You might want to check out this month’s Clarkson article in Top Gear magazine. Very interesting read on the future direction of Top Gear, when it possibly will be back, and other things such as Top Gear forums like this one.

For those who can’t wait another 8.25 hours, here’s the James May Top Gear trailer in high quality, once again thanks to danbarnesdavies.

We also have a high quality version of the Clarkson trailer that was previously posted in poor YouTube quality.

You can also download both trailers if you wish.

Someone was kind enough to upload the following video to YouTube. It’s been squished to the wrong proportions by YouTube and is kinda crap quality, but it’s the only rips we can find of the other commercials that are airing for the show, so take it or leave it. ;)

Clarkson and May have both written new articles at TopGear.com about Hammond. Both are very excellent reads and Clarkson even mentions some of the stuff coming up in this new season:

And in the series currently sitting on the shelves waiting for Richard to be better, we have tested tractors, built our own stretched limos, and repaired a stretch of road in Warwickshire.

Clarkson’s article can be found here and May’s article can be found here. I recommend you read both.

James May broke his wrist during a recent presentation of MPH’06 (a live Top Gear of sorts set on a stage). He wrote about it in an article in today’s Telegraph:

James May, the other bloke off Top Gear and co-host of this year’s MPH ‘06 live motoring theatre, was last night said to be “severely hacked off” in his local pub after sustaining a suspected fractured wrist in a high-speed supermarket trolley crash.

May, 43, was performing a live stunt for the MPH extravaganza, billed as “human 10-pin bowling”. In this, he attempted to guide a modified shopping trolley, fitted with rudimentary steering, into 10 giant rubber skittles on the opposite side of the stage after being propelled by his co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson, driving a low-powered G-Wiz electric city car.

However, in what the show’s script described as a “humorous twist”, and supposedly unbeknown to May, the G-Wiz was replaced at the last moment with a 480bhp Ford Shelby Mustang. Members of the audience, many of whom filmed the tragedy on mobile phone cameras, have reported that the trolley reached a speed of “almost 20mph” before it struck the skittles and toppled sideways in a rather pathetic way.

The best part of the article though is the Hammond bit:

Richard Hammond, who was involved in a similar accident involving a jet-powered trolley some weeks ago, and who claimed to present the popular Sunday-night TV show Songs of Praise with May and Clarkson, told reporters: “Riding around in a supermarket trolley is the sort of thing that drunken 22-year-old men on a stag night would do. Sadly, it’s the sort of thing we would do as well.” Half an hour later, he told them the same thing again.

However, within minutes of that paragraph being written, the real Richard Hammond rang this column and said, “I’ve heard about your trolley crash. That’s pathetic. I hope you’re not going to use it as an excuse to make some more cheap gags about my short-term memory loss, because it’s been greatly exaggerated and anyway, I’m better now.” Even after several hours he had not rung to repeat himself, so he might have a point, unless he simply forgot to call back.

Man I love James May.

Jay Leno has an article in the Times Online about Richard Hammond and Top Gear. Great read.

As with many people passionate about cars, I got thinking after Richard Hammond’s accident — on a number of levels. I hear there is talk about Top Gear getting toned down. That would be a shame.

Top Gear is the best motoring programme in the world. It’s classic British spirit with a healthy dose of civil disobedience, and that makes for a healthy atmosphere.

It’s been mentioned here and there for a while now that Richard would hopefully be ready to start filming again this January, but that had yet to be confirmed, that is until now. Check out this interview with Jeremy Clarkson at MPH ‘06 care of the BBC:

Jeremy Clarkson has said his Top Gear co-star Richard Hammond is “completely fixed” after his high speed crash while filming for the show last month.

“He’s completely fixed after his minor crash… the only thing that’s really breaking his heart is he has chipped one of his whitened teeth,” he said.

Clarkson, speaking at the Motor Show in Birmingham, said there were no plans to change Top Gear following the incident.

He said senior people at the BBC told him “you carry on, do what you do”.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6088264.stm

The Times Online has an article from last Sunday (I apparently missed it) by Jeremy Clarkson and how blame is going around and that people are saying someone’s “head has to roll”. A very interesting read and here’s a few samples of the article if you don’t want to read the whole thing:

It therefore seems likely that soon, in a matter of weeks maybe, the Hamster will be back on his feet and ready to start work. The question is: will he have a show to go back to?

As I write, swarms of bureaucratic bluebottles are nibbling away at the crash site on a York airfield, desperately trying to find some reason why Top Gear should be banished from the screens.

Well, contrary to reports that he was put there by ratings-hungry producers, it was his idea. He wanted to know what it would be like to go really fast. And I know exactly why.

If he’d been interested in flowers and vegetables since a young age, he might very well now be standing in a pair of wellingtons on Gardeners’ World, talking about compost. But he isn’t interested in compost — he’s interested in speed.

Some people are born with a physical need to take risks. Steve Irwin was one. Christopher Columbus was another. And Ellen MacArthur is a classic case in point too. Telling her to stop sailing round the world is as daft as telling a black person to be white, or a blind person to look where they’re going.

But of course, we have a whole industry nowadays designed to do just that. To ensure that nobody ever falls over, that nobody ever hurts themselves, that nobody ever dies. And that if someone does, then the system must have failed and a head must roll…

How can this be a problem for anyone other than Mrs Hammond and their children? Because he crashed and tied up the emergency services? Oh come on. Are we to tell DIY enthusiasts who fall off a stepladder that no ambulance will be forthcoming because they should have called in a professional plumber? Perhaps you might argue that Hammond is setting a bad example and that kids might try to copy him. What? In their jet cars? On their airfields?

In the last series, while attempting to build an entire car from scratch in one day, the nearly completed project fell from its stands onto the floor.

“Who’s fault was that?” I barked.

“Oh for God’s sake, how’s that going to help?” said Hammond.

He’s right. How can blaming someone help? We just need to make sure the little guy keeps getting better and that when he does, he can get back in a car, get back into Top Gear, and go 316mph.

Get well soon, Hammond. We all miss you greatly.

From The Sun Online:

[...] he looked across at James May and said: “Hello C**k face.”

The idea to drive a jet car actually came from Hammond. He skedaddled into the office one day and, bubbling with his trademark enthusiasm, said: “Hey, why don’t we go somewhere and drive really fast? I don’t mean supercar fast. I mean REALLY fast.”

From what I understand, you sit there, you push a lever to light the afterburner and you then push another to shut off the fuel supply — it runs on heating oil — and deploy the parachutes. A hamster could do it. In fact, a hamster did.

After the crash:

“I want to do a piece to camera”, he told the crew. He even fought the ambulancemen, who said he couldn’t. No surprises there. Richard likes fighting. He does it a lot.

Clarkson also replies to the accusations that the show’s producers pushed them to do these kinda stunts. A very good read.