Top Gear Goes Rallycross Racing

Prologue: Jamiebel Angkahan, Davina Angkahan-Valerio and I (Jim Eligino) all thought about how irrelevantly and ruinously expensive golfing is. So we asked, "Can you go motor racing for less than the price of Golf?"

We bought cars and modified them as cheaply as possible and met up at Lydden Hill race track in Kent, and Jamiebel and I were there early. By the way, each of our cars had our lucky numbers (me: 21, Jamiebel: 27, Davina: 69).

"This is a 146-mph Mercedes 190E 2.5-16 Cosworth," I explained, "for which I paid £800."

"Nice. That's a lot of car!" Jamiebel complimented.

"And this is…?"

"This is a Peugeot 106 GTi 1.9, for which I paid £550. And it's a nice one."

"It is a nice one!"

Then Davina arrived in a red Toyota MR2.

"Dee-jae!" I replied, with joy.

"Morning, guys!" she greeted.

"How much was that?"

"£450."

"Seriously? £450 for that?"

"Yeah!"

"So we've got mid-engine/rear-drive (Davina), front-engine/front-drive (Jamiebel), front-engine/rear-drive (me)!"

"You've got the right 190E Cosworth – the 2.5!"

"I know."

"I'm gonna have to say this, and I normally wouldn't say this, but your cars look fantastic!"

All three of us put down our blood types, and by the BBC's permission, got sponsorships! All of us are sponsored by Red Bull Racing and their sponsors, and will star in a few commercials for Red Bull, Pepe Jeans, Head and Shoulders shampoo, Geox Shoes, and Infiniti after the competition. We also fulfilled the safety requirements on our cars for £1,800 total (car and safety) for mine, £1,400 total for Jamiebel's, and £1,430 for Davina's.

So for the price of golf equipment, we were ready to go motor racing. And the division we chose was rallycross. Rallycross is like rallying, Formula 1 and NASCAR all put together – you get the tarmac and mud of all three, the close racing of Formula 1, and the real body contact of cars from NASCAR.

We were all discussing what we liked about rallycross and what we hated about golf. And when we ran over to the drivers' meeting, we ran into some familiar faces: Bernan Angkahan, Angelica Ortega, Pam Bautista, the Osborn siblings (Jessica and JT), Adam Morales, the Friesen Sisters (Shivan, Alaina and Lindsea), Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust and "Mr. Gymkhana" himself (I call him that), Ken Block.

"Guys!" I replied. "What are you doing here?"

"We decided to go motor racing, since it's the weekend," Ken noted.

"I'm here because I just like England," added Tanner.

"Well, this is a big surprise," Jamiebel commented. "The gang's all here!"

"OK, so let's go racing!" JT spontaneously replied.

We got to the stewards' room and headed for the drivers' meeting, where it turned out, rallycross wasn't all that simple – but in short word form, each racer drives in two heats and at least one final. And the thing that amazed me is that all the people that weren't the above (there were 30 of us, 15 in the above – that includes me, Jay-bee and Dee-jae) were all named "Gary"! Well, apart from one girl, so we nicknamed her "Gary", just to keep it even. Also, in my heat, which included Adam and Ken, all the other racers are Gary!

"So in that case, you're racing in "Gary" class, Jim!" Jessica joked.

"You are Gary Eligino – or that should be your name!" Alaina added. All 30 of us laughed.