Saturday, December 06, 2008

Who is The Stig?

I am not a fan of Top Gear, but those who are may be interested in this snippet from the Guardian earlier this week:

It is widely known that Top Gear parted company with Perry McCarthy, a former minor formula one driver, after he exposed himself, although not in the John Barrowman sense.

Ben Collins, a former NASCAR driver, was later revealed by the Health and Safety Executive as Top Gear's "high-performance driver" in a report into the Richard Hammond crash of 2006.

Now Digger has been reliably informed by F1 sources that Heikki Kovalainen, left, took up the role during a Top Gear testing at Renault's base.

The HSE report is on the internet.

8 comments:

Jennie Rigg said...

Way to get the dude the sack, Jonathan. Classy.

Jonathan Calder said...

Do you really think the BBC does not monitor press coverage of its programmes?

1.51 a.m.. Hmmm.

Jennie Rigg said...

True, but if I complain at the Graun, they won't listen (and yes, I WAS mildly tipsy last night ;))

Jonathan Calder said...

You could write to their readers' editor and be patronised.

Jennie Rigg said...

But it's much more fun to be patronised by you, darling!

(also, your prove-you're-a-human thing is being very rude to me - it's asking me to type "twatacid"!)

Anonymous said...

I think if you investigate more closely, you'll see that you're jumping to conclusions.

The HSE ACTUALLY said Collins "worked closely with Top Gear as a high performance driver and consultant" which is not the same as what you implied.

Reading for comprehension is fun, you should try it.

Jonathan Calder said...

High. Performance. Driver.

Never mind.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, they could always send him up on another Top Gear space shuttle...

Haha.

But the stig's just given a new press conference. Found it on this site:

http://cogito.faii.net/stig-press-conference/