Expressway to hell

The panic, an unavoidable side effect of excess adrenaline, has already set in. The mind is in momentary shut down and it feels as though a giant iron claw has clenched my ribcage with enough pressure to prevent my diaphragm from activating the lungs.

The messages my eyes are sending my brain have triggered a reflex response and the core muscles have tensed so that for perhaps as little as 0.7 seconds, my body is not mine to control.

My mind fires messages to my abdomen desperately trying to win back authority. I tell myself: 'I'm safe, it's okay, he is one of the best there has ever been'. It's delusional, but it kind of works. That is until we start braking for Turn 1...

Why did I say yes to this?

What you have just read was my instantaneous reaction to the acceleration of the 240bhp Ducati MotoX2 two-seater MotoGP bike. How did I find myself in that situation? Well it was another case of the body disobeying the mind's command.

I travelled with AUTOSPORT's MotoGP correspondent Toby Moody to the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. Coming from a car racing background, I have become engrossed in the professional world of motorcycle competition since taking the post of editor on your favourite website 18 months ago. A visit to one of MotoGP's Meccas seemed a good stop on my education trail.

Sitting in the press centre on Saturday morning prior to the final MotoGP practice session, surrounded by a gnarly collection of asphalt-hardened bike racing journalists, Jeremy Appleton from AlpineStars approaches the desk. "Simon we have an interesting opportunity for you, if you fancy it?"

It's the last part of the question that triggers alarm, 'Why wouldn't I?' I wonder.

"We have a spare slot on the factory Ducati two-seater with Randy Mamola, do you want to have a go?" Before I can answer, Moody blurts: "Yes, he'll do it!"

I'm not so sure. I haven't ridden pillion on a bike since I was seven, and that experience bedevilled my ability to be a passenger on anything motorised for years. But I'm aware the question has been asked publicly, and that those bike scribblers are probably thinking 'here's another weedy car guy, he won't be able to hack it'. My mouth opens and words that haven't been approved by mind control simply dribble out; "Err, well... Yes of course I'd love to!"

I later discover that fewer than 700 people have been lucky enough to travel in situ with Randy, a 13-time grand prix winner and the only man to have a career that spanned three decades between the 1970s and the 1990s. Most of the passengers have been celebrities and honoured guests of the sport, among them Michael Schumacher and Le Mans 24 Hours winners Marc Gene and Allan McNish. I was about to join that list.

Building up to the ultimate ride

The rest of Saturday is a blur of anticipation. Watching trackside on the inside of Turn 4, where the great Michael Doohan's career was unjustly ended in the same merciless gravel trap that gave James Toseland cause to question his senses in testing earlier this year, the reality of motorcycle racing is all too clear now.

First Nicky Hayden, then Marco Melandri and Andrea Dovizioso thunder into view. Their knees are angled sharply, testing the asphalt with Perspex protective sliders, before drifting out to the kerbing, opening up the throttle and letting their bodies absorb the vibration from a rear-wheel snarling to be freed from adhesion. Then suddenly the trajectory smoothens out, the bikes sit up and they zip away from us at a speed the eye can't realistically process.

I feel the rasp of the throttle note, particularly that of the throaty 800cc Ducati four-stroke V4, deep in my chest and I am gripped by a cold, sobering thought... this time tomorrow that's going to be me.

Back in the paddock and the people I meet greet my news with a grin, and in some cases a full-on laugh. I can't tell whether it's admiration, sympathy or merely wicked mischief that provokes such reaction. BBC presenter Suzi Perry tells me: "You're either mad or an idiot.

"I was amazed by it when I had a go and I'm used to bikes," she warns. "The brakes are the most unbelievable thing. Fast road bikes are one thing, but the carbon discs on these MotoGP bikes just blow your senses away."

Later, as I interview Suzuki's Chris Vermeuelen, I sense he is intrigued by what I'll make of it. "You're a car guy, so it won't be the brakes so much as the acceleration that impresses you," he says. "These things really do go."

Given the once over

Saturday afternoon requires a visit to the MotoGP mobile medical centre and a thorough examination from the legendary Dr Claudio Costa to ensure I won't have some kind of respiratory failure on the bike.

Dr Costa has sewn up, patched together and rebuilt more riders than are actually listed in the entry for the entire event in Spain. Valentino Rossi says of Costa that he has his 'own way', in other words his priority is to get a rider back on the bike, if it's physically achievable. He understands what Mamola calls the 'racer's mentality', which is to say that most would rather be dead than unable to ride. So, as Rossi also says, "If Dr Costa says you don't ride, then you don't ride."

Having revealed my height (6ft), and my weight (mind your own business) and various other perfunctory facts, I'm asked to lay down on one of several billets.

It's the end of the second day's action, so the centre isn't empty. Lying on the bed next to me is the 250cc world champion Marco Simoncelli, who is having his wrist manipulated after a fall in practice. Another bed opposite is occupied by a boy no more than 15 years old who has received emergency attention after severely damaging his leg in the Red Bull Rookie race. Two of his mates, clearly of the i-Touch generation, sit with him. No one is groaning in pain, it all seems routine - part of the life of a motorcycle racer.

As Dr Costa slips a plastic monitoring device over my little finger to tell me my blood pressure is fine (a bloody miracle), I'm left to reflect all the more what is to become of me.

One hundred per cent pure adrenaline

It's Sunday morning and the various MotoGP classes are working through their warm-up sessions. It's little more than background noise to me now as the minutes tick by to my 210-second ride on an expressway to hell. Dave, the man assigned to those of us condemned, is busy assisting me into the leathers I will wear on the MotoX2.

This is not as easy as you would think. First comes a bullet-proof breastplate. Then the fully-armoured bovine leather Dave has to help me pull on, rather like a suit of armour. It has sliders and carbonfibre plating covering every area that presents an extremity in the riders' seated position. There are no less than 16 individual protection points on the suit.

Some riders, like Hayden, choose to wear kangaroo leather rather than bovine, because it is tougher and lighter, but eventually it is all down to personal choice and tailoring.

Randy Mamola © LAT

There is nothing dignified about suiting up and it's not the work of a moment, but once it's on, it's properly snug. You actually feel safer, but then of course you would at walking speed!

The programme is run out of the Ducati hospitality unit, which has a fully-functional changing suite and wardrobe behind the restaurant. Alpinestars has no fewer than 50 of these suits at a cost of about £2000 a piece... and they come in every imaginable shape. The same applies to the boots, which once again Dave is forced to do up. There's no way I can bend over that far!

It's important to make it clear if you need to use the facilities from this point onwards, and in the past apparently not everybody has. A nervous bladder is common at this stage of the build-up.

And so I waddle back into hospitality, feeling to be honest, a bit of a muppet. It's not easy to blend in to the background looking like a fat Eddie Lawson.

I'm also quite scared now. There is less than an hour to go and I'm a nervous passenger who has never been on a bike as an adult, and I'm about to get on the back of one of the fastest and most vicious racing machines ever created. It's all very surreal.

In fact it seems quite normal when through the crowd of VIPs appears a familiar face from MTV. Keith Flint of Prodigy fame, normally recognisable for an insane glaze, multiple piercings and green hair, beams at me, apparently acutely aware of my heightened state. It turns out that his alarming stage persona is just that, and that he is a massively enthusiastic bike racing fan.

Having travelled on the X2 himself 12 months ago at Jerez, Flint kindly sympathises with me: "Oh this time last year I was terrified.

"Of course it's frightening, but then you think to yourself, this bloke knows what he is doing," he adds. "You've got a choice, you can close your eyes and give it up, or you can enjoy one of the most amazing things you'll ever do in your life. Nothing I have ever done comes close to the buzz of going round the track with Randy - I am really jealous of you."

Remarkably, chatting idly with an international pop star does take the mind off the compounding adrenaline build-up, and it was interesting that Flint compared the famous amphitheatre stadium section towards the end of the lap, packed with rampant Spaniards, to being on stage at a concert. That the feeling of exposure and fanatical attention was similar.

The briefing

Randy Mamola and Simon Strang start their lap © LAT

Mamola walks into another room of the Ducati fun bus and begins to prepare me and the three other passengers for what we are about to receive.

The 49-year-old American has seen it all, won most of it, and crashed into and over several parts of what's left. He's an old dog with a young heart. Later I reveal to him that he was a childhood hero of mine, and that a picture of his Heron Suzuki adorned my wall alongside a poster of Gilles Villeneuve.

But as he explains to us how he is going to ride the bike, and demonstrates the physical messages and hand signals we should give during the lap, I feel him taking control of my emotion. He is aware of our natural anxiety and he takes responsibility for it - he's utterly professional. It is rumoured that in his contract there is a line that states that he absolutely must not crash, even if it's not his fault. I begin to believe it.

He never has by the way.

"This is not for me, this is for you," he tells us. "If I get all wild and show off, two things will happen. You will guaranteed get scared, and you won't learn anything about what we do. I don't want that. My job is to help you go away having had the best day of your life, while understanding what it is that makes motorcycle racers a step apart from everybody else."

Once the briefing is over, I still feel compelled to tell Mamola it's my first time, to take it easy. He just looks back and smiles: "You are going to thank me when we've finished. I know you will love this."

Walking to the pits I chat to the team members that run the whole programme. They are immensely proud of the project and its ability to deliver the absolute ultimate in extreme fulfilment. The other half of the programme is a three-seater Formula 1 car run in conjunction with Ferrari, and when some of its mechanics had a ride with Randy, they couldn't believe the thrill the X2 offers. It really, really doesn't come better than this...

The ride of my life

MotoGP warm-up has just ended and it's time. I'd been shown how to clamber on the bike, as the Ducati engineers warmed up the 989cc liquid-cooled 90-degree V4 engine. I'd sat in position, arms wrapped around Mamola, hands clinching the passenger handles fitted to the carbon fuel tank cover, my rear feeling heat through the leathers from the twin exhaust under the saddle placing.

The tyre warmers are released and Mamola is sent off on a final warm-up lap, while Dave and I walk across the pitlane and on to the track. The startline has become the gateway to a kind of grotesque fairground attraction. The anticipation is just like queuing for it too, it's unbearable now.

Randy Mamola wheelies the Ducati Moto X2

Mamola roars into view out of the final left-hander, and before I can change my mind I'm jumping on the back, feet searching for the pegs, trying not to fumble it all in front of a packed crowd in the pitlane grandstand. Then I breathe in...

I know this isn't the case, but it is the machine that feels in control as we pull away. The bikes look so flimsy from trackside and too small to administer security, too thin to provide stability. But straddling a passage to oblivion, even though my position is somewhat higher than Mamola's, the bike feels rock solid as it pulls away.

I feel the American gently twist the throttle as we vector towards the turn-in point for Turn 1 and only the dark strip of asphalt remains in focus.

I concentrate on Mamola's instructions as I imagine the point at which we should brake. "Keep your arms as straight as you can, soak up the pressure of the braking force and push back against the handles." I seem to have been doing this for some time before he pulls the lever and we gently dip right and into the turn.

The speed at which the bike changes trajectory still deceives me and I am instantly unsettled from my position. I can feel that knot in my chest and I know I am out of control.

This is the moment. I'm frightened now, no question. Mamola knows it too. He can sense my nervous movement on the bike. He taps my knee and sticks a thumb in the air. Do I squeeze his mid-riff and say no more? Do I let myself down and blow a chance I never believed I would get? No. I choose courage that surprises me. I settle back into position and adopt a stance that Mamola can sense as affirmative and we set off with renewed vigour for the hairpin at Turn 2.

That's not so bad. The Ducati leans steeply, but this time it doesn't shock me and instead I marvel at the ridiculously small distance between my head and the track.

Mamola picks the bike up and for the first time I feel it go loose as the front-wheel picks up momentarily, the rear protests under acceleration and we drop into that fast left-hander at Turn 4. It's a sensation better suited to the person receiving the sensory perception from messages sent back through the controls.

Again we lean, but harder and more committed, and I start to think of all the hundreds of times I've seen the front let go on one of these things. As the engine note rises, and resonates through each of my vertebrae, we accelerate through the curve. Past 75mph and we drift out to the rumble strip, where the bike judders but doesn't move a centimetre from its trajectory, then rises again as Mamola opens the throttle and we fire off towards the right-hander that leads on to the back straight. We are going fast now and I can feel forces pushing against my head and shoulders.

We fall into the right-hander and I feel as if I am getting used to this. Confidence is seeping back through me and the corner, being wide and rising up to the exit, allows me to look up and soak in the experience. For this moment I am a MotoGP rider. I'm breathing my oxygen in a way few ever will.

Simon Strang enjoys a rider's view of Jerez

And then he really opens it up and bang, we are gone like one of Spielberg's de Loreans when it hits 88mph. Only we are ascending to 170mph. I want to speak. I want to swear. The motor screams in my place as we power through the rev band at the rate of 100nm of torque, and once again reality sets in, I'm not a bike superstar, but a flaccid passenger. We're going too fast for rational thought now.

The Ducati MotoX2, will reach a terminal velocity of 330km/h without a passenger, something nearer 280km/h with someone on the back. We achieve it.
I try and settle my mind by trying to guess the braking point. Nope, not there then. Ah yes here... Nope. Jesus. I tense my forearms, lock my shoulders and prepare for the stopping force. I'm woefully short in my expectation.

It's not quite fair on me though. As my arms collapse and I fall on top of Mamola in an embarrassingly horizontal spooning position, I am not in the mental place to take into account the fundamental mathematics at work. I'm sitting higher on the bike, with my wrists lower, than Mamola is. Therefore my centre of gravity is in a different position in relation to the direction of my arms. It's naturally harder for me to stay seated. Add to that my biceps are not expecting a sudden transfer of inertia more than twice my bodyweight. Also because it is not me instructing the brakes, my mind cannot possibly act as a servo to my body.

Later, Mamola explains that he has used all the available stopping force from the two 320mm carbon front discs and the solitary stainless steel rear one, to give me a realistic sensation of grand prix braking. He wants me to know what it feels like and it is quite simply the most astonishing experience of my life. He also reveals that we probably used a later braking point than the MotoGP riders would later in the day.

"I usually brake in the same line as them, but we are doing about 25km/h slower than them," he explains. "So I can slow later because with you as extra weight on the back I can brake harder because the rear is not trying to lift so much."

Mamola knew I was going to flop on top of him. He simply puts a hand behind his back, grabs my right knee and puts me back in position. Then waves to the crowd for good measure. For pity's sake. Put that hand back on the handlebars. We dip right and onwards.

He's up and running now and we are moving up to proper racing speed. After a couple of what seem like mild left turns, the tall hills that act as a tribune structure for the rabid Spanish fans glower in to view and we rocket into what's known as the stadium section. It's where they say that you can hear their fervour over the noise of the engine.

These right-handers challenge the riders and form a crucial section of the lap. For me they present a new and unexpected devilry. Until this point I hadn't been aware, but Mamola's feet have been scraping the asphalt because of the angle of lean, and I am conscious the bike is balanced on the lip of the 16.5-inch Bridgestone tyres' contact patch. There is something else though. I'm hanging off.

Back in the pits in one piece © LAT

In a car, G-Force secures you into a seat and pushes you in the opposite direction to that in which you turn. You become accustomed to this. On a MotoGP two-seater it doesn't happen that way. Mamola had said in the briefing: "Try to lean in to the corner, it's easier for me and will help you find a comfort zone."

It doesn't work like that though. Try leaning as far over as you can on your chair, eventually you have to put a hand out to steady yourself. Perhaps it's an optical illusion, but I feel like if I lean too far, I will fall off. Hard as I try, I never master this before the lap is over.

And it is all too quickly. The last corner fills me with relief and a sense of extreme achievement. But I'm also euphoric. I've been on the bike for less than three minutes, but months later I can still extrapolate it into hours of clarity. There is nothing about the entire trip that I will ever be able to accept as normal, but do you know what? Looking back now it wasn't at all frightening. It's hard to quantify such a money-can't-buy experience, it's so immense.

But I was curious to find out what Mamola gained from taking passengers like me out, over and over again: "You know that feeling when you give your kid his first bicycle for Christmas, and the feeling you get when you see their face? It's the same look you have now, and when I see that I know I have done my job.

"I know that this is one of the greatest sports on earth," he adds. "Motorcyclists are a very special people. We are part of a clan and I have now let you into our world, you are one of us. When you watch racing now, you'll watch in a different light."

To be honest, the experience might have been even deeper than that for me, but one thing is certain - as I watch Valentino Rossi overtake all of his title rivals en route to his 98th grand prix victory later that afternoon, I have a crystal clear empathy for the galactic level of talent on display in front of me.

Gallery: More pics of editor Strang on the Ducati