49,000 to visit Top Gear Live

TOP GEAR presenter Richard Hammond once quipped that it does not matter how many chemical companies a man owns, they want to be wowed like a child when it comes to super cars.

There may not have been too many chemical company owners in the RDS last night, but even those of a more vintage age were reduced to staring like a belligerent 12-year-olds at the array of the world’s fastest and most expensive cars.

And that was before they got an up-close and personal view of the live version of what is now one of Ireland’s most popular and unmissable television programmes — even if Jeremy Clarkson is the host.

Top Gear Live will be seen by 49,000 petrol heads over this weekend. If it’s as spectacular as that that the first 5,000-strong crowd were treated to last night, they will feel the €75 entry price is money well spent.

To be fair, it would be hard to go far wrong with a show that features daredevil stunts and cars that can reach 200mph, among them the Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari 599 GTB, the Koenigsegg and Gumpert Apollo.

However, by incorporating the best of the televisual phenomenon into the live event, Clarkson and his colleagues James May and Richard Hammond have been able to add another element to your usual run-of-the-mill stadium show.

On the Top Gear lap, the audience was able to control the car and while it was a bit ropey, hopefully they will have done enough to beat the competition from the shows being held in the 15 countries around the world over the next year.

The stars say every show will be different.

“You can’t possibly predict what is going to happen,” said Clarkson. “If the three of us have a race, you can’t possibly predict if one of us will crash. I drove out of a massive powerslide in Birmingham and found the floor was completely different from the floor in London and nearly got sucked into the audience.”

The audience were also vocal when Clarkson started assigning cars to the “cool wall”.

The presenter has been compared to Marmite — he is either loved or hated and at a press conference at sponsors Brown Thomas store yesterday he was typically controversial.

The crowds descending on the RDS could not park at the site and many had to rely on public transport.

He said: “It is like the sign at Silverstone which says, ‘please drive carefully’. I can only apologise for that. Any one who finds themselves on public transport after the age of 26 must consider themselves a failure.”