In Athnias, you can board the recovery pod as the carrier is collecting it. While you can do this in any map using the pod, Piri's 3rd person camera will follow the pod to it's maximum height. You can look around & see the fake background above the map. The engines don't work, although [P]arking brake does. Jumping out resets you to the Start. There is an indestructible silver sports car. While this is great for stunts off the ice, the big scoop on the front doesn't handle inclines as well as the other vehicles out there.
As far as the thing with the recovery pod, there was another post about it. It was dismissed as not really a bug as much as just being something you werent really supposed to do in the first place