Waterboarding is outlawed under the Geneva Convention, but I have discovered a new, road-legal method of extracting information from captured double agents. Squashed in a pointy metal-edged bathtub in the half-crunch position, my pitiful stomach muscles are tensed to the point of collapse. My full body weight is pressed through one of my lower vertebrae, my knees jammed against a fire extinguisher. Jerking and bucking, the bathtub’s many metally edges jab my extremities as a relentless stream of gravelly water slaps across my face. Any second now, my flab-coated abs will give way, and my right foot will flop helplessly against the accelerator, and then I will die.

I am piloting the world’s only road-legal Formula Ford race car across East London on its official pre-Nürburgring shakedown in a vicious rainstorm, and if a secret agent politely asked for my PIN code and bank details, I would squeal like a piggy right now.

Words: Sam Philip

Pics: Lee Brimble

This feature first appeared in Top Gear magazine