The Top Gear Story (22 page)

The trio had thought the race was an amateur’s paradise, a good old bit of British stiff-upper-lip racing, a spot of lunch maybe and jolly good fun to be had by all. However, when they arrived at the circuit Clarkson was horrified to find a mélange of supercars, Le Mans-style hypercars and motorhomes that would put the Formula 1 paddock to shame. Immediately, they knew that they’d massively underestimated the challenge. Officially, they were the only ‘Novice’ racers on the track and as such had to have a sticker on their rear bumper to declare this, presumably to alert the multitude of overtaking cars. As he pushed his helmet on ready for qualifying, Jeremy said it was unquestionably the scariest thing he’d ever done.

Initially, all went well and Clarkson and Hammond completed some strong flying laps; then James May went out and forgot to do a third lap, therefore failing to time. In desperation they sent out their secret weapon – The Stig – who ensured they were not in last place, much to the delight of the team.

Further setbacks hindered them, with their car being rebuilt so late in the day that they had to start from the pit lane, but eventually they made it to the start … just! In the first hour, The Stig made up twenty places and then it was over to Clarkson who, for once, did not clown around at all, not even for a second. This was serious stuff and his usual jovial remarks were missing. Later he explained that there was so much to think about, to concentrate on, that he couldn’t make any remarks or even contemplate being a TV presenter, it was so demanding. After a sterling effort by James, Captain Slow pulled into the pit as he was getting dangerously tired; he handed over to Hammond, who only a year or so after his near-death experience in the jet car was initially brilliant, but then crashed again – fortunately this time with no injuries or dramas other than a massive
three-hour
rebuild of the car. When he limped into the pit, the engine
refused to restart and there was a long list of damaged parts. By the time the fixed BMW rejoined the race, they were in last place.

So they sent The Stig out again and he made great progress, before Clarkson brought the BMW home in a highly emotional state, tears trickling from his eyes as he crossed the finishing line. It was all compulsive
Top Gear
stuff and made the viewers at home think that perhaps they should do more of those serious pieces.

Notably, this particular race was an example that Richard later gave of how he was still recovering from his horror smash in the jet car. Previously, he’d joked that his exemplary driving skills were insufficient for him to cherish designs on being a racing driver himself: ‘I’m too polite. I say, “After you” – I’m a bit rubbish! Most racing drivers are nuts.’ But the reality of this particular
Top Gear
challenge was more striking for him, personally. He said that at the Britcar Race, he felt that he’d reacted more unpredictably than he might have prior to the
jet-car
crash. To be fair, given that he’d almost lost his life one year previously, hurtling around a track at high speed and in the dark would test the most resilient of nerves. But Hammond believed there was more to it than that: ‘I was scared and nervous. It was making me argumentative, angry, thinking I wasn’t good enough for the job; feeling awful.’

Perhaps of all the many
Top Gear
supercar and sportscar features, one stands out above all else. In Series 1, the team set themselves a challenge to find out which nation builds the fastest supercar. Why, Britain of course! And the car in question was a rusty old Jaguar XJS. To be fair, they actually fitted the old banger with nitrous oxide canisters (known as ‘noz’), which added a colossal 500bhp extra! Still, the ensuing drag race saw the Jag leave a Porsche 911 Turbo, a 360 Ferrari and a Corvette in its wake. So, who says Britain doesn’t make great cars?

W
ithout doubt one of
Top Gear
’s most ambitious, entertaining and as it turned out, controversial shows was ‘The Polar Special’, broadcast in July 2007. By their own definition the show had come up with a true ‘epic’ this time.

Their aim was simple, if a little lunatic: Jeremy Clarkson and James May would race Richard Hammond in 24-hour sunlight to the Magnetic North Pole. The original intention was to coincide with the annual Polar race but eventually it was just filmed independently. This time the duo’s weapon of choice was a heavily modified Toyota pick-up truck
(that
car again!), with Richard racing against his fellow presenters using only a sled pulled by a team of 10 Canadian Inuit dogs. The car-bound pair also genuinely planned to (and indeed,
did)
use the car’s SatNav System, even though the Magnetic North Pole is not a fixed point and had in fact moved 100 miles since 1996 (the True North Pole is some 800 miles further north). Essential modifications were made to the truck, such as raised wheel-arches,
adding 38-inch ice tyres, an auxiliary fuel tank and some tinkering with the gear ratios. In all, 240 man-hours were spent making the cars fit for the incredible trek ahead.

The logistics of this particular show were way beyond the usual demands placed on the production team. There was a very real possibility of death in temperatures that regularly sink below -65°C. No one underestimated the challenge ahead and the team spent months preparing the show, which according to their own production notes was, ‘our most technically challenging and scariest film ever.’ It was also the first episode of
Top Gear
to be shown in high-definition.

By their own admission, the trio were not exactly polar-hardened explorers. Clarkson said he’d been on bi-annual ski-ing trips a few times and Hammond had done nothing that might prepare him for the trek, although May took reassurance from the fact that he’d once built a really big snowman on his own. Weeks before the trek itself, the three presenters had to be specially prepared for the arduous journey ahead, flying out to Austria to undergo a
harsh-weather
training boot camp. There, a crack squad of polar explorers and survival experts taught them how to survive in temperatures that can kill an ill-prepared person in minutes. One piece of advice was to take a shovel and a gun, if they needed the toilet. As well as the film crew, they were accompanied by a doctor, a mechanic and also a member of the Special Forces. Guns were taken as the Arctic is home to over 60 per cent of the global polar bear population.

Hammond had to fly out a week earlier to take a crash course in dog sledding and he would also need to ski for long sections of the trek. He paired up with American Matty McNair, an experienced Polar explorer, and both were equipped with mini snowmobiles, known as ‘skidoos’. The entire production crew was initially based at a town called Resolute in Nunavut, said by many to be the coldest inhabited place on earth. From this starting
point, they were set to race across approximately 400 miles of icy tundra, frozen oceans and mountains of giant ice boulders.

The first three days went well but as the teams encroached further north, conditions became shockingly bad. Along their way, Clarkson and May came across a crashed C-47 aircraft, which was riddled with bullet holes: the accident had taken place in 1949 and the crew suffered only minor injuries. The story goes that subsequent bullet holes were made by decades of passing explorers, although internet conspiracy theorists had other ideas …

The trek also revealed that the famous on-screen bickering between the three presenters is only partially for the camera. Admitting the on-screen characters are slightly exaggerated from their real-life ones, May revealed that on the polar trip he came close to hitting Clarkson, who he finds ‘brash’ (Jeremy thinks James is pedantic). One particular topic of argument was Clarkson’s iPod choices: King Crimson, Genesis, Guns N’ Roses, all served with a garnish of Jeremy talking over the top: ‘We drove each other insane. I wanted to bash his head in with a shovel. But you know, we are blokes so we didn’t dwell on it and ultimately no harm was done. Fundamentally, we are good mates. Mostly.’

So, what stopped the bickering? A terrifying moment when the thin crust of ice their Toyota was balanced precariously on seemed about to break and plunge them into a fatal -50°C ocean. ‘That was the most scared we’ve ever been,’ James has admitted. ‘Every muscle in my body was primed for death. There was a hammer in the car for breaking the window in the event of going under, and I’d loosened it so that I could free it with one finger. I was rehearsing it in my mind …’

The race was harder for Richard, although at one point his sled overtook them while they were crossing the first of two fields of ice boulders. Neuroscientist Dr Kerry Spackman gave some insight into the very real dangers the trio faced on their trek to the Pole: ‘If
you’re sitting at rest, one third of your total energy is used by the brain, so even though you have your liver, your kidney, your muscles, your heart, your digestive system and so on, your brain takes one third of the energy. The brain has a very narrow operating window of how much oxygen it needs, what temperature it needs and it is really very delicate. That’s why a lot of your body’s function is to keep the brain at exactly the right temperature and with the right amount of oxygen. If you take twenty quick breaths, you feel dizzy because you’ve just changed your oxygen and CO2 levels in your blood, you haven’t really done a lot yet – you feel terrible!’

So, when the trio travelled to the Pole and the temperatures were so extreme, for all their joking about, this was dangerous territory. Spackman continues: ‘Changing the temperature [so dramatically] just completely upsets the whole biochemistry, it’s a really delicate thing. All sorts of things happen: the brain basically goes into preservation mode when it’s under stress with low oxygen or low temperature. The brain is selfish: it says, “Look after me first, give me everything I need to keep functioning!” When you are operating in severe cold, the brain basically starts shutting down many of its functions and what that means is the body’s reactions get slower and slower, attention levels go, the ability to focus disappears, the ability to think about things, concentrate, prioritise, all those things just go out the door. You can stop blood going to your arm for a short while but it will come back okay; stop blood going to your brain for a few seconds and those neurons will just die. People can die.’

It was the furthest north that any humans had ever driven a car but sadly this was perhaps not what the fabulous episode will be best remembered for. It was just after safely negotiating that about-to-crack ice sheet that May and Clarkson did something that was to backfire massively when they returned to the UK: they poured themselves a celebratory gin and tonic. The ride was
understandably bumpy, so at one point James asked Jeremy if he could, ‘slow down while I cut the lemon.’ Given they were on top of a frozen ocean, Clarkson even said to camera: ‘Don’t write in to complain about us drinking and driving, because we’re sailing!’ In fact, given there are no roads in that part of the Arctic, they were not actually breaking any laws. Also, the gin drinking was part of a running gag where May and Clarkson laugh about how much easier their challenge had been than Hammond’s (who was far more exposed to the elements).

With Clarkson and May at the finish line and
telecommunications
between the two teams erratic at best due to the inclement conditions, the production team decided it was unfair to insist Hammond also finished, not least because he was so far behind. Emil Grimmson is chairman of Arctic Trucks in Greenland, the company who modified the trucks for the programme, and he was impressed, saying Clarkson and May, ‘did quite well for novices.’

The three presenters were then taken to ice runways and sent home on specially adapted snow planes. Life was not so comfortable for the rest of the crew and support team, however, who had to do an about turn and trek back through 400 miles of ice and snow!

A nice flourish to this brilliant piece of television came at the end, with a ritual the team often employ for specials: they changed the end credits. In this case, their first names were replaced with ‘Sir Ranulph’. It was a fun gimmick that the show had employed before: for the Winter Olympics special, everybody was called either Björn, Benny, Agnetha or Anni-Frid in honour of ABBA; for the American road trip, they took suitably redneck names such as Cletus Clarkson, Earl Hammond Jr., Ellie May May, and Rosco P. Stig (all the crew were renamed Billy-Bob); the African special, they replaced their first names with Archbishop Desmond, Vietnam saw
them rechristened Francis Ford (as in Coppola), and for the Sport Relief special, ‘Top Gear Ground Force’, they were renamed Alan Clarkson, Charlie May and Handy Hammond. According to some sources, the only time this gimmick has featured in a regular episode is in the final show of Series 8, when they were roadies for The Who and ran the ‘Transit van Challenge’ and so took the names Lee, Wayne and Terry in honour of van drivers the world over.

On their safe return home from the icy world of the Pole, however, trouble was afoot. As May and Clarkson sipped gin and tonic thousands of miles from home, they couldn’t have known that their actions, when broadcast, would cause a flurry of complaints. One viewer was so incensed about the ‘blatant use of alcohol while driving’ that he took the matter to the BBC complaints division.

The scene which showed them drinking was done as a comic device only, with no intent to stir up trouble, unlike some of the show’s more obviously confrontational moments. However, although 4.5 million viewers watched the programme – a great ratings success – and only a handful complained, the BBC Trust’s editorial complaints division was duty-bound to investigate. Bizarrely, some viewers also complained about cut-away shots of the race being ‘staged’ and misleading, complaints that were subsequently dismissed. There was also a complaint (also dismissed) about the shot of a frost-bitten penis.

Unlike with Clarkson’s Nazi salute/Polish SatNav gag, in regards to the drink-driving accusation, the Trust did uphold the complaint, saying, ‘the scene of drinking whilst driving was not editorially justified in the context of a family show
pre-watershed
.’ This broke guidelines and was thus criticised as it could be seen to glamorise the misuse of alcohol.

The normally mellow James May was clearly angered by the Trust’s decision. Speaking to newspapers from his London home,
he insisted that they had deserved the drink: ‘It’s bloody hard work driving to the Pole and having a nice gin and tonic was something we totally deserved,’ he told the
Daily Mail
. ‘We were in the middle of nowhere – literally in the middle of the sea, and we were neither in any danger, nor posed any danger to anyone or anything for hundreds of miles.’ He also pointed out that they were far from drunk, but merely enjoying a drink.

Andy Wilman and his team have always been resolute defenders of the programme if they feel any controversial footage or comments are justified and in response to the BBC’s criticism, the production team’s statement said: ‘The item was filmed in an uninhabitable area of the North Pole, in international waters and they weren’t shown to be drunk or not in control of the car.’

But the furore wasn’t over there: Greenpeace plunged into the fray. As we have seen, the show and environmental campaigners have previously locked horns over various features on the programme. This time, Greenpeace were appalled, describing the Polar race as ‘beggaring belief’ and said it was ‘highly irresponsible’; they also criticised the BBC as a public service broadcasting channel for screening the footage. Emily Armistead of Greenpeace was quoted as saying: ‘The Arctic is one of the areas most endangered by climate change. Perhaps Clarkson and his cronies felt that climate change wasn’t destroying the Arctic quick enough, so they decided to do this. It’s quite astounding, really. They are taking some of the most polluting vehicles on the road to spew out far more CO2 than is necessary in an area that is suffering the worst damage from climate change. It does matter that
Top Gear
keeps on doing things like this.’

Back in Chipping Norton, seven climate protestors proceeded to dump horse manure on Clarkson’s lawn, with a banner saying, ‘This is what you’re landing us in.’

Other times, however,
Top Gear
has confronted the
environmentalist campaigners head-on with its features. Typically, these are riddled with sarcasm and irony, though: for example, we have James May in Series 10, Episode 3, saying the world is becoming more and more crowded and there is increasing pressure from environmentalists to have a small car. Cue one of
Top Gear
’s funniest-ever features. This personal favourite is the episode which sees Jeremy Clarkson drives the world’s smallest car to work … literally
into
work, taking the Peel P50 into the
Top Gear
offices themselves. The 1963 car was built on the Isle of Man and cost only £918; it boasted a 49cc moped engine capable of 100 miles to the gallon. Measuring only 54 by 41 inches, it was recognised by the
Guinness Book of World Records
as the smallest production car ever made, which meant that for the 6’ 5” Clarkson, just getting inside presented a challenge in itself.

Eventually he crammed himself in and set off for the BBC’s west London offices in the little beauty. An interesting aside was that as he was driving along in the minute car, he pointed out the
Top Gear
camera crew’s car was Congestion Charge-free as it was a Lexus hybrid. Arriving at White City, Clarkson pulled the car into reception before driving into a lift. Newsreader Fiona Bruce also got into the lift and then helped him out (the P50 doesn’t have a reverse gear). As she walked off, Jeremy made another one of his ‘accidental’ quips when he said she had a nice bottom and then added, ‘I said that out loud, didn’t I?’ It’s a gag we know well by now, but it’s still very funny.