From dawn 'til dusk

I'm not a morning person. I like nothing better than to have a long lie in, so I was struggling through a slumbering fog in my head to remember quite why I was at the wheels office at 6am on National Day.

Then, I saw the SLS, and it all made sense. And, as I turned the corner and parked next to the Cayenne Turbo, looked through the fence at the Ghost and heard the growling rumble of the ‘Stang approaching, my ‘leave me alone I'm not awake yet frown' turned into my ‘schoolboy in a toy shop — give me time smirk'. That's it; the car of the year 2010 shoot, that's why I'm here half asleep. Hooray. Now where's the coffee machine?

Slowly, jadedly, a motley crew of the UAE's weariest motoring journalists and photographers gathered, most of us knowing full well that although some of the next 14 hours would be spent driving very nice cars, most of it would be spent standing in the sun, polishing wheels and balancing Chris's home-made reflectors (aka oversized cake bases).

A few days earlier I was standing in a queue at Dubai airport when Amit called to confirm the day's arrangements. It may have been childish but I admit I raised my voice a little to ask, "So who's driving the SLS? May I have the SLS?" A few heads turned in my direction quizzically as I went on. "Oh I see, well what about the R8 then? Jonathan, OK right, well I guess I'll take the Rolls — but I want the R8 on the way back!"

As we crossed the Dubai-Abu Dhabi border en route to Yas Marina, naturally I stretched the Ghost's legs a little. Well you would, wouldn't you? Ten minutes later came a desperate call from Sony in the BMW. "Tim, could you please slow down — the Cruze, Fiat and the Tucson are trying to keep up". So I slowed and waited. Then slowed some more... And so it was that a rather odd looking convoy of a Rolls-Royce Ghost, Chevy Cruze, BMW 550i, Fiat 500 and nine other cars pulled up at Yas Marina, where we gathered to collect our passes, then rumbled, rolled and roared our way out onto the circuit. Excellent, thousands of horsepower at our beck and call, and a Formula 1 circuit at our disposal. So what did we do first, I hear you ask? We stood around, a lot. As expected...

First job of the day was to get one of two possible front cover shots "in the bag". Sounds easy. Just take a photo, right? If only it were that simple. Not when Chris, the photographer, was way up there in the stands and the cars had to align so as not to be encroaching on one another, filling the frame but not crowding it. Chris phoned Amit, Amit would shout instructions up the line of cars, drivers would misunderstand, and the car might be positioned incorrectly by one or two feet, or at a slightly wrong angle. Chris would wave, Amit would redirect, the driver might not hear the call, someone else would go running back to give them their interpretation of Amit's interpretation of what Chris was saying. Doing this with two or three cars is frustrating, but trying to line up 14 cars ‘just so' can take hours. Which is precisely what happened. Next year I think we'll arrange to borrow a couple of the circuit's radios. Now if only I'd thought of that at the time.

Next were the group shots of cars in particular categories; not too much of a chore but Chris was run ragged trying to find alternate backdrops for each group.

Not so easy when all around you is similar looking Armco, concrete, tarmac and steel. Pretty soon it was lunchtime, which we knew because, incredibly, the sound of 15 rumbling stomachs is actually louder than the SLS at 3,500rpm. But which car to use to buy sandwiches and drinks for the needy? There were plenty of volunteers ready to take the Mercedes, but common sense ruled (actually Amit put his foot down) so off buzzed Mushtaq and Dipak in the Fiat 500... The perfect shopping runaround.

Then it was car to car shots, with Chris in a fetching luminous yellow safety harness designed to prevent him from falling in front of the very car he was photographing. With that done (the photos, not the falling), the way was clear for eight or nine of us to jump into the remaining vehicles and take them around the small part of the North circuit available to us. With Amit distracted, I finally grabbed a drive in the SLS. Mmmm, gull wing doors. Mmmmm...

As the sun set on the circuit, Chris was still organising automotive jigsaw puzzles but when poor light stopped play, it was time for me to drive home in the soft top Audi; which was grrrrR8. "You might want to put the roof up," was the last thing I heard as I roared away from the track that evening, but what's the point of driving an R8 if no one can see who owns it? OK, technically I don't. But that night as I crawled down the beach road (in a creative, circuitous route back to wheels HQ), radio blasting and my arm casually over the door, nobody knew it wasn't mine. Nope, no doubt about it, I'm definitely more of an evening person.