How MOTOR almost cost Warren Luff a job

Warren Luff has one of the coolest jobs in the world. When he isn’t being hired by some of the best teams in the country to race at the Bathurst 1000, he spends his days drifting cars in front of packed crowds as part of Movie World’s Hollywood Stunt Driver shows on the Gold Coast.

The beaming racer has been sliding cars professionally since 2008, but a comedy of errors which MOTOR contributed to, very nearly cost him the opportunity.

It all started innocuously enough.

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“I was standing at Brisbane Airport in 2008, about to get on a flight to go to Germany, to go do the Nürburgring 24 Hour, and a friend of mine rang me and said, ‘Oh, have you seen that Movie World have got an ad on?’,” Luff recalls.

“It was actually an ad in Auto Action, I believe. And they said, ‘Movie World's got some new stunt show that they're doing and they're advertising for drivers.’

“I was like, ‘I haven't heard a thing about it.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, there's an ad here, I'm just looking at it. But applications close today, and you've got to send a video file of what driving you've done and a whole bits and pieces.’ I'm like, ‘Okay’.

“So, he sent me the details. I quickly opened the laptop at the airport, did a quick email to them, obviously I didn't have time to send any vision or anything like that. But basically, it was like, ‘Look, I apologise for the late application, but I've only just seen this now, and I'm literally about to get on a plane and go to Europe for three weeks, but would love the opportunity to audition for the show’.

“And just put a bit of my CV on and everything like that. Before I even got on the plane, I'd had a reply going, ‘Yep, we'd love you to come along to the audition. We'll be in contact.’ And it just progressed from there.”

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Despite his late application, Luff successfully took part in the first stage of the audition process during which 200 drivers, of the more than 400 who applied, were put through their paces at Paul Morris’s Norwell complex on the Gold Coast.

It’s no spoiler to say that Luff impressed, and was invited back to take part in a second, more intensive, audition. Unfortunately, this is when things started to go off the rails.

“That second audition was on a Tuesday,” Luff explains. “And the weekend, two days prior, was the Darwin V8 Supercar round, and I was up in Northern Territory as the driving standards advisor for the Ute Series.

“So, I got to the airport on Sunday night to get on the red-eye flight, and the people from the Ute Series, they booked my flight. But the problem is, the red-eye flight out of Darwin, to fly home to Brisbane, it leaves at about quarter past midnight. So, it's actually a Monday flight. But what they did is, they booked me on the Sunday flight so, technically, I should have been flying out at 12:15 AM on Sunday morning. I'm clearly still at the race meet, can't get to the airport. So, I've got to the airport and the airline staff say ‘No, you were on last night's flight.’ And I'm like, ‘Well, can I get on?’ And the airport's full, and they tell me, ‘There's nothing available. And the next flight is the red-eye flight, tomorrow night’.”

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This was going to be a big problem for Luff, who was due to take part in the second audition on the Monday afternoon – before he would be able to leave Darwin.

“So, Monday morning I've woken up and I've rung the stunt coordinator from Movie World and I'm like, ‘Hey, I've got a problem, I'm still actually in Darwin, there was a bit of a mistake with my flight.’ He tells me, ‘Mate, no dramas. We've got the other audition Tuesday morning, come to that’.”

That would have been perfectly fine if it wasn’t for the fact that on Tuesday afternoon Luff was scheduled to fly from Brisbane to Adelaide to join a MOTOR comparison test. The second audition was set to take place at Queensland Raceway, an hour’s drive from the airport. Luff now had to fly into Brisbane in the morning, drive for an hour to the track, take part in the audition, drive another hour back to the airport, and catch a plane to South Australia.

“So, Monday night comes around, I go to the airport, and of course Murphy's Law, flight delayed,” Luff says.

“But, instead of the red-eye landing at 6:00am Tuesday morning, I didn't land until 9:00am. So, as soon as I've landed, I've rung the stunt coordinator and I say to him, ‘Hey, mate, slight problem. I've only just landed at Brisbane Airport.’ And he assures me, ‘Just get here when you can and we will rush you through.’

“I drive out to Queensland Raceway and they let me just go through the audition one after the other, so I was there for like 45 minutes. Turned around, drove straight back to the airport. Didn't have time to go home and get more clothes, had all my stuff that I had in Darwin, hopped on a plane, went to Adelaide, met the boys there. Then we drove, I think it took us a day and a half to drive to Sydney.”

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Despite the mad dash to get to the track and back, Luff was successful in his application.

“I was one of 12 people in that opening cast, and 13 years later, I'm still here,” he beams. “And of that original crew of guys that started in the original Stunt Driver Show, I'm the last remaining one.”

Luffy, from the entire MOTOR team, we’ll do our very best not to fly you halfway across the country next time you have a job interview, mate.

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