The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (46 page)

I feathered the approach to the lane, took the long route behind a pile of stone and flicked the Evo right with the Jackal cutting across my back end. We bounced along the lane; I zapped the power and dropped the entourage to head around the outside of the open plateau. I kicked the Evo into a long, sweeping powerslide, sending clouds of dust into the air. The Army vehicles punched through it and closed in on their tighter line, while Q was 50 feet above their heads, then plummeting through the air to less than 20 feet above ground and swooping across my windscreen. It made my hair stand on end.

The chalky ground looked like an even sheet of paper at 70mph, and I slammed into some hidden troughs so hard my feet came off the pedals. The car surely couldn’t take it. The chutes carved into the hil side, that had each appeared so distinctive on foot, now looked identical. Only one contained a camera and I had to choose quickly to make my exit.

I spied the minute cairn I’d placed as a marker amongst a sea of stones and dived into the chute beside it. My arms went straight as my head pressed into the headrest and my stomach lurched. I never even saw Iain’s camera. The Evo shot down the earth corridor, absorbing some bloodcurdling bangs from the ruts as they boshed the sump guard. The car was a criminal; it deserved it. Shot One was in the can.

We gave Q another angle on the plateau, which involved him hovering in my line of fire near the precipice and gaining altitude as I slid towards him. Working alongside skil of that magnitude was epic; I put my faith in Q without hesitation.

We descended into the basin. I arrived from a flat section that dropped, caught some air and crashed further down whilst the Army vehicles took everything in their stride. Sand fil ed the wheel arches. Somehow the Evo kept going.

The plan was for the vehicles to do a frenetic Benny Hil chase in and out of the trees and knol s of the basin until we felt our sporadic routes conflict. I kept my eyes peeled as we whipped around its tighter confines, only to see a big blue hornet appear on the other side of some trees and begin mirroring my route. I spun around to accelerate through the heli’s camera frame and made eye contact with Q. The cheeky sod yawed sideways with one hand on the col ective and the other pul ing at his steering handle, yet stil managed to give me a wave. I returned the greeting with my middle finger.

The heli hovered so close to the action at times I could almost touch it. We kept on going until I lost track of the Army and cal ed it quits.

Having never been a fan of either the Evo or the Subaru Impreza as road cars, I had reluctantly fal en in love with my machine. Its narrow ral y tyres gave as much grip on the loose as slip on the road. The wanton grunt was addictive; its catapulting slides across tarmac or gravel were so enjoyable I never wanted to stop.

The Bovington chase unfolded largely according to Jeremy’s master plan and Phil’s shot list. We knocked out a bunch of ‘ups and passes’, speeding past camera through woods and lanes, so that we were ready for Jezza to play his part.

He pitched up in his pride and joy, the mighty Mercedes CLS Black. On seeing me he parted his legs and extended his hands to and from his groin, treating me to the ‘big wanker’ greeting. I held my thumb and forefinger half a centimetre apart and rewarded him the traditional ‘infinitesimal y smal cock’ response.

‘What’s it like?’ he asked.

‘It doesn’t get any better than this. But you have to pul the handbrake like a demented milkmaid; the cable’s knackered.’

‘Good.’ Jezza was on typical y jovial form, in his element around a bunch of nutters with expensive hardware. He was a huge supporter of the military. In a former life he was probably a general, the kind that never got shot. He joined the story together and inserted his typical y brutal humour, referring to the £400k command vehicle as a Fiat ice cream van and ad libbing with the Army boys about how he planned to give them a good dusting.

Jeremy did some quality driving between out-takes of him scurrying about on a minefield rigged with pyrotechnics, sneaking up behind the tank and being ‘shot at’. He placed the Evo with absolute precision on the edge of a cliff and tore around the place with abandon.

We then waited a
Top Gear
hour (fifteen of our Earth minutes) for a deployable bridge to extend over a ravine, the gag being that Jeremy would make use of it whilst his pursuers lost sight of him.

‘Stay on me, Phil. Keep cameras on me, OK?’

‘Oh shit,’ Casper muttered, spinning his camera in JC’s direction.

I skipped over to Phil. ‘If he hits that bridge at more than 15mph the engineers reckon it might shake him off.’

Phil kiboshed any
Dukes of Hazard
aspirations Jeremy might have been harbouring and we filmed him grudgingly executing a model crossing.

The Evo had the measure of the military until the live firing range. The soldiers locked and loaded with live 1:1 tracer and lubed up their respective working parts.

In spite of much lobbying from environmentalists and his fel ow presenters, we decided against Jeremy continuing to drive the Evo in person. Steve fitted it with a remote control unit and Jeremy ran off some in-car footage to marry up with the external shots.

A lot was being made of the precise direction the Evo would fol ow. The rules of the range required cameras to film from a long way back, so the operators were keen to fix visual references of the proposed route in order to pul focus on their lenses. My experience of remote-control ed vehicles suggested it would travel in every direction
but
the planned one.

Andy had the soldiers line their vehicles broadside to the range along a raised concrete platform.

They gripped the butts of their guns against clenched jaws and racked the working parts. Interspersed between them, our film crews loaded fresh batteries and aimed their weaponry with similar anticipation. A few seconds later, the Evo set off.

The machinegunners let rip. One of the Gimpies jammed within a few seconds. ‘
Stoppage
…’ He cleared it, but without adjusting the gas, so it jammed again.

Sure enough, the Evo soon developed a mind of its own. Under heavy fire it veered off the dirt track and took cover in the undulating heather. The car dived up and down the network of gul ies, wildly out of control, giving the gunners a serious run for their money.

A sustained burst of .50cal final y tore holes the size of a fist through the engine block, steering wheel, seat and boot lid. The editors combined the footage so bril iantly in post-production that it looked like the rounds were licking Jeremy’s heels. More’s the pity.

T
hree mil ion visitors descended on Blackpool in September 2008 to witness a mil ion lights coming to life. They clutched dribbly ice creams, squeezed into tight swimming costumes, queued for musicals, looked for thril s and got the beers in. Meanwhile, in Basel, Switzerland, three middle-aged men were preparing to run out of fuel trying to join them.

Our heroes were aiming to make the 750-mile journey on one tankful, in a real-time assessment of fuel economy. The first to arrive would join the ranks of other luminaries – such as Kermit the Frog and Ken Dodd– to light the coastal resort’s Big Candle. If none of them made it, The Stig would step into the breach.

The logistics of tracking al the way across Europe with three crews was not to be underestimated. I brought in pro drivers to pedal the crews aboard three supercharged Range Rovers. It was stil a colossal workload because the whole race was effectively filmed live. There would be no pick-ups.

Clarkson set off aboard a twin turbo Jaguar XJ6 TDVI, which had a range of 655 miles on a light foot. He didn’t have a light foot. May drove a Subaru Legacy Diesel with a range of 706 miles, while Hammond went for a puny three-cylinder VW Polo Bluemotion, made largely of Lycra, with a range of 740

miles.

Jeremy rightly figured he’d run dry wel short of Blackpool and opted for the longer, motorway route to avoid gas-guzzling traffic jams. Hammond took the direct route, the downside being he would burn fuel traversing hil s. May chose something in between.

I arrived with ‘my’ crew at Blackpool’s central bus terminal and hopped off the National Express in the white suit. The Stig’s day out in Blackpool began in the theme park. Whilst the presenters sweated traffic, I rode in a teacup through the House of Horrors. Whilst they did complicated sums about fuel consumption, I sat through a magic show, marvel ing at the sparkly lights in the ceiling and the strange folk plucking rabbits from hats. Then I met a palm reader on the Pier who couldn’t see my future through the white glove. She was a sweet, beautiful y rounded lady with an al -year tan and mandatory headscarf.

‘I can’t read him,’ she kept saying. ‘Not unless I look into his eyes or see his hands …’

The director wouldn’t hear of it. ‘He never takes his gloves or helmet off. Not even when he goes to sleep.’

I lifted my visor a tad. ‘Oooooooh,’ she said, ‘you’ve a bright future …’

More please. ‘You’l be wealthy …’

OK …

‘You’re at a big crossroads. You
mustleave
the old path before choosing.’

Ouch.

I snapped my visor shut before she got me fired. The truth was that I
had
been wondering what the hel I was doing with my life. Here I was, wearing a comic strip costume, having the palms of my gloves read in a seaside resort. I was having a great time – and perhaps that should have been al that mattered – but I felt like I was losing sight of the big picture. I was meant to be racing, not mincing around.

Before I could take these psychic revelations too seriously, some joss stick incense wafted across my visor, my glove’s Velcro fastener got caught in a drape and I sent a cassette stal flying. Al I could hear was the crew pissing themselves with laughter as mystic Meg chased after me, prattling on about the spirit world.

We moved on to the Pepsi Max at Pleasure Beach. Known as ‘The Big One’, it had a drop of 205

feet, a top speed of 74mph and generated 3.5G in the corners. The fairground staff treated us like royalty; they al owed us to take over the ride for an hour. A couple of dummy runs were needed to make sure that the rearward-facing camera was bolted on securely, and then I got on with a smal group of enthusiastic holidaymakers.

The ride jolted, tipped and climbed vertical y. Soon the Ferris wheel below was the size of a thimble.

I hated heights, but decided that if The Stig wasn’t driving the rol ercoaster he would be bored witless, so for his sake I pretended to fal asleep as the car began to plummet.

With my head down, al I could see through the visor was a narrow strip of the pleasure metropolis below. My stomach made its apologies and parted company with the rest of me as the car fel endlessly from the sky. Then I was hurled violently to the right as it banked hard left. I managed to maintain the same apparently nonchalant pose for the duration of the ride, never looking up but using every muscle I possessed to stay in the seat. The director was very pleased with the footage. So pleased that I went out a further four times, head down. And I got paid.

‘That’s a tough job you’ve got there, Stig,’ commented the bloke behind me.

‘Hel ish,’ I replied. ‘But somebody’s got to do it.’

People were fantastical y patient as they waited for us to clear off their ride. We did a bunch of photos with them and headed back into the fairground. The crew were busy filming background shots when I noticed a giant chipmunk ahead. He pounded a furry paw against his chest, Tarzan-style, then pointed at me. The Stig freaked out. Ben Joiner brought his camera to bear as I froze in my tracks, turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.

The chipmunk gave chase as The Stig scarpered over a bridge, looking frantical y over his shoulder until he made good his escape. Unfortunately the presenters didn’t run out of gas after al , so their dreary piece on fuel economy took precedence in the edit over my Oscar-winning performance.

Next stop, the casino. The Stig won big on the fruit machines just by staring at them. We had a little help from the floor manager, who brimmed them ful of coins and rigged the programme with a code I plan to use in Vegas. Al that remained was to buy some candyfloss and cuddly toys for the journey to the lights.

As we walked along the pavement people jogged alongside waving their mobile phones and recorded their own pieces to camera. Everyone was incredibly friendly. A bunch of Renault Clios started doing laps up and down the street to demonstrate how much noise they could make, then pul ed a series of wheel spins. Five points out of ten, I’m afraid. If you real y want to light up those tyres, Son, try using the handbrake.

We drove across to the main stage for the big moment, with an alarming number of punters in hot pursuit. I had to duck down in the back seat of the van to avoid an incident.

Radio 2’s DJ Mark Goodier was whipping the crowd into a frenzy as we arrived. I walked straight through to a VIP enclosure, where celebs asked
me
how to get on to
Top Gear
. Everyone seemed to be obsessed with it.

The DJs announced the bands that would be performing live on stage to the swel ing audience.

When Boyzone were mentioned, they roared in their thousands. Then the DJ said, ‘And we’ve got …
Top
Gear
…’ I was ful y expecting to hear a pin drop.

The crowd went ape.

How could three plonkers and a storm trooper be more popular than Boyzone?

I made my way around the VIP enclosure and found the cornerstone of any social gathering: the buffet. I lined up behind Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, lofty long-haired interior designer, and we loaded our paper plates with finger food – and I mean loaded.

‘Nice outfit,’ he said. ‘A little impractical for dinner?’

I waved my stil gloved hand in the direction of the edible pyramid I had constructed. ‘It’s for my cat.’

‘Touché. Mind the Jalapeno peppers; could be dangerous for a man with white underpants in your line of work.’