Features
'We barely even tickled the speed limit, let alone worried about going over it'
'We barely even tickled the speed limit, let alone worried about going over it'
April 21, 2008

Features


A kick in the Aston


Thirty supercars flanked by a police escort head to Silverstone to drop off the FIA GT Tourist Trophy, with Jamie Hibbard in tow

You're led to believe that in Top Gear World, things like getting a rolling police escort happen all the time. And they do... for some. Three of the some I'm sure you've already guessed, but to me? No, never.

The only time the police offered to do anything for me was when one of Somerset's finest offered to remove my head and do something unmentionable down my neck after I sort-of-accidentally spat beer on his bonce.

Beer, a fifth story balcony and Bath high street used to mix with me about as well as my rock'n'roll leanings do with any kind of place where the dress code is 'jacket, tie, strictly no denim'. Which is the dress policy of the Royal Automobile Club, where I found myself eating breakfast on Friday morning.

Again, not a normal occurrence by any stretch, which was evidenced by my slightly too large a suit next to their badly put-together tweed-jacket and 'wacky'-tie combos. Yet thankfully the questionable fashion faux pas wasn't the reason we were here.

The plan was for us - us being 30 or so supercars, including my Aston Martin Vantage - to leave the RAC's Pall Mall headquarters with a full police escort. We were then to drive around Marble Arch, up to the A40, past the Top Gear office and eventually onto Silverstone for a few sedate laps of the track.

The excuse was that we were carrying the FIA GT Tourist Trophy, which resides with the RAC, up to the home of British motorsport for the only UK round of the championship. But the reality was much more about driving a bunch of very expensive supercars through town with the police holding the traffic at bay.


'We cruised out of town with the outriders charging ahead to cover every prohibitive traffic light'

How this is possible, I don't want to theorise. I'm rarely a fan of destroying the magic of something, preferring to slide down the surface of things and let whatever happens happen.

Yet how you'd go about getting a police escort for something, let alone this, I've no idea. But from the moment we set off down Pall Mall - 30 of us nose-to-tail - neither did I care.

The left wing of me wanted to fight this seemingly incredible abuse of power, but memories from my five-year-old self told me to keep my mouth shut. If I'd have seen this spectacle as a child with my already strong love of the supercar burning inside me, it would have blown my mind.

And what better reason is there than that for doing, well, anything?

We cruised out of town - barely even tickling the speed limit, let alone worrying about going over it - with the outriders charging ahead to cover every open junction, roundabout entrance or prohibitive traffic light.

Resisting the involuntary reaction of either wanting to pull over or get the hell out of there when being pursued by a few cop bikes wailing on blues and twos was an odd thing to overcome. But seeing the huge line of supercars - Lambos, Ferraris, Porsches and Astons among them - was a jaw-dropping enough sight from where I was sitting mid-pack to get me used to just about anything.


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