Ken, I think it was the second weekend of December back in 1980 - and Donnie and Neil may have been here for two consecutive weekends running 'saloons' at Waikaraka Park. I had met a really nice guy called John Rush who worked for a second hand dealer on the yard next to Paul Fahey's Fiat Centre at the southern/monument end of Otahuhu. I had bought a car from John - no fault of his but the worst car I have ever owned - in late 1980 and he'd told me how he'd helped rebuild the Leckie Capri so clearly he was a fan.

He was also involved in stockcars and had mentioned that 'they' were hoping to bring out Donnie and Neil. When it was confirmed, John asked me if I'd like to attend a barbeque that was being held 'on the forecourt' at lunchtime on the Saturday. John would also give me four passes for that night. I arrived with a friend and apart from John, we 'knew' no one. PBF was there, as was Dennis Marwood - we recognised them, and no doubt some other stalwarts that we didn't recognise were also lurking about.

Donnie and Neil were centre of attention and initially I thought we might just politely devour a sausage and bugger off - but seemingly in a flash, the Kiwis were talking amongst themselves meaning that D & N were 'free'. We didn't need to be asked twice so we started with 'Howdy' and about an hour and a half later, we were talking with Alabama accents - we talked Indy 500, we talked IROC, Petty, Cale - the fight had been the previous year - we talked Formula 1 a bit...my mate and I had these two legends to ourselves and they seemed happy to talk racin'.

I wrote about it in NZCC a couple of years ago and still remember Donnie's deep passion for racing - "Daytona - I love it...I wish it was tomorrow" and man, he meant it.

Anyway, I've gone on too long...but meeting them came about because I'd bought a turd, which kind of made it ok.