TG’s race monsters

TG’s race monsters
Crack the whip and hold your chair at arm's length. Drivers either tame these monsters or become their next victim. Click through the gallery to see Hammond's choice and seven other mental racers...
Words: Richard Hammond, Matt Master

Richard’s choice: Bowler Nemesis
"There's one monster above all others that I know is lurking around in the darker corners of my mind, ready to leap out and humiliate and hurt me as its willing sacrifice. It is the Bowler Nemesis. This is the latest incarnation of Drew Bowler's series of outrageous off-roaders; a terrifying melding of huge V8 power and off-road prowess of an almost sinister, supernatural potency.
"I've driven it and its earlier cousins on racetracks, dirt tracks, glaciers and across the desert. And every time, there is the same routine. A nervous journey to where I know the beast is lurking, tended by its human acolytes - a first meeting, where a driver or an owner talks me through the tricks and techniques to bringing their monster under control. And then a wait. And then the moment when I climb in, battling to get past the complex cage and into the deeply bucketed seat as thinly padded as a skinny model's buttock."

"I fire it up and gingerly push the throttle with a race-booted foot. The last time this happened, I was in the scorching deserts of the Arabian Peninsula's Empty Quarter and alongside me, strapped into the passenger seat was the owner of the car. He had driven me around an improvised course across the desert dunes and talked me through the Dos and Don'ts. There were more Dos than Don'ts. And then came my turn. "The lever clunked the beast into gear and the machine squatted like an attack dog on command. We juddered off for our first lap of the course and I felt 10 years old. The owner got out, content that I would treat his beast with the respect it deserved. Half-a-lap later, at a point where a ridge of soft sand swelled to a fat mound and then ran round a bowl that looked deep enough to lose St Paul's in, I found my confidence and beat the living crap out of the thing until the sun slid towards the dunes."

"Together, we nosed down into and through mounds of sand big enough to hide a house, we floated over stretches of sand as soft as the sea, and slewed through corners with all four tyres spitting dust at the sky. I wrenched the wheel, dialled in the turn before we got to the corners, felt the surface of the desert through my booted foot on the throttle and I screamed in time to the madly spinning V8. I tamed it. It's not a subtle thing, this automotive sadomasochism, it's not artistic nor especially clever. It probably doesn't stand for much; it's certainly not of any practical use nor any indicator of talent. And I recommend you try it if you haven't already."