Jobs going - Top Gear Live

[Chairman]

RATS (the group that does the pit lane stuff) is supplying people to assist with Top Gear Live next week. When we got the schedule a couple of days ago we discovered that our involvement starts on Wednesday not Thursday, which has seen us scrambling to cover that extra day. We can do it with what we've got but could maybe use an extra body.

If you are available wednesday next week, and other days if you want through until Sunday, let me know here or by PM and I'll get back to you. Times are generally 9am to 10pm, although friday is a late afternoon start.

Gary

[pilot.masman]

I would love to but school commintments

I could put you in touch with my sisters BF, he is a petrol-head

[Chairman]

Hope you can make it on the Thursday too, there's a full run through then a dress rehearsal then show 1, so you should get to see it one way or another. And as for that "rain clearing" on Friday. pffft, what do they know ... I reckon you'll be there for shows 2 and 3 as well

I'm surprised nobody else from here put their hand up, I guess the wednesday thing was a killer. Worth taking a couple of days off for IMHO, but that's just me ...

Wednesday report time is 9 so unless we hear otherwise plan to be there 0815-0830 (ish).

Gary

[victor_alpha_charlie]

It's killing me that I have school at the moment- sounds like the chance of a lifetime.

[Chairman]

I dunno about that - I'm sure it won't be the last time I ever get to drive an Aston DBS, a Guillardo Spyder, an M3, a Bentley, a Jag, a 911 Turbo and a Fiat 500 in the space of a few hours.

After all, there's another 4 days of it

Then there's a Roush Mustang and an AMG Mercedes that I haven't managed to get into yet, and an AMG Black and a GT2 and a couple of other yummies out in the garage that haven't even put in appearances yet. I think they're saving them for when the ferraris break, which apparently (from the way the british crew talked about it) happens quite regularly and doesn't raise any eyebrows.

Once we learned what needed doing it turned out we were understaffed today and right on the limit for thursday, so if you happened to be too sick to go to school but not too sick to jump on a plane that arrived in AKL about 0730 and then hitch a ride home on the F27 something about 2330 2130 (show all done by about 2030) I'm sure we could find something for you to do. It would be nice to be overstaffed tomorrow, Clarkson and Hammond will be there and we've got a full rehearsal then a dress rehearsal with full pyro, and then a for real show.

Me, stirrer ?


Gary

[Alex]

I'm free tomorrow (not on Friday or weekend) if you wanted a last-minute extra hand. Full (clean) license and whatnot...

Alex

[Chairman]

Thanks Alex, you're in, reply sent by PM.

Gary

[pilot.masman]

Hey mate, pm sent...

[Chairman]

Sorry pilot.masman, looks like we're full for the other days.

Today was interesting, started off at the usual pace - long periods of doing nothing because everything was broken, then frantic bursts of everyone practising different things at once, and after 5 hours you suddenly realise you've done a full rehearsal.

Richard and Jeremy and Murph arrived and Jezza immediately spat the dummy big time about the temperature in the theatre so an extra aircon unit was found from somewhere and installed behind the stage, not sure what difference it will make overall but it should help make his corner of the place a bit nicer.

Then the pressure jacked up a notch as we had another rehearsal of just the presenters bits which is basically the whole show without the driving sequences, then further with a full dress rehearsal including all pyrotechnics for the first time, and then it was suddenly showtime - the theatre which had been our playground for the last couple of days filled up with 4000 other people and it was all on, and it all more or less worked.

I couldn't see the marks I was supposed to drive my wee tractor at (that's me on the green toy doing the towing if anyone's going) but more or less hit them, then parked the tractor in the way backstage which caused all sorts of issues when they were striking the set at the end of the act . They took my Aston DBS away but gave me one of the GT2's to drive instead so I didn't complain too hard (and I didn't stall it, thank god), I suppose tomorrow I'll get the Fiat 500 Whatever, just so long as I can sit in it for 10 minutes with the aircon going full blast before I have to drive it onstage.

The show got juggled halfway through when one of the ferrari drivers went sick and their segment got canned but I think they expanded another segment to make up for it, the Holden racecar died in the dress rehearsal and had to be pushed off but it was back for the show - with half a dozen people ready behind the stage to run out and start pushing again, it got a bit windy which caused a few problems with the backstage drapes, and one expensive car that should have featured didn't after dropping its guts bigtime just outside the door - not one of the ferraris !

T'was a very interesting day, not to mention damn long, and a good time was had ny Me and Trolly and Alex and a bunch of others.

I get to sleep in tomorrow, nothjing until 1st rehearsal after lunch

Gary

[pilot.masman]

lol sounds great,shoulda put my word in a little earlier

[Alex]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 12 2009, 10:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Richard and Jeremy and Murph arrived and Jezza immediately spat the dummy big time about the temperature in the theatre so an extra aircon unit was found from somewhere and installed behind the stage, not sure what difference it will make overall but it should help make his corner of the place a bit nicer.

Yea, some of the things I heard over the radio that day were a bit weird - but interesting hearing one of the guys get really pissy about the heat...

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 12 2009, 10:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I couldn't see the marks I was supposed to drive my wee tractor at (that's me on the green toy doing the towing if anyone's going) but more or less hit them, then parked the tractor in the way backstage which caused all sorts of issues when they were striking the set at the end of the act . They took my Aston DBS away but gave me one of the GT2's to drive instead so I didn't complain too hard (and I didn't stall it, thank god), I suppose tomorrow I'll get the Fiat 500 Whatever, just so long as I can sit in it for 10 minutes with the aircon going full blast before I have to drive it onstage.

That was a bit funny. Everyone was trying to hold the curtain from blowing around, and juggle concrete, and I was thinking 'Far out, there is noone helping with the Cage of Death and it'll take ages to sort out... But it worked out in the end. Except I think we might have sort of 'bumped' one of our metal poles hanging off the cage into your John Deere.

And they weren't happy drivers were using A/C backstage, left puddles of water all over the place...

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 12 2009, 10:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The show got juggled halfway through when one of the ferrari drivers went sick and their segment got canned but I think they expanded another segment to make up for it, the Holden racecar died in the dress rehearsal and had to be pushed off but it was back for the show - with half a dozen people ready behind the stage to run out and start pushing again, it got a bit windy which caused a few problems with the backstage drapes, and one expensive car that should have featured didn't after dropping its guts bigtime just outside the door - not one of the ferraris !

Yea, I saw him in the back of the Ambo on the way out, looked like he had cut his hand up or something (he had a bandage around it). Tell me about it. I missed out having a chat to Hammond because I was sweeping concrete over the oil spill that thing left behind (though later had a little chinwag with Clarkson )

I have some photos of various cars that I might post up tomorrow...

Cheers Gary!

Alex

[creator2003]

What a great days out apart from the heat would love to see some shots only caught alittle on the news lastnight ..

[Chairman]

And some notes about Fridays shows ...

The motorbike jumping over Richard Hammond segment seemed to be a last minute knockup due to the green V-Racer spewing all its oil out on Wednesday morning. As it ran in Thursdays show the bike was supposed to jump him twice lengthwise but in true TG style "ooh, that didn't go very well". Fortunately it went well enough not to leave any actual tyre marks, but it didn't go very well enough to be dropped from the Friday shows as the V-Racer was back in action, and the stunt bike rider is now known as "the man who ran Hamster over"

So that was plan A but (don't you love Live?) Murph didn't front until just before showtime so there was no time to rehearse the V-Racer segment and the motorbike jumps stayed in for the Friday afternoon show, but this time jumping across Richard from shoulder to shoulder.

We're slotting in a replacement driver who had to retrieve Hamsters Porsche after the presenter entrance, and we briefed him really well on where to wait, what the cue was, where to drive the car out, and where to take it to park it. With hindsight we should probably have included How To Start The Car in the briefing as well. Enough said, and the stagehands were still only on standby to run out and push when he got it moving so that was all good.

The V-Racer came out and the segment was rehearsed in the half hour between shows, and on the Friday evening show the car parts drum kit was dropped in favour of both the motorbike jumps and the V-Racer. The jumps went ok then the V-Racer came out, did a dummy run to get the audience warmed up (Hammond had a speed gun, it was an indoor speed record attempt I think) then lined up for the real run, and exploded. Again.

It left a huge lake of oil at the skittle end of the stage, and a wide trail right across to the other side of the arena. In the middle of a show. Don't you LOVE Live ?!! They had a couple of big rolls of grey absorbent stuff to mop up that sort of spill but the new air conditioner that Jezza had ordered had started piddling everywhere in the middle of the behind-stage cabling and all the absorbent stuff had been used to mop that up. Not sure what they ended up using, looked like several rolls of paper towels and a roller towel from a toilet then they found some cement to soak up most of the rest. Trolly and Alex will be able to imagine quite accurately what Jim the Scottish Floor Manager was shouting on the radio, the rest of you are probably best not thinking about it too hard

The V-Racer will not be appearing again.

We set the skittles while the cleanup was still going on and Murph got pushed through the oil into them, the ninja car sequence was dumped, the ferraris came out and very carefully managed not to go anywhere near the remains of the lake, and the car soccer was no holds barred with three or four quite decent crunches and a win to England. I think maybe tomorrow we should position their goal facing the wall.

I had the GT2 to drive again. I'm getting braver, today I took it up to 1700 rpm I still like the Aston DBS better, it's just so comfortable and friendly and easy to drive normally, while even just idling around the arena and driving back to the paddock the GT2 felt like it was warning me not to start something I couldn't finish.

Thursdays audience got exactly average on their lap of the track, friday afternoons was about the same, but friday night was awful - you knew it was going to end in tears when they cocked up the practise bit, and sure enough they came in third from the bottom with Sydney still in the top spot.

So that was Friday. 4 shows today, gonna be there for about 13 hours and it's rumoured that we might need someone (or at least have a spare pass that someone can use) for Sunday. Anyone interested ? Only a rumour, dunno if it'll happen ... I've not got net access until very late tonight so txt me 021 833 200 if interested

Cheers
Gary

ps Hammond comes in in a silver automatic Porsche Turbo, the black GT2 pictured above is my cool wall car

[pilot.masman]

**interested **

thanks for all the updates

[Alex]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 14 2009, 06:01 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The motorbike jumping over Richard Hammond segment seemed to be a last minute knockup due to the green V-Racer spewing all its oil out on Wednesday morning. As it ran in Thursdays show the bike was supposed to jump him twice lengthwise but in true TG style "ooh, that didn't go very well". Fortunately it went well enough not to leave any actual tyre marks, but it didn't go very well enough to be dropped from the Friday shows as the V-Racer was back in action, and the stunt bike rider is now known as "the man who ran Hamster over"

Far out that sounds a bit nasty - I didn't realise the jump-bike thing was just pulled together right before the show...

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 14 2009, 06:01 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We're slotting in a replacement driver who had to retrieve Hamsters Porsche after the presenter entrance, and we briefed him really well on where to wait, what the cue was, where to drive the car out, and where to take it to park it. With hindsight we should probably have included How To Start The Car in the briefing as well. Enough said, and the stagehands were still only on standby to run out and push when he got it moving so that was all good.

Shoulda had me there - plenty of practice pushing the Holden out back after it died on-stage during dress rehearsal.

QUOTE (Chairman @ Feb 14 2009, 06:01 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...then the V-Racer came out, did a dummy run to get the audience warmed up (Hammond had a speed gun, it was an indoor speed record attempt I think) then lined up for the real run, and exploded. Again.
It left a huge lake of oil at the skittle end of the stage, and a wide trail right across to the other side of the arena. In the middle of a show. Don't you LOVE Live ?!! They had a couple of big rolls of grey absorbent stuff to mop up that sort of spill but the new air conditioner that Jezza had ordered had started piddling everywhere in the middle of the behind-stage cabling and all the absorbent stuff had been used to mop that up. Not sure what they ended up using, looked like several rolls of paper towels and a roller towel from a toilet then they found some cement to soak up most of the rest. Trolly and Alex will be able to imagine quite accurately what Jim the Scottish Floor Manager was shouting on the radio, the rest of you are probably best not thinking about it too hard

Haha that guy in the blue checked shirt on Thursday? Do I want to imagine? Yea, we cleaned off a bit of the acid (they used to get the rubber off the floor from previous 'action' to get the traction/friction down) with that grey stuff, and I cemented the oil when that thing blew up outside the garage. I just laughed when I read it happened again - thats just funny... (although at the time it wouldn't have been I'm sure.

Alex

[Alex]

I've finally gotten around to uploading some of the pictures I took on Thursday. Apparently the BBC guys weren't too comfortable with cameras around the stage, so I was mostly confined to outside/garage. Oh yea, I took these with my phone, and the outside ones are alright, but in the low light of the garage/arena some are a bit rubbishy... but anyway.


Holden used in the Ninja sequence...


Mini-thing used to break the ice (figuratively)


One of the Swifts after the dress rehearsal. A few of them seemed to need to be topped up


A line-up of some of the cars in the garage




Place where the mechanics live. The Impreza was in there all day, and the Holden broke down during rehearsal. We heard over the radio headset when it came on during the show proper "The Holden is running but has electrical problems - if it stops it won't be able to restart, and will need a push out", that got about six or seven of us standing behind the curtain...


Presenter's vehicles. Murph, Hammond, Clarkson


That blue Holden again, and the Ferraris


Having a wee nosy inside...


The oil dispensing machine. Don't be decieved by it's exterior, it does look like a car, but wait till you try and drive it...

Alex

[Chairman]

Nice Pics Alex, and hopefully Trolly will repost his message in some form or another, his (outside / garage) pics were great too.

Yes the motorbike jump was a bit of a last minute thing - Nick (the rider) only got the call to do it at the start of the week. The bloke who drives the racecar out of the van said that the rider who usually does it once jumped over 17 people laying side by side with no launch ramp, so presumably it normally happens, but for some reason they had to knock this one up in a hurry.

The last couple of days have been a bit of a blur really, I was absolutely knackered today.

On Saturday we managed to do a couple of shows according to the programme, then one of the two projectors that make the 3D video at the end overheated halfway through the 5pm show so there was mad frantic panic. Once they realised the 3D apache sequence was toast they had to find somewhere else to bring Stig on, and they decided to put him in one of the ferraris. Then they had to find him ... That saw two of us and several of them racing around the garage, car park, green rooms, toilets etc looking for him. It all came together with about 30 seconds to spare and the 5pm show ended with the car soccer.

Then the techies went out with a cherrypicker and did something to the projector and pronounced it ok although they weren't happy with the temperature it was running at. The 8pm Saturday show is The Saturday Night show, the showpiece one, the one that you pay huge dollars to get into, so it had to be right. The AV people and the producer decided to leave that projector off until a few minutes before it was needed so it could have a good rest.

The 8pm show got under way and we got up to the car soccer which is almost the end of the show with no problems, halfway through that the AV people got told to turn the second projector on. It wouldn't come on. Oh s**t. There are two projectors up there which are both controlled by one remote control so they had to be REALLY careful what they did trying to get the second one alive in case they inadvertantly turned off the one that was working, the producer was screaming that it was totally not acceptable for the Saturday Night show not to have the Apache, and it all got rather exciting after that.

The soccer which lasts about 5 minutes was nearly over, it was too late to put the Stig in a ferrari, the producer was going mental, the AV people were terrified of turning the good projector off by mistake, and it takes 4 minutes after a projector has been turned off before they can try a restart. Yup, quite exciting.

First thing to do then was buy some time by extending the soccer. After about a quarter of an hour of it the score was something ridiculous, the theatre seriously stank of brakes and clutches, the cars were lurching and bouncing on buggered shocks, the drivers were starting to look a bit glazed and were bouncing off each other more often and harder, so they called that the end of the match. That left Jeremy standing in the middle of the theatre with nothing happening, and he came straight out and told the audience that the reason they'd just seen the longest ever game of indoor car soccer was that one of the two projectors was dead and the producer was still trying to get his s**t together. Then he cracked a few jokes, grabbed a handheld mike and headed up into the audience with another Top Gear Live first, the chance for people to ask anything they wanted about TG.

After he'd answered one question the projector came alive and they went straight into the Apache sequence before it died again, and eventually it all worked out although those people certainly got their money's worth !

That was Saturday. Most of the cast and crew then went to the crew party. Nick the stunt bike rider said he left at 3.30am and he was one of the early ones to leave. There were a few delicate looking people around on Sunday morning including Nick, so the stunt jump over Richard which started off as head to toe then became shoulder to shoulder ended up as knee to knee

Overnight the techs cleaned out the air filters on the projector fans and found them caked almost solid with residue from exhaust fumes. There were a couple of pipes coming down from the ceiling into the projectors, not sure if they were hooked up to the extractors to increase the flow of dirty air through the projectors or to yet another temp aircon unit to pump clean air into the projectors. Whatever they did worked.

Today we had more people than any other day (including our own Naki) so things were better organised, there was very little of the last minute mad scrambles to find people to carry skittles and things. It may have even been so well organised it got a bit boring ! The only hiccup we had was that with about a minute to go we realised that both of the people who'd been doing one of the soccer goalposts weren't there today and we hadn't given the job to anyone else, but we covered that and I ended up out in the arena with nothing between me and 6 nutters in dented suzukis and a 5' soccer ball travelling at up to 50 km/h. Exciting stuff.

We only actually cocked one thing up today, and that was me - on the first show I stalled that damn Porsche. The curtains opened, I got the GO signal to enter the theatre, and ... AAARGH !!! The controller was on the radio asking what the delay was, the backstage manager told her I'd stalled, the car refused to even turn over, then I heard Jeremy crowing something about "He's stalled it, the Porsche has stalled!" and 4000 people laughing. After several years it fired up and out I went with truckloads of revs and clutch slip.

The final show came with stern warnings from the producer not to deviate from the script or programme in any way, it might be the last show but the punters had paid just like all the others and they were entitled to see the same show. So we all behaved, and at Porsche'o'clock I declined the backstage manager's invitation to "do a wheelie when you go out" in favour of just getting the evil damn thing out there first try.

And that was Top Gear Live for 2009. There was a comment on the radio that this was awkward as it's the first time but it'll be easier next year so that's a sign of things to look forward to, anyone interested in helping please form an orderly queue over there .....

And remember, no cameras backstage

Gary

[Chairman]

One last post from me ... Easily the thing I've been asked the most this week is "who is The Stig". Here's the tightrope answer I've been giving.

As crew I'm bound by the BBC rules and can't comment, but I can say this -

1 - if you take a scanner next year and listen in on the crew radios it's not hard to work out - I think it gets let out of the bag at least once per show - and as public with a scanner (god forbid it should be something like an Icom R20 with a built in recorder !) you're not bound by anything. The Stig listens but doesn't talk so you won't hear anyone talking to him, but you will hear people who don't have speaking parts having their comms tested to see if they're receiving. Take a list of the current contenders for the title and see if you recognise any names ...

2 - Here's a Times article echoing the popular speculation that The Stig is Ben Collins http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article5548705.ece
If you read all the comments you'll see a couple of quite interesting ones, in particular "I think they use different stigs because one week he has a little pot belly and the next week he is as flat as a pancake (stomach wise!). Sometimes he is tall, next he is short. I think secretly the BBC are glad this has come out because it is not true! Now they can keep his identity secret still" and "A lot of people saw Ben at the Britcar 24 hours, including many fans, but we all chose to keep it secret. Then, we saw Russ Swift putting the helmet on for The Stig's second stint, and we knew then that there was more than one, perhaps Ben is the fall guy for all of this?"

3 - The first of those comments is absolutely correct. If you watch a whole series or two in one hit then you'll be heartily sick of clarkson see it too, it's pretty obvious.

So who is The Stig ? Draw your own conclusions. All we know is, he's called The Stug.


Gary

[Naki]

Heres some of my pics:

The van - that gives birth to a racecar - Shell promo at start of show


Me in some of the cool wall cars
Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

Porsche 911 GT2

Aston Martin DBS


Clarksons SL63 AMG Merc he uses in the show

Murphs 540kw (!!) Commodore



Clarksons jet powered seat thing

Suitcase car & Hammonds mini car thing with 4 engines

& Hammond - got Jeremy Clarksons sig in one of his books - I had a great time - thanks Gary

[Chairman]

QUOTE (Naki @ Feb 20 2009, 04:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

& Hammond - got Jeremy Clarksons sig in one of his books - I had a great time - thanks Gary

No prob - and well done for not posting any backstage pics

Gary

ps a little bird told me last night that the whole TGL tour here was a taster to give them some idea how well they would be received if they decided to tour here on a regular basis. Judging by the "it'll be easier next year" comment over the radio after the last show I think they liked what they saw.

Watch this space for invitations to take part in next years show