Joe Hildebrand and Tim Blair try not to maim themselves as they go head-to-head in a sprint car race at Sydney Speedway.
Daily Tele journos Joe Hilderbrand and Tim Blair racing the super powerful 900hp sprint cars at Sydney Speedway / Pic: Kristi Miller Source: The Daily Telegraph
THE other day my boss Tim Blair rang me up out of the blue.
"What's your full name?" he asked, so I told him.
"Date of birth?" he said, and I gave him that too. Then he paused: "Next of kin?"
A few minutes later a form arrived in my inbox declaring that I had entered a sprint car race at Sydney Speedway. As a helpful accompaniment, Blair had also sent a video titled Sprint Car Carnage, depicting various people and vehicles getting mangled while travelling at almost 200km/h on a caged dirt track.
For years I had suspected my superiors at The Telegraph had been trying to kill me while making it look like an accident.
Now I had proof.
For anyone who doesn't know, sprint cars are pound for pound the most powerful and easily airborne vehicles on the planet.
In terms of power to weight ratio - up to 900hp for just 700kg - they pack more grunt than a Formula One machine.
Indeed, the primary difference is that sprint cars cost just $10,000 to $15,000, offering a major incentive to smash them up as much as possible.
My first tour was in a two-seater "winged" sprint car, the fastest type, which has two giant fins on top to prevent it from literally taking off as it tears around corners. The wings also provide a degree of shock absorption when the cars nonetheless do end up flying through the air and hurtling into various solid objects.
I was also put in a flame-resistant racing suit, proper racing gloves, a fully enclosed speedway helmet and neckbrace.
I was then folded into a space roughly the size of a laundry bucket with my knees around my ears. Indeed I would have been able to kiss my own arse goodbye were I not in a full body harness strapped so tight I might still never produce children.
In front of me was 10-time Australian champion Garry Rush. At first I thought I could handle his speed until I realised we hadn't left the pit. Then he hit the accelerator and everything went blurry.
To give you an idea, think about how an astronaut must feel during take-off and then imagine you were strapped to the outside of the rocket.
Yet, disappointingly for my colleagues, I survived the experience.
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