There but by the grace of God, or Bernie Ecclestone, it could have been . . . That was what all but one of us were thinking recently at the Paul Ricard Test Track - owned by the boss of Formula One - in the south of France. Because all but one of us, on a Michelin tyre test event, hadn't at that stage lost a car, writes Brian Byrne.
The one, a British motor journalist, had found his own personal limit, coming out of a tight bend in a 450bhp Audi RS6 Avant. It's probably the recurring nightmare for the organisers of such events, when somebody claps a €100,000-plus car into an Armgard barrier. A car they have on loan from their "product partners".
For us, it was at first a much less high-powered affair - analysing the difference between the latest generation Michelin Energy tyre and its predecessor. In 1.6-litre Renault Meganes. In the wet first, with the help of a state-of-the-art track wetting system installed at the Ricard track last year.
Our brief was to take the cars around on one generation of tyres, old or new, then try similar vehicles with the other generation . . . then go back to the first for a confirmation of the reference.
Michelin in its testing programme each year has total of 2.5 million tyre-km driven on the tyres, involving some 500,000 working hours and a total of 6,000 tests.
The tyremaker is awarded around 200 "homologations" a year from various manufacturers and, across its markets, 80 per cent of car-owners in the top-of-the-range segment buy Michelin when they change their tyres for the first time.
Overall, studies in 2002 have indicated that customer loyalty in the replacement tyre market has increased to 66 per cent for Michelin, far ahead of the loyalty rating for its closest competitor. In Ireland, Michelin would be categorised as a premium brand.
Back on the track, we could drive as fast as we dared within sensible safety limits. And, truth to tell, you don't have to go that fast in a road car on a tight circuit to get a feel for the underpinning rubber.
We were in a safe environment to do things we'd never get the chance to try on an ordinary road. And I felt a significant improvement on the new generation Michelin Energy tyres.
Particularly coming out of a bend and accelerating, there was definitely a more confident feel.
We then got the chance to do the same with the "Pilot Sport" high performance tyre, next generation. Not Meganes this time, but BMW 330s and Audi TTs.
We were encouraged to switch off any electronic driving aids, such as ESP. It's more of a challenge. But again - at least if tyre squealing is anything to go by - the latest Pilot Sports felt to be better than their predecessor covers.
After that came the opportunity to see how the Pilot Sport performed in a variety of very high-powered cars, Mercedes 55 AMGs, M-B SLK and CLKs. And that Audi that I never got around to driving.
Because our hapless colleague managed to go where none of us, happily, had gone before. In fairness, though, he never blamed the tyres.