The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [119]
I was running out of road, but no more than I had expected. I released the pedal pressure a fraction and extended the speed into the left-hander. It stuck. I whipped by the wall, braked some more and plucked second gear to change direction. I cracked the throttle a few times to hustle the rear as the pit straight opened up ahead and then nailed it, short-shifting to third for traction and bolting past my dent in the wall from the earlier session. I searched for the pit board and waited to hear the result.
The pit to car radio crackled into life: ‘That’s it, Ben,’ Neil stammered. ‘You have pole position.’
It was the best feeling, bringing home the bacon for the crew. With no time left on the clock I could relax a little, but you never switched off on a street circuit. I drove through the first corner and was joined by another car leaving the pit lane. I sped uphill towards the next horizon and saw yellow flags waving beside a stricken Lamborghini Gallardo. I took the edge off the throttle. That was when the car behind hit me.
I was slammed back hard into the seat. My metal cocoon was propelled forwards and violently to the right, giving me a bird’s-eye view of the stationary car I was approaching driver side first.
130 to 0 in one second. A searing pain exploded in my spine. The impact was sledgehammer brutal. As the Lambo’s solid gearbox met the door of my Ascari, the energy passed through me like a wrecking ball. In spite of the harness binding me to the seat, my head and shoulder managed to smash through the Perspex window and split the door open.
The air stopped moving through the cabin and the heat from the engine was stifling. My spine was gripped by an intense burning cramp, a spasm of muscle contracting around a white-hot core. My lungs seemed no longer to exist and air could only be swallowed, not breathed. A great weight clamped my chest shut, but the pain was so overwhelming that the breathing issue paled into insignificance. I wanted to pass out, but the sadistic survival instinct kept me wildly alert. I gathered my strength to gesticulate urgently to the nearest track marshal, but then realised I couldn’t move my arms. My right hand just bobbed limply in my lap.
The world was foggy. Sweat poured from my throbbing head as the blood continued to crash around my system. The visor on my helmet was bent shut by the impact and I couldn’t open it for the tiny amount of air it might let in. I still couldn’t breathe. I’d been winded badly before, but this was different; this felt like I was paralysed.
I slipped into delirium, but fear forced me to focus and seize on the slightest encouraging sign. I managed a squeak of air but no more. Panic would only make things worse, so I kept trying.
An orange-clad marshal opened the passenger door and slowly made his way inside. I couldn’t bring his face into focus or understand him, but his presence was reassuring. It meant the car probably wasn’t on fire.
My door was wrapped around someone’s gearbox and the racing seat extended around my head in a horseshoe, curved forward of my chest and up from my hips. That meant I’d have to be dragged forwards then sideways across the centre console.
Another marshal appeared brandishing a large orange rescue board, big enough to go surfing on. They couldn’t seriously be aiming that into this little space. They were. He peeled away my belts and rustled his fingers inside my race suit. I couldn’t stop him even if I’d wanted to. I was slowly suffocating. Someone pulled my legs to the right and it tore a hole in my spine. My left shoulder was nudged gently forward, ripping open a cavern in my back. Train tracks were being pulled out