Pittwater Life January 2018 Issue

David Thomas also leads an annual
two-week USA driving tour, a tour
of England, Wales and Scotland and
a 19-night European tour staying
in exceptional hotels, eating out at
gourmet restaurants, and following
some of the world’s great passes and
roads.
He pulls in at Hills The Flower Market
on Mona Vale Road at Terrey Hills, and
over a coffee explains that he met his
wife, Maryann, in 1997, a couple of
weeks after he moved from Turramurra
into an apartment block opposite the
Newport Surf Lifesaving Club. She was
also a new resident in the block, and
told him he was in her parking spot.
“We moved together into a house in
Avalon. I had three teenage boys and
she had three teenage girls living with
her, and a son who was living with her
parents,” he tells me. “I knew I was in
trouble when I paddled out in the surf
at Newport one day, and a guy paddled
past and said, ‘Good day, Mr Brady’. The
Brady Bunch has certainly been formed,
and it was a circus, because there were
never just seven kids there, but all their
friends as well.” As David goes off to
buy a bunch of flowers for Maryann, it
is obvious, after 17 years of marriage,
and with eight grandchildren between
them, he hasn’t regretted parking in the
wrong spot.
Maryann Thomas was born and
raised in Newport, and has sailed all
her life. She was one of Katie Spithill’s
crew for the Busan Cup Women’s Match
Racing World Championships in Korea
in 2010, when the team won silver,
and 2013, when they came away with
bronze.
“Maryann sails a lot, and is very
good at it, so if I wanted to see her
at weekends I had to go sailing,”
David explains. So he directed his
competitiveness from the road and
onto the water, crewing with Maryann
for several years on the Tripp 47 yacht,
Abracadabra, and then the Sydney 38,
Eye Candy.
These days David can be found on
the 66-footer, Wild Oats X, in the Royal
Prince Alfred Yacht Club’s Wednesday
afternoon race with another driving
and sailing enthusiast, 91-year-old Bill
Buckle.
“He sits up the back, and I do a bit
of knuckle work, which at 91 he’s not
expected to do, and we’ll chat about
cars. After sailing one day he invited
me to take his new electric Tesla car
for a drive. ‘Give it some acceleration,’
he urged, so at his insistence I did, and
quick as a flash, he said, ‘You’re using
up all my battery.’”
As we walk back to the car, David
says, “It’s your turn to drive now,” and
hands me the keys. Never in my wildest
dreams did I imagine I’d have the
opportunity to drive a Porsche, and now
I hardly dare reverse out of the parking
spot for fear that I’ll put a dent in this
dream machine. However, with his
years of driver training, David knows
exactly how to instill confidence in his
nervous driver, and within minutes I’m
joyously toe-tapping between the brake
and the accelerator, as I navigate the
bends down to Akuna Bay.
Driving the Porsche up David
Thomas’s driveway and pulling up
beside his 2006 model, and his newly
restored yellow 1970s Porsche 911E, I
can only admire this dynamic 63-yearold,
who over his entire adult life has
pursued his passion for driving, and
developed this niche business for other
car and driving enthusiasts.
For more information about
Driving Adventures visit www.
drivingadventures.com.au or phone
0418 473 916.
Life Stories
CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE: And so
it began – watching his Dad change
a tyre at the family home in Revesby
in 1957; racing a Mini at Oran Park
in Sydney; getting some drift in his
Mark I Ford Escort in Austria during
the London to Sydney Marathon in
1993; race preparations at Winton in
Tasmania; taking in the Taj Mahal;
coming down from the top of Mount
Panorama during the big race at
Bathurst in the early 1990s.
The Local Voice Since 1991
JANUARY 2018 23