The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [72]
Within seconds the Liana had chewed up the grass run-off and we were out of time.
With a wire fence behind us and a wide-eyed Walliams inbound, I turned to Wiseman and shouted ‘RUN’. Jim grabbed the soundman, I yanked the camera operator and we darted for cover.
The Liana lurched over the grass rise, all four wheels left the ground, and it landed roughly where I’d been standing. The tyre marks were just an inch wide of the tripod.
Wiseman burst out laughing, apparently entertained by my wildly inventive sign language.
The car came to a rest 40 metres past us. I caught my breath and opened his door. ‘It’s OK – everyone’s OK. Are you all right, David?’
His belts were already off and he climbed out of the car looking deeply shocked. It was his final lap anyway so we aimed David in the direction of the tea urn and called it a day.
* * *
The cars took a royal pounding over the years. They were invariably launched into the air over the verge at the final corner, landed on the wheel rims and then bounced through the gravel gully. If you weren’t using the gully you weren’t trying hard enough. We had to keep a watchful eye on the hubs and the suspension.
When Lionel Richie was in the driving seat we heard a strange clanking noise at the first corner. I could just make out his car veering on to the grass. As he hit the brakes, the front wheel fell off, stayed upright and then overtook him. The Liana slumped on to its brake disc, lost all front grip and scraped along the tarmac in a shower of sparks.
There was mild panic at our HQ. The Pop God who had fronted over 100 million records appeared to be bent on giving us the Top Gear version of ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’.
Jim and I hurtled into the ambulance with the rescue crew, with visions of Lionel’s ‘people’ suing us into oblivion if his French tickler moustache was even fractionally out of shape.
The great man was standing in the middle of the field he had so recently ploughed, his leather jacket still immaculate, staring, mystified, at a car he could buy with his loose change. To our relief, he started to laugh. ‘The damn wheel fell off!’ We swapped him into the spare Liana and he squeezed out a great time – given that he only used third gear. He had serious issues adjusting to the ‘stick shift’.
Lionel may only have driven automatics but he had a major advantage over one guest. Johnny Vegas had yet to pass his driving test. After a few laps I noticed that he was making a silky smooth transition from the brakes to the power, so I had a look in the footwell.
I told him that he was left-foot braking, a technique used by rally and Formula 1 drivers; rather an advanced style for a beginner.
‘I’m doin’ whaat? Sorry, maaate …’ He had no idea what he was doing.
I handed the husky-voiced northerner back to his BSM driving instructor and thought, good luck mate. His test was booked the following month.
After five seasons we had a list of seriously fast times set by the boys from the Big Screen. It fell on one slip of a girl to put them all in their place.
Ellen MacArthur listened intently to every instruction, nodded calmly and said, ‘Right’, or ‘OK’. She wasn’t a talker; she just did it. Her expression at breakneck speed was as serene as it must have been when she was watering plants.
It was hard to imagine this tiny, rose-cheeked beauty as a record-breaking loon, circumnavigating the globe single-handed on a boat the size of Lionel Richie’s limo.
I asked if she had ever been afraid. She recalled a night in the Southern Ocean when her little trimaran was skimming down waves the size of Alpine valleys at 30 knots, and she had to just rely on the sureness of her touch to prevent it from capsizing. A flat stretch of tarmac couldn’t pose much danger after an experience of that magnitude.
Ellen’s innate bravery was compounded by the fact that she