Graeme Crosby hasn't been to the Cemetery Circuit since 1980.
But it will all come back to him astride his motorcycle on Sunday when he rides the circuit as this year's "Legend."
"Croz" was really getting into things on his way to becoming one of this country's greatest riders when he competed at Wanganui through the mid-late 1970s' Marlboro Series.
The opposition then was extremely strong even by world standards.
Motorcycle historian Ray Whitham writes: "By 1976 the Cemetery Circuit Marlboro meeting was a showpiece of international motorcycling and over 15,000 spectators flocked to see the international stars in action on the latest Grand Prix machinery.
"At the end of the day the name on everyone's lips was that of Graeme Crosby, a laid-back Kiwi dude, originally from Blenheim but then of Auckland, who had wowed the record crowd and unnerved the opposition on his fire-breathing Yoshimura Kawasaki 1000 to pick up a fourth and sixth in the two Marlboro Series heats."
Crosby was back again to repeat the dose on Boxing Day 1977 on an even more modified Yoshimura Kawasaki 1000 and finished the day with two outstanding third places. British Isle of Man Junior TT winner of that year, Chas Mortimer, a Cemetery Circuit rival of Crosby's in those two years, rated him the best four-stroke rider in the world."
Crosby had previously won two NZ Castrol 6-hour endurance classics at Manfeild in 1975 and 1976, riding a 900cc Z1 Kawasaki and doing both without a co-rider.
In 1977 he won it again, this time with Australian Tony Hatton, with whom he also finished third in the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hour Endurance classic in Japan the following year.
Graeme Crosby made it to the UK in 1979 and over the next four or so years became one of the world's very best, won world titles and had great success on the famous Isle of Man TT circuit.
But after many, many famous circuits, Crosby rates the Cemetery Circuit as one of his favourites.
He remembers what it was like in the late 1970s: "Probably from an historical and very impactual point-of-view, Wanganui has always been up there.
"All of the pictures you see are of lamp-posts, curbs, straw bales attached to lamp-posts, straw bales on the edge of the track - and the cemetery, of course.
"In those days, it was a big race. People ask, 'what was your most exciting one (track)?' It has to be Wanganui. And then you tell them that go through the cemetery, you tell them you have railway lines to cross - and everyone says, 'What?'
"That's good, because when you turn up in the UK, you've done all that stuff - and they throw a circuit at you like Northern Ireland. There are bits there that remind you of Wanganui, bits that remind you of Gracefield (Lower Hutt), or somewhere else in New Zealand."
Crosby retired probably earlier than expected because of growing disillusionment with the Grand Prix scene and the way it was going. And he stopped competing almost altogether, apart from an endurance race or two in Japan or Australia. No clubman's meetings either - "I've avoided doing that."
But he attended an Isle of Man 100th anniversary in 2007, and was recently in the deep south for the Burt Munro Challenge meeting, where he was guest speaker.
Now he's back in Wanganui. It's 30 years - but rest assured he remembers it well.
On that 1975 Marlboro meeting:
"The field was very strong - you see some of the posters from the early days, it's absolutely phenomenal who was in the field.
"Greg Hansford was second in the world 250cc championship, Pat Hennan was a leading candidate for world champion a while later on, the Sale brothers from Team Kawasaki in Australia, there were a lot of Americans there.
"It was a pretty big field, almost the whole alphabet. Almost the whole field had a letter. They were a thick group of people, reprobates from all over the world - and that was the fun of it."
Crosby was known for his enthusiasm and his wheelies. There just might be one or two of those on Sunday.
Cemetery comeback for Crosby
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