The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [108]
An irregular note in the music coming through my earphones informed me I was running a second too fast into the routine, so I eased on some left-foot brake to slow the rate of turn and increased the throttle by a gnat’s whisker. My Ute had a few special modifications, including a solid welded rear differential that allowed the rear wheels to turn at the same speed and spin consistently every time.
I separated from Chloe and drifted around a lap of the arena whilst she threw Ninja grenades at me with coinciding pyrotechnics going off around the stage. The finale involved a rolling burn-out: the Monaro crept forward with the rears spinning at 70mph, burning more rubber than a Durex factory. Chloe jumped on to the car, ‘killed’ it with her sword and walked off. Or so she thought.
The V8 sprang back to life and into a smoking doughnut, with a little help from the machine belching out the pyro. The Ninja searched the cloud in vain for her prey, whilst I circled around to come at her from behind and tap her calf with the bumper. That concluded our business and we bowed out.
There were so many occasions during the sequence when I could easily have run her down that I welcomed the relief after each run.
The producers had their work cut out too. Cars had to be out of the door on time, routines memorised and logistics executed to the second. Machinery could and would always break down, and Top Gear’s technology record was notoriously ‘ambitious but crap’. They worked all hours to keep wounded vehicles operational, but if the Stig Buggy died for any reason, I was under orders to stop one of my pursuers, punch the driver and commandeer his vehicle.
My favourite variable was the sedan, an ancient Alfa Romeo 75 that split apart when I shot it. If the driver hit the gas a fraction of a second too late when I drove towards him we would have a severe T-bone. I trusted him, but I couldn’t say the same about his motor. The Alfa’s designers never imagined it would be deployed in a pitched street battle twenty years after leaving the factory.
Frenchie had become the live show’s executive producer. He even wore a pressed, collared shirt these days. He’d kept a completely straight face when he described the stunt during the concept stage.
‘Basically, the two halves of the Alfa are held together by magnets … Why are you laughing?’
‘Magnets?’ I snorted. ‘You, we, Top Gear have a car that’s held together by magnets and plan to use it in a live show? That’s hysterical.’
‘Yes. So anyway, the car is held together by magnets and we can use one of the rockets on your buggy to blow it up. You’ve got two buggies, two bikes and the ‘Swampy’ tanker, which has to die at the end. Have a word with the drivers and see what kind of sequence you can come up with …’
There were a million diverging opinions on how to turn our secondhand car lot into an action sequence. Everyone contributed. We made drawings of the best suggestions, pushed matchbox cars through the moves, then rehearsed them on foot in the arena, before driving them, slowly at first, then flat out.
Top Gear’s version of NASA, aka the Euphoria Race Team, had busied themselves preparing the magnetic Alfa and were ready to put a driver in it to do a systems check. Neil Cunningham, who’d spent much of his early life being chased by the New Zealand police around country roads, slipped on his brain bucket and warily climbed aboard our equivalent of Apollo 13. A muffled Kiwi voice came from inside: ‘How d’ya turn this thing on?’
The technicians remained unsympathetic. ‘Turn the bloody master switch, you nugget.’
‘I’ve done that.’
‘Oh.’
The launch was stood down. The Alfa went away for further development and reappeared ten minutes later.
Neil gunned the engine, which ticked over like a basket of choleric cobras. The plan