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Chapter 1: What is Andrew Edwards' background in motorsport?
G'day everyone, welcome to episode 30 of the Lucky Dogs podcast. We've got a very special guest with us on this episode, Will Brown's engineer, Andrew Edwards, welcome. G'day, thank you. Yeah, Andrew.
You've had a pretty big career, 20 years so far or something like that.
Come on, don't remind me on that.
Two Bathurst 1000 wins so far, two championships and a whole lot of race wins. So it's been a pretty successful career, I would say. Yeah.
Yeah, it's been a long journey, I guess. I mean, being in the game that long and it's all kind of those numbers have come since I've come to Triple Eight, obviously. But it's been a long journey to get to that point, you know what I mean? And a lot of learning and I've been grateful that Triple Eight have been able to give me the forum or the opportunity to be part of that. Yeah, yeah.
Very fortunate. That's very true. We wanted to go back. We sort of a lot of the time kick off with people's history and how they got into the sport. So how did you, you did an engineering degree. Yeah. And how did you then progress through and get into motorsport from there?
Yeah. I mean, it's, I'm not sure exactly where it all started, but my dad was a club racing rally car type thing. He had a Datsun 1600. And I think my, some of my earliest memories of being out on the Alpine rally in the middle of the night, listening to cars going through, through the kind of the bush. And I don't know whether that just stayed with me, but then from there, I don't know.
I watched, I was big into Formula One and I never thought there was any other kind of career for me. I don't know. I never thought of a normal day job. And motor racing was just something that I just thought was my normal job.
progression at life you know what I mean my hobby and that was turned into my job but yeah I mean I guess at the start I was really into engines like particularly F1 engines and so I went to Melbourne Uni I had a dedicated kind of engine facility there and and as you do you kind of work out who's you know like you kind of bond with the lecturers that are into that and I was lucky that
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Chapter 2: How did Andrew Edwards become a race engineer for Supercars?
They went over to England, the F1 teams and spruiked it and said, who wants to, who's interested in this? Only one team was interested. That was Mario Willian at And yeah, then they made an exclusive partnership and we developed this head back here in Australia. They put it on their bottom end effectively. And so, I mean, you should you should try and talk to Tony.
This would be an interesting podcast alone, this whole story. But yeah, they would send their bottom like a single cylinder bottom end here and we develop it in Australia and then we built the full V10 over there. So.
Wow.
Yeah, it's an amazing story. I mean, I hope, you know, it was obviously very secretive and quiet at the time. I mean, a lot of water has gone under the bridge now, but, you know, even within Bishop itself, we were in a little pod with no door handles and a swipe car. Even people within the company didn't really understand what was going on in that area. You know what I mean?
And, you know, it's so close to being, it was so close to being, reality can you imagine that thing on the grid John I mean but yeah and then as it does in Formula One secrets get out people move to move teams no matter how secret it is and and then it turns up in the Concord agreement as a rule change that you can only have poppet valves you know what I mean reciprocating valve so Wow.
It's pretty much dead. Pretty much game over. You know what I mean? I mean, it is a big project to keep quiet. And even over there, you know, we had the dinosaur was fenced off from everyone else. We were in a separate building. Everything was separate. Even over there within Ilmore was trying to keep it as quiet as possible.
Separate machining shop, you know, like everything quiet and still it kind of gets out.
That feeling, so literally overnight they send out a rule change and your job's just done.
Yeah, pretty much. So look, the project, you know, they tried to take it to some other people, some other categories, but yeah, it's a difficult sell, you know what I mean? Everyone's got their own technology and it's high risk for someone, right, to take something like that on. But...
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Chapter 3: What qualities make a championship-caliber driver?
Who's the next guy? We had Barguana. Yeah, no, had Barguana. Like when Jason got sick, ran Barguana for a year.
Right.
Yeah, which, you know, there's some pretty good names, you know what I mean, to learn from. And then, yeah, from there, I went off the car for a while. So we kind of, the structure at BGR, we just went to the kind of the...
a lead engineer technical director engineering manager what do you want to call that human um to kind of help oversee that you know what i mean to help oversee the all these cars that we ended up accumulating um so i did that for a few years but um yeah i found that I don't know, difficult in that I like working on the car.
There's nothing quite like your own car and your own driver and the sense that the two of you have of... us against the world or in a way, do you know what I mean? Like, um, so, so yeah. And, and, and we, we had Nick and, you know, the relationship was getting pretty strained between him and his engineer. And we thought we would, we would try something different.
And I kind of swapped positions with, with them and went back on the car and, and stayed on it until I left, um, BJR. So, um,
What were your, did you have some good moments with Nick? What were your highlights during that? You won a fair few, or you won a couple races.
Sydney? Sydney? You know, it's in an era where it is hard to win races if you're not, you know, Triple Eight or Penske or Tickford. Do you know what I mean? Like the expectation that we can win is possibly a little unrealistic. Do you know what I mean? Like I think...
kind of felt we were punching some top fives which i thought was good results you know what i mean maybe that's a bad way to think but that's the reality of it is we're up against some big competition um and yeah you know i really enjoyed my time with nick it's um it's almost one of the closest i've been in kind of the relationship in terms of uh
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Andrew face while transitioning to NASCAR?
You're like, oh God, I think it's just everyone here. You know what I mean? And that whole year I just felt like, you know, people are going like, oh, you're doing a good job. I'm like, man, honestly, like the chef could run the car. Do you know what I mean? Like that's how I felt. You know what I mean? Shane is very generous though.
Shane's generous in his praise because he's making it sound like I have more influence than maybe what I really have. You know what I mean? Like he's obviously...
a next level driver to work with so i was actually the next question was moving to obviously moving to triple eight did that lift you a lot personally to be more self-critical or to um i guess focus on the one percent is more like working with him because obviously he betrays i'm not sharing for a long time he betrays himself actually similar to him actually in a way
portrays himself as maybe the dumbest guy in the room but you actually get to work with him or do some stuff with him i've done plenty of sim racing with him and he breaks everything down to such small details and yeah i always found that quite interesting about him was the way he's seen publicly or portrays himself as a lot different and you see it now the nascar stuff he says right for breaking's worth no time he's trying to keep the advantage for as long as possible he's always deflecting he's quite smart like that
Yeah, no, he's, I mean, we all know the level Shane operates at. And yeah, I mean, working with Shane is a bit of an unfair advantage because he does break down, you know, he can feel the tyre probably more than anyone that I've worked with, you know what I mean? He seems to be able to have, he seems to understand what's going on in all those moments. So, yeah.
he, he can just, you know, he doesn't really get involved in the engineering side. You know what I mean? In terms of, I don't know what role centers in other Springs in it, really. It's, it's more, this is what the car is doing. I mean, it's pretty much what he describes in the thing. You know what I mean? This is what it's doing. Do something, you know, like do something about it.
Do you know what I mean? So, um, and if you get it right, the, the, the sky's the limit. So, um, So, yeah, I think, you know, your question, did it lift me? 100% it lifted me because everything else in the team is sorted at Triple Eight in terms of the level of people that are there are so good. You're not working on or worrying about some of the, you know, problems in the team. There's no noise.
And I think that's one thing when I came, Shane was a bit like not shocked with but commented on was, man, the detail you've given me before race preps is next level, you know what I mean? And that's just because I can block out everything and work it out. And he's the kind of guy that if you feed him all this stuff, he can put it together. And so, you know, I felt like that 22-year was –
was really just putting all these little details together, um, that maybe, maybe at other teams you don't get to, you know what I mean?
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Chapter 5: How does Andrew describe working with Shane van Gisbergen?
Because you're fighting other fires or there's not the resource, but, but at triple eight, definitely when I got there, it was, they're just so well sorted, like the, the level of, um, the level of people there. And that's not a bad reflection at, at BGR by any means, you know what I mean? But, um,
um the attitude there is whatever it takes you tell us what you need and we'll we'll do it you know what i mean and and and they just sort everything out so so yeah that's that that really that did you know lift me and then i guess once you once you once all that's done then what it is on you you know what i mean at the end of the day
you know, you carrying the weight of, of, of that of the party or of your job, you know, you go to the setup, that's, that's your responsibility. And I mean, everyone else is doing their job. And now it's on you. So then it does put a lot more pressure on yourself to, to lift, I guess, to, to execute and, and make it work.
Yeah. Like Shane's, I guess we probably all know Shane's biggest advantage was the tyre. Was that just like the thing that amazed you? Was it just the whole package or was it?
Well, I think he helps you tune a car that looks after the tyre for a start. I think he's sympathetic to the tyre. But the good guys you work with have a lot of CPU left over from, you know, normal operation of the vehicle, just like getting it around the lap without falling off.
the really good guys have enough have enough bandwidth left to log what's going on and then when they tell when they can explain that to you you as an engineer can do something about it like you can look at shane's data and
i don't think you can figure out how he's doing the magic you know what i mean like it's this it's hard to look at it and go pinpoint you do that and you'll you can do what shane can do it's not that easy it's a feel thing absolutely and it doesn't show up in the data 100 you know what i mean what he's doing in breaking into the corner so
You know, you are relying a little, you know, a lot on the driver to help you, you know, interpret what's going on. And once again, that's not their job to engineer the car. And Shane's the perfect example. Like I say, he's not into that. But he does describe what's good and he does spit out what doesn't work quickly. Yeah.
um and we've done that a few times even in 23 um at bathurst you know i mean we don't know we were lost but he wasn't happy with the car per se um and we tried a whole another set up in practice five saturday morning with richie and you know it had some some uh advantages and possibly looked all right anyway we set the test up for shane he does one lap no It's sliding the rear on the entry.
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Chapter 6: How does team dynamics influence performance in racing?
Yeah. Um, so, so yeah. And look, he doesn't have some exclusive over no one can do it. Like we've seen, like exactly what you said, we definitely had some examples when we get the car right on these high deg tracks last year, man, we've had some big results. Um, but, but, uh, he just seems to be able to do it more often than not.
Well, going back to something you said earlier where you said you moved to Triple Eight to work out if you're any good or not. I can tell you are good because you won a championship with Will.
Will's top level, you know what I mean? Like I actually think, you know, and I think he's got more potential still untapped. So I think there's more to come. It's just like all of us. It's like all of us, you know what I mean? Like it's...
it's finding it's it's it's bringing it out and we're all you know we're all work in progress and and i think there's there's more to come yeah i i'd agree um hopefully not too much more to come i still find that even personally myself like you still like shane will versing shane would call it in his prime and he was 32 i believe or 33 then
in 33 yeah 33 yeah yeah and it's amazing what you know i was obviously fortunate enough to win 23 that year but what i know now to what i knew then is just So there's like worlds apart, right? You just learn so much. You thought you knew it all then.
And then you look back and you're like, fuck, I could have done a lot better job when you were thinking about it.
That goes into my next question. So obviously you've had an opportunity now to work with, you've won a few championships now and with two different drivers. So what makes a championship caliber driver on and off the track, in your opinion?
man these are some difficult questions you know what i mean i think look the number one thing you just can't get away from raw talent like you can't you can't um diy build a driver any driver into a championship driver i mean it's just not possible um So skill set is the most important thing. I think very close behind is attitude and that is an attitude of...
being self-critical and um and wanting to improve all the little areas that um that need tuning up you know what i mean and and that's definitely something that you know we work on a lot but then i see people like brock uh uh exceptional at is is is the grind um
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Chapter 7: What are the differences between race engineering and car design?
And he won the championship last year. Like, well, he's racing right now. But, you know, he's not out there cycling 200K or something like that. But it is, you've got to do the 1% as so right, right, to be able to be up the front.
You probably are. You guys probably are on top of the cars. It's just a level playing field now, though.
Yeah.
Here we go.
That's it. Here we go. Mate, you won the championship in 23.
I don't think you can talk. Next style.
Yeah, next point. I was waiting for it. That was different. I mean, this year, I think, you know, the competition has grown too. You know what I mean? Like I'd say yourselves at DJR have come a long way since you've been there. You know what I mean? And I think it's... obviously been challenging for you even for your engineer as well to come from a different make.
You know, we hear about these setups don't work with it, you know, you're coming up with new stuff. And in this current environment of not many changes per week, and it's hard to hard to progress with it too. So And, you know, you look at Groves and, you know, they're two cars, an amazing operation.
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Chapter 8: What memorable moments does Andrew share from his racing career?
So, you know, the competition this year is getting tighter and tighter. And, you know, Walkinshaw too, you know what I mean? Straight away that Toyota is looking pretty handy and they got two top drivers, you know? So it's, the competition this year is, it feels the highest it's been.
um in recent years too and when you when we say like when we talk about setups don't work we're talking like one to two millimeters it's nothing it's like nothing it's a couple of hairs put together i think the worst thing is these days and also the best thing is like for all of us um on a race weekend, is that you know your car's capable of it.
It's like when Groves was so quick at Christchurch, you know you've got the same gear as them. Where back in the day, it was very easy to kind of go, like when we were with Erebus, oh, AAA to build new uprights, or they've done this, they've done that. But now you're like... It's in this car somewhere.
Yeah, it's here.
It's here, just where is it?
Yeah, and that's the thing to recognise, you know what I mean, isn't it? You know what I mean? You've got to recognise that and move on it. It's just what's hard is then how do you develop the car
to get there you know what I mean it's such a slow process yes you can go and take a big swing but a big swing can put you last you know and we see even on at Tassie one day one day Chas is on pole where were they the next day you know what I mean like you know so it and even Andre you know what I mean So you can just see it doesn't take much.
You wouldn't have had to move very far or you might have tried to predict the Sunday grip and got it wrong and now you're nowhere. So it's a very small window in this car and when it's not right, you're in the pack with everyone else and you can be plus or minus five spots very easy.
Oh, yeah.
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