The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [69]
When their instincts told them to back off, I urged them to floor it. When the car ran wide on to the grass and they pulled at the steering to regain the tarmac, I told them to straighten up. I saw more clenched teeth and cold sweat in the driving seat than a Harley Street dentist.
Jordan, aka glamour model Katie Price, turned up in a tinted limo. I was expecting an afternoon of crying over broken fingernails. My day hadn’t started well. It was belting hot and I’d forgotten to whip my Alpinestars suit out of the tumble drier that morning. The office spare, a manky old cheddar, was three sizes too small, so everything was creaking as I limped over and greeted her. Jordan was dressed top-to-toe in pink, and was good enough not to notice the camel toe arrangement between my legs, so I didn’t breathe a word about the white bits under her arms where the spray tan had missed its target.
My first task was Herculean: to strap on her shoulder belts. They ran out of length over the top of her embonpoints, and looked dangerously uncomfortable going round the side. The safest solution was to use the standard seat belt slung underneath, since airbags were already included.
Jordan didn’t ask too many questions. I took that as a good sign. After a few practice laps I let her drive solo.
I kept a firm eye on the stars as they wrestled their way around the circuit and could pretty much predict their time before they crossed the line. As Jordan turned through the flat-out right-hander, a concrete hut blocked my line of sight. She should have reappeared less than a second later, but she didn’t. Instead there was a shriek of rubber.
She’d spun at the fastest section and was backing towards the building. I felt my stomach lurch. She remembered to mash the brake pedal in an emergency and stopped just in time. Wiseman was biting his fingernails.
‘It’s all right,’ Casper called from his camera position. ‘She’s heading back to you now.’
‘OK,’ Jim answered. ‘Tell me you got that?’
‘Yeah,’ Casper replied. As if it was ever in doubt.
Jordan’s smile hadn’t slipped an inch; she was completely unfazed. We asked if she was OK.
‘Yeah. I spun out at that corner. Why was that then?’
‘I think you turned the steering too fast,’ I said. ‘Just remember to be as smooth as possible, like you’re lifting a cup of tea.’
I didn’t want her spinning there again, it was too dangerous, so I jumped back in the Liana to make sure she took the right line.
She immediately produced her fastest time of the day, a gritty effort following a 100mph near miss.
We also hosted former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. She was a nervous wreck when she arrived, with an entourage that included her own film crew and a private racing coach.
I knew it wasn’t easy. Most of them arrived at Dunsfold knowing only that their PR people had booked them on to some car programme to have a chat and do a bit of driving. One minute they were sipping cappuccinos and basking in the glow of their bestselling book or hit movie, the next they were on a cold, windswept airfield getting intimate with a spaceman in a white suit.
Geri put enormous pressure on herself from the outset to go number one on the board. As always, I wanted to convert her enthusiasm into performance.
The dangers of track driving only dawned on Geri once we started lapping. She hung on my every word, her big eyes looking up at me from inside a helmet that engulfed her. Geri’s heart was in the right place, but she was so intense that she over-anticipated everything and kept getting into a muddle. In the course of our conversation I discovered that she had been in a number of car accidents in a short space of time.
The damp track was punishing the smallest mistakes and I had to make sure she stayed on the black stuff. We were on a fast lap; Geri was hitting ninety towards the gap between