Green Car Challenge

Jay Leno: Hi! I am Jay Leno on the set of my new show it's the, modestly call The Jay Leno Show here in the States. We've built the race track behind the studio, we have this Ford Focus. It's one of the European rally car and Ford has converted it to an electric drive train. We will going to have celebrities, drive around the track and see who is the fastest screen celebrity is. I even got a proper English man to help me, Justin Bell. Justin how are you? Justin Bell: I am fine. Jay Leno: You all know Justin's credits, you have to go. Well you can go ahead with some of your credits, go ahead give us some -- Justin Bell: Le Mans, the 24 hour winner, FIA GT and the World Championship for Dodge. Jay Leno: That's right. Justin Bell: So which led me, preferably to 600 Horse Power to this. Jay Leno: Been electric car, it's got a lot of Torque and I wouldn't say it's probably as fast as the gas equivalents around this short course because of the low end torque. So it will go pretty quickly. Our track is only 1100 feet, so we do two laps so it's 2200 feet, but it's not quite finish, what we are doing. Because it's a green car challenge, there will be certain obstacles that you that you don't have in the European version, like if you hit Al Gore, you will lose points. Before I go on the track, let's have a quick look at the car. It appears to be a standard Ford Focus but it has the rally suspension system set up in it. Well the first thing you notice, you get in and you pressed the button and you start, you press Power and you don't hear anything because it's electric. You have your energy usage meter right there and the other is Speedometer, no Tachometer, don't need it. And it's usually quiet, I mean it is so quite, in fact all you hear is the tyre screeching. But, this I think is the future and I think they will your gas cars for the weekend, you know. And when you commute around London or in the city you use an electric car like this, and look you can actually get away from the police. Oops! Sorry. It's a bit heavier on the back because you are carrying an extra 300 pound worth of battery, and you forget after a while there is no gasoline. Feel like, I am in a Miniature Golf Course with all the greeneries. Tom Cruise call me other day and he said, he wants to have a go, he has to do come in and practice. I said no, no practicing that's cheating. We have Drew Barrymore, I mean whoever you can think of, I think we'll want to do this. The one across being a green car, this way celebrities can save the world and sort of race at the same time. I'll think Cruise will do pretty well. Tom is pretty competitive. So whenever we have something, he always say -- tries a little extra hard to kick my ass. I think we are going to get a lot of athletes as well and athletes being athletes and naturally can usually adapt to this kind of environment pretty quickly. So we'll see, I can't make any actual predictions. Justin Bell: My job is to push them as hard as I can, so they get a little bit on the wall side. But we really do want that to go far, it is a challenge but bit a like other shows where people have been going as fast as they can against the celebrities, that mean this is going to be just as popular. When I go speed in Formula drive car, we are actually limited by a grip coming in and out of the corners. But it's actually fun, because it's electric, it's got tons of torque. And then the real challenge is going to be kind of controlling their egos. Because if their egos get in the way, believe me I have driven with so many sort of wealthy and celebrity people and all they do is kind of get all pumped up. So my prediction is, is that a woman will actually be the best, that we have out here and that'll be kind of cool. Because I think it'll get all the male celebrities warmed up to kind of beat them. So my job is really a glorified fluffer.