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Swarms of them descended from the nearby beaches for a look at some fast noisy things. Tanned babes in scant bikinis toting dollar fifty plastic necklaces exchanged them at every opportunity for bodily fluids or a flash of flesh. The race fans built their own bars, converted school buses into multi-storey viewing galleries and invented my favourite gadget of all time. A 200 horsepower engine beneath the cushions enabled the devoted fan to admire the racing from the comfort of his own motorised sofa from a variety of vantage points around the infield.
The heat built up to 90 degrees with 100 per cent humidity. All the effort of physical training was worth every bead of sweat when you set about the track. It was as rough as hell. The surface was a bumpy patchwork of different materials and there were some fast, challenging corners with minimal run-off. You had to chase the heavy steering for every second as the grip came and went. The constant jarring wreaked havoc on the vehicle’s drive train, and the tyres shredded from all the wheelspin and hard braking. We ran the hardest compound tyre Dunlop could supply us.
Avoiding dehydration was a constant battle. The vital fluids in the car’s drink system tended to boil by the time it reached your mouth and scald your lips. You thought you were warm whilst driving, but when you pulled up at the end of a stint the rush of air would stop and you found yourself in the asphyxiation chamber. I sprinted from the car, pulled up my fireproof leggings and stood in a bucket of ice water, looking like John Cleese in his Monty Python days.
One of our truckies was dating a local hussy with an altogether scientific approach to surviving the weather. Red leathery skin and greasy brown hair was her defence against the sun, and she arrived every morning with an icy slab of Budweiser beer. From then until dusk, when she emptied the last can, not a single drop of water passed her hirsute lips, and her vocabulary was, like, whatever. ‘See ya’ll in the mornin’, boys, baaaaaaarp.’ A real southern belle.
I was partnered with Justin Wilson, who had just won the Formula 3000 Championship. It was great having him on board, in no small part because he was happy with my only standing order: ‘No pissing in the seat.’ This feral habit was pioneered by many notable drivers including Nelson Piquet, who apparently used to wet his pants at the end of a Formula 1 race and leave the gift for his mechanics.
As team leader in my car I drew the lucky straw to run double stints when our third driver was injured in the pit lane. That meant running flat out for just over two hours between fuelling and driver changes. The combination of the continuous high G forces and the way the car was always twitching tested driver and machine to the brink of failure, making Sebring a rite of passage. Even the track started melting part way through the race, so we had to run behind a safety car whilst emergency repairs were made.
Performance-wise we were right on the pace, having ditched the Turbo for the magnificent Judd. The Audis were running away on their grippy Michelin tyres, which at the time gave them several seconds a lap over our Dunlops. Our hard compound came to life when it mixed with the softer rubber on the track, which meant our pace quickened as the race went on. We began catching the leaders. Justin and I took turns putting the hammer down, competing with each other until we crossed the line in fifth place. At last, we had a finish!
Werner placed behind us in the sister car; beating him meant we had done something right. He had attacked Sebring with his customary gusto and kept us primed throughout the weekend with energy drinks.
At one point Werner’s co-driver made an impromptu pit stop in the night and caught everyone off guard. Afrika-Bo was snoring away in the coach when Ian Dawson burst in and dragged him to his feet. Werner grabbed his helmet, leapt into the car and drove off. His helmet was still fitted with a fully tinted daytime visor, so he couldn’t see a thing. Without floodlights, his task was as dangerous as a bush baby asking a hyena for a shoulder rub. He somehow managed to drive an hour-long stint within three tenths of our pace.
We packed our bags for Europe and geared up for Le Mans. I set about an extensive tyre-testing programme with Dunlop, and Klaas threw every resource at the project to give us a credible shot at winning the 24-hour classic this time round.
The new Ascari KZ1 supercar was on display to the crowds after years of development; this was the road car our racing project set out to promote. With all the lessons learnt from the previous year, everyone was confident of a result.
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 collapsed. 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 wall 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 actually 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 call 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.’
‘Well, bring your helmet and overalls, 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 billions of dollars. The stadiums, cars and fan base were all vast.
The formula for success was simple: they raced stock cars based on America’s three most popular sedans that were virtually identical in performance and available to anyone. These agricultural machines were built of tube steel, with clunking metal gear-shifters 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 called ‘Ascar’, prompting the enduring question: ‘You race Ass-Car?’ The packed grid boasted top British drivers like World Rally 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 thrilling 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 repelled 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 well then!’
I smiled through clenched teeth. ‘I won’t be here long.’
At the rolling start, the cars sped into the first corner in side-by-side formation and slithered into the turn as they lost down-force in the hole they cut through the air. The volume of air being pushed in all 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 called it ‘rubbing’. I had a few close encounters with the wall, 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 really 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 following season. The prize for winning the Championship was a test in American NASCAR.
I still spent hours, days, months on the phone calling 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 Yellow Pages and talked the hind leg off alcohol firms, factories and pizza chains. Even as I did it my objectives felt increasingly shallow when I considered the host of causes around the globe that money could be more fruitfully 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 Hill,’ 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 walls, I knew the answer.
By March 2003 all 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 Billière, 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 all sides. Amidst the confusion, my fellow soldiers looked after one another like brothers. Covered in grime and sweat, they remained alert, orderly and intelligent. I admired their self-discipline and sharp humour, but above all 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 calls I made that month, these guys actually rang back.
Chapter 7
The New Stig
Finally 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 called a ‘powertest’. I packed my gear and made my way to the airfield.
I pulled 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 pulled 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 full 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 following its demise in the Nineties, but it remained essentially a car review programme. As I joined in the second year of the new format, it was as popular as ever, with over two million 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 shell 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’ll find you a room later. It’s great to have you on board, welcome to the A team!’
‘Thanks. Am I actually on board?’
‘You’re kidding, right? Hasn’t Andy told you?’
‘No, other than turn up today and not tell 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 equalled 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’ and keep a balaclava on until I was eight miles clear of the location, and certain that no one was following.
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 Collins – my phone, my wallet 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 challenge too great, no speed too fast. He had to look cool and have attitude, so I ditched the crappy racing overalls the BBC gave me and acquired some Alpinestars gear and a Simpson helmet.
Apart from unparalleled skill 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 hell. The only place to give my head a break was the mothballed room Jim Wiseman had shown me where the test pilots used to change for pre-flight. It was more like a jail cell.
Paint flaked off the damp, yellow-stained walls; the red-painted concrete floor had survived an earthquake and the windows were too high to see out of. It was furnished minimally – with a rump-numbing, standard locker-room issue wooden bench. My only company was a plump beetle that I named Reg. He usually made an appearance mid-morning and scrambled across the pock-marked floor.
I waited there for hours on end, to be summoned to go ballistic 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 pulled on my helmet. The familiar scent of its resin bond filled my nostrils and the wadding pressed against my cheeks. I paced down the hall 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 pull away really 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 all 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 collared 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 Follow 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 will be going bloody fast through this bit,’ Gavan explained. ‘You wouldn’t want to go off, that’s for sure.’