The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [114]
I inspected the tyres and recognised the Hoosiers from racing on oval tracks. They looked pretty old, but Colin explained that they skimmed the tread to reduce the build-up of heat. Using older tyres was counterintuitive but it made sense, despite the basic appearance. The construction of a new tyre heated more under severe loading; it was part of the reason that new rubber produced faster lap times over short distances. In this scenario, that would increase the likelihood of delamination and tyre failure. And tyre failure would convert the car into a projectile.
I stared long and hard at each tyre.
The only unknown was the runway itself. I asked about track sweeping procedures, inspecting for debris after every run to remove anything that might puncture a tyre or collide with the machinery. It was already on his agenda.
All that remained was to do a seat fitting. I wanted to get comfortable with the belts and think about where the camera mounts would fit inside the cockpit. I also wanted to familiarise myself with the controls.
The sparse cockpit was fresh out of Flash Gordon, with a few gauges dotted around a metal console. At the centre lay the solid aluminium ‘butterfly’ steering bars, like a pair of upturned shovel handles joined together. My left foot held down a dead man’s pedal, which would cut the engine the instant you released pressure on it. The right foot controlled the brake pedal, which operated a standard disc from a road car. It held the beast steady at the start line whilst the engine built up revs, in the same way a commercial airliner does before take-off.
Acceleration was controlled by a pair of levers like the ones on the Millennium Falcon. The first of these wound up the jet using conventional thrust, gradually accelerating down the runway up to 170mph. The second applied the afterburner. Afterburn worked by pumping unspent fuel into the engine and igniting a flame that substantially increased the rate of burn and thrust. You applied both levers and held station on the footbrake, then you lit the candle by flicking a switch on the steering wheel and vanished into the distance. Your only concern thereafter was stopping.
Releasing the dead man’s pedal cut power but not your speed, and at 300 the footbrake would melt if you touched it. To stop, you had to pull back both thrust levers to deploy the parachute.
As far as I was concerned, stopping at the first hint of trouble was the only thing that mattered. I practised whipping my hand from the steering to the levers and knocking them back, until it became second nature. I visualised an unsettling vibration and using a reflex action to shut down in a nanosecond. Colin agreed that this would be the key part of the training at Elvington.
The sun was setting and there was still no sign of Hammond, so I rang Grant. Hammo was still filming and wouldn’t be able to join us. Also, my presence was no longer required at Elvington. I was needed at Dunsfold with Jeremy instead.
The tension sprung off my shoulders the way that it did following a pressurised race weekend. But I was leaving Hammond to fend for himself, and that didn’t feel at all comfortable.
I briefed Wilman at length. ‘He needs to sit in this thing. And don’t be surprised if he takes one look at it, turns around and goes home. This car is serious. It’s like nothing any of us has ever seen or done before.’
I ran through all the details of how the car needed to be controlled, the systems, and what Hammond and the crew should expect. How vitally prepared he needed to be to rip back the thrust bar and release that parachute if he even sniffed a problem. The jet car crew had to have priority over filming to stop and check for debris on the runway after every run, and the director had to be really careful with the placement of the static cameras.
Wilman got me to write it all down and send it to him. Hammond was really up for it, so he asked if I thought