Testing, testing

The Red Arrows, eh? Aren't they brilliant? And what a way for a fast jet pilot to vector themselves into semi-retirement after a distinguished service career hooning about in Typhoons.

- MATT SAUNDERS

What would the automotive equivalent be? Caterham drift school instruction for an ex-rally pro? It's not quite the same prospect, somehow. So why don't we create one? Why couldn't there be an automotive display team staffed by ex-magazine road testers and 'gentleman drivers', specialising in formation driving?

'Skidmark Synchro' could perform exclusively in slightly low-rent locations: disused airfields, C-list race circuits that most of us have forgotten still exist and those extra-quiet stretches of dual-carriageway public roads that don't really go anywhere.

There wouldn't be many places to stand and watch from, but that wouldn't matter because we would be entirely rubbish, so nobody would come in the first place.

The best place to 'enjoy us' would be via an internet live stream shot out of the boot of a Skoda Superb Estate tracking car that's half full of empty coffee cups and bottles of Windolene.

Skidmark Synchro would, for the most part, be wholly unworthy of its name. Most of our display manoeuvres would be undertaken at 25mph, with cars in oddly close formation, going around corners that you could probably take at triple the speed.