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Our special guest on The Shed Online today is multiple Australian racing champion
and former V8 Supercar driver and beyondblue ambassador, John Bowe. We're talking to John
at Phillip Island racetrack where it's particularly chilly and rainy today. John is competing
in the Touring Car Masters for pre-1974 vehicles. Last year, JB reached the milestone of 40
years in motorsport, which is quite some achievement. So, John, how did you first get into racing,
and could you give us a bit of an overview of your career? John Bowe: I grew up in it...
To be honest, like a kid would grow up in a football family, I grew up in a racing family.
My dad raced. And he was a mechanic, and he worked on other people's cars, and our garage
was always full of cars of some description, particularly in the '60s. It was like MGs
and Austin-Healeys and things like that. So, I was just a revhead basically and I guess...
I think I wanted to... I'm not sure I really was ever intent on having a career in motorsport,
but I wanted to race. So, when I started... I started racing when I was 15. I actually
put my age up, which you could do then because no one asked for birth certificates. Well,
now, you can't do that. What kind of personality do you need to be a race driver? It's a lot
of things. Driving a race car... of all... I mean there are many sorts of race cars obviously,
but driving a race car well, requires a lot of different things. And it's balance and
depth perception and finesse, and it's really, I wouldn't have a clue and I've been doing
it a long time. You're born with some natural ability? I think there's a certain amount
of it comes naturally, yes. I would say if you ask me a percentage, I would say probably
75 per cent of it has to be in you somehow, and then the rest you can refine. So, you
can learn lots about it, particularly in modern day cars. Like this particular car has a lot
of data acquisition. The V8 Supercar has a lot of data acquisition. So, you can have
an engineer or a data person that will explain what you're not doing right and how you can
improve your performance. So, that's science. With my old Mustang, there's no data acquisition.
There's no... There's nothing. And you basically wing it, which is what people used to do in
the '60s and the '70s. You drive to the way you feel. So... I guess you think about the
risk involved. How do you manage that? How do you deal with the risks? When you drive
yourself, you are in charge of it. So, I'm not saying you don't make mistakes. You do
make mistakes. But it's measured in a sense that you drive it to your ability. So, your
touch, feel, depth perception, aggressiveness or passiveness, whatever, it's your choice.
You do it yourself, so. And I've been doing it so long, it's quite normal to me. It's
quite natural to me. I wouldn't say I don't get a buzz out of it because I do. It's adrenalising
as a sport. But it's not the speed per se in motor racing that's thrilling. It's the
control of the car, the battle with other people. I find it challenging to be able to
drive the car and analyse the car, and use your brain all at the same time. I think that's
part of what I still do it for basically. So, John, tell us a bit about this flash automobile
behind you? Well, it's a Ferrari 458, which is the latest model mid-engine Ferrari. It's
a GT3 car, which is a world category. So, it exists in America, Europe, England, Australia,
Asia. It's quite a world regulated category. So, it's quite successful on a world basis.
I don't drive this regularly. A friend of mine, Peter Edwards owns the car. It's run
by Maranello Motorsport. And a few weeks ago... I've driven it with Peter before at the Bathurst
12 Hour... A few weeks ago, they asked me if I'd share it with him here, there's two
one-hour races. So, I thought it was a good idea at the time. But now the weather is like
this, I'm not so sure it was a good idea. You're an ambassador for beyondblue. How did
that come about, and what's your story? During the course of 2006-07, I was coming to an
end of a professional career, which had lasted 25 years. So, quite a long time. And unusual
for sport. And I was feeling pretty down about it all, but I wouldn't say I was depressed.
And I went to see a couple of clinical psychologists. And in some ways, they helped. And I remember
them saying, a lot of professional athletes feel like this, which doesn't really do you
any good because knowing someone else feels like it doesn't make you feel any better.
So, slowly, when I explained it to someone, it's like layers of lasagna. You get layers
and layers and layers of it on you and eventually you're depressed. You're not depressed to
start with. You might be a bit down in the dumps about it or you have trouble dealing
with it, or you have trouble accepting it, but eventually it leads to depression, which
it did with me. And it was just dreadful. It's the most debilitating, frightening, awful
thing that I've ever had anything to do with. There's plenty of people that say to you,
and these are well-meaning people, "Get out of it", like "Pull yourself through", or "Get
on with life", or whatever, but when it gets a hold of you, it's very difficult. You certainly
can't ignore it. I mean I ignored it for quite a long time, and it's not... It gets more
and more of a hold on you. So you can't ignore it. You got to do something about it. What
advice do you have for people who might be facing tough times themselves? First thing
you have to do is you gotta go to your doctor, your family doctor, or your GP, or whatever,
and talk to them about it. And GPs are like mechanics. There's good and bad. So, if you
get a bad one, you gotta go to another one. A lot of people are anti-medication. I don't
think that's... I think you do whatever you can do. In my case, a particular medication
helped me quite a lot. But I tried three or four different medications before I had a
positive effect. The bottomline I guess, and the key point is you got to seek some help.
You got to get some help. John, you've been an absolute champion. Thanks for sharing your
story with us today on The Shed Online. Now, how about we go on and look at the Mustang?
I'd love to take you. Let's go and have a look.