Westerman

“THE STORY, WHICH HAD ALREADY INVOLVED CONSIDERABLE EXPENSE, WAS DEAD. AS FOR THE CAR, IT WAS AS ROOTED AS MY CAREER WAS ABOUT TO BE”

I MAY HAVE been young and dumb back when the original Superman movie promotion asserted, “You’ll believe a man can fly”, but I remained doubtful. I suspected unassisted human flight was unlikely, and Christopher Reeve probably relied on an ironing board, cables and mirrors.

No, it wasn’t until seeing the June ’94 cover of Wheels that I really bought into the whole flying man thing. There was Robbo, the jammy bastard, not just thrashing the defining supercar of its era, but literally flying in the McLaren F1.

What gloriously heroic act was this? Holding that awesome

V12 wide open and keeping it pinned over a hump in the British countryside, cleaving a foot of fresh air under the tyres. Epic.

That mental image was one that rattled around in my subconscious for years, and seven years later I got my wings.

I was working as a freelancer for MOTOR magazine when editor Ged Bulmer commissioned me to provide an adventure drive of the Alfa Romeo 156. The premise was “156, from Alpha (‘gateway to Queensland’s west!’) to Roma”. It didn’t sound like the most scintillating story idea, but given that ‘Roma’ did sound like a Queenslander trying to say “Romeo” after a few stiff Bundies (and the fact I had nothing else on), I said okay. Ged’s brief was simple: “Don’t be f__kin’ boring.”

Worryingly, a few hours into the journey that’s exactly what it had become. Photographer Cristian Brunelli was making sounds of quiet exasperation, lamenting the monotony of the rural Queensland countryside. He looked at the map and suggested a dirt-road detour. It would provide visual relief for the camera for me to kick up some dust. “Hang the tail through a few corners,” he said. “Hell, there may even be a hump or two. We could get some air!”

It didn’t take long to find our take-off zone; a fast stretch kinking down to a deep plunge, abruptly kicking back up in a steep ramp that flattened off at the crest. My first run at around 80km/h was enough for me to feel all four wheels hit maximum droop, but Brunelli pulled his disappointed face and motioned upward. More speed needed. In this pre-digital era, with no camera-back image to provide evidence of a spectacular pic, more runs followed, as Brunelli urged me on like a personal trainer.

With Bulmer’s words of anti-boredom echoing in my head, and visions of how Robbo would probably take an Alfa like this into low orbit, I gassed if for the run that would surely deliver the money shot.

I still recall the moment when I realised I’d come in too hot, and made the fatal rookie error of cutting the throttle on the ramp, killing the gyroscopic force that allowed the car to fly flat. The nose plunged and the front subframe and the entire lower radiator support section took the full brunt of the impact. Coolant flowed like the green blood of a slain mechanical soldier. I’d killed the Alfa.

Shit. In that instant, what had seemed like a moment of bravado and great content creation had turned into a nightmare. We were on a remote dirt road miles from civilisation; the story, which had already involved considerable expense, was dead. As for the car, it was as rooted as my career was about to be.

With no other alternative, we crawled toward a remote property on the map, busted bits underneath the mortally wounded Alfa gouging the dirt, the temperature of the V6 climbing towards the red zone. Every 10 minutes we’d have to stop and wait for the engine to cool so I could dump more of our soft drinks and drinking water into the jury-rigged radiator. As we sat in the bush, the only sound other than the pinging of hot metal was that of the vicious self-flagellation I was giving myself.

Eventually a farm house, a recovery truck and a long stint for me in the publishing wilderness would conclude the Alpha to Roma adventure. Suffice to say, airborne shots are now left to the professionals.

Because, as any pilot will tell you, it’s not the flying that’s the tricky bit; it’s usually the landing…