The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (47 page)

I held the fort until the presenters final y made it at 8pm. After al that, a red-eyed Hammond won by a single minute from an excitable Jezza, the giant Duracel bunny who never slept or ate. James was nowhere in sight. His ‘special route’ had taken him into the back of beyond.

We three prepared to go on stage. I was deaf as a post (with my helmet amplifying the roaring crowd) and blind to boot, but I could see everyone close by was buzzing. People were happy – nodding, clapping, waving. It was an unforgettable experience.

As we walked on stage the crowd erupted. People were jumping up and down, screaming, waving and pointing. I’d never seen anything like it: girls on boys’ shoulders, banners waving, and a giant inflatable penis on a stick. No home should be without one. Jeremy and Richard went in as brazenly as ever, waving back to the crowd, taking it al in their stride. I tried not to fal over the hidden lighting cables.

I was stil coming to terms with the sheer number of faces staring at us when an object on a peculiar, arcing trajectory entered my field of vision then dropped at my feet. A pair of knickers. I never knew who threw them, but I knew my life could never be the same again.

The time had come to hit the switch. Richard and Jeremy were arguing about who should.

‘
You
turn them on …’

‘Real y, no,
you
do it …’

That was my cue. The lever sat on a big square plinth. It looked sturdy, like a beer pump. To make sure I didn’t cock it up I strode across and yanked the thing hard. It turned the lights on al right; I pul ed so hard the platform toppled towards me, but thankful y stayed upright. One mil ion lights glowed, fireworks went off, hal elujah. It was Mil er time.

We bundled ourselves off stage and into the crew vehicles, from where we were given a police escort back to the hotel. I got changed in the back seat, watching in disbelief as police bikes in paral el formation blocked one side junction after another to give us a clear corridor. We blew through red lights and roundabouts al the way back to the first cold beer of the day. What a night.

James and his crew arrived looking utterly bal -bagged. His hair had gone straight with tiredness, and his upper body was motionless as his legs propel ed him towards the bar. Lawrence of Arabia had crossed the desert. I’ve never seen Jezza laugh so hard.

‘
Fuck off
,’ James snapped, then treated the girl behind the bar to a dazzling smile. ‘Might I have a beer please, Madam?’

Three film crews had crossed half of Europe, arrived in Blackpool on time
and
captured al the footage in a single day. It was a remarkable testament to how the quirky management structure of
Top Gear
worked its magic. Our production unit was utterly extraordinary; their diet of long hours, every kind of weather and a packet of crisps made them lean, mean shooting machines. They were the unsung heroes who captured the stunning footage that brought these stories to life.

W
ithout my real y noticing,
Top Gear
had bal ooned into a worldwide phenomenon. It was being watched by over eight mil ion people in the UK and by upwards of 350 mil ion in 100 other countries, generating tens of mil ions of pounds for the BBC. The Stig had become the poster boy for
Top Gear
magazine and led the brand’s merchandising campaign on pretty much anything that stayed stil long enough to have his picture stuck on it. There was everything from Stig Easter eggs to Stig soap on a rope.

Interest in the identity of the man in the white suit reached fever pitch at the end of 2008. The home team, perhaps without realising it, then managed to fan the flames.

I returned from the gym one morning to be greeted by the carpenter who was fixing our kitchen floor.

He drew out a copy of the BBC’s
Radio Times
, slapped it on the table and asked me to sign it.

The front cover was dominated by a photo of someone in the familiar pose, with the caption ‘WHO IS

THE STIG? The Nation Wants To Know, so we decided to find out …’

‘Your photo’s inside …’

I bit my tongue and flicked it open.

The piece inside featured the ‘two chief suspects’ for Stigdom and I was the only racing driver.

Text messages started raining in. People who thought I might be The Stig took the article as confirmation. Another story broke in the
DailyStar
a few months later. A builder who said he’d worked on my house claimed I had a shrine to The Stig in my living room, complete with suit and helmet in a glass cabinet.

As if. Ten days later the floodgates opened.

Georgie braved the elements – and the rumoured camera crews – to grab the day’s papers.

‘Oh dear, BC. You’re in nearly al of them …’

My stomach lurched, but then – something I didn’t expect – flooded with relief.

I rang Wilman. ‘Wel ?’

‘Wel …’ The minutes ticked by. ‘There’s no point sacking you, since we’re denying it’s you anyway.

Just stay clear of any sodding journos.’

At the time I real y appreciated Andy’s loyalty. He was under a lot of pressure internal y to ‘get another one’.

A
News of the World
crew took photos of our old house, along with someone else’s ‘reasonably priced’ car. Then there was a knock at our door. I was greeted by a slightly sheepish soccer dad in a checked shirt. ‘Mr Col ins? I think these must be for you.’ He handed over a bunch of letters that had been addressed to me but delivered a couple of streets away.

‘Thank you very much.’

He shifted from one foot to another. ‘We’ve had some journalists at our place.’

‘Oh real y?’

‘Quite a few. Photographers too. Al I know is
I’m
not The Stig …’

‘That makes two of us then.’ I gave him a grin and thanked him for coming round.

I got a cal from one of the producers a few days before the start of Series 13. I expected him to dispatch me straight to HMS
Intrepid
. ‘Hope you’re al set for this Wednesday. Ummm … What size overal s and helmet you use?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Can’t tel you.’

‘Then I can’t tel you.’

‘We’ve got something cooking for next week’s guest.’

‘Who is …?’

‘Can’t tel you that either; it might put your nose out of joint.’

We fenced for a bit until he final y admitted it was Michael Schumacher. ‘We’re dressing him up as The Stig to do a lap in the Ferrari FXX. He’s the only one al owed to drive that little beauty, so it throws a big smokescreen around the whole identity thing.’ They hadn’t yet worked out how they were going to take it from there, but needed me along for some other bits and pieces.

I couldn’t wait to see the seven times F1 Champion sipping a mouldy coffee outside our decrepit cabin.

I got down to Dunsfold early for some covert filming. What happened next took my burgeoning identity crisis to another level. Schumacher had flatly refused to drive the Liana, so they wanted to film me pretending to be him pretending to be The Stig, driving the reasonably priced car.

‘Have you told Michael what we’re up to?’

‘Oh Lord, no.’

I put on Michael’s Stig suit (which had different logos on the forearms and shoulders) and brought the Suzuki to the start line. We scanned the shot list. One involved spearing off the circuit, taking out one of the cameras and probably smashing the windscreen in the process. I rubbed my hands together and got stuck into some good, old-fashioned demolition.

Half an hour later the mission was accomplished and the footage whisked away for James to edit.

I switched back into
my
Stig outfit and jumped into the new Lotus Evora. It was a fantastic little car.

The intrusive understeer that undermined the bony Loti of the past was gone; it looked and handled like a little Ferrari.

I ran hard for about eight laps and then the runway was cleared of al traffic. Our star guest duly arrived in his private jet, blissful y unaware of the filming that had already taken place, and he and his PR

people were driven across to their motorhome. He saw me walking by and turned, puzzled, to one of the producers. ‘But I thought I am the Stig now?’

The FXX was created by dipping an Enzo in a vat of dark matter. It emerged boasting 812

horsepower, super aggressive F1 carbon brakes, slick racing tyres and additional wings to glue it to the tarmac. Who better to drive it than the man who inspired the design of the F1 car on which it was based? Of the thirty built, Schumacher’s was the only one liveried completely in black and without a stripe.

I met him briefly at the start line. His skin was like velvet and he had the cocksure, carefree demeanour of someone who’d been there, won that and didn’t need to wear the T-shirt. I doubt he heard much of what I said over the high-pitched howl of the V12 being warmed up next to us, but he got the gist so we both mounted up.

I pul ed my Jaguar XF alongside Alex, our producer with the bedroom eyes. ‘I can’t believe you pul ed this off.’

‘Sheer luck. He’s in the UK promoting Bacardi’s Drink Responsibly road safety campaign.’

Hot engines never like being kept waiting for camera crews to organise themselves and I knew Michael would want to go. Sure enough, he began slipping the FXX towards Alex, who tried in vain to stand his ground.

With a nod to the champ I led us out. I went careful y at first so he could pick out the white lines marking the course, then built up some speed on the second lap. He stayed fairly close behind, occasional y dropping back a little and doing his own thing. By the third lap I was going as fast as the Jag could manage.

In spite of my best efforts to turn its safety systems off, the XF kept trying to stabilise itself by activating its brakes in the middle of the corners. The F1 uber champ fol owed me patiently as I wal owed through the turns, apparently braking in al the wrong places. His Ferrari was practical y idling.

At the end of the third and final recce lap my brakes were boiling, which sent the system into a complete panic. As I sped into the penultimate corner, the ABS kicked in so I couldn’t slow down properly.

The Jag cocked its leg and dropped two wheels on the dirt as I came out the other side. A shower of crud and stones flew into the air and my shoulders stiffened when I saw Michael’s own personal, immaculate two mil ion dol ar supercar less than a length from my tail. He whipped left to miss the flying debris and I exited the track stage right to join the rescue crews at the fire station. He must have thought I was some new breed of dickhead.

He blasted around the track a few more times, came through the final bend and put on a little flurry with a spin across the line. He climbed out, had a brief discussion with the Ferrari mechanics and then strol ed off to take an hour’s lunch. So we al stopped too.

Michael was taking to his new role with Teutonic gusto. After interviewing him, Jason Barlow, a former
TG
presenter who now worked on the magazine, shot me an awestruck glance. ‘He’s taken to this pretty seriously, y’know,’ he said in his Irish lilt. ‘I asked him what it was like being The Stig and he told me how tricky it was flyin’ back and forth from the Grand Prix circuit to make it in time for the studio.’

After the break we filmed Michael’s lap proper as Stig. I hooked up with Iain, partly out of interest, but also to check he wasn’t cutting across the white lines. He’d pul ed a few controversial moves during his F1career.

The Ferrari cranked up in the distance; the rasp of the V12 bounced off the fencing around the waste disposal site at Turn One. A shriek of valves, fol owed by staccato, bul et-like gear changes and the black rocket shot into view. Iain worked his magic, holding it perfectly in frame, focusing in on the detail then pul ing the lens wide as he came closer and flew through the corner.

‘Is he any good?’

‘I’d say he’s done this once or twice before …’

Michael drove an electric lap and it was a privilege to see him at work close up. The FXX was al race car. If anything, the setup looked too stiff for Dunsfold. The back end skipped over bumps I rarely noticed. Up close, Schumacher’s turn in was very fast in the tight corners; ‘Point and squirt’, the way you drove a go-kart. The rest looked familiar – though he did spare his machine from hammering across the storm drain several inches beneath the tarmac at the Fol ow Through. Mind you, since his lap time was seven seconds faster than the record, a few extra tenths probably didn’t concern him.

I had to top and tail Schumacher’s introduction to the audience because I was the only person Clarkson knew who could look angry from behind a closed visor. They wanted to film me doing ‘my walk’ and standing in the studio before swapping me for the maestro.

Wilman was adamant that no one outside the very tight
Top Gear
circle of trust should see both Stigs at the same time, but as I rounded a corner in the production office, I bumped straight into him. Alex’s eyes were like saucers. ‘Two Stigs –
aaaargh!
’

It was a surreal moment. I gave Michael a crisp salute and a high five.

Wilman told him to expect a few gags from Jeremy. ‘You know, he might say something like, “So if me and you were having a scrap, who would win?” That kind of thing.’

And Schumacher said, ‘What does this have to do with Bacardi?’

I wasn’t sure who was taking the piss out of who.

I got the nod to head for the studio. I stood outside what used to be the Harrier maintenance area.

The giant hangar doors slid open and I was greeted by a roar from the audience. I stopped at my mark and looked ‘angrily’ around the room. ‘The Stig has come among us,’ Clarkson announced. ‘I know exactly what this is about; he’s fed up with newspapers speculating that he lives in a pebble-dashed house in Bristol …

Who wants to see The Stig’s head?’

That was me done. I disappeared into Schumacher’s motorhome. Once the coast was clear, I could emerge as Ben Col ins whilst he ‘outed’ himself on camera.