Cupra's Exponential Experience gives a taste of the UrbanRebel

In front of me is the Cupra UrbanRebel racing concept, a tiny electric car with a massive rear wing and an even more intimidating maximum power output of 320kW. It’s parked on a wide open skidpan with kerbing and track markings that make it look like a go kart track.

This is Cupra’s Exponential Experience – a way of filling the gap between the worlds of motorsport and gaming. And also a way of making those who are nervous about driving priceless prototypes, and those who don’t like VR headsets, dread what will happen next.

Now, normally at an event like this, attendees might get a chance to have a go at a prototype car in controlled conditions, with a professional co-driver who knows when they should or shouldn’t panic. You sign indemnity paperwork, put on a helmet, get in the car, and drive.

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I comb through the fine print and remove my hat – expecting a hair net and helmet will come next – and walk to the UrbanRebel, where I’m told to jump in.

I oblige, gracefully foisting my ‘not-quite-racing-driver-slim’ frame over the roll cage and into the racing seat, and a man reaches between my legs to harness me in.

“Hmmm,” I think. “No helmet. Okay.”

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However, I’m about to have some different headwear.

The strapper-innerer then reaches above my head to a Virtual Reality headset, pulls the high-tech form-fitting visualisation device down over my noggin, and as soon as it’s on, I feel a bit queasy. This is what always happens to me when I wear VR headsets – my brain doesn’t like trying to calculate the un-reality of the situation.

But with the strange contraption engulfing my sight with a form of pixelated double-vision, and with a headset now also in play, I’m instructed that I will be exiting reality and joining the virtual realm.

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I gently ease the UrbanRebel away from a standstill, my instructor talking to me about what I am going to experience.

I can’t concentrate on his words – all I can hear is the immense whine from the electric motor, an intense buzz like a mosquito on a megaphone, and the voice in my head telling me to concentrate on where I was steering. I can still see the actual landscape ahead of me, but there is an augmented reality pointer telling me where I need to head.

Over the top of a strategically placed kerb, a purple ‘garage’ appears in front of me.

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I drive into it, stop, and then it happens. My actual reality disappears, and I’m inside a video game.

Unlike other VR experiences I’ve had, in this scenario I am fully ensconced – I see nothing but a scene that would look at home in Super Mario Kart, but in this instance, I’m on a ‘race track’ in the middle of Barcelona. Apparently.

“3. 2. 1. Go!”

I timidly accelerate from the start-finish line – like, actually accelerating and steering a physical, real car on a properly marked course, while with my eyes see a very different scene play out in front of me.

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I round two bends, and a yellow bar appears in front of me, an indicator that my power is limited, but when the yellow goes away a sudden shunt urges me on, with markings on the ‘road’ ahead pointing the way.

A shining yellow beacon – kind of like a reward you’d see on a racing game – offers a power boost, so I steer at it before continuing on, green markings advising I should speed up, while more closely arranged orange and upright red plot marks indicate braking points.

I should say here that I had seen three other journos go ahead of me, and thought that from where I stood, it looked as though they were going very slowly. Indeed, the car’s maximum speed was limited to 40km/h for the practice laps.

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But as I drive, I feel like I am properly fanging it.

Lap one ends, lap two of practice flies past. I start to learn where to turn, where to gather a bit more pace. Adrenalin has dismissed my initial nerves, and the urge to yak is now nonexistent.

Then I pull back into the ‘garage’, and the course turns from an action-hero-movie-style night theme with lots of black and purple to a daylight design that’s more akin to Grand Theft Auto or the classic PlayStation game, Driver.

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Just as I had done in the past in those video games, I steer, brake, accelerate and feel adrenaline coursing through my veins. But unlike those games, I’m in a real car in an unreal reality.

And for the record, I didn’t puke.