Getting an opportunity to experience a 590kW ride in an 800kg race-engined sprint car was a rare chance to see what almost 800 horsepower feels like, so I jumped at the offer of several hot laps around Dunedin's Island Park Speedway on Saturday.
With its Kriner-tweaked 17:1-compression, 410-cubic-inch, injected Chevy V8 running on straight methanol, the Maxim chassis sprint car was built by Myles Forsey to take the tandem passenger seat into which I was firmly strapped, head-to-toe in flameproof gear.
Sprint cars are push-started, have no gearbox and employ a straight drivetrain with just an on/off diff, so the power is direct from the crank to the solid rear axle - meaning no transmission losses to temper the delivery of titanic torque.
As the motor fires into a barely-muffled burble, power is immediately apparent with a surge forwards.
A few slow laps on orange lights and I feel the car's balance and traction on the track, which at close range is more bumpy and irregular than when viewed from a distance.
Grip varies widely with wetter patches on the torn-up clay.
Green lights and it's full throttle down the straight to turn one, peaking at near 160kmh.
The rush is beyond any previous four-wheeled experience.
It makes a manual V12 E-Type seem tame.
Hard braking into the turn and it's fully sideways skating towards the track's edge as 1982 Kiwi Sprint champion Selwyn Everett blips about half-throttle to powerslide over the bumps, working the steering hard right to keep the oversteer under control.
Surprisingly it feels fine, he's so assured finding the car's balance.
Then it's full throttle out of turn two, flirting with the ton again momentarily, before another full sideways entry into turn three.
I'm thinking it's OK, I can stay calm, it's just my body can't ignore - bursting towards me at over 150kmh - that wall is solid concrete.
Selwyn powers his way through turn four in bursts and lights up the rocket again.
The car is a fire-breathing beast that spits blue flames on over-run and makes a reverberating roar that rattles metal and penetrates flesh.
It's got a power-to-weight ratio about 80% of an F1 car's but with virtually no transmission losses.
That is awesome acceleration.
It gets the power to the ground with monster Hoosier tyres that have flexy sidewalls and a super soft compound of knobbly tread.
There is so much torque and such traction that the front wheels occasionally lift off the ground under power.
It takes about one litre of methanol per lap to power the 6.7-litre V8 around the 440-odd-metre circuit in about 16sec, averaging about 100kmh.
The surging power down the straight makes the 100-odd metres between corners flash by in just 3sec, while furious drifts though the oval ends take 5sec, watching that concrete wall blur by at constantly varying angles.
Just occasionally drivers manage to arc around the ovals ends in one steady curve, but as they say: on a perfect day turns one and two are just one big corner; on a bad day they can be nine.
Seeing a champion driver tackle a bumpy, slippery track flat out in a sprint car makes you realise you need a good measure of guts to do a car like that justice. - Peter Mackenzie
