And true to his word, the knockabout larrikin sports superstar from Queanbeyan, Mark Webber, stripped to his underpants to pull on his motorcycle riding gear and rejoin movie star Eric Bana on the pair's whistlestop journey to Victoria.

The two old friends stopped by the Canberra Kart Racing Club on Tuesday to open an extension of the circuit, which is now renamed Circuit Mark Webber.

It was 30 years ago that Webber took his first tentative laps of the kart racing circuit at Pialligo as a junior just starting out.

He was "stoked" to return and cut the ribbon to open the extended 1110-metre track, which he says was instrumental in his path to a Formula One motor racing career.

It was from the Pialligo track where Webber embarked on a stellar career which would take him overseas to race in Formula Three, Mercedes sports cars, Formula One with four separate teams, and then winning the World Endurance Championship with the factory Porsche team.

Webber, to his credit, has never diminished nor forgotten his local roots, nor the fact that it was another of Queanbeyan's favourite sons, rugby union legend David Campese, who helped fund his way into a European race team.

"I still remember the smell of the two stroke and the emotion of it, going home from the track excited and not being able to sleep at night, having that passion and that [motor racing] dream," he said.

"And looking at the posters of my heroes on my bedroom wall and wondering how I would ever go from Fairbairn, as it was then, to race in Monaco and tracks over there [in Europe].

"It's surreal to come back here, to be honest.

"There are still a lot of things which bring back some tremendous memories for me here."

Webber, together with fellow revhead and filmstar Eric Bana are riding BMW motorcycles from Noosa to Melbourne, stopping overnight at Mudgee and Albury before finishing up at Albert Park for this Sunday's opening race of the Formula One season.

"It's just a couple of mates on a bike ride, no big deal, no cameras, no fanfare," Bana said, relaxed and content to step out of the limelight.

Theo Dimarhos, a Canberra businessman and former president of the Canberra Hellenic Club, well remembers the early days of karting when Webber was a highly talented 15-year-old racer with a huge future ahead of him.

"Mark, his dad and me and a whole bunch of other local racers used to drive in convoy to kart races interstate and camp out at the tracks," he said.

"We were there in Melbourne to see Mark's first Formula One race. We had a big banner made up at turn one saying 'Go Pottsy!'.

"Even when he was a star with the Williams and Red Bull [Formula One teams], he would stop through here and we would all go karting together like the old days."

These days Webber has his own clothing line, commentates on Formula One for the UK's Channel Four TV coverage and is a brand ambassador for Rolex, Porsche and Red Bull.