► New world record set by Terry Grant
► On two wheels with 17 people on board
► Grant talks us through how it all unfolded
► Story updated with video
At the 2015 TAG Heuer Race of Champions at London’s Olympic Park, stunt driving maestro Terry Grant broke his own world record for the highest number of people recorded inside a car driven on two wheels. As you do.
Grant plus 16 fearless (and presumably agoraphobic) passengers somehow squeezed into a standard Range Rover Sport SVR (five of them in the boot) in the centre of a cold and wet but packed stadium, before launching into a ‘side wheelie’ off an aluminium ramp. There was no rollcage…
Here’s the story of how it all unfolded, in Grant’s own words as told to CAR.
‘Slipping off the ramp was the biggest worry’
‘It’s the same ramp I use for other cars I drive on two wheels. It’s made of aluminium, so the rain today made it quite slippy. That was the biggest worry for me today – slipping off the ramp.’
‘I can’t see where I’m going’
‘Once I’m up I literally can’t see anything to the left hand side, and most of what’s in front of me. I can only see a bit directly in front of me and then off to the right hand side. Everything else I can’t see. So I kind of have to remember everything…’
‘The biggest risk is someone falling on the steering wheel’
‘I made sure the front passenger leaning across the dash was really wedged in. The biggest fear is that someone falls into the steering wheel, because we’ll go over, or go back down [onto four wheels].’
‘There’s a massive amount of force on the car’
‘The car was absolutely standard, a brand-new, stock, Range Rover Sport SVR. The tyres were pumped up to around 90 pounds of pressure, rock-hard. There’s a massive amount of force on the tyres, on the suspension, on the steering, just generally on the car. Imagine the weight of 17 people! It’s colossal.’
‘It was more difficult than last time’
‘When I did it before [Grant pulled off the same trick with 15 people on board a Nissan Juke in 2014] it was in sunny Barbados. I wouldn’t say it easy, but it was easier because the biggest issue today, apart from the size and weight of the car, was the wet surface. Still, it was snowing this morning, so rain was a massive improvement – I’ll take that all day long…’
‘Worst thing that could happen is I put it on its roof’
‘Sometimes I can bring the car down really gently. That time it was quite a hard hit to be honest, because I had to put it down. I did a sighting lap earlier on my own and that was edgy – with all that weight, it wouldn’t have gone round the corner in the wet. I didn’t want to risk anything – worst thing that could happen is I put it on its roof, and I knew we’d got the world record, so I took the safe option.’
‘Everyone was really quiet’
‘Everyone inside the car was dead quiet, because they knew how serious it was. And then when we put it down, everyone started celebrating. It was fantastic.’
‘I had the easy job’
‘We had some great people helping my team working out how and where to put everyone in the car. I just walked away and concentrated on what I had to do because I didn’t want to get distracted. So I had the easy bit, the driving!’
Read CAR’s review of the 543bhp Range Rover Sport SVR here.
