let's freaking go!

Never has being physically assaulted from multiple angles felt like such fun.

- JACK RIX

• Meyers Manx + Tuthill Porsche LFG, a dune buggy turned up to 11. We strap in and play development driver for the day

My eyeballs are caked in dirt, both eardrums are definitely perforated and my nut satchel is crushed tighter than Mr T's handshake, but I'm whooping myself hoarse. Richard Tuthill has the bit between his teeth now - that steely eyed look of all annoyingly talented drivers when they're in the zone - and is making it dance. He wrestles the unassisted steering right-left-right then left again (too much rear brake bias apparently, not showboating) into a sweeping four wheel drift before slamming the brakes, pinging down the sequential box and executing a perfect handbrake turn into the path of the dust cloud he's just created. “We've got some testing to do with dust ingress,” Richard says, polishing his glasses.

I have no idea where we are - somewhere in the Carmel Valley, I think. 'The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering' (a high end car show, think Goodwood without the hillclimb, sillier trousers, more cash) was in this neck of the woods yesterday, and where this UFO made its world debut. Like all good plans, this one was hastily cobbled together and refined on the fly - nothing more than a long shot enquiry to Richard 24hrs ago as to whether his car actually moved, and what his plans were the next morning... it snowballed from there. We rendezvous early to shoot the car and ask any strangers that'll listen if they know any quiet tracks nearby. Success - we're now following a heavily moustachioed man in a pickup truck in the hope he'll deliver us to a WRC worthy dirt road... and not dismember us. He who dares, because we find ourselves with free rein on a strip that runs along a ridge, surrounded by cinematic views and baby blue skies. And all four limbs attached, for now.