Zou Richard Hammond wellicht ook de " Stig " kunnen zijn, vraag ik me af.

Zou kunnen, maar ik denk het niet

Lijkt me niet. Ik zal nog eens wat opnamen bekijken maar ik weet niet of je wel eens hebt gezien hoe klein Richard is en hoe groot The Stig....

Het kan optisch bedrog zijn door de cameras in de auto maar ik denk dat er geen match is.

Overigens was de originele Stig (die zwarte uit episode 1 en 2) Perry McCarthy.
De huidige Stig (de witte dus) is inmiddels zoals door Jeremy bevestigd geen F1 coureur. De naam Ben Collins komt regelmatig opduiken als zou hij de huidige Stig zijn

Lijkt mij inderdaad zorgelijk. Hopelijk is het minder erg dan het klinkt

Dat begrepen we ook al, staat helemaal los van Top Gear.

Maar het gaat erom dat goed bedoelende TG of Hamster-fans ineens een bijdrage willen leveren, aan het leed wat is geschied. Maar wat er nu gebeurd is dat massaal een bijdrage wordt geleverd aan het bedrijfsuitje van het personeel van de traumaheli..... lekker belangrijk.

Nogal cynische kijk imho.

Realiteit IMHO, en uit eigen ervaring.....

Ik denk het niet, aangezien Richard kennelijk al een dag later weer kon lopen (wankelig naar ik begreep, maar toch).

Laten we hopen dat zijn cognitief vermogen (zeg maar zijn hogere geheugenfuncties) net zo snel hersteld.

Na een heftige contussio kan dat weken, zo niet maanden op zich laten wachten, of zelfs permanente schade toebrengen. Enkele forumbezoekers kunnen hierover meepraten...

Voorlopig staat er op de BBC nog niets van dit nieuws te lezen.
Het zou mij echter niet verbazen want Top Gear ligt de laatste tijd al langer onder vuur. Ik kan mij vorig jaar nog een flinke strijd tussen Transport 2000 en de makers van Top Gear herinneren.

Maar ik ben wel benieuwd wat ze met de komende aflevereringen van Oktober gaan doen.
Zou erg jammer zijn als dit programma de nek word omgedraaid

"Richard is winning his fight"

By JEREMY CLARKSON
SEPTEMBER 23, 2006

IN the wee small hours of Thursday night, just 30 hours after what is almost certainly the world’s fastest ever car crash, Richard Hammond suddenly sat up in bed, opened his eyes and asked what had happened.

“You’ve been in a car accident,” I said. “Was I driving like a tw*t?” he asked, before getting out of bed and walking, shakily, to the lavatory.

His wife, Mindy, couldn’t believe her eyes. None of us could. It really did seem that he’d had a look through death’s door and decided he didn’t like what he saw on the other side.

Later, he looked across at James May and said: “Hello C**k face.”

Despite all the odds, it seemed we’d got our Hamster back . . .

Two years ago, Richard Hammond, James May and I agreed on a plan of action should one of us be killed while making our show, Top Gear.

We decided that after the announcement of the death was made in the following week’s show, the next word should be “anyway”.

So if the Hamster had ever careered through the Pearly Gates in a flaming 200mph fireball, I would put on a sombre face, say that Richard Hammond had died and then, after a small pause, say: “Anyway, the new Jag . . .”

It was a sort of joke. But then this week, it sort of wasn’t.

The idea to drive a jet car actually came from Hammond. He skedaddled into the office one day and, bubbling with his trademark enthusiasm, said: “Hey, why don’t we go somewhere and drive really fast? I don’t mean supercar fast. I mean REALLY fast.”

We all liked the idea. But what we liked even more was the idea of James May being given the assignment.

James is known to his fans as Captain Slow. He thinks dawdling is reckless and practises the art of what he calls “Christian Motoring”. Mostly, this involves letting people out of side turnings and generally being Edwardian.

Putting him, and that ’70s barnet, in a 370mph jet car was a bit like putting just Jane Austen at the helm of a space shuttle.

Immediately, James discovered a prior engagement and said he couldn’t go. I, meanwhile, decided that I spent most of my thirties upside down in jet fighters and helicopter gunships, vomiting, and that these days I was far too fat.

That left Hammond, who was bouncing around like the donkey in Shrek shouting, “Pick me. Pick me”.

And so we did.

Today, people who have absolutely no idea at all of how television works, (Yes, columnist Neil Lyndon — that’s you, you sanctimonious, rent-a-soundbite little t**d) are saying that our producers push us to do more and more dangerous stunts in a bid for ratings.

Rubbish. Our producers spend their whole lives filling in health and safety forms and asking “are you sure?”

It’s the presenters who come up with the hare-brained ideas and trans-continental races . . . not the backroom boys or the suits.

The car Hammond was set to drive is called the Vampire. It’s powered by a Rolls- Royce Orpheus jet engine — as used by the Red Arrows — and currently holds the British land speed record of 300.3mph.

I know one bloke who has driven it and he said simply: “It was brilliant. Although I did fill my pants.”

So, the day before his fateful encounter, I shook Hammond’s hand and said “goodbye”.

“I’ll probably be killed,” he joked with a huge, beaming smile. “Anyway . . .”

He knew that he was embarking on a dangerous mission. And this is what no one seems to understand. He was looking forward to it. He likes the buzz.

He also knew that in Top Gear’s 28-year history, no one on the show has ever been hurt. Not even Ray Mears can claim that. Or Anthea Turner or even Janet Ellis.

Right now no one knows for sure what caused the accident. Film footage seems to point the finger of blame at a tyre. And that’s something you can’t prepare for.

The tyres were from a Nascar racer in America, chosen specifically because they have super-stiff side walls. But it does seem that one of them burst.

How fast was Richard going? Well on the run before, he’d reached 315mph. So it’s likely he’d hit that speed again. Richard isn’t the sort of man who goes backwards. If he thought he’d done 315, he’d be trying to do 317. Or 320. Or five million if he’d thought there was half a chance.

People with beards and dirty fingernails are now saying he should never have been in that car, doing that kind of speed. They make out it’s all terribly complicated and that you need years of practice.

Rubbish. From what I understand, you sit there, you push a lever to light the afterburner and you then push another to shut off the fuel supply — it runs on heating oil — and deploy the parachutes. A hamster could do it. In fact, a hamster did.

Of course, behind the scenes, there was a small army of people making sure all went well. The Vampire team had even brought along a device to measure wind speed. Nothing that could be left to chance had been left to chance. But chance itself was still sitting there, waiting to bite. As the car began its series of sickening rolls, at a speed that boggles the mind, Richard’s head was taking a ferocious pounding as his helmet smashed into the protective steel cage.

That was bad, but inside his body things were worse. He will have been subjected to maybe 100g. This means his brain will have weighed 71 stone. And it was rolling around inside his head at 300 revs per minute.

He landed upside-down, with his helmet, full of soil, buried in the earth. Amazingly, he was alive. And more than that, after a few minutes of unconsciousness, he was lucid.

“I want to do a piece to camera”, he told the crew. He even fought the ambulancemen, who said he couldn’t. No surprises there. Richard likes fighting. He does it a lot.

When I first heard of the crash, I was doing a rather miserable 175mph in an Aston Martin at our test track in Surrey. Everyone was quite upbeat. He didn’t appear to be badly hurt. So I carried on driving round corners a little too quickly while shouting. I even went out for dinner with friends that night.

But later it became apparent that Richard was much more seriously injured than we’d thought. Doctors described his condition as critical.

At the hospital, his wife Mindy was being a star. She’s one of those women who takes things in her stride but this was something else. She was laughing. She was joking.

She’d told daughters Willow and Izzy that Daddy had crashed another car and messed up his clothes. So she was taking him some clean ones. Richard had a bad night. At four he was giving very serious cause for concern but as the sun rose, he’d rallied a bit.

He didn’t look very “rallied” to me. In fact, he looked like a Klingon, with a massively swollen eye and a huge lump on his forehead. The only good news, so far as I could see, was that his teeth were still as shiny and bright as ever.

It’s genuinely hard to know how Mindy could be so upbeat when her husband was so badly dented. They’d just exchanged contracts on a new house. They were about to take out a joint mortgage. And yet, she was still cheerful. James May and I weren’t. May even admits to having been “a bit unmanly” at one point.

There’s one thing though. All we ever hear about the NHS is that it’s rubbish. But anyone who ever experiences the emergency care it provides always notices just how un-rubbish it is in reality.

Leeds General Infirmary is a no star hospital. According to the bureaucrats, it’s terrible. But trust me on this. From where Richard Hammond was lying, it was about as terrible as Angelina Jolie’s left breast.

They were coping brilliantly with a forest of flowers being sent by well wishers. “They’re lovely,” said Mindy, and then, after a pause . . . “Do you think anyone will send cash donations?” Outside, in the real world, one internet site had raised £4,000 for the air ambulance that had saved Richard’s life. Sky News was deluged with thousands of goodwill messages. The Sun received messages from all over the world.

And there was some hope. While James was leaning over, whispering to our bashed-up friend, Mindy started to stroke his hair and I noticed the hamster’s heart rate had shot up from 60 to 75 beats per minute.

“Christ, James. He thinks you’re doing the stroking,” I yelled.

Quickly, the heart beat settled down again. Then came the moment when I said: “The reason you’re here mate is because you’re a c**p driver.”

And he smiled.

I knew then that he was going to pull through. And God it was a relief.

You can never tell after a brain injury what long-term implications there might be. He might have no sense of taste, or double vision. His teeth may go brown. Or he may be absolutely fine.

The only thing I knew was this: he was going to live.

And the next day after he said, “Hello C**kface” to James May, it looked like he might just win back everything else as well.

You’d think that the joyous news would silence the vultures circling the crash site since the accident, rejoicing in the fact that Top Gear had finally been taught its lesson that speed kills.

Somehow I doubt it though. The campaign to have us taken off the air — sparked curiously, by the BBC’s own news website — will now be ramped up, fuelled by the environmentalists and spearheaded by muddle-headed road safety campaigners.

Richard is winning his fight. And now mine begins. To make sure that he has a show to come back to.

Typisch Jazza verhaal. Gelukkig lijkt ´t erop dat de Hamster er weer boven op komt.

“Hello C**kface”

Dat klinkt toch weer goed

Prachtig verhaal, echt Jeremy Clarkson:

He didn’t look very “rallied” to me. In fact, he looked like a Klingon, with a massively swollen eye and a huge lump on his forehead. The only good news, so far as I could see, was that his teeth were still as shiny and bright as ever.

Maar fijn te horen dat het al weer veel beter gaat en hij er waarschijnlijk wel weer praktisch helemaal bovenop komt !

Goed om te horen dat het de goede kant op gaat .

Mensen , ik heb de laatste 3 posten verwijderd...doe aub een beetje normaal.

Sorry Jurgen, maar ik vind het niet kloppen dat je zomaar mijn bijdrage wist! Ik zeg imo niks verkeerds over Hammond, dat is een drama. Zeker. Ik zeg iets over de bijdrage van JC (stuk Devil), die er gek genoeg voor is om met RH's ongeluk PR te gaan bedrijven.... Het is een TV man, en die hebben één perspectief, één ijkpunt: Kijkcijfers.

Jij bent aan zet; dit is een Forum.

Beste Erik , ik vind het weinig smaakvol om nu over vermeende PR-praktijken te gaan discussiëren.
Als je het nodig vind en mensen gaan hierin mee, wat ik niet hoop, dan splits ik dit wel af en maak een nieuw topic aan , maar niet in dit draadje.

Ik acht het buitengewoon onwaarschijnlijk dat JC zo is , tuurlijk leeft ook hij voor kijkcijfers...maar er zijn belangrijkere dingen in het leven..óók voor hem!
Deze discussie is wat mij betreft in dit topic gesloten.

Kweennie..........

Ik heb zo'n gevoel dat de "Stig" gewoon Tiff Needle is.Gewoon aan zijn rijstijl te zien.

Vind het wel gaaf dat het,zo te lezen,weer wat beter gaat met Hammond.Door het oog van de naald zullen we maar zeggen..........

Geen Top Gear zonder Hammond

Als Richard Hammond niet voldoende herstelt van zijn verwondingen om weer zijn rol in het populaire autoprogramma Top Gear in te nemen, stopt de producent met het programma. Dat meldt de Britse zondagskrant The Observer.

Programmamaker Andy Wilman zegt zich geen Top Gear te kunnen voorstellen zonder Hammond. De producent dreigt ook de stekker uit het programma te trekken als de nadruk op snelheid en flitsende auto's verdwijnt als gevolg van het ernstige ongeluk van Hammond tijdens opnames voor de show.

De presentator en sidekick van 'hoofdpresentator' Jeremy Clarkson en co-presentator James May crashte afgelopen woensdag met een snelheid van bijna 500 kilometer per uur in een auto met raketmotor. Hij ligt in een ziekenhuis in Leeds en herstelt goed.

"De enige Top Gear waar ik ooit in geïnteresseerd zou zijn om te maken is met die drie erin. Ik wil het niet, ik kan het niet doen zonder Richard", aldus de producent.

De BBC maakte zondag bekend dat zij de uitzending van de nieuwste serie van Top Gear die al grotendeels is opgenomen voor onbepaalde tijd heeft uitgesteld. In Groot-Brittannië trekt de autoshow wekelijks tussen de 4 en 6 miljoen kijkers. Daarmee is het het populairste programma op BBC 2. De omroep laat het aan het team van Top Gear over wanneer de afleveringen op het scherm kunnen komen.

bron: http://www.nieuwnieuws.nl/archives/2006 ... mmond.html

Dat is precies wat Marco linkt om 16:56 u enige posts hierboven

Alleen via een andere bron (nu.nl)....

Anyway. Heel veel beterschap voor de Hamster. De berichten lijken weer hoopvol, moge het ook zo uitpakken.

idd te hopen dat hij terug komt.
De enige echte grote P liefhebber van TopGear (in tegenstelling tot Jeremy)

Als de BBC en bovengenoemde producent om wat voor reden dan ook niet verder willen, dient zich vanzelf een andere zender en/of producent aan. En een nieuwe naam.

Alleen moeten wij onszelf dan vermaken met "Top Gear" fimpjes van het internet...