I’m no race driver, but I’ve been very fortunate over the years to be given a reasonable approximation of what it’s like by riding shotgun alongside a wide range of drivers, in a diverse array of vehicles on many different tracks.

Unlike practically any other sport on the face of the planet, motorsport lets lucky outsiders feel just what it is like to be involved for real in the heat of competition.

Sometimes, passenger rides are more real than others…

Little Mark having the best day ever…

They say you never forget your first time, and I promise I never will.

David Paterson still races to this day in his ex-Bob Holden Group A Corolla, a machine we will feature imminently on these pages, however, his weapon of choice at the time of my first on-track experience will forever remain a personal favourite.

Precious few race cars will have the genuine traceable pedigree of his Datsun 1600.

Originally his Grandma’s car, it then became his sister’s runabout town car when she first got her license.

Naturally, when it was passed down to David, he turned it into a race car.

For the Club Car ride day at Lakeside in 1999, the little red rocket had a rather standard-looking passenger seat in it, plus a shoulder harness arrangement fashioned out of two seat belts acquired from the local wreckers.

You see, this was completely normal in the 1990s, with safety apparel such as a rugby jumper apparently offering adequate protection from fire.

“Don’t worry, I’ll drive like I have $10 seat belts too!” I was well reassured.

I clearly had no comprehension for what was in store – the acceleration from that mighty 1600 genuinely threw me back into the seat, while at the Karrussell for the first time, the braking and cornering force absolutely sent my head out the window.

It was at this stage I dug my fingernails into whatever they were clasping, and did not let go.

Lakeside was a fairly wild initiation as well – the undulation from XXXX Hill to under the bridge was mega, but nothing on the feeling of the world falling away from underneath you on the run off the shelf into Hungry.

Finally, my lunch was shifted once more by the run-up Eastern Loop.

After a few laps of being hosed down the straights, but absolutely sticking it to the flame-throwing RX7s in the slow stuff, it was back to the pits for a mandatory brake bleed, and of course, several repeated journeys back onto the track for more.

What a blast.

The next experience that sticks in my mind was at a Lakeside Konica round, which I was scheduled to commentate at.

The GT-P organisers were seemingly desperate for passengers, and I was volunteered to go for a lap with a relatively inexperienced driver in a big family saloon.

Being a newcomer, his crew were using the ride as another practice session to bring him up to speed – “You need to go flat through the kink,” he was instructed.

He went flat through the kink all right, and the subsequent tank slapper all the way down to the Karrusell meant that fresh undies were required all round.

Truly terrifying, and the driver gave the game away not long after, before he had another serious chance to wad his car up into a ball.

Around the same time, I recall going to a Saloon Car ride day at Queensland Raceway.

Nothing particularly stands out from that experience, except I was svelte enough at the time to fit into Barry Lawrence’s old FAI race suit, right. It was a tight fit, and under the pressure of fire probably would have exploded into many tiny shards of Nomex…

For my first time around Morgan Park in a race car, there was not a race suit to be seen, or any real safety apparatus of any description.

Back then, when State Championships were run at the Darling Downs track, it was fairly typical to see a tiny Matt Campbell blasting around the short circuit after festivities concluded in his go kart.

His grandfather, Bill Campbell, who was the driving force behind the venue was a racer too, steering a neat Torana XU-1 that campaigned uniquely in both Groups N and C.

One Sunday afternoon, I was hanging around the pits for my set of race result sheets to be printed so I could bang out my Auto Action report, when Bill trundled down the pit lane, leaned out the window and asked “Want a ride?”

“Sure!”

Being race-prepped, like the Datto, it simply had a standard seat on the passenger side, paired with no seat belts whatsoever.

Ok, Bill will take it easy.

Once out of sight past the top tower, nothing was easy, and I probably caused permanent firewall damage to that beautiful champagne Holden.

All I saw at Gumtree and Siberia corners were the tyre walls, and at something resembling fast, they appeared to be bloody close.

We survived alive and returned to the pits where I thanked Bill, although I always suspect he had it in for something I did or wrote – regardless of the reasons behind it, it was a helluva ride!

Lurking around in the Production Car paddock resulted in some hot laps with the Wilson Brothers Racing Subaru WRX at places like Symmons Plains and Oran Park.

It was a properly sporty setup, with the OP experience memorable for absolutely monstering an ex-V8 Supercar Commodore, until we got to the straight, a section of circuit better suited to the ability of the driver of the other car.

Similarly, while on the job doing data logging in V8 Utes for a range of drivers, I went for a Friday afternoon blat with Brad Patton at Winton in 2010.

He was clearly making a hash out of the tits section of the track – pointing at race lines on a screen is one thing, but actually telling him where to go on track was full driver coach spec stuff.

Come Sunday morning, he had really picked it up, and led the quasi-reverse grid race from start to the final lap, when he dropped it after coming under attack from Gary Baxter.

Oh well.

Another V8 Ute memory was from Townsville, although it wasn’t quite a lap of the race track proper.

On Thursday evening, a convoy of cars headed halfway out of town for an autograph session, however, things really kicked up a notch on the commute back.

With rolling Police roadblocks in place, the backstreets into Reid Park were lit up by an impromptu afterdark qualifying session.

Some roundabouts copped an absolute caning that night, with a full complement of wheel alignments required the next morning…

A true standout ride came later in 2010 with Craig Lowndes at Calder Park shortly after he won his fifth Bathurst 1000 title.

By virtue of being a small part of his management team, I was gifted a seat at the start of a Triple Eight ride day – and I managed to manoeuvre my way to second in line, so things were relatively warmed up.

Bolted in, ready to go, the car stalled. “Been driving long, Craig?”

The response came in the form of an almighty skid down pit lane.

Another sign that he had indeed been driving for a while was the one-handed steering through the fast chicane on the back straight which was inch perfect.

It was also one more hand on the wheel than the time he skidded down the front straight on his lid, something which crossed my mind during the run.

Another Calder moment, although not on the full track, was riding alongside Rob Herrod aboard a hire car Falcon in a corporate day motorkhana.

The spirited nature of the drive most likely won Rob best on ground for the event, and thoroughly tested the strength of the passenger seat belt – door latch combination.

A further non-race car hot lap at Calder involved Rick Kelly and a Nissan 4WD, which I encouraged him to use to complete a reconnaissance of the Thunderdome prior to our V8 Supercar media stunt.

As it transpires, the high riding, softly sprung roadie was much more at home on the tall banks and huge bumps than the Super Altima.

Elsewhere, blasting around Phillip Island with Ricko on a corporate day aboard a Nissan GT-R – even with four souls aboard, and the driver jammed into the steering wheel, was unreal – the acceleration from scratch was immense.

For some reason, cutting laps with him and James Moffat in 370Zs just wasn’t the same.

The award for the most downright batshit crazy experience of all time however was awarded in 2014, at a commercial vehicle prototype drive program at the Aldenhoven Testing Center, an automotive wonderland near the German border with the Netherlands and Belgium.

During the lunch break, a pair of full-spec European Truck Racing MANs were cutting laps around the Armco lined high-banked test oval.

Also, it was absolutely hosing down rain.

The two drivers visibly had two different plans of attack – one was mild, the other decidedly wild.

Of course, I positioned myself in the queue to have a ride with the bonkers option.

That truck had no right being that sideways at that speed in those conditions on that track.

Lunacy.

Finally, is the tale of the Hyundai Excel at Queensland Raceway.

As always, the season-ending ride days at the venue digressed into an out and out pub brawl.

Everyone was on the track together, from Supercars to Excels, with the Excels tending to break out into their own little races while faster cars steamrolled past on the straights.

There was genuine carnage, with the tow truck required on multiple occasions, even for our stricken car, following the closest to death experience I have ever had on a ride day.

The car didn’t crash – it merely limped to a halt on the inside of turn two with a mechanical issue – but stopping in knee-high brown snake-infested grass in the summertime, and subsequently waiting for an extended period, was the most uncomfortable I’ve been in recent memory.

Motorsport is dangerous, kids.