''It doesn't get much better than that,'' a beaming recipient reports after some scorching hot laps with Southland's Inky Tulloch in his bellowing 650hp Camaro GT3 at Highlands Motorsport Park in Cromwell yesterday.
Waiting trackside in the sun, I am sweating in my race suit.
I am wearing my helmet.
I am next.
When Tulloch's co-driver, John McIntyre, leans over and yells that the officials are waving the finish flag on the media/sponsor's ride session because retrieving a crashed car has eaten into all the available time, I think he is joking.
Then when he starts apologising, my smile wavers, my lip quivers and I whisper goodbye to my four minutes of glory in one of the gutsiest cars entered in the Highlands 101 endurance race tomorrow.
Tulloch and McIntyre are one of only eight Kiwi teams among the predominantly Australian field racing in the just-over-three-hour test of man and machine.
They would dearly love to be the first New Zealanders home - an honour Tulloch achieved last year, ably aided by the recent Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes.
The pairing finished fifth overall among the exotic, expensive, European marques.
The 29-strong Highlands 101 field is comprised largely of competitors from the Australian GT Championship, who are contesting their two-race final round today.
Those lining up for the Highlands 101 have a qualifying session tomorrow morning, before the 12.15pm free grid walk for all spectators to wander among the gleaming array of machinery, which includes Audi, McLaren, Bentley, Chevrolet Camaro, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, Lotus, Ginetta and Aston Martin.
At 1pm, the Le Mans runners line up before the 1.20pm sprint-to-the-cars start of the 101-lap all-out endurance race.
One of the marvellous Australian GT machines is driven by a couple of lucky young Aucklanders, Jono Lester and Graeme Smyth.
They both rave about the Ferrari 458 GT3, with Smyth saying ''you couldn't really get anything with a roof that's better''.
Otago hopes will be pinned on Dunedin's Allan Dippie, who co-drives with Invercargill's Scott O'Donnell.
Although they are reasonably big fish in the New Zealand endurance pond, they accept that their Porsche 997 Cup S does not have the legs to keep up with the transtasman racers.
They will be content to bed in the Porsche for the Bathurst 12-Hour in February and to finish.
''Because that has eluded us in the past - and stay off the walls,'' Dippie said, referring to his concrete wall-hugging end to this event last year.
Perhaps the most exciting new New Zealand entry is Taranaki driver Glenn Smith's Chev Camaro GT3.
Matt black and with a phenomenal full bass exhaust note, it is fresh off the wharf from Australia.
A sister car to Tulloch's, it is a slightly newer version with more technological improvements.
Smith played down his competitiveness, saying he ''has never been on this track and never been in this car.''
A late rush of entries from mostly South Island drivers sees the 1+01 one-hour race field swell to 38 and there are also 25 entries in the Euromarque category.
