Talk:Ben Collins (racing driver)

Miscellaneous Top Gear involvement speculation

1. 1. Actaully been revealed today that the current Stig is Ben collins.. So it is relevent ## —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.109.2.76 (talk) 20:06, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• "It is believed he is the Stig" - honestly, what place does a statement like that have in an encyclopaedia? Who believes it? Certainly it's a very small minority - the vast majority of people either do not know with any significant degree of certainty, or know nothing whatsoever about the matter. You know what, also, "it is believed" that the world is secretly run by shape-shifting alien Reptilians, but we don't give credence to such nonsense, let alone write it in a book of facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.203.147 (talk)

I've re-re-re-re-removed variations on this over time. You are correct that such (unreferenced) speculation is not appropriate. I have now added an inline comment to the article, in an attempt to at least deter such (good faith) additions:

<!--
* STOP: Everything on Wikipedia must have a reference.
* Wikipedia is WP:NOT a place for speculation.
* DO NOT add something here without a reference from a reputable organisation (eg. BBC News).
* Thank you
-->

We'll have to see whether it makes a difference. Previously this article was nominated for Semi-Protection, but declined. In the mean-time, remember that Wikipedia is editable—if you see dubious unreferenced material or content that does not meet the aims of Wikipedia, please remove it. On a previous hunt, it was not possible to find any events or reference sources (from eg. BBC News) beyond those already listed. —Sladen (talk) 13:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

While Wikipedia does not report unverified rumour, what IS fact is that Collins is widely rumoured to be The Stig. The words "Ben Collins is rumoured to be The Stig on BBC's Top Gear TV programme. The BBC has never confirmed this." CAN be backed up by verifiable references, if you know what I mean. It would also stop re-versioning every five minutes. Duckorange (talk) 16:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

"Whil[st] Wikipedia does not report unverified rumour...", but you then appear to go on to suggest that Wikipedia should (as an exception in this case) ...report on unverified rumour. Was this your intention? —Sladen (talk) 17:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm somewhat unsettled by the presentation of Ben Collins being the Stig, as reported by the Telegraph. I think until a more citeable source is presented, it would be irresponsible to blindly report this news article's report as fact. I think it would be fair to state that the Daily Telegraph has reported that people claim him to be the Stig, but taking hearsay as fact seems inappropriate. As an analogy, imagine someone editing wikipedia to claim global warming is definitively a myth (or definitively a fact) simply because someone has reported evidence to support it. I think we need to state the evidence and the report themselves, not what they imply. --Ho0ber (talk) 17:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree - At least writing of the report would be appropriate - perhaps as opposed to a full out claim that he IS the Stig. (at least until more sources surface). Nicholas SL Smith^chatter 18:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

News update, released on bbc news as follows:

The identity of The Stig, the unknown driver who tests high performance cars on Top Gear, has apparently been revealed.

Several papers named the mysterious driver as Ben Collins.

Collins, who began racing professionally in 1994, was a stunt driver in the James Bond movie Quantum Of Solace and has appeared as himself on Top Gear a number of times.

The BBC has refused to confirm or deny whether Collins is The Stig.

A similar article proves that Collins is the stig, and his identify was revealed when he revealed that fact to commision art commemerating his work on Top Gear. Full article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4286448/Who-is-the-Stig-The-answer.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luckrider7 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

"We never comment on speculation as to whom or what The Stig is" said a spokesperson in a statement.

Perry McCarthy, a former Formula 1 driver, used to be The Stig.

However, he was 'killed off' when he revealed his identity in his 2002 autobiography.

There's been no comment from Collins so far on his reported alter-ego - so Newsbeat won't be spoiling the surprise by putting his picture up just yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reaxcory (talk • contribs) 22:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to add more fuel to the fire, from a bit closer to home... i've ended up here from a speculative search from something that seemed a bit over familiar on the T&Cs for TG/Nissan's "Traitors" competition (http://traitors.topgear.com/terms/)... look for Ben's name inamongst it all. The prize involves a trackday with a certain behelmeted demigod. Hmmm...! 77.102.101.220 (talk) 23:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The stig seems to have quit in the middle of the recording of Season 14 episode 7 when he received the golden cock award.

Ben Collins on Veoh

I realised I had posted a clip of British F3 at Castle Coombe which kicks off with the crash BC enjoyed so you can see and hear him. Nice lad. See:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v333151KPTxzK8c

Royzee (talk) 00:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Re-re-requested on 2008-07-28 because of the background IP vandalism. It's been turned down again. *sigh*. —Sladen (talk) 21:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Who/what is/are AQA?

The article states:

Per AQA, Ben Collins is the Stig, replacing Perry McCarthy.

yet there's no proper citation and not even any indication of who/what AQA might be. Given the interest in the Stig's identity, that needs fixing ASAP (with a full inline citation), otherwise I don't think we can justify the line's inclusion in the article. Loganberry (Talk) 20:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a biography of a living-person (see WP:BLP), best to use rollback/undo directly. (Now done). —Sladen (talk) 21:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

AQA = Any Question Answered, a text trivia service. I can't comment on the quality or accuracy of their answers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.56.17.193 (talk) 05:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

it is also said that he is behind the mask os the, Stig, from the motoring bbc program, TopGear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.99.213.146 (talk) 18:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes; and the article's references appear to concur (see Ben Collins (driver)#Regular role). —Sladen (talk) 03:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia NL

nl:Ben Collins

Can anyone put this in the article? Thanks. 62.234.145.224 (talk) 09:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for the suggestion! —Sladen (talk) 09:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

more gossip

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/entertainment/newsid_7842000/7842682.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.164.24 (talk) 22:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that BBC Newsbeat piece mentions anything that isn't already in the article; is there is a particular point you were wanted highlighted? —Sladen (talk) 22:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308275/Ben-Collins-The-Stig-Top-Gear-driver-revealed-SAS-hero.html It says Collins was in the British Army, but more specifically an instructor in the SAS. Worth a mention? DarkMithras —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.246.254 (talk) 18:48, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Ascari Formula One?

There is no such Formula Onea team called Ascari. Im not sure why it says he tested for the Ascari F1 team in 2006, Ascari is a small manufacturer and GT team that owns a 1996 Benetton, that they hire out for track days. Since he worked for Ascari perhaps he had a shot in it, but a track day in a 15 year old F1 car is not an F1 test. You can pay to drive this car at Ascari's facility. --Arrows98 (talk) 03:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Rename

Why the rename? Isn't Collins best known as a stunt driver rather than as a racing driver? --Falcadore (talk) 23:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Allegations

Allegations is a really bad title choice for that section, it suggest some sense of 'wrongdoing'. I'm not sure controversy is perfect, because much of it is for dramatic purposes but is much better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.249.223.220 (talk) 11:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I think "Allegations" was chosen several years ago because it was indefinite. —Sladen (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

could someone with an understanding of the situation and the players rewrite the whole thing so that it's not so bloody ambiguous? it's a mess. and the date in the autobiography sentence at the end is not likely correct. 2008? -72.208.145.184 (talk) 14:56, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The "September 2008" date appears to match the reference in question[1] ("to make the prints last September.") with that article itself dating from 6 January 2009. —Sladen (talk) 00:31, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Headers

The headers in this article are utterly sub-standard. I've tried to correct this twice [2][3] and been reverted twice. I would like to know the rationale behind not making it clear in the headers that there is a substantial separate section about his appearances as himself on TG, why they are being made to be completely vague and uninformative by being restricted to one or two words only (compare for example just 'The Stig' to 'Stig identity speculation'), and why TG is not considered a top level header, making the whole article and TOC look ridiculously unbalanced, seeing as it is the biggest section overall. Frankly, if you have to have read the entire article before the header structure makes any sense, then they are useless. To quote WP:HEADER: "Headings help clarify articles...headings in themselves introduce information and let the reader know what subtopics will be presented". And it contains no set limit on number of words either, for obvious reasons. MickMacNee (talk) 13:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree that the article needs comprehensively adjusting based on recent revelations, but to achieve that requires more than merely moving content around or re-changing sub-headings names. It is correct that on two occasions you have done this, and I thank you for your enthusiasm. Those are also the only two edits you have made in the entire history of the article. Collins appearing on Top Gear is part of his work (as a contracting individual) and is introduced as such. It is logical that the full explanation for his (former) role as a precision driver on Top Gear comes under the sub-heading introducing it. Adding completely empty extraneous sub-headings does not help either; far from making the ToC look unbalanced, it keeps it logical, organised and uncluttered and those empty headings are against the WP:MOS. If we moved every sub-heading with more than a single paragraph to the top-level we would have a very flat outline, perfectly balanced, but perfectly useless. Once again, thank you for your interest, please try to make some useful, constructive changes rather than rocking up and shuffling the deck chairs. If you're not sure if a change is likely to be useful, why not open a discussion here on the Talk: page first? —Sladen (talk) 22:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not interested thanks, and I don't need your thanks for bothering to try and fix this article. I'm a Wikipedia veteran of many years and many thousands of edits experience over many hundreds of articles, as I thought you were too, until I saw this post. Your explanations for these deficient headers still make absolutely no sense to me, and yes, I say that knowing exactly what the article says, I can read, and I'm not in the habit of shifting sections around without knowing what the fuck I'm moving. The article is still completely lacking and uninformative against WP:HEADER as far as I'm concerned, and the view of a newcomer to the article is far more valuable in that regard than someone who is displaying disturbing levels of ownership here, having apparently spent enough time patrolling it against interlopers to not need to use the TOC at all. Nope, I'm going to leave this one to rot for now, I'm not touching it with you acting like this, especially while you make vague waves to the MoS which I'm pretty sure are just made up. If the MoS bars straight L2>L3 progression, which you seem to think is an 'empty section', that's news to me frankly. Similarly for this supposed ban on top level sections of the size of the former section Other Work, even though most of it has nothing to do with Top Gear. If I do come back, I'll be ripping it up and starting again from the top. And no, I won't be asking for permission on the talk page. For the record, I'm pretty bloody sure my changes are usefull and valid, but that's rather irrelevent when they have to be approved by a single gate keeper isn't it? MickMacNee (talk) 23:47, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Editnotice

Would there be any objection to getting the editnotice removed? It was added in September 2010, just after the news that Collins was The Stig broke and should be unnecessary now. January (talk) 10:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Now removed. January (talk) 16:33, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Personal Life

The personal life section states that as of 2010 Collins lives in Bristol with his wife and three children. The cited Telegraph article from 2010, however, only states he lives in Bristol. It doesn't mention anything about his wife or children. A correction would be much appreciated. 129.15.64.252 (talk) 16:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for raising it! —Sladen (talk) 19:05, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Grand Tour

Richard Hammond posted a video on his YouTube channel featuring Ben Collins. It appears to be a cut from Clarkson, Hammond and May live (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/top-gear/top-gear-team-reunite/), but it lead to speculation of Collins appearing in GT. They also say "back to the arena" at the end. I am removing the Grand Tour reference (copied below) until we have better sources.

===The Grand Tour===

Collins will appear in an episode of the upcoming Amazon series The Grand Tour, reprising his role as Clarkson, Hammond, and May's team racing driver.

TheGuyOfDoom (talk) 22:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

This edit is also relevant https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ben_Collins_(racing_driver)&diff=prev&oldid=729690705 --TheGuyOfDoom (talk) 22:37, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

References

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