The car began its life as the Kaditcha K583 when it first appeared in the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship and was built by the Queensland based Kaditcha owner and former McLaren engineer Barry Lock after he was approached by Brisbane accountant, property developer, timber mill owner and former speedway racer Bap Romano in 1981 with the idea of building a Le Mans type coupe.

This led to the false belief that it was built to the Group C regulations Bap Romano's ultimate ambition was to take the car to the famous 24 Hour French classic in an All-Australian challenge.

Romano, driving in Class B (1.6 to 3 litres) suffered a crash in its first lap of practice, forcing the Kaditcha to be a non-starter for both heats on race day.

The car suffered yet another suspension failure during practice and a DNF due to a burnt out coil in Heat 1 of Round 2 of the championship at the Adelaide International Raceway.

[1] The coil was replaced in time for Heat 2 where Romano and the car scored their first win, coming home 5.5 seconds in front of eventual series champion Hopwood.

In November, Romano entered the K583 in the Sports Car/GT Invitation as a support to the 1983 Australian Grand Prix at the 1.609 km (1.000 mi) Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne.

Jones won the first 15 lap preliminary race from Peter Brock driving Bob Jane's Chevrolet Monza with Romano back in third place in front of the Porsche 935/78 of Momo Wheels founder, Italian Gianpiero Moretti.

[2] Despite the Kaditcha-Cosworth giving away over 300 bhp (224 kW; 304 PS) to the turbocharged Porsche and about 200 bhp (149 kW; 203 PS) to the 6.0L V8 Chevrolet Monza, Romano used the superior handling and aerodynamics of the car to finish the 15 lap race only 6.79 seconds behind Jones and 3.22 seconds clear of Brock showing that both car and driver had the potential to be a regular race winner.

During this time, the Cosworth DFV's original builder Ross Calgher of Nicholson McLaren rebuilt the engine in late 1983 at the team's base in Slacks Creek south of Brisbane.

Romano claimed in a Brisbane newspaper that it was 'ridiculous' for Brock to pretend that his 1984 Le Mans challenge was an 'All-Australian' effort since the Porsche was made in West Germany.

After changing to the larger, 560 bhp (418 kW; 568 PS) engine during practice, Romano and Costanzo were able to improve their times by around 4 seconds per lap.

Following numerous gearbox and brake problems throughout practice, as well as battling a severe under-steer problem on Sandown's new, slower, infield section (a legacy of the extra 70 kg weight the car was carrying at the front, something even the ground effect aerodynamics could not overcome), Costanzo eventually qualified the car in 13th position (1st in AC) with a time of 1:38.400, some 1.9 seconds in front of Allan Grice driving his 1984 Australian GT Championship winning 6.0L Chevrolet Monza, but 6.8 seconds slower than the pole time set by eventual race winner and 1984 World Endurance Champion Stefan Bellof driving his Group C Rothmans Porsche 956B.

That plus the appearance of other specially built cars such as a 5.0L Lola T610-Chevrolet for Terry Hook (2nd), and the Mazda 13B powered JWS C2 of Jeff Harris (3rd in 1984 & 1985), saw Romano only finish 6th in his title defence.

The series was won by 1982 champion Chris Clearihan driving the Steve Webb owned Kaditcha Chev he had driven to the runner up spot in 1984.

The 1985 Sports Car title had seen the debut of the John Bowe driven Veskanda Chevrolet built by former ASCC competitor Brenie Van Elsen (the Veskanda, unlike the Romano, had been built to conform not only to CAMS Group A Sports Car rules, but was also FIA Group C and IMSA compliant).

Going into the left hander before the right hand Dunlop Loop after the hill, Romano couldn't slow the car and it drove straight through the infield.