In the high octane, tyre-burning, engine barking, kicking and bucking bronco world of Grand Prix motor-cycling the line between glory and disaster is just a couple of square inches of wheel rubber between the bike and the track.
The difference between winning and cartwheeling through the air at 150mph with nothing more than multiple injuries to look forward to, is just a flick of the wrist, the wrong tilt of the bike or a split second squeeze of the brakes away.
The handlebars, according to three times world champion Mick Doohan, aren't for steering but for holding on to. You steer with your thighs, knees and calves. 'You can't do it with the front wheel because most of the time it's just floating on the track,' says the 32-year-old from Brisbane.
For the last few years, Doohan - who may well capture his fourth consecutive world championship at today's British Grand Prix at Donington Park being shown live on BBC TV - has known plenty of glory, winning eight of the first nine of this season's races.
But it hasn't always been that way. The memories of a spectacular wipe- out at Donington during practice four years ago are all too clear. 'I came into a corner too fast, the tyres were cold, the steering locked and I was catapulted off. I can remember flying through the air, 10 feet off the ground at 150mph wondering what was going to happen when I landed.'
In fact, he was helped away with nothing more than a few bruises and dented ego. A year earlier at the Dutch Grand Prix, he wasn't so lucky. 'I wasn't going particularly fast - 100mph - but there had been a lot of crashes that day and I skidded on some brake fluid. The trouble was, it happened in the middle of the track and I slid along with the bike on top of me. When you're in the gravel you can get free.'
He was red-hot favourite and just one win away from capturing the world championship for the first time. So, instead of having his broken leg set in plaster, he had an operation in the hope of getting back in the saddle sooner.
It was a decision that nearly wrecked his career. The op went badly wrong, infection set in and only the intervention of an Italian specialist prevented the Dutch surgeons from amputating his leg. Determined not to let the championship slip from his grasp, he was back in the saddle within two months.
It was to prove a terrible mistake. He didn't win the title. It took 11 operations to sort his leg out, including inserting a metal strap down the bone and attaching it with pins to keep it straight. Even today every step he takes hurts and he will never be able to bend his right ankle.
In the end it was 18 months before he was back to his winning ways. 'By then I was even more determined to win the world championship. I didn't want to be the nearly guy, the rider who was good but not quite good enough.'
Grand Prix riders don't call a crash a crash. They refer to it as 'going down' or 'getting off'. It somehow makes it sound a little less lethal or life threatening. Doohan has no idea how many times he's gone down or how many bones he's broken - just that his big prang taught him something. 'I have
developed a greater awareness and respect. When I was younger I was fearless. I thought that I was indestructible,' says Doohan.
'I believed that accidents only happened to other people and that I would always come through.
'One of the most frightening things when you go down is not knowing where you're going to land. Time seems to go very slowly when you're flying through the air and you have time to look around and see what you're going to slam into but there's nothing you can do - you're quite helpless.'
He crashed 10 times in his first season in 1989. Now he seldom comes off. He insists that he still drives to the very limit, riding along the edge of sanity. But he can now see that when he was younger, his ambition, his desire, made him push bikes beyond their limit and try to compensate for their problems. 'There's a point when you're going at maximum speed when both the front and rear wheels of the bike are just starting to slide,' he says. 'You can feel it as you go through the bend. That's the point that you're trying to reach. You know that if you go even a fraction faster you'll be off the bike.
'You're not aware of the speeds but trying to maintain this fine line, the adrenaline rush, the right line through the course, tilting at the right angles, trying to get a smooth flow and doing it all so that you just have control of the machine - that's riding on the edge.'
In spite of speeds of up to 200mph, and the prospect of having his 190bhp, 130kg bike bouncing around on top of him at who knows what speed, he insists that he always sleeps well the night before a big race.
'I think that if you start considering the danger and risk, then it's time to got out of the sport. My greatest fear isn't having an accident, it's not winning. You know that it's a dangerous environment and you learn to respect that. I do have the occasional nightmare when I wake up with a jump because something has gone terribly wrong. But it's only a bad dream.'
None of this makes life easy or relaxing for his beautiful 24-year-old girlfriend Salina Sines, whom he met three years ago while training at the gym where she worked as a trainer on the Australian Gold Coast, south of Brisbane.
'People assume that it must be very glamorous being the girlfriend of a Grand Prix rider,' she says, 'They hear about the travel and think it must be wonderful. In truth there are times when I wish Mick was back doing his old job working as a swimming pool builder. At least I know that he'd be safe.
'Of course I worry about him but I try not to let it get to me, otherwise I'd be a nervous wreck. I tend not to watch the race. I'll occasionally glance at the television set but mostly I'm waiting for it to be over. I watch a video of it when we get home. Then I know it's a happy outcome and I can just enjoy it.
'I'd love us to swap places for a day, just so that he'd know what I go through when he's out there racing. But he knows that I'm totally behind him in everything that he does. Hopefully that support makes a difference to him and helps. The reason why he's so successful is not just his riding but he wants it more than the others.'
Of course the pounds l million plus earnings help compensate (Doohan lives as a tax exile in Monaco). But it's the thought of more world championships that drives him on.
'The big mistake is to quit too young,' he says. 'But when I no longer have what it takes to be at the front then, like Boris Becker, I'll know that it's time to quit. You have to go out at the top.'
Spanish hard-man Alex Criville hopes to be back in the saddle for the British GP today despite losing much of the flesh and bone from his left thumb in an horrific smash in June.
The 27-year-old former 125cc world champion is Doohan's team-mate and has been the only serious challenger to the Aussie this season. Criville has recovered well despite several complicated and painful skin graft operations since his crash in practice for the Dutch GP at Assen.
Donnington Park transforms into a motor-cycle city for the Grand Prix weekend - around 3,500 racing personnel will inhabit the paddock area while camp sites around the Leicestershire
circuit will cater for up to 10,000 of the 60,000 crowd using 60 additional showers and 200 extra toilets. Donington is the only
privately-owned Grand Prix
standard race circuit in the world. Leicester businessman Tom Wheatcroft, bought the derelict track in 1971 and spent the next six years building what is now recognised as one of the best racing circuits in the GP calendar.
While Doohan is chasing a
hat-trick of Donington victories, at the other end of the scale 14-year-old Leon Haslam takes his first steps towards emulating his father, former British GP star Ron Haslam. Young Leon will compete in the Honda CB500 Newcomers' Cup, one of the
support races to the GP races.
Big V-Four cylinder motors that have ruled the roost on the GP
circuits for the past decade or so are now under serious threat from other types of engine. Both Honda and Aprilia field V-twin variants which blend the power of the 500cc with the lightness and agility of a 250cc machine.
This season has also seen the birth of the Modenas team run by former world champion Kenny Roberts. The three cylinder Modenas KR3, from a Malaysian- based factory though built in Britain, is a half-way house between the other types of engine and has enjoyed some success in only its first year of racing.
