The International Motor Press Association’s annual Test Day is one of the best reasons I’ve found thus far for entering the writing profession. Here’s the gist: A bunch of car manufacturers bring their wares to Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, line them up and hand the keys to an unruly mob of writers to flog around the Pocono road course. They do this despite the fact that, according to lore, nearly every year some journalist with delusions of Andretti ability crashes a car. “This event is also known as ‘Flaunt Your Incompetence Day,’” Craig Fitzgerald, president of the New England Motor Press Association, told me. “A couple of years ago someone totaled a Viper.” Now Dodge leaves the Viper at home.
    So, not being the guy to go home with airbag burns and a permanently disfigured reputation was the goal foremost in my mind when I arrived at the track. I decided to start things off in grand fashion and headed straight for the 450-horsepower Arnage T parked in the Bentley area.
    While Bentley public relations woman Deniz Tozak and I motored out to the starting line, I asked her how much of my estate, Wankfordshire, I’d have to sell off if I should stuff the Arnage ingloriously into the Pocono wall.
    “It costs $230,000,” she answered.
    I thought about that for a second. “That’s worth more than my life.”
    “You’d have to write a lot of columns,” she agreed.
    My Tom’s of Maine Woodland Spice deodorant was working overtime as we approached the flagman. Pressure, I’ve now learned, is pulling up to the starting line of an unfamiliar track in a hand-built, $230,000 car with the person responsible for that car—who also happens to be a cute girl—sitting next to you. The last time I faced so many simultaneous opportunities for irreparable ego damage, my voice was cracking and the prom was involved.
    I quickly discovered that on a track I have less car-control ability than a short-bus driver. Or possibly even a short-bus passenger. We’d approach a corner, I’d plow the Bentley through at perhaps half the speed of which it was capable, and by the time I got back on the gas, the transmission downshifted, and the twin turbos kicked in, we’d be at the next corner and I’d have to begin the clumsy sequence anew.
    The only place I could slightly redeem myself was the straightaway, which ran along a section of Pocono’s NASCAR oval. Holding the gas to the floor and driving in a straight line was something I figured I could do. Given some breathing room, the Arnage took off like a leather-swathed living room shot from an aircraft carrier’s steam catapult. The beast was still gathering speed when the end of the straight loomed, and as we were doing 110mph, I clamped the brakes. Alas, the big Brit’s binders proved surprisingly robust. I suffered premature deceleration, spending the last fifth of the straight driving slower than R. Kelly in a school zone. A bored-looking Deniz actually yawned.
    After subsequent laps in a Miata, an Expedition and a Town Car, my trepidation turned to misguided self-assuredness. I jumped in a 300-horsepower Lexus GS430, turned off the traction control (obviously intended for inferior drivers) and headed out to scorch the Pocono pavement with the fastest lap of the day.
    Exiting the second corner, I abruptly came to my senses. A slight rise in the track on the way out of the turn unloaded the suspension, and as I mashed the accelerator, the rear end broke loose and tried to take the lead. For a few frantic moments, I sawed at the wheel as the Lexus’ hindquarters snapped back and forth in a 60mph automotive booty dance. I managed to save the car, my rep and my boxers. But I knew Test Day had skewed my sense of reality when I reflected that I’d coddled a Bentley yet had no problem caning a $50,000 Lexus like it was a 1983 Impala from Rent-A-Wreck.
    The rest of the day was a blur. BMW, Infiniti, Subaru, Saab, Acura, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen, Mercedes—I had a dumb grin plastered on my face no matter what I was driving. But I spent a good portion of the long ride back from the Poconos scheming how to get to drive another Bentley. I think I’ve arrived at the answer. All I need to do now is find a producer to finance the video for my new rap single, “I’m Rich Y’all.” *