I am an extreme fan of a 50kmh speed limit, and an even bigger fan taking the road most travelled — also known as the straightest route with the fewest number of corners and the maximum number of traffic lights.
Given those facts, I’m not too sure why I agreed to sit in the passenger’s seat of a rally car at Whare Flat before the start of the Otago Rally today.
Strapped into a co-pilot’s helmet, and with a small delay at the starting line, I got to know the very friendly Australian driver Toby Price quite well.
Price was raised on a 17,400ha farm about eight hours’ travel from Sydney and started riding motorbikes at age 3.
He left Saudi Arabia in January, just before all the ‘‘craziness’’ in the Middle East kicked off, so was rather pleased with how his travel plans had panned out.
The two-time winner of the motorcycle category of the gruelling, roughly 8000km-long Dakar Rally (2016, 2019) will be joining the Otago Rally field for the first time this weekend, and he was the man I had decided — on a whim — to entrust my life with.
Price holds a record nine Finke Desert Race titles in Australia and has rapidly come on to the scene in the Australian Rally Championship with several national starts now under his belt.
He told me while we were sitting in the Toyota GR Yaris Rally Cup car that ‘‘with age comes the cage’’, and that is why he had started pivoting more towards rallying than motorbike racing.
He also helpfully noted it was his first day driving the car I was strapped into.
His friendliness put me at ease, and had me forgetting the entire reason I was sitting in that seat.
The track was narrow and windy and Price showed no signs of slowing down for anything.
I froze, became stone silent with my hands balled, while my feet locked on to the metal plate in front of me, and I quickly found out unless I sat up bolt-straight, I could fortunately avoid looking out the windscreen.
The car’s dashboard suddenly became very interesting to me.
All the while, Price was happy as Larry narrating facts about the car we were in — sounding a bit like a golf commentator with the smooth calmness in his voice — while his hands and feet moved at the speed of light.
I gave the occasional small ‘‘hmm’’, but I was rather afraid that saying anything more than that would result in the toasted sandwich I had for lunch making a spectacular re-appearance.
While speeding into gravel corners, I tried telling myself that really, in the grand scheme of things, I had absolutely no control over anything at that moment, so just sit back and enjoy an experience not many people would get.
Eventually, it was over, and we headed back to the meeting point, chatting about travel and how we would both quite like to head to some African countries some day.
My voice was steady, but when we parked up, it was pointed out that my hands were shaking like a leaf in a cyclone.
As a result, I had to get some help from a steadier-handed bloke with undoing my helmet strap.
Immediately after the ride, I was informed that throughout his career, Price had broken every single bone in his body at least once.
I am rather glad that fact was told to me once the ride had finished.
I was all smiles coming out of the car, but I think that will remain a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
