You’re Tony Cochrane, V8 Supercars executive chairman, for the day. What are your visions for the category?

So that means I can have his house and bank account?

Firstly, I wish they’d put a current driver on the board of V8 Supercars. Because the landscape changes so quickly, I think you need one on there to tell them what, on the racing side of it, is needed.

I think the racing probably needs to be a little bit more ... dramatic. And that’s very circuit-orientated. Some circuits we go to, the cars are bunched up, and it’s good racing. At other circuits, a place like Phillip Island, the field really stretches out. NASCAR has it pretty well down pat. If the racing’s getting a bit boring, they’ll bring out the old promoter’s yellow. “Oh, there’s a feather on the track, we’d better slow it down.” It bunches the field back up.

Unfortunately, a lot of our sport’s about qualifying. The race is won or lost by Saturday’s qualifying. You have a handful of drivers who are very good qualifiers, and they qualify at the front, and it makes their weekend so much easier ... You qualify at the back, and you’re in big trouble. I’d come up with some sort of format that would give the guys who don’t usually qualify at the front a bit of a chance to get up there.

Russell Ingall (left) claimed Bathurst win No.2 in 1997 with Larry Perkins (middle). Peter Brock celebrated with them. Image: Chevron Library

How do you rate yourself as a regular road user?

I’m captain safety; I’m part of a safety campaign for DriverSafety and Supercheap Auto. I’m actually a very tame driver, but I have to tell ya, some of the most horrendous driving I see isn’t on a race track, it’s on the roads.

Unfortunately, Queensland, where I live, probably has some of the worst drivers in Australia. I don’t know whether it’s the casual atmosphere and they’re thinking about the beach, or getting down the pub for their next beer because it’s a hot day ... but I tell you what, they don’t concentrate on driving.

Our licence system nationally is just a joke. There should be mandatory defensive driving courses – they do one here at Eastern Creek – which put everyone through a practical driving course to teach skills on a skid pan, to teach them how to react if a car gets out of control in the wet – because it does happen. But we’re never told what to do if a car gets out of control. The skills we’re taught as race drivers should be taught to the guys who are just about to go for their licences ... not how to park a car in a side street, or how to do a U-turn ... give me a break. That’s not going to help you in a sudden downpour ...

What do you think of movies like Days Of Thunder and Talladega Nights? Do they make you laugh, or is their backdrop too close to home?

Talladega Nights is one of my all-time favourites. I’m a big Will Ferrell fan. We use his quotes in normal racing. Especially when we’re doing terribly in a meeting. When we’re going really bad, I’ll ask one of the engineers something like, “Shall I pull in for a pitstop?” And they’ll say, “Nah, we’re eating ice cream.”