There’s something about live motorsport that keeps us coming back… despite its best efforts.

On the face of it, seeing cars race right in front of you, wheel-to-wheel, at speeds up to 350km/h couldn’t sound sexier – especially if it’s for the first time. Television, you could tell any uninitiated, doesn’t do it justice. Zooming in and out on the cars, and other unknown technical things, seems to visually slow down a spectacle that’s kind of all about, well, speed.

It’s not until you’re standing at Eau Rouge, or even the outside of Turn Nine at Albert Park, and see a racing car come past – especially the ground-hugging fighter jets that are F1 – that you can know for yourself just how surreally fast some motorsport disciplines are.

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It’s not just circuit racing, either. Top fuel dragsters are bucket-list worthy – despite the earplugs and earmuffs, and still the lifetime of low-level tinnitus. And you can’t beat the smell of a night at the speedway, being violently peppered with ball bearings of clay.

Of course, for any Drive To Survive watchers in your circles who you’ve managed to rope in for a first-time trip to the track, you might have to explain away a few more endearing things.

Firstly, racetracks are normally hours away from a capital city, that’s correct; and yes, often in a dusty paddock. The food is normally that yellow, and that expensive, and that is indeed the queue for the portaloos.

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You’ll need a small loan to buy a team-branded jacket, there’s often a grandstand in the way, and then there’s general confusion of not really knowing what’s going on – which is all totally normal.

Unlike any stadium-based sport where it’s all right there – the live action with a scoreboard and big screen – when you go to a live motorsport event you accept that for much of the experience, it can be tricky to know who’s actually winning. Look confused at a car race and you’ll blend right in.

At this year’s Australian Grand Prix, I approached a packed spectator mound to see hundreds of people with their backs to the track, turned instead to watch a big-screen TV, during the most exciting stage of the race.

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Then there’s the other way to enjoy live car racing, which is to go and barely be aware that there’s a car race going on at all.

We’re all familiar with the type of motorsport fan who spurns the lap-by-lap specifics and instead remains steadfastly focused on consuming alcohol beside a tent – in such quantities their eyes slowly start pointing in different directions. There’s nothing quite like going to a car race and being able to look forward to watching it on TV. As if you hadn’t seen it at all.

This practice seems popular from Bathurst to the Nürburgring 24 Hour which, when I went, felt like a Berlin rave which just happened to have an endurance motor race going through its middle. Watching people shoot fireworks at the cars, in the middle of the night, is also pretty exciting.

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I’m not saying I partook in any such activities, but things are a bit more sensible these days, and for some of my mates, the glamorous sheen has all but worn through.

“I’ll go on Saturday but don’t think I’ll go on Sunday,” read the limp message from one of my buddies as we approached the Australian Grand Prix weekend. “It’s just too much hassle, will watch it from home”.

I totally get it – but the deep-fried mystery meat on a stick doesn’t quite taste the same in your living room.

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