The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [79]
Billy followed my directions precisely and without delay. He had superb feel for brake pressure and graduated his acceleration.
The Liana was rock solid, but the going was still painfully slow. The first lap took us nearly ten minutes. Richard Whiteley’s time was two minutes and six seconds.
We began travelling much faster, which meant that when Billy went the wrong way it was more spectacular. We pulled wide at the second corner, with me shouting to lift off the gas, tank-slapped, spun and stopped. Billy fought the steering all the way, his innocent expression unchanged as he stared into the void. He was the salt of the earth.
‘Bollocks,’ he hissed, then rocked his shoulders like the Muttley character from Wacky Races.
The biggest frustration for both of us was when Billy took a corner really well on one lap and then completely screwed it up on the next. Without sight he had no way of ‘learning’ the track in the way I was used to. It had to be embedded through a developing sense of timing, in conjunction with the familiar tones of my voice, in a map inside his mind.
By the end of the session we’d made huge progress, but I was still steering much of the lap for him and we were nowhere near a fast time. I really liked Billy and I believed in him. I asked him what his ambition was.
‘Well, Stig, I want to beat Richard Whiteley’s time, and of course I’d give anything to go even faster. If I got anywhere near Terry Wogan [2.4], that would be amazing.’
I clicked a stopwatch and talked him through a perfect lap on a dicta-phone. I closed my eyes and rattled through the sequence of thoughts and manoeuvres that Billy had practised that day: bumps, heavy steers, gears, counting time in the straights. I crossed the imaginary finish line in two minutes and 10 seconds.
‘It’s a start,’ I told him.
I reported our progress to the boss, and heard myself promise that Billy would be able to do a time on his own, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t yet hold the steering wheel by himself. In Wilman’s world, that put my word on the line.
The next time I saw Billy was to film his performance. I could only keep him in the car for a maximum of an hour and a half, because anything more brought him to the brink of mental exhaustion.
Billy was such a genial character, but his desire to achieve a good time was written in every bullet of sweat that dripped off his nose when he drove. I had to up the ante.
‘Billy, I might be quite fierce with you this session. My language might go from PG to 18.’
He smiled and said, ‘Don’t you worry, Stig, you can throw a few fucks and shits into me! I’ve been listening to your tape every day. I’m ready.’
Our progress second time round was phenomenal. Billy naturally wanted to ease off the accelerator in the straights, but I dished out so much verbal abuse that it convinced him to keep his foot down until we passed 80mph. Years of military training kicked in and Billy kept the throttle buried. A ‘click right’ meant a small jab of the wheel and back to straight, which was handy for making small adjustments.
I set him with the correct amount of steering for the corners, but as we went faster the front wheels began to skid. That meant he had to turn more to compensate, but it only worked if he drove at the same speed every lap.
Billy gave everything as the speed piled on the pressure. We made plenty of essential smoke breaks, but I was running out of time with him. He could drive the whole lap by himself, going through all the gears, braking and steering through every corner with the exception of one, the fastest corner of the track, the Follow Through.
I placed a single finger at the base of the steering wheel and told him, ‘IT’S LOCKED.’ It was too dangerous for Billy to drive that section unaided. The tyre barrier left just enough room for two cars’ breadths, and at 100mph it could go wrong too quickly for him to recover it. The system worked so well, and his