The Ford Laser is a compact Ford model that was sold in Australia under that name. The host is pointing out the factory built different Ford models over the years.
The Ford Falcon is a well-known Australian Ford model. Here, they’re saying the Falcon production was centered in Melbourne, which is part of the local manufacturing story.
The Ford Escort RS 2000 is a sportier, more performance-oriented Escort that was popular in rally and racing. Here, they’re talking about a “body shell,” meaning the outer car structure used as the starting point for a build.
Oren Park is a race track in Australia. The guests are talking about how karting started there and how the track was built and used for early racing events.
“CIG International” sounds like a big, international-style racing event. They’re saying it was a major step up from local races and brought notable drivers/teams.
Ren Max is the name of a particular racing kart/chassis. The speaker is saying it was built for many years and that different versions were based on other racing designs.
Bilstein struts are upgraded shock/strut parts. They help the car handle better by controlling how the suspension moves over bumps and during cornering.
Car
Formula Ford
Formula Ford is a type of race series with purpose-built open-wheel cars. The speaker switched from modifying a street car to racing one of these dedicated race cars.
Car
Lola
Lola is a company that builds race cars. Here, it means one of the Formula Ford cars was made by Lola.
Place
Sanddown
Sandown is a race track. The speaker is saying their first race was there.
The chassis is the car’s main frame. It’s what everything else mounts to, and it’s especially important on a race car because it has to stay strong under hard driving.
Uprights are the parts that hold the wheel and connect it to the suspension. They help control how the wheels point and how forces get from the road up into the suspension.
Amaroo Park was a race track in Australia where people competed in motorsport events. In this story, it’s the track where they ran and qualified their car.
Concept
qualified in the top 10
Qualifying is the timed session before the race. If you qualify in the top 10, you usually start closer to the front, which helps you avoid getting stuck in traffic.
Term
20 car field
A “20 car field” just means there are 20 cars racing together. More cars usually means more traffic and more chances to get held up.
The Leyland P76 is a famous Australian car, known for having a strong, old-school V8 feel. Here, the speaker says they bought one and used it for racing-style driving and rallying.
The Datsun 1600s is an older Datsun model that people often used for rallying. Here, it’s brought up as a car they wanted, but it cost more than their alternative.
Place
Amaroo dirt circuit
Amaroo Park was an Australian racing venue, and this part of the story says they ran on a dirt version of the track. It’s a clue that the driving was rough, not smooth pavement.
The Datsun 120Y is a small older Datsun model that people used in rally events. In the story, it’s one of the typical cars you’d see there, while the P76 stands out.
Reynards is a racing company that builds race cars. The speaker is saying he visited their workshop and saw how the Formula Ford cars were handled and built.
Term
workshop
A workshop is the team’s garage space where they work on the race car. That’s where they fix things and adjust the car so it’s ready to race.
Silverstone is a major motorsport circuit in the UK, famous for hosting Formula 1 and other racing series. In the transcript, it’s the setting where the speaker spots race-related cars and people, so it anchors the story in a real racing environment.
Topic
F3
F3 means Formula 3, a lower-tier open-wheel racing series where drivers often cut their teeth before moving up. In this story, it explains why those Alfa Romeo 75 cars were being used.
“Formula Forward” is likely the name of a racing series for young drivers. It’s the kind of racing where cars are built to a common rule set so driver talent and team work matter most.
A “sub assembly section” is a manufacturing area where components are built into larger subassemblies before final assembly. In racing-team factories, this is where parts like wiring, brackets, or mechanical modules are assembled into units that can be integrated into the full car.
Alan Moffat was a well-known Australian race driver and team leader. Here, he’s the connection behind the Rothmans Commodore project the guest helped with.
Spa is a world-famous race track in Belgium. It’s the kind of place where car setup and tire grip matter a lot because the track has fast sections and big changes in direction.
The Holden Commodore is a popular Australian car that also raced in touring-car events. “Rothmans” here is the sponsor branding on the race car you’re hearing about.
Place
Mally Dam
Mally Dam is a specific spot they’re talking about where a lot of people were around during the racing week. It’s used as the backdrop for the story they’re telling.
Suzuka is a well-known race track in Japan used for top-level racing. It’s challenging, so it’s a big deal when someone races there early in their career.
Senna is Ayrton Senna, one of the most famous Formula One drivers ever. If someone had a close call or fight with him, that’s a big deal in racing history.
Adelaide is a city in Australia that used to host major Formula One races. Here it’s mentioned as the next race after Suzuka.
Person
Malka Mosler
The host is talking about Malka Mosler, a motorsport person who did well as a driver and also worked as an engineer. He’s mentioned in connection with top racing teams and car development.
Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel racing. It’s where teams spend a lot of effort designing and improving race cars to be faster and more efficient.
Jaguar is a well-known car brand, and here it’s mentioned in the context of Formula 1 work. That means engineering and racing development, not just regular production cars.
Tato Fabi is a racing driver the host says he worked with. In racing, engineers and drivers collaborate closely to get the car working the way the driver wants.
Person
Jules de Ferrand
Jules de Ferrand is another driver mentioned in the host’s career timeline. The host is highlighting that he worked alongside different drivers while doing engineering work.
Mark Plundell is a racing driver mentioned as someone the host worked with. Engineers often use a driver’s feedback to improve how the car performs.
Person
Ritio Guzman
Ritio Guzman is another person mentioned in the host’s racing timeline. The point is that the host was working with particular drivers and teams during that period.
Topic
Aussie GP special release
This is a note about the podcast being part of an Australian GP special. It doesn’t describe a car part or a driving technique—just the show’s release context.
Company
Raynards
Raynards is where the host says Mal worked on race-car development. The “wind tunnel” reference means testing airflow over the car to improve handling and speed.
A prototype is an early version of a part or design made to test how well it works. It helps engineers fix problems before committing to the final version.
Brands Hatch is a famous race track in the UK. Lots of different kinds of racing happen there, including open-wheel series like the one mentioned in this segment.
A misfire is when the engine doesn’t burn the fuel correctly in one cylinder. It can make the car run rough and lose power—especially frustrating during a race weekend.
Term
glazed
“Glazed” here sounds like the engine’s internal surfaces got coated or hardened in a way that hurts how it burns fuel. It can make the engine behave worse even after you put it back together.
SNET is a race track. The speaker is saying they went there to drive and race, and that another event is happening there soon.
Concept
interseries
“Interseries” is the name of a racing competition. It tells you what kind of events that Jordan car was entered in.
Term
rear pivot bolt
A rear pivot bolt is a bolt that holds a moving suspension/linkage joint at the back of the car. If it’s loose, worn, or misaligned, the suspension can behave unpredictably.
A “three wheel” moment is when the car is only firmly on three tires, and one tire lifts off the ground. It usually happens when the driver is pushing hard and the suspension can’t keep all four wheels planted.
They’re talking about a specific factory called Fond Metal Wheel Factory. It matters because it’s where the wheels were being made for their racing effort.
The Ferrari FF is a fast, luxury car made by Ferrari that’s designed for long drives. It has performance-focused brakes, and servicing things like brake rotors can be a bigger job than on many regular cars. The podcast mention suggests the conversation is about how that kind of maintenance is handled.
“Legends of Motorsport” is the name of a big racing-and-entertainment event. It wasn’t just one type of race—it mixed different kinds of motorsport into a show.
They used a venue called the Entertainment Center and turned it into a car track. The guest compares it to converting a tennis court into a racing layout.
“Elf Masters” is an earlier motorsport event format they looked at for inspiration. The guest says their event idea was modeled after how Elf Masters worked in Paris.
Topic
go cut race meeting
They tried to run a race event at the same time as the big entertainment show. The transcript wording is a bit unclear, but the point is they were juggling two different event types.
The race director is the person in charge of running the race event. They make the big call on how the event is handled, especially when conditions change.
A burnout is when the driver forces the tires to spin while the car is held in place or moving very slowly. It creates smoke and heat, usually for dramatic effect.
A pit stop competition is a timed challenge where teams try to do the quick work that happens in a race pit. It’s like a “pit crew” skills contest for fans.
“F1 passes” are event credentials that grant access to Formula 1 race-weekend areas beyond standard spectator entry. In this story, the passes are used to run people through controlled access areas and to enable special tours.
Scott Dixon is a famous race driver. Here he’s mentioned as someone connected to the racing world the speaker is talking about.
Person
Simon Harwich
Simon Harwich is the person the speaker credits with starting a Formula Holden team. It’s part of the behind-the-scenes story of how racing teams get created.
Wing flaps are parts on the rear wing that help control how the car sticks to the road. Changing them can make the car grip better and handle differently, especially in corners.
In racing, upgrades are new or improved parts and aerodynamic components added during a season to improve performance. The speaker contrasts this with more restrictive rule sets, implying these changes directly affected lap times and handling.
A control formula is a racing series where the rules limit car changes. That means teams can’t keep upgrading as freely, so it’s harder to buy speed with constant development.
“Tyre game” is motorsport slang for the competitive business of supplying and supporting racing tires. It covers who represents a tire brand, how tires are developed for racing, and how teams are supported during events.
Michelin is a well-known tire company. Here, they’re trying to find someone in Australia to represent them and help with their racing tire involvement.
Vallelunga is a race track in Italy. People use it for testing cars and tires so they can learn how things behave before race weekends.
LIVE
A Listener Production.
For this episode, I'm in our Melbourne studios and joined by a member of the Aussie motorsport
family who you just get used to seeing when you rock up to work at events.
Trevor Schumack has been a bit of a constant for almost 30 years in various forms of motorsport
that I've worked on, but his story isn't just limited to Australia.
As you'll hear, he worked in Europe for different teams and also has a proper love of driving
himself.
He raced supertours, for example, back in the 90s here, and he's never lost the love
of those cars.
But the driving part of his CV covers a lot more, and it keeps growing as you'll hear.
Trev's just about always smiling.
He's generally got a story and not always about the state of play.
He is one of those trusted, can-do people.
He gets stuff done, whether it's fitting up hundreds of tyres with his very dedicated
team before an event gets underway, to patrolling pit lane once things start with an eagle eye
on car behaviour and rubber performance.
This pod is a reminder that there are so many stories in our sport, not just those who take
home the silverware, from having a go at Formula Ford fabrication, to a blockbuster karting
event at the entertainment centre in Sydney with Neil Crompton, taking on a motorsport
tyre distribution business and expanding it in the decades since into the land of the
long white cloud and Asia.
Enjoying a bit of rallying, but not in your typical all-wheel-drive thoroughbred, plus
a guilty pleasure BMW years after racing one.
It's a bit like 90s music, I reckon, it left a lasting impression on him.
Quick thanks to a colleague and friend, Ebony Doherty, from Michelin Australia, for helping
to tee this one up and for the ongoing support of the team there who also look after B&B.
Goodrich, they are really loyal supporters of our pod and we thank them for that.
Let's get into it now with Trevor Schumack.
How long have we known each other?
I reckon it's nearly like 30 years we've been bumping into each other in pit lines.
We're showing signs of that too, aren't we?
Welcome.
It'd have to be 30.
You know, I dug up that video you did for me back in 98.
Remember you put that piece together for me?
Yeah.
And that was, yeah, that was 98, so it's just on 30 years.
Crazy, crazy.
So you're born in Bega, so we're talking...
Down the South Coast.
South Coast, yeah.
So this is almost like, almost Malcolm Osler territory nowadays, isn't it?
It is in Malzir now.
I spoke to him this morning.
Did you?
He's in our library.
I love getting him on.
He's enjoying tinkering in the workshop down there doing some crazy things.
Were you an avid motor racing fan from a young age?
Were you about footy?
What were you doing back then?
My dad was a very good footballer.
In the days when there was no money in it.
AFL, low local.
No, in New South Wales, so he was in Rugby League.
And I think he, you know, we had two daughters and a son and he hoped I would be a footballer,
but if he was here today, he'd tell you that the first time he saw me hold the ball, he
was never going to happen.
Okay.
Iconic roads down there from a rallying perspective, is this the first time your eyes are open
to cars and things like that?
What was the first interaction?
My dad was a mechanic at the Holden dealer down there, which is Balmain Brothers.
And at the age of five, we moved to Sydney and he went to the Ford factory at Homebush.
I can remember that on Parameter Road.
The remnants of that building might even still be there, but it was huge back then, mate,
wasn't it?
It was like an assembly plant.
They did Mark I escorts, Mark II escorts, and then later, the Ford lasers.
All the Falcons, I think, were built in Melbourne.
But so he ended up sort of almost running that plant after some years.
So I was a forward man from very early on.
Okay.
But there is a story around an escort RS 2000 body shell for Bob Holden, who you and I
would cross paths with.
I mean, you've done it on multiple occasions with him, but obviously in super touring and
so on.
So we lived on the northern beaches of Sydney and Bob had a workshop at Mowley Vale, which
was down the road from us.
And at a very early age, I was following the racing game and what have you.
And so my dad got me introduced to Bob and Bob was running those escort RS 2000.
OK.
And because my dad was in a position of, you know, at the top of the factory out there,
he managed to get some body shells and some other bits and pieces to help Bob, who was
a bit of a battler.
Yes.
You know, and sort of helping with his budget and what have you.
So we had a connection to Bob probably when I was 10.
You know, I remember going to Warwick Farm and seeing Bob race there and, you know, all
those sorts of things.
So yeah, my dad sort of introduced me to a little bit of that.
He wasn't so much the motor racing head, but because I was had a passion and I still
remember going to Warwick Farm for the first time, like it was the biggest festival.
You know, it was so amazing.
So tell people a little bit about that.
John Smiles came on late last year and I tapped into his, you know, memory bank
and archives around some of that stuff because it's long gone for many young
listeners now.
But I mean, that was an iconic place for the Sydney racing scene, among other tracks.
Well, we were lucky because there was Warwick Farm, which was amazing.
But, you know, Orrin Park.
You would remember those Tobi Lee days, you know, when they had the and the
crowds were so massive.
They were spilling out of the place, Amaru, all those sorts of things.
We were we were very fortunate there in Sydney.
But in those early days, you know, four or 5000 and all sorts of stuff
was just fantastic to to go along noisy cars.
You know, it was it was proper racing.
That was good.
Were you dedicated to school or were you just in the workshop, etc?
Well, what were you like as a student in the early days?
You know, at school, I was the things I was interested in.
I was quite good at.
But the other stuff I didn't sort of rate to me at all.
I wasn't it wasn't my strong point.
No. OK, so have you only ever worked around
motor racing and cars and things in or have you had?
Look, when I was in my sort of teenage years on the Northern Beaches there,
I had a part time job at a place called Manly Fun Peer, which is next to the
Ferry Wharf. I know exactly where it is.
It's like a little lunar park. Yeah.
And I sort of became a ride operator there and sort of, you know, running the
merry-go-rounds and, you know, in the dodging car, they all get jammed in the corner.
I was the guy that you swing from pole to pole and get them all unjammed and
what have you. So that was a great way of earning money.
You know, I did my chemist runs and paper runs and things like that.
But the fun Peer was was really good fun and
and quite a lot of work on school holidays.
And so it was good pocket money there.
There is a yarn around the, I guess, your, you know,
fan aspect, if you will, not to your competitor, your heavily involved
from an industry standpoint nowadays, obviously,
but at heart, mate, you were a race fan and there's a yarn around you and
Alan Moffat and Amaru and kind of forcing you way through a fence or
something to get an autograph. Is that?
I think if you remember the Amaru Park pits, there was a kids play
area at the very far end where the parents used to put all the kids and then
they could go and do their racing.
Well, there was a fence at the back of that that had a hole like a chain wire
fence and I got through the fence there from the from the spectator area,
through the playground and went in and I got Alan Moffat signature on a
black and white sort of photo of him.
You know, probably I would have been 10 or 11 or something like that.
And, you know, I mean, Moffat was a pretty steely sort of character.
It took a lot of nerve to do to even go up and get that signature.
Yeah. And and so and then, you know, I became a huge, huge Moffat fan all through my life.
Much missed now.
And a man as you know, you would have experienced through your your life.
He just had a beautiful soul, mate, didn't he?
And yet he was he was a tough bastard back then, wasn't he?
Well, you know, it was it was sort of hard bit of forward man because, you know,
Moffat was a bit awkward, whereas Brock was so charismatic.
You know what I mean? And it always seemed like the Holden's, you know,
the Holden's of the era were the better cars, you know, more suited to racing
and those sorts of things.
But yeah, I mean, I just loved the way Alan went about his business that he was
so, you know, a bit awkward, but he just the way delivered the the teams and the
professionalism and it helped change the sport massively.
And I think in that in that time, you buy a bicycle shop at age 19 in Narraby.
What is it with you and Crompo and bicycle shops?
And he did something similar, I think, at Ballarat when he was young.
It was more of an adventure shop, I think, for him, wasn't it?
But around BMX and whatever.
But it was ahead of its time, too.
Well, look, there's a small backstory to that.
My dad said to me, you should maybe, you know, let's look at a trade or so.
Would you remember the Tullora, the railworks?
Yes. You know, they used to take an intake
of, you know, apprentices and what have you.
So out of school, I went out there to have a look at that.
And and I sort of arrived there at one o'clock or something.
And I saw a building and there was a few people milling around thinking this is
where the intake was. And I walked into a room and there would have been 300 people
in there all queued up with, you know, clipboards.
And they said, when you go through this line, you've got to go to the next line.
You've got to go to the next line.
And I just went back and got in my car and went home.
I'm not doing that.
That's not for me.
So my dad came out, you know, I got home and he said, he said,
how'd you go? And I said, well, I'm going to do it a different way.
So cut a long story short, we sort of down the road,
we bought a small bicycle shop other than Beaches.
It was an established shop or you started from scratch?
No, it wasn't. It was an established one, but it wasn't, you know,
it wasn't a very big shop.
And and I sort of I was there for two or three years, you know,
learning my trade and, you know, people walk in and say,
I'd love to see the owner and I was the owner at 19.
And and I learned a lot.
I didn't make any money, but I learned, you know, a lot about dealing with customers
and business and things. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
What's what transpires there?
Then I mean, you're your late teens, a lot of people at age 19
don't run businesses like that, right?
So what do you hang on to it for a few years?
What transpires next?
I tell you what, the the the Mowley fun pair, the guy that owned the fun pair,
he'd sold that.
No, sorry, go back one step.
He came to me and said, we're changing the way the weekend work.
We're changing the way that we're going to pay the workers.
We're going to pay at the on the rides as a percentage of the take
instead of your three dollars an hour or whatever it was.
And he said, I think you should come back.
He sort of took a bit of a shine to me because I was good with people.
I think because I'd gone out on my own and I'd sort of done something
a bit bold at 19.
And and I came back to the fun pair and sort of worked on the weekends
and run the bike shop during the week.
But I was making way more money on the weekends because the percentage
of the take thing meant that everybody, he he as the owner and all the all
the ride operators, I became the top ride operator.
And and on school holidays, I was earning, I don't know,
a thousand dollars a week or what?
Like it was crazy money at the time.
But it was working really well for him because everybody was putting their effort
in and when you have a piece of the pie, you you know, you're invested in it.
And I sort of learned a big lesson from that as well.
Yeah, but that does not surprise me with you knowing your personality
and the way you engage with people.
You the style of bikes was it was it BMX, road bikes, what sort of things were in there?
Sure, quite new.
You know, it was the new passion at the time.
And and so, yeah, that was it was really popular.
I couldn't believe that, you know, during the quiet months in the winter,
I might have you people be the guys from Malvin,
Sabi coming to say, oh, you need to put your Christmas orders in.
And I'm thinking, oh, my God, I can't pay this month, let alone thinking
about six months and make sure you order some.
So we ordered all these bikes and then at Christmas time, people would come in
and say, oh, I'll have one for my wife and my kids.
So and they buy five bikes in one go.
I couldn't, you know, I didn't come from a family that could do that.
But but it was amazing just to to learn that across a couple of years
and sort of begin to have confidence and sort of forecast a bit.
And, you know, just all the things you need to do now, mate, around the tie game.
It's funny, the lessons I learned way back then were really important.
Yeah. Well, you're riding bikes.
So you are you venturing off and doing a bit of riding?
What do you do?
It was when I first got my license, I did a bit of carting.
Yeah. And I turned it into a narrow bean cycle and cart centre.
I became a cart dealer to you.
Yeah. Yeah. So I sold a couple of carts on the on the northern beaches there.
But mainly I was doing it because I was like, I'd buy my my go cup
at a wholesale price.
You know, I became like a dealer.
So I was sort of pretty much focused in that area really.
Yeah. I mean, I rode the bikes a bit, but yeah.
It was more about pursuing the motor.
I gather the first cart meeting is actually at Oren Park.
Is that right? Are you?
I participated at that very first one when they opened the Oren Park.
Oh, wow. You know, because I drove at Granville and then they closed
Granville down and then they got some money, I think, and they went and built
that circuit up on the figure eight part of Oren Park.
And I raced at the first round, which was the CIG International.
It was an international round with Terry Fullerton and like, you know,
it had major stars there.
And and, you know, it was a real eye opener.
Fullerton is highly regarded.
But what was he like?
You know, I mean, just to be part of that whole thing back then,
it was the biggest international carting thing that had ever
come to Australia at the time and what have you.
It was it was fantastic. Yeah.
You bought people listening.
Might know what I necessarily know what a Ren Max is, right?
But they built Ren Max's out of Sydney from the early 60s through to about
1978, I think, and you could buy some that were, I think,
Formula V based, some were sort of shaped around Brabham's at the era
and so on, cool cars.
And you bought one of those, a Formula Ford, I reckon, from Bob Holden.
Is that right? Yeah, this takes me back because I had an RS 2000 Escort road car.
And Bob was helping me with, you know, engine mods and, you know,
I was doing all sorts of stuff on that. What did you do to the road car?
I did plenty side draft webbers and then turbos and, you know,
suck through turbos and blow like all this sort of stuff.
This is at the time when the when those Colour Bonrad, that, you know,
factory rally team, our partner would come out and stuff here.
I was down there and I bought, you know, rear axles and like all sorts of stuff,
Bilstein struts and so my escort had all the fruit on it.
And then I realized that, you know, if I wanted to go racing, wasting,
you know, spending all this money on a road car.
So that's what I sold the escort and I went and bought this Formula Ford of Bob.
And at that time, Bob had two Formula Fords.
He had one that was a Lola that was run by Stephen Brooke and Mike Quinn
and a few others winning the championship.
And he had a second car and I bought the second car and it turned out
it wasn't really the best Formula Ford.
I sort of, you know, not long after I realized I didn't have the money to run it
properly. So I sort of parked it on the side.
And but yeah, look, it was, you know, my first race, I think it was at Sanddown
and I went to Gold Coast.
I went to service paradise international raceway with it.
So I raced around a little bit, but realized pretty quick smart without,
without a budget.
It wasn't going to happen.
It got destroyed.
Yes. Right. Well, I glented to somebody and they, they destroyed it and they
brought it back in and swept it up in the trailer and gave it back to me.
And, and so then that's when I decided I was going to build my own car.
I thought, well, you know, rather than rebuilding the Renmax, which I think had
lots of shortcomings, I decided to build my own car.
So what did you do?
Well, you, you, you, I had a, if I can go back one set, the guy that owned the
Fun Pier, he, he, he sold the Fun Pier and needed someone to build some
rides for him. I'd been working a lot with him and he said, if we put this
deal together, could I build and design some rides to go into the new Fun Pier?
So I set up a engineering workshop called Fun Rides of Australia as my, my
business. And, and on the side, I was, you know, then I had the resources to
build a formula forward.
So I sort of put my thinking cap on and I went and had a look at, you know,
lots of other cars, looked lots of photos and the pure designing sense of
mine. You know, I sort of put together a combination of, you know, what I'd
thought would, yeah.
And, yeah, and we built a little car and, you know, it turned out to be, I
didn't have the budget to run it.
So I had a guy that I'd race carts with it, had a bit of budget and he bought
some budget along and we went racing with it.
Are you hands on welding the chassis together?
I did.
I, yeah, I built the whole thing, you know, I built the whole, all the, all the
uprights, the whole shooting match and, you know, more than one, I'd sort of
develop parts and what have you for it.
But the first round we ran was at Amaroo Park and we qualified in the top 10
in the driver to Europe's in a 20 car field.
So I was pretty, you know, pretty happy.
Hell yeah.
Who's in the field that year?
Can you remember?
Oh, it was, would have been 83, 84, 85, somewhere around that sort of period.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I mean, the, the.
I know it was a proper crop of cars and all that sort of thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You are in spite.
Evan Green is held in kind of the highest regard in a, in a broadcast
and journalism sense, right?
And you're inspired by a book of his, what was it called?
Bootful of right arms.
Yeah.
And you buy a P76, a Leyland P76 at auction and you run it on the Amaroo
dirt circuit, I think originally, but you took it rallying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Are you mad?
Are you mad?
But you know, Evan and John Bryson, they ran that car in the World Cup
in 74.
That's why they wrote that book.
Yeah.
And, and so I just, along with a couple of mates, we thought, hey, what a
great idea.
And, you know, things like Datsun 1600s and all the sort of, you know,
specialist stuff was too expensive.
So we went and bought a P76, ran it at Amaroo dirt circuit that weekend.
You know, we'll be bought it.
So cool.
And then we, we built it up and I did the New South Wales rally championship.
And so I went to, you know, Bateman's Bay and Bullard dealer and Beager and
all those sorts of things had just, you know, an amazing time.
Ironically, you are a tire distributor now and that thing would have just
shredded them.
I would have thought.
What was it like to drive?
Um, I, uh, Ed Mulligan put on a school lap at Oberon, like a rally school.
And, and then there was, and he brought all these grade one rally drivers and
you could pay your fee and you go and stay a couple of nights.
And I went up there with the P76 and there was all the other cars were
Datsun 120Y or Datsun 1600s or, you know, Mazdas or what have you.
And I turned up in the P76 and everyone was sort of laughing in the
beginning.
And, um, once we got going, I'll tell you all the grade one rally drivers,
they were all queuing up to have a drive.
We're such a good thing.
So, so much fun.
It was easy, you know, it was quite easy to drive, talky.
Didn't have to be necessary.
It wasn't so peaky and all those sorts of things.
And they just had a ball.
They had a fantastic time.
I was fresh out of high school, but I did some club and they might have
even been state events back then up around.
Janolan Caves and over on there's some beautiful roads in that part.
And I mean, even better when you're talking South coast and stuff where you
are, you know, and down around bigger where you're from.
We were clipping the trees on the back corner because it was a bit bigger than
all the other cars.
But it was good fun.
At some point, I don't know how old you are.
You gotten onto the idea of you might go to Europe.
What are you inspired by the races of the day?
You wanted to work so hard from age 19.
You just needed a break.
What was the thing to take it to Europe and why?
The guy that owned the Fumpy who helped me set up Fundrise of Australia and gave
me funding and helped me to put the whole program together.
He died.
Yeah.
And as part of his estate, they basically took all my assets and shut me down.
So at the age of like 26 or near 27, I went back to zero.
And so that took the wind out of my sails and I'd raced against Malcolm in
Formula Ford and Mal was out for Christmas because he was already in Europe.
And I said, you know, I'm sure he should just come over, come straight, come over
to England this year.
You know, so I just on a whim that while I booked a ticket in June and I went for
four months and I ended up staying, you know, in the end about eight years.
I love that.
So he just said, you know, just get over here as soon as you can.
And so does he help kind of introduce you to a couple of people or what?
What trends?
I mean, you meet Dick Bennett's pretty early on, don't you?
Like, like literally day one, I think I literally flew into London and went up to
Bista, you know, after I built my Formula Ford and Malcolm was at Reynards,
they built that beautiful 87 Formula Ford, which would one everything and what
have you. And he walked me through the workshop.
You know, I'm a bit sort of jet lagged from having arrived, walked me through
the workshop at Reynards.
We were back at reception, he said, I've got a bit of work to do about, we'll
head home shortly.
He said, now, are you going to try and build your own Formula Fords again?
That must have been seriously eye-opening.
I mean, you know, it just was a professional outfit.
It was incredible.
Yeah.
I mean, he played such an integral role in all that stuff too, mate.
Didn't he?
Did some amazing.
So we, so yeah, so that night we went to the pub and we met some guys that I've
known ever since.
And the next morning he dropped me in Brackley, you know, where the
where the sales factories now to go and see some guys at Magic Motorsport.
I don't know, Robert Singh.
Anyway, he dropped me off and he said, look, go and see them, have a chat to them
and then make your way to Silverstone, which was about six or eight miles away.
And so I go in and knock on the door and they said, oh, they've all just left.
They've gone to Zandvoort.
There's no one here.
The girl at the reception says, so, so I thought, oh, well, I'll make my way to
Silverstone.
So I go up to Brackley.
I'm looking for buses and all this.
What have you?
Anyway, I walked to Silverstone seven miles, a couple of hours.
And I thought, well, I'll hitch you.
I'll get a ride or something.
But all those roads over there, you know, they're sort of, there's no hard
shoulder.
No.
So I'm walking in the grass and, you know, trucks and anyway, so I got to
Silverstone and I'm looking around and had my sort of portfolio under my elbow.
And, and I see a guy driving a, I think I know, I better start thinking about how
I'm going to get back to Bist as I see Malcolm tonight sort of thing.
And I see a guy driving an Alpha 75.
And back then Alpha 75s, Alpha were just in F3 and they'd handed out all these
Alpha 75 cars with a body kit on them.
Malcolm had a silver one and I saw a guy with a red one.
And so he pulled up and he got out of his car and he was walking over to, and I
said, excuse me, you wouldn't know if there's any buses from here back to
Bistra and he, and it was Dick Bennett.
Was it?
He said, what do you want to go back there for?
And I said, it's told the story of Malcolm.
And he said, I'll be, I'll be driving back past that way.
I'll give you a lift.
Fantastic.
You know?
Yeah.
So I swam around for the afternoon and then just as he was leaving, I waved at
him and I jumped in the car and he had Bertrand Gasho in the car with him.
And they were running Rolt from his three cars.
And they thought it was the funniest thing ever that they were dropping me back
to the Reinhardt factory in Malcolm.
And Bertrand had driven for Malcolm the year before and Formula Forward.
And anyway, so I made a small connection.
Yeah.
What transpires next, mate?
How do you keep that European, do you land a job somewhere?
What, what, what do you do next?
Before I'd gone, Richard Carter, who raced Formula Forward in that era with me as
well, he was good friends with Peter Collins of Benetton and he'd written me
an introductory letter.
So I went, I went and saw lots of people for jobs.
But in the end, I think Peter Collins created a job for me at Benetton in
that four month period when I was there.
And I went into Benetton inside the factory and they made a job for me in
the sub assembly section or something.
And, and I was just treated like an idiot.
Like I was just treated like a, because all the, all the locals just hated the
fact that they'd made a job for me.
Okay.
And they, you know, anyway, we're talking about.
But.
So, so what I did, I, I, I tried to see Peter.
I couldn't see him.
I wrote a letter to him and I said, I'm going to leave.
Thanks for the opportunity.
But I need to go get some experience and come back and take advantage of a
really fantastic job here.
Yeah.
And I went and then Malcolm said, Hey, come to Reinhardt's and we'll have a look here.
So I went and met a guy called Bill Stone, who was recruiting people at Reinhardt's.
And, and I just, I started at Reinhardt's and I did a couple of months at Reinhardt's
doing, you know, fabrication and, cause I sort of was quite well skilled in that
area where I had machining and fabricating and welding skills.
Hands on stuff from Manly had taught you all that sort of stuff here.
So I sort of, and I'd driven a car and I sort of built a car.
So I had a, you know,
an understanding.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So does it become a, you know, you're setting yourself up to have a, I mean,
it must have been mind blowing, walking into some of these places you've talked
about Reinhardt, obviously.
I mean, what was it?
What was it like going into Benetton on those sort of joints?
Oh, amazing.
Yeah.
Amazing.
If I go back one step on this, we're literally within the first week of getting
there.
I went up to see Alan Docking.
You know Alan.
Yes.
Yeah.
And, and he said, come on in.
Or, you know, he said, come upstairs and we'll talk some bullshit.
That was, that was the introduction to Alan.
And he said, have you met, you met the guys from Moffat's team from your
Mick Web and all those boys there here with the Rothmans car going to spa.
So they took me out the back of the workshop and said, hey, have you met
this guy, you know, what have you made a connection?
They said, what are you doing tomorrow?
So I was in the truck and I went to spa and I worked on that Rothmans
Commodore of Alan Moffat's.
How good.
So here is the story where I got his signature, you know, he's autographed
all these years ago, fast forward 20 years before.
Yeah.
And, and I ended up on that Rothmans Commodore working with Mick Web and
all those guys there.
Super.
And so we did that.
Yeah.
That your first experience at spa as well.
What do you mean?
First at spa.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was fantastic.
What an amazing, you know, again, I was waking up every day just looking to,
you know, what was going to happen today, what was going to unfold today?
Like it was so exciting.
So it's a little bit.
There's not necessarily at this point a firm locked in thing.
You're kind of living months to months if you will, sort of blocks at a time.
More or less.
I came back to Australia at the end of that year and thinking, you know, maybe
I should go back for a year.
I'll give it a proper year.
So I went back the next year and Raynards, I had actually a job at Raynards.
I worked in the like a model department where they were doing the
wind tunnel models and I've fabricated prototype stuff for new cars and, you
know, all the new wishbones and because I could, like I said, I could do all the
jobs, whereas in the fab shop, they had.
Sometimes you're specialized.
Yeah, you weren't.
Well, in the fab shop, they had welders and machinists and fabricators, but
they didn't really have that many people that could do this across across the range.
So anyway, I was very fortunate and at the same time I went to Malcolm was
working, that's when they introduced for me 3000.
So I got a job as a gopher on Spirit Tom's, which was like a factory
rainard team.
Okay.
So I went off to the tracks and, you know, and I just polished bodywork and did
everything.
Yeah, whatever.
And made my observations and I could see, you know, this is a pretty cool
environment, European 3000 and, you know, going down to Spain and, you know,
Italy and things like that on the weekends.
And, you know, it was, I just almost wasn't sure where I was going to go.
Yeah.
But it was very exciting.
This is awesome.
So much more to your story than I realized, mate.
Somewhere, maybe I have the timeline wrong, but somewhere here, there is a
crossover and a connection with Thomas Mazzera, Eddie Irvine and Formula
Ford in the UK.
Is this right?
In that, in that first year, I sort of Alan said, Alan Docking said, go and
see Thomas because it was Thomas and his wife, Kate.
That was it.
That was their team.
Okay.
And I went along and I was free labor and what have you.
So I worked with Thomas and, and that was in, I think it was the RAC Formula
Ford Championship.
Okay.
And that's where they used to do a race on Saturday and another one on
Sunday, different tracks and what have you.
And Eddie was racing for the factory team, for the Duckums team.
And, and he and Thomas were racing close, you know, so we made a connection and,
you know, oh yeah, I got to know Eddie from the Formula Ford days.
Amazing.
Crompo tells a funny story about him going water skiing, I think.
The Mally Dam.
The Mally Dam, I think Louise Goodman might have been the PR back then.
And she was pulling her hair out because those two are mainly
actually going on.
They were all down there, Brad Jones.
I mean, everybody was at the Mally Dam.
But you know, you remember when, when he first went into Formula One that year,
he did the first race in Suzuka.
Yes.
And he passed Senna and had the altercation with Senna.
He flew to Australia immediately after that because the next race was Adelaide.
Yeah.
And he came and was with us at Mally Dam in that week and the press were chasing him,
but you know, because he was on the world scale.
He was on that little old Mally Dam.
Yeah, exactly.
Malka Mosler is another great industry success story.
A proper racer who is a multiple Australian hill climb champion,
but an internationally respected engineer and designer too.
Mal worked for B, A, R and Jaguar in Formula One and was behind
some of the coolest Indy car or champ cars ever made.
I worked in the first year with Tato Fabi, who was very fast.
And then a couple of years with Jules de Ferrand.
And then with all of them, really, I think I spent a fair bit of time
with PacWest and Mark Plundell and Ritio Guzman in 97, I think.
But I designed my last car in 97 and 98.
They just carried on.
Search for Malcomosler when you wrap up with Trev.
Recorded in April 2022 as part of Aussie GP special release
and in between Malmaking YouTube engineering vids wearing his trademark pair of thongs.
Benetton and Raynards, you've done a bit of work with both of them.
Does it get cemented? Is there a bit more than unfolds there?
I was basically my full time program was in 88, I think was at Raynards,
doing the doing the wind tunnel stuff and prototype stuff.
And then by the end of the year with that spirit, Tom's team,
Malcomos was the engineer on the lead car or whatever.
And I think towards it, I was looking at all the jobs in the team
and I didn't want to be a mechanic and I didn't want to be the truck driver.
But I really wanted to be the engineer.
I wanted to be the guy that sort of was talking to the driver and coaching him
and trying to extract better performance.
And at the second last round of that
that championship in I think Le Mans on the short circuit, Le Mans,
they one of their engineers left the team
and the guy who owned the team said, you know, I was talking because I was in the same factory.
And he said, we're looking for an engineer and you don't know.
And I said, I can do that and put myself forward.
And he said, can you?
And I said, yeah, well, I've done stuff in Australia, formative forward.
And, you know, I know Malcolm very well and what have you.
Anyway, he said, well, why don't we do that then?
So then I went straight to Malcolm that night and just said, Mal.
I need your back again.
Show me how this works.
But anyway, so then I sort of launched myself almost into an engineering role there.
You know, in a race management engineering role.
And then they were there.
Oh, it was amazing.
And then the next round, a guy called Eric Bernard drove with the Bromley team.
He was and that year, Moreno won the championship with Bromley
and they ran a second car for the last round and they asked me to look after that car.
I mean, honestly, the guy when you when you got a cracking driver,
you know, you have a factory set up on it and you just you know, you don't you don't put much input into it.
But it was a great experience.
I had a he Roberto turned up in New Zealand in recent years for some stuff.
So I've done a pod with him and ended up a three part because he loves a chat.
He's very, very good.
He's so passionate all these years, all these years on.
We go back to Crompo for a good reason.
Tell me about British at 3000.
Well, we I got to Neil through.
He came and stayed with Malcolm and I'm now I were flattening in the UK there.
And Wally Story had said catch up with us guys.
So we went there and Neil was sort of, you know, he was in the mix of the whole
Holden racing team and, you know, but he wanted to pursue his single
service, he done formula holding.
So exactly.
So we so I sort of helped put together a deal for him to run a former 3000
a British formula 3000 car a brand's hatch.
And we all got on some private test days and I leased a car and did all these jobs,
you know, to put all that program together for him.
And we went on a on the pre race test.
He was quickest and showed, you know, great pace.
And then so for the race weekend, we put a fresh engine in and we had problems
with the engine the whole weekend.
We had a misfire and we really couldn't, you know, realize what the.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And so it was such a frustrating outcome after showing so much potential.
Yeah.
And when the engine went back, they said it hadn't, it had glazed the
boards or something of that nature.
We should have just put the old engine back in, but we thought we were doing
the right thing by putting the new engine in.
And so it was a bit of a wasted exercise showed a lot of potential.
Yeah.
And then Neil sort of, you know, was trying to get budget then because I think
he'd funded that first activity himself.
And then we were trying to find budget and I was trying to find budget for him
over there and unfortunately it never came out.
Yeah.
You've retained, you've known each other for a long time.
You two though, haven't you?
From the beginning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've done a bit of other stuff together and yeah.
It was, yeah.
Did you almost drive a Formula One car?
And what happened here?
A bit further down the road, I was running a guy called James Taylor in
who's run a bit in New Zealand and he was a very wealthy English guy.
I ran him in New Zealand and then I also ran, he ran with a Formula
3000 team Vortex in 94 and he was a strange character.
He's a bit like a, almost like Mick Jagger to look at, wealthy as.
No, you couldn't ring him and he used to pay for everything with cash.
He'd turn up with like a shopping bag full of, you know, full of pound notes.
Okay.
Something.
And towards the end of the season there, we were having dinner with the team
and the boys were chatting and I think I'd raced, you know, something the weekend before.
And a historic touring car.
Yeah.
And in England, you did that in England.
I did a bit of that in England and he was saying, so what have you done?
I said, and when I had that car, the Niels 3000 car and we took it to
SNET a couple of times, I drove that as well.
I thought, well, you know, I'm going to run it.
I'm going to have a drive at the end of the day.
So I did a few laps in the 3000 car and so we beat it up a bit.
And James said he had a Jordan, a 7 up Jordan car that he ran in a thing called
interseries in Europe somewhere.
And he said, you should come and drive the FUNCART.
And I'm going, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.
And you couldn't ring this guy.
I just had no mobile number.
And I said, yeah, whatever, you know, just let me, you know, we'll see.
And then a couple of weeks later, he rang me.
He said, no, we're running at SNET next week.
We're running at SNET.
Come over.
No, no, I'm dead serious.
And I'm going, yeah, you sure?
And he's going, and he said, yeah, I'm dead sure.
Come out next Tuesday or whatever it was.
So, you know, that morning I was from Oxford.
I put my bag in the car, my helmet and vids and pieces.
I'm driving across the SNET thinking, oh my God, I'm going to drive it.
I'm going to drive it.
Yeah.
And I got there.
Oh, God, they sat me in the car and, you know, and I'm thinking,
there's still a bit unreal.
And then it's running around and it's got a bit of a misfire.
It's going up the straight there at SNET.
You know, and I'm thinking, oh, you know, whatever.
And then the next thing he was driving and a broker pivot on the rear upright
or something, the rear pivot bolt on the chocker.
And the thing's doing a three wheel for a member like Mansel, whether he did that.
And I said, no, guys, I just went, I said, that's me.
I'm done.
But that was that was as close as I forgot.
Are you still flatting with Malcolm at this stage?
How cemented are you in the whole European adventure by this point?
I'd look, I've flat it with Malcolm for probably a year.
And then I had an opportunity to go to Italy, one of the Italian teams,
former 3000 team said, do you want to come down and,
you know, work with us like leave rain?
So I left rain, I said, I went to the Italian team.
As you as you.
Well, I invested in it and I got to, you know, quite a reasonable level in Italian.
And I got a real connection to Italy.
So I was very fortunate to work a couple of years down there.
And with varying drivers, I mean, the first driver I ever drove
ran in 3000 was Alex Zanardi.
In the with little team I had, he did one race with us in Dijon.
And then he went off to Barone Ropante and won the championship.
And, you know, what an amazing guy.
We lost him recently. Yeah, how terrible I saw all that.
And what was he like back then?
Oh, you know, when you when you get a young driver that comes out of those
because he'd been a Cardigan World champion and all those things
and you put him in a car like a 3000 car, it's just like a kid.
No, they just so fast and so committed and you can see it straight away.
You could see it, you know, in there.
Your connections to Italy.
I'm joining some dots here.
This is much, much later in life.
So you and I both have some dealings with England Ropers,
who's been very good on the on the PR side and work with various different
race teams over time, worked on the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix,
worked for Phillip Island and so on.
She quite enjoys venturing to Como.
And I think you you do too, mate.
Don't you? It's lovely there.
Well, my wife, Karen, is the Ingrid's best girlfriend.
Yes. And they did a lot of stuff together in the Uncle Toby series,
because Karen was the Uncle Toby Uncle Toby's marketing manager.
And when they did all that, the serial wars, you know, the Iron Man series
of what have you, that was Ingrid and Karen working together.
And now, yes, Ingrid's got a place in Como and my Karen and my two girls,
Lucy and Chloe, we go there, you know, or we have been going there for years.
Like it's such an amazing place.
And I think you were the rest.
The rest were there 12 months ago.
We had a lovely deal with them.
Was excellent. That's just so amazing.
Stunning, stunning.
Just expand a bit more on that Italian motor racing adventure around
F 3000 and so on, because are there other people that you come across?
And you had that one instance with Alex Sanardi, what what other drivers
ultimately come your way?
I based I worked a couple of years in Italy in with Italian 3000 teams.
And then I had an opportunity to work for Fond Metal Formula One.
Fantastic. Gabriella Tarquini. Yeah.
Yeah. Tarquini was I was based in Italy.
They had a design office in the UK.
So Sergio Rindland was the new design office.
And and so I was heading up the program in in in Bergamo.
It was there where the factory was there, the Fond Metal Wheel Factory.
Nice. And so
the thing about Fond Metal was it was in the time when there were a few Formula
One teams around that didn't really have quite enough budget.
So we were sort of struggling for budget, you know, pretty much most of the year.
I mean, Tarquini was amazing because even with his back to the wall
and not having all the right things and, you know, getting hammy down
brake rotors off Ferrari and those sorts of things, he still was able to deliver
some results and yeah. So that was, you know, an amazing.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to the end of the season because they basically
ran out of money. OK.
People may not realise, but he came out to Australia with the TCR
World Championship round. I got him.
I got him on, which was so chuffed about, mate. Absolutely chuffed.
Somewhere here in the adventure, you come back to Australia, maybe mid 90s.
What? What did you wrap up the European thing first
beyond Italy and other other other?
I did another season, 3000 but I was sort of I'd been there
several eight years and I was I was sort of ready to, you know, come back basically.
Yeah. I had I had a little bit of a look at America.
And and I just sort of realised that that was going to be a whole
another journey. Yeah.
So when I was sort of keen to come back to Australia, so.
So it's about 95 Yeah.
What's one of the first things that I think you may have been involved in?
I think Crompo was involved in that project, too, was the the Legends of Motorsport
at the Entertainment Center. That was a huge undertaking.
Neil and I, we sort of spoke about the concept of that Elf Masters
that they ran in Paris. Yeah.
And and so we said, you know, we should look at a program like that.
And I came back and I was looking for something to do.
And so for perspective for people that that's like converting a
a centre court for the the tennis centre in Melbourne or you know,
it was the entertainment centre that you used and converting it into a car track
and making it this entertainment spectacle, wasn't it?
Yeah, basically, yeah, it was model of the of the Elf Masters.
Yeah. And and so we worked on that for a year and we got, you know, with Matt
Neil's fantastic connections.
We had good backing, good sponsors, television, all that sort of program.
And it was and it was going to be or it was the biggest
cutting event in Australia at the time, you know, up until then
with the best television and everything.
And I suppose in hindsight, our biggest mistake was excuse me, that we
we tried to run a go cut race meeting as well as running a entertainment show.
So, you know, we had we had it was called the Legends of Motorsport
because we had two of all the different disciplines, rally,
you know, touring cars, all those motorbikes, you know,
motorcross, all those sorts of things.
And then but when we when we put together a race meeting,
we had to go and get classes to have to get a race director
and sort of and hand it over to stewards.
And then it became out of our control, you know, like that part of the race meeting.
And then we had a thunderstorm on the day and we had flooding in the part of the circuit.
And and so we couldn't we weren't in fully control control of the as the promoter.
And we had to almost apply to the stewards to be allowed to, you know,
pull the pin on the race meeting.
And then we went on with the show and the show was fantastic.
Had juniors and James Courtney, race there as a junior.
And and so the show we put on inside the entertainment center was amazing.
We had Victor Bray.
He he did a burnout inside the entertainment center.
Can you believe it?
He like he brought the you know, rolled the the 57 Sheppard now and lit her up and,
you know, and then the night before when he was doing a rehearsal,
he was out the backyard and he did a big burnout out there.
And it set off the five story car park.
It must have been hundreds of car
went off with the shock.
And we did a pit stop competition with the Johnson Dick Johnson Falcon
and the guard of Commodore and, you know, inside.
So the entertainment for the fan was was brilliant.
Yeah, yeah. But a big undertaking for you boys.
It was a big and, you know, basically we took a hit on it.
And so, you know, if we if we'd had a time over again,
I think we could have, you know, streamlined it and and and built a model
that was going to work. OK. The Grand Prix in 96.
Tell me about Eddie Jordan and some some F1 passes.
There's 10 grand involved.
When the Grand Prix came to Melbourne.
Yeah. And and I wasn't long back from Europe that I cut in a year or so back
from I took on a corporate box with a mate of mine.
And one of the boxes that because it was the first Grand Prix at Albert Park.
And so we and we sort of had enough friends.
So we sold out all the tickets to our friends and it gave us somewhere
to sort of hang out and what have you. Yeah. But I was able to.
I gave Eddie Jordan $10,000 cash and I got five
Fokker passes and we ran 100 people through the just kept swapping passes
coming to do it to us of the exact.
So we did it. We had tours through the Jordan.
You know, yeah.
That's awesome.
Just by knowing a few people from having come back from Europe.
Yeah. Now you get an opportunity to work around Formula Holden.
I think about this point.
Do you not all close there to maybe Scott Dixon, Jason Barguana?
Tell me about that.
Simon Harwich had set up a Formula Holden team.
And he he was the first one we ran was Jason Barguana.
And so they came to me because I'd not long back from Europe.
And I knew the rain had cars and what have you that we built.
And so we ran Jason in must have been 95 or 96.
And almost won the championship, had a big battle through the year with Brighty.
And and and in the end, you know, Brighty won the championship.
And we were but we were winning races that it was, you know, it was fantastic.
Jason was, you know, again, same, got him out of a Formula Ford,
put him in Formula Holden, he was just off the line.
Yeah, it was done.
And that's when he, you know, when he did the young lines thing, all that sort of stuff.
Yeah. And then and then Scott Dixon had done.
I think he did a season that year.
Kenny Smith, Kenny Smith came on recently.
And he I'm being cheeky here, but Kenny basically said to me,
he was a little fat kid back then.
He was Kenny's words, not mine.
But he's a very he's a moment in such an accomplished race.
So now, but could you where I'm going with this is could you see
his potential even back then?
What could you see?
He look, he was yeah, he was he was quite red faced, you know, and and
wasn't his physique wasn't tuned to car racing, but but his talent was clear.
And and in the car, he was accomplished and no fuss.
And even when the chips were down, he would just go out and put a lap in
and deliver a performance.
You know, it was it was amazing.
And then, you know, during that year when we did some testing
and and he got going in our car, we just basically won everything
like he was, you know, fantastic.
I mean, I I feel, you know, he he was he was on a journey and we happened
to have a year with him. Yes, he would have been he be where he is today.
He respected it. Yeah, exactly.
But I love the alignment, the fact that it happened for you,
mate, you got to work with him for that year.
And in a great period for Formula Holden as well.
I mean, the names that had come through even just prior to that
and around the time you're there.
I looked at the fields were like 20 cars.
Awesome car.
And there was a good cross section like the top six or eight were genuine players.
And and it was, you know, and the the exciting thing there was we were able to
we could develop the cars a little bit.
We could, you know, I could use some of my contacts in Europe to get extra wing flaps.
And, you know, so we were we were modifying the cars as you went in it,
in a in a you know, bring upgrades as they call it now.
And it was it was making a difference.
Yes, so it was it was quite interactive.
So, you know, compared to a control formula where you're not allowed to do much,
we had the freedom to do some things.
And it was quite rewarding. It was really rewarding.
Yeah, awesome.
Somewhere here does an opportunity present to start doing some work on the tyre side.
What what happens there?
When I came back from Europe, it's when Super Touring was first showing its head in Australia.
Yeah. And and I knew Alan Heafey through my European connections.
And and he was looking after, you know,
Wayne's Coke team. Oh, yeah.
And Neil was there. So, you know,
so one guy to rent a price is basically stuff.
And and when Michelin wanted someone to represent them in the tyre game in Australia,
four wheel tyres, Wayne already had a connection to the two wheel thing.
And they said, could you look after that?
But Wayne's family in Wollongong had no experience in dealing with cars
and four wheel stuff and what have you.
And so they asked me if I could be involved because I was only a year back,
not having had tyre experience, but I had European motorsport experience.
And so I went and I started literally doing weekends for them.
I literally started, I said, I'll just do the weekends.
I'll fly up and I'll tell you what to put in the truck and I'll deal with the teams
and and what have you. And then sort of, you know, it sort of went from there.
I evolved. Yeah.
And I was so fortunate that in very early period,
like within one or two years, Super Touring really took off here.
And we had, you know, the BMWs, the factory team and what have you.
And and we started to bring specialist, you know,
confidential tyres, which you probably heard of.
And and and and just that interaction with Michelin was fantastic.
I sort of invited myself to France and
to come on the road.
Yeah, I went there and sort of, you know, and and got to know some of the French
guys that were coming here and they managed to get me in the door there.
And I could see this was going somewhere.
And so from a very early on phase, I sort of really invested in, you know,
learning what I could and and making connections with Michelin.
You know, and we had that amazing time with those confidential tyres.
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about that.
I mean, firstly, does that open the door to a few international things with them?
Like if you're going to France, are you going to?
I don't know. Did you go to the British Turing Car Championship?
Did you did any of those sort of things happen?
I went to some BCC stuff.
Michelin, prior to each of their seasons, they would go to a circuit.
I went to Valolunga in Italy and they would be there for a week.
They'd have four or five teams there.
So a Volvo, Vauxhall, BMW, you know, whatever.
Maybe a Renault Laguna or something.
Yeah, like all those factory teams.
And then they would just run a tyre program and try, honestly,
a thousand tyres like different compounds and they'd collate all the information.
And then they go back to the championship and then they would
buy something special.
They would deliver the performance as they needed to.
So they never necessarily put forward their best foot forward
at the beginning of the season.
So I think that show your hand.
Exactly. And then, you know, and we saw it here at Australia,
we flew some tyres in here that were just we were flying tyres for every round
to try and help the BMW against when Brad was running the Dunlops.
Yes. And and it was, you know,
honestly, you just bolt them on the way you went.
Amazing. You know, we went to
at the you I can't remember which 96 or something might have been.
We went to Lakeside and Brad was leading the championship
and the Audi was a four wheel drive with the Dunlops and one of the.
Was his teammate, I think, back then.
Yeah, Merfor.
Maybe maybe Cam. I can't remember.
Anyway, we went up there and to try and help the BMW.
We normally are confidential tyres.
We'll only go to the factory team, like to the BMW team.
And then that weekend we dialed them out to Jim Richards and Russell Ingle
and the, you know, Stephen Richards and what have you.
And we pushed the Audi's from the front two rows to seven and eight on the grid.
And it was just, you know, blew them away.
You know, just then it sort of, you know, helped the course.
The points gap was too big.
We didn't win the championship.
But you've lit up here in this conversation.
So clearly
um, bringing the engineering
Ackerman that you'd acquired from your time in racing overseas,
but also then, you know, working with the factory, learning what the tyre was like,
what it could do, the potential in it.
So you did you thrive in this?
Did you enjoy it? It was amazing.
Yeah, it was fantastic.
You know, so you could see an opportunity off the gardener thing to
to start your own distribution thing.
I think basically a couple of years further on after super touring
faded and went away and we got into GDP and, you know, GDP performance
and those sorts of things, Nation's Cup and what have you.
We were there was a bit more volume sort of happening.
We were looking after rally as well with Neil Bates and the rally team.
And then at that time, Wayne was a bit focused on his boys.
Motorcycle racing, you know, Ramio Luther.
And so basically he took a bit of effort out of that and Michelin said,
hey, can you can you take can we go the next step with you as an individual?
So I then took on the distribution in early 2003 or something.
Yeah.
And then I branched to New Zealand and sort of grew into New Zealand.
And then, you know, now Asia and then linked up the Toyota racing series
and all those sorts of things.
Asia was quite a bit later.
Yes. But then I sort of really, you know, occur a cup, started in Australia.
So so we started to build a whole, you know, a real bit of inertia
in the whole Michelin thing.
Well, come back to it because it's been a fundamentally a 23 year journey
or something or other hasn't it's been absolutely huge.
May have even been longer than that in the in the number sense.
Well, when I started the weekends, it's 30 years.
Is it like from 95? Yes.
I've got my, of course it is. Sorry.
Let me let me.
Yes, of course.
Starting weekends and it's that it's one of those classic old stories
where, you know, I sort of pretty much look after most of their program
in this part of the world.
Well, yeah.
And but I did start literally on the weekends.
But we have missed a little part of the storytelling and that is you are tempted
to play and get behind the wheel.
I can vividly recall you at the wheel of a BMW.
I can vividly recall you having a steer of one of Brad's outies and so on.
It does present to tell me about these for a starter and how
how you've made that opportunity kind of work.
I mean, I was in the wings there, you know,
quite thick into the racing business side of things now.
But I was still looking for, you know, I love the driving part of it.
And so where there was an opportunity and I could bring some ties to the game
or whatever. And so and I remember saying to Bob Holden,
who I'd sort of known from, you know, many, many years before.
And I tried to help them because they were a privateer team.
And Bob was running that Faber-Castel car.
Faber-Castel car, yeah.
And and he rang me and he said, come out one day.
We're doing some rides.
We're doing some end of the year, you know, like a corporate ride.
Corporate rides.
So I drove the BMW on the corporate ride and did some hot laps and bits and pieces.
And then he rang me next year and said, Justin's got to go to America for something.
Do you want to have a can you do Orham Park in the BMW?
And I said, Justin, Justin Matthews.
Justin Matthews, yeah.
So that's so I said, yep, I'll do it.
I just put my, you know, 5000 dollars.
I can't remember what it was, you know, drew out of my bank and I went there.
And and I had to run at Orham Park in that first
second round of the championship, I think, in 98.
And and it was brilliant.
I mean, it was amazing.
I put it on the front row for the privateers.
So, you know, and then and I sort of led my class and, you know,
I at Orham Park, I clipped the wall in the main race and, you know, that was it.
I was out. But but what an amazing sort of opportunity to drive, you know,
in a in a proper class championship.
And yeah, but I'd never driven it before, really, apart from the ride day.
OK. And and so, yeah, we had a really good run that first time.
If memory serves, there was a there was even a run at one of the support
races at the Grand Prix and all sorts.
Was there not a bit of a run?
Paul Gover drove the car.
Sorry. Yeah.
But, you know, the funny thing is, after I did that,
the Orham Park and the BMW, we were down testing with Brad at Malor
and it was raining all over.
I can't remember. We were sitting in the car and he's saying, hey,
Trev, you went all right, you know, in the BMW.
And, you know, and he said, what's your what's your plan going on from here?
And I said, well, you know, I haven't got any money.
I said, but I want to drive one of your cars.
Oh, you know, I laughed and what have you.
Anyway, so I worked on a program that year
and and I came up with a commercial arrangement that sort of worked for Brad
and me and what have you.
And and in the end, he said, so how are we going to do this?
And I said, don't know. Well, that's it. I mean, you know,
and so we put this other deal together.
It's an awesome story. But memory.
Memory is not with me here.
Are you front wheel drive or four wheel drive?
Is it the four wheel drive car?
Four wheel drive car. Yeah.
I mean, it's, you know, I mean, I've got photos.
I'm all now because, you know, in that year, there's probably only 20 people
that drive those things. Yeah.
You know, with the big rings on with the silver car.
Yeah, it was, you know, it was such an amazing opportunity and such an amazing
car to drive. And yes, I was, you know, beside myself in a factory car.
You know, Brad, let me a suit.
I had, you know, the Oryx suit or whatever.
He's kept one of those, I think, too.
I wish he'd.
Yeah, well, I'm sort of trying, you know, I'm working on a bit of a plan
to get him to drag it out now. Yeah. Good.
That's good. I mean, the fact that they've held on to what I think is even
is even better.
The BMW thing I'm going to firstly,
what the hell happened with that promo video?
What did I you rang me about it?
What we do? I can't remember what we were doing with that.
What was I just I was inspired by the whole thing.
And I thought, maybe, you know, maybe I could, you know, maybe I could drop
my serious job and try and go car racing.
So this is Greg Russ doing like a driver Schumack.
Is it exactly that exactly?
I dug it up the other day and and I went, you know, and I pitched it.
And I got I got a dribble of money here and there.
And I drove I drove in those three hour races at Bathurst, you know,
the showroom showdowns and, you know, a few other things like that.
And I soon realised that it's more than a full time job and it's a full
commitment to be like a professional style driver.
That's the end of part one of my industry profile feature with Trevor Schumack.
We're not done yet.
Trev still has some good yarns to share from his motorsport journey so far,
including the formation of a motorsport tire distributorship with a
footprint that covers the Tasman and Southeast Asia.
Plus a BMW race car that's now in the garage that he might just take
to some European events and a beast of a rally car that's ready to
tackle some iconic roads from his youth.
All that and a lot more in part two, which drops just 24 hours after part
one here on Rusty's Garage.
About this episode
Trevor Sheumack’s motorsport journey is equal parts pit-lane craft and lifelong fanboy energy. Growing up in NSW with a mechanic father tied to Ford and later connections to Bob Holden’s Escort RS 2000, he cut his teeth at iconic Sydney tracks like Warwick Farm and Amaru Park—once even sneaking through a fence for an Alan Moffat autograph. Before racing, he ran a bicycle shop at 19 and learned business by working Manly Fun Pier. The conversation also tees up his later work across Europe, Formula Ford fabrication, tyre logistics, rallying, and a lingering BMW guilty pleasure.
There are so many stories in our sport…not just those that take home the silverware. Trevor Sheumack has been a bit of a constant for decades in various forms of Motorsport but his story isn’t limited to just Australia.
His likeable nature and co-do approach to things saw him land roles with teams in Europe off the back of engineering his own cars at home. Learning valuable business lessons (outside of Motorsport) in his early 20’s that are still relevant now to being spellbound by rally cars in country NSW as a kid. Hitchhiking stories in the UK as well as memories of the old Ford factory on Parramatta Road in Sydney. And putting it on the line for a karting spectacular at the Entertainment Centre.
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