The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [67]
Come the day, the director arrived with the crew. We filmed the Merc doing some sporty cornering to cut in with the stunt itself. Then the mini cameras were rigged to the car and Tim’s head.
We had open-mic radios to keep in constant contact, so Tim didn’t need to press a button to talk during his descent. He’d give me a cue when to hit the gas according to his airspeed.
The director was bricking his britches. We were talking crosswinds, high-speed swoops and trying not to flip Tim with the windscreen. For some reason he wasn’t happy about adding a snuff movie to his showreel.
Tim and Fordy went up for the first run of the day. I visualised and rehearsed the scenarios in my head. If I could get under him early enough and match his top speed, he could drop into the car, then I’d have to decelerate hard because his chute would still be dragging through the air. All this had to happen during a frantic three to five-second window at best.
Tim dropped from the sky, I thundered forward and our paths converged towards the end of his swoop. Tim lobbed across the bow and plopped down on the tarmac.
Jim Wiseman thought it looked ‘awesome’, which was encouraging news. James May, a man obsessed with anything that flies, arrived to present the stunt. He was always a very warm, genuine fellow who put a spring in everyone’s step when he was on set. His eyes glistened with excitement as he met the pilot and our drop zone co-ordinator and checked out Tim’s rig. James understood the complexities of what we were trying to achieve. He bounced from one leg to the other as the boys sparked up the Cessna; I couldn’t be sure whether that was because of the cold, or from sheer, unbridled anticipation.
On the second jump Tim lined up directly behind the car from the outset. He was lower earlier and managed to bounce his feet off the boot.
The next swoop was slightly higher but a gust of wind caught him and blew him forwards. I had to swerve to avoid him stacking it into the windscreen and as he tugged artfully at the canopy toggles to steer himself through the air. It felt like threading the eye of a needle on a bucking bronco.
With only enough time and fuel left for two more jumps, the pressure was on. Tim came in very fast and bloody low. So low that he skimmed the roof of the ambulance parked in the staging area. His approach was so wild that even the main camera missed the action – and I can count the occasions that happened on one finger. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t cue me on that run.
On the final attempt I hit the gas and Tim came in hot. He plonked down as large as life into the rear seat. Just as we rehearsed, I shouted at him to ‘Cut away, cut away,’ until he came back with ‘Clear, I’m clear.’ That meant he’d detached his canopy and could no longer be wrenched out of the car by it. It was a perfect run.
The Merc was an auto, so I flicked it right then left and buried the throttle to do a smoking doughnut. Tim bounced around in the back and James whooped with delight. None of us could quite believe it had worked. It was a huge achievement on Tim’s part and his habitual frown was replaced by an understated but satisfied smile.
The stunt also entrenched a growing sense of confidence I was gleaning from the Army. The discipline and rigours of military life had broken down my mental barriers by all but killing me and developed an inner reserve of strength that I never knew existed. It was life-changing. After that, there was no fatigue, hunger or mental low that could not be beaten.
Working with people who shared that ‘can do’ attitude made the impossible possible and it was liberating to view every obstacle as an opportunity.
Tim came along to be filmed with me and Jeremy in the studio, where the business of hiding in plain sight