Buckle up and save at Audoban. Save 40% on a piney combo, including a 6.8 inch touchscreen receiver and reverse camera. And loyalty members get 25% off century high performance and ultra high performance batteries. Audoban. The National Motor Racing Museum is a must-see if you're in the central west of New South Wales. It's on the outside of Murray's Corner at the famous Mount Panorama in Bathurst, and celebrates the rich history of Australian motorsport. There's famous cars, bikes, memorabilia, so much to take in, including the spectacular immersive room. It gives you an amazing taste of the speed, the sound, and the excitement of the mountain. The museums generally open six days a week and also during events, so visit their Facebook page or themuseum's Bathurst.com.au website for further details. A motorsport podcast network production. Hey there! Thanks for joining me. Time for part two of my chat with Matty White on the V8 salute podcast, powered by Castrol. Again, my thanks to the team at SEM in Melbourne to NIMMS and their crew. For having me in there early in the week to sit down with Matty, use their gear, record it there. Really appreciate it. Thank you so very much to you all. Right, enough of me. Let's get into it. In part one, we left it with channel seven, getting the V8 supercar rights for 2007. We're going to start part two with the start of that era, and that's kind of the start of my era working with Matty White as well. So settle in, relax, enjoy part two of Matty White on the V8 salute podcast, powered by Castrol. You know, seven when channel seven started again, posting, broadcasting, I mean, with the rights of supercars. There was a young punk in that paddock calling support categories. It was very green, greener than the walls in this room that we're in, wondering how the hell he'd got there, and got absolutely belted. Day one in Adelaide. First round, first part of the channel seven rights era is you. At this time, I don't really know you. I don't really know Neil Crompton. Many, a couple of times. Took me for a ride around Sand End one day. That's about it. No grant, Daniel, probably the best because he's come up through the track side era and all that sort of stuff back in the day. Beretts. I don't really know Beretts. Daniel Gibson. I've seen him on Mattelli. That's about it. Producers, management. I don't really know anyone. I know names. I don't really know who's what, where, why, and how. And I'll never forget. Day one, Adelaide, I think it was a Friday, called a Carrera Cup race. I'm going right here. I'm in. I'm just sitting in the corner in the meeting room. Soulstar that you mentioned, head of sport comes in, who was there. And he watched things like a hawk doing unbelievable. And clapping, everyone comes in for the end of day meeting. What a great first day, you know, new era, Adelaide, poor, new season, poor. And he's pumping up everyone. And that was great. And how about this? And I saw that. And he actually, he looked at me when I worked to do with you, young fella. Did he? Work to do. Clearly that was. Oh man. You might never have heard from me. And I thought, because I was coming in and he's been, Rusty's been on the pod before. That deal was going to be his if he wanted it. And he kept the contract in the draw and stayed at 10. And that opened the door for me to get a chance. And I thought for those next couple of rounds that I was on thin ice that the kid who was just the kid was cooked. And then remember that there was, we had this thing for a while, go of Queen's birthday races. We did it Easton Creek. Scafey one and got the record. Broke Peter Brock's championship round record in chassis 05. First time I got a bit of chassis work into the broadcast. And I got, I called some really shit stuff back there. There was a performance car race. And it was Subaru's and FPVs and all sorts of stuff. I didn't care. I'd call anything. And it was the first round that I did a piece to camera. So that's, I did a little color story about what the cars were and what the series was. And apparently there was an after event meeting where Saul had the shits with everything and everyone. And it all went wrong. And it was all terrible. And this was barren. And he actually, and I wasn't there. But I got told this by people that the only thing that was only good that they was, the buddy young kid did all right. He did all right. He knew what he was talking about. I thought, I might be okay here. But mate, I was such a panicked young boy. Just eager to please and think about it. Like it was a hard one to come into, you know, a new era. They weren't messing around seven. They were playing a bit of a bit of a big game there. And they were sort of swinging pretty hardly, pretty hard at it. So it's a difficult, it was a difficult environment for us to go back into, you know, that we felt the pressure. I remember on that day, in that commentary box in Adelaide, Saul was massive on sounds of the game. Yeah, big time sounds of the game, right? So any of the sounds that you hear that, and we used to always say that they're the rude commentator, you would have heard this plenty of time off him. So that, that microphone in the wall there gets that. That's the, there's a rude commentary. You shut up because we want to hear that. Anything that comes over the radio, stop what you're saying, let them talk. There that it's the commentator in the box that butts in and doesn't give a hoot what you're talking about. And he was so spot on. It was, it took that theory right across everything that we did. Tennis the lot. Sounds of the game in tennis, the squeak of the shoes. Yeah. The umpires call all that kind of bouncing ball, the bounce of the ball, right? So it gives you the perspective. And do you remember, like, I don't know if you were in there, but he, he brought in a big A3 sheet of paper was Vicki's PA at the time, came into the commentary box, which as you know with Crumpo is sacred ground, right? It is literally it's do not enter. Do not enter. So we had the, you know, Sam and Ralph routine going, we were pretty comfortable in there. It felt like our home, we had all our papers done out. And in comes Vic, while we were on air, we'd only just started and plastered up on the wall in front of us. This big A3 sheet of paper that had remember sounds of the game printed on it. And I thought Neil was going to, I don't even know. I don't even know. It wasn't going to be pretty. It was, well, it wasn't pretty because he knew exactly what needed to do, but it was like, it was almost, how dare you come into our sacrosanct. This is our, this is our office here. This is where we, but it was the level that we were trying to get to that saw was trying to get to seven was trying to get all that kind of stuff. And he learned, I ripped it off the wall because that's what, you know, he says, let me get out. And of course, I know what I'm doing, but there was a different feel. There was, and I always felt also having the 10 connection that was very solid and very proud of. I always knew that we had to do a good job because the job was excellent at 10. You know, we weren't just because we were channel seven and we were high rating higher than 10, we were higher than, you know, we ended up being number one within a couple of years and all that bismill, that TV crap that no one, that didn't take away from the fact that 10 had, when they had that and they built that and they did that, I was lucky enough to be part of it, took it to an extraordinarily high level of broadcasting. And so I felt an absolute responsibility to, to make sure that we, we match that level and we took it to another level. That wasn't saying that we're going to be better than anyone else has done it before. That's saying that we need to, you know, double down on our professionalism here and go for it. So everyone felt the pressure, and then I, I can't imagine, well, I can hearing you talk about it because I remember that. I remember, I remember you guys sitting around, remember it, Adelaide? Remember, remember at the airport, I should say, after that, we were all gone home and Paul, who was producing you. And Paul came over because you guys came in the box, you came in the box, what we were calling and stood up the back for, I don't know, 15 minutes or something or other. And I remember Paul saying to me, Hey, mate, thanks, thanks, you know, it's a good way for Aaron. And who was calling with you? It was always a mixture of drivers at the time. Anyway, and it was like, Hey, thanks for, you know, sort of, it's a good eye opener. And I was like, well, mate, I'm sort of holding on for dear life here myself here. But it was because it was the, it was the lesson. And Paul Mullen is the guy we're talking about. He was a, my supports producer for the first year or two and taught me and told me things that I still use. And I still remember you got to be coached and taught by the right people. And he was very good for me. And actually spoke to him not long ago. He's, he does jetboating in New Zealand. You want to go jetboating in New Zealand, Paul's your guy. And what blew me away is that you, it feels like you're talking too loud. Yeah. But when it comes out at the other end on the TV, if you're, if you don't have the energy in your voice and you're just talking away and you're trying to get your, your information correct and discars in front of, Oh, mate. Exactly. Like horrible. Yeah. So that coming into that box, because he wanted me to see projection, energy, level, because then that brings it through the telly. Yeah. And then when I went and watched, when I went home after Adelaide and sort of heard my career recupping and whatever else I was, I went, okay, I get it. I've got a, and then I think actually what, when I look back at some of those years, because thankfully you went and danced with the stars and you're pretty good at it. So we kept you in there and I kept voting for you. So I could call VA. You called Townsville. I did the first Townsville. Yeah. I remember watching. I watched it not from where we're sitting in the, in the dressing room here at what is now in EP used to be channel seven in Melbourne, in Melbourne, watched it in the dressing room, preparing for dancing with the stars, whatever episode that was. I reckon it could have been the first one. Well, that was, and I'll tell you why. I tell you why, because spider Everett was still there. Spider lasted a week. Well, I, I remember vividly that the first, we're talking 2009 here. So if we backtrack for two seconds. So 2007's channel seven. Yes. This is me getting the support category gig. Things escalated really quickly. I think I was right place for right time. Grand 10, you get to drive. Yes. WPS racing signed him up for the, the endurance races. So they're down a pit lane reporter for Sandout and Bathurst. Me. Double A Ron. Double A in. Didn't disgrace myself. I don't think. The next year, we go to the Gold Coast and we've got the Indy cars, the IRL for the non-championship race after the A1, pull over a couple of years earlier. A certain bloke might have put in a good word for me to get the call to do that. Well, it turned out to be, I killed Indy car racing in Australia. Correct. Called the last race. I'm always going to be the last, don't I? Let me tell you something about that. When seven got the deal, when seven did the deal for supercars and obviously very complex, very legal, et cetera, et cetera, there was a lack of understanding that the Gold Coast weekend came with it, the Indy car race weekend. They thought that they purchased supercars and just because I'd been there and seen it and done it, I think I was the first to go, you know that, you know that sort of Indy cars is still on and then I, huh? So that they actually did not know that that was part of the arrangement that we had to do that race as well. And I had those chats with soldiers. So, well, how are we going to do this? Who's going to call it? Where are you going to get your pit lane reporters from? Michelle Bisoner, who is married now to Joe Buck, who's massive NFL. So you remember all that year? I mean, that was how extraordinary it was, but it also showed just how much supercars, supercars is the biggest ticket, right? And seven wanted supercars, four supercars. They wanted supercars from start to finish. They wanted Bathurst in the middle of it. There's a further story to that when David Lecky phoned up, Saul Stein screaming down the phone, "Why the bloody hell won't they tell us how fast they're going? Tell our commentators to tell them how fast they're going down that straight. How fast are they bloody going?" It was the year before we took over as the broadcaster. Saul says to David, David, we're not broadcasting this yet. We've got it next year. Hangs up. We'll get it ready for dinner. It gives you an idea of just the kind of focus that seven put on at that time. Yeah, and it was great. I mean, it was great because I'd never set out to do it. I just, I'm not really talked about it before. I haven't been asked about it, but I got into motor racing because I loved motor racing. I wasn't a, I wanted to be on television. I got into it because I like car racing and I could write and magazines and that was kind of my in. And then you start doing some on track commentary and then someone says, "Oh, you could string three words together." And Murray Lomax was very supportive who he was the head of V8 TV in its early years. And then it was, "Could you maybe do this and could you maybe do that and what about this and this guy's away this week?" So I, the super sub the fill in, you know, you go off and go dancing with the stars. I remember the first one was Simmons Plains in 2009 because I've been in the Indy 500 the week before. So I go from the Indy 500 with 350,000 fellow racing nutbacks to Simmons Plains in Tasmania with about 30, 3500 or 35,000. However many racing nutbacks. But you kept dancing. Yeah. And you kept surviving. Yes. And I ended up doing about five rounds. So thank you very much on behalf of myself and my, my list of basic, my constituents. Thank you. How on earth did that happen? Oh, I don't know. You were good. You were really good. Or you had a lot of friends voting. No, no, no, no, I didn't have a lot of friends voting, but it was, yeah, it was interesting. I'll tell you that much. Like, you know, it's, you never thought you'd do that. I never thought I'd do that. Did you get, ah, this is what I have to ask. Yes. Did you get forced to do that because they pointed to your contract and said, you do what we tell you to do? Or did you go, no, no, no, no, I'll do it. No, they asked me to do it. They asked me if I wanted to do it or if I would do it. They had sort of floated around about a year or so before, but you got to remember I was doing today tonight at the time. Right. So it was, it was actually, how do I put this? It was, there was no expectation for me when they asked me to do today tonight, when they put that in front of me, that I would all consider continuing doing supercars. So Lecky and Co would have thought then their minds, well, he'll just take today's night and that'll be it for supercars. Whereas I said, well, what's the difference? May as well do the both. Right. In fact, my first night on today tonight was after Bathurst and the only agreement that I said to Lecky when he said, we should start the day after Bathurst. I'm like, do you know how, how long a Bathurst like commentary and hosting 22 at Friday morning all the way through a Friday over all the way through to Sunday, six o'clock plus commentary? Do you know how it's like you've been hitting the head 50 times and you've got jet lag and a hangover? That's what it feels like and it takes you a good week to get over it. Oh, I think the audience and love it. You should start on Monday. I said, right. I'll start on Monday if you get a helicopter to fly me back. And you did. Yeah. I remember you got a helicopter. You should have seen him running. They're like, I'm with you, Matty. Here's who I need to lift. There's Barrettes. There's Saul. Who else is coming? Give me a lift. And it worked. I mean, it was stupid me. It was pretty easy because the chopper was there anyway. It was going back to Sydney, but I don't want to be sitting around in traffic for three or four hours, get home at 11 o'clock, which I used to do and sort of sit there in a fetal position for a few days waiting for the, you know, the Bathurst hangover to get out of your system because it's a lot of energy. It's huge. It's a heck of a lot of energy. But supercars in the Gold Coast, where paradise meets power. Witness a festival like atmosphere in an adrenaline you weekend, boat on and off the track. With Boost Mobile boosting the party vibes. Supercars on the Gold Coast. It's the place to be. Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500, October 25, the 27, but now a ticket tech. Supercars unforgettable. So there was all that at play as well. So today tonight was the biggest thing for the network for me to do. It was, you know, it's a big thing as much as we sort of laugh at it, but it was a big thing at the time and it was a big program and it makes a lot of money. It does a lot of, it's very, very important cog. So the rest of it was, we don't have any expectation for you to do supercars. I agreed to do supercars. I wanted to continue doing supercars. And then the dancing with the stars stuff came along and they sort of, they were a little bit hesitant to ask me to do stuff because they thought, you know, your focus needs to be from six to six thirty, telling people about the dangers of the sushi in your fridge. So you've beaten me to where I go next. Don't worry, I've got you. So there wasn't that expectation. So dancing with the stars on the side of that was just a little bit of fun. Really, I got two daughters. They were very young at the time. They were into dancing. They're like, yeah, dad, why don't you, you know, they were sort of very young. So it was a bit of fun for them. I thought I'd be in and out. Like literally a couple of weeks, I'm out. I used to say to my today tonight, boss, I'm like, dude, I'm out of here. He's like, nah, yeah, I said, man, I'm not sticking it. I'll be, I'll be back doing this, you know, full-time gig properly for in two or three weeks. And then it was keep going, keep going. Keep us 12 weeks down the track. Next minute, you're in a grand final sitting here going, what the heck's going on here? I don't know what to do about it. But I'll tell you what I did love about it. I loved the process of training, working something out and building something. Now that reflects in what I love about what I do. And when you piece together the dancing side, I mean, here we are talking about dancing weird, right? But first time on this podcast, I can guarantee that. So those dances were a minute and a half, 90 seconds. And so what I'd never, never dance in my life. I had no idea what I was doing. But what you do is throughout the course of the week, you piece those together, and you literally build from the ground up. And we would piece them together in blocks, we'd start with this, and then we'd add that, and then we'd add that, and then we'd sort of narrow it down to okay, 30 seconds here, 30 seconds there, 30 seconds here. And then when you start to build all that together, what you do is you spend the week building something, which is and creating something for you then to go and deliver. The actual hardest part was not the live dance for a minute and a half, because I love the, I love it when the cameras come on. That's when me and you perform. That's how we're sitting here today. The fun part for me and the challenging part was like what we do with research leading into a bathist. You're an expert at it. What we do with stats, what we do with information, you build it, you create it, you find it, you make it work, you have it in your back pocket, and you craft it together, and then you deliver it. So there's, you know, as weird as it sounds, similarities between the dancing with the stars, which was what it was, a bit of fun, a little bit extra pocket money, depending on how far you go. But I got a lot of, and good physical fun, you know. So I got a lot out of it throughout those 12 weeks, but it's a reflection of what I get out of like a broadcast. It's essentially baking a cake. Spend the week putting all the stuff into the bowl and mixing it and working with it and into this and a bit more of this, and then the actual night of the show is that today it's cooked and ready here. It's got to serve it up. Yeah. You can't get past, however, fake tan. There's something I won't. I've made ice. Still cleaning it out of places. Well, nobody told me that. So this is the thing. Nobody, I woke up in the morning and the first, we avoided it, like, for, I don't know how many weeks, and then eventually they say, look, you know, this is what we, this is how we do it. Go down to Port Melbourne here. Not far from where you and I are sitting, go down there, stand in front and I'm like, what the hell do we do here? It's called a spray tan, man. I get that now. Booth. Yeah, where they just go here. I know. I'm like, oh, hey, what happens here? Anyway, nobody told me that it washes off essentially in the morning. I woke up, I felt like I'd been rolling around with an oomba loop, but like it was, everything was orange, like Donald Trump had come and jumped in my bed. It was just like, ah, I'm melting. And there is our sound bite for this podcast. There's something really weird. Hey, welcome to TV. Welcome. Big moments in supercars. We talked about the Channel 10 era. Fabian Coulthard's role at Bathurst. Yep. It's biggest. What sticks out in that hole? So you do 2007 to 20 partway through 2014. Yep. So it's a big stint. Yeah. There's a lot happens in that time. We kind of get the rise of Jamie Winkup to dominant levels. Drake Lounds is still a factor. Skate to parts. Quite a few guys leave. Winterbottom is getting a bit of a roll on. Will Davison, Rick Kelly. So it's sort of the next era of guys. But the Bundy one sticks in my head, Fabian in the chase because I was with, and you mentioned before, we should cover it off in that period of Channel 7. There was yourself and Neil and then Mark later on scafey when he retired. But in the ad breaks, because it wasn't live as it is, well, it's not all live like Fox is now. They're ad breaks. But the feed still went to the world. So they could still see what was happening in the breaks while Channel 7 viewers were watching commercials. So I would be sitting in the fourth chair, filling the gap for three minutes or whatever the ad break was with just pick up the commentary. You blokes were lazy shits. You just sat there and did nothing. I had to just carry the load. Just carried you blokes. Oh, for three minutes and an hour. It was 15 minutes every hour. So it worked out that in the Bathurst, I'd call about an hour's worth of a Bathurst when you added up a six-hour ride. So I think we were big in Uzbekistan. Yes. I'm not sure how we were in Africa. But we went to all sorts of quarters. I was big in lots of places now when you hear it was, which was quite funny. But they added me into the enduros that year because scafey's driving for Triple 8. And we had wildcards for the first time. Is that 2010? 2010. Yeah. Development series in a lesson. And he and lands went on to one. And yeah, that one sounds of the game was in play. Because remember the camera that was in the right hand or into the chase in under the road. Yeah. Oh, that was Fabian. Yeah. And off he goes. And here he goes. And he still asked about that to this day. But to me that sticks out as one partly because I was sitting alongside you guys. And we all looked at one another with a look of horror at what we're about to witness because you don't know. It's one of the rare sports. You could be watching something very terrible. Yes. Happening to people we know. You know, someone gets hit by a cricket ball, not nice. Someone does their knee in foot, not nice. This is a sport with serious consequences. And how you handle instead of the wow of a big crash, which is kind of the natural go to. There's a human being being tipped on their head over and over and over down a sand trap at 290, 80, 90, whatever it was. And the guy who's right behind him on the road is his teammate, Andrew Thompson. Andrew Thompson lived with me that year. That's right. That's right. Come to Melbourne to drive the welcome shores. So when you factor all those things in. And they had identical cars. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. Well, one suddenly was devoid of panels. I think we all looked at one and had the feeling that sits in me is if you go back and watch the tape. We all don't want to identify who because we don't really know and we don't want to get it wrong. Yes. Because there's families watching at home, there's friends. You don't want to call the wrong guy and suddenly call someone heart failure. And it's not their son, brother, dad, whoever it might be. That's the one that sticks in my mind. Not so much for the crash, but what went on behind it. I think what you point there, you make a really good point. And what you're pointing to and leaning into is the responsibility that you've got behind the microphone as well. There is that at play as much as we've just spoken or I've just spoken about, you know, the professionals in the entertainment factor and all those things that you have to deliver, there is a responsibility. I can tell you, I used to feel, I don't know if you and I did it one day. Anyway, especially at Bathurst, I felt the responsibility of that broadcast because I understand the importance, the cultural importance of Bathurst to this country. I'm a huge believer in those kind of things. I'm very, very passionate about where we are and where we live and what all of that represents. So I used to, first thing in the morning at Bathurst used to walk from the compound over to our commentary box. And it was a moment of the week and of the day that I had by myself. And it was only three or four minutes. It was normally pitch black because it was so early. And I used to sort of stop either mentally or physically or both and sort of soak up the enormity of the day and what we were just about to do because we didn't know what was going to unfold. But there's a responsibility here, Matty. This is what I'd say to myself, you know, you've got a responsibility here to deliver this thing properly. Don't fart ass around with it. Do the hard work here because this is important to a lot of people. And there's also then the responsibility behind the microphone of the commentary to understand that it is close to a lot of people. And in those moments, you have to make sure that you understand that little bit of response. It sits right at the back of your head. You've got a million things going through the front of your head at that time. And this one, you've got to make sure that you register it. And at that moment, it happened to me once earlier at Phillip Island where Jason Boguano off the start line. You'll remember when into the tie wall on the right hand side and he speed it up. And it was straight off the start line, that one. It was within 50 meters, I reckon, before. And so you don't get any time to think you just react. So, oh, man. And I remember that one because I don't think I nailed it. That bugs one. I think it was like, that's probably how it came out. Then we get to fabs as roll over. And by this stage, there's a lot more experience under the belt. And it's deeper into the lap. Obviously, they've gone up. They've gone across. They're now coming down. And that moment when they're coming through the chase in that TV moment is the time when you sit back and let them go through. You let that sounds of the game roar go through because you want the viewer to understand, and especially the first time viewer are just switching on for the start of this race to understand just how damn fast and how big and how dangerous and how crazy this whole thing is. And this is the most, you know, you just got to let this go here, folks. However, there was a, there was a shot change. And you referenced it there of the down low camera, the little wall cam that we had. And just before Nath Prendergast, our director, took that shot change. There was just a little sign. I haven't gone back and watched it for ages, but there was just a little sign of a car that just got out of whack. Just start sliding because the left rear tire is given way, and it sits down for maybe half a second on the shot before the next camera external shots take it. So in that moment, which is happening at warp speed, and let's say there used to be 25 frames per second in a shot, right? I don't know how many frames that was, but it wasn't many. And I don't know whether it was just me happening to be looking deeper or looking at the right part of the monitor or whatever it was, but something registered there that something had happened or was about to happen. And then obviously next shot, it unfolds. So there was a little bit of a warning notice to me. Look out. I remember that too. Yep. Look out mate. Here we go. And then the hardest part was in that amazing cacophony of dust and kitty litter and panels and all that kind of stuff. We knew who it was, but we didn't know who it was. We figured it was fads, but what if you get it wrong? And what if it is a catastrophe? And then how do you call something that's happening when you got to wait until they plunk it down, and then you've got to figure out who the heck's in it, which is kind of hard when all the panels are falling off the thing. No number, no sponsors, no colors. It's hard. Yeah. It is hard. So in the urge to do everything and bring that TV moment out, there's also this massive restraint on you at the same time. These two forces pulling and pushing against you to say, don't go over the top here because you don't know who it is, and it could be catastrophic. But you understand that this is a big moment, and then how long are you going to sit around here waiting to try and figure that out because you look like a bozo. Yeah. Right. Thankfully, there's a couple of us in the box there. You can spread the bozo. You've got eyes across it. So that was a big moment, no doubt about it. I kind of weirdly enough, almost forgotten about, I've spoken to fabs about it plenty of times, and I've been around drivers long enough to know there are things that you can talk about and things that you shouldn't talk about, read crumbly plastic bag. Well, you can if you want a reaction. Well, that's right. It's very different. But it's also, you raise a really good point about, you know, it's like the ticket says, motorsports are dangerous sport, right? And things happen. So you have to be well and truly aware of that. I think the other big thing around that time, for me, was Brock's death on the 8th of September, because that happened in that era. Now, this has nothing to do with any of the races, any of the moments, anything like that. But there was, that was a seismic moment in our world. And I had full exposure to it. I ended up hosting, which is a weird word, the state funeral from the channel seven, you know, studios there. I jumped on a plane and then a chopper and I went up to Lowndsy's place and sat down with CL at his place, that he was building up there and killed koi. And we sat and cried. And where he, you know, he was incredibly emotional, absolutely tapped out in terms of, he was tired, he was, he was confused. So to be in the middle of all of that, you know, ringing up scafy on the day when I was sitting in the boardroom there at Channel 7, we were having a meeting at the time. And somebody came in and said, Peter Brock's just died. And I went, and then quite literally hit the phones. And one of the first chats I had was with Scafy, he said, Maddie, I don't know. And I felt, you know, he's a maid. And he had the shits with me ringing. And I understand that now. He probably doesn't even remember it. But so that was just a massive shift that happened in that world that was very hard to digest, very, very hard to digest and piece together and probably do it justice. I think. But out of all of that, I'll never forget sitting with Craig chatting as a TV guy to a driver, but as a mate to a mate and an understanding of this moment and what it meant. But also getting an even clearer understanding of Peter's relationship with Craig. We knew it. We all know it. It's all there. But when it's told to you in that rawest of emotional moments in the way that Craig relayed it to me was extraordinary. And I'll never, I'll never forget it. I can't ever remember the story that I pieced together off it, to be honest. But I remember that I could, I could tell you every single minute of that day and how that played out. It's funny you say that, oh, not funny. It's scary you say that. Oh, no, it's not, that's not what I'm trying to say. I completely concur with the same thing because I'm minute by minute perfect on that day. Yeah. From the day, and where we're sitting in SCN studios here, I was in an office in Elbert Park, not far from here when that all went down at Pemberton publicity. Tim Pemberton was the hold on PR guy. I was one of the PR guys and I was the only one at work on that Friday afternoon. Wow. Because, and I had actually thought, oh, I'll go home early today because there's no one here to stop me. I was there for a long time that night. Yeah. When you're drafting the hold in racing teams, official press release. Surreal. Crazy. Surreal. Crazy, yeah. So. Another, you know, there's another defining moment. You know, I don't think that gets topped. Yeah. That is the motor racing moment. The, the guy that transcended the sport with a moment that went to the front of all the newspapers, not on the back page for the lead sport. Like it was, it's only 20 years ago. But I feel like it was yesterday. Yeah. Just, and I think everyone who's listening to this will know where they were, who they were with, what they were doing, how they heard it, all that type of stuff. It'll, it'll, it'll carry on. The National Motor Racing Museum is a must-see if you're in the central west of New South Wales. It's on the outside of Murray's Corner at the famous Mount Panorama in Bathurst and celebrates the rich history of Australian motorsport. There's famous cars, bikes, memorabilia, so much to take in, including the spectacular immersive room. It gives you an amazing taste of the speed, the sound, and the excitement of the mountain. The museums generally open six days a week and also during events, so visit their Facebook page or themuseumspatless.com.au website for further details. Now, we talked about fill-ins. Yeah. So you danced, you little maracas around, you did your thing, and I got four or five supercar rounds. I sent a few invoices to channel seven, so I won two. Yeah, I know where you headed. Yeah. And then you headed to Perth, aren't you? I'm going to Perth. So there's a joke in my house with my wife that every year that the V8 supercars or supercars, as they now are, I run in Western Australia at Wannaroo, formerly known as Baba Gallo, which was formerly known as Wannaroo. The big crash, 2011, the fireball with Carl Reindler and Steve Owen who parked in the rear of that car is probably the best way to describe it. I'm in the commentary box for that, so whenever they play that moment, every year that Perth's on, you know who gets a run, and my wife laughs every time and says, "Your glory days are coming back every time that gets a run." You're welcome. So, well, no, I'm just thanking you. I'm thanking William and Kate. We're very kind of them to get married and have a royal wedding, and you have to go and cover it. Yes, so thank you to you all. No, no, thank you. I owe you potentially my most replayed moment in my V8 supercar called "Trick-A-Rick". Yeah, that was a weird one. I say it's 2012. 2011. There you go. 2011. It was April. Am I right there? Oh, gee, I haven't gone that far. Come on. Come on. It's April, May. I reckon it was always that last weekend of April, first weekend of May about that. So, I'd gone over to London to host our coverage of the royal wedding, which, you know, again, like we're sitting here talking about dancing with the stars five minutes ago, and we are talking about a royal wedding, all this stuff. But in TV, he turns it was great. It was really cool. It was a big, it was a big thing. It was pretty cool to go and host myself and Chris Bath were there. For me, weirdly enough, that was live TV. Right, so that was, I can tell you, mate, I put exactly the same kind of preparation almost down to the spreadsheets that you and I trade, that I would do for like a Bathurst or any other sport, a Olympics, a swimming championship tennis, and I did the same there. And I'll point out two things. One's got a supercars both have a supercars relevance. One that I never thought would. There was a moment throughout the the royal wedding coverage. Now, I ain't no royal wedding expert, right? But I'm pretty sure I kind of knew what I was doing in the world of TV and also done my research. And the New Zealand prime minister walked in. So we, Bathy and I, standing there, we're outside the Buckingham Palace and our studios up there with the world's media. And Bathy and I, standing there, we're doing the waffle, you know, and I'm used to it because it's live TV. It's like doing Bathurst. And we're sort of making, we didn't have a lot of notes in terms of what was in front of us. And I spot John Key, the New Zealand prime minister at the time. And I go, there's, you know, the New Zealand prime minister, John Key, off we go, da, da, da, da. And I remember we got to the ad break and Bathy said to me, you know, established newsreader who knows her stuff. She goes, how bloody hell did you pick John Key? Like, hey, how did you know who the New Zealand prime minister was and be? How did you know that it was him? And I went, weirdly enough, I met him at the supercars over then we had it was either Pukkukkukkukkukk or Hamilton. It was Hamilton. So there was a supercars thread to that. I was like, thank you very much, the world of motorsport. Then I'm coming back. Right. So I'm flying back and I come back through Singapore and I jumped off the plane to go into transit. This is on my way back. And my daughter at the time, so I phone home as I remember exactly where I was walking. I mean, it's this is how weird our world is. And my daughter, who my oldest daughter at the time, she said to me, I'm trying to think how well she was, but she was still quite young. And she jumps on the phone and she says, Oh, Danny, what was the big fireball? And I went, oh, what are you talking about? I had no idea all what you had done and played out. Our family's seen it on the news or probably had it on that afternoon. She watches supercars because daddy, that's what he does. And there's this massive fireball. So therefore I know about it. I haven't heard a thing about it. And I go what the heck's played out here. My wife jumps back on and goes, oh, there was a massive crash at Perth. And you know, it was this huge off the start. And I'm like, holy cow. And then I got to the Qantas club or whatever club and it was on the news there. And and there you were, my friend. I know. Yeah. I know. So I was, I was like, wow. And you know what? Because we're mates. And because, you know, I love it when you were in that booth and I was like, nailed it. Well, Steve, I would nailed it. Sure. Somebody nailed it. But that was another one of those examples of, I don't quite know who this is yet. So I'm not going to say any. Because there was a bunch of black cars. Steve Owen was in a black VIP pet foods car. Yes. But the Kelly boys were in blackjack Daniel's cars. That's right. So that was another. Let's just wait for the smoke to clear for a second before we go into the who, what, when, where, why and how. Thankfully, both those boys were OK. Yeah. So we've covered royal weddings, dancing with the stars. We've gone just about everywhere. But then in part, way through 14, you leave. Yeah. Gone. You go back to 10. Yes. Did they woo you? Ah, yes, they did. You got wooed. Yeah. It's all right to be wooed. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I had a couple of things put in front of me. There were some sort of times at Channel 7 there that had, that had changed that the Channel 7 world had changed. Yep. Some for good, some for not so good. And I'm, I'm very probably good. I think it's sort of, you know, reading the temperature of the room. And it just felt like things had changed to a point where I didn't feel like I needed to be there. I didn't really know what that meant. And at the same time, I had been given an offer to come back to Channel 10 and had a couple of options to go back to Channel 10 and do. And one of them, so these conversations went on for a while, but one of them was, they had, I don't know if you remember, they had started a breakfast show, which was a complete nut of dud. And 10 had asked me to come back. Look, I had two options. One was to read the five o'clock news. And the other one was to host the breakfast show, a revamped breakfast show. And at that stage of my career, where I was at, what I wanted to do, family, the lot, and wanted to move on from seven, I decided that I'd go and do the breakfast show, which never saw the light of day. Good move, Daniel Riccardo. Was it, am I writing it? My memory was called wake up. Yeah. Yeah. And it didn't wake up. No, well, what happened was we were going to, we were going to read you the whole thing from the ground up. And that was the, again, back to that building. Let's piece all this together. That's where the challenge is. I like to think that the live on air stuff is what I'm good at, but this is where I really earned my money over here, building things. And that was part of it. That was the big part of it. That's why I took on that challenge. For no other reason, then that's the challenge that I wanted at that time. So I agreed to do that. The interesting thing at the time was, and leading into that was a couple of things that happened at seven, there was the four o'clock news. So if we backtrack a little bit, there was the four o'clock news that was hanging there waiting for me and Mel Doyle to do. Mel and I both knew that we were going to do it. I was essentially in a bit of a holding pattern at Channel 7. I was still doing supercars. And they were trying to work out how to extricate Mel out of sunrise, and then Mel and I would do four o'clock, which I was awesomely looking forward to, because she's a champ, and she's my mate, and I love her, and I couldn't wait to work with her. So it was awesome. But the cool part was, the longer they took to try and work out with her with sunrise, the more time I had by myself. And dangerous when you've got time to do gardeningly, but I was doing supercars. And then we were at Townsville, and I was in the gym downstairs, and I had my phone on, and I had seven on, and there's da-da-da-da-da. And I got this early text saying something about Mel. Did you know that Mel Doyle's leaving sunrise? And I'm like, "Done!" That means, well, yes, I did. And so did she. That means I got to go back to work. That's what it really meant. And then, so we did that. We went through that whole period there, and then I had another break in between seven and 10. The gardening leave thing is great. You get paid, you don't do anything, but it's a complete nut of waste of time and it's swinging dicks at networks. That's what it really is. But it meant that I had a bit of time before I went back to 10. What happened in that time before... So I'd signed, but I couldn't start. What happened in that time was they'd gone in there and decimated the newsroom, done what Channel 10 does best, which is shoot themselves in the foot. They'd gone in there and decimated the newsroom and it essentially killed off the breakfast show that I was signed on a long-term deal to do and come back and do. And Peter Meakin and I met for a coffee and he said to me, and I knew I had a feeling that something was playing out. And he said to me, "This is what's happening." And that's it. And I went, "Okay, there's not much I could do about that." However, I've got a long term contract with this network and I specifically made sure it was long term. So that's where it led me. I had to let that take its course. I almost went back to Channel 7, almost, and I would have been very happy too, but deal didn't come together. That's all right. 10 were great. Paul Anderson, my CEO at the time was awesome. We were very upfront and pragmatic about it. And it was like, "Look, mate, this is the weirdness of the way it's worked, but that's the way it's worked." So we kind of had to find other gigs for me to do. I specifically put in my contract that I did not want to be part of the 10 supercars coverage because I specifically, and it's their word for word, that I would not take the role that Rusty had. Which was, he became, well, we should sort of backtrack here, the 7 deal was over. Yes, they don't deal with Fox and 10, but 2015. And I specifically put that in my contract for the reason that Rusty's a mate, and I didn't want that job. And that's the way that it panned out. That's exactly the reason why I put that in there. All that changed on their side when they knocked out the breakfast part of my contract. And when I wasn't meant to do Glasgow 2014, I wasn't meant to be part of any supercars. I specifically put that on the back burner because other people had that job, and I didn't need that job and didn't want that position. So I stayed away from it. Then they went ahead and made decisions around that, and all of a sudden, the world changes. So it was an awkward time. It was pretty awkward because I felt like I'd done the right thing, the right things, and I felt like I'd done the best thing for my family, especially at the time and my career. And I felt like I'd left 7 in particular the way that I thought I should, and that I'd been very upfront and honest about my dealings with Channel 10 and how I wanted that to play out from my end. Maybe a little bit naive in thinking that 10 were going to do what they said they were going to do. But I certainly put it all on the table in front of me in that way, and then it panned out differently. And you've got to go, you can only play what's in front of you. Did you do all your own wheeling to deal it? Yeah. Which is pretty rare in that space. I guess a lot of people have management to play all that stuff. Yeah, look, I've always thought that I don't know if it's better or worse, it's just who I am. I always thought that there's... I don't like... I feel awkward when people are talking about me to other people. I just feel awkward about it, which is odd given the game that we're in. I was going to say that's what happens in that game. Correct. But I always felt like if I had a relationship with the CEO at the time, then I could do a deal, an honest deal with the CEO, honest days pay for an honest days work. And I understand that TVs are completely different. Cat, there's a lot of money involved. I get all that, but I was very specific in fact, I can tell you that when I originally went to do that deal with Channel 10, there was this complicated process that went through HR. And they were saying, "You've got to sign this by close of business today." And I went, "Hang on a second. This is not how this works. We don't do this here." And I just left it. I just went, "I'm not playing that game." It was a little bit of an up-yours probably, but the reality was that I needed to speak face-to-face with somebody here, and it was the CEO. It was Hamish MacLennan at the time. And Hamish and I sat down, and we worked out a deal, and we did it. Now, that didn't pan out the way that I thought it was going to, but at least everything was open and honest. Yeah, that's all you ask for. Because I can say that motor racing has politics. Television in my limited experience has politics. You put the two together. Oh, that's fun too. That's very fun. That's very fun. So, you go to 10. What comes to 10? It's like you're the beacon to follow for supercars to go where it goes. So, the Fox deal tends part of it, which is basically the replica of what the deal is now that Seven's got. They've got six rounds, and Fox have all of them, and that's kind of how it is. And RPM made a comeback. You wrote me in for a couple of years there. We had some good fun with Cape Peck, and yourself, and Sweaty MacKinnon. Along the way, you became the head of sport in among all of this. So, the kid from Manly on the paper, doing his spelling test, becomes the head of sport. A channel, too. Yeah, it's cool. Which was, yeah, and... Did you look for that? Did you want that? No, I think naturally, I was sort of leaning in towards that space, probably any way in and around both TV and some other stuff that I was doing, sort of always had an eye outside of things for business. I'm not a naturally born businessman. I'm not an entrepreneur. I've never been anything like that. But I do like, especially in our game, I do like helping people, like I actually, you know, get off on that. That's something that I'm very deeply passionate about, and I like being able to point people in the right direction and help them along, basically. And I love making good telly. You know, when I'm in telly, I love making good telly. I'm not interested in the other stuff. I'm not interested in games, I'm not interested in politics. Money comes with it, which is great, but sometimes money doesn't come with it. And you lose it just as quick as you get it. So I'm not interested in any of that. When I go to work and I'm doing my job, I'm interested in being as good as I can and making the best product that I can. And I'm very, very passionate about the industry that I'm in. And when all of that came together in the TV world and with all of that experience and everything that I'd done along the way to have the opportunity to be the head of sport, I looked at it to go, okay, this joint's being kicked around. And I was there when we were starting from scratch. I was there when we didn't have desks properly to sit at. I met my wife at Channel 10, sitting across, sharing a desk across from her in sports tonight because we didn't have proper desks and work units. It was a dump. And the best dump you could have worked in though, because you met your wife. And we built it all up. So I had that in my DNA. So there was a driving passion to help and to make things better. And to try and lead by example, I don't know if I nailed it at all. I don't know. I thought I did. I thought I was doing the right thing. I tried very, very hard to try and re-engineer a lot of that motorsport base into there. But by then that deal was fractured. That deal was fractured, the free-to-wear, the fox deal, whilst it's great for the bank balance and good for certain parties. It's a hard one. It's a really hard one to manage down to the lines in pit lane. Do you know what? And that's how it was the first of that deal. It's an extraordinary thing to walk out in pit lane. You can do it in Formula One, but you sit there as somebody who's been part of this, and I'm just a new kitty. I'm not like in the relative scheme of things, and you can't walk across that line. I want. And we're talking the pit lane. Yeah. So just put the preface around it. In 2015, Fox is there with their people. Supercars are there with their people, and Channel 10 are there with their people. So there's all this crossovering of people doing the same thing in a lot of instances. But because Channel 10 are the junior partner in this. They're not paying as much as the other mob, basically. You sit over there. That's it. You're not allowed to go anywhere. You do nothing. You stay inside that tent. That's it. All most treated like criminals. Well, not that far, because just treated differently. And the different dynamics were there for a reason. And we understood that. But the personal side of that can be a little bit kick in the guts. Because these are people that you've worked with and dealt with over the years. Correct. And this is not me talking. Other people felt the same way here. But it was kind of the split that had to happen. It was the hardcore. It was the shock and awe that had to happen to get it to where it is. It needs to be collegiate. The whole talk of broadcast partners sounds great until they're not partners. It's like garages that work for each other and against each other at the same time. So that's the deal that they did. And that's the deal that I came into. And then obviously as head of sport, I felt an enormous responsibility, mate. I felt a huge responsibility to my staff and a really good connection to my staff and to our staff. And wanting to rebuild and essentially, you know, bring the glory days back. We had a crack at bringing sports tonight back. We brought back RPM. Like you said, you've got other people back in the building. You're trying really hard, but there are big things against you when you're playing at that level. And, you know, Cromley, I think pointed it out to me one day, he said, you know, you well known now that everyone's going to be trying to bring you down. And that's weird, mate. It's weird because when you're an on-air person, you normally only see the good side of things. You know, part of the job of massaging that ego so you can perform at that level, whatever your ego is, and ego doesn't have to be a bad thing, is you don't need to. I don't need to expose you to what the finances are and all the crap and all the bad meetings and all the bad talk until you really need to because you can't operate like that. You've got a very specific job here that not a lot of people get to do. So I was very, very aware of that. And then all of a sudden I go from being in that role to being in another role where the mask is taken off Batman. And you see the background of Gotham City, don't you? And you hear it. And you feel it. And it's at you the whole time. And I thought I was big enough to handle that. And I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the challenge of it. But it was a different world, a really different world. And I tell you what I, what was sticking in the back of my mind just because of who we are. And the reason why we're talking here today is I didn't want to be the guy at Channel 10 where supercars came to die at Channel 10. I didn't want to be that person. I wanted to be the other way. I wanted supercars to thrive at Channel 10. I wanted supercars to thrive in this new deal. Maybe that's naive of half free to wear and half Fox. And I wanted supercars to get back out there and be bigger and bold and tell those stories and getting all of that. That's what I really wanted to do. Hard to do that when you got no money and you are the junior partner and there are the forces going against you. We went broke at that time. We went into administration at that time. It's hard stuff. So there was a bit, there was a lot of that in me. I reckon I carried a lot of that around. That's a heck of a lot of stress for a few years. No fun. You don't share. No fun. No. So the 10 deal ended and seven end up in the freedom wear slot of supercars, which they still are. So COVID 2020, world changes, all that spending a million times. In May, you get let go by 10. How does that get told to you? You really want to know? Sure. Do you reckon there's a good way you get told? This is not a leading question, by the way. I don't know the answer. Let's backtrack. Let me take you to Formula One that weekend, a couple of weekends before. Albert Park, you mean? Albert Park. Go on, pre. So the Grand Prix that didn't happen. I'm there as the host and commentator of 10's coverage and I'm there as the head of sport. I'm obviously in the middle of executive level things and in the middle of TV on air things, trying to get all that together. And meanwhile, in the background of Channel 10 is a big ownership change. CBS had come along, which was the dawn of a new era. We'd done a very good Melbourne cup deal at the time. I was front and centre of that. I'm very proud of that. Done a lot of other stuff and I think it was the, I don't know, the Wednesday, Thursday morning of Formula One week, I found out that our CEO, Paul Anderson, had resigned and was moving on. An out-and-out champion person, a great boss and it was hard to go okay. There's somebody out of the loop and what that points to in our game is things are changing and they were changing rapidly Viacom, CBS, all that stuff that was going on out of our hands was changing. In the meantime, the world's turning to crap and in the meantime, out of all of that, the world comes to Melbourne. Tom Clarkson comes up to me in the foyer of the hotel, our Formula One expert that we fly in from England every year. He turned up a day early and he said to me, "Maddy, this is the first thing you said to me." He goes, "You know how much I love being here and I go here." And he goes, "We shouldn't be here." Now, we kind of started to work out what was going to happen then but we didn't really know. Well, we knew within about 48 hours. I went to bed on the Thursday night, we'd had some crews in it, McLaren doing some shoots that day where there was all other stuff going. Cyber attacks, honestly, I could go on all day about the crap that was going on behind the scenes. I went to my room, I went to go to bed, I knew that McLaren members, remember there was eight, some had tested positive. Some had gone to hospital to go and test. Now, we had staff there directly. So, that was first and foremost. What happens here? We didn't know what happened. And I remember saying to somebody at work, if these guys come back as in the McLaren guys come back and test positive, the whole thing is going to go off. This is going to be a shit show. Just as I was about to go to bed and try and get some sleep, I checked something on my phone and saw that there was positive tests with those McLaren guys. I can't tell you what happened over that next 24 hours, detail by detail, because it was such a blur. What you saw on Netflix and drive to survive is the end game, which is me and Tommy announcing to the world that the Formula One is not going to go ahead. What happened in between that was countless hours of phone calls back and forth, human resources, Andrew Westercott. Mark Weber called me about two minutes before I actually announced, we announced that live on air, trying to work out what kind of systems we put in place, getting to the track first thing in the morning, essentially getting a war cabinet going, walking into the offices at Albert Park. They're trying to find somebody, anybody who could tell me what was going on. I knew that there was a 130 meeting that everyone had voted to keep running, but I didn't know until I got to the track that there was a 330 AM meeting where Mercedes said we're out on the advisors of their bosses. The thing was never going to go ahead. I was having discussions whilst I was on air being told, this is going to go ahead, but not the way you think. Five minutes later, the government pulls the pin and leaves everyone stranded outside. All this happened, right? All this was happening. Meanwhile, in the background of Channel 10, there's a whole stack of stuff happening. The net result out of all that is, I thought I managed that pretty well, and I was actually quite okay with the way, even though it was an absolute dogfight. We got out of dodge. We went back home. Somebody had sat, somebody within four rows of me at the time on my plane, on the way back, tested positive for COVID, so I had to go straight into quarantine at home. So I was stuck at home, and so was my family. So I couldn't go back into the Channel 10 office, but something told me that there was enough going on there. And I said to my wife, I don't think I'll ever go back into my office. And she was horrified at the thought because she knew how much that job meant and how much I'd put into it. And then I got an email, I don't know, a couple of weeks later, I was starting to get a whiff of what was going on with the administrators that were called in, all that business that was going on. And then I got an email saying, can you be on a call at 10.30? This is about 10 o'clock. I jumped on that call, which was a FaceTime call. There was somebody in the corner from HR, which is a fairly decent sign. Fairly decent sign. And I was told that's what they were going to do. We're going to make this position redundant. And I said, right, oh, that's what you want to do. I'm a big boy. That's the way it's going to play out. That's the way it's going to play out. There was a fair amount of relief, followed by a fair amount of shock, followed by a fair amount of anger. And you know, you're never happy with the way that it panned out. But I certainly felt that there was much more to do in that space. I didn't feel like I had a lot of support in that space, but I gave it a crack. Nobody lost the leg. What was it going to do? You know? Yeah. So that's how it panned out. It was an email. And then it was a, this is what's happening. And I figured the only way for me to do that was to cut the cord, which I did. So you never went back in? Never went back in. I got a box delivered to my place with my stuff from my office, minus the logo that we'd run. And that was it. I got an email. I got a paycheck. See you later. And, and move on. So it was a, you know, that whole time at Channel 10 was very, that's, and I'm not the only one, mate. No, no, no. That whole time at Channel 10 was a very different beast altogether, that whole time from signing a deal with a CEO who ended up moving on for a breakfast show that never happened, to not do sport, to doing sport, to taking positions that my mates had, that they moved them on without my knowledge, to going into different parts of that, to trying to start up shows, to becoming an executive at that level, to kicking goals like we did with, with Melbourne Cup, to having that sort of thing hang over me where I didn't want to be the guy that let motorsport go. And I worked bloody hard to try and make that happen, but there was no money in the tank. There was, there was no gas in that tank whatsoever. So what do you do? What can you do? You move on. Yeah. You, you move on. You dust yourself off. I'll tell you this, so noons. I, it, it kicked me fair and square in the guts like nothing else has in my professional career. There's no doubt about it. Nothing else comes close. Nothing comes close. Yeah. Nothing comes close. I've been through much harder circumstances in my life that have had much, much bigger impact on me personally and their personal things that have happened, you know, within me and my family and they're much, much harder to deal with. But in a professional sense, that one ironed me out. It laid me out and it, and it took me a long time to drag my sorry ass back and get over it and rebuild for a number of reasons, you know, for, for a number of reasons. I don't blame anyone in particular. I don't have any, you know, residual hangover that this whole game's full of crap. I love the game. That's probably why it hurts so much. I love the industry. I loved my job. I love the thought, the thought that I was, you know, responsible for a lot of people. And I was working really, really hard at it. But it did square me up and it laid me out. And the phone does stop ringing. It's, you know, it's a hard position to be here. Is it really because out of sight, out of mind? Oh, look, I don't know. I think other people have their versions of what they think's happened. So they go, maybe a bit of both, maybe a bit of both. But, you know, that's, that's what happens. That's life. Yeah. That's lost a leg. I'm going to use that more of them. Or an arm or an eye or whatever it might be. So you're at a scene now. Yep. In Sydney, you do the morning show there. You've done some, or you do plenty of calling the other football, not my football, but your football up your way. We've got a video on speed series, so a bit more motor racing with you across the last few years. Did like you getting up on the wheel in Trans Am with Matt and Alty just quietly. Yeah. It was fun. That was good fun to watch and listen to as much as I'm sure it was to do as well. Yeah. So given all of this, are you done with television? Is there a way back for you? Is there a love for you? Is there a project or passion? Or are you kind of just happy doing what you're doing now? If something came along? Yeah, I might look at it, but it's not a burning down there in your guts. I really want to, I've got a point to prove or I've got something left to do. I think I might have something left to do. What that is, I don't know. And I think the real question is, is television done with me? Because there's a time, there's a ticket that you've got to punch at the end of all that, where it's like, hey mate, we're moving on. And I always sort of, that's one of the reasons why I always made sure that I had other interests. I've got other business interests and I always made sure that I had that avenue because I thought, what happens in this world where I get sick of it or it gets sick of me? Chances are it was going to get sick of me beforehand, but you never say never. I like the changing world of the way broadcasting is going. I think Australia has a lot of ground to catch up on in that department. I think where we need to be as a sporting broadcasting industry, a lot more proactive and probably a lot more mature about how we do things. And I think streamers will, just like COVID did, the streaming services will rattle that cage a lot. More than they are now, even more. Absolutely. Yeah. We're not done with change up in the world of me. No way. Where I'm just getting started. Absolutely. 100%. And that goes through everything. That goes through how sports look at what they do. For ever in a day, it's okay, we do this, you pay us that. Now, sports need to look at what they do first and how they do it and what else they can do within the realms of their own world to offer that extra incentive for those that are now paying for the right to watch that. So it's a really different scenario. That side of it, I'm still very passionate about the production side of it. I'm very, very passionate about and I always will be whether I'm in it or not. I find it hard sometimes to watch Telly because I'm like, ah, this, that, look at that graphic and they're spilt that wrong and it's just, that's just the, you know, the, um, the OCD in me, but I don't know, mate, I don't know where it's going to lead. But the media has been a big part of my life for the reason that I wanted it to be. And I'm super, super lucky that I'm still sitting here talking about it in media land right now. So where that leads, who knows? The book has many chapters left, I'm sure. I'm sure. Um, thank you for being part of mine. Must appreciate. Uh, not just the chat we've had, the stuff we've covered. I'm sure there's plenty of other things I've let go through to the keeper for your own safety and that of others as well. But you've always been a huge support and, um, it's thoroughly appreciated. Thank you to William and Kate for their efforts. Thank you to those who voted dancing with the stars. Correct. Um, it gave a little boy from Ballarat a chance to call some super good. So you have in the course of the last couple of hours answered one of the questions I've had, you know, in my life is who the heck was voting for me? You know, and it was Noonan. Oh, why no piece that together? This is why I have no money left. I'm, I'm eating two minute noodles for the last 10 years because I was just trying to keep you dancing. Oh, why didn't I see that at the time? Listen, mate, straight back at you. You know, we, we have these chats as mates. We, we bounce around. You've been very, very generous throughout my world in this space as well with all your stats and all your information and a great call to, you know, make at any time and to lean on. So don't underestimate the role that you play in a lot of people's career. I would say that. And also the way that you, you do it is, you know, top notch, top level with done in the right way, which is all you can ask for. So straight back and you know, on that one, mate, and thank you to you for voting for me, being the only bloke. Just hear the help. It was obviously the only one here to help. Chase, you spent a lot of money. I know. Got to do lots more podcasts to pay for it. Thanks again. Much appreciated. Buckle up and save at Audobon. Get 20% off Rhino Rack roof racks and accessories. And loyalty members get five lead and new one apex plus 10 W 40 oil for less than half price, 34.99. Can't look out now. Audobon. Australian Muscle Car Magazine is one of the most respected voices in motoring media. There's been over 140 issues and thousands of stories published in the last 22 years from the amazing muscle car machines of the past to the present and the stars that steered and built them. AMC has something for everyone. Delve into the heritage of homegrown high performance now at musclecarmag.com.au. And that is where we leave. Batty White on the V8 salute podcast powered by Cass Stroll. A big thank you to Batty for the sit down. I reckon that's probably the longest amount of time we've sat down and talked about some of those topics and I really appreciated his insight into some of the behind the scenes stuff particularly his departure from Channel 10. That one as you heard really did kick him in the guts. So many things that we couldn't get time to talk about so no doubt somewhere in the weeks months years ahead I'll dragging back and we can have another chat on the V8 salute podcast down the line. Now before I go if you've enjoyed this episode and our episodes and our pod and what we do we want to have you as part of our family with our V8 sleuth podcast plus offering it's your chance to hear extra interviews to get ad-free episodes to help steer the ship really tell us what you'd like to hear bonus episodes as well which is pretty cool you can get on board with that now become a member go to v8 sleuth.supportingcast.fm it's in the show notes too by the way if it's quick I feel you to click there. Hey thank you so much for tuning in again it's a great time of year for V8 supercars for supercars I should say we've talked so many V8 supercar things with Matty from that era but I'm calling it V8 supercars again maybe we're going back to the future a little bit here. I hope you've enjoyed this episode we've got plenty more ahead on the long run home in the end of 2024 keep tuned in bathists coming Gold Coast coming Adelaide's coming it's said to be a big end to the season thanks again for tuning in hope you enjoy this episode we'll catch you next time.
