Games of two-up

IT'S always more exciting to drive a four-wheel car on two wheels. Dave Shannon should know. He's been doing it for 20 years.

Toyo and Izuzu sponsored EMG Precision Driving team.

IT'S always more exciting to drive a four-wheel car on two wheels. Dave Shannon should know. He's been doing it for more than 20 years. In fact, after Queensland’s Lloyd Robertson, who has been on two wheels 10,000 times, Dave is probably the world’s most experienced at the caper. While Shannon makes it all look easy, even he put his Isuzu D-Max on its side twice last year. “I felt like a dope,” he says modestly. Of course, Shannon and I don't want you doing this on the way to work or the kiddies trying it in the family Alfa. You could end up with a dry sump, never a good thing, or one of the two wheels could just shear off: believe me, driving on one wheel is even harder than two.

Australians like looking at people doing really scary things in cars and on bikes. One of my favourites at the Easter show was the Globe of Death. A few heavily tattooed blokes on bikes would roar around the inside of a steel cage trying to avoid each other, sometimes with an assistant on the back doing exotic poses while trying not to vomit. Every now and then the Globe makes a comeback. Last year it was at the RACV’s Motorclassica where Brazil’s Ricardo da Ararujo and three amigos rode above and around a stunt woman.

A few years back our own Steve Butler lost his spleen after circling the Globe on a Harley. Butler’s manager, Gavin Walker, blamed a porn superstar who was watching the session. “As soon as he saw the cameras and Jessica Drake he started showing off and doing tricks he wouldn't normally do,” Gav told the Herald Sun.

But the real stars of the Globe are the Torres family, who squeeze eight riders inside the metal during their Ringling Brothers circus act. Jose Torres tells me there is no room for a stuntwoman with eight bikes circulating.

Noosa’s Robertson was following in the grand tradition of the US and Canadian Hell drivers who began drawing huge crowds to state fairs and racetracks in the early 1930s, when he and 15 other members of the Queensland VW club put on a precision driving show at the Ekka in 1965.

While Robertson and the bug team didn’t stage a crash rollover contest or the dive bomber crash, enough people liked the local show for him to make a 40-year career out of it. Sponsors such as Holden and Hyundai saw what putting their cars through hell said about their brands to a mostly family audience. Robertson retired in 2006.

While Shannon is the oldest (well in terms of experience) in the team, sedan car legend John Boston has been jumping off ramps for a few years as well. So it was ironic that John should tell me last week he needed to refresh his skills. John runs Trackschool.com.au at Wakefield Park raceway in NSW. Wakefield Park is everything a track should be, simply about giving people the opportunity to drive fast safely. Best of all it runs speed off the streets days where would-be racers with no experience can see how badly they drive without the fear of the police taking their car.

I paid a thousand bucks to make Boston feel better about me giving him a day of one-on-one coaching is his race-prepped Mazda MX5. My driving improved dramatically but it may be that John’s has gone backwards so far he will never drive on two wheels again.

[e-mail]