On the back of my mammoth stint from October to Christmas day (73 shows) I read with interest on Chortle that Al Murray reportedly said he did '400 to 450' gigs a year. I was trying to do the maths on this. Admittedly, as a top headliner, he could have easily doubled, and sometimes tripled up on London venues at weekends, and would have probably done 2 or 3 shows a day in Edinburgh, but that would still mean him working every day from Jan 1st to Dec 31st - without a break - to hit that magic 450 number. I have no reason to doubt the man, but flipping hell, that's a lot.

I'm nowhere near that level, admittedly, but I do work as much as possible (though with me compering 80% of my shows, you could argue that I've *got on stage* more times a year than Al has. It's a mediocre boast at best). I've just calculated that in 2006 I did 280 shows - which actually, I'm not proud off. For my sanity alone, and to make sure I don't miss out on my 30's like I did my 20's, I need a day off.

So in the gap between New Year's eve and the 5th Jan, I had 5 days where I didn't even think about gigging. However, to say I relaxed would be a complete lie - I'm still incapable of switching off.

So - on New Year's day, I went to the Fatboy Slim gig on Brighton beach, in the pissing rain, and got utterly soaked. It was ace.

And then on the 5th, I treated myself to a day's tuition at the Top Gear track in Dunsfold, doing the course the 'stars in their reasonably priced cars' do, but in my own little toy, which is where any surplus money from gigging goes. I've been to the Top Gear studios before; I was asked to do the warm-up (even though they never usually have one) when Jane Root was coming down to jazz up the day somewhat. I also went down with Junior Simpson as a guest of Richard Porter once; he's the script editor of Top Gear and he's also involved in a spoof motoring website I contribute to that I can't name here but can be easily googled or wikipedia'd. (Is that a word yet?). Junior is also a friend of the show, having done a feature on 'pimped' cars with Richard Hammond once.

I have a soft spot for Top Gear and it even has one for me. About 3 years ago I got down to the last handful for the position of the new presenter on Top Gear and I was in a dreamworld, imagining what it would be like. The day's filming with Jeremy Clarkson was fun, if intimidating, and when they finally gave it to James May I had to accept that this was probably my best ever shout at one of the best jobs in TV. It's the most common 'what if' I play out in my head.

Anyway - the circuit is at Dunsfold aerodrome, only 30 minutes from my house* (see later). After a week of studying the bbc weather page for Guildford, I depressingly accepted that it would be raining a bit. Any thoughts of getting a nailed-on time on the leaderboard were put to one side; and not to worry, some other car owners told me; at least that way I'll get sideways nice and easy and I won't wear down the tyres. Fair enough.

I picked a Friday afternoon for the day, which includes much more than just learning the track and going for it all whistles blowing. My friends Darren & Toni came up too, as the track was an even shorter distance away for them. In fact, they got there before me, as it took me over 45 minutes to find it. Why? Well, I navigate everywhere by postcode, which is actually a very bad move when trying to find an airfiled, apparently - as Dunsfold aerodrome was originally the secret base of the Harrier Jump Jet and as a result, it was given a 'secret' postcode that actually directs you to a retirement village in Cranleigh. Clearly, the Russian spies would have never suspected anything when navigating by postcode alone.

The pensioners of Essex Drive, I might add, clearly did not suspect me to be dripping with Polonium 210 and gave me directions to the Aerodrome. Of course, they were mostly wrong, and their advice took 2 minutes to hear as they had to gulp in huge pockets of air just to speak; some of those gulps I guess would have been their last.

I could have phoned Darren for directions, but alas, the village of Dunsfold itself has no mobile phone coverage. When I finally turned up I was in a foul mood, not helped with the skies opening. Thankfully, Graham from Plans is an ideal tutor for this sort of scenario.

After a quick pre-brief of what we were going to do, Graham (my track mentor for the day and overall good guy) asked me what my objectives for the day were. To be honest, I wasn't sure. I know I wanted to have fun but I'm too competitive to enjoy myself usually. Thankfully, with the weather making a competitive lap time impossible, the pressure was off somewhat. I wanted to learn where I could improve the car, and how much the supercharger I've fitted would make a difference, but Graham explained that in the wet, grip levels were going to be down to 10%. I asked, "down by 10%?" and he said, no down TO 10%. Ouch. I find my car isn't the most grippy at the best of times, so I was beginning to think I was going to come home in an ambulance with my car alongside me in a hoover bag.

Anyway, after signing the 'when you die, its your fault boyo' sheet, we were off to the track. Darren and Toni followed with my camcorder and Darren's camera; we were going to need something special to see in this weather, which was getting quite tricky.



So, first things first, Graham took my car round the track, to show me the different exit and entry points, and the 'method' of driving the car. Firstly, the track. It's identical to the Top Gear track - not at all modified - and it's much more challenging than you'd expect for a converted airfield layout. Surprisingly, it's a figure of 8, and the edges are marked in thin white lines that slowly disappear in rain. Hmmm.




Graham's got good experience with my car, the Nissan 350Z, having driven the Palmersport cars, so for two laps he pushed the Z hard and was really impressed with it - big props me. He was stupidly impressive in my car, and was confident in dry conditions he'd knock a huge chunk off the lap time of a normal 350Z. When you consider my car still has stock clutch, suspension, and brakes, I thought this was pretty surprising.



Then I jumped in my driver's seat and took over. Cue some buttock clenching moments even at low speeds. At first the rain wasn't too bad - light drizzle, with some dry-ish patches on parts of the track, and I was taking things lightly. Immediately, I discovered so many things I was doing wrong - as to where I was braking, steering when braking, weight transfer, everything. However, I was learning quickly, and even though I wasn't able to put all of his suggestions into place, at least I was working out why I was doing things wrong.


http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2191371868274686228

Interestingly, he kept the traction control on. Why? Because if it's coming on, you're doing it wrong. This is a smooth, fast circuit, and you should be able to do it at top speed without triggering any driver aids. It actually *helps* to teach you what you've done right and wrong (alongside Graham, of course).

Laps were much easier earlier on as the weather was bad but visibility wasn't so bad you couldn't see edges. And this is the problem with the aerodrome - you really can't see the circuit until it's too late. The white lines disappear and there are no other features. While waiting for the rain to subside, we had a go at doing V-max (attempting to acheive a maximum speed) on the runway itself.



Wow. This car never ceases to surprise me. At 120, 130, 140 it was planted, actually hunking DOWN as the speed increased. At 150, I ran out of balls long before I ran out of runway (it just wanted to keep going) because over 120, the rain meant I couldn't see anything - literally, I was driving blind. I slammed the anchors on - and it stayed perfectly straight. According to Darren and Toni, the noise of this V-max run was something else, but unfortunately, they didn't get it on Video. Here's me coming back the other way, when I got to 130-ish (had less runway).


http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3497411432686540278

After some more tuition to show me where I was failing to get the braking/turning/balancing process right (it's difficult, so much more than you can imagine), I had a go at my timed laps. I was pretty pleased by this, as the brake-turn-accelerate practice was actually leaving me feeling physically sick (I had to go for a walk outside the car!). Unfortunately, it was a bad time to do the laps. Regrettably, by now it was torrential rain and a bit of mist as well. I'm astonished Darren got as good pictures as he did.









And here's my attempts - My standing start on my first lap


http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=4196937070630393845

and me overcooking my 3rd lap.


http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8931619105361925913

In the end, I managed a 1:46.7, just over 7 seconds slower than another 350z in the dry, but oh well. I only did 3 laps as it was becoming pretty ridiculous in the weather and with the exception of the hammerhead and gambon, you couldn't see where any of the corners where. When the weather was slightly better I did an unofficial 1:43 - not going faster, just being able to see where the corners were.

So there you go, that's what I do with my day off. I'll get back to talking about the ins and outs of the world of comedy in due course - thank you for letting me rant about my hobby.