_DAN_

AlexF

no its not

Brookesy

Perry McCarthy was the old stig and think the new stig is a woman

dojj

iTrader: (3)

do you remember way back in the day when they played football with some little cars?
they had a whole group of decent drivers playing footie with the cars

it was some of them

Stavros

Some say "who gives a fuck"

_DAN_

The DIVA

iTrader: (3)

Precisely....

NUTTIN RILLA

me cos i`ve been arguing with my mate about it for weeks

dojj

iTrader: (3)

if i told you it was me they'd sack me, so it's not

moonstonematt

I know who it is! Not sure whether i should say though

biglee

so if its not Ben Collins it may be Julian Bailey the next most frequent name is Rob Huff, haha

moonstonematt

its julian bailey

obrutsr09

[quote="Tangodeltasierra3"]Stig Blomqvist surely ? [/quote
THE FIRST STIG;- WAS STIG BLOMQVIST BUT THE NEW ONE ?????????????????????????NOT A CLUE .THEY DID SAY WHO HE WAS AT 2004 AUTOSPORT SHOW BUT I JUST CAN NOT REMEMBER

James

i have heard it was a woman aswell, and "the stig" does have a womanly look about him i think anyway...

Huggy Bear

it is me ... i can prove it but but i would get the sack

dojj

iTrader: (3)

we can confuse them by saying its each other then

Moonie

Perry McCarthy on life as 'The Stig!'

He's raced in Formula One, competed in the legendary Le Mans 24 hours and battled for honours at Sebring, but in the career of Perry McCarthy – dubbed by some as 'the world's unluckiest driver' – one thing must surely stand head and shoulders above the rest.

And that thing? Taking on the role of the mysterious 'Stig' on popular British motoring show Top Gear.

Crash.net took the chance to catch up with Perry recently, to talk about life as the 'Stig' and find out just how easy it is trying to teach a celebrity to become a race driver…

Crash.net:
Perry, alongside your long career in motorsport, you had another famous role as 'The Stig' on Top Gear - I just wondered what it was like to have that role.

Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
It was great fun, there was some really good bits to it and the show is run really well. Jeremy [Clarkson] is someone who I've always admired, I think he's a fantastic broadcaster and a great journalist and I think they bring a really different flavour to motoring in the UK.

I'm a big fan of the show and I did the first 22 programmes and it was a laugh. We tested all sorts of things from Pagani Zondas down to Minis and the celebrity aspect of it was a lot of fun as well, but for me it was time to move on as I had a race programme to contend with as well, so I've been there, seen it and done it and they've got someone else in now – I think it's a girl but I don't know. Anyway there is a new Stiggy now!

Crash.net:
Now on Top Gear they use a very hi-tech car with the celebrity drivers in the Suzuki Liana – what was that like?

Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
I think the Suzuki Liana was a fantastic choice of car because it came down more to where to position the car around the circuit and you would spend some time instructing the celebrity on how to do that. Because of the nature of the vehicle, they wouldn't need to worry about fantastic amounts of power coming in so they couldn't really get themselves into too much trouble, so it was a really good choice of vehicle.

Crash.net:
Was there any celebrity who you found to be really hard work?

Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
Yeah there was one in particular, Tara Palmer-Tompkinson, she was really difficult, but everyone else was great, they really listened, really applied themselves and were very competitive.

There were a lot of stand out people, like Jodi Kidd. She's great fun as a person and was a very good driver, Jay Kay from Jamiroquai – I know Jay really well and we've been on track loads of times together – he's a good driver and he really knows what he is doing in a road car around the track so they were good. But everyone else really tried and recently those top times have been beaten by Simon Cowell so that's great driving from Simon!

Crash.net:
You've raced on some of the top circuits in the world during your career, how would the Top Gear test track rank among them?

Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
Well it wouldn't be right up there but then again it's not designed to be like that! It's a nice little proving ground and because of the layout of some of the corners we were able to get the car working dynamically in certain ways which was a good stop check against some of the other vehicles that we had around there.

As for holding an event around there, you'd need to spend a lot of money on improving the safety of it, and the other thing is that you could never race it because the circuit design we have has got a crossover so anyone who was hanging around at the back, you might end up meeting them after three laps coming the other way!

Crash.net:
And are we right in thinking that your time as 'The Stig' came to an end when you flew off the end of an aircraft carrier?

Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
Yeah, it was a great idea that they had about that, because we'd decided to go our separate ways and Andy Wilman, who is the series editor and I think it was Andy's idea, came up with the idea of the aircraft carrier which was fantastic. They spent a lot of money on it and it just shows that they do things properly, so it was a real kind of James Bond ending to 'The Stig in Black' and the new one in white was reborn!

Crash.net:
Just one final question Perry, some of the songs you had on in the car were slightly dodgy. They weren't your choice were they?

Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
Well the one I was a bit concerned about was 'Stand by your Man' – but that was a just a bit of fun that the production team were having and I think, again, it is just a really 'out there' kind of idea having this racing driver who is anonymous in black and then coming in with this soft, easy listening music, on top of a violent lap time – it was loads of fun!