Persistent author turns spotlight on Kiwi ace

Some stories beg to be read, others to be written and before Tim Hanna had completed his last project, an opportunity had already presented itself.
While the motorbike enthusiast was still researching his book on John Britten, an unfamiliar name, Kim Newcombe, began to be mentioned with increasing regularity, prompting Hanna's interest.
"I was talking to a lot of guys who had been racing, some of them GP racers, and I began to hear the name a lot," he says.
"A good friend of mine was a New Zealand 250cc champion and he knew Kim had won a few races, but he didn't know much more.
"That surprised me because people in the motorcycling fraternity tend to be real trainspotters - everyone knows everything in detail."
He tried to find out more about Hanna from media of the time but largely drew a blank.
"It was a time where there wasn't a lot of reporting about motorsport ... despite drawing huge crowds at the time, so I decided to keep looking."
The breakthrough came for Hanna when he found out that Newcombe's widow, Janeen, was living just outside Auckland.
"I rang her up then went to meet her and she and I talked off and on for the next six years."
Hanna said the book focuses on Newcombe - particularly in its early stages - but it also looks outwards at the whole GP scene at the time.
"So if you read this you also get to know about the tracks, the riders and the people involved.
"It's a dramatic narrative and there are interactions between people - like [former world champion] Phil Read and Newcombe - who still is such a character."
Read, like most of the Continental Circus - as the fraternity of grand prix motorcyclists were then known - was taken by surprise by Newcombe's arrival on the scene in 1971.
"They didn't know about the Konig until they started seeing lap times in qualifying at the West German GP, which got everyone asking: what what is this machine and who is this guy?"
Hanna started working on the book and when Janeen showed him some 8mm film that the author said had been shot with a "good editorial eye", he began to think about a film to accompany the book.
He joined forces with a production company and started to make the film, but unfortunately fell out with the company about the film's direction.
"It was a horrible time for me and really put a spanner in the works, but I got back to the book and got it finished ... then I got together with a production company based in Queenstown and the new film will be finished by the end of the year."
His criticism of the first film was that it was "fashionably" bleak. The new one follows a path more aligned to the book.
"This one is a real celebration. You can't get away from the fact that there is a tragedy at the heart of it, but there should be more than that and there is in the new film - it's such a neat story."
Hanna has unearthed a real Kiwi legend and thrust him into the spotlight.
REVIEW
Kim: The Kiwi on the Konig
by Tim Hanna, Finish Line, $29.99
If, like most Kiwis, you have never heard of Kim Newcombe,  this is the volume that will fill that gap in your knowledge.
Kim: The Kiwi on the Konig is about as complete a biography as you'll ever read.
It is a thick volume laden with interesting text, and to a lesser extent images of Newcombe, documenting his tragically short life.
For those of you who baulk at weighty tomes, don't despair - the language Hanna uses is compelling. For all its bulk, the book is a page-turner.
The author is a obviously a motorcycle enthusiast, and he has exhaustively researched the  competitor who came through  the ranks to be runner-up at the 500cc World GP Motorcycle championship.
His admiration of the Kiwi lad, who teamed up with a German hydroplane racer to develop and design a motorbike that was capable of world domination, is obvious.
Hanna has produced two other best-sellers: John Britten and One Good Run - The Legend Of Burt Munro, and it wouldn't surprise me if this book has the same success -  it's a compelling read, and not only for motorbike fans because the human-interest angle is the key.
Newcombe had to face similar challenges to the other Kiwi motorcycling legends and this book - and more than one planned documentary  - is likely to propel Newcombe's exploits nearer to legend.
The book's tragic ending gives it a slightly  disappointing conclusion, but Newcombe's  role as one of the protagonists in a classic era of motor racing is one worth celebrating - ultimately its sad ending gives his life story a plot more readable than many novels.