Top Gear

Tonight we take part in our first ever motor race...

James tests the new Fiat 500 near some youths on bicycles,

and the Ascari A10.

Just how fast is this thing?

Hello. Hello and welcome.

Thanks very much. Thank you.

Now, last year, you may remember, we borrowed some tractors

and we planted 25 acres of oilseed rape.

The idea was that we were going to harvest it,

and then turn the seeds into juicy, eco-friendly petrol,

full of natural, dew-picked, farm-fresh goodness.

Unfortunately, James bought the wrong seeds.

We ended up with 500 gallons of... and there's no other way of saying this...

...diesel.

500 gallons of hemorrhoid cream would have been more useful, honestly.

We hate diesel, so we decided to burn it.

Even though the three of us have no racing experience,

we entered the Britcar 24-hour race at Silverstone with a diesel car.

All we needed was a car, so we got one,

and then, while James was moonlighting on his wine program,

Jeremy and I went down to the Top Gear Technology Centre.

Here it is, the crucible of all our great inventions.

This is the car we bought.

It's a BMW 330d, four years old, done 45,000 miles.

We paid eleven grand for it.

And now we must turn it into a racing car,

by bolting lots of racing car bits to it.

The director of the Top Gear Technology Centre, Steve, would do all the trivial jobs,

like the brakes, the engine, the suspension and the electronics,

while we did the big stuff.

I had to do the race seat.

Jeremy, meanwhile, had to install a long-range fuel tank.

Got a hammer?

With that not done, I checked on Hammond.

Yes! The office!

That feels businesslike.

Hammond.

- What? - Do you understand endurance racing?

- Yeah. - 24-hour race, three drivers.

Do you want to hop out?

So let's just say you do the first stint, here's the driver change.

You get out, the car's been refueled, it's my turn to get in.

Yeah, it will be a bit of a squeeze for you, I grant you.

It won't be a bit of a squeeze, mate. It will be...

There you go. You're in.

Vroom vroom vroom, all the other cars, those are the noises of them.

Meanwhile, back in the Top Gear pit, Jeremy... You'd have to get a saw.

Well... Yeah.

Right, I'll put the seat on runners, so it'll be more boring.

Next, we needed a drinks delivery system.

Most are rubbish, so I made ours battery powered.

OK, so when you want a drink, which you will,

you put that in your mouth.

- Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. - (Muffled) I am squeezing it!

Aha! Does that work?

Well, it's not brilliant, if I'm honest.

- Oh. - Yeah, it's flawed.

To make it look like a racing car, we needed sponsors' names.

But sadly, because of BBC rules we couldn't get real ones.

So we just sort of made some up.

Look at that! That looks like a racing car already.

- It looks like a racing car. - It needed that, didn't it?

With the car almost ready, our thoughts turned to the race itself.

You know I said, "How hard can it be?" When we started this?

Yes.

If I'm honest, I think it's going to be really hard.

I'm quite glad you said that, cos it's crossed my mind. I'm getting a bit nervous.

I don't want to win, but I want people to take us seriously.

I just think we're going to look ridiculous.

We arrived at Silverstone assuming the Britcar 24 would be an amateur event

for beginners like us.

We were badly wrong.

In fact, our diesel Beemer would be up against 200 mph supercars.

The other drivers were chisel-jawed and battle-hardened.

They had blue chip sponsors, tonnes of equipment.

They'd turned up with laptops and luxury motorhomes with girls in them.

0ur motorhome wasn't quite as professional as that.

And nor was our catering.

And nor was our car.

In fact, nothing was.

And then there was the question of us three.

You realize we are the only people in this field, the only people, with one of these on the back?

I meant... I did mean to ask, what is it?

That means "novice".

Everybody else has done at least six races.

Worse still, Richard had never been round Silverstone.

The sum total of our experience is, you've done?

I've done a charity race in a Honda Civic.

- And you've done five laps... - Five laps in this.

And you've done no racing at all. You've done some laps, but not in this.

I've done a race in a 2CV, I've never driven this and I've never, ever been round Silver...

We're not in good shape.

A walk down the pits didn't exactly cheer us up, either.

- We haven't got that. - No, we haven't.

- We haven't got this. - We haven't got that.

- We haven't got these. - Is this a diesel?

- No. - What is it, an M3?

- So this is an M3 BMW with a... - It's a lot better than ours.

- Is it a diesel? - No, no. It's a bit quicker than an M3.

- Please be nice to us. - No.

How can we get out of it?

I'm seriously thinking of sitting down before the race and drinking a bottle of vodka.

Soon, though, it was time for qualifying.

What if I have to get out of somebody's way to let them go by?

I don't know.

I don't know.

This is, without any question or shadow of doubt, the scariest thing I've ever done.

- Yes. - I've broken me zip.

That's bad?

For qualifying, we had to do a minimum of three laps each,

and the quickest time from our team would decide our place on the starting grid.

I went first.

Flat through Bridge. Don't lift, don't lift, don't lift, don't lift.

I've got another M3 coming up behind me.

He's ruining my bloody lap. What an absolute (bleep)!

He ruined my lap. The lap's gone.

Maybe Captain Slow would have better luck.

Oh, my God. 911s everywhere.

Don't be intimidated. Just keep going.

May was back astonishingly quickly.

In fact, too quickly.

James, did you do three laps?

- Two. - Well, you haven't done a fast lap.

- I just did a fast lap. - No, you can't do it in two.

- I'm sure I did. - You didn't.

- All right. - How could you not count?

Hammond, meanwhile, had no idea where he was going.

This is Maggotts. Or Becketts.

Or Vale. Or Chapel.

We'd planned to leave Richard out there so he could learn the track,

but now we had to get him in so James could go back out.

As cock-ups go, I've watched formula One since I was that high and I've never seen anybody...

- Forget to do a flying lap. ...forget a flying lap.

Qualifying was turning into a shambles.

And when we tuned into the circuit TV, that went wrong, as well.

A chest of drawers and a table!

We were a laughing stock, but we still had an ace up our sleeves...

...our fourth driver.

Yeah, they weren't ready for thatl

Can it do 24 hours straight?

With The Stig at the wheel, we were in business.

- 2.24. - We're not bottom!

Boston Bowl, let's go down there and mock!

Sadly, we couldn't.

Because this was a 24-hour race, we also had to do three practice laps at night.

- My fear's come back badly. - My fear's come back hideously.

It's looking at you that's making me more scared.

I went first, and it turned out my fears were justified.

People are trying to get round me, there's lights everywhere.

Jeez! I don't remember anything.

This really is all you can see.

You have to aim for corners and just sort of hope they're still there.

It's terrifying.

I've got nobody to follow. Oh, God!

Then it was Jeremy's turn.

Holy cow, I can't see a thing!

He tried to cure the lack of visibility with speed.

I just took Bridge Corner flat, first time out.

Oh (bleep), I'm off!

People behind must be thinking, "Who is this clown?"

Amazingly, The Stig went faster at night than he had in the day,

and put us in an astonishing 42nd on the grid.

- Yeah! - The great!

Yeah! Don't touch him.

With James' qualifying in the bag, everything looked good for the race.

But then...

James, this is Richard. What's happened? Tell us.

Throttle went mad, gearbox seemed to explode, everything. Hang on, I'm coming in.

We now had a good starting spot on the grid but nothing to start with.

0ur L11,000 repmobile was in serious trouble.

That's made a mess of them.

0ur race chief reckoned we'd blown the turbo, the clutch and the flywheel.

But we never quit. Top Gear Technology Centre, innit?

While Steve set about the car, we set about our high energy supper.

- I'm not worried that it's not going to be fixed. - Perhaps he won't fix it.

The only worry I have is that if Steve has to work through the night tonight to fix it,

when we do the race tomorrow, he has to work through tomorrow night.

- That's a three day... - Yeah.

I'm not bothered about that either, now I think of it.

So to summarize, the car was broken,

we were all rubbish, James' zip was stuck

and we'd accidentally written "Arse Biscuits" on the driver's door.

Kind of par for the course with Top Gear.

We just expected the race to be the usual affair, everything would catch fire and we'd all drown.

We were quite looking forward to it,

and then we went to visit the team that qualified last.

- To laugh at. - Yeah.

But they told us that they qualified last the year before, as well.

But by being consistent and not making any mistakes,

their Golf diesel finished 13th overall.

They'd beaten M3s, 911s and even the odd Viper.

Yeah, and this gave us an idea.

We thought, if we take this seriously,

maybe our BMW diesel could finish in the top ten.

We'll see how that pans out later on.

But now it's time for the news, and there isn't any.

Even if there were, we haven't got time for it, because we've got a packed program.

So we must move on, to the 1950s. James.

- (Gasps) - (Laughter)

Over the past few years, many car manufacturers