I know we're in trouble when I hear the explosion under the car. It's the sound of shrapnel ricocheting off the track and the underside of the car confirms it. A small part of me is glad I don't have a steering wheel and a set of pedals to deal with, because the guy who does is having a very busy time. The middle pedal seems to have gone out to lunch, and the other two have succeeded in projecting us up to 175 km/h down the back straight at Baskerville Raceway in Tasmania - which is where we still are, travelling at warp speed well inside the braking area.

I've come through a lot of tarmac rallies, both as driver and navigator, and been scared by experts, but this scenario is a move up the order. Kim Barwick, the car's owner, has figured out the problem (an exploding disc rotor) and is now negotiating with his Torana SS 5000 to see if we can come out of the situation alive. I'm eyeing off the trees in the distance, and the tyre wall, which is in the not-so-middle distance.

The funny thing is, I was supposed to be driving. When I'd showed up a couple of minutes before, suited, booted and helmeted, to take the beast out for a track test, Kim had said, "I'll take you for a little run first to show you how she handles - she's a bit taily." I think that's why I'm still around. Kim knew immediately what had happened, because he's seen it happen once before.

It would have taken me a second or two to figure it out - and at 160 km/h, that's 70m to 140m. When he wrestles it to a halt and we rumble into the pits, I jump out to go and warn following drivers about the debris. There isn't anything bigger than the palm of your hand but there is cast iron strewn all over the track, 100m of bits.

Obviously I didn't get to drive the beast that day, but I kept an eye on its progress so I could arrange another drive. However, it has so much power that every time I looked like getting a run in it, the car would eat a drive shaft or blow another brake rotor. Not long before Targa 2006, Kim had the car up and running for the Octagon circuit-racing series. Unfortunately, after an early win, he suffered from brake fade and ran into the back of a new Commodore driven by Andrew Kuc, his own builder. So another chance for me to drive it went out the window during repairs.

Various other minor disasters befell the car, and Targa Tasmania 2006 intervened as well - first in class, first in category, 37th outright - before I rocked up to Symmons Plains to take the promised drive. Kim was leading the Tasmanian Super Series at the time and was there to practise for the next day's racing.

It was raining as we unloaded the beast. Kim's dad, Bobby, said to me, "You want to watch this thing - she's treacherous in the wet." When I asked Kim about the brakes, he said they were "okay - now", and showed me the hairline cracks on the rotors, which meant they had reached 800ºC and survived. 

While I got into my suit and helmet, Kim took the car out for a run to warm it up and arrived back to tell me I was in for an interesting time. "It's so slippery out there," he said. "If you put your foot down in top gear in a straight line it'll turn you around, just like that."

Well cheered up, I allowed myself to be strapped in and watched as Kim re-set the rev limiter and shift light to just under 6000rpm, "just in case you spin it".

The Formula Vees went out and I had to sit for ten minutes in the car, contemplating my mortality, the increasingly heavy rain, and what lay ahead – which was a mistake. "342kW at the wheels, that's about 500 horsepower, which means that at the crankshaft it must be about 600 - which is ten times the power of my Fiat…" The call came: "Right Phil, fire it up." I pushed in the oil pressurising cable, hit the starter and flicked the ignition.

Instant thunder rolled and it felt like I’d wakened a monster. I had. Under instructions not to slip the button clutch, I dropped it, chirped the wheels briefly and took off down pit lane into the downpour.

* This is an excerpt from Australian Classic Car magazine. To read the full four-page story, pick up a copy at your local newsagent, or better still, use your NRMA Membership to get a discount on a yearly subscription. Visit ccar.com.au or call 1300 782 312 for details.

Open Road e-zine December 2008

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