KEY POINTS:
Those inspirational New Zealanders who suddenly find themselves under the dictates of the Big Red Book should first be lauded for unnatural strength of character.
Surely anyone who can sit through an evening of the reminiscences and roasts, the heartfelt tributes and the sentimentality that go with being the subject of a This Is Your Life (TV One, 8.30 Sunday night) should automatically qualify as one of the nation's greats.
Sunday night's recipient of the accolade, this year's Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, was the youngest yet. Those of us unfamiliar with the rites of the race and who thought that bottle of milk he showered around the place after his victory was because he wasn't old enough for champagne can be forgiven the blunder. Dixon is just 28.
The racing car star showed the new generation are more than up to the extreme levels of fortitude and graciousness under pressure the show requires.
Dixon's first reaction was anxiety and he was right to be worried. It can't be pleasant to have all those reminders he was once chubby and freckled and struck the talent spotters as a fat little barrel.
Then there was the excruciation of having to relive several times his professional debut as a teenager when he rolled the car and emerged from the wreck with a floral cushion strapped to his behind.
He also sat stoically through mum and dad's recap of all the financial sacrifices they made and managed not to cower at the sight of a rather put-out looking pair of ladies in the audience, who discovered they were simultaneous Dixon girlfriends.
But most of last night's tribute was a romp through a testosterone heaven of fast cars and, host Paul Henry noted dangerously, fast women.
In a nice touch of irony, the show began with Henry abducting Dixon from a reception put on by Auckland Mayor and boy-racer nemesis John Banks.
It emerged that Dixon has a gratifyingly reprehensible past, the teenage driver was a menace to municipal plantings and other drivers through the Auckland Domain. He'd appeared in the party stakes as well.
The high-octane Henry was the right host for the occasion, keeping his foot to the floor so the hour-and-a-half flew by. He also heroically desisted from trying to share Dixon's limelight.
That remark about fast women came home when it transpired Dixon's wife Emma Davies-Dixon was a former runner.
And on the subject of women, they seem rather sparsely represented among subjects of this show. Perhaps they are all too busy running the country etc to spare an evening for such frolics.
