IF IT wasn’t for Wayne Gardner I wouldn’t be writing this. I daresay my life would have played out in a way that would be so different from the one I’ve lived it would be near impossible to speculate where it may have turned and landed.

It’s not because we’re both from Wollongong; spending our formative years next to the crashing waves of the Pacific, nestled between the sands of the beach and the peaks of the escarpment; our lungs coated in the metallic fog of the steelworks.

Nor is it because we share a love of all things two-wheeled.

It comes down to a singular moment when I was 10 years old and an act of kindness that still reverberates with me 22 years later.

The city we both grew up in is the type of place that defines close-knit, even if our time there was a generation apart. It meant even for someone like me – a kid 27 years his junior – was never far from Wayne. In my case, it manifested itself in sharing a classroom with one of his nieces.

On a school excursion to Sydney where her mother came along, I used my childish curiosity to ask about Wayne with some awe and left it at that.

A few weeks later, an otherwise normal morning would change everything. Entering the classroom, I was caught by surprise to find a pile of various pieces of paper on the chair tucked into my desk.

On closer inspection I could not believe what I was seeing.

The mass was not some detritus or schoolboy prank; instead a bright red Coca Cola Commodore, a white and blue Rothmans Honda motorcycle and all these images of Wayne appeared in posters and stickers.

They were all personally signed.

What choice did I have but to elevate him on a pedestal higher than the peak of Mt Kembla I could see from the schoolyard?

I fell for motorsport at that moment. It was a slow courtship at first, but by the time puberty appeared on the horizon I was smitten by most things fast and loud.

Fast forward a few years and after a career-path twistier than Mount Panorama’s famous track, I found myself making a crust as a motorsport journalist. For that, I did not need a qualification in forensics to trace the cause all the way to Wayne and his family.

That’s not what I do for work anymore, but my admiration for Wayne and his family’s act of generosity has not diminished.

So much so days before the release of Wayne, the documentary following Gardner’s life from childhood to championship, I already had my tickets and seats lined up.

One of the challenges of documentaries, and particular those in sport, is re-telling a story that is often already deeply-known and well-told. Wayne is more than that.

There’s a poetry in the words of Mamoru Moriwaki when he speaks of Gardner as a young racer who grew with each challenge.

The animated scenes and flashbacks to an ordinary kid with an astonishing penchant for going fast add light to the story, while the emotion of Gardner’s sickening crash with Franco Uncini early in his grand prix career remains fresh despite the 35 years that have passed since.

There’s your standard Australian larrikinism, boozing, fast women and faster bikes littered throughout along with the surprising revelation Gardner was an early adopter in using a sports psychologist. It was a bold move in a time when any sort of assistance in that aspect was considered a weakness than another tool to call upon.

The film is also an echo of an older Australia, with Gardner the talisman in telling that story.

The height of his fame coincides with a country celebrating the bicentenary of European settlement and rejoicing in its own unique identity. A time when everything looked like a Ken Done painting. The archival footage adds a colour to the story and elucidates an era that seems a world away from the place we live in today. It was a lucky country then. Today it’s near impossible to avoid the news or thinkpieces of how it’s one of great political divide, incompetency and disillusion. It’s a country where the idea of a fair go is not missing, but can often feel like it’s in deep hiding. Wayne comes to feel like a nostalgic trip to that simpler time when we all had less to worry about.

Wayne Gardner, both as a character and a rags to riches triumph, has the sense of being a product of the period. The film celebrates it because we now know how rare these stories are.

There are enough motorcycles and racing highlights for the anoraks among us, but they’re a supporting cast.

The real story is told in two themes; the love between Wayne and Donna that survives through the early days, marriage, divorce and their remaining friendship is the first.

The second is grit. Wayne, it’s acknowledged in the film, is not the fastest rider or the one blessed with the most natural ability of his generation. In its place he had a determination, drive and bravery that his peers could not touch. It’s sold as an Australian quality unique to him among his peers on the grid.

The tale of a kid from the ‘Gong graduating from metalworker to world champion in a decade would be considered a Hollywood fantasy if it didn’t actually happen. That it did proves it was a story destined to be told.

I’m grateful it was a cinematic experience but that’s not all.

In the early days of my time as a motorsport scribbler I was lucky enough to interview Wayne. Late at night and from a shoe-boxed sized room above a shop in Sydney’s inner-west, I moved past the stomach-churning nerves of speaking with heroes and phoned through to his base in Barcelona. At the end of the business stuff I told him I was from Wollongong and was trying to spend the best part of my free-time on the tiny motorcycle I owned then.

I also took the chance to say thanks for his gift all those years ago. The posters, and how life had led me to this moment.

WORDS: Lewis Isaacs

Lewis Isaacs is a freelance journalist, documentary creator and video producer based in Sydney, commencing his professional career with a lengthy stint at Auto Action magazine and having gone on to contribute to several notable publications, including Top Gear Magazine, MOTOR and Supercars.com. His recent film documenting the return of Sydney Rugby League club, The Glebe Dirty Reds, aired on FOX Sports around Australia. Follow Lewis on Twitter @LewisLivesHere.