KEY POINTS:
Thinking you know how to drive a car and actually being able to drive one are two completely different things. This became abundantly clear to me after being taken for a spin around Pukekohe in the Jack Daniels' number seven car driven by Shane Price.
An Australian V8 Supercar may look similar to the Holden or Ford parked in the driveway but, rest assured, inside is very different. There's a vague similarity to the family saloon with three pedals on the floor and a steering wheel but that's about it.
There is a special skill to driving these bellowing monsters fast and not many people can do it. To sit next to someone who really knows how to drive is quite a humbling experience, as I've experienced, and the self-confessed nana driver Campbell Live host, John Campbell, was to find out.
"Not only am I physiologically ill-equipped to be driven at high speed around a suburban street circuit anyway, I am a true driving nana," said Campbell. "And on top of that, I suffer from motion sickness."
I met Campbell at the inaugural Hamilton 400 V8 Supercar event, the third round of the Australian series, as he was preparing to be taken out on a hot lap of the circuit in the Team Kiwi Racing car with Kayne Scott. The only piece of advice I could think to give him was: "Don't look out the window - watch what the driver's doing."
It's a battle to tear your eyes away from looking out the window, as the non-race car driver's brain is incapable of dealing with the idea it's possible to go that fast and not hit something. It's akin to a having a morbid fascination of wanting to see what you're going to hit.
Campbell is no different to the rest of us. Although he's the consummate professional behind his desk and in front of the camera, take him, or anyone else, outside their comfort zone, place them in a perceived dangerous situation and all hell is going to let loose.
"By about lap three I was going, 'Whoa!"' said Campbell. "Not only am I freaking out here, another couple of laps and I'm in severe danger of spewing."
Not only does the speed cause sensory overload as the trees start to look like a picket fence, being banged about inside the car like rag doll doesn't help matters much.
"Nothing in life - and I've been driving since I was 16 or 17 - nothing you ever do as a driver or any experience you have in a car prepares you for that," said Campbell.
"Nothing you do driving normally prepares you for howling around suburban streets at over 200km/h and not having any control over what's going on. The word I describe it as is entirely irrational. Your brain tries desperately hard to compute what is going on but it just can't work it out."
Inside the car, the driver is processing so much information about the circuit, car handling, engine readouts and sometimes pit conversations as well as looking for brake markers, it's a wonder more accidents don't happen.
But for a sport that looks inherently dangerous, it is in fact safer than driving across town to go supermarket shopping.
"Television does motor racing a disservice," said Campbell. "I don't know what it is but it looks smooth on TV. It makes it look sane and ordinary and it doesn't make it look fast. Whereas inside the car it's noisy, it's jerky and you're bouncing around like a ball-bearing in a paint tin.
"We were traveling at four times the speed limit and, in the end, my brain gave up and said I've had enough of this and almost went into shut-down mode."
Watching the TV3 footage that evening you could see Campbell wasn't having the best of times in the car and, when the hands went over the face, it was easy to realise this little adventure wasn't going to be high on his repeat list.
However, all credit to the man on two fronts. Firstly, he somehow managed to regain composure and speak in front of the camera, albeit a little green around the gills, and secondly was honest about the experience.
"I felt sick, physically sick when I got out," said Campbell. "My admiration for those buggers now is off the scale. I mean they don't drive cars, they do something else entirely.
"The way he [Scott] was playing the gears, the clutch and brakes, and the geometry and physics of working out when to wait to the very last minute to apply the brakes is amazing. I would have applied the brakes two days before him.
"And going around that roundabout the wrong way was completely counter-intuitive."
After experiencing going that quick on public roads, it reiterates the sheer lunacy exhibited by boy racers (and I mean boy as no grown adult would entertain such idiocy) who attempt to go fast on our streets in underpowered, badly modified little cars with a complete lack of skill.
"We're in a cage, belted up in a purpose-built race car," said Campbell. "We're also wearing a helmet and a flame-retardant suit. Why anyone would want to replicate the speed we did when one, they don't have the skill sets, [and] two, they don't have the car and the protection - it's just idiotic."
On a final note, I would agree with Campbell that when going that fast in car where the smallest mistake could result in the biggest mess, you're not so much scared as mesmerised.
There's just too much information to take in for us Nana drivers.
