KEY POINTS:
From the Stone brothers' Onewhero home it was a hop over the Tuakau Bridge, up River Rd and Buckland Rd and Ross and Jimmy were there.
For the Radisichs it was a slow crawl down Great South Rd.
But the destination was the same - Pukekohe Park Raceway.
In the 60s it was fair fizzing some weekends. The New Zealand Grand Prix, in which Paul Radisich's father, Frank, would regularly compete, attracted the likes of Formula One world champions Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Jochen Rindt.
Ford driver Craig Lowndes calls it the last of the old school tracks but this weekend it is the last time the V8 Supercars will mix it at the old school.
That means one thing for the Stone brothers: their last opportunity to win a round at their home track. Ross Stone, the talkative one, has a desire that is unambiguous.
"I don't think there's anything more that we want than to win at Pukekohe," he said. The Counties boys have done pretty much everything else in the sport, including winning the Supercars championship in 2003, 04 and 05.
It will be tough, Ross Stone reckons, because the top Holden teams, Toll HSV and HRT, "have really got their act together".
Add to that the fact Pukekohe has been a graveyard for Ford - no round wins and just one win in 18 races in the six years the Supercars have come here - and you can see why Stone's optimism is cautious at best.
Paul Radisich has less grandiose goals. Team Kiwi Racing aren't up there with the really big boys yet and he has had a slow start after his massive prang at Bathurst last year.
The Rat will need all of his local knowledge to nudge his car near the front on this don't-blink- or-you'll-miss-it circuit where drivers will take just 54 seconds to propel their V8s from start line to finish.
"From a pure driving point of view I guess it's a pretty basic track," he said. "But the bumps actually make it quite technical."
He should know every bump. He won the New Zealand Grand Prix here twice in the 1980s when he was chasing an open wheel dream.
It's his best memory of the place as his father built the engine and was his mechanic, achieving his dream of winning his national championship, albeit with his son in the glory seat.
When the chequered flag drops on the final race of the season at Phillip Island in December, it might also fall on Radisich's career, though "never" is not a word he wants to utter yet.
At least he gets the luxury to choose. The Grand Old Girl of New Zealand motorsport has no sucha reprieve.
So the V8 Supercars will leave Pukekohe for the last time today, taking the estimated $12 million of economic benefits 100km down the road to Hamilton.
It will be horse power, not horsepower, that pushes the financial buttons in Franklin district now. Some 600 thoroughbreds will use the track that this week made up the infield as their training base in the controversial partnership between the Auckland and Counties Racing Clubs. Small men with squeaky voices will take over from large men with tattoos.
Motorsport - and V8s in particular - has a culture of its own that doesn't fit neatly into any category, despite all the cliches. Yes, there were black jeans; cans of Jim Beam mix's consumed before 10am; more hair on chins than on heads; cleavage, even when the products didn't warrant it; the smell of petrol and methanol jostling with cheap cooking oil for dominance; pit girls geared up to absorb three days of leering.
The girls might be ogled, but the real eye candy lines the grounds and stalls. The latest Holdens and Fords, all rippling muscles and Turtle Wax sheen. This is sport, true, but sport for those who find themselves dislocated from what we in the media would describe as the mainstream codes (and, in fairness, some of the patrons looked dislocated from society itself).
The V8s are Australasia's answer to the popular Nascar series in America.
The reason for their popularity can be boiled down to one simple philosophy, articulated perfectly by a punter at Thursday morning's Ford breakfast, which kicked off the Blue Oval marque's festivities this weekend: "They are cars the normal person can relate to," he said.
So are the drivers. To a man they seem quick-witted yet with a common touch you don't often see in more media-managed sports these days.
For example, would a Black Cap or All Black get away, like Jim Beam Racing's Steven Johnson did, with calling his wife their favourite kitchen appliance, or admitting he could burp the alphabet (and hint that he might be able to fart the national anthem).
The legions that turn up to Pukekohe this weekend like their heroes uncut. They like their tracks fast too. Pukekohe is fast all right, and they can see every curve from the grandstand.
That won't happen at Hamilton, a street circuit, but who knows, it might even be better.
Ask Paul Radisich and the Stone brothers, though, and they'll tell you, it'll never be the same.
