By Sam Jemielity

The sky above Arizona's Bondurant Racing School is sunny and cloudless, but nerves are making my guts feel like a tornado alley. It's media test day for one of the most hotly anticipated new cars of the year, the 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. I'm about to get behind the wheel of pre-production Evos with Mitsubishi's all-new 291-horsepower, 2.0-liter turbocharged engine and test them out on the Firebird International Raceway's curvy 1.1-mile west track. The car's name -- "Evo" -- conjures the word "evil," a fitting description of the completely re-designed 2008 model. It looks plain nasty; with its jet-fighter inspired shark-nose front end, 18-inch wheels and rear spoiler, it resembles an Audi A4 pumped full of HGH. The thought of pushing this devil on a test track is somewhat intimidating, and visions of taking a turn too hot and dealing with the intricacies of Mitsu's insurance policy are making my palms sweat.

So it's reassuring that before those sweaty hands grip the wheel, I'll be taking a few spins as a passenger with former Bondurant Racing School instructor Spencer Sharp. Sharp's been racing cars all his life, and it's his job to point out all the potential pitfalls to journalists whose need for speed probably exceeds their skills as a wheelman. Sharp briefly explains the Evo's new 6-speed Twin-Clutch Sportronic Shift Transmission, a tri-mode automated manual transmission that operates with paddle shifters. He sets it to the most aggressive "S-Sport" mode, which shifts at high RPMs, like a pro race car driver. Then it's go time.

"There's some water low in this first turn, so go in high," he says, gunning around the waterlogged turn so quickly my head nearly slams the passenger seat window. We coast through the second turn into the straightaway. "Now, on this straight, if you come into it with some speed, you can get it up to 100," he says. The Evo accelerates down the straight -- its 0-60 time has been reported at under five seconds -- and the speedometer slides past triple digits.

A sharp left turn looms at the end of the straightaway. "When you get to the braking cones, you'll have to brake hard to make this turn or you'll go right off the track," Sharp says, giving a neck-snapping illustration of what "braking hard" means before negotiating the sharp left turn at the end of the straight. As we take a few more laps, Sharp points out the various acceleration and braking spots as we snake through the S-curves and hairpins, before finally pulling up into the pit area.

Now I'm up. "Do you mind riding along a few laps, giving some pointers?" I ask Sharp as I don my helmet. He hops into the passenger seat. As I ease the Evo onto the track, Sharp reminds me about the slippery first turn. "Go high to avoid the water," he says, "then stay high so you can get some speed into the straight." I try to comply, but I don't keep much speed in the turn, and despite standing on the gas pedal, I can't get the needle to 100 before a series of orange cones on the side of the track tell me it's high time to brake. I'm concentrating on too many things at once -- watching the race track, shifting, braking and generally trying not to have to deal with that aforementioned insurance policy.