Doing it the Italian way

Two British stars outshone the Hollywood celebrities at this week's premiere of The Italian Job.

The Mini Coopers twirled, spun and took a bow in Leicester Square in front of huge crowds.

The man at the wheel of one Mini, stunt driver Russ Swift, made it look easy. But is it? Swift invited me to his private test track in the north of England to find out.

"Let's warm up with a few handbrake turns," Swift, 52, suggested, handing me the keys to his Cooper S. Now I'm no boy racer - I learnt to drive in my mother's yellow Datsun Cherry - but here, I tell myself, is my chance to "blow the bloody doors off" and prove my va-va-voom.

I floor the throttle, turn the wheel, lift the handbrake and... slide off into a field, narrowly missing a sheep before winding up in a pile of horse manure.

At Swift's suggestion that we "try a few wheel-spin burn-outs to get those tyres smoking", I speed back in reverse, then put the car in first gear and floor the throttle. Or at least I thought it was first gear. In fact, I'd stuck it into reverse again, and if Swift had not grabbed the handbrake, we would have sped backwards over the B6257 towards Darlington.

In preparation for the high-speed 180-degree reverse spin, beloved of getaway drivers, I reverse at 40mph, yank the wheel as far as I can to one side, hit the brake and wait to spin. And wait. And wait. I've stalled and I roll to a humiliating halt, narrowly missing Swift's £40,000 motor home.

But there is still time to prove my go-faster credentials with the toughest test of all: the two-wheeler. Swift lays out the wooden ramp and I rev the engine. "Relax. It's just like riding a bike," he says. As I hit the ramp, the left side of the car flies 45 degrees skywards and my world turns upside down. Then it stops. Swift has yanked the handbrake again just before takeoff. "What are you trying to do? Go that fast and you'll flip us both over." After rolling off the ramp and crashing back down to earth, I hand the keys back to Swift. This time we get it just right.

He mounts the ramp, flips the car on its side, rearranging my internal organs, and speeds forward, the car teetering like a spinning top. We hit the road so hard my shins feel as if they have burst through my knee caps.

"Fantastic," I lie. "Can I try this at home?" Swift answers: "Don't even think about it. The two-wheeler has a special front axle and, to make the car spin, you need to remove the fuses to disable the safety systems, and customise the handbrake."

I have no idea what he's talking about and I'm not about to ask. Driving on two wheels, turning on a sixpence and spinning 180 degree turns may seem easy in Leicester Square but it's a lot harder - and more painful - than it looks.