Karl, a long time Renault owner, shares how he traded France for Japan via a hospital bed …

This story goes beyond just roadster ownership. Before taking delivery of a 1994 Clubman I used to own a RenaultSport Clio. However, prior to that I was not interested in cars. I drove like an idiot, which resulted in almost killing myself after failing to go around a corner — although at the speed limit — but too fast for the actual corner. I went through a couple of fences, a big road sign, and landed in a small clearing, stopping 30 meters from a cliff face.

In 2006 I decided to head to a race track. Back then, no friends of mine were doing track days and I only knew about them via urban legends. People on forums talked lot about going, but never actually got there. In June 2006 I went to Wakefield Park Raceway and I have never looked at cars in the same way.

Unfortunately, the Clio gave out in early 2009. Having had drive shaft issues its entire life didn’t help the poor French gearbox. This problem was fixed 3 weeks prior, and I had a car that I thought finally didn’t understeer. I say thought because it turns out that I was simply driving around the problem. After 5 years of ownership and dozens of track days, the gearbox surrendered and blew into small pieces on the way home. The car is still the only 172 example to carry some rare imported tuning parts.

2009 was a year of trials. It started and ended with a big bang. I promised my self that I would get away from a car for 12 months. At this point I had heavily gotten into cycling and it was my only mode of transport. I would ride in sunshine, rain, hail and everything in between. I discovered that not only it keeps you fit, but it helps you get stronger mentally and physically and lose weight. Everything you need to race a car. Plus I thought since you can’t drive fast on roads, the only way to thrill is to ride. When I look back, all those pointed to the inevitability I just didn’t know would be so big.

In November 2009 I bought my first road bike - A full carbon Trek Madone, no less. At the same time I also committed to the purchase of a 94 MX5 Clubman. The Clubman is an Australian only model, with stiffer suspension, more chassis bracing, LSD, deleted A/C and power steering. Some even had lighter wheels. The previous owner has no less than 8 other cars and used to be the 2007 Formula 3 Champion’s team manager. The 2007 champion, Chris Barry, works at the same company as me.

Chris is also a multiple PRB Clubman Racing Champion, and it was at a cold July Circuit Club track day that we struck up the conversation about my next car. PRB had also attended the track day to train their race series drivers and tune a brand new customer’s car. It was through PRB that I met Jono. Jono is your typical Aussie bloke, and during the course of the day he casually mentioned he was selling one of his cars, an old blue MX5. I think the seed for ownership had long been planted in my head by roadster owner friends, Matt and Andrew. I wanted a car in 2010 that was cheap, light and RWD. Logic dictated that it could only be a roadster - it was the only car for me … 

Several weeks later, Matt and I drove 300km to meet Jono and test drive the car. At this point it looked more brown than blue and had a mismatch of bits and pieces from previous Kangaroo damage (yes, Kangaroo damage). It was a real nugget. Over a cup of tea in his kitchen, overlooking a yard full of cars and motor bikes, including two brown Rover SD1s, we shook hands on a deal.

Sadly due to his various race commitments, (Jono looks after F1, V8, Super Bike, F3 and a host of other international races) the repair on the car was delayed. The original September delivery was pushed to October, then November, and beyond.  During this time, the mechanic repairing the car lost his mother, Jono himself lost his mother, and I crashed my brand new Madone pushbike into a car at 35KM/H.

I went into surgery the night of the crash. It was no small accident, being coma induced upon admission, with equal odds that I would wake up or I wouldn’t …