My love for Corvettes dates back to 1965 when as a 9 year old, my big brother and I bought a car each and went "slot car" racing at Sheldon raceway in Franklin Street. (Slot cars were a more powerful version of Scaleltrix and Sheldon Raceway had an 8-car wide racetrack). My car was a 1963 split window Corvette, painted gold and from that day forward I always wanted a real one.

The years past and I gradually grew up (I know some of you disagree) and my first car was a 100E Ford Prefect panel-van with a 186 Holden motor that I bought from an old drag racer when I was 15 and converted it for street use. That got defected and I discovered wine, women and s... so my next few cars were a Morris 1000, VW, Cortina, all "hotted up" a bit and then a 1976 Charger, which was my honeymoon car.

I got back into drag racing when my sister started racing a 308 Holden powered rail and her partner raced a blown 427 Chevy powered Mazda Capella Gasser. I was crew chief and believe it or not, Leann was the recovery car driver until Kym's parachute failed to open at the newly opened Tailem Bend Dragstrip and he went rallying at the end of the quarter-mile.

Kids and suburbia took over for the next 15 years until I moved to the USA in 1993 for 2 years for work. It was a start up operation so I went for the first nine months by myself and on the weekends I wasn't working I would go "test driving" Corvettes all over the State of Ohio, where I was living. My favorite spot was a caryard that specialized in Corvettes in Napoleon, up the top of Ohio (same place Neil "moonwalker" Armstrong came from). With over 200 Corvettes in the showroom I was like a kid in a candy store until they stopped letting me drive them as they realized I was never going to buy one and my Aussie charm started to wear off.

Leann, moved over to US with the kids in January 1994 and on May 30th we were awoken by a call from my best friend's wife back in Adelaide at 2am to say that he had finally succumbed to cancer. Leann looked at me and said, "Well you aren't going to live forever, so go buy a Corvette". I signed up within a few days.

We just happened to be leaving for a week's holiday and were driving south down to Nashville. We stopped at a car swap meet at Dayton, Ohio and I saw this bright white 1982 Corvette for sale at US$9,000 amongst the many others. The owner was nowhere to be seen so I left a phone message on his home phone, and he phoned me back that night on my "brick sized" mobile just after we had visited the newly opened Corvette museum at Bowling Green. I said to him that if he would accept US$7500 and the car was any good I was a taker. At the end of the week's holiday on the way back up to home we called in at the blokes home and at about 11pm I became the proud owner, driving it home that night.

Some 7 months later I loaded it into a container, in -15C temperature for the ride home to Adelaide, after firstly chucking Leann's furniture out of the container to make room.

We got back at Christmas 94 and in January after talking to Laurie I attended my first Corvette Club meeting at the Riding Club. I also went and saw Bob McMillan and tried to book the car in for conversion. I remember his total disinterest and his disbelieving eyes, letting me know he thought I was just another "wanna-be". So when the Corvette was unpacked from the container on February 21st and I headed out to Bob, it was a struggle to actually book it in and get a date when it would be completed. Some 5 months later, in my shiny white converted Corvette I was able to show up at the Riding Club with the real thing and I have been coming ever since.

I have kept the car as stock standard as possible as all my hotted up cars were always breaking down. I have had 15 years of relatively trouble free motoring although I haven't driven it much lately, ( I hear you all saying).

The only problem I have had culminated on a New Year's trip to Tasmania in 2006 with Gerry and Lyndal and Gary and Jane. For some time the car would not restart when it got hot and it happened again in Ballarat, so I went to an auto electrician who's 50 years in the game immediately diagnosed that these old chev engines with single stage starter motors need a full 12 volts to kick them over and if the wiring is old or compromised they act like they are dead. He put a remote starter button under the bonnet that connected the starter motor directly to the battery and I happily then toured around Tassie, and if I had trouble I would just lift the bonnet and press the button.

All until we were saying goodbye to Gerry and the gang at out last fuel stop at Keith. By that stage my technique was perfected so I could stand at the drivers position with one hand on the bonnet, my foot on the accelerator, and press the starter button ready to drop the bonnet once it was alight. Unbeknown to me, one of us had knocked the car into "drive" and as this arrangement bypassed any safety lock outs, when I pressed the starter button it started and moved forward rapidly heading towards highway one with me trying to scramble into the seat while trying to get my foot off the Go pedal and onto the anchors.

We fortunately stopped and after cleaning out the underpants resaid our good-byes with Gerry relieved that we hadn't hit reverse and backed into his car.

Anyway I still love the car and we love the Club but Leann calls it a "go-kart" because it's too close to the ground and hard on the suspension and she would much rather we join the Lexus car club!

By the way it got its nickname from my kids because its Ohio number plates were PWF 772 which they said stood for "Pee Wee French".