The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [82]
Top Gear arrived in force at this driver’s paradise, and naturally The Stig came too. I arrived on the baggage conveyor belt at the airport.
I whetted my appetite for the Vantage by blasting it along the section of mountain road out of Douglas Harbour. Sitting in the Aston was like taking a pew in a nightclub, with red stitching on shining black leather and a gleaming metal trim. The sun was shimmering across the inky sea, and for a few minutes the barren single carriageway belonged only to me. I filled the sloping landscape of boulders and long grass with the rasping valve song of the V8, smacking it around its rev limiter in every gear and topping out at 145mph.
There was promise of power aplenty in the exhaust note, and I punished the engine for under-delivering on it by nailing the pedal to the metal and scrabbling through the open corners on the edge of adhesion. The Vantage rolled more than the DB9, squatting into the rear tyres and shooting me plenty of warning signals. Fun, but a hairdresser’s car.
I arrived at the top of the island all too quickly and hooked up with the crew. We knocked out a series of in-car camera shots, including a lively one of the heads-up display in the BMW reading 141mph across a cattle grid.
The M6 had all kinds of stability controls and traction systems. Once you turned that lot off, punched in the power elevation button and expressed the paddle shift, the V10 motor set about tearing flakes out of the black stuff to the wanton howl of 501 horsepower. It was too try-hard-techy for me. When you bent it out of shape the fly-by-wire throttle reported you to the nanny ABS system, which cut out the brakes when you tried to slow down.
We based ourselves out of Jeremy’s house to shoot the other pieces. He lived at a wonderful spot on the shore where you could pluck a crab or a fish right out of the sea, clearly demonstrated by the numerous photos of his children doing just that. All the more frustrating when the lobster pot that Jeremy’s wife Francie lent me came back empty after two days. ‘A first,’ she told me, clearly unimpressed.
To determine which was the fastest sports coupé, Production locked off a section of the prestigious TT bike racing course from Ramsey to the rail crossing, so that we could record a flat-out time in each one. Timing beacons would monitor my speed and time precisely.
I studied some in-car footage and noted that the roads were bordered by drops of 50 feet into rocky heather. Even with a helmet, if I went off in a standard road car without racing belts, that would hurt.
Back at Jeremy’s I sipped beers with the boys and chatted through the filming schedule with the director. I was also waiting to hear more news about a NASCAR opportunity in the US. It looked like my ship was coming in. After months of discussion, my team racing overalls were on order.
I went outside into the weather to get some reception and discovered that the financial backing for the new team had fallen apart.
I went back inside and Hammond asked what was up, so I told him. He badgered Wilman all night about finding a way to help me out, which was a kind gesture, but I festered inside until the following morning, when I lined up for blast-off.
Minutes before I was sent up the hill in the BMW the heavens opened and the fog swooped in. With two slow recce runs under my belt I could have done with a bit of vision, but to hell with it. Fuelled with anger and frustration, I disconnected brain and kicked the M6 in the guts. The dazzling fog lights were useless in the white-out. I just barrelled up at the corners and reacted on arrival with a stab of the brake and in. The M6 relied on stiff suspension for support, which cost it dearly in traction and grip in the wet. I forced the throttle open and dared it to fly off the