David’s Weblog

Top Gear – Richard Hammonds Crash

I watched Top Gear last night, as everyone knows, It showed Richard Hammond’s Crash.  It was almost scary watching it and quite freaky the fact that before doing it he commented that if it went wrong it could be one of the biggest crashes ever seen.  Little did he know that it would end up that way.

If you haven’t seen it already, here is the footage.  The first run was done without the afterburner, but even so, he managed to get it to a speed of 220mph, second and third runs were done with the afterburner on, reaching speeds of around 314mph.  Notice after the second run, Hammond says “oh yes, I’m so alive, so alive”, he also mentions that ”the roll bar digs into the ground, along with my head, and that stops it very quickly”. 

I would like to say that it is a total miracle that he managed to return to our screens last night on the show, as Jeremy said, he showed great bravery to do it in the first place and even greater bravery to get through his recovery.  Here is another bit of footage from another crash he had… He wasn’t hurt in this one though.

A few things I didn’t like about last nights show…  Firstly, the fact that top gear received a lot more viewers, but it took a man nearly dying to get them to watch, as a fan of the show regardless, I dislike the fact that there are millions of new “top gear fans” out there, who have probably never seen an episode of top gear until last night.  Secondly, the fact that Jeremy seemed to have a dig James May (who was meant to be doing the stunt in the first place, but backed out.  Jeremy said “you were very brave getting in that thing, I wouldn’t have done it and he (James May) certainly wouldn’t have! I might have been reading a bit to much into it but there we are…

Closing statement from Jeremy “one thing we’ve learned from Richard, speed kills!” which drew a bemused look out of Hammond