The choke and splutter of the 1976 Ford Escort that the late Hugh Baird had bought for his then teenage boys didn't do much to soothe those jangled nerves as Bruce Baird bucked Mark II into life.
It was a balmy 22C day. The clammy feeling from donning the royal blue overalls club publicity officer Noel Martin-Smith handed over with a helmet added to the palms already breaking into a cold sweat.
"Hey," I thought reassuringly. "I have my trusty gardening Doc Martens to prevent the toes from crunching like walnut shells in the event of the unthinkable."
Is that all the drivers worry about, their toes?
I sheepishly discovered the overalls were a woollen garment to protect the wearer if the car burst into a ball of flames.
"It's never happened in all my years of driving," someone quipped.
No worries, I thought, as I slipped into the passenger seat of a beast that resembles a hack in equestrian circles but the bucket seat of which easily swallowed me up.
"This car has rolled three times," said Baird, grinning sadistically through his helmet like Dr Hannibal Lecter and his left hand massaging the gearstick.
It reminded me of a newspaper story I read decades ago of a woman who had a phobia about parachuting.
To cut a long story short, she had ventured outside her comfort zone only to hurtle to earth with a thud in a swamp in the United Sates.
She miraculously survived to recount her ordeal but the moral of this story was to trust your instincts.
By now HB Today chief photographer Warren Buckland was thoroughly enjoying what was about to unfold.
"Give him a bloody good go," Buckland bellowed with that unmistakably goofy expression above the din of the engine.
"Sit with your hands on your knees like this," Baird instructed, guiding my hands into a position I felt was truly out of the prim-and-proper days of the Elizabethan era when housewives engaged in tea parties.
No, this definitely wasn't a time to be smart. Sit Buster, sit, even though you may be assuming the mantle of ceremonial navigator.
The ruts in the circular, dusty 800m track looked like a dried riverbed as Baird bore down in an anti-clockwise turn. He clipped the inside of turns, opened the throttle and played chicken with hair-raising stumps (or were some of them rocks) and ditches.
"You're doing well," he quipped.
I was thinking: "Wait until I slip off the helmet, mate. The cold sweat will give the game away."
About three rotations into it, Baird either oversteered or understeered and the 1720cc engine belched violently before whimpering between towering trees.
"I just went a bit too hard there," I think he said before promising two more rounds because he felt Buckland wasn't in the ideal position for a rip-snorting shot.
"Bummer, it's not over," I thought. "Sit tight Buster."
It all went well and I released a deep sigh of relief. I would after all get to see my two daughters for Christmas and my wife would escape a life sentence of feeding me through straws.
Jokes aside, I did appreciate the thrill of driving at breakneck speed and always trusted Baird's instincts. Besides, it could have been a ride with one of New Zealand's favourite sporting sons, Greg Murphy, pushing 260kmh-plus.
One thing I can say for sure. Not having control of my own destiny most certainly rules me out as a co-driver.
In hindsight, nothing beats a spectator's perch at a vantage point before a chin-wag with the winners and losers.
