Nathan Quinn is one of Australian rallying’s great characters. Far from the corporate, ambassador-type personality of some of his rivals, the 2017 Australian Rally Championship is a guy who likes nothing more than a good time with his mates.
It’s an image that perhaps doesn’t endear him to everyone, but Quinn’s talent behind the wheel is equal to the best of them, and he’s fully deserving of his success to date.
After winning the 2017 ARC, and then spending a year driving different cars in the New Zealand championship, Quinn finds himself at the wheel of his self-built Mazda RX2 this year, competing mainly in classic rallies.
Peter Whitten found the 33-year old behind the counter of his Goodyear Auto Service Centre in Coffs Harbour, shirt tucked in and looking every bit the business owner.
Our discussion covered a range of topics, from the health of the Australian Rally Championship, through the cost of competing in New Zealand, buying an R5 car, and getting back in the ‘big league’ to defend his national title.
He also has some interesting thoughts on New Zealand rallies, and why it’s time for the Kiwis to finally get off their butts and head to Australia to compete.
Nathan Quinn is eyeing off the Australian Rally Championship in 2020. Photo: Dave King
RSM: So where's your career at the minute? You’ve won the ARC, you've gone to New Zealand and you're back doing club stuff, where do you see it?Nathan Quinn: Well, I think a lot of people are like, ‘oh you've won the ARC, how did it all go downhill’, and you know we expected that we’d be getting all the sponsors and stuff like that.
Realistically, as much as we liked to hope that it would be like that, unfortunately it wasn't that way.
And that’s not necessarily the sport’s fault, but our own ability, myself and my team. All our energy goes into building the car and getting through an event. The last thing we're thinking about by the time we get to an event is how are we going to entertain sponsors.
So, last year I went to New Zealand and we spent more money there than we would like, but it was just a breath of fresh air. And the same with this year. People are like, ‘why are you doing these events?’ And a lot of them are AMSAG events, but it's just, it's just a breath of fresh air.
What I get a kick out of is doing rallies I haven't done, and particularly when you do a blind rally. I try to explain this to people like Richie (Dalton), who will never want to do a blind rally.
You drive to a rally, and I was leaving you know, 5:00pm from work and I'd drive all through the night and get to the rally the next morning 5:00am, jump in the car at 10:00am. Then you drive down a road you've never been on and you do a stage, you come out of a section and you go on your next stage, and you have no idea where you are. I get a real big thrill out of that.
So certainly, where I am at the moment is that I was talking about maybe doing one or two ARCs this year, but in saying that, I think it's important for me, on a personal level, to have just a full year off from that top level.
With that top level, when you don't quite have the money, it puts me in a position where perhaps I shouldn't be doing it. When I don't quite have that money, you tend to put a lot of pressure and a lot of stress on yourself.
I said to Neal Bates after Bega, ‘did you enjoy not having to turn up and drive the roads and doing recce and reviewing footage?’ But Neal is a bit old school as well. He doesn't spend as much time on his notes as someone like Brendan Reeves or myself does.
So, I think after this year then I definitely have got itchy feet to come back and do more events.
Nathan Quinn has been getting plenty of seat time in his Mazda RX2. Photo: Dave King
RSM: Was it more straining financially to do the ARC or the New Zealand stuff, because you drove four different cars over there and you went back and forth all the time.NQ: Yeah, it's interesting. And at the outset we expected New Zealand to be cheaper, and if we had that time again, we probably would have just rung Race Torque and hired an R5 car.
That will give you a bit of an idea, and not everything went perfectly in New Zealand, but it was a learning curve and we got to drive the world's best roads.
I did make a (social media) post that stirred a few people up, and I can guarantee that if Bega is 10 hours away and I can drive there and do it in an RX2, I'd prefer to do that.
So yes, I would think there's definitely advantages of doing rallies in Australia. In saying that, all my team's always been volunteers, so that was one big cost that we had to overcome when we went to New Zealand.
Yeah, we've got a few volunteers and some good deals, but we're paying for a lot of things that we wouldn't normally pay for.
RSM: So, this year with your Mazda, is it just a matter of getting out there and just competing and rallying because you love it?NQ: Yeah. And it's awesome. I like that. The biggest thing I enjoy, and especially when we did that rally in South Australia in 2017 and then the Canterbury rally in New Zealand, is it's a night time rally.
I just love the features of a night time rally, I don't know what it is. You know, people complain that the dust is bad and they’re only good at night if they’re first on the road and stuff, but I've been in the back of the field, I've driven through the dust and I just get a real big kick out of it, and it makes me feel like a rally driver.
I think that I kind of miss that from a lot of national competition, that we don't do night stages, and we don't prove that we can run in all conditions. You know what I mean?
Nathan Quinn's workshop trophy cabinet is an impressive one. Photo: Peter Whitten
RSM: Rally Australia is only a few months away. Is competing in your home event a little bit dependent on whether the event's coming back to Coffs Harbour next year?NQ: Yeah, certainly. I don't want to be tricked. But if someone told me that this was the very last time, or if I got to the event and found out that it was never going to come back, I'd certainly be disappointed if I had never gotten to drive again in front of a home crowd.
And that's all it is. I don't want to spend money on this year's event because I’ve got nothing at stake.
But if someone said it's never come back to Coffs again, then it's an ego thing. When we drive in this rally here it's just a different buzz.
And I missed it last year, but at the same time too, I went spectating and had a lot of fun and it was good to see it from the other side. You sit back in awe and watch these guys and you know, it's just a different experience.
But yeah, if it turns out it's not coming back then you'd probably see me in the event, but I don't want to do it in an RX2.
Quinn drove a Mini WRC at Rally Australia in 2013, but says the cost is now out of the question. Photo: Peter Whitten
RSM: So, you'd have to look at hiring something, obviously?NQ: Yeah. Well I figured I could just pick up a Ford WRC car pretty cheap, right?
But, and that's one of those things, when we’ve got nothing at stake, and I don't want to sound like a wanker, but we don't want to turn up like we've done before in the Evo, and just be another also-ran competitor.
We want to stand out and it'd be awesome to do it in a WRC car, but we know that's a half a million dollar exercise for Australia.
But at the same time, I'd love to do it in an R5 car, but there's so many Ford Fiestas and there's so many Skodas, I'd want to do it in a different R5 car. And then obviously the same thing goes with the Evo.
So if I was going to do it this year, I'd want a bit of a point of difference.
Running a Lancer Evo at Rally Australia has little appeal to Quinn now. Photo: Geoff Ridder
RSM: You mentioned about coming back next year and maybe doing another ARC campaign. Is that likely?NQ: Yeah, certainly. As I was saying, I've said to a few people that I'm certainly getting itchy feet. I do miss the competition and keeping in touch with what's going on. I guess you miss that opportunity to be able to race against the best in the country.
And it also comes with a lot of prestige from everybody else around, the spectators and stuff like that.
RSM: Have you thought far enough ahead to think about cars and what you might drive?NQ: Certainly. I've got my eyes on a few cars, so yeah, we've got a pretty good idea of what cars we would like and we’re quite picky about the cars.
You know, I read an article the other day that you could go off and buy a second hand R5 car, but they're saying that the old R5 cars are like chalk and cheese to a new R5 car, and it'd be great to get a new R5 car, but the expense is beyond what we could ever imagine.
RSM: Is that based mainly on sponsorship in relation to which car you get, as far if you have sponsors lined up who would be wanting to go in a certain vehicle direction?NQ: It's an interesting one about sponsors, how it's about justifying their costs. So, if we could have someone buy us a car, then certainly we can afford to cover it.
We make do. I think one of the most important things for me – and full hats off to Harry and Molly and Lewis and many other drivers out there – but I have a very different lifestyle from them, and as much as I want sponsorship and want the rallying paid for, I don't think we could do the job Harry and Molly do behind the scenes.
I think that's a massive effort, but I'm at a different age and different point in my life, and as much as I want sponsors, I would also like to be able to do it on my own terms.
Quinn drove Richie Dalton's Ford Fiesta Proto in an NZRC round last year. Photo: Geoff Ridder
RSM: You’ve done both the Australian and New Zealand championships in the last two years. Do you think the ARC is good health with the way things are going?NQ: Oh certainly. What people don't see about New Zealand, and I didn’t see it, and it took me a rally to figure it out. In New Zealand, their style of roads are crowned and they’ve got the camber – they're all weather roads.
So, rallying in New Zealand is like going to a circuit. No disrespect to Hayden because he’s unbelievable, and Ben Hunt is a maniac as well, and there's a good bunch of drivers over there that are very good and very quick.
But the thing they've got on us is that every time they run that road every year, it's extra data.
Whereas here in Coffs you can drive Bucca forest and you can drive Sherwood forest and you can drive Newry forest, and within a matter of two weeks that forest is completely changed to the last time you drove.
And that's really tricky when you go to New Zealand. You might have the speed and stuff, but they have a lot of road data and that makes them very, very competitive over there.
But I would say the Australian championship is equally as healthy, and obviously Harry's our effective Hayden, and I'll be watching closely in a couple of weeks’ time to see how it goes. Obviously Hayden should have the upper hand, but I think we'll be quite surprised.
Molly pushes that Subaru really hard as well, and we've got to give her more credit than what floats around, because she's very, very good in that car.
I just think it would be nice to have two or three more of us top drivers ... we've got the same speed, if not more speed than New Zealand.
Someone made a comment about me taking the RX2 over to the Otago Rally and I said, ‘well, to be honest, I think us Aussies have done enough traveling over in New Zealand, I think it's time you guys come over here to some of our rallies’.
And not at a classic level. Ben Hunt’s an awesome guy, the coolest dude ever over there, and it'd be great to see him come over here.
Nathan Quinn. Photo: Geoff Ridder
I think a lot of it too is their car format over there as well. They've got some cool cars and cool things on them, but I think that parity between us and New Zealand makes it difficult for that to happen.
It’s easy to go to New Zealand because they’ve got a business over there of leasing cars. Whereas us, we've got maybe two companies in the country that do it, and one of them is 4000km away in Perth.
But I reckon it (the ARC) is pretty good, and certainly next year if I do get back, then I know that this time I want to have the fastest car there is available. I want to make it easy for myself, but it's not going to be easy – Harry's getting good data, Lewis is getting good data, and if I turn up I’ll be lucky to get in the top three really.
RSM: Variation in the routes the rallies are using is an important part of ensuring many drivers are in with a chance of winning then?NQ: Yeah, that's the thing. I think that's where New Zealand is very similar to the rest of the world. Someone was telling me last year that Rally Portugal is the same rally it was the previous three years, and I don't get a kick out of that.
It’s making it harder for people to emerge on the scene when you have to go to a rally for year after year to get data and get the information about a rally to be competitive.
What happened to the days where we can just turn up and be the fastest dude on a road you’ve never seen?
It’s not the same now. I think WRC is getting more and more like circuit racing, and I know we're getting short on roads and stuff, but that’s another reason why I've taken a year off, just to play around old school and have some fun.
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