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The Stig: not 1, not 4, but 8.

Spoiler: Eight racing track drivers named as The Stig? It's enough to drive anyone around the bend.

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stig3SPOILER: Last week Top Gear‘s Stig was supposedly ‘un-helmeted’ by the British press.

They speculated that Ben Collins, a Bristol-based former American speedway driver and stuntman was the man in question.

Then it emerged there could be four men working as the mysterious driver. But why stop there?

The Daily Mail this week tracked down another former Stig – who did not wish to be named – who spilled the beans on the identity of all of the other drivers who he claims have recently stood in as the test-driving mystery man.

TWO: A man the BBC claimed to be the Stig attended the National Television Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London on October 29 last year. This Stig drove after the awards to the BBC HQ of Top Gear. He was spotted entering the studio late at night and pictured emerging from the building in jeans and t-shirt with a distinctive tight-fitting ‘Arai’ motor-racing woolly hat pulled over the top of his head. With perhaps a hint of irony, the tee-shirt, now available on high streets carried the slogan ‘I Am The Stig’. The man in question is only known as ‘Will’.

THREE: Heikki Kovalainen, the 27-year-old Finnish Formula One McLaren driver who is Lewis Hamilton’s partner (pictured). Mr Kovalainen starred as the Stig to race a Renault Formula One racing car round the Top Gear track in 2004.

FOUR: Forty-one-year-old former GT world championship racing driver Chris Goodwin, from London, has also starred as the Stig.

FIVE: As has fellow Londoner Julian Bailey, a 47-year-old former Formula One racing driver who raced for the Tyrell and Lotus teams.

SIX: Stunt driver Terry Grant from Bushey in Hertfordshire has also slipped into the white racing leathers to become the Stig. Mr Grant’s website claims he is ‘one of Europe’s leading stunt drivers’ and as such is ‘the guy who really can drive circles around you’.

SEVEN: Stunt driver Russ Swift is another who has become the Stig. Mr Swift’s website makes no mention of his alter-ego however it does tell how he has ‘performed over 8000 displays in over 50 countries including America, South Africa, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia.

EIGHT: Finally, Dan Lang, a Swedish snow mobile racing champion played the Stig in a Top Gear stunt where he jumped a snow mobile off a ski jump.

Source: Daily Mail

12 Responses

  3. I checked the BBC site and give the exchange rate the ones on eBay are around the same price. Just a shame you can’t walk into the ABC/SBS show and pick one up, although they would probably jack up the price.

  4. Jeremy Clarkson recently wrote that there are undeed four people who have played the Stig, but only one who they let do the hot laps around the track. That one is the real Stig.

    This is to be expected. They arent really going to send the real Stig to a simple photo shoot when anyone in the Stig’s suit will do.

    It has long been known that one of Renault’s drivers took their formula one car arounf the track in the Stig’s costume even though Ben Collins has tested formula one cars and would have been more than capable of doing it.

    Another time when somebody else donned the white racing suit was when the Stig rode a snow-mobile down the ski-ramp in the TopGear Winter Olympics. a championship winning snow-mobile stunt driver played the Stig on that occasion.

  10. All these efforts to “unmask” The Stig are missing the point completely.

    It doesn’t *matter* who he is. Or who they are. Or even if it’s a different driver every time.

    It’s a running joke, nothing more.

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