The day I realised I could never be a racing driver

Forgive the sweeping aspersion but, if you delve beneath the black jackets, boat anchor chains and mountains of tattooed steak, you’ll probably find that most nightclub bouncers had career aspirations more fulfilling than standing in a dark alley, admitting patrons based on the length of their skirts.

After their planned path to a role as the Prime Minister’s detail was curtailed by a minor drug charge, the cascade of failures likely continued crashing down through police force selection, protective services officer academy and the 7-Eleven online security test like a marble through KerPlunk straws.

But standing outside a seedy joint scanning ID until 3.00am is not, by any means, the only role filled by people who dreamed big but fell short – including motoring journalists. While they will rarely admit it, a lot of people who write about cars as their day job secretly think they once had what it takes to be a racing driver.

5

This is how most motoring journalists picture themselves

With the exception of a few who do seem to have spent years on circuits including our own Newman and editor Enright whose Nurburgring lap-count is dizzying, many found a career with a pen in their hand only because the Nomex glove didn’t fit.

Not me though. I realised early on that Nigel Mansell leaves more driving talent in his hankie every time he blows his nose than I’ll ever possess, and that Jenson Button was destined to be the racing golden boy of my home county Somerset. That’s why I moonlighted as a mechanic and engineer before this role.

So imagine my surprise and horror when I recently found myself strapped into a 600kg, 200 horsepower Polaris RZR Turbo about to start a 200km off-road endurance race in the first round of the SXS Australia Championship.

5

Yup, that's me, regretting every decision that led up to this point in time

It took about 200 metres to confirm my suspicions that this would be a deeply uncomfortable experience – imagine being kicked around a desert in a large gridiron helmet while someone shovels sand into your face and you’re about half way there. And that’s when the conditions are favourable.

Throw a little rain into the equation as it did in the latter half of the race and the talc-like dust turns into dense clay that temporarily binds to the Kevlar Bridgestones before being thrown ahead of the car at high velocity, creating your own self-generated perpetual hailstorm of mud and hell.

Get behind another competitor and their flailing tyres will fire enough dirt at the radiator to cause a serious engine problem within seconds, and catch a jump or dip slightly wrong and the incredible suspension will turn on you like a rabid malamute, flipping the vehicle on its roof.

Oh, and there’s no windscreen, which means you have to wipe the helmet visor with the frequency of a windscreen wiper but with a rag that simply collects grime and makes matters worse.

5

The urge to pull over and go to sleep is extraordinary except, as a final torturous twist, I didn’t have that luxury. You see, I wasn’t actually driving and, in a moment of extraordinary weakness, I had agreed to embark on this highway to Hades as a co-driver.

There have been times in my career when I have enviously watched blistering racing cars carving corners of amazing circuits and attractive young men spraying each other with champagne on podiums but, in this moment, not only was I sure I could never have been a racing driver, but I was very glad I didn’t even try.

5

There is only one thing more frightening than being driven at 160km/h over terrain that could bog a Toyota Hilux with vision so poor I couldn’t read my pace notes 12 inches from my face, and that’s knowing the driver can’t see anything either. Actually there is now one other thing – meeting a bouncer that reads MOTOR.

Since my fleeting motorsport foray I have a renewed respect and admiration for professional racing drivers – including the one who safely drove me through the chequered flag after two hours of unforgettable discomfort, but the role has just slipped one spot down the best jobs ranking and now sits behind motoring writer and fighter pilot.