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[ The challenge and teams | Result | Bakewells' diary | Atoms' diary | Science | Related links ]
Mystery guests
One of the things I have never understood about Scrapheap is the childlike delight the researchers take in saying, 'We're not going to tell you' to almost every question asked. I can understand this for finding out what was going to be built but all we wanted to know was who our opposition was. Then without fanfare, in wandered the Bakewell Puddings.
If you have a look through all the previous episodes, you begin to see a certain look among Scrapheap contestants. Larger than average, usually bald or shaved head with a goatee beard. Charlie, Steve and I could have been brothers separated at birth.
The Bakewell Puddings, three motorbike nuts from Derbyshire, were another team who knew what they were talking about but this lot didn't mess around with engines for a job, they did it for fun, which made them doubly dangerous.
We then met our expert Jim and the rest of the night was about drinking.
What's my line?
We met the bus in the morning and were taken to the heap. It was straight into the green room to get our overalls and mics on. The first competition of the day then took place, who could eat the most bacon rolls and sandwiches. It was between Charlie and I – I was beaten by a floury bacon and black pudding roll.
The one thing you never realise from the television is how much sitting around doing nothing there is. Before you go on set, you have to wait in the green room whilst Rob and Lisa film the introduction. Then there are parts where you are having a craic with the guys and one of the cameramen stops and asks you to repeat whatever you just said so he can get it on film. Do you know how difficult it is to say the same thing twice without sounding really lame? It's like explaining a dirty punchline to your granny.
Then came the challenge. We were to build a spy car. As with the last time, we had no idea what they were on about until the series producer, Bill Hobbins, explained what was going on. We had to build a car that could go under obstacles of two feet, go over obstacles of two feet, reverse and turn on a sixpence.
The great antiques hunt
Then to the drawing board. Jim came up with something on a toy train principle, where a motor trolley would pull the rest of us along on three other trolleys. But that was shot down in flames. We then went through the idea of a three-trolley push-me-pull-you car, where there was a central motor unit, with a steering buggy at either end. Finally, we settled on a motor and trailer with one driver and one to steer the trailer, with the other two along for the ride.
Jimmy and David were then sent out into the heap to find a sit-on lawn mower or small motorbike, some small wheels and enough metal to make a trailer. Jim and I got the build area ready and then sat around … and sat around … and sat around. I kept calling the guys on the walkie-talkies but all I was getting was, 'Nope, found nothing'.
After an hour of nothing, David shouts he thinks he's found something, in a bad state, but it's the best there is and they can't move it. Jim and I got permission to go into the heap. To say this thing was in a bad state was an understatement, as David said, it looked like it had been left behind on the beaches at Dunkirk. There had to be something else, Jim and I went back to the yard and told the other two to keep on searching.
David then had what can be best described as a moment of divine inspiration. Clambering over the yard, he spied a rotavator buried under some junk. But as he got closer to it, he saw that buried right behind it was a sit-on lawn mower, in almost perfect condition. The cameraman who was following him said that David did the world's largest double-take as it slowly dawned on him that this is what we had sent him out to find an hour and a half ago.
The guys brought the tractor up to the yard and I started working on building a tow mechanism on the back of the tractor, Jimmy and David started doing the reclining chairs that we would sit on and building the frame of the trailer.
Child's play
The guys next door had cut two cars in half, had most of the spare engines from the heap in their workshop and were gas cutting like mad. We, by contrast, were building a kiddie's go-cart and trailer. It was about then that Lisa came and did one of her chats and we had to explain what we were doing. We were turning Scrapheap into a farce, and the look of incredulity on Lisa's face when we explained the rear trailer would be steered with a piece of string, no linkages, hydraulics, just a bit of blue rope.
Three hours left we had almost finished and we'd been told to slow down. Jimmy then went to play with the tractor, as he gets bored if he can't play with motors. This is when David and I realised that Jim and Jimmy were in fact aliens talking in a completely different language about the engine. We both know engines (ish) but within a couple of minutes, they had the governor off and flames coming out of the exhaust with the backfire. They both tinkered and got as much as they could out of the little 8hp engine.
David and I finished off the trailer, with David preparing the bits of metal for me to weld them on. This is where David came close to going down in the Scrapheap annals for the biggest hissy fit ever. Whilst preparing a big piece of C section for welding, he'd clamp it in the vice, but because the angles weren't quite 90 degrees, every time he touched the grinder to it, it would fall out. This happened at least 10 times. I came along and did the vice up as tight as I could but it fell out again.
By this time, David's muttering to himself, his left eye is twitching uncontrollably, and all the cameras have realised what is going to happen, and are focused only on him increasing his pressure. I then got to him just as the piece of metal was about to be flung across the yard and made him go and have a cup of coffee.
Half an hour later, we had finished, Jimmy had driven the tractor round the yard and into the heap, David and I were sitting on the trailer waiting for the clock to tick down. Boy, were we confident? The simplest design, few moving parts and the opposition's looked liked it needed a lot of tinkering. 'What could go wrong?', I asked. As it happened, everything.
Superheroes and superchargers
We had discovered that we were next to the same race track where Top Gear is filmed and sitting on the track was the brand new McLaren Mercedes. David also found out that the new Batman movie was being filmed in the next hangar and he actually managed to get on the set and took great pleasure in telling everyone he sat on Katie Holmes' bed.
The Bakewells started and even though we could not see them, we could hear their motor and work out roughly where it was in the warehouse. Then we heard Bill's voice come over a radio, 'Stop, they have a problem'. After another long wait, Bill came round the corner and explained that the Bakewells' clutch cable had snapped and asked us if we would let them restart with a two-minute penalty? We reckon they'd never be able to catch us if we had a two-minute head start. So while they made repairs, we set about posting a quick time.
The plan was for Jimmy to drive, and me to steer the rear trailer with Jim and David operating the back of the chair to allow us to lie down as we went under the obstacles.
At the start line, Lisa waved the start flag and we were off, or rather, no we weren't. We had to go under an obstacle on the start line, Jimmy got on to the side pod but his weight pulled the tractor over, lifting a wheel off the ground. This meant the wheel off the ground just spun. At this point I started swearing. Boy, was I angry. Everything should have been so smooth but we were going nowhere with the clock ticking. Jim then got off his seat, leaned across the tow bar and gripped the spinning back wheel in his hand, we had drive again. Then the wheels fell off the trolley, literally.
As we approached the bar, David had to contend with the lean-back mechanism on his own. He still wasn't down and we were at the bar, I then knocked him backwards which sent him flying half off the seat, banging his head off the ground. Jimmy had then got back on the tractor, accelerating away with David trying to pull himself up on my arm. I'm shouting at David to get up but he says he can't, we're going to fast. Then the trailer steering locked, this cracked the bones in my hand as the rope tightened, folding the rubber wheel almost off its rim. I'm swearing for everything to stop and shouting at Jimmy. We then start again through the chicane, no problems.
Then, under the lorry, wheel spins again, Jim grabs the wheel and we get under the lorry. Then into the warehouse. Sharp left turn and under the laser. We got under the laser and the wheels spin again, but this time Jim couldn't get any grip on the painted floor and I'm shouting at everyone, 'Take the penalty'. Jimmy then got back on top of the tractor and it drives off smoothly again. Jim then had to get off the tractor and cancel an alarm button. Then we picked up the top secret briefcase with no problems and reversed out of the tunnel.
Now this is the bit I like, the judge had gone against us in the previous round and we found that this one had gone against us this time, too. He said we would never reverse properly with our tow mechanism, but everything else should be okay. Well it turned out we did everything else wrong and got the reverse out of the tunnel perfectly.
We got round the rest of the course until we reached the dreaded hump where it all went wrong. We took the 20-second penalty, got round the hump and out of the warehouse, under the lorry and out through the chicane.
We were done and we were dejected, if it could have gone wrong, it did. Lisa then came up and did her piece. We were then escorted away as we weren't allowed to see the other team's run. David and I had an argument about who did what wrong while Jimmy sat there, saying, 'I don't know why you guys get wound up, it's only a TV show'.
Full stop
So we listened to the Bakewells start off again and they were really moving quick. We heard them move through the building to the hump, with about five minutes gone. Next we heard the engine over-revving and then silence. Over the radio, Ben said, 'Stop there. It's terminal.'
Coming into the warehouse, we knew we had won and wanted to dance around but then we saw the looks on the other guys' faces. They were gutted. We realised that to lose in that way, when you'd spent so much time on something and it had just broken, had to be hard to take. We lined up, cameras rolling, then Lisa announced we had won, completing the course in 11 minutes, 40 seconds. If the guys had just got over the hump, they would have won, even with the two-minute penalty.
Neither team wanted to win or lose in that way. It was a win, but a win by default.
I'd like to thank the backstage guys again, they're always there for us, and Jim, who lived up to the title of expert and got the three clowns through another round.
Ali Day