Two Ingalls in One Race Car?!

‘The Enforcer’ has won two Bathurst 1000s and the 2005 Championship. And while she has been by his side 25 years, Julia Ingall said she had never been in a V8 Supercar alongside her husband.

So on the eve of his retirement from full-time V8 Supercar racing, Julia donned her own ‘Ingall’ Supercheap Auto race suit to jump in the passenger seat of his Holden Commodore VF and fly around the 3.42km concrete-lined Sydney street circuit.

The #66 roared out of the pit lane – and on its return, Julia emerged with a huge smile.

“It was amazing, it was scary!” she said when getting out of the car.

“Especially at a track like this, to see how insane it is – I don’t know how they do it for a whole race. I thought I was going to be sick after two corners! But it was really good fun.

“I thought he was going to hit the wall, I said ‘please don’t hit the wall while I’m in the car’!”

Russell didn’t take it easy on Julia – in fact, he said the lap was only about three-tenths of a second off his quickest lap-time during Friday's practice.

“She went around many years ago around Ipswich, but Ipswich isn’t the most exciting track in the world, so this is her first real stab at it – especially a street circuit too because it’s so different to a permanent circuit,” Russell told v8supercars.com.au.

“It’s always good getting people’s reactions when they’re going around. And someone being as close to the sport as she has, it’s great to experience it.

“It’s blown her around a bit, I think she’s still getting her head around it!”

A handful of sportsmen were also lucky enough to jump into V8 Supercars, with Rabbitohs’ Ben Lowe and Wallaby Kurtley Beale having runs with Tony D’Alberto and Dean Fiore respectively.

“It was great getting out there, he’s a super talent and he gave it some, so it was good!” Lowe said of D’Alberto.

“There were a few hairy moments! Tony said earlier the track was pretty tight – you can definitely sense that around the circuit. No doubt it’ll be a big weekend of racing.”

Beale is now hooked on the sport and has enormous respect for what the drivers do.

“It was pretty crazy, a great experience – I’ve been in some pretty confronting circumstances in my life, but nothing as confronting as that,” he said.

“I really enjoyed it. I’ve got a lot of respect for the drivers, it’s tough to get out there in a car and do what they do and I’ll certainly follow Dean in his career.

“The drivers have got a lot of skill to be able to get around the corners with such speed and obviously take a lot of time and practice to get to a certain level. In comparison to us, it’s exactly the same – a lot of effort goes into practice.”

The Sydney NRMA Motoring & Services 500 continues today with ARMOR ALL Qualifying and the season's final V8 Supercars race.