Pro racing drivers do considerably more than just show up on race weekends to flog their race cars for a couple days and then head home. In between race meetings, drivers must find time for testing, physical training, and the occasional publicity event with demonstrations and ride-alongs with sponsors, VIPs, and occasionally a spouse. For the Holden Racing Team in Australia, that means putting their ace driver James Courtney around the racetrack with guests of the team’s assorted sponsors. Passengers experience a wide gamut of responses so one has to imagine drivers are used to hearing screaming and the occasionally scrambling to find non-existent roof handles.

At a recent ridealong, the HRT crew pulled a fast one on Courtney, strapping in the “passenger” before their driver had climbed aboard. As it turns out, they had strapped a dummy into the passenger seat and just given James a short warning that his passenger has some nerves and is the silent type. None the wiser, Courtney rips out of the pits in his 650-horsepower Holden Commmodore and is generally unaware until the dummy’s head nearly falls off halfway through the outlap during a long, sweeping corner and its arm falls against Courtney’s seat a few seconds later.