How to drive on two wheels with stunt ace Paul Swift

Pulling off a seamless J-turn is slightly harder, even though it doesn’t look it. Mark Jones is instructing on this one and he explains that the trick is to grasp the left-hand side of the wheel with your right hand at the nine o’clock position, build up speed in reverse then, when he calls it, declutch and flick the wheel over through 180deg to the three o’clock position. Do this and the car snaps around viciously, tyres howling. As it comes back into line, the idea is to flick the wheel back to where you started, then select a forward gear in order to make your escape from the bandits without stopping.

Straightening up at precisely the right moment when your head is doing its best to leave your shoulders is tricky, but doing it smoothly is even harder. Jones suggests bracing my arm rigidly to lock the steering wheel and counter the inertia in the road wheels, but that proves to be easier said than done when you’ve got biceps like Minnie Mouse.

So far so good, though. My nemesis, the parallel park, has been banished and the J-turn nailed, so next up is the front-wheel-drive drift car, which I’m struggling to get my head around. Drifting is normally prolonged power oversteer, and conventional wisdom says you must have rear-wheel drive for that.

Swift’s drift car is the same one he uses for driving on two wheels, fitted with a Quaife diff. But what really makes the drifts happen is a pair of plastic tyres on the rear wheels. This time I hop in alongside The Maestro for the demonstration. He drives around a cone as a datum point in first gear and, as speed builds and the rear begins to slide, a quick flick on the steering wheel sets up the drift.

The trick, says Swift, is to keep the speed steady and not work the throttle in order to avoid introducing too many variables. I give it a go and promptly spin; those plastic tyres really do the job, and once the Focus lets go, it’s around like a shot if you don’t catch it. However, with a bit of practice, I find I can hold the drift for a couple of laps. It’s actually a lot of fun and a great way to practise car control in a small space.

We have a go at an autotest around a course of cones in a Focus RS and against the clock. Not my finest hour. I move on to the grand finale: hanging out of the window of Swift’s Focus when it’s on two wheels.

“Once we’re up on two wheels, stand on the side of the passenger footwell and pull yourself up through the window,” he says. “When I say ‘get in’, be quick, because we’ll be coming down.”

Once Swift is doing his stuff and I’m poking out of the passenger window like some kind of unhinged tank commander, it actually feels more natural than sitting down in a car that’s driving along at 45deg.

There’s also an underlying serious side to the day. With cars doing so much for the drivers these days in terms of electronic assistance, it’s a great way of learning what a car really can do and how to control it.