Rally champion Marcus Grönholm took Justin Hynes on a terrifying spin around the M-sport facility in Cumbria.
Looking nonchalant is not an option. There's a camera on me, there's a camera facing the road.
Nowhere to hide. I know that no matter how hard I try to affect an air of detached cool, that kind of calm will desert me. Watch the pedals, watch the road, watch the driver, it doesn't matter.
When the video comes back I'm as white as a sheet, eyes like saucers, pinned back in the figure-hugging seat, hands reaching to tighten harnesses, reaching for anything that will make me feel more secure. This the fastest and most furious I've ever gone.
It's insane. Demented. And Marcus Grönholm looks like he's on the way to the shops.
Fresh from his third WRC round win of the season - at Greece's Acropolis Rally - Grönholm has been pressed into service to thrash around the woods close to Ford's rally arm M-Sport.
The point is to clue a bunch of know-nothing journalists into how tricky and precise motorsport is, not just from the driver's point of view, but from every angle. A blast around the forest and then a tour of the M-Sport facility deep in the Cumbrian countryside, minutes from the birthplace of William Wordsworth.
It was he that said: "The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants."
Of course, at the turn of the 19th century rally cars hadn't been invented. As the dewy morning air in the hills above Cockermouth is shattered by the howl of the BP-Ford WRC gross and violent stimulation are the drugs of choice.
And who better to deal them than Grönholm, a two-time WRC champion, coming off the back of a couple of lean seasons to again challenge for major honours. He's won three events already this year, starting with the opening two rounds and then sealing victory in Greece a couple of weeks ago.
Sure, he's a bagful of points down on championship leader Sebastian Loeb, but the season's just hit the halfway mark, has just entered a two-month break to avoid clashing with the World Cup. Time to recharge the batteries, prepare for an assault on the next stage of the title race, in Germany in August.
And what better way to prepare than with an on-the-edge, adrenaline-fuelled bout of gardening. For the past few days that has been Grönholm's occupation, whipping his backyard into shape. This is his first time back in the car since Acropolis. Am I nervous? Oh yes.
The partnership between the Finn and M-Sport is a good one however. There is a complimentary assuredness about both that looks as though it might work.
All the team look up to Grönholm, reckoning him to be a solid guy, a remarkable competitor, a gentleman. He's the nicest, says one, since Carlos Sainz, whose name is breathed almost with reverence.
The same can't be said for Colin McRae. Volatile, is the word carefully chosen. It seems that having taken Grönholm from Peugeot, Ford has found a driver who fits with the down-home calm of M-Sport's country idyll.
A driver worthy of the respect everyone at the factory seems to have for team boss Malcolm Wilson. The thing is, M-Sport is no corporate outpost of Dearborn's vast empire. It's a private outfit, run by ex-rally driver Wilson, and contracted by Ford to run its rally programme.
And it does so very, very well.
Indeed, it wasn't so long ago that Ford, under the gun as the cost of WRC competition spiralled and its ill-advised Formula One escapade drained hundreds of millions from the coffers, that the company announced it would cease competing in the WRC.
It seemed it would persist with its Jaguar F1 programme, at vast expense and with a lonely single podium to show for years of effort. Wilson though, according to insiders, stepped in, cut the budgetary cloth to the bone and pleaded for the opportunity to continue. He won the day and rallying survived. F1 got the chop.
And walking around the M-Sport facility it's easy to see why. Ford's Jaguar F1 venture was an overblown, over-managed disaster.
Having bought a small team (Stewart) it then expected massive things, from an environment that was technically under-resourced but awash with money and management. None of which was applied with any coherence.
M-Sport though appears to have all that's right about motorsport success stories. The team of 200 employees is small (certainly by F1 standards) but everything is self-contained.
There is little out-sourcing, the work is done in-house and the commitment to winning is akin to the loyalty villagers show for their neighbours. There's something personal about it.
From the restored 13th century wing of the former hospital the company occupies to the catering chief who grew up with Wilson and was swept up in the quest for glory with so many others from the area.
It has, however, yet to deliver a championship for Ford since taking over the rally programme for the manufacturer. Grönholm, though, could be the man to stitch it all together, though there have been troubles already as he failed to finish in Argentina and Sardinia before pulling it back together in Greece.
Loeb, meanwhile, has never been out of the top two placings all season, giving him a 29-point advantage.
But for the moment, the assault in on hold, due to resume on August 11th in the Mosel region of western Germany. Now it's about Grönholm having a little downtime, and some fun.
The stage is a short 2km stretch but it feels like more. From the moment Grönholm drops the throttle it's a rollercoaster ride of stomach-churning proportions.
From zero to 60mph in three seconds, he hurls the car across these mountain tracks with an abandon that should result in a massive accident. But it never comes. Halfway round the stage, he leans over, mid power slide, and smiles: "Nice view," he says, indicating the precipitous drop down the mountainside to my right.
I can't say anything. I've lost the power of speech. All I can do is hang on and enjoy the ride.
But there's a certainty about what the Finn is doing. Look at his expression mid-stage and there is nothing there. His eyes never move from the course, every ounce of concentration, every synapse, every reaction is trained on the road ahead. It seems to be thus throughout M-Sport. The road beckons.