Walking in the same muddied footsteps as British comic royalty… and football’s Chris Kamara, I felt geared up to really take the handbreak off my driving.
“Don’t touch the break pedal, you won’t need it,” was an early nugget of advice as I clambered into the driver’s seat.
A new series of World’s Most Dangerous Roads hits tellies tonight and to mark its return, your Daily Star was invited to get behind the wheel for a taste of what the show’s stars really go through.
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Nestled away in a non-descript Surrey forest is a 4×4 training centre tasked with making sure celebrities know what they’re doing when sent off to far flung destinations to drive on – you guessed it – some pretty terrifying roads. I swiftly learned it was with good reason because manoeuvring through that woodland was anything but straightforward.
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From Siberia to Nepal, Madagascar to Guatemala, the motoring show from U&Dave has cut no corners in picking up TV stars from the tarmac and dropping them into the less-so beaten track. But before doing so, the guys are taken through an intensive training day of which I had a little taster of.
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I don’t know if these instructions make their way to Hugh Dennis and Sue Perkins but I was told to definitely not wear white trainers but equally avoid wellies as I can’t imagine they’re great for clutch control. What I did need to bring, however, was a “sense of adventure”, not least because the basic loo in the woods really was just that.
Having been scooped up from Farnham train station by Surrey 4×4 Tours & Training legend Kevin Man, a fry up and cuppa awaited me in the woods. There went any excuse of driving on an empty stomach…
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First thing’s first was a brief summary of how the car actually works, specifically when it comes to the anti-locking breaking system which I learned is particularly helpful in suspect terrain. Another thing to note was how the Land Rover I was about to navigate around a forest, has two gear boxes much like a bicycle.
For the task ahead we stayed in the lower gear box which I was promised made stalling virtually impossible. Talk about piling on the pressure. Spoiler alert: fortunately I proved the theory right. So forgiving is the car that I only changed from second gear once and that was to reverse – who knew trees had the ability to jump out at you?
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“Follow the grooves” and “keep the steering wheel straight,” were the main messages from Kevin who first showed us how it’s done. He may have made it look easy but the constant bumping up and down in the backseat told the true story.
Between them, Kevin and company founder Gareth Jex have trained up a fair few celebrities for the show and even worked with Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds for a Marvel Deadpool movie. Unsurprisingly not all famous faces arrive with the same driving ability but Jack Dee’s willing to learn left them very impressed indeed.
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After watching my first lap rolling through the mud, tight turns and steep slopes going both up and down, Gareth called me out for nervously breaking at the beginning. Dare I say, though, I think thanks to Kevin’s ridiculously calm coaching, I was getting the hang of it.
Compared to descending into a bog with trees overhanging on either side of the track, accelerating uphill felt like a break from the tension I’d built up in practically every muscle in my body. If applying the perfectly weighted pedal press under such ropey circumstances wasn’t enough of a work out on my legs, spinning the wheel certainly tested my arms.
(Image: UKTV Media Limited)
Luckily for World’s Most Dangerous Roads viewers, Series Six doesn’t in fact start with me in Surrey countryside, but the far funnier duo of Johnny Vegas and Lucy Beaumont tackling perilous mountain drops on Montenegro’s roads.
And much respect to them for doing just that because I know first hand, the skill required to stay safe is no joke.
“The new series of World’s Most Dangerous Roads starts Sunday 3rd November, 8pm on U&Dave. Stream every episode now on U https://u.co.uk/shows/worlds-most-dangerous-roads/watch-online ”