Assignment 1:Top Gear Kameron Moshier

English 1102Location: Top Gear, the actual show takes place in the Top Gear studios in Britain but each episode has challenges that are all over the world. But in the Top Gear studio is where a lot of the actual show takes place. There is the Top Gear stage where the three hosts stand which also has their TV where they show the challenges and it has an area where celebrity guests are interviewed. Finally on the stage is the Top Gear leader board where they record lap times from each car on the show done by the Stig and also lap times done by the celebrity guests and the reasonably priced car that they use. Finally one last element at their Britain location is the Top Gear test track. The test track is where many of their challenges and tests of the cars that come on the show take place. The test track is an old airport runway with five large turns and two long straightaways, to mix the need for speed and handling of each car used on the show. Sometimes like in my first observation challenges take place outside of the Top Gear headquarters and even outside of Britain, but the live filming of the show is always at the Top Gear studios.

Figured World: A figured world is basically a realm in which actors and artifacts appear and engage in different activities under certain rules and norms for the specific world.

 Rules and Conventions of Top GearThe figured world I have decided to observe is the BBC hit TV series Top Gear. Top Gear is a show about 3 huge car enthusiasts from Britain named Jeremy, James, and Richard and the different challenges and tasks they complete while sharing their knowledge and love of cars. Top Gear is not a business but really an educational show about cars. The type of crowds that tend to frequent Top Gear showings much like the hosts are pretty big car enthusiasts and fans. The only real rules for appropriate behavior on Top Gear for the hosts at least is to know about the cars they are using on a given episode, and honestly for the crowd, the only normal behavior for them is to act entertained and engaged about all of the different things done on all of the different cars on the show. The communication that normally goes on in the show is between each of the three hosts and one another and the hosts and the audience. The hosts talk to each other throughout the episode and they normally communicate and engage with the audience to keep them involved in the show. Being a show with many loud and fast cars, noise is apart of the whole Top Gear experience and it is often actually complemented when it is with a fast super car. There are not too many behaviors that would be deemed inappropriate in the Top Gear figured world because in it alone, many things are done with cars that would be seen as inappropriate in normal society such as like launching a car from a cannon or ridiculously modifying certain cars, but on the show it is all apart of the norms. The only things I can think of as an inappropriate is if audience members tried to maybe get TOO engaged and try to take over the hosts jobs of demonstrating their car knowledge or if the hosts themselves got to a point where they didn’t know about a particular car, because as the hosts they are expected to be masters!

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Literacy Practices: During each episode of Top Gear, many different activities occur including challenges created by the producers, a segment where a celebrity comes in and drives their "reasonably priced car" which is normally a small, slow 4 door sedan on a show full of supercars, and then the show also has a segment where their unknown racer named the Stig takes the cars that are on each episode around the Top Gear test track to try and get fast lap times! As one can see, there are a lot of different things that happen on any episode of Top Gear.

Actors: Actors are people or elements who play the most important roles in the creation of a given figured world; they create the actions that occur within the figured world usually with specific artifacts. The actors in Top Gear are the people that make the show run the way it does and they allow it to be successful.

-Jeremy Clarkson: Jeremy is basically the ringleader of the three hosts of Top Gear. He is the funny man who leads in most of the hosting for the show and he is also probably the most knowledgeable of the three hosts when it comes to cars. Jeremy really works with the other hosts in setting what is acceptable to do with cars on this show because many of the things done are crazy or even stupid to the average person. Jeremy also is the one who deals with getting the challenges from the producers and the one who deals with the celebrity guests as well.

Richard Hammond: Richard is one of the co-hosts to Jeremy and he performs a similar role as Jeremy, and he is also the one to get A LOT of crap from Jeremy, the main host. A thing Richard does often that Jeremy doesn’t do is that he goes out and does little “mini episodes” inside a full episode of Top Gear. For example, certain episodes he will go out alone and will review or show the viewers a particular 1 on 1 with a certain car, or he will sometimes go and be a guest at a certain famous event involving cars, like a NASCAR race for example.

James May: James is the second of the two co-hosts to Jeremy and James is the “brains” of the trio, or so he thinks. A very common thing to see with James is that he will try and provide some of his car knowledge during episodes and will often be cut off by Jeremy or Hammond saying he is boring as can be, which is pretty humorous each time it happens. James also a lot of times when he isn’t getting interrupted during his “knowledge sharing” will help Jeremy give Richard Hammond a hard time for literally almost anything he does on the show. James, like Richard and Jeremy also often tries to out do the other hosts when it comes to choosing cars for challenges or just showing off what he knows.

The Producers: Unlike a lot of other TV series on these days, the producers on Top Gear play a very interesting role in each episode of the show. Each and every episode is a new challenge for the producers; they must try to make the lives of each of the hosts very hard with difficult and often ridiculous challenges. The producers show up in each episode normally in their same white suits and kaki pants and they must provide the challenges that make the show so entertaining and successful!

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Celebrity Guests: This is probably the least important of the actors but they needed to be included the celebrity guests because they are apart of most episodes and normally have their own segment of each episode. Another reason they are important is because they use one of the artifacts for the show as well.

Locations of each episode: The locations of the episodes have been deemed appropriate to be in the Actors category because in my very definition of an actor, it says they are “people or elements that influence an episode.” At the end of the day, with Top Gear the locations of each episode definitely influence each episode, and how things work. For example when the show has an episode where they drive through Iraq, it’s a lot different than an episode filmed in the Top Gear HQ in Britain. The locations impact the other actors and mood of the entire show.

Artifacts: Artifacts are any single item that the characters use that has a symbolic or just important value to the figured world. In my figured world Top Gear, the artifacts are anything that the hosts or producers use often to make the show entertaining each episode. Although each artifact isn’t used EVERY episode, overall looking at the series as a whole, the artifacts play a big role in the presentation of Top Gear.

The Stig: The Stig is a person, but for how the show uses him, he is a very good example of an artifact. The reason for this here is because he is basically a machine in the way they present him because he’s always in a all white racing suit with a helmet on so you never actually see what he looks like and he also always performs the same task. He is seen on the show as the master driver who puts each car used on the show to its limits and he usually is the main challenge for the hosts of the show, as they have to often beat the Stig in challenges. It is his ritualistic characteristics that to me make him, or it if you want to say, a better artifact than an actor.

The Reasonably Priced Car: The reasonably priced car is a very important and humorous addition to Top Gear episodes. The reason it is humorous is because Top Gear is normally a show about pretty fast and amazing super cars and in this segment of the show, they stick pretty big name celebrities from all over the world into very slow little cars to take a lap around the Top Gear track to try and get the best “star in a reasonably priced car” time. This car has been a big symbol of Top Gear ever since the beginning of the series, and they have had a couple of different cars to fill this spot. A big tradition at the end of the lifetime for one of the reasonable cars is to give it an incredible exit to the show, which is where the crazy element of the show comes into play. For example one time they blew up a building on top of one of the cars as it was on it’s way out!

Top Gear Test Track: Now although it only a track, the Top Gear track is probably one of the most important aspects of the Top Gear studio. The test track is an abandoned runway right behind the actual studio that the show uses for numerous activities. The celebrity one lap with the reasonably priced car along with the test laps of almost every car that is brought on the show are done on the test track so it’s a pretty vital artifact to the entire Top Gear series as a whole.

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The Cars: The cars may seem like an obvious artifact on a show solely about cars, but they needed to be included because at the end of the day, though they may be obvious, they are the most important of the artifacts and without the actual cars used by the actors on Top Gear, the other artifacts and the actual figured world itself would actually cease to exist. All of the actors use the various cars on the show in many different ways and the cars do in fact “run” the show. The reasonably priced car was already listed as an artifact used on Top Gear, but its really a whole different element than the actual general cars that are used throughout the episode.

Top Gear Leaderboard: The Top Gear Leaderboard is a very important artifact in every single episode of Top Gear. The leaderboard is used to hold the Test Track lap times of almost every car that goes on the show, and another smaller leaderboard is used to hold the lap times of the celebrity guests that come on the show in the reasonably priced car. The leaderboard is one of the more important aspects of the Top Gear series.

Discourse Communities: Groups of people with common goals in mind who do similar things to reach those goals.

The Hosts: Included here is Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May as their own discourse community because to me they resemble together exactly what my interpretation of a discourse community is. All three of them work together to entertain and inform all of the car enthusiast fans of Top Gear. It shows that as hosts, they do have goals to entertain and you can tell with the kind of things that they do on the show, their goal is being met.

The Audience: The audience for Top Gear is one large discourse community divided into many smaller discourse communities. There is honestly a discourse community in a car enthusiast filled audience for every single type of car enthusiast. There is a discourse community for luxury car, tuners, exotics, American Muscles, everything. They are discourse communities because as a car enthusiast myself, I know that if you like a certain type of car, its your goal to make that type of car seem above the rest to others and that’s what actually happens a lot with audience in the Top Gear audience. People will participate in voting and conversations with the hosts about what cars are better very often on Top Gear.

The Producers: The producers have already been included in the list of actors above, but I wanted to make sure that I included them as a discourse community because when you really look at them, they are a great example of a discourse community. They make up a good discourse community because the producers all have one overall large goal and its what brings them together as a group, and that’s to make the lives of the shows hosts very difficult in challenges, which in turn creates another goal which is to provide Top Gear viewers with entertainment.

Celebrity Guests: Just as they are a category of actors, the Celebrity Guests also act as their own discourse community. They fit the qualities of a discourse because every

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Celebrity Guest that comes onto Top Gear with a similar goal, to entertain the Top Gear audience and hosts, but mainly to shoot for a good time on the test track in the reasonably priced car, it actually does get pretty competitive. Their similar goals for when they come on the show make them a good discourse community.

Observation 1: Time 1:00pm-2:17pm (viewing time not actual episode time)Note: When I completed my first observation, I used actual viewing time because in the episode of Top Gear, they travel and do many activities over a fairly long span of time, so I will just note actual viewing time during the one-hour episode.

1:01pm: After the intro in the Top Gear studios in Britain, we are taken to right to the trio of hosts (Jeremy, Richard, and James) flying in a Russian cargo plane in their chosen cars for a challenge starting at an unknown point in which they must drive to Jerusalem with gifts as if they are the three wise men. Each man has chosen a convertible costing less than three thousand pounds and they must use it to make it to Jerusalem. Here as a normal characteristic on the show, Jeremy spends some time bashing James’ BMW Z-3 and mainly Richard’s Fiat Barchetta and bloats his Mazda MX-5 will be the best as usual. Moments later they prepare to land.

1:07pm: The trio lands in their beginning destination to their journey and all three of the men are absolutely horrified when they find out that they have landed in Iraq, an obviously dangerous area that has even more dangerous territory in between it and the finish line in Jerusalem. Things get even more nerve wracking when the shows producers who provided the challenge come by as the men begin to start their journey and they provide them each with bullet proof vests and army grade helmets. The three get their gear on and plan to start the journey together on a three count but as normal with Top Gear expectations, Jeremy and James both don’t go on three and make Richard leave the cargo plane on his own into Iraq. The three eventually meet up and begin to plan their route to Jerusalem.

1:15pm: The first trouble of the journey happens fairly quickly as before even leaving Iraq, James’ BMW gets water in the cylinder heads of the engine and causes the engine to break down in a busy Iraqui town, drawing lots of attention. With their cars working perfectly fine, Jeremy and Richard give James a hard time but remind him that in Top Gear challenges, there is always a back up car provided by the producers but its normally something no one wants to drive! It turns out to be an Opel Sport which is the worst convertible ever known to man according to the trio. Luckily for James he finds a local garage and fixes the BMW and the trio carries on their journey.

1:22pm: The trio arrives at the last town in Iraq before the Iran border and Jeremy goes into a local office in the town to get some info on where they can stay for the night and what they can expect in Iran and he gets the worst news possible. He finds out after their long pretty scary drive through Iraq that the BBC (the network that plays Top Gear) is not aloud at all into Iran for political reasons. To avoid heading toward more controversial territory (Baghdad) the trio prepares to head north toward Turkey to go where they think is a safer route around Iran toward Jerusalem.

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1:26pm: After their pretty bad news about Iran, the crew finally finds a route north toward Turkey that goes through a part of Iraq that is occupied by peaceful Kurds. At this point all three of the men finally begin to rethink their fear that they’ve had of Iraq as the war zone they think it is and they actually start seeing how beautiful the country is. With this, the important moment comes in which the men actually start getting to know and appreciate their cars instead of being scared of roadside mines and guns, and the appreciation for their cars is the whole point of challenges at the end of the day on Top Gear.

1:31pm: The trio eventually makes it out of Iraq and into Turkey, but unfortunately their spirits are crushed when the producers inform them their thoughts on Turkey where completely wrong. Jeremy, James, and Richard all begin to worry again when they find out that Turkey is actually in the middle of a civil war and is in fact not a safe place to drive through! The producers present more of a challenge and that is that they suggest the men and their cars make it to their “safe zone hotel” before nightfall or they may be sorry. It is here where Jeremy being his typical completive self decides instead of sticking together, each man should really see how fast his car is to get to the safe zone. Well to Jeremy’s own demise him pushing his car makes it break down on a Turkish highway! On a very rare occasion on Top Gear, James and Hammond stop to help Jeremy fix his car and the trio carries on to head toward their next country, trying to avoid the Turkish civil war.

1:39pm: Jeremy, Richard, and James finally make it through Turkey luckily without getting caught up in political tension and they arrive at the border to their next country heading toward Jerusalem, which is Syria. The problem that is Jeremy’s Mazda and James’ BMW go through more trouble. When the crew stops at a Syrian hotel that night, Jeremy and James pull a Top Gear favorite. While Richard is sleeping they go and sabotage Richard’s perfectly functioning Fiat. They went and messed with the radio wiring so it blares Hammond’s least favorite band and he can’t control it and since its in a convertible it draws a lot of unwanted attention. You can see sabotage is a very prominent element in Top Gear. On top of now all three cars facing issues, the producers lay more bad news on the Top Gear crew. For political reasons they cannot go into Israel directly from Syria because the border is sealed off, and on top of that even if they take a detour, if Israel officials find out they’ve been through Syria, they still cant go into Israel. So now since the Top Gear crew is pretty well known, the trio must prep their cars to go through the brutal Syrian dessert to avoid being seen by any media that can show they’ve been in Syria.

1:46pm: The trio now goes through the dessert and the men and each of their cars start to take a complete beating. Finally Richard’s Fiat after having a great journey so far faces it’s first issue as a radiator seal breaks and causes the car to completely break down. Here unlike when Jeremy’s Mazda broke down in Turkey, James and Jeremy leave Hammond broken down which is the normal tradition on Top Gear rather than waiting on the other man’s car to be fixed. The biggest thing here in the dessert is that while trying to push his car up a dune in the dessert, James actually passes out and has to go out of the challenge

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for a bit. He later meets up with the trio before they arrive in their destination where they must buy their gifts for Jerusalem as “the three wise men.”

1:59pm: Jeremy, Richard, and James now arrive in the city of Old Damascus where they must find Murr and Frankincense as the gifts they must bring to the finish line in Jerusalem. The trio has some trouble finding the gifts but eventually do and begin to head to Jerusalem, finally all together and they all start actually bonding with their cars finally a little before the journey ends.

2:09pm: The trio of Jeremy, Richard, and James finally arrive in Jerusalem after a very long journey all the way from Iraq. The producers create a very large makeshift stable as the finish line with a Top Gear “nativity scene.” Before the men go in they do one more Top Gear tradition and they come together to see whose car is best. In the end they decide Richard Hammond’s Fiat was the best car and then they head into the finish line where they present there gifts and they get to see the “Top Gear Baby Jesus” which actually turns out to bring another big character in Top Gear into the episode as it finishes up because it ends up being a baby Stig which is the Top Gear “machine like racer” and that’s how the episode ends off!

Observation 2: Observation takes place on Sunday, February 2, 2014 from 1:30PM-2:30PM, *times are just viewing times of the episode, not real live times of the events because the real episode is over a longer span of time than the hour long episode.*

1:32pm- The episode starts off with the main host, Jeremy welcoming the live and T.V audience then goes straight into a video cut of him doing a test/ review run on the new Ferrari 458, which is the way that most Top Gear episodes start off. Jeremy basically goes through everything about what he likes and doesn’t like on the 458 and gives it a run on the Top Gear test track, which is a big element of the show.

1:37pm: While doing his review of the 458, Jeremy pulls a pretty common “Jeremy Clarkson move.” He borrows one of the other hosts of the show, James’ Ferrari 430 which is the predecessor to the 458, and James tells him just to not mess with anything, don’t make a mess in it, and don’t drive it fast at all. Of course, Jeremy eats a bag of Doritos in the car, messes with every switch possible, and then decides to have a drag race with it against the new 458. The trick at this part here is Jeremy gets the show’s racer The Stig to drive James’ Ferrari so he technically wouldn’t be going fast in James’ car like he promised. He says he never promised The Stig wouldn’t, and this here shows how things normally work between the Top Gear hosts!

1:42pm: To end off the show’s segment on the Ferrari 458, the show’s professional racer, The Stig takes the 458 around the Top Gear test track for a timed lap because the show has a large leaderboard with times of every car that has been on the show and has been driven by The Stig for a timed lap. This is one of the more traditional parts of a normal Top Gear episode. To make it better for Jeremy here, the 458 gets a time that

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crushes the 430 that James owns, and he uses this to completely rub it into James that the Ferrari 458 is a much better car, typical Jeremy Clarkson.

1:50pm: The trio of hosts is now presented with their first challenge of the episode from the producers. They must each use 5000 pounds to buy a British sports car and drive to the Lotus factory in Norfolk to receive their next challenge. Here, as normal the hosts and producers disagree from the start because the producers say old British sports cars are lousy while the hosts completely disagree. The trio then arrives in their three cars (a Lotus, TVR, and a Jenson) and they receive their challenge where they put their cars up against a French Peugot driven by the Stig in which they try for fastest laps around the Lotus test track.

1:59pm: After completing their first challenge and beating the Stig, the trio receives their next challenge in which they must drive to the abandoned TVR and Jenson factories in their cars, which is a 280-mile journey. The producers didn’t think any of the hosts’ cars would make it but they gave the Stig a German made Vaxual and said he would make it for sure, another instance where the producers and hosts are disagreeing completely on the fact that older British sports cars are in fact good cars. The twist here, which was pretty surprising, is that right when the flag was waved to start the challenge, the Stig’s Vaxual exploded when it started, and of course since Top Gear makes the Stig out to be a machine of a driver, he walks away with his racing suit just black instead of white as it started. Also after this as the hosts make their way to the factories their British sports cars start developing some issues but they call many of the issues intended safety features so the producers couldn’t be right.

2:08pm: As the main part of the episode with the British cars takes a little break, one of Top Gear’s other larger traditions for each episode comes in, they put a star, Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park, in the Top Gear Reasonably Priced Car to take a timed lap around the test track to compete against other stars. Unfortunately for Jeff, The Stig tricked him into thinking that if he keeps the car in third gear the entire time; he would be better off which in turn gives him a pretty lousy lap time.

2:17pm: Now when the main part of the episode continues, the producers tell each of the hosts to first drive their car under the trailer of a tractor trailer truck to test safety of the cars while the Stig does it in a Citroen hatchback. Here the producers are defied again when all three British cars make it under no problem while the Stig’s Citroen gets the roof ripped off. Immediately after this, the producers tell the men to take their cars through a car wash at a local gas station to test the quality of the build of the cars, while the Stig does the same thing in a Ford Escort hatchback. At the end of this challenge, the British cars make it through near flawlessly, and the Ford hatchback completely lets water in and the inside fills with water!

2:26pm: To end off the episode, the trio, without the Stig, arrives at the Blackpool TVR factory where James’ car was made and here, the trio becomes a little emotional to go into the abandoned TVR factory just like they did with the Jenson factory. At the end of the episode, the hosts decide they where right in saying that the British sports cars are

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definitely in fact very good cars. They finally proved the producers wrong in an instance and beat the Stig in something which is also very rare, and that’s how the episode ends out.

Observation 3: Tis observation took place on Sunday February 2, 2014 from 3-4pm. The actual times recorded here are the viewing times of the episode, not real live event times because they are a longer span of time in real life.

3:01pm: The episode starts off with Jeremy introducing the show by giving a disagreement that himself, Richard, and James had while off air. They argue on what is the best car to take on a tour of Europe to find the best road. Jeremy says it is the Aston Martin DBS, Richard says it’s the Ferrari California, and James says it’s the Lamborghini Gallardo. The producers decide to test their argument the three will take their cars on a tour, not of Europe, but Romania.

3:05pm: The trio is now in Romania and is pleasantly surprised to see a large number of very expensive cars in the waterfront town that they will start in because they originally thought there cars would be too showy for Romania. While they are admiring the cars, the producers present them with their first challenge. They must find a highway built by an old Romanian dictator that is called the best road in the world by many.

3:11pm: The trio decides to get used to their cars by having a “Satellite Navigation Race” to the Romanian People’s Palace which used to be home of the dictator that built the very road that the trio is trying to find for their challenge. Jeremy and Richard both make it to the palace with no problem while James, as usual, gets terribly lost in his Lamborghini.

3:22pm: The episode takes a break from the main challenge in Romania to do a segment of the show called The News, which is just the latest car news on a short five-minute segment. Shortly after this the trio receives a mini challenge in which a group of fake bankers ask Top Gear for suggestions on what cars they should drive with there huge amounts of money. So basically the hosts had to find some pretty high end “business class cars” and then review them as part of this mini challenge. The trio chose a BMW 760 Li and a Mercedes S63 AMG, which are both very luxurious, and very stereotypical business people cars, so to say. To make this mini challenge better, James, the one testing the two cars says the cars are so expensive that he “hires” the Stig, the Top Gear racer, to drive him around in the cars on the Top Gear Test Track to record lap times, like on most episodes.

3:34pm: Now before the main challenge of the episode continues, Jeremy introduces Eric Bana from Finding Nemo to record a lap in the Reasonably Priced Car. He informs Jeremy that he actually is involved in Automobile racing quite often so his lap is expected to be pretty good, even in the rain. He ends up getting the fastest recorded rainy day time in Top Gear history!

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3:44pm: Back in Romania, the trio continues to head west through Romania to get nearer to their destination, the greatest road in the world. Unfortunately they start getting to a part of more rural Romania where things start getting a little bit more confusing, and to make it worse they have James, who is notorious for not knowing directions at all, leading the pack and because of this decision, they quickly get lost in a village, and to make it worse James actually gets into an accident with a local, and as Top Gear tradition dictates, James is left behind by the other two until he finds them later at their meeting point for the night.

3:57pm: To end the episode off, the trio finally after a couple of long days of travel, find the most amazing road in the world which in the end was truly amazing. Jeremy says it’s like putting together every great racetrack in the world into one road! The three finally unleash their cars to what they are really meant to do, and that is drive, FAST. The final part of the episode ends up as it typically does, with Jeremy saying his Aston Martin is far superior to James’ Lamborghini and Richard’s Ferrari, even though in the end, especially on the world’s greatest road, all three cars where fantastic which was agreed on by all three hosts.

Interview 1: -I’ve chosen to conduct my first interview with Jeremy Clarkson, one of the three main hosts of Top Gear, and he kind of acts like the ringleader of the hosts. Due to the fact that my observations of my figured world are done through watching episodes of Top Gear, my interview with Jeremy Clarkson has questions that would make sense to ask him and they have fabricated answers based on how he really responds to things like this on the show and in other interviews with different questions.

1. Me: Mr. Clarkson, explain to me what led you to take the job as one of the hosts on Top Gear?

Clarkson: Well, as I was already a writer and journalist centered around cars and how they work, when BBC offered me the spot on a new television show in which all we do is drive huge numbers of cars and analyze each one while also having a good time, I couldn’t pass it up, it sounded like a job I had in my dreams!2. Me: Mr. Clarkson, can you tell me about how Top Gear has become such a

successful show since it was first aired on BBC, because now as it stands, it’s the most popular show on the network!

Clarkson: Honestly when we first started filming the show, we found it very difficult to think the show wouldn’t succeed. We figured for fellow car enthusiasts, who wouldn’t enjoy a show where all we do is drive various cars, interview celebrities, and add humor to the whole picture. With the combination of the efforts by Richard, James, myself, and the always lovely producers, the show has only gained popularity

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as new seasons are released, and its honestly remarkable to see how the show has grown.3. Me: How do you feel about the crazy challenges and adventures that the

producers give Richard, James, and yourself? Clarkson: As incredibly ridiculous as some of the challenges are that the producers give to us like when we where forced to travel across the salt plains in Africa in a car that we had to buy for less than 1000 pounds, the journeys that Hammond (Richard), James, and I have gone on in this show are literally fantastic. I’m sure Hammond and

James think just as I do when I say I would have never thought I would be able to visit some of the places that I have visited on Top Gear, not to mention drive in these

places in different cars, like when we actually had to travel to the North Pole in our large Toyota trucks or when we drove through the rain forest in our second hand SUVs. 4. Me: Mr. Clarkson, do you feel that yourself and your colleagues achieve your

goal to entertain and inform the Top Gear viewers every episode with all of the interesting things you do with some pretty already interesting cars?

Clarkson: I feel that if you are a viewer to Top Gear, and have just the slightest interest or even curiosity in cars, the efforts by Richard, James, myself, and yes even the producers, goes pretty far lengths. Like you mentioned, we do pretty “interesting” at best things on the show and to even the average person, the things that we do and a

lot of the cars that we do them with, is quite amazing, and that’s a big deal. The challenges are often very humorous and a bit ridiculous but the main thing for us and

a lot of our viewers as car enthusiasts is that we give a bird’s eye view of many cars that many people viewing the show and even us, never really get to experience and enjoy in everyday life, it’s a great way to show appreciation for such incredible cars.

5. Me: Mr. Clarkson, tell me about you and your colleagues experience on your challenge where you had to travel from Iraq to Jerusalem as wise men?

Clarkson: That journey in the Middle East was by far one of the most interesting and at the same time most terrifying experiences we ever endured on Top Gear. Going through the war zones that the producers put us through was absolutely terrifying but I will admit some of the scenery that my colleagues and I saw on that journey are some of the more beautiful we have ever seen, not to mention when we actually got on roads where we weren’t worried about land mines, we where really able to enjoy our cars on this journey!

Interview 2: I’ve chosen to conduct my second interview on Richard Hammond, another one of the three main hosts of Top Gear. Like the interview with Jeremy, due to the fact that I actually can’t meet Richard, the answers and questions ARE FABRICATED to be similar to how he would respond.

1. Me: Mr. Hammond, how do you feel about working with Jeremy Clarkson and James May on this show?

Hammond: Working on Top Gear with these blokes is truly one of the greater things I do in my life. With Jeremy and James things are always new and always exciting and entertaining and it’s a pleasure working with them!

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2. Me: Mr. Hammond what do you think about the challenges the producers provide you guys on the show?

Hammond: Well, the producers do their job, ill give them that! They have always managed to find new ways each and every episode to absolutely torture us, but with that come entertainment for the audience, which is for sure the ultimate goal of the program! I cant lie though in saying that some challenges actually are very life changing for the better, going to places I would never think id see!3. Me: Mr. Hammond, I have to know, what do you think is the most difficult

challenge ever presented to you guys on the show?Hammond: Hmm, I would probably have to say that the most difficult challenge ever presented to us is when we had to build our own caravans (mobile home.) I remember I chose to use a Toyota Land Cruiser and I built a magnificent creation and I remember as soon as we arrived at the camp site, my entire caravan fell apart due to wind, and then to top it off, the caravan caught on fire the next morning and I remember that Jeremy’s caravan actually ended up rolling off of a cliff! It was a very difficult challenge for all of us.4. Me: My final question for you Richard, is what has been the most memorable

challenge or experience on the show?Hammond: I would have to say that the most memorable challenge on Top Gear has to be when we had to take 3 used station wagons from Britain to Africa to try and find the source of the Nile River. This experience was incredible because not only did we bond more with our cars more than ever, but also we saw sights in Africa that we, or at least me, will never forget. Africa is truly incredible.

Interview 3: My third and final interview is with James May, the third and final host of the Top Gear trio. Like the other two interviews, all questions and answers in this interview ARE FABRICATED based on what James May would normally say since I could not actually meet and interview him.

1. Me: Mr. May, how do you feel about your co-hosts Richard and Jeremy referring to you as “Mr. Slow” on Top Gear?

May: You know, over the years of doing this show, I have come to expect nothing less from my colleagues. Jeremy is a bumbling idiot and Hammond is just a know it all but you know what aside from this, being “Mr. Slow” just isn’t accurate in any way. We all know good and well Clarkson is just a pedal to the metal kind of guy that doesn’t care about thinking and Hammond quite honestly is just a slower version of Jeremy! I use my brain when driving which to them is being “slow.”2. Me: Mr. May, do you feel that the challenges your colleagues and yourself

receive from the producers are among some of the more exciting challenges on any car show?

May: Oh without a doubt, that’s the case. When you see any other car show besides Top Gear, you just don’t get the excitement and the huge amounts of entertainment that you get from our show. The producers, as my colleagues would agree, are complete nimrods but they do a very good job of meeting Top Gear’s goal, and that’s to entertain while also educating the viewers of the cars we use on the show.

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3. Me: Mr. May, what do you personally feel is the best car that has ever been featured on Top Gear?

May: In my honest opinion, of all of the cars that have ever been featured on Top Gear, my favorite car has to be the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. I say this because this is not only a car, driving it alone is truly a remarkable experience. It is unlike any other car in the world, and being the fastest car in the world, it was truly an honor to drive that car around. 4. Me: Mr. May, tell me about one of the more difficult challenges that you have

been given on Top Gear.May: Honestly it has to be the challenge from season 13 where Clarkson and I where told by the producers to help assist Volkswagen in creating an ad for their new diesel car. You would think things like driving through the rain forest in an old SUV or driving through Iraq in a convertible would be a little bit more difficult, but no, trying to get Clarkson and I to agree on ideas for the prefect car advertisement proved to be quite difficult. I would always take the more subtle approaches to the ad, while the oh so brilliant Jeremy decided to take approaches with explosives and things along that line. 5. Me: My final question for you Mr. May is one I asked your colleagues as well,

tell me about your most memorable experience in any Top Gear challenge.May: Wow, that is a good one. I would probably have to say my most memorable experience on Top Gear is at the end of season 20 where we went to pretty much every single British automobile assembly plant left in modern Britain and asked them all to bring one of their products to the capital building in London. That was truly remarkable, seeing everything Britain has to offer in the modern car world.

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