The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [91]
The Polaroid moment that followed saw The Stig in a flat spin, exiting stage left off the circuit towards a gravel trap and tyre barrier. And it was only 10.30 in the morning …
The gremlin in the system’s electronics had more to offer. I piled on the opposite lock, slammed the steering into the rack stop and applied 100 per cent brakes, scanning desperately for a solution to save the car either by swivelling it around or trying to accelerate away from the wall. At that critical moment the ignition switched itself off, taking with it the power steering and assisted brake. I had to push them both twice as hard to achieve the same effect, manhandling the controls like a gorilla at feeding time.
Scraping the tarmac ran my speed down another 40mph to a manageable 70 by the time I slid across the border of the gravel trap, missed the deep stuff next to the wall and brought the car to a stop on the grass. The engine and electronics were totally dead. Naughty car, but you had to laugh. These things happened.
I removed and replaced the key. She switched on and drove back to the start line as if nothing had happened – and still managed a time just 0.4 of a second slower than the Merc.
The M3 tore a ferocious pace thanks to its poise and balance in every corner, and aggressive braking. The time was a full five seconds faster than the other two.
I went out with Klaas and the presenters for tapas in the medieval town of Rhonda, overlooking the spectacular ‘El Taho’ gorge. It was a rough existence.
Jeremy was so irked by the day’s events that he accused me of deliberately missing an apex to foul the lap time of his meat wagon. I told him that if I put an apple on the apex he could drive at it all day and never hit it. Jezza swallowed the bait whole.
We lined up the cameras on a sharp corner and I placed the apple at the latter part of the apex kerb. I stood right on the corner to goad the big man further.
Jeremy went at it hammer and tongs, drifting sideways into the corner on different lines and somehow managing to miss every time. He was excruciatingly close, but no strudel. I bit my lip hard, trying desperately not to laugh. After the fifth attempt he gave up and it was my turn in the BMW. If I hit the apple, Jeremy was prepared to eat it.
I flicked the M3 into the turn, lit up the rear tyres and squelched it on the first take. At Jeremy’s request we filmed it from another angle. I nailed it and the big man took a big bite of humble pie. He picked up a grubby piece of crushed apple from the kerb and guzzled it down.
* * *
Nothing daunted, Jeremy handed me the keys to a Lamborghini Gallardo 560-4 Spyder, issued himself a Ford Focus and demanded a race down the Rhonda mountain pass to the port of Marbella. The winner of course was a foregone conclusion; he must have figured The Stig needed a night out. So we decamped to the harbourside to film some atmosphere.
Marbella was everything that TG’s home turf was not. It was loaded with minted Russian oligarchs and country-sized yachts crewed by orange people wearing Gucci goggles. The only cleavage we saw at Duns-fold was the ‘mighty sarlacc’ of Steve Howard’s rump as he put his back into salvaging another scrapheap challenge. The army of party poppers gracing the bars and clubs of Puerto Banus were all slinky-hipped underwear models staring at their own reflections in the Cartier and Bulgari windows.
I made a lightning change of clothes inside the phone booth of a petrol station, boarded the lime green Gallardo as The Stig and put the roof down. Locals and beachcombers alike whipped