After winning Bronze in the Atlanta Olympics, Natalie Cook and I were lucky enough to be invited to compete in the 2nd ever female only Celebrity Grand Prix race at the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in 1998.

It was such an amazing event, driving alongside legends in sport such as - Dawn Fraser, Shane Gould, Nicole Livingston, Emma Carney, Jane Flemming & Raelene Boyle. We also had a few TV personalities - Deborah Hutton, Kim Kilby and Livinia Nixon.

Nat and I had flown straight into Melbourne, from an event in Brazil, missing 2 crucial days of training, but we had such a great time.

I just loved the feeling of sliding the car around the corners and pushing it further than you thought it could ever go. Jamming on the brakes to go down from 160km/ph to take bends in 2nd gear, trying to stay on the track at the same time as dodging other cars!

So, when I got the call to do it AGAIN early in 2005, you just can’t imagine how stoked I was!!

A chance to do this twice in one life-time!! Wow…..

However… this time wasn’t quite as “rosy” as the first time. This time everyone was seriously out to win!

March 4, 2005 - Ironman, triathlete and adventure racer Guy Andrews has been installed as a firm favourite for the BMW Celebrity Challenge by the bookmakers, ahead of Olympic Rowing champion James Tomkins, media personality Dermott Brereton and Olympic Ice skating Gold Medallist Steven Bradbury. The celebrity race this year is being promoted as the best of the best and all three favourites are former winners.

The book has been interesting to follow over the course of the week and their results of the training sessions at the Sandown circuit have obviously been closely followed. Andrews is a former winner of the event in 1996 (after a fearsome battle with golfer Ian Baker Finch) and bookies have him as firm favourite at 2.5, ahead of former Oarsome Foursome member Tomkins who won the event 12 months ago at 4.5 and former Australian Rules champion Brereton who won in 1999 at 6.0.

During the course of the week dancer/actor Paul Mercurio has drifted from 7s to 10s, Olympic Ice Skating Gold medallist Steven Bradbury has firmed from 9s to 8s, and Australian Football’s "Full back of the Century” Steven Silvagni has drifted from 13 to 15.

Of the females competing, Olympic swimming champion Petria Thomas retains top spot with odds of 20/1, although television presenter Michelle Walsh has firmed from 66/1 to 33/1 in the last two days.

Thomas is favoured to beat a host of male stars such as all-time great (and current world champion) boxer Kostya Tszyu at 25/1 and dueling media personalities Eddie McGuire (33/1) and Stephen Quartermain (33/1).

Interestingly, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer has firmed from 100/1 early in the week to share a line with former Skyhooks Bass player and ABC radio presenter Red Symons (both at 50/1).

By the end of the 5 days of practice leading up to the big race, I knew that I had absolutely NO chance of being anywhere near the front, so I just focused on beating Nat!!! (You always have to have some sort of goal!!)

This time, Nat had really improved and her time trial was better than mine, so she started about 4 places ahead of me on the starting grid. I had Neil Mitchell (3AW Radio personality) directly in front of me and he had Anthony Field (the blue Wiggle) in front of him.

Well, I remembered the instructor telling us during the week to make sure we had the car in first gear to start the race. At the time we all laughed and said – “yeah right, as if!” But, apparently Anthony hadn’t been listening! And, reverse gear is right next to first gear….

Well, you can imagine what happened….

As the lights hit green Neil stared in shock as Anthony’s reverse lights came on just as Neil was about to release his clutch at full revs…agghhhh! Luckily the Wiggle realised just in time and threw it into first.

All this happened over a matter of a few seconds. All I saw was Neil pull out and around Anthony and then Anthony’s reverse lights. So, I took off after Neil and left the Wiggle feeling very embarrassed.

Even though all this happened, we still managed a pretty good start and I was powering down the straight to the first bend.

Try to imagine 30 BMW’s full of highly competitive drivers slowing down from about 160km/ph to about 20km/ph for the first bend….It was a major traffic jam and felt more like bumper cars!

Coming into the bend, I thought this would be the best chance to make up a few places (so did everyone!) and most importantly get ahead of Nat. Somehow I managed to do just that (she must have been stuck behind Anthony or Alexander Downing!) and even though we finished in the middle of the pack, I managed to keep her behind me the whole way. Ha Ha!! Mission accomplished!!