Most of us who were around when John ran the RX7 V8 will remember that terrible crash at the end of the front straight at Puke where he hit the inside fence and one of the posts came up through the floor and did a lot of damage to one of his legs.
A week or so later Rob Ward and I drove up from Tauranga to visit him in Middlemore hospital to check on his progress. John complained that the rescue team had cut his overalls off to work on his injuries and asked if we could make him a new driver suit ( we were supplying some of his safety gear back then). I suggested we should wait until we knew for sure that he wasn't going to lose his leg, otherwise it would save us some money to make a new suit with just one leg. Apparently the nurses down the corridors from his ward could hear John's very colorful, loud and detailed response! RIP John.