Coming into the film, Leonard expected many stunts would have to be done with mechanical contraptions substituting for driving talent. That included the deed done that night in Hawthorne-pretending-to-be-Tokyo: running a 350Z sideways up a spiral ramp not quite as wide as that Nissan was long.

"Originally they were going to tow it up the ramp," explains Millen. "But I measured out the car and estimated the slip angle and the speed, and saw that I'd have 6 or 7 inches on either side. It was just prior knowledge of speed slip angles and proximity. So I did it."

Millen makes it sound easy, but watching him was mind-boggling. Starting on the second floor a few yards behind the ramp's lip he'd have the engine screaming before dumping the clutch, and the gray Z was already sideways as it bottomed on the thin metal drain where the ramp and garage deck abut. A few loud moments later the Nissan would practically leap onto the top floor, Millen would hit the brakes and the turbos could be heard spooling down through their waste gates. Several cameras recorded the action from different angles.

Millen did this at least a dozen times while wearing a black wig instead of a helmet, and every time he got out of the car it looked as if his heart rate hadn't nudged up. He never put nose or tail into either wall and it seemed that the car was perfectly equidistant from them every run. It was a humility check for those of us who consider ourselves good drivers but know we couldn't do that without a talent transplant.

And a serious cap in the ass for everyone, inc me, whos slagged that bit off right from the previews etc as being unrealisitc gayness