Overcoming the Odds.
i’m going to tell you a little bit about
how i got here how i my family made a
huge difference and why i did it so
bear with me um
and i was going to use that thing about
anthony hortons
so i’ve got to quickly skip over that
i thought a lot about what while i live
i grow meant to me i could have used a
cliche like
we all start out as seeds that were not
seeds that grow in the bush
we don’t stay in one spot and most of us
you know don’t look like a tree or grow
like a sunflower
we move around we experience the world
and we grow with the experiences we gain
it is not always a straight path or a
clear one
humans are kind of like butterflies
changing and evolving
getting better and wiser at each stage
and as each stage is a big event for
butterflies
so too is it for us the human being each
event shapes us
and gives us the chance to grow and
change
change can be good or bad it can be
something we learn from or something we
better ourselves
from being adopted changed my life
while it didn’t immediately make me grow
it changed the path that i was headed on
i understood the meaning of love for a
child you did not give birth to
it is a rare and special love which can
give a child a chance
it was only later in life that i found
out how strong that love can be
growing up in a family that while on the
surface seemed to have everything
but at home was missing time
time we couldn’t get back
time you spent with your parents it made
me grow
my mother died when i was 11. it changed
me
it made me grow my best friend died in
my arms a week later
so at 11 it made me grow
my brother who is intellectually
handicapped and autistic
was my responsibility
at 11 so that made me grow
i didn’t understand why my father went
to work every day
all day it was his way of healing it was
his way
of growing and mourning the loss
of my mother my father was a workaholic
a little emotional but my father really
knew the meaning of the words that we
see tonight
every experience he had from being in
the concentration camps
to arriving in this country brought home
the message
of while i live i grow
being alive when so many people family
and friends were not
made him grow but he did not live in
despair
he remembered that while he is alive he
would grow their memory
he would grow to be the beacon for his
family he knew life was to be celebrated
and revered
his first job in this country was at
anthony hortons
and exactly how their motto is is many
many many years later he told me about
their motto and his other motto was
he who has health has hope and he who
has hope has everything
my story is a bit of a strange one by
the time i reached 40 i’d had three
mothers two fathers and ten grandparents
and out of this lot i’d only met four of
them
i grew up in the eastern suburbs and i
went to skeggs then kambala
i was a rebel without a cause a pain in
my father’s side
a pain in everyone’s side actually and
not finding the thing i needed to grow
to be me i always did things the hard
way
and trouble was just something i tried
to get out of as i tended to get into
trouble a lot
i questioned everything and i had
tendency to argue to get my point across
but then something changed i stopped
growing
i accepted i did the right thing i got
married i had two sons
and lived the perfect eastern suburbs
life
then one day i didn’t i got divorced
there were a lot of oohs and ours and
then i met a man who would change me and
show me what
living was and help me to grow into the
person i didn’t even know i wanted to be
my father shunned me my community
shunned me
but i started living and growing again i
learned the hard way
that there are no fairies to clean cook
put away your clothes or take care of
your problems
i gave up a life of fairies to follow
love and quickly learnt to get up early
and make lunches clean house
buy cheaply and be a normal person in a
normal world
this was my balance point my tipping
point this is when i grew
i now understood people who i had never
ever had interaction with normal people
and at the time i did not realize that
this growth
and this time was to prepare me for my
dream which was years away
we had a son bringing the total to three
sons
and in time my father accepted me and my
family back into the fold
i started working for him but now i had
an idea of where i wanted to go
another a big event hit me at 38 my
father died
and this was the turning point in my
life this is when the worst thing
my world shattered at 38 i was now an
orphan
again but as i came out of mourning
i felt my wings emerge and this is where
i decided to turn my life around and
live
and grow on my terms but i would give it
all away
just to have him back for an hour i
could not even dream to fill my father’s
shoes
his footprint was gigantic and he did
things i could never ever hope to do
so i didn’t try i curled up in that
cocoon that i’d made for myself
and decided uh what i wanted to do with
my life
so into that cocoon i went an eastern
suburbs businesswoman
and emerged a tattooed purple-head
motorsport loving butterfly
it is amazing what you can do when you
feel really feel
the life around you the growth that
happens and the feeling of satisfaction
so my life in motorsport was about to
start
after sponsoring a driver for a while my
husband daniel and myself spent the next
few years
working up the ladder of motorsport as a
team starting in
f3s which are the little little tiny f1s
and ending up at gt cars winning the
bathurst 12 hour race
and being one of the most respected gt
teams in the world
um but this was not enough for me i
needed to go further
i needed to see what was on the other
side of the grandstand so to speak
there was never a doubt in my mind that
i didn’t belong there it felt right but
explaining this
to daniel and the ceo of erebus was a
bit tricky and i got the eyeball roll
oh my god here she goes again so our
journey into the world of supercars
began
a short lesson on what supercars are to
those of you who don’t know
it’s that big race every october at
bathurst
that’s what it is starting a team and
setting up everything was not easy or
cheap
but we did it in record time a supercar
season can start in late february and
finish in early december
and you are on the road every two weeks
living in motels eating in tents
but i wouldn’t change it to fund a
supercar team
it takes sponsors and it’s hard to find
them it’s always been our policy that
the team has to generate their own money
they have to pay for the series
themselves which is a basic level for a
two-car team is between
eight and twelve million dollars a year
sounds a lot to drive two cars round and
round
i spent the first couple of years with
the mercedes brand then we made a big
change
we moved the whole business from
brisbane to melbourne
left mercedes and went to holden it is
not the life for everyone
living in close proximity with 400 other
people
smelling like you have cuddled a
homeless man who reeks of ethanol
if there is anything that would this
world teaches you it’s how to handle
rejection
25 cars go out onto the track and one
comes back a winner
and sometimes your best is just not good
enough
you learn to accept this and realize
that you can’t
get over something in this sport in 15
minutes you are
in the wrong sport you do this
three times a week end as in there are
three races so you go out there three
times
and then you pack everything up
you go home monday night you are dead
and you do it all over again until the
season finishes
we are a traveling circus we are a sport
a business and an
entertainment series we have our
gladiator and we send him out in his
chariot
and we go racing we work up to 20 hours
a day
from -5 to over 40 degrees and in the
car itself
during the race it gets to about 65
degrees
there is politics arguments but the race
itself is amazing
the strategy is vital and we deal in one
thousandth
of a second decisions have to be made
instantly
preparation has to be perfect a 50 cent
o-ring
can ruin a race for you you have to
trust the people around you
you have a man’s life in your hand and
any decision you make
can and does have consequences i was the
first woman to start a v8 team
the highest motorsports series in
australia i was the first woman owner to
win the bathurst 12 hour
and i was the first woman owner to win
the bathurst 1000
but i am lucky motorsport is one sport
where gender really does not play a huge
role
you can’t fake being a mechanic you
can’t fake being an engineer
so if you do your job well you get the
job
the average wage in this sport is
between 50 and 80 000
a year so yes most of these people do it
for the love of the sport
along the way did i grow yes i did
i grew as big as jack’s beanstalk did i
live
yes i did i found what gave me the joy
of living
of knowing what living is about and
joining motorsport on one side and
having my sons and their families my
grandchildren
my sister and my brother on the other i
thought i had it all
motorsport is a male dominated industry
and i fought hard
to be respected by the other owners some
of them have been in this sport for over
30 years
it wasn’t always easy when i came into
the sport i was known as the girl who
had too much money
and would be bored of the sport in a
year or two
in fact it was really hard at times
i became tough i became hard i grew into
someone who loved
who they were and what they did and when
covert struck
we started erebus medical and supplied
free face shields
and transparent boxes for hospitals for
free
the crew would assemble thousands of
shields and deliver them to the
hospitals in all states
and the terrace tower charitable arm
donated the funds to do this
it was an amazing thing to watch nurses
crying
when you delivered the shields erebus
has now
started airbus garage and
so now we’re also in the in the business
of revamping old cars for people
a lot like a plastic surgeon
i found it hard to be in the real world
for a while we would go to a wedding and
my husband would say
not everyone wants to talk about
motorsport but as i grew i learned to
switch the motorcycle off
and at a function my mono my motto
quickly became think pink
because nothing in my world is pink so
if i think pink usually i can get away
with a few things
growth is never is a never-ending
pursuit it is something we do our entire
lives
when we stop growing we die when we’ve
achieved everything we think we can we
stop
and that is the core of what i’m saying
keep thinking you can achieve more
you can grow more you can be more and
you can live
never stop aspiring to grow as a person
many of you may know my sister monica
i know she’s here somewhere we are 19
years apart and we grew up in
at different times in different places
with different ideas
but she is one woman who grows every day
but as all sister do
sisters do i don’t agree with her most
of the time
and sometimes i do but we have each
given
each other room to grow and live the way
we want to and for this
and my family i thank god our father
instilled into us the gift of giving
monica’s mother clara instilled into us
the gift of cooking with love
and my sister monica has taken both of
these qualities and established the
charitable arm of the family business
and of course cooking cooks unbelievably
so i’m proud of her growth
it is amazing to see her learn and grow
and give
my three sons have each gone their own
way and i’m so proud of them
they are all married and i have five
grandchildren i may not be the best
grandmother
but my heart’s in there and i do buy
good toys
but remember we all influence each other
we touch
lives that sometimes we don’t even think
about sometimes a minute’s
interaction with someone you will never
see again ripples through time
more than someone you’ve known all your
life
we once met a little girl at a gt race
and we let her sit in the car
for five minutes at track because she
loved the amgs
a few years later we were at uh adelaide
racing
and we after a 20-hour day we faced a
fire a three to five kilometer walk
back to the hotel and a man in a buggy
stopped and offered us a lift
so after working for so long it was a
blessing and it turns out his best
friend
was the little girl’s father and he was
just paying it forward
motorsports and the fans of motorsport
have taught me what it is to be humble
to see the sacrifices made for their
children and the love they have for the
sport
i still find it hard to think i have
fans the people who actually want to
hear what i have to say
remember that while you live your life
has meaning
it makes no difference if you dance in
the rain in spandex
or run a multi-million dollar business
you have meaning
and you will grow you grow when you
touch other people’s lives you grow when
ideas hit you
it is the entrepreneurial spirit that
drives you to be better
to do good and to work hard towards your
goal and above all
to be true to yourself this not this
does not make you a nerd
it makes you amazing
while i live i grow is not a cliche it
is a motto
to push you into changing into growing
into changing the world start today
change something small and see the
ripples it has
across your lifetime thank you very much
you