"OH, SHIT!" I thought, my face rapidly reddening under my helmet. I'd just spun at Sepang's Turn 9, the slowest corner on the circuit and probably the least likely place on the track for anyone to end up facing the wrong way. But then I was only doing my job.

In this case, the job entailed investigating the new one-make racing series in Asia being launched by Mercedes-Benz. Strictly for non-professional drivers, as we mentioned last issue (see 'Gentlemen Racers Wanted', CarBuyer 49), it's based around the SLK 55 AMG.

The cars are fairly heavily modified for track use, and the "AMG Ultimate Experience" is a simple pay-and-play affair, which means you turn up with around 10,000 Euros at one of six events around the region, and get to climb into the racer for a weekend's worth of living out your wildest racing fantasies.

There are qualifying heats to do, a proper grid start to the racers, trophies to be won, the whole shebang.

Now, assuming all your daydreams about Kimi Raikkonen involve being him (as opposed to being with him), there can't be a better way to spend the money. Although 10,000 Euros isn't a tiny sum, putting it into AMG's Ultimate Experience is much better than having to buy your own racecar, hire a support crew and maintain a store of parts.

Nor do you have to worry about the logistical nightmare of flying the whole set-up all over Asia, and best of all you needn't lose sleep over whether your car will be competitive, because all participants have to make do with the same equipment.

And what equipment, too. Given that the roadgoing SLK 55 is no slouch, with the terrific punch from its 5.4-litre V8 making it feel like you've been punted in the back by a buffalo each time you floor the throttle, it's a fine place to start if you're looking to build a competition machine.

With a bit of inspiration from last season's Formula One safety car, AMG has managed to turn the 55 into a delightful little racer.

For starters, it's been through an extensive weight-loss regime, with things like sound insulation and the SLK's folding roof chucked out as part of the diet. Instead, you get a fixed, carbonfibre roof with a plastic rear screen, and that item alone saves 25kg.

That, along with touches like the racing-style fuel filler cap mounted on the bootlid, really helps the SLK feel the part of club racer.

The image is only reinforced when you climb in. There's a full roll cage to squirm your way through, and after that you're ensconced in a lightweight racing seat, with a six-point racing harness to do up.

The interior's been completely stripped-out, with no carpeting to rest your feet on or anything in the way of cabin lining. The highlight of the naked cabin, however, has to be the suede-covered steering wheel, which just feels delightful in your hands.

Behind it is a motorsports must-have, in the form of tiny paddles which you use to change gears. The SLK 55 racer has the same five-speed autobox as the road car, but it's been brainwashed to think that it's a sequential manual, so it only ever changes gears when you flick the paddles and tell it to.

That might give you the impression that the SLK racecar is a doddle to drive. Well, I'm here to tell you that it is, and it isn't.

Jumping in and reeling off decently quick laps in a circuit you know well is something the SLK 55 will readily help you to do, but when it comes to finding the last few tenths that could separate you from pole position glory, it actually demands a pretty skilled hand.

I know because I haven't got one.

The SLK is all sweetness when you first get in, idling quietly and even making blasts of frigid air available through the air-con vents. Then you give it some throttle and, good God, the resulting V8 scream is enough to startle a deaf person.

Obviously, the quiet street exhaust would never do on the track, and combining the very illegal and very delicious-sounding exhaust on the racecar with a lack of sound insulation means that when you're nailing the accelerator pedal, it sounds like there are armies at war in the cabin.

There's punchy acceleration to match the noise, but then Sepang has a way of making even very powerful cars feel a bit slow. If anything is above reproach, it's the brakes, which have been beefed up for track use and feature cooling ducts to keep them from overheating.

They provide the kind of mighty stopping power that should keep pants-wetting moments to a minimum, even on a circuit with straights as long as Sepang.

It's when you tip the SLK into corners that you feel where a good driver could really make a difference over an average one. The ESP (or Electronic Stability Programme) system intervenes in fairly sharpish fashion once either end of the SLK starts to slide a little, and the resulting cut in engine power and automatic braking restores traction in a hurry, but it can really blunt your charge out of a corner.

Therefore, the quickest way to lap is always going to be with the ESP turned off, and even then it tends to step in if things get really hairy. It's clear, then, that being smooth and staying right on the edge of tyre adhesion is going to be the best way to win yourself a trophy in the series.

But apart from picking the right lines through the bends and trying to be as tidy as possible, the SLK does throw up other challenges. Choosing the right gear is one of them, because the car has so much torque that it feels quick in any ratio, and as a result only a skilled driver would be absolutely sure of having selected the best one to use on any given corner.

Then there's tyre management to consider. Shod on street-legal Pirelli P Zero Neros, the SLK racecar isn't short on grip when its tyres are new, but with plenty of laps under their belt they start to go off, changing the car's balance from neutral to understeery as they do.

The best drivers in the series, then, will either have to learn to drive around the effect or somehow take care of their tyres during the races to make sure they stay quick throughout.

As to how I managed to spin the Mercedes, I had somehow gotten it into my head that the ESP's habit of stepping in even when switched off would make the car pretty much impossible to wipe out in.

So I nailed the throttle on the short straight that leads up to Turn 9, which is almost a U-turn, slowed to a crawl for the bend, and stood on the throttle again in the middle of the corner to kick the tail out, piling on heaps of corrective steering while keeping my foot flat to the floor and expecting the ESP system to sort it all out for me.

For some reason-probably because there was another journalist in the car with me, ensuring maximum embarrassment-a small slide grew into a gigantic one, with the rear tyres screeching like Yoko Ono, and I ended up looking back at the corner I had just exited, grinding to a halt with the engine dead.

Good thing I wasn't in a race at the time, or I'd have screwed my chances. And wasted 10,000 Euros in the process.

Of course, I was only probing the limits of the SLK racing car to see it was a serious piece of kit, or merely a foolproof plaything for the rich. Seeing how the SLK 55 punished my silly behaviour, I can safely report that while the AMG Ultimate Experience Asia is meant for gentlemen racers, total novices should probably think carefully.

[To find out more about the AMG Ultimate Experience Asia, log on to www.amgexperience.com or contact Thomas Buehler on 6546 0660 or 9747 2544.]