‘You have to lose control to learn how to control it.”
That’s what accomplished South African rally driver Heinrich Lategan said to me as we were getting ready for a spin in his Toyota Auris rally car.
Five minutes before I had flopped most unceremoniously into the exceedingly snug passenger seat and was then strapped in seven ways from Sunday.
The three men doing the strapping in tried their level best to be civil about their hands being all over my body, pulling the one strap up between my thighs, the others around my tummy and finally the ones over my shoulders, down on my breasts and into the central locking mechanism, which was very nearly up my snatch.
It was weirdly funny, scary, invasive, rude and slightly pleasurable all at the same time until Lategan reached across from the driver’s seat and tightened the straps, which were already squashing my ample bosom.
I shot him my oft-practised eyebrow-arched, reproachful glare, which he duly ignored as he said with a naughty smile on his face: “Trust me, when we’re rolling down a mountain, you’ll be thankful you’re strapped in like this.”
Rally drivers are usually blasé about rolling down mountains because at some point in their careers, they have all accidentally plunged their million-rand custom-made cars off a dirt road and down a cliff face.
I’ve done some pretty hair-raising stuff in this life including sky-diving, bungee-jumping, participating in chilli-eating contests and I can honestly say that being driven along an off-road rally stage by Lategan is right up there on the adrenaline-o-meter with throwing oneself out of a perfectly good plane.
Imagine that you’re a plump little rosa tomato that’s been chucked into a salad mixer — you’re sitting next to a chunk of limp lettuce pondering life, the universe and everything when someone pulls a string and you’re sent hurtling from one end of the container to the other. You try to snuggle up to a thick slice of cucumber for a little comfort and just as you catch your breath, the string is pulled again and again. And again.
Such was the effect of the G-force (and the many straps) on other G-regions that I felt as though Lategan and I should have established a “safe word” or “safe term” before we set off on the drive, something completely benign like “is this as fast as you can go?”
Though, to his credit, he did say that he would stop at any point if I wanted him to, but I’m not really sure how I was supposed to say anything comprehensible while my brain was travelling two seconds behind us. I think for the first minute or two I sounded a bit like an old-fashioned internet dial-up modem, but Lategan was perfectly gentlemanly about it all.
Eventually, my brain caught up and so did my hormones: “You’re amazing”, I dribbled like a teenage twerp. “How long does a person have to practise to be as good as you?”
I was immediately embarrassed and shook my head, which isn’t a good idea when you’re wearing a very heavy helmet because it felt and looked as though I was wrenching my head off my neck. Smooth, elegant move it was not.
Lategan explained that he’d been racing for more than 20 years and told me that it’s all instinctive: “If you have to think about what you need to do, it’s too late, you have to just know what to do”.
More alluring modem noises from me at this point.
What one needs to understand about rally driving is that it’s just about the most demanding form of motor racing. Sure, most racing drivers — especially F1 drivers — are hugely talented, but the tracks they speed around are predictable, properly tarred and have an abundance of safety features such as chicanes and mountains of tyres. Yes, the speed at which they drive is formidable and when they crash, they can and sometimes do kill themselves, but rally driving is a completely different, visceral and far more dangerous form of motorsport.
Think Eric Clapton (circuit racing) versus Jimi Hendrix (rally racing) — both were brilliant guitar players, but Hendrix had an unpredictable, precarious way of making anything he played on his Fender Stratocaster sound, look and feel like a musical nirvana. Hendrix was also the one who choked to death on his own vomit so maybe this isn’t the best analogy, but I’m sure you get the drift.
When the ride was over and I clumsily hoisted myself out of the seat and through the roll cage I was left feeling rather sheepish about the whole experience because I knew there was no way it was as good for Lategan as it was for me.
To reciprocate, maybe I should challenge him to a chilli-eating, Scotch-drinking contest — chilli plus alcohol equals an endorphin rush, or so I’m told.