The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (11 page)

and keep a balaclava on until I was eight miles clear of the location, and certain that no one was fol owing.

My golden rule was never to appear in the white suit without my helmet on. Conjecture was nothing without proof, and nothing short of photographic, tangible evidence could prove who I was. I sterilised my gear, left every trace of Ben Col ins – my phone, my wal et and so on – locked in the car, then hid the keys.

When the
Sunday Times
raided my changing room and sifted through my gear, the only information they gleaned was that The Stig wore size 10 shoes.

At work I hid behind a mask. At home I lied to everyone, including my friends and family, about what I was doing.

To me, The Stig epitomised the ultimate quest: no chal enge too great, no speed too fast. He had to look cool and have attitude, so I ditched the crappy racing overal s the BBC gave me and acquired some Alpinestars gear and a Simpson helmet.

Apart from unparal eled skil behind the wheel, The Stig was rumoured to have paranormal abilities and webbed buttocks, to urinate petrol and be top of the CIA’s Most Wanted list. There was only one possible hitch: I had never been a tame racing driver.

After forty minutes the balaclava began to itch like hel . The only place to give my head a break was the mothbal ed room Jim Wiseman had shown me where the test pilots used to change for pre-flight. It was more like a jail cel .

Paint flaked off the damp, yel ow-stained wal s; the red-painted concrete floor had survived an earthquake and the windows were too high to see out of. It was furnished minimal y – with a rump-numbing, standard locker-room issue wooden bench. My only company was a plump beetle that I named Reg. He usual y made an appearance mid-morning and scrambled across the pockmarked floor.

I waited there for hours on end, to be summoned to go bal istic on the track in whatever vehicle was lined up for filming. Food was brought to me and eaten in solitary confinement. In between eating and driving, two of my favourite pursuits, I busied myself reading books or doing press-ups. I pestered racing teams on the phone and drifted off into the recesses of my brain. It was like
The Shawshank Redemption
, minus the shower scene.

Only Andy Wilman, Wiseman and a couple of the producers knew who I was. I was just a voice behind a mask. Even the presenters were in the dark. When I coached the celebrity guests, none of them knew my name. They never saw my face. My helmet always stayed on with the visor shut.

It didn’t take long to slip into my new routine.

It would begin with a knock at the door. The world turned Polaroid as I pul ed on my helmet. The familiar scent of its resin bond fil ed my nostrils and the wadding pressed against my cheeks. I paced down the hal and on to the airfield to receive instructions from the director. People stopped in their tracks and stared at me like I was E.T.

The director swept his curly locks behind his ears and extended his hands, framing a square with his thumbs and forefingers as he breathlessly visualised the scene he was looking for.

‘What we would like you to do, if you can, Stig, is pul away
real y
fast. And
spin
the wheels. Can you do that?’

The cameraman, a North Face advocate with white blond hair, crouched like a rabbit six inches from a Porsche 911’s rear wheel, evidently focused on the hub. ‘Hi, I’m Ben Joiner,’ he said. ‘Am I al right here?’

I nodded. I was hardly being asked to skim the barriers at Daytona.

I red-lined the Porker, flipped the clutch and vanished in a haze of smoke.

The radio crackled. ‘Cut, cut, cut … Wonderful. Let’s do that again, but this time look at the camera first and
then
go!’

We did it again. And again. And again. Filming took … time.

I began to get my head around the compromise between fast driving and spectacular driving for TV.

Sometimes it overlapped – a fast lap could be as exciting to behold on the screen as on the stopwatch, but that was rare.

I studied the edit inside a minivan with James, a dour young Brummie who received the footage hot from the track, tapped a whirlwind of inputs on to his hieroglyphic keyboard, and deftly dissected it into a meaningful sequence for broadcast.

To enhance the viewing experience – and to keep my new friend James at bay – I threw in some wheelspins and lashings of lurid cornering to complement the more sedate looking but faster driving shots.

The Porsche was down to set a time, but it was pissing with rain and the track was flooding in the straights. Just completing a 140mph lap without spinning on to the turf had been an accomplishment.

Andy Wilman wandered down and col ared me. ‘Can’t you
do
something?’

‘What did you have in mind? A good time is out of the question. The car aquaplanes from second right up to fifth on the straights.’

‘The old Black Stig was a dab hand round this place, y’know.
Amazing
car control in the wet. Just
do
something. Something … interesting.’

Andy could already push my buttons like a jukebox.

As if by magic, the eight-year-old in my brain had a great idea. The Fol ow Through corner was named when Andy designed the layout of the
Top Gear
track with Lotus test driver Gavan Kershaw from Naaaarwich (which some people know as Norwich). ‘The cars wil be going bloody fast through this bit,’

Gavan explained. ‘You wouldn’t want to go off, that’s for sure.’

Andy is rumoured to have got quite excited at that point. ‘You mean if you went off you’d shit yourself and fol ow through?’

I asked Jim Wiseman to reposition the Fol ow Through cameraman. I’d decided not to share my plan with him. If things went wrong, I could always blame the weather.

I pounded the Porker around the lap as per normal. As I exited the Hammerhead chicane the adrenalin began boosting. As every gear-change propel ed me closer to the money shot, I started to wonder if this was such a good idea.

The rain slashed across the windscreen, I turned right into the Fol ow Through and buried the throttle. The Porker fired several warning signals but I was able to straighten up and point it towards the gap between the tyre wal and the verge. The pools of water were so dense they were picking the whole car up and aiming it in a load of different directions. For my plan to work, that was precisely what I needed.

Forty feet to go.

I passed my previous braking point and kept it lit, steered straight, leant left and handed over control to the Rain God.

The water lifted al four tyres off the tarmac and the steering went ghostly light. I passed through the tyre wal at a rude angle at just under 120mph. There wasn’t a sound as the car pinged into its first 360-degree spin.

I stayed on my original line of travel, which was good news. It gave me 300 feet of runway to sort things out before I ran into the landing lights. To cap this manoeuvre in style I needed to end up facing in the right direction.

Once I was going ful y backwards on the second gyration, I straightened the steering, then turned it gently right to swing the front around. I was stil shipping at around 100, so I had to manhandle out of the manoeuvre with some hard opposite lock to catch the rear for the last time.

Gotcha
.

I skirted the gutter bordering the runway and peddled round the final corners to cross the finish.

I pul ed alongside Jim for a debrief.

‘
Fucking hel
. Are you al right?’

‘Sure. How did it look?’

Jim rol ed his eyes. ‘I don’t know if it’s better or worse that you did that intentional y …’ He contacted the main camera unit on his radio. ‘Biff, did you get that?’

‘Uuh … Oh … Yeah … We got it.’ ‘Iain, what about you?’

‘YYYAAAAAAAAAP (enormous burp). Got it.’

‘What’ve you got, Jim?’ Andy quizzed.

‘The mother of al spins. Stiggy’s changing his underpants as we speak. So am I, for that matter.’

‘Good work. Get ready for the celeb, he’l be here in fifteen.’

With that, a black van was dispatched to col ect the camera tapes and run them across to James. I went off to get some lunch.

The
Top Gear
catering unit consisted of a double-decker bus and mobile trailer. When the schedule was tight I grabbed my own scoff. Each chef greeted me with the same startled look as I bowled up like a white-suited Oliver Twist. They checked my wristband periodical y to ensure I had a meal ticket. Can’t be too careful.

‘How do you eat it?’ the chef asked.

‘I snort it through a straw. What’s for pudding?’

‘Something squidgy.’

Depending on the guest, I might get a briefing beforehand. With my limited knowledge of TV

personalities I needed al the help I could get.

Wilman took me under his wing and talked me through it. ‘Right, Stiggy. Today we’ve got Martin Kemp driving the reasonably priced car.’

‘OK.’

‘Do you watch
EastEnders
?’

‘I’ve seen it, yes. Is he the bald one?’

Andy shot a bemused look towards the heavens. ‘No. He’s the baddie. Everyone hates him; wel , not the public but in the show. He used to be in Spandau Bal et. Can you teach him some good moves out there so he sets a fast time?’

‘Absolutely, assuming it dries.’

It didn’t. The track stayed as slick as Kemp’s hairdo and he spun so far off the track during practice that he nearly col ected a $6m helicopter.

I handed Martin over to the presenters, who went about filming their pieces with him in front of the studio audience. My job was done, yet the night was stil young. I never hung around after studio days for a beer or a chat. It was decidedly antisocial of me, but I real y did have somewhere else to be.

W
e gathered around the Directing Staff Instructor, a decorated NCO who bore the angry scar of a shrapnel wound in his neck, a legacy of the Balkans conflict. Plissken was a stocky northerner whose boyish looks belied his frontline experience, and he spoke on rapid fire.

The reasons for us being there were many, though none good enough at this stage to merit more than veiled contempt from the real Men in Green. The Army Reserves may have been part time, but the Airborne ethos was al -consuming.

In modern times British airborne forces have become renowned for rapid insertion into theatres of operation around the globe, after fifty years of successful deployment in everything from jungle warfare and counter terrorism to the deserts of the Middle East. A free-thinking force with a wil to overcome any obstruction.

Recruits had to develop the mental and physical resilience to cope with the most chal enging scenarios. By the time we were ‘wasting’ Plissken’s oxygen, swingeing physical tests had halved our number. The course itself took place mainly in Wales and involved arduous uphil work in the Brecon Beacons, a stunning range of heather-clad peaks notorious for their inclement and unpredictable weather. As primarily weekend warriors, it took the best part of a year before we were deemed worthy of further training.

Passing required a high level of navigational skil and physical stamina. The chances of making it through were one in twenty, which cheered me no end. They were considerably more favourable than the odds of becoming an F1 driver, and no one asked you to hand over £1.5 mil ion for the privilege.

Slick weapon handling dril s were critical to staying on the course. We disassembled, re-assembled, loaded, made ready and constantly karate chopped the sliding bolt action of the SA80 assault rifle, aka the

‘piece of shite’. Safe handling and consummate knowledge of every component of the weapon system was vital. With our wool en hats pul ed down over our eyes, we learnt to strip it blindfolded.

‘We’re not here to fail you lads. We’re here to teach you to survive. I don’t give two shits whether any of you make it or not. Quite honestly we don’t need a single fucking one of you. If you want to be here, that’s down to you.’ Plissken paused to let his message sink in. ‘Jones, where’s your head cover?’

‘I left it in the block, Staff.’

‘Fucking spastic. Use my one.’

‘
You!
’ A boot thumped my own. ‘What size rag do you use to clean this weapon?’

‘Forty-five by forty-five, Staff,’ I answered.

‘Correct. Forty
fucking
five by forty
fucking
five, and if any of you dickheads try and shove anything else down the barrel you’l be paying for it with the armourer.’

His footsteps receded. I slipped the bolt carrier assembly back inside my rifle and fumbled for the recoil rod. A twanging spring suggested a fel ow recruit had just got that part badly wrong.

‘Lord Jesus Christ, what ’ave you done?’ Plissken moaned.

‘Sorry, Staff …’

‘You wil be, son. Start with fifty press-ups, the lot of ya.’

Men had died on the Welsh mountains while undertaking arduous recruit training. Training was relentless, punctuated by intermittent, brutal exercise cal ed ‘fizz’ – sprint here, carry a man there – reducing us to gasping wretches within seconds. Lessons were never repeated. You learnt them or you failed.

Between work commitments I exercised every day in every way. Every escalator became a step machine, every run a beasting. I swam, surfed, cycled and climbed at ten tenths.

I was training in Snowdonia when my phone rang. It was the best kind of blast from the past. I told Georgie I was living in London but currently training in Snowdonia. Yes, I’d love to see her. Next week would be fantastic … I had goose bumps, and for once they had nothing to do with the harsh weather. I practical y sprinted across the hil side.

The next few days took years. I wondered how much she’d have changed, and how much I had. It had been ten years.

We met in a dimly lit restaurant in town, and after the molasses had melted in my mouth it was just like old times. Her smile was as intoxicating as ever and for two hours nothing else in the world mattered.

The difference this time round was I realised how much more interested I was in
her
life,
her
choices,
her
hopes. She had travel ed the world, excel ed in every kind of water sport and remained passionate about art.