The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (10 page)

I partnered Werner and he started the race. The 60 cars filed on to the start/finish straight, and when they dropped the hammer my hair stood on end. The atmosphere was buzzing, doubly so because the 2002

World Cup was going on and the English fans opposite our pit were updating us on the England vs Denmark game using their own scoreboard. They went berserk as each of England’s three goals hit the back of the net.

Werner was whipping through the forest towards Indianapolis corner at 220mph. He lifted to turn right and the rear suspension col apsed. The rear hit the floor, lost aero grip and sent him into a horrific spin.

He flew across the gravel, back on to the track and cracked into the wal at over 100 times the force of gravity.

Spencer was the first of our crew on the scene. ‘Luckily Werner’s head took most of the impact,’ he said later. ‘And there was nuffink in there to damage.’

The car was toast but Werner spent several minutes trying to get the engine going in spite of pleas from the officials. He only gave up when Spencer assured him the car was actual y in two pieces.

Regardless of how the suspension fault occurred, my gut feeling was that the Ascari project was at an end. It couldn’t carry on without a major sponsor. We’d needed that Le Mans result. Come July, I was looking for a job.

I phoned every team in the book for a drive, in every series from Le Mans to Formula 1 to NASCAR.

One cal paid off in September just a few days before the inaugural Indycar race in the UK. I’d been bugging the life out of the organisers for a drive, and at the last minute the Series Director rang and asked what I was doing that weekend.

‘Coming to Rockingham to watch the Champ Car race.’

‘Wel , bring your helmet and overal s, there’s a drive for you in the support race.’

Rockingham’s newly formed programme was based on NASCAR, America’s most popular racing series. One in three Americans was a fan; viewing audiences were enormous and the sponsorship and advertising revenues ran into bil ions of dol ars. The stadiums, cars and fan base were al vast.

The formula for success was simple: they raced stock cars based on America’s three most popular sedans that were virtual y identical in performance and available to anyone. These agricultural machines were built of tube steel, with clunking metal gearshifters straight off a Massey Ferguson and snarling V8

motors. The circuits were mostly ovals where you only steered left. The cars were set up with most of their wheels pointing that way – so much so that you had to steer right just to drive one in a straight line.

Much to the amusement of the Americans, the UK series was cal ed ‘Ascar’, prompting the enduring question: ‘You race Ass-Car?’ The packed grid boasted top British drivers like World Ral y Champion Colin McRae, Touring Car Champion Jason Plato, some F1 testers and competitors from the USA.

They raced wheel to wheel at Rockingham’s 1.5-mile Speedway at continuous speeds of up to 180mph. Rockingham was purpose built in an industrial backwater near Corby, Northants, a town famous for

… not very much. The stadium rose out of the ground like a modern Colosseum amidst a sea of tarmac parking for thousands of spectators. It was American-style BIG, with packed grandstands just metres back from the action. The track was wide enough to fit six cars side by side with gentle banking to assist the flow of speed through the four corners.

Europeans largely regarded oval racing as boring, having only seen it on television. When you attended a live race, you realised the droning pack of cars were largely out of control. It was a thril ing high-speed spectacle. The question wasn’t whether they would crash, but when and how hard.

My car was owned by Mark Proctor, a Goliath of a Yorkshireman who also competed in the series. It was his spare, and looked like many of its vital components had been cannibalised. I sat inside its spacious cabin behind a steering wheel big enough for a bus and rearranged some electrical wiring that dangled from the roof. I resolved not to judge a book by its cover. The old girl might have it where it counts.

She didn’t.

After missing the test session with an engine problem, I got to grips with my first stock car in the open qualifying session and discovered why NASCAR racers described understeer as ‘push’. Whenever I went hard into a corner, the apex repel ed the car as if it were the like pole of another magnet. I qualified two places from last and contemplated hanging myself from the wiring that had come loose again.

In the parc fermé before the race, a sports agent saw me leaning over my car at the tail end of the pre-formed grid. I tried hiding but he caught me.

‘I see you’re going wel then!’

I smiled through clenched teeth. ‘I won’t be here long.’

At the rol ing start, the cars sped into the first corner in side-by-side formation and slithered into the turn as they lost downforce in the hole they cut through the air. The volume of air being pushed in al directions was enough to barge neighbouring cars aside and affect their handling.

I felt the changing air pressures immediately in my inner ear. By nosing inside the car in front you could use the air buffeting from your bonnet to kick out his tail; by running outside you could suck away his air and make him ‘push’. To exacerbate your opponent’s handling problems, you sat in the same position for a few laps until his tyres burnt out.

My dog of a car floated like a butterfly in the wake of dirty air behind the other racers and stuck to the track like a squashed toad. In ‘clean air’ it was rubbish, so I had to leapfrog from one victim to the next without delay. The drivers made it hard. When people moved over on me I stuck my nose into their side and pushed back; they cal ed it ‘rubbing’. I had a few close encounters with the wal , and at 160mph it puckered up your ass cheeks tighter than a lobster’s en route to the boiling pot.

This style of physical racing real y suited me and before I knew it the race was over. Having started eighteenth, I finished on the podium in third.

If I was lucky, my performance might secure a drive for the fol owing season. The prize for winning the Championship was a test in American NASCAR.

I stil spent hours, days, months on the phone cal ing teams and looking for sponsors. Nothing. I offered advertising agencies the marketing opportunity of a lifetime to back the first British NASCAR

Champion. I hit the Yel ow Pages and talked the hind leg off alcohol firms, factories and pizza chains. Even as I did it my objectives felt increasingly shal ow when I considered the host of causes around the globe that money could be more fruitful y spent on.

After another day of having the phone slammed down on me, the manager of a local automotive company gave me some air-time.

‘The last racing driver who asked me for sponsorship was Damon Hil ,’ he said. He was nibbling the bait; time to reel him in.

‘Of course,’ I enthused. ‘And he went on to win the World Championship.’

‘Yeah,’ he chuckled. ‘The answer’s the same now as it was then.
No
.’

Perhaps publicity would help attract sponsorship. I thumbed the Rolodex and spoke to every men’s magazine editor in the galaxy, then the TV executives. I did a screen test with Channel 4, had an interview with
Fifth Gear
and drove a Ford Focus for some bloke at Dunsfold. Nothing had come of it.

I maintained a punishing physical training regime in the expectation that everything would work out for the best. It was like flogging a dead horse. I wondered how long I could hold out in hope of a drive without a job to support me. After seven months of climbing the wal s, I knew the answer.

By March 2003 al the serious championship drives were gone, and in motor racing you were quickly forgotten. I had dedicated my life to racing, subjugated everything else that mattered and proved that I had the right stuff, but it didn’t matter.

Without a sense of purpose I had no zest for life and felt I hardly recognised my reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t bear sitting around watching life pass me by. It was time for a new direction.

I used to read about the lives of British soldiers like General de la Bil ière, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Andy McNab, and I drew inspiration from their daring adventures. Even the titles of their books struck a chord:
Looking for Trouble,Living Dangerously
and
Immediate Action
. The more I read, the more I understood that military service had more to do with protecting life than taking it.

After school I’d passed the Regular Commissions Board to attend Sandhurst and become an army officer. I took part in an exercise that simulated warfare in built-up areas, with the Royal Irish Regiment and Marine Commandos being attacked by Paratroopers.

In the midst of the smoke, gunfire and camouflage paint, someone mistook me for a serving officer and handed me an assault rifle, so I made myself useful. There were bouts of furious activity and aggression, diving through windows, crashing down staircases and constantly coming under fire as the enemy came at us from al sides. Amidst the confusion, my fel ow soldiers looked after one another like brothers. Covered in grime and sweat, they remained alert, orderly and intel igent. I admired their self-discipline and sharp humour, but above al the gleam in their eyes.

I rang the recruiting office of an elite Army Reserve Regiment, an Airborne Unit that recruited civilians, and left a message that I wanted to join. Unlike most of the cal s I made that month, these guys actual y rang back.

F
inal y I heard back from Andy Wilman. It seemed that I did have a future with
Top Gear
, but I was to speak to no one about it. My first tasking was something cal ed a ‘powertest’. I packed my gear and made my way to the airfield.

I pul ed up a few hundred metres short of the security gate and ran a mental checklist: No names, no personal info … No unnecessary introductions … Look the part, act the part.

I pul ed a black balaclava over my melon and admired the view in the head mirror.
Yep, you look like
a terrorist.

The security guard approached me more cautiously this time, noting the registration plates in case these were his final steps on mother earth. I wound down the window and hailed him.

‘Morning. I’m with
Top Gear
.’

He broke into a relieved smile, waved me through and returned to his cheese and pickle.

I drove on to the concrete staging area. Tripods and cameras and black travel boxes ful of kit were strewn everywhere, and the place was seething with camera crew. I had no idea what any of them were doing, but they seemed very busy doing it.

Several had noticed the suicide bomber who had just drawn up beside them. I was bringing unnecessary attention to myself, so I climbed out and made my way as anonymously as possible towards the toxic cabin.

I loitered near the cardboard cut-out of John Prescott, waiting for some sign of Andy Wilman. Under his leadership,
Top Gear
had been through a successful revamp fol owing its demise in the Nineties, but it remained essential y a car review programme. As I joined in the second year of the new format, it was as popular as ever, with over two mil ion viewers. You’d think they could have spent a few quid doing up the place. It was the pits.

After five minutes there were signs of movement down the dim corridor. A young guy with a Tintin hairdo and Elvis sunglasses appeared, chatting to a skinny nerd in an Adidas shel suit. They walked straight past.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘
Whooooooaaa
,’ Tintin shrieked, leaping through the air as if someone had just plugged him into the National Grid.

Back on the ground, he started to laugh.

‘You must be Ben.’ He waved a hand. ‘I’m Jim Wiseman. You scared the living shit out of me. Nice balaclava, though. Bet it comes in handy on a cold day robbing banks.’

‘Very. Should I just wait here?’

‘Yeah, I think that’s best for now. We’l find you a room later. It’s great to have you on board, welcome to the A team!’

‘Thanks. Am I actual y on board?’

‘You’re kidding, right? Hasn’t Andy told you?’

‘No, other than turn up today and not tel anyone. I sent him the rushes he wanted and hoped I did some good times the other day.’

‘That’s so typical. I think you equal ed Perry’s best time on your second lap, and your best lap was over a second faster. Wilman was straight on the phone to the office and was like, “Boys, we’ve got a new Stig …”’

The Stig was the show’s faceless racing driver who tested everything from exotic supercars to family saloons around
Top Gear’
s track, setting fast lap times to gauge their performance. Dressed in black and hidden behind a blackout helmet, he looked like Darth Vader’s racing twin.

The vital component of The Stig’s aura was anonymity. No one ever saw his face, knew his name or heard him speak. When Perry McCarthy, the chattiest racing driver on the planet, revealed that he was the driver behind the mask after Series 2, his days were numbered. Shortly after I took over, I observed the fate awaiting me if I ever broke that rule.

Black Stig, or rather someone dressed like him, was filmed being strapped into a Jaguar XJS to attempt a speed record aboard the aircraft-carrier HMS
Invincible
. A dummy Stig was then sent screaming down the launch pad, aided by the pressurised steam catapult used for launching Sea Harriers.

Stig ‘missed his braking point’. Car and driver crashed into the North Sea, never to be seen again …

With him out of the way, it was my turn in the sandpit. But I knew that a character born of the media would inevitably die by it; that a single slip-up would lead to the catapult. Black Stig lasted a year on the show; maybe I could hold out for two. Carpe Diem. If it only lasted a day, I was determined to make it a good one.

I vowed to take The Stig in the White Suit to a new level of secrecy and hold out for as long as possible. I made my own rules: never park in the same place twice, never talk to anyone outside the ‘circle’