Ben Collins (racing driver)

Ben Collins driving the #84 car in the 2003 SCSA championship

Ben Collins (born February 13, 1977) is a single seater and sports car driver from Bristol, England. He started his motorsport career in 1994, competing in Formula First and Formula Vauxhall Junior on his way to International Formula 3. In the late 1990s, he also worked as a racing instructor at Castle Combe Circuit in Wiltshire, UK. After success in ASCAR stock car racing he was signed by PDM to do selected rounds of the 2004 Indy Racing League, but the car never appeared. In 2005, he competed in the British GT Championship in a Porsche 996 GT3.

Ben Collins 'outed' as The Stig

Appearing on a New Zealand Motorsport television programme called 'Pit Lane' on January 17th 2007, A1GP team manager and British motorsport personality David Sears was questioned if he knew the identity of the Top Gear test driver known only as "The Stig". Without hesitation and in a very matter-of-fact manner he replied, "Oh, you want to know who the Stig is... Ben Collins, he's a British sportscar driver, Ben Collins".

However there has been no statement confirming or denying this from the producers of the Top Gear series, the BBC. He appeared in one Top Gear episode driving a Toyota Aygo for Richard Hammond's team in Aygo football, as well as in an earlier episode driving a Mercedes-Benz in a stunt where a person parachutes into a moving car

Ben Collins has also recently been the resident driving expert on Sky's equivalent to Top Gear, Vroom Vroom.

After the HSE report into Richard Hammond's high-speed crash was documented, further evidence towards Collins as being 'The Stig' was given in an excerpt:

"Visit by Ben Collins (BC) to PTLE 37. The preliminary arrangements for the event had been made at arm’s length, with the result that, as the date of the Elvington shoot approached, no-one from Top Gear had actually met PTLE’s principals or seen their jet cars. The jet car feature was considered to be sufficiently unusual and hazardous for GW to ask BC, who worked closely with Top Gear as a high performance driver and consultant, to go and see PTLE and Vampire, and to prepare a briefing for RH. It was felt that, with his extensive motor sport experience, he would be able to confirm PTLE’s competence and the quality of their equipment, and be able to see through them if they were not genuine. (This was a significant step because Top Gear had not used BC in this way before.)"

External links

• "collinsautosport". Retrieved 2006-12-12.
• "HSE Report into the Hammond Crash" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-06-23.