Yeah, true, true.

Tickford at 9.9, it's their fourth best track as well of the 14 on the calendar.

So no surprise the Triple A are up there

because they're always up there in Tassie.

There's a few interesting numbers here

and Tickford's probably, that number's probably not as good as it could be

because there was that period in 23, I think, that they had four cars remember.

So a car or two further down is going to drag the average back a little bit,

but Tickford are kind of a wide variation anyway.

Yes. Yeah, I was, the Tickford number sort of surprised me a little bit

given that Randall's had the two poles there

and Waters, I'm pretty sure has had pole there in Gen 3.

I know they've been very quick down there,

especially the last couple of years.

So it's Feast or Famine, it's a very Tickford sort of thing.

Especially at the moment, it seems a bit Feast or Famine with them.

And so for me, I've got that as a bit of a litmus test for Tickford down there,

if they can produce the form that they've shown down there

over the last couple of years with their car speed.

I think DJI will be way better than that bro, he'll be in the game.

No, definitely not at the moment.

It'll be another tough round probably for Ryland,

given that he is a rookie down there.

It did suit him too, but just the margins there are so close at Tassie.

Yeah, there's nothing in it.

We're going to see that scenario too where everybody does

that I don't want to go in qualifying and I don't want to lead,

I don't want to break the air for the cars behind me.

So I'm going to drive really slow and then everybody else can go past me,

but won't go past me.

Well, certainly there because there's a high chance

you get a headwind down the back straight,

which makes the slipstream even more beneficial.

So you don't want to be at the head of the queue.

So we see it every year, we talk about it every year,

it's almost a bit of a shitshow every year, the qualifying there.

We forget about it every round and then we come back to it.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Yeah, it's just the nature of the beast down there at Tassie.

And certainly that first part of qualifying when all 25 or 24 cars are on the circuit,

lap traffic is an issue.

You can fix it though.

Yeah.

Single car shooter, all themselves.

Hey, a couple of new bits of metal debuting down in Tassie too.

Erebus have a new Camaro for Cooper Murray.

Cam Waters has got a brand new Tickford Mustang.

It made us look back to the last time that new cars debuted at Simmons Plains.

There's a little bit of a trend here.

It's been a long time since some new hardware has been rolled out down there.

You've got to go back to 2010.

I think Alex Davison had a new Erwin Ford.

Garth Tander had a new HRT Commodore.

That very car went on to win Bathurst the next year.

And if you go back further than that,

Marks gave 2004 that HRT 050, that car won Bathurst the next year.

So not a bad idea to debut a new car in Tassie because they win Bathurst on occasion.

But the following year.

He got a stick with it.

So what, are we locking in Waters or Murray for a win at Bathurst in 2027?

Well, wait.

2028?

Well, we've got to wait till October next year to find out how that actually worked out.

The follow on from that, that's of, for those two teams,

the break in racing has given them probably a bit more leeway

and being able to get those cars together.

So sometimes there is...

There is one benefit of some of these sorts of big delays.

Simmons Plains, we covered it with Jack on a previous show,

100th Gen3 race, but it's also the 100th championship race clocks over this weekend

on the Simmons Plains weekend, I should say.

For the track in the history of the championship,

going back to the Australian Touring Car Championship days,

Mark Winterbottom is on top.

The most race starts at Tassie over the years in terms of his long time, full time career.

Obviously the drivers who've raced in the modern era with multiple races in a weekend

are pretty heavily on this list here, but there's some familiar names there.

But when you look down the list of, well, who's actually in the field still?

None in the top 10.

None of them.

They're all either co-drivers or retired from the game.

So a few more guys need a few more years of flying down to Launceston

to get their numbers up, to be able to work their way onto a list.

And that's going to take a long time,

given there's so many young drivers in the championship.

But don't forget that there was a period from 2000 to 2003.

There was no round there.

There was four years without a round down there.

The guy who wins a lot down there.

So wind cup goes from 10th on that list to first on this list.

So 13 race wins.

I think on the previous graphic, he'd done 38 races.

That winning rate is nuts.

Lowndes had a lot of success there.

Peter Brock had a lot of success in the single race round era.

Your old man did.

Alan Moffat, there he is.

P6 on the overall list.

And Fabian Coulthard got his first podium ever down there in 2009

and was a winner there with DJ Tim Penske.

The thing that really jumps out for me on that list,

their noons, is there's not an active driver on that list

in terms of the race wins.

No, it's not a place that anyone's really got on top of everybody else

for a period of time in the last couple years.

Funny story about Big Al.

He could have maybe had six wins down there.

I'll tell you why he didn't have a six win.

Are you going to the cabra?

With the cabra and the Mazda.

So they used to put this cabra in front of the Mazda,

the RX-7, to get temperature in the car before the race.

One of the mechanics might have forgotten to take that off

and Big Al's just ripped off.

Well, I think you did the warm-up lap with it on, didn't you?

It was the only time that they ever blew up one of those rotary engines.

They virtually baked it because there's no airflow coming in.

So you could say, yeah, Big Al, we wouldn't have even jumped up the list.

It'd still be where he was.

Yeah, you wouldn't need to get a couple more, but there you go.

There's a little fun fact.

Yeah, not many people have been taken out of a race by a cabra.

No.

But Alan George in the record books in all sorts of places

whenever you look at it.

And when you look at the history of Simmons,

this is where it stacks up for most races.

Sanddown has the most rounds in history,

but for many years, of course, it was a single race round,

being the 500 in a lot of occasions.

But Wannaroo is out in front

because the racing in Perth's been pretty continuous

all the way through from the late 70s onwards.

Simmons Plains is going to hit that 100,

but of course Wannaroo is going to get back in front later in the year.

Sanddown City Motorsport Park, but that's inflated.

Remember in 2021, the championship pretty much lived there

for four weekends in a row.

Yeah.

So we love to take a look.

So that shouldn't even be on the list, should it?

Have a look at this shot, though, there of...

That's the field in 1977 out of the hairpin down the back straight.

It's kind of what I love about Simmons is that it matches up to the past.

Like, there's no new bit of track or the track's the track.

Yes, the bits around it have changed a little bit,

but it's absolutely as it was, that banking down that hairpin,

the end of the back straight.

Certainly some of those trees in the background are no longer their noons, but...

No, and that hump, though, coming into turn one, though,

I reckon that got brought down a little bit.

Oh, it trimmed a bit.

Oh, I just think it was a bit...

You look at the old videos and they're really...

Maybe it was more the cars than the track from...

I think it might have been the cars because it still feels, you know...

It was pretty full.

As a circuit, a spectating viewing circuit, it's fantastic

because you can sort of stand up there on that bank out on the outside of

turn two and you can basically...

If you situate yourself correctly, you can see the whole circuit, basically.

And even some of those images you have provided,

you just look in the background at the people there.

That run down that straight,

there was always a big amount of cars parked up there

and people on the fence ready to see a Mazda explode.

There was a bit going on over the journey.

Simmons is a great little racetrack.

It's one of the few heritage-type venues

and everybody down there puts in a lot of effort,

so we can't wait to see what rolls on.

Time though now.

You're on the undercut for the workbench.

There's nothing racing drivers hate more than having to pay money.

James Moffat, you're one of them.

What's the biggest fine you ever received?

No, I think I got it maybe at 2,000 or 2,500.

What for?

Suspended on...

Suspended.

It didn't even have to pay.

Half of it was suspended.

But maybe it was five and two and a half were suspended.

You just remember the bit that came out of your pocket.

Yeah, yeah, just a little altercation with Scottie Pie after the race at the Grand Prix.

Ah, yes, yes, that went down well.

No, but it's got nice all about it.

Yeah, no, we're good there.

That's a long time ago.

It was.

So Moff, what are the seven biggest fines in supercars history go?

Well, probably things that come straight off the top of the mind.

Recent times, DJR, debris, debris, debris.

No, debris, debris, debris, debris.

Yes, 2019 Bathurst.

2019.

That was a $250,000 fine, but a hundred of it was suspended to the end of the next year,

so therefore 150 grand payable.

That's the number one on my list of seven.

What do you got next?

The world, there was another DJR one for the same race, the engine.

Yes.

Disqualification.

Yes, that was the $30,000 fine that was part of the engine thing of McLaughlin's car being

excluded from qualifying the shootout, even though it had started from Poland won the race.

So that's number four on the list.

Right.

Team Dynamic.

Illegal testing at Womora.

I was going to say Womora.

Right, oh, there you go.

Two on the list.

We're going okay.

Guilty of running a car at the Womora rocket range back in 2004.

Initially, the breach was, I think it was 50 grand US and then there's a whole pile of things,

but they appealed it and it got increased.

So it was kind of like, hey, try it on and we'll go more.

So it ended up at a total of 132 grand for all the different elements involved.

Yep.

Now, what about posters?

Do they spring to mind?

Posters.

Did Craig Gore WPS do something in the mid 2000s or when WPS?

Yes.

That's equal five on the list at $25,000.

But was that poster related or not?

No, it was merch related.

It was similar.

So in 2007, WPS racing, Craig Gore's team found guilty of bringing the sport in a disrepute

for being in possession of t-shirts in their merch area that had the words,

stay out of our sport, Euston, which was referring to the then Tegobos John Euston,

who was a liberal politician, leader of the opposition, big racing fan,

Kevin Waldock, pit crew member at the mountain back in the day,

amid speculation that Euston and his supporters were trying to unseat Tony Cochran

from the chair roll with Avesco.

And Gore had distributed a really scathing letter to his fellow team owners going after John Euston.

So hence why those t-shirts became a thing.

So that's equal.

What was the five?

25 grand.

A bet.

Any suspension there or just full back?

Just 25 large.

Straight up.

25 large.

Now, this is going back a while, but Stevie Johnson got up on the podium.

But that's all well and good, you think.

But he wasn't actually in the top three in the race.

Correct.

And that is top three in the fines.

Well, there you go.

30 grand.

30 grills.

30 grand.

So any suspension there or suspended?

No, no, that was a big fat 30.

OK.

So who paid for that, do we know?

Ah, well.

Knowing Stevie J, it wouldn't have come out of his pocket.

Ford.

So the thing was that Ford drivers had finished 1234 at Adelaide in 05.

So it was the Saturday race.

Mark Sambrose, Russell Ingle, Craig Laird, Stevie J fourth.

Yep.

Of course, fourth doesn't get onto the podium.

No.

But they did the podium and then Steven Johnson was ushered down onto the podium to do a photo op.

And Cams went, hey, the regs say no presence of commercial and promotional personnel on the

podium, which I think still in the regs.

They deemed that it was broken by that 30 grand fine to DJR.

But Ford took the blame and paid the fine because it was the Ford PR bloke that teed it up,

not the DJR person.

OK.

So yeah, you've knocked over the top five.

I need two more here.

Well, just because I, you know.

I'm surprised you haven't got this one already.

Really?

Yep.

We've talked about him on the show today.

Russell Ingle?

No.

Right.

He had a lot, but he never quite added them up to big events.

I was always a fan of Russell when I was younger.

If we added up all of the ones over time, he probably is pretty high.

But in terms of single fine, he's not even ranking in the top five or six.

OK.

Well, who have we talked about on the show?

Well, we've talked about a bloke we don't want to see take off his kit.

Oh, Reynolds.

Oh, yeah, of course.

2015, the infamous, yep, we probably can't say it, but the wagon.

25 grand.

That was 25, yep.

In 2015.

And there was no suspended in that.

No.

Was there?

No, but he did get a poll and I think it was worth five grand then.

So that's helped sort of offset the fine a little bit.

You want to keep the poll?

You want to keep the poll with cash and not have to spend it on a fine.

But there's another one on the list here that you might not remember.

We're going to go back to 2002.

Well, I would only sort of say in that sort of era,

there was sort of the fines for not turning up to race with the wreck.

Well, yeah, OK.

So that's actually a little point we need to cover off.

So John Faulkner found himself in a situation, you know, three where basically he and Alice

and his wife, they were dim liable for the two licenses not running at Queensland Raceway,

150 grand each for their level ones, because it was part of there was a sale and a move

of franchises going on around teams.

And they were left in a situation where they didn't present cars for that round,

but they were still the license holders.

So that was a, it's a franchise matter.

It's a tiger thing, not an on track or an out of event penalty.

In essence, it's a penalty for not being at around and being at around.

So that is at 300 grand the all time fine.

But we wanted to hone in on on track stuff that people had physically actually wrong.

So that's an honourable mention.

Very honourable mention.

High on the list.

But I'll hit me with the last one.

The last one is Paul Romano.

He copped 20 grand for contact with Rodney Forbes at Phillip Island.

If you go find the video, it might be on the Supercars YouTube of that race.

But I think it's fair to say this is racing contact.

Yeah, yeah.

I think they'd had contact in the race.

And then Paul might have gone back and retaliated at Rodney and might have.

I think the race control got sick of all this and hit 20 grand.

So that was a pretty decent one.

Back in 02.

And not bad.

So that's probably gone.

That's probably about 25, 26 grand.

Those money.

So they are the seven biggest fines in V8 Supercar history.

And you didn't get on there.

So that's even I'm happy about that.

I think you've done very well.

Well played to you.

You've passed the quiz pub test here at the undercut for fines.

We might have to do a total add up though for the most fine team

and the most fine driver in championship history.

We might have to get Perkel onto that at some point down the track.

But it's always good when you don't feature in these lists,

when you have to try to go through them.

A big thank you to Castro.

And by the way, too, they've been fantastic partners of ours.

We've got some exciting stuff coming up with them this year,

where you're going to get some input

into something that they're going to do later in the year.

I can't say anything.

Can't say more.

But it's a bit like you and your Bathurst things.

More literacy.

Can't say anything right now,

but keep watching the undercut coming up.

Have you got anything to plug before we go?

When are you next racing your car?

What have you got to promote?

What's going on?

Yeah, well, looking forward to getting back up to Darwin

in the Trans Am car.

So that'll be round two.

So yeah, that's next when we're on circuit.

So it feels like it's been a long time between racing,

which it has.

So to get back up to Darwin in the winter months

of escaping Melbourne is never a bad thing, is it?

I could think of worse things to do.

I could think of far worse things to do.

New edition of V8 Sleuth magazine is out.

It's right behind your head as we speak.

Mark Larkham's engineering masterpiece.

The I-10 Falcon that's got an amazing story,

but bugger all results to its name.

It was the car that could have, but it never did anything.

No, it's an intriguing story though

of how it all came to be.

There's a bunch of other great stories.

You can get your copy now, by the way,

from all great news agents, even if you're just good ones

as well as the V8 Sleuth Superstore.

On the last edition of the Q&A undercut,

we talked about lakeside and going for a ride around there.

Have you ever been around lakeside?

No, I have not.

No.

So to take us out this week,

I thought we'd go back in the vault a little bit

and we've dipped into the archives

and got some rippingly good onboard footage.

This is Cam Wilson in a Trans Am Camaro

going large around lakeside.

I've got a feeling, Moff, when you look at this vision,

the tyres weren't absolutely brand new at the time.

So enjoy this.

This is a ride around lakeside.

Hope you've enjoyed the undercut.

We will have a Q&A episode again very soon in the meantime.

Thanks to the team at Castro and everybody for tuning in.

We'll catch you next time, right here on The Undercut.

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About this episode

Rivalries take center stage as the hosts tackle the question “Moff, should rivals be friends?” They argue that off-track mateship can exist, but “when you pull the helmets on, absolute war.” Along the way, they weave in race-strategy talk—pole, pit stops under green, tyre management—and real-world context like social media amplifying conflict and limited testing during downtime. The episode also includes awards, Castrol segments, and plenty of racing anecdotes, from near-misses to big on-track moments.

Bathurst champ car contact Darwin Indy cars lap traffic on-track penalty Phillip Island pit stop pole

Chevrolet Camaro Ford Edge Ford Falcon Ford Mustang Holden Commodore Mazda RX-7 Toyota GR 86

Original notes

The Undercut is back, breaking down the world of Supercars racing. Aaron Noonan is joined in the studio by James Moffat, with man of the moment, Kai Allen, dropping by as a special guest. Should rivals be friends? Where is the Matt Payne/ Chevrolet situation heading? What can be done to fill the gaps in the schedule? Looking back – what were the best celebrations of all time, and looking forward, who do the lads think will make it to the final four in Adelaide? In Number Crunching, we look forward to the Supercars firing up at Symmons Plains, plus the qualifying stats the two leading teams will be looking to turn around. This week on The Workbench, Moffat is put to the test – what are the biggest fines in Supercars history? There’s some incredibly wild onboard footage from Lakeside Raceway, our Castrol Performers of the Week, and we dip into the archive for a sensational Holden Dealer Team Castrol ad. This is V8 Sleuth’s look at the world of Supercars, with the angles you don’t and won’t get anywhere else, with the analysis and numbers to back them up! Agree/disagree with our takes? Let us know in the comments! Like some of the stuff in our studio? Check them out in the V8 Sleuth SuperStore below! V8 SLEUTH MAGAZINE: ⁠https://bit.ly/47XVTxz⁠ PERKINS MOTORSPORT: ⁠https://bit.ly/4mPNFfl⁠ MODEL CARS: ⁠http://bit.ly/4678VH3⁠ BOOKS: ⁠http://bit.ly/4pfnZLC⁠ APPAREL: ⁠http://bit.ly/4pblOIQ⁠ Our thanks go out to Castrol - unlock the very EDGE of performance today, for more, check out: ⁠https://castrol.com.au/edge⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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