The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (27 page)

The stark landscape reminded me of the Welsh mountains, with brooding cliff faces highlighted by silver-lined clouds. The locals seemed oblivious to the scenic beauty; instead of pottering around on foot, they enjoyed the faster pace permitted by the island’s relaxed attitude to speed limits. There weren’t any.

Top Gear
arrived in force at this driver’s paradise, and natural y The Stig came too. I arrived on the baggage conveyor belt at the airport.

I whetted my appetite for the Vantage by blasting it along the section of mountain road out of Douglas Harbour. Sitting in the Aston was like taking a pew in a nightclub, with red stitching on shining black leather and a gleaming metal trim. The sun was shimmering across the inky sea, and for a few minutes the barren single carriageway belonged only to me. I fil ed the sloping landscape of boulders and long grass with the rasping valve song of the V8, smacking it around its rev limiter in every gear and topping out at 145mph.

There was promise of power aplenty in the exhaust note, and I punished the engine for under-delivering on it by nailing the pedal to the metal and scrabbling through the open corners on the edge of adhesion. The Vantage rol ed more than the DB9, squatting into the rear tyres and shooting me plenty of warning signals. Fun, but a hairdresser’s car.

I arrived at the top of the island al too quickly and hooked up with the crew. We knocked out a series of in-car camera shots, including a lively one of the heads-up display in the BMW reading 141mph across a cattle grid.

The M6 had al kinds of stability controls and traction systems. Once you turned that lot off, punched in the power elevation button and expressed the paddle shift, the V10 motor set about tearing flakes out of the black stuff to the wanton howl of 501 horsepower. It was too try-hard-techy for me. When you bent it out of shape the fly-by-wire throttle reported you to the nanny ABS system, which cut out the brakes when you tried to slow down.

We based ourselves out of Jeremy’s house to shoot the other pieces. He lived at a wonderful spot on the shore where you could pluck a crab or a fish right out of the sea, clearly demonstrated by the numerous photos of his children doing just that. Al the more frustrating when the lobster pot that Jeremy’s wife Francie lent me came back empty after two days. ‘A first,’ she told me, clearly unimpressed.

To determine which was the fastest sports coupé, Production locked off a section of the prestigious TT bike racing course from Ramsey to the rail crossing, so that we could record a flat-out time in each one.

Timing beacons would monitor my speed and time precisely.

I studied some in-car footage and noted that the roads were bordered by drops of 50 feet into rocky heather. Even with a helmet, if I went off in a standard road car without racing belts, that would hurt.

Back at Jeremy’s I sipped beers with the boys and chatted through the filming schedule with the director. I was also waiting to hear more news about a NASCAR opportunity in the US. It looked like my ship was coming in. After months of discussion, my team racing overal s were on order.

I went outside into the weather to get some reception and discovered that the financial backing for the new team had fal en apart.

I went back inside and Hammond asked what was up, so I told him. He badgered Wilman al night about finding a way to help me out, which was a kind gesture, but I festered inside until the fol owing morning, when I lined up for blast-off.

Minutes before I was sent up the hil in the BMW the heavens opened and the fog swooped in. With two slow recce runs under my belt I could have done with a bit of vision, but to hel with it. Fuel ed with anger and frustration, I disconnected brain and kicked the M6 in the guts. The dazzling fog lights were useless in the white-out. I just barrel ed up at the corners and reacted on arrival with a stab of the brake and in. The M6

relied on stiff suspension for support, which cost it dearly in traction and grip in the wet. I forced the throttle open and dared it to fly off the road.

The silver Porsche 911 went through next. Its powerful brakes and chassis developed over generations of racing at inclement venues like Le Mans saw it revel in the wet conditions, mul ering the time set by the M6 by six seconds at an average speed of 84mph. Doesn’t sound much, but when I tipped into the fast left at ‘Black Hut’ and ran wide towards the verge it felt plenty quick. I could have had an excel ent crash there. Part of me wanted to.

I rounded off with the Aston and maxed it to an identical time to the BMW. Wilman, the wily fox, eyed each timed run careful y and refused to let me do any more. I got changed and joined the presenters. They were borderline hypothermic by that point, each of them quivering like a dog crapping a peach stone. They carried on filming al day and night with the longest discussion of cars I had ever witnessed. The crew were on their chin straps by the end.

I was getting into
TG
. The cameras felt less intrusive and more like a protective bubble. I think the show was getting me too; my direct approach worked for the producers. Most of the time.

You can walk through any security cordon and enter any building in the world if you’re carrying a bucket of water. It makes you look purposeful, like you’re there to put out a fire or water flowers. The White Suit did al this and more. It made me virtual y bul et-proof, even when tangling with the Law.

The guys wanted to build a Caterham kit car in less time than it took The Stig to drive a prefab Caterham from Kent to Knockhil racing circuit in Scotland. If I arrived before they finished, I won. The distance between the two was 465 miles.

The Caterham was one of the best track cars on the market, especial y the R500. You could drive endless flat-out laps without kil ing the brakes or blowing the engine, or spend a day driving sideways without the rear differential exploding. Doughnuts and powerslides were tea with two sugars for this bad boy. Driving it on the road was more chal enging – unless you hated your wife; you wouldn’t hear a thing she said over the engine and wind noise.

I banged along the motorway north out of London behind a Range Rover ful of TV crew. Ben Joiner was filming me from inside the tailgate. His
Mad Max
cycling mask helped him cope with the fumes.

Passengers in passing cars occasional y clocked the storm trooper in the middle lane and waved.

The Caterham’s plastic door had refused to close properly since we left Kent. As I blatted up behind the Range Rover for another shot, the whole thing flew off, spun 30 feet into the air and landed on the hard shoulder.

‘Nigel, my door just blew off. Now the roof’s got the shakes.’

‘Sorry, Stiggy, you’re just going to have to hold on. We’re a bit under the whip …’

Nigel Simpkiss was the original director and one of the creators of
Top Gear
’s look and feel. He had a rare talent for framing cars against landscape, which made his films wonderful y fresh. I loved Nigel’s shoots because they never lacked pace, and beneath his focus lay a deep fascination with everyone and everything around him. But it paid not to forget that a flicker of his hazel eyes could send a King Cobra scuttling home to Mummy when his temper was fraying.

A minute later I detected a blue light in my wing mirror.

‘Nigel, we’ve got company …’

‘Pul over. We’l film this.’

With me sandwiched between the Range Rover and the Law, we pul ed in to the hard shoulder. The crew were out with the camera in a flash, ready to home in on the action.

Two coppers walked up alongside the Caterham.

I stayed put.

‘Is that your door that just fel off?’

‘Yes, it is. Sorry about that.’

‘Is this your car?’

‘No.’

Pause.

‘Have you got your licence on you?’

‘No.’

Another pause.

‘What’s your name?’

I thought about it for a moment, then leant across to real y spel it out for them.

‘THE STIG.’

That broke the ice. They very kindly returned my door. The pressure of Ben’s camera lens bearing down on them precipitated their rapid withdrawal, and Nigel thanked them for their understanding.

We once filmed one of Jeremy’s DVDs in the desert a mile from Edwards Air Force Base, the ultra-sensitive location of the US military’s experimental aircraft facility. This was where they developed and operated the Stealth Fighter, the new F-22 Raptor and other Deep Black weapons systems no one has yet seen.

The crusty surface of Rogers Lake was cracked into plates of dried mud as far as the eye could see.

It was like the surface of another planet. The setting was too stunning to resist, despite the fact that we were within a restricted area.

‘Guys, we real y shouldn’t be here,’ pleaded our American fixer. ‘The military don’t have a sense of humour about this kinda thing …’ He was a gentle man, mid-forties, with a career in soap operas and a closet ful of Hawai an shirts. His protests fel on deaf ears.

I slipped into character and marched out on to the very lakebed where, according to respected astronaut Gordon Cooper of NASA’s Mercury Program, an alien UFO had been filmed landing by a military research team under his command in 1957. The footage he reviewed from their cinetheodolite cameras depicted a silent saucer-shaped craft which, when approached, ‘took off at a great rate of speed’.

I slid my radio into my pocket and walked 300 metres, a satisfying crunch of mud flakes underfoot, then turned and headed back through the heat haze towards the camera. It was our homage to legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager, who first broke the sound barrier at Edwards aboard the X-1. There were no little green men running around, but I couldn’t quite shake off the eerie feeling that we were being watched.

As I reached our crew, a cluster of big 4x4s with blacked-out windows swung to a halt alongside us.

The guys jumping out weren’t local rent-acops with lazy hip holsters and beer guts. These dudes were wearing assault vests and black berets, shouldering M4 carbines – with rounds in the chamber, judging by the way one of them was checking the breech.

To a casual observer the soldiers spil ed randomly from their vehicles. In fact their patrol sergeant, a black bruiser with sharp sideburns and wraparound shades, covered us vehicle by vehicle. Two emphatic fingers sent two men running towards our lead Ford Galaxy; another two cut off the rear.

I walked as casual y as possible off the lakebed and joined the group where our American fixer was trying to pick up the pieces. There was plenty of ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags ful ’. It was hard to hear much inside the helmet, but judging by the body language it seemed best that everyone did exactly what they were told. I took a seat on the tailgate of our Suburban and marvel ed at the process whereby this quick reaction force assessed the situation. There was no
Top Gear
on US TV at this point, so it took a little longer to explain that the guy in the spacesuit and helmet wasn’t a Korean fighter pilot trying to steal one of their latest aircraft.

Iain May leaned over and whispered, ‘Looks like you might be spending the night with these guys.

Wanna borrow some soap?’

‘No, thanks; I know where you keep it.’

The sergeant nodded, circled a gloved finger in the air and his men saddled up. We were escorted five miles away from the base, then released and given back our identity cards.

Iain grinned. ‘Shal we nip back?’

The fixer buried his face in his hands. If we went back he wouldn’t come with us, and we ‘wouldn’t be so lucky next time’.

I spent most time around the presenters in the course of filming their escapades from various tracking vehicles. You probably never heard the one about the glamour model, the dwarf, the Spaniard and the three stooges. These six characters were the stars of the Classic Ral y of Mal orca 2009.

I spent a day doing a recce of the route with the other tracking drivers to gauge time and traffic flow, and to recognise key route markers. The presenters had been paired with co-drivers that in some way parodied their persona.

For some reason Hammond was hooked up with the dwarf, and May (the beast!) got the glamour model. Clarkson was given the Spaniard who couldn’t speak English, which made two of them who were incapable of listening. The co-drivers were responsible for navigating the presenters around the perils of the Mal orcan ral y stages.

The supercharged Range Rover was the ultimate tracking weapon. It provided a moving platform for the camera crews to film whatever the presenters got up to in their cars. It was big, ridiculously fast and had a tailgate, al owing a cameraman to shoot from the back without fal ing out.

At six the fol owing morning, the crew were busy rigging at the start line in Palma, surrounded by palm trees swaying in the morning breeze under a clear blue sky. Complementing the Titanic yachts in the harbour were numerous Porsches and muscle cars, any of which boasted more power in their headlights than the bhp of our three entries put together.

I was charged with filming James May with Barbie dol Madison Welch aboard their 1970 Citroën Ami 8. It would take more than clever tracking to make that little biscuit tin look dynamic. James played on his Captain Slow character and hammed up his eccentric, mad professor image, but his real personality was never far from the act.

Before the cameras started rol ing, he was trying to look in every direction other than the bulging Page 3 breasts bobbing next to him. When Madison asked for some help to tighten the shoulder harnesses that clicked into her waist belts, the set came to a standstil . Our sound operator was first to drop his bacon rol and dive in through the passenger window to assist her. Whilst he craned his head around in our direction to have his picture taken, James shifted uncomfortably in his seat and snuck a sideways peep at what he dubbed ‘the work of the divine potter’.

Having secured Madison’s breasts, it was time to start the ral y. Everyone climbed aboard, with Casper filming from the boot, his assistant and the sound recordist in the back seat, and Phil, the young up-and-coming director, alongside me.