The Day I Died

Another hotel room, another night spent away from home in the service of Top Gear. I rang my wife Mindy – we always ring each other last thing when I’m on a trip. Our children, Isabelle (nearly six) and Willow (three), were sleeping soundly.

The menagerie of four horses, five dogs, three cats, a small flock of sheep and a handful of chickens had all been fed and watered and bedded down. My dog TG (Top Gear Dog) was fine, and booked in to visit the groomer the next day – she’d been pretending to be a sheepdog and had got her long, woolly coat full of spiky grass burrs. Mindy and I wished each other goodnight. In less than 24 hours, the jet-car drive would be behind me and I would be setting off home to Gloucestershire.

It had been my idea, after all. I’d been on the Top Gear TV show for four years, and it works best when people tip ideas into the mix.

“I think we should do a piece on going faster than we’ve ever gone before,” I announced. “Straight-line speed. I’ve driven at 200mph (320kmh) in a car and on a bike. What does it feel like to go faster? And I mean a lot faster.” Andy Wilman, the editor, looked up from his desk. I continued my pitch. “We can be the fastest car show on earth. What about that?” Andy nodded.

I strode across Elvington airfield, near York: a man in his thirties, living the dream he’d had since childhood. I was walking confidently towards a jet- propelled car, the Vampire, which I would be driving in front of not only the Top Gear crew but also millions of TV viewers the world over. It doesn’t do to get too self-congratulatory in life – pride comes before a fall and all that – but as I slipped the padded neck brace onto the shoulders of my racing suit, the ten-year-old boy still inside me was giggling with excitement.

The Vampire looked like the dragsters I had loved as a kid. I’d sit in front of the TV and rummage about in my plastic tub of Lego to build drag racers that looked just like this, with its long, skinny body, big chunky rear wheels and little front ones. But my models had never had the strange, cylindrical addition that lay immediately behind the driver’s head. This was the jet engine, the heart of the machine and the very reason for its existence.

I pulled my crash helmet on, climbed in past the roll bars and lowered myself into the seat. The car was towed into position at the head of the runway. I was strapped down under the broad harness so tightly that my breath came in ragged gasps as my chest adjusted to what little space was left. I looked at my race gloves as my hands gripped the wheel, which comprised two small handles, each like the end of a garden spade. One more crazy roar up the runway; deliver a piece to camera about the car; and then I could go home.

That morning, before I even sat in the Vampire, I watched as its owner and builder, Colin Fallows, took it for a shakedown blast up the runway, something he’d done hundreds of times before. I felt a twinge of nerves in the pit of my stomach. Essentially, the car consists of an engine, a parachute to stop it and the seat. No clutch, no accelerator. No speedometer. Just a dial for turning the engine up to the required level and a large metal lever that cuts the engine and deploys the parachute. And a footbrake, used only to hold the car stationary as the engine gets up to speed.

My left foot would rest on a “dead man’s pedal”; if something happened, my foot would come off and the engine would be cut. And there was a tiny switch to operate the afterburner, which sends a flame shooting down the centre of the engine, igniting the unburnt fuel to produce something like a cross between a standard jet engine and a rocket. The power would instantly be doubled to 10,000bhp.

My first two runs got me acclimatised to the sheer power delivered by the jet engine and the technique needed to keep the car straight – Colin advised me that to counter the camber and the crosswinds, I had to apply a constant 30 degrees of steering input. On the third run, the afterburner failed to ignite properly. But the next time, the car exploded into action – a manic, violent thing. Just 23 seconds after hitting that little switch, the run was finished. I’d ridden a wave of power that ten Formula One cars together would struggle to achieve.

I was ecstatic. Colin and the crew knew from the on-board telemetry (but didn’t tell me) that I’d hit 314.4mph (506kmh), faster than the official British land speed record.

There was time for one more run.