King of the road? Oh, please. I wasn’t even prince of the parking lot.

But there I was on Friday morning, sitting in the driver’s seat of a 2017 Peterbilt 579 Epiq tractor trailer, a vehicle big enough that I could have fit my little convertible in the sleeper compartment.

With the engine rumbling in front of us, I looked at my instructor, Clarence Taylor, the Virginia Trucking Association’s 2014 Truck Driver of the Year, who drives for Walmart and is a member of its “Road Team,” which visits schools and events around the nation to evangelize folks about safely sharing the road with commercial vehicles.

“Maybe you guys should have brought an old beater for this,” I told him when he noted that this truck had been driven a grand total of 1,400 miles since it rolled off the assembly line. “I’d hate to wreck this one.”

Immediately I recognized how awkwardly inappropriate my comment had been. Kind of like laughing about icebergs on a North Atlantic cruise. Or joking about parachutes with holes on a skydiving excursion. Some things you just don’t say.

But when I’m nervous, those are exactly the things most likely to come out of my mouth. And I was indeed nervous as I prepared for my run at the six-station obstacle course that 104 truck-driver members of the VTA would tackle on Friday afternoon and Saturday.

After taking a 40-question written test, the truckers would divide into classes — dependent on the types of trucks they drive — and then tackle the driving challenge and its six “problems.” There was a mechanic’s-pit problem, a collision-avoidance problem, a hard-right-turn problem, a loading-dock problem, a truck-scale problem and a front-stop problem. Each one required a level of finesse that would seem impossible to achieve while wielding a 72-foot vehicle that weighs 34,000 pounds, even when it’s empty.

“These guys are trying to get close,” Taylor said of the drivers, who attempt to maneuver the vehicles within inches of the various orange cones and barrels to score the most possible points on each problem. “I’m just trying not to hit things.”

That sounded like excellent advice — and perhaps a veiled warning — as I pulled the knobs to release the truck’s and trailer’s brakes and then wrestled the rig into first gear, the only gear they’d allow me to use for this tour of the parking lot at the Center for Workforce Solutions on the grounds of the old Tidewater Community College campus in North Suffolk.

Taylor is excellent at not hitting things, a trait shared to one degree or another by all of the drivers at the event this weekend. Each had gone the entire previous year without any traffic incidents — not even a fender-bender caused by another driver. Some had perfect records extending back decades. Among this group, Taylor’s 3.3 million accident-free miles were a laudatory but nowhere near unique accomplishment.

My sights were set somewhat lower: Don’t hit the orange barrel. Keep the trailer off the curbs. Avoid that guy walking across the parking lot. Try not to break anything inside the truck, which still had that new-big-rig smell. And whatever you do, don’t stall, don’t stall, don’t stall.

Turning a wide 180 at the end of the course to set things up for the next driver, I watched as Taylor set the parking brakes, and I was certain I saw a look of relief wash quickly across his face.

But I was beaming.

“Hey, I didn’t hit anybody and I didn’t break anything!” I cried. “Perfect safety record!”

Somehow I doubt that will be enough to get me into next year’s championships.