The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (26 page)

‘What was he like?’ Wilman asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I feel awful saying this, but I’ve got the impression he wasn’t much of a driver
before
he lost his sight …’

The production team, always one step ahead of the game, had found not just one mad blind racing pilot for this mission, but two.

The next contestant was a wonderful man cal ed Bil y Baxter.

I spotted him standing in the car park. He was looking into the distance, like he was waiting for a train announcement. His head met his body at the shoulders with the robustness of a front-row forward. He was a stout fel ow.

Bil y had served the British Army as a member of the Royal Horse Artil ery. He lost his sight to a rare disease during the Bosnian conflict, as a result of clearing up the mass graves.

His eyes aimed off as I approached him. He couldn’t see me but he was clearly at peace with his surroundings.

‘Hi, Bil y, I’m The Stig.’

‘Hel o, Stig.’ He held out a firm hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

His weathered cheeks creased into a broad grin. Crow’s feet around his eyes suggested he laughed a lot. He had the husky voice of a smoker and an untraceable accent: part West Country, part London cockney.

Bil y had a driving partner too, but he dispatched him as soon as I offered to take him around the track myself. He listened intently as I talked him through each corner, explaining the speeds I would be doing, to listen to the changing wind rush as we accelerated. I put in a lap absolutely flat out and taught him to sense the G-forces as I turned.

Bil y took the driver’s seat and I read him the riot act. ‘Do exactly what I say when I say it.’

‘No problem.’

We set off and Bil y pointed the car straight ahead. We hit third gear and achieved more in our first minute together than I had during the whole of the previous day. As we headed towards the kink before the first corner, things went slightly pear-shaped; Bil y got a tad overexcited and I had to wrestle the wheel back from him before we col ided with the concrete hut.

Bil y fol owed my directions precisely and without delay. He had superb feel for brake pressure and graduated his acceleration.

The Liana was rock solid, but the going was stil painful y slow. The first lap took us nearly ten minutes. Richard Whiteley’s time was two minutes and six seconds.

We began travel ing much faster, which meant that when Bil y went the wrong way it was more spectacular. We pul ed wide at the second corner, with me shouting to lift off the gas, tank-slapped, spun and stopped. Bil y fought the steering al the way, his innocent expression unchanged as he stared into the void.

He was the salt of the earth.

‘Bol ocks,’ he hissed, then rocked his shoulders like the Muttley character from
Wacky Races
.

The biggest frustration for both of us was when Bil y took a corner real y wel on one lap and then completely screwed it up on the next. Without sight he had no way of ‘learning’ the track in the way I was used to. It had to be embedded through a developing sense of timing, in conjunction with the familiar tones of my voice, in a map inside his mind.

By the end of the session we’d made huge progress, but I was stil steering much of the lap for him and we were nowhere near a fast time. I real y liked Bil y and I believed in him. I asked him what his ambition was.

‘Wel , Stig, I want to beat Richard Whiteley’s time, and of course I’d give anything to go even faster.

If I got anywhere near Terry Wogan [2.4], that would be amazing.’

I clicked a stopwatch and talked him through a perfect lap on a dicta-phone. I closed my eyes and rattled through the sequence of thoughts and manoeuvres that Bil y had practised that day: bumps, heavy steers, gears, counting time in the straights. I crossed the imaginary finish line in two minutes and 10

seconds.

‘It’s a start,’ I told him.

I reported our progress to the boss, and heard myself promise that Bil y would be able to do a time on his own, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t yet hold the steering wheel by himself. In Wilman’s world, that put my word on the line.

The next time I saw Bil y was to film his performance. I could only keep him in the car for a maximum of an hour and a half, because anything more brought him to the brink of mental exhaustion.

Bil y was such a genial character, but his desire to achieve a good time was written in every bul et of sweat that dripped off his nose when he drove. I had to up the ante.

‘Bil y, I might be quite fierce with you this session. My language might go from PG to 18.’

He smiled and said, ‘Don’t you worry, Stig, you can throw a few fucks and shits into me! I’ve been listening to your tape every day. I’m ready.’

Our progress second time round was phenomenal. Bil y natural y wanted to ease off the accelerator in the straights, but I dished out so much verbal abuse that it convinced him to keep his foot down until we passed 80mph. Years of military training kicked in and Bil y kept the throttle buried. A ‘click right’ meant a smal jab of the wheel and back to straight, which was handy for making smal adjustments.

I set him with the correct amount of steering for the corners, but as we went faster the front wheels began to skid. That meant he had to turn more to compensate, but it only worked if he drove at the same speed every lap.

Bil y gave everything as the speed piled on the pressure. We made plenty of essential smoke breaks, but I was running out of time with him. He could drive the whole lap by himself, going through al the gears, braking and steering through every corner with the exception of one, the fastest corner of the track, the Fol ow Through.

I placed a single finger at the base of the steering wheel and told him, ‘IT’S LOCKED.’ It was too dangerous for Bil y to drive that section unaided. The tyre barrier left just enough room for two cars’ breadths, and at 100mph it could go wrong too quickly for him to recover it. The system worked so wel , and his driving was so smooth, that I had to take a look at him to remind myself he real y couldn’t see.

We took our final break and I explained how close we were. Forget Richard Whiteley, we were only one second away from Wogan. Bil y sparked up another rol -up. His hands were shaking. I felt a rush of admiration and affection for him. He had sacrificed so much for his country, and stil had the bal s to be televised in pursuit of a personal milestone.

Back in the car I did a final talk-through, highlighting areas he could improve. I got him to paint a mental picture of the perfect lap and run a commentary. Then a silent thumbs up to the camera and one simple word to Bil y: ‘
Go!
’

Bil y lit up the tyres and after a few ‘smal lefts’ and ‘smal rights’ we made it to the first corner. Our approach was a bit wide, but I risked sticking with it and cal ed for a late brake and shouted ‘TURN NOW.’ I didn’t have to tel him twice. The car scythed through the corner, the front wheels pleading for mercy.
Click
left, left, straighten.

‘Keep it flat, Bil y. Don’t lift, kink left, more left and BRAKE.’

We just missed the tyre wal at Chicago as the ABS braking clawed at the tarmac. Bil y applied heaps of right lock and we exited the corner a little too far to the right.

I bel owed at him to keep his foot hard down along the fast back straight. The hair on the back of my neck began to tingle as it often did on a good run in qualifying. It was stil a long way to the finish.

Bil y skidded through Hammerhead chicane without cheating by cutting the corner, and powered through the gears to the superfast Fol ow Through.

‘Real y good, Bil y – dead straight, straight, straight now, don’t blow it, don’t lift, don’t lift AND TURN

…’

Bil y flat-footed it through the right-hander, a corner that a third of sighted drivers never took flat.

We approached the perilous 100mph left.

‘A little left, go straight, little left, hold that, OK, it’s LOCKED …’

My thumb hovered over the base of the steering wheel as we screamed through the corner. Bil y never lifted. Both of us knew this lap was the one.

We made a sensible approach under braking for the penultimate corner but Bil y turned too much.

We cut al the way across the grass and by some miracle the car didn’t spin.

One last jab of the brakes at Gambon corner, ‘TURN,’ and nothing could go wrong any more.

Bil y crossed the line and I told him to stop.

I cradled the stopwatch for a moment in my hand.

‘That was a good one, it felt like a good one. How fast was it, Stig?’ Bil y had become the focus of my thoughts, and for the past week his goal, his dream, had become almost as much mine as his. He had set out to drive a racing lap as wel as a sighted man. But he had achieved far, far more.

‘Wel , the first thing you need to know is that I never touched the steering wheel on that lap, even at the Fol ow Through.’

I let that hang for a moment as his chin buckled and another bul et of sweat dropped from his eyebrow. The gravity of his achievement washed through him.

‘And you didn’t just beat Wogan. You’re under the two-minute barrier. Your time was one minute and 58 seconds.’

It was al too much for Bil y, but even war heroes are al owed to shed a tear now and again. I hugged him and thanked him for being such a top man.

In the background I could see the long shadow of the world’s tal est TV presenter approaching and decided to make a quick exit before my emotions got the better of me. I handed Bil y over to Clarkson.

Jezza armed himself with a fifteen-second briefing from me on the terminology required to help Bil y navigate the circuit, introduced himself to Bil y and climbed into the car. As I walked off, Bil y zigzagged down the straight before piling off on to the grass. ‘Good luck, Jezza.’

I gripped my fist in celebration of Bil y’s success. His time was faster than five sighted celebrities. It meant more to me than any lap I could have driven.

T
he reason
Top Gear
felt so exciting and personal to me was because the camera crews gave their al to capturing every moment.

It required something special not to tear yourself away from the monocle as some lunatic headed towards your kneecaps at ramming speed. Most mortals would be running for cover or asking the director to leave the rig unmanned.
TG
crews stayed put, because they could pul the image into crisper focus – and the results were there for al to see. We built up a high level of trust and I never felt complacent about the risks they took to get the perfect shot.

On Series 6 of
TG
the presenters splashed out on three dreadful coupés for less than £1500 a throw. I went to the alpine handling track at Mil brook to test their suspension and handling flaws. The Hil Route was soaking wet, and encompassed every kind of treacherous bend. The fastest machine around a closed loop would be deemed the winner.

The three musketeers duly arrived with three old heaps. Jeremy had a Mitsubishi Starion, James a Jaguar XJS and Richard a BMW 635. I made a cursory inspection of them al . Judging by the amount of rust and gaffer tape not quite holding them together, I reckoned I had a one in six chance of spearing off. I passed this on to the crew: ‘If it sounds or looks wrong, start running.’

James’s XJS was an utter shed. It was al I could do to hold it in a gear and count the minutes as she struggled to make it up the hil . Gravity kindly guided it down the other side.

Clarkson’s clapped-out bal of metal was the fastest and boasted a vague semblance of handling.

Hammond’s BMW was a mean old dog that stil liked to bite. It was the most powerful of the three, but 300kg heavier and designed back in the days before ABS braking systems. Time had not been kind to it in other ways; she was inclined to turn right even when you spun the steering left.

Mil brook boasted a famous jump where you went airborne and landed at a sharp left-hander. We had a camera located directly ahead, tucked behind the barriers. The man operating it normal y worked at Dunsfold, so a location shoot was new territory. He was also pushing seventeen stone.

With the presenters in eager anticipation I wiped the condensation from inside my visor, took the cue to go over the radio and sped up the hil . The BM had the sweet cocktail scent of old air fresheners and wal owed like a Cross-Channel ferry. The engine’s rattle suggested the ignition timing was counting it down to oblivion. I arrived at the presenters’ viewpoint, hit the brakes and nearly joined them when the BM wobbled into its suspension and locked a rear wheel. Clarkson yel ed, ‘Run for your lives!’

I turned down the hil and nailed the throttle. As I powered up the jump the BM lurched into the air and started to turn right before I’d even landed. The suspension made a loud groan as its groggy parts stretched out of their sockets. Before the car cleared the crest, our stocky cameraman had his Nikes on and was pegging it into the trees faster than Linford Christie, knees pumping at chest height. I couldn’t eject, I stil had to land this disaster.

The BM slewed to 45 degrees in the air and pul ed further right as she cannoned into the tarmac.

Copious opposite lock countered the slide but the sheer weight of the machine pul ed it down the slope at increasing speed towards the recently vacated Armco barrier. I broke the rules of car control and hit the brake pedal to reduce speed mid-slide. The front wheels locked abruptly and the engine spurted oil across the tyres. I wasn’t confident of braking any time soon.

I’d lost count of the steering revolutions, but with plenty of left-hand lock stil on, the BM made a brutish swerve and climbed the left-hander. I was in so deep that I resigned myself to swiping the barrier. I waited … and it just missed. The tank-slapper came to an end some 50 metres further on.

Clarkson’s Starion won the contest comfortably.

The next three-way shoot was on the Isle of Man and involved three brand-new speedsters: Aston Martin’s 8 Vantage, BMW’s M6 and Porsche’s Carrera S. You have to take the rough with the smooth.