Episode 5 Top Gear: Extra Gear

Hi, I'm George Lewis, and welcome to Extra Gear.

We've got such a great show for you tonight.

'Rory and I go off-roading, European style.'

It's leaking!

My old Ford Escort did this.

'Chris climbs back into his Ultra4

'to tackle our slightly less vertical Dunsfold test track.'

This is wonderfully absurd!

'And Eddie and Sabine join us to talk King of the Hammers.'

Come on!

Can we go a bit quicker, man?

This is Extra Gear.

APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE

On tonight's Top Gear,

we saw Chris and Sabine off-road across

an unforgiving expanse of desert in California.

When Rory and I went off-roading, we had a slightly different experience.

This is Parkwood Off-Road Centre just outside Bradford,

known to those in the off-road scene as Tong.

A sprawling 200 acre maze of dirt tracks, hill climbs,

woods, water and mud.

Lots and lots of mud.

This is the Milner R5,

and like the Ultra4,

it packs a custom-made four-wheel-drive 500hp V8 punch.

Granted, its five litre Coyote engine

is smaller than the Ultra4, but so is the Milner,

weighing in at almost a tonne less.

That means it's little and it's quick,

110mph quick.

This thing's been around since the mid '80s,

and it's still very much a major player at events

like the Northern Off-Road Championship.

Events take place over two days

with competitors doing around 12 laps,

and each lap lasting around six miles,

the winner being the person with the lowest aggregate time.

It's not exactly King of the Hammers,

but it's gritty and it's fast,

and that's what off-roading is all about.

So beyond those trees, we've laid on a mile long circuit

with some tricky technical terrain,

a hairpin,

and even a water splash.

Today, my competitor and I will complete five laps.

The driver with the lowest total time

will then be crowned the winner.

All I need now is some worthy opposition.

# What are you doing here?! #

-Hiya!

-I said worthy.

HE CHUCKLES

-Good to see you, mate.

-Yeah.

Have you ever done any off-roading before?

I've done a little bit of go-karting.

I've been told that my slender physique is perfect

for this type of thing,

so you might say I was born to do it.

Well, I think I might have the edge on you in experience,

but I'm no expert by any means,

but I have laid on some tutelage, shall we say?

-You ready for this?

-Let's do it.

-Right.

This is Jim Marsden,

one of only two British drivers to have ever competed

in The King of the Hammers.

Known as THE rock crawling specialist,

he's currently on the hunt for

the European Ultra4 championship title.

Rob Butler is the only other British driver

to have ever competed in The King of the Hammers.

In 2016, he became the first-ever European driver

to complete the gruelling race in a European built Ultra4.

Right, you're the expert. What I need to do to win?

OK, Rory, welcome.

What we've got to remember is that we've only got four pieces of rubber

the size of my hand touching the ground at any one time.

And we've got to keep those on the ground at all times.

So nicely into the corners, a little bit of brake,

get our speed right,

and then drive out of the bends is what we need to do.

Sounds straightforward.

But she's fragile, OK?

If we go really aggressive, we...

Potentially, we can break her.

And I guess the biggest thing of all is don't die?

Don't die is really high on my list of things to do today.

-OK, I'll keep that in mind.

-JIM CHUCKLES

-You ready?

-Let's do this, my friend.

-All right, let's do it.

And with that, it was time for our sighting lap.

Go us!

All right, don't stand on the wheels. Beautiful.

That's it, into it.

Down the gears.

Round the corner, nice and gentle.

Steady, steady, steady.

Wahey, that's it.

Well done.

Second gear, down one.

Down a gear, down a gear.

That's your lot.

Down, down, down, down...

-Felt good?

-That was

-BLEEP

-wicked!

THEY LAUGH

Good skills there, mate.

-OK, you happy with it?

-Yeah, yeah.

I was brimming with confidence.

George, however, not so much.

So, this might surprise you, Rob, I'm new to this.

-Yeah?

-THEY LAUGH

What are the things that I need to consider when I'm driving around?

It's not a bad idea to visualise ahead.

-Yeah.

-In the track.

Always visualising what's lying ahead.

Rory Reid's crying face.

HE LAUGHS

-Shall we go?

-Suck it and see.

-Let's go.

-Oh, God!

-Let's go.

-Here we go!

-Bloody hell, the steering's really hard.

-Yes.

You could do with something under your arse to lift you up

a bit, really. I can see the...

Your steering wheel's like that.

I think I need a baby seat.

A bit of speed, third gear.

-Go to the left of that barrel.

-Yeah.

Watch out for the barrel!

-Down to first gear.

-Right there.

-Oh, first gear.

-Keep going, that's it.

-Full lock, full lock...

-God, this is to hard to turn!

-Are we done?

-You got it, got it.

Now straight up. Quick, quick.

Go, go, go, go. You're good. Second gear.

My arms are going to be huge after this!

Through the water!

-Are you on the wipers, Rob?

-Yes!

Wiper man! Oh, it's leaking!

My old Ford Escort did this.

HE SQUEALS

I'm coming to get you, Rory Reid.

THEY LAUGH

With George and I familiar with the car, and the circuit,

it was time to go up against the clock.

-ENGINE REVS

-Here we go.

Very nice.

Nice control.

OK, nice and steady.

Downshift, set yourself at the corner.

Faster. Much better.

Nice.

Set yourself for this off-camber.

Beautiful.

Well done. Wide of this here.

Steady, steady.

Nicely done, mate, that was a very nice lap.

1.38.5 wasn't bad for a first lap.

Let's see how George got on.

ENGINE REVS

Right, Rory, there's a new kid in town.

-ENGINE STALLS

-Uh-oh.

That's embarrassing.

TYRES SQUEAL

Round to the right.

Go, go, go, go.

-Go, go, go.

-Rabbit, rabbit!

I would not be able to live with myself if I killed a rabbit.

Full lock. Full lock. Full lock.

You're all right.

Just. You nearly killed us. A bit to the right.

Splash!

-Left, left, left, left.

-Left.

-More left!

-More left! More left!

Third gear.

Go, go, go, go, go.

George came in with a very respectable 1.41.3.

Perhaps he was more of a formidable competitor than I had anticipated.

With every lap, I pushed harder and harder...

Steady!

..pushing myself and the car to its limits.

Control, control.

George was no different.

Whoa!

I'm scaring myself here!

With every lap, our times continued to improve.

Dude, that was badass.

That was a bloody good lap.

We were four laps in,

and with only one remaining,

I was in the lead.

George however would have to drive the lap of his life

to get anywhere near me.

So, now is actually when the really good guys consolidate down,

put in exactly the same lap.

Despite Jim's advice, I was hungry for more.

Light it up.

It was me against the clock.

Man against machine.

Nice and steady.

HIGH PITCHED REV THEN CLUNK

RATTLING

OK, hold it, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

I think we just broke something.

Perhaps I should have listened to Jim.

Here comes the cavalry.

-You know what this means, don't you?

-What's that?

-It's the tow rope of shame.

-HE LAUGHS

With my car out of commission,

my last lap would have to be logged as incomplete.

What that meant to me and my total time,

I didn't know.

Did I have enough of a lead to sustain the win?

-I never meant to be going backwards on a racetrack.

-No, no.

It all came down to George and his final lap,

and he was flying.

-Left, left, left, left, left.

-Whoa, cameraman, cameraman!

Tree!

You're not supposed to aim for them!

Oh, the fence! The fence!

My arms are dead.

George's final lap completed, it was the moment of truth.

-What happened, mate?

-We had a slight issue.

GEORGE LAUGHS

The car couldn't quite handle my...

-supreme driving so it broke.

-Ooh!

This is good for us!

So what are the rules, now?

So he's broken down, what does that mean for...?

Well, it's combined score over five laps,

so we put those times together,

and whoever's got the fastest time in those five laps is the winner.

However, if you don't finish a lap,

we have a did not finish time.

-And so that, today, is at three minutes.

-Three minutes!

That's going to make it close!

-You are joking!

-We'll be all right, we'll be all right.

This is the first time I've seen him worried.

THEY LAUGH

Right, I need to see this result.

Are you nervous, Rory?

-Wow.

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Wow.

-Are we ready for this?

-Yes.

-Talk to me.

Biggest improvement, George, 1.36,

which is astonishing.

But my man here, a 1.27.7.

Get in! Get in!

Look at that, my friend. Good news!

So, has he won?

But it's five laps.

And we've got a broken car.

What does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean?

What it means, Rory, is that we've got 9 minutes 15,

and it means that your good friend here has got 8 minutes 12.

-GEORGE CACKLES

-WHAT?!

Hang on.

I won?!

-You've beaten me.

-Yeah.

-Fair play.

-Thanks, mate.

-How does it feel?

-You won in Kazakhstan, didn't you?

-You beat all the boys there.

-I did, I did.

And I've just beat you...

Which means you're the quickest driver...

I'm the fastest driver on Top Gear!

HE LAUGHS

Oh, dear.

It's time for some post-race analysis.

Let's bring out Chris and Rory.

APPLAUSE

Hey, mate.

-How are you, George?

-Good, thank you.

How does it feel to be face-to-face

with the new fastest driver on Top Gear?

I can see the logic in it, George,

where I want to support you and congratulate you.

Anyone that beats him is doing well in my books.

So it must feel really good to have beaten him, yeah?

-It feels good, yeah.

-I can feel the smug coming off of you.

Saw the Stig in the car park earlier and

he just completely ignored me out of respect.

I don't think anyone expected me to win that, did they?

You weren't dripping with testosterone in the early scenes,

it has to be said. You were quite...

It was nice to see it wasn't a big macho hero,

"I'm going to conquer this," it was a bit...tentative,

I think is the word, George.

I actually thought, "I do want to win this,"

and then I arrived and I got in the car and I thought,

"I love to win, but not as much as I hate to die."

-These things are serious, though, aren't they?

-Yeah, absolutely.

They are mental. The Ultra4 that you were driving in the Mojave Desert,

they're, what, 400hp? Two tonnes.

The Milner R5, 500hp and one tonne.

0-60 in three seconds in the mud - that is a serious piece of kit.

That's a bit of a baptism by fire, as far as I'm concerned.

You did really well, mate.

He's done this type of thing before, he's driven fast cars.

You've never done anything like this before.

It must have felt uncontrollably fast to you.

It did feel faster than the Megane, yeah.

LAUGHTER

I will point out that my quickest lap was almost

10 seconds a lap quicker than yours, so... Just saying.

Just saying!

The modesty just drips off him, doesn't it? Week in, week out.

Two things - you should've listened to Jim, quite clearly.

Second of all, I gather that we've learned, after the event,

that George didn't have functioning power steering.

Yeah.

Small... Small technicality, it made it a little bit harder for you.

You know, you don't have the biggest arms in the world, so...

I didn't want to bring this up.

You know, I wanted to be gracious in my victory,

as I'm sure you would've been, Rory.

How much quicker do you think I would have been if I did, Chris?

-11 or 12 seconds a lap.

-I think so, too. I think so.

-How convenient.

How convenient!

Let's not kid ourselves, tonight is all about the Ultra4.

Now, Chris, you said it would be a cold day in hell before you

crawled back into one of those things.

But it appears you've changed your mind.

Oh, dearie me. Yes, the producers did manage to twist my arm.

The Ultra4 is unlike anything I've ever driven before.

Combine one of these with the Mojave and it becomes

a bone-jarringly intense experience.

Combine one of these with our test track at Dunsfold and you get this.

OK, Ultra4 buggy at Dunsfold.

That's like taking an F1 car into a swamp.

ENGINE REVS

Oh, the steering is terrible.

I've got no idea where I'm going.

Anyhow, 400hp, of which about 300 is making it to the back wheels.

You've got to be very careful here because this thing will roll over.

They really will roll over, these things will.

These torque converters that have been pressured up

till they change gear manually are really impressive.

I've got a manual gear down here, three speed.

It really doesn't want to oversteer.

0-60 in about five seconds.

Top speed, over 100mph.

And this thing is huge. Over two tonnes.

The brakes are quite good. I don't know how long they'll last,

it's not meant to sustain this kind of braking.

The handling is best described as lively, because the amount of

yaw and lean means that the car wants to roll over.

And it wouldn't roll in a normal Volvo.

Wow.

I suppose through the tyres here,

I can go straight over the grass, can't I?

Like now. Yeah, then you can feel it.

HE LAUGHS

This is wonderfully absurd.

I said at the end of that film that I didn't want to drive one of these

things again, but of course that was a total lie cos it's so cool.

Super slippery on a wet day.

You don't even notice it in the Ultra4 buggy

cos the tyres are so wide.

And over Gambon. Just a cheeky bit of grass because we can.

And over the line.

APPLAUSE

I mean, that looked ridiculous.

I half expected you to drive over a row of scrap cars.

You can just go anywhere you want to on it, apart from,

ironically, smooth asphalt. It just hates asphalt.

It's not supposed to be there. Everything feels wrong.

The forward drive system begins to torque itself up from

front to rear, so it's not happy.

Because the tyres have got so much side wall

and the geometry of the vehicle is so unsuited for track work,

there's a real danger of making it roll. So you can't just slide it.

But I actually found it more intimidating around Dunsfold

because, like any vehicle that has a very specific purpose,

if you take it from its area of speciality

and put it somewhere else, it feels horrendous.

Yeah, I mean, it was designed for King of the Hammers,

and I suppose it's the perfect moment...

Can we welcome Eddie Jordan and Sabine Schmitz!

-Hello, hello.

-Hello!

-Sabine!

-George!

Eddie!

This is nice. A nice little reunion.

Have you seen his trophy?

-Sabine, are you jealous of that trophy at all?

-Oh, yes.

I have plenty of trophies at home, but...nothing like that!

-The one that got away.

-Nothing like that.

It says on it, "Your engraving here."

-Yes, because it's mine.

-Oh, I'm just holding it for you?

We put Sabine Schmitz on it and then I...

There was a point during King of the Hammers where you were stuck

on that hill. I mean, were you scared?

Yeah, I couldn't believe that it was possible to go up that steep hill.

I mean, Matt was next to me in the passenger seat and he said,

"They want us going up that hill!" I said, "That's impossible."

"OK. Just do it." You know?

If you think too long about it, then you disappear,

so just do it and go for it.

There was one moment where we saw you a little bit nervous, Sabine.

Let's take another look.

Oh, I don't want to!

Ah!

SHE SCREAMS

Steering wheel came off.

-BLEEP

-hell!

OK, you good?

-BLEEP

-hell!

Where are we?

You're good, you're good.

-BLEEP

-hell.

I don't want to have the steering wheel come off!

THEY BOTH LAUGH

Oh, man!

This is crazy.

Not what you want to happen, is it?

There is no camera on this planet that could actually visualise

-how steep that hill actually was.

-I mean, it was...

It was that, kind of. It was stupid.

You spent your whole time looking at the sky,

so you just do this and you hope you'll get to the top at some point.

It was horrid.

And there was one other difficulty that you had to contend with,

which might have been even more challenging.

Let's take a look.

You've got a cowboy running your campaign here. This is a cowboy.

I've got the Dumbledore of motorsport here.

If I lose this...

You're dead.

Today, we need a positive vibe.

Will you come on? We can go a bit quicker, man!

Clear head. Do you understand?

Look, you can swing more left, Chris! Chris, this way, left, left.

Stop saying left!

-You seem a little jumpy. You OK?

-Actually, it's a disguise.

Confidence. Read that over here, look, see?

C-O-N-F.

I'm going to scare the shit out of myself about five times.

But I know you're going to do it more again.

I do care about Chris, he's a nice guy.

-He is a nice guy.

-And he needs tender love and care.

You are a complete dick.

-What is wrong with you?

-I like it.

-Are you impressed?

-Well, I know you're mad, so...

Eddie...

-Eddie, do you know how to spell confidence?

-Probably not.

The moment for me was on the start line.

I just got this little voice that comes on and I just say,

"Any other final notes?" And he just goes...

"Of course, just jump the start and send the bloke to your right

"into the wall."

And that was pure Eddie. He wasn't... There was no acting.

That was what was going through his mind.

He was like, "Just take everyone out around you and then you'll be fine."

So, Eddie, what was your management strategy there?

Because there were a few things going on.

Well, the thing is, Matt was trying to interfere all the time.

And I just needed to put him in his box. But that was fine because...

Initially, he was nervous, there was no doubt about it.

But actually, the truth, so was I!

It was frightening when you're going up there like that.

And so, I needed to continue being nervous, but not let him know.

And...and then take the nerves away from him and try and pacify him

and try and get into his head that this can be done,

we can achieve anything we set our mind to do.

And he did, didn't you?

I think actually we did succeed in our weird dysfunctional way.

First thing he said to me was,

"I'm going to get behind LeBlanc's eyeballs. I'm going to blank him.

"I'm not going to talk to him, I'm going to stare straight into him."

Or through him or some other phrase.

And the next time we sat next to Matt, he immediately went,

"So how's it going?"

Well, I mean, you were in fierce competition during the day,

but what I thought was really sweet was when you finished

and you went back home, you were sleeping in quite close quarters.

-Let's take a look.

-Oh, no, do you remember this bit?

MATT: OK, we've got a big day tomorrow, guys.

Everybody get a good night's sleep, all right?

Why have I got the top bunk?

Cos monkeys climb high.

Why have I got the bottom bunk?

Er, cos I have this one.

TOILET FLUSHES

Good night.

Light a match, Sabine!

I heard that!

I've just got a sitcom idea!

"Light a match, Sabine?"

That's not been said on television before, has it?

It seemed like, overall, it was a really fun trip.

I love being parachuted into these different universes.

Everything there was so different.

Loads of people enjoying a sport that we knew nothing about

and they welcomed us into it, made us feel a part of it.

The vehicles were absolutely magnificent, I think.

But it did feel like we were

so far away from our comfort zones, didn't it?

One thing that occurred to me -

that I thought there's a great bond

and a great embrace amongst all the competitors.

-No sooner had he destroyed the gearbox on the car...

-Unfair.

No, it's true, you destroyed it.

And this amazing car was put there for us to continue on the event.

I can't imagine that happening in Formula One.

I just couldn't even think about it.

I can't even think about any form of other type of racing

that a complete car would be made available

so as we could actually carry on and do what we were doing.

It's a big, big family.

Everybody is there for everybody and they have parties together,

they fight against each other.

This experience was mad, but I'd love to come back and do it again.

Brilliant. Well, sadly,

I'm afraid that's all we've got time for tonight.

-Rory, what have we got in store next week?

-A true Extra Gear exclusive.

We show you just how much goes into filming one of our epic road trips.

And Chris and I reminisce about our time together in Cuba.

-Make sure you watch.

-Can't wait.

We'll see you again next week for more Extra Gear. Goodnight.