The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (45 page)

I repeated the process with every ounce of my strength and the bus began to drift. I kept the steering hard right and headed off the tarmac on to the dirt section used for ral ycross. Loose pebbles clattered around the wheel arches as 12 tonnes of tin careered through the curve. I turned to check how close the rear section was to the Armco barrier bordering the perimeter.
Bloody close
. I kept my foot on the gas. Hammond was bursting at the seams with laughter. Mission accomplished.

‘This is such a crap job sometimes,’ I said.

‘Terrible … puerile. Days like this you real y have to drag yourself out of bed in the morning.’ RH

slapped my shoulder and climbed off.

The other drivers strapped themselves into their respective cockpits, poised for action. We released them with strict orders of ‘no contact’ until we had some shots in the can. The days of the car footbal free-foral were long gone. The boys notched up their response levels precisely in line with our instructions, but we knew something pithy was brewing.

Anthony Reid had joined the regular band of reprobates. At 50 years of age he struck you as a quaint, wel -spoken gent, with neat facial features to match the ever present vintage racing cap. I’ve held lucid conversations with Reid, some of which have even bordered on the intel igent, but remain convinced that the compartment inside his head where his brain should be contains some kind of dark matter instead.

Reid was lapping his little white coach faster than anyone.

‘OK, fel as, that’s enough of the boring shit,’ Owen twanged over the radio. ‘Get stuck in.’

The northernmost corner was a hairpin atop a sharp hil which dropped down to Paddock, a fast right-hander where the track crested a brow and joined the home straight. The main camera unit was positioned after the finish, beside the race control tower, which consisted of one cabin dropped from a great height on to another to form Lydden Hil ’s homage to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I joined it as the herd of titans thundered into view.

Hammo was stuck in the middle of the throng, presenting superb pieces to camera whilst Armageddon unfolded around him. The Routemaster charged up his inside with two wheels on the grass, and the second Bendy fol owed suit to his outside. The violence of the ensuing col isions made everyone take two steps back, watching through the gaps between our fingers. Hammo took the hits and rol ed out some spiel about disabled access and seating capacity.

There was absolutely no room for another vehicle on the track, but that didn’t stop Reid. Al four wheels on the grass, then teetering on to two, he speared his way up alongside the Routemaster, windows breaking like clashing cymbals.

Reid flew around the park, getting pinched occasional y between the bigger boys who otherwise trailed in his wake. Showers of broken glass fil ed the air, pneumatic fluid bled, radiator steam hissed and rubber bubbled. There was no such thing as a glancing blow with these leviathans; every knock sheared off a sizeable chunk of metal and spun it across the tarmac. One access panel landed right in front of us.

The Bendies slid down the main straight, tails swishing one way then the other at 90 degrees to the front deck. One stonked into the cab of Hammond’s machine then swatted Tom Chilton’s snail-like double-decker on the rebound, but Tom soon had an opportunity to restore his honour.

During a break in the action we set up cameras by the sharp bank at the Ral y Cross intersection and told Tom to rol it. The earthen mound looked perfect for the job if he could turn sharply with enough speed. After several attempts, Tom became the first person I know of to drive a double-decker on two wheels without toppling. Luckily, we had an ace up our sleeve.

‘So you want me to ram him going into that corner over there, yah?’ Reid enunciated in the crispest Queen’s English, as if being asked to serve tiffin.

I nodded. ‘I’l cue you in on the radio so you can run up and hit him on the rear right just as he goes up the bank.’ I directed his thousand-yard stare towards the appropriate point on Tom’s flank.

‘O … K …’

We handed Tom a neck brace and some extra Brylcreem to help ease his blond afro into his helmet as Reid started lapping wel in advance of the shot, for no apparent reason.

‘He’s not al there, is he?’ Owen said. ‘I mean, even you guys reckon Reidy’s a bit out there, right?’

I shrugged. ‘A little crazy. He’s stil got it, though.’

Reid burst past the stationary double-decker one final time at terminal velocity.

‘Tom, is that thing running now?’

‘Al set. Let’s do it.’

Given the fact that he’d never rol ed a bus before, Tom was a model of composure.

‘OK, go
now
!’

He lumbered off, gradual y building speed whilst Reid continued to circulate at ful pelt. Tom reached the corner as Reid flew down the straight.

‘Feather it a touch, Reidy …’

Tom lurched up the bank on two wheels and Reid pummel ed into him, kept his foot down and punched the Routemaster on to its side. The top deck fel with a mighty crash but was barely damaged. The Bendies were also – depressingly – indestructible. We sawed through the joint in the middle of one, so the front and rear sections were only held together by pneumatic hoses, and they stil wouldn’t separate when rammed.

The rest of the buses were toast. The freshly coiffed grass in the middle of the circuit had been shredded and seared, and the track was littered with their remains. Despite repeated heart surgery, not one was driveable by the end of the shoot. They bore fitting testimony to how much could be achieved in a single day with some nifty planning, a stel ar group of drivers and a great crew. Sixty tonnes of action cut together into a great film.

P
olicemen develop a dark sense of humour in the line of duty. Hardly surprising given the suffocating volume of guidelines and targets they swim through on a daily basis wearing high-vis armbands.

When Avon & Somerset Constabulary arrested a notorious drug dealer, his Mitsubishi Evo 7 was seized and sentenced to death for being purchased with the profits of crime. Rather than crush it, they approached
Top Gear
for a more public execution. Happy to oblige.

We pitched up at Bovington Camp to film a final confrontation between the Evo and the British Armed Forces. The vast training area encompassed every terrain from tarmac to gravel, jumps, woods and water. The idea was for Jeremy to set off with the Army in hot pursuit – with no quarter asked for, or given.

In the
Top Gear
corner: a road car backed by our hairy-arsed technology team. In the Army corner: the Mastiff armoured vehicle, Trojan tank, Panther advanced command vehicle and Jackal hunter kil er, backed by the might of British Aerospace, Supacat and the MoD.

The military were equipped with .762 and .50cal heavy machineguns capable of putting 600 rounds the size of golf bal s clean through an engine block, and several more beside it. Jezza was armed with a pack of Marlboro Lights.

I took our gangster wheels for a warm-up along a closed lane to record some noise from the exhaust. The previous owner had invested nearly £100k souping it up and we wound the turbo boost to its maximum output: a whopping 550 horsepower. It had masses of torque and al four wheels leapt from the asphalt with the engine banging off the rev limiter like a ral y car. It also stank of petrol.

I checked the Evo back into NASA for Steve Howard to work his magic. We popped the hood; fuel was pouring across the hot engine from the inlet rails. It was ready to burst into flames and we hadn’t even filmed it.

Steve even ditched his fag. ‘Andy, better get over here, mate.’

A blur of high-vis appeared as Andy Harris covered the time bomb with fireproof blankets and began pointing his fire extinguisher nozzle with a glint in his eye.

Steve stepped back to admire the view. ‘Watch out, fel as – looks like Harris might final y get to shoot his load.’

Once the fuel had evaporated, Steve fixed the hatchet job as best he could, but I had my doubts the Evo would survive until lunch.

Filming a chase like this for a movie might take weeks. We had two days.

The terrain was suitable for tanks and the hardiest 4x4 machinery. The Evo had minimal ground clearance, so we jacked up the suspension and shielded the underside of the engine with sheet steel to protect its vital organs. Standard road tyres would have spun hopelessly around the muddy ranges, so we upgraded with ral y spec gravel jobs with knobbly edges.

Managing so many assets over multiple locations, communicating with the Army brass and creatively directing was murdering Phil’s schedule. The boy was stressed, biting his nails back to the knuckle, and if that wasn’t enough his phone kept ringing with Jeremy’s last-minute changes to the script.

I’d already scouted the area with Phil. The upper plateau was strewn with lanes bordered by thick wooden posts, and a broad sweep of pale yel ow dust leading to four rocky chutes dropped almost vertical y to a sandy basin littered with trees, berms and jumps. There was also a minefield, several tracked forests and a live firing range for the grand finale. I hooked up with the military to choreograph some moves.

Dressed from top to toe in tan desert fatigues, ful body armour and helmets, the lads looked cosy under the baking summer sun. I was sitting in a motorised Molotov cocktail, but felt substantial y more comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt.

To keep it simple, the Jackal’s OC would lead the other three vehicles.

‘So, Jackal,’ I said, ‘there’s a pile of rocks ahead by the fence line, over.’

‘Seen.’

‘I’l handbrake-turn right behind them, come back in this direction and skim past you. You al fol ow, over.’

‘Roger, Jackal will lead.’

‘Mastiff received.’

‘Panther received.’

And so on.

The one I kept a close eye on was the 62-tonne Trojan tank with its spike-toothed bul dozer spade hanging off the front. The driver, who was often unsighted, was quieter on the radio than the other three.

When we were parked up he had an uncomfortable habit of creeping forward. His thundering engine made your ribs rattle. He could flatten the Evo with a glancing blow and not even feel it, so I was keen to stay out of his way.

Staying ahead wasn’t a problem. Even the 5.9-litre, diesel-powered Jackal, which was capable of 90mph across any terrain, was no match for the Evo when my right foot beat the floorboards. The Mitsubishi had ral ying coursing through its veins. It bit into the rubble and thrust the chassis into a majestic four-wheel drift at every opportunity, leaving the Army for dust. The incredible thing with a high-powered four-wheel drive was that regardless how sideways it went, you just kept your foot flat out and the steering practical y straight to drive out of it.

The deep ruts in the muddy tracks tested the steel plating. I crashed down them and listened to the panging of rocks smashing the undertray like a sumo wrestler’s dinner gong. Easing off on the straights and taking longer routes around the obstacles kept them close. We were ready to shoot.

The four camera crews deployed on to an area they’d never seen like it was their own back yard.

The way they could instantly assess an area and find a beautiful shot said it al . I’d explained during the briefing that vision from the military wagons was poor, but found Iain crouched at the top of a vertical cutting.

‘Morning, big cock, am I al right here?’

‘You’l get a lovely close-up of the wheels as they crush you. The drivers can only see ground or sky from inside these chutes so best shift further up the side of the bank …’

‘Oh, al right then.’

There was no shortage of machismo from the crew, and in some ways I had become their unofficial safety supervisor. They had impeccable standards, but I rarely slept before a big shoot like this for imagining the hazardous scenarios they might face and ways to overcome them.

A sexy, high-pitched whine rose in the background. I scanned the plateau for its source as a dust devil spun in front of us.

‘Iain …’

‘Got it.’ His first shot of the day.

The clatter of rotor blades suggested we were about to be joined by‘Flying TV’, a Robinson 44 with a gyro-stabilised camera flown by ‘Q’. Quentin Smith was a second-generation stunt pilot, Freestyle Helicopter Champion and the first heli pilot to circumnavigate the world. He was late thirties and lean, with a neat quiff and a prim French moustache to complement his silk cravat and black leather boots. His thoughts regularly ran away with him, but he usual y returned intact. Q more often than not puffed on a pipe, but occasional y plucked a Havana cigar from his inside pocket.

‘Castro’ … puff … ‘makes for a bloody fine smoke, hmm, old boy’ … puff.

‘Sure does, Q. I’m kicking up a lot of dust out there, is that a problem for you when we get close to the trees?’

‘Absolutely
no
problem, old chap. I can cut around those and come down and up, and up and down and shoot through – should be a beautiful shot, yah?’

His hands swooped and dived at the appropriate points to underscore the strategy.

‘Don’t big up your part, Q. Al that flying’s a piece of piss. The real skil s are in the Evo,
right
?’

He clapped both my shoulders, gave them a squeeze and marched off laughing. Q was basical y God in a flying suit.

The blue 44 pul ed gently into a hover a few feet from the ground. I had UHF for talking to Phil and VHF to pick up with Q and co-ordinate our movements. The radio chattered as Phil took to the podium and began to conduct his orchestra.

‘Al vehicles are coming through this bumpy lane then across the big open area. Casper and Toby, if you get the big wides … Iain and Dan, get some tight edgy shots. Everyone stand by and no one else comes into this area now, I want complete lockdown.’

I lined up with the Army toys out of shot behind a ridge and signal ed, ‘Vehicles ready.’

‘Charlie Victor standing by,’ Q announced from the heavens.

With us in position, four cameras primed and a bird in the air, Phil released the Furies.