The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [109]
The technicians worked their nuts off with the limited resources available, and in true MacGyver style they managed to get the magnets to hold the car together and to detach on demand about 50 per cent of the time. The rest of the time I took evasive action.
I drove flat out towards it, waiting until the last moment to fire my rocket and activate the car splitting in two. Firing at close range was essential, because it looked more realistic and it gave me a better chance of hitting Neil in the head with the flaming projectile.
The downside was that if the car didn’t fall apart, there was a very real chance of slamming into the side of it. If it split early I nearly hit the front end as it sped up; if it split late it was a case of waiting to shoot through the middle or near missing the back half. Doing a three-way ‘elk test’ time and again was counterintuitive, as common sense urged you to slow down, but I really enjoyed the challenge.
The presenters always watched the grand finale of the Stig battle, and Jeremy never tired of announcing it: ‘And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Some say that he’s terrified of ducks and that his penis has a chicane in it. And a four-mile straight. And a hairpin. All we know is, he’s called The Stig …’
The presenters watched in bemusement from behind the curtain as bikes jumped over buggies, cars fell apart and spurted oil everywhere and we slithered around to keep the sequence going.
The preparation area that supported these efforts resembled 007’s ‘Q’ branch, with pyro engineers, mechanics and stunts going off in every direction. Flame-throwers and detonators were tested in one corner; in another a milk float was being fitted with a rolling lead weight so it could do a wheelie, and the whine of a jet engine suggested that Clarkson’s bicycle was operational. Front of stage, Frenchie was getting to grips with a new precision biker who had shaved Hammond’s balls a little too close to the follicle during one of the stunts.
Frenchie lay on the floor face up, to give the offending rider a human dummy to practise with. The biker rode towards his head, and his mount lurched clumsily into the air. I winced as it clattered down between Frenchie’s legs and the rear wheel horse-nipped the inside of his thigh. He was the boss, so this was no time for laughter. I buried my face in my hands.
Car football was such a popular feature from the TV show that we had to incorporate it into the theatre. After thirty-odd matches all the drivers were so adept at flicking the ball around that the damage inflicted to the cars was relatively minor. But occasionally we would get a tad carried away and accidentally enjoy ourselves.
Frenchie rushed down from his ivory tower after one show and pulled us all together. ‘Lads, that was a fucking bloodbath out there tonight. The guys from Suzuki have basically told me that if we break another front suspension arm in one of these games, they’ll pull the cars.’
We clasped our hands together and looked skywards like errant schoolboys. Personally, I was still glad that I’d stopped Paul Swift from scoring a goal by reversing into his front radiator at 30mph. Secretly, he was content to have repaid the favour moments later by clouting my front right wheel and breaking my steering arm so that I could only turn left.
Although that bollocking was deserved, most of the damage inflicted on us came courtesy of the presenters. They drove around talking into microphones that transmitted every moment live to the baying audience. I don’t have a problem with people that can talk on a mobile phone and drive at the same time, but car football was no time for added distractions.
There was nothing more alarming than dribbling the ball towards the goal, only to look out of the side window and see Richard Hammond bearing down for the kill. He talked a