Little did Tanner know that taking a job parking cars after leaving university would lead to driving them as Keanu Reeves' stunt-double, or racing them for McLaren.

Tanner has led an incredible life, not only as a championship-winning racing driver, but also as a word record holder, a stunt driver and a presenter on the American Top Gear, but where did it all begin?

We spoke to the three-time U.S. rallycross champion and asked him to pick out three key moments that have gotten him to where he is today.

Getting suspended from university

These moments all snowball, really, and each one is related in some way. Getting suspended from university in my first year forced me to go out and get a job parking cars, and that then led me to meet an inventor who created amusement rides.

His name was Bill Kitchen and meeting him infected me with the idea of entrepreneurship and chasing my dreams. Bill gave me this contagious idea of taking my biggest passion and turning it into a profession.

Getting a bird's eye view of a racetrack

I saw a racetrack from an aeroplane, and it was incredible, and because of that, I then got a job at a winter driving school in Steamboat, Colorado. While there, I learned to talk about cars and learned the nuances of car control, while getting more seat time than I could have imagined on a track.

It was while working that job that I learned to put together everything I loved about biology and physiology with driving. It was where I became a student of driving, which is the same as becoming a student of how the human mind works.

When you get to the narrow grain of any subject that has to do with anything we're not wired to do, you are a study of the human brain because you're replacing natural instinct with proper technique. The instinct will always be there and will always try to come to the surface, and you will always have to try to resist your natural instincts.

This job is where I learned and felt that for the first time. It is also where I learned how to talk about it, which led to my work on TV shows, such as Top Gear.

Top Gear

Working on the US Top Gear was about learning to have fun, not just on camera, but to have fun with cars, period. It was all about realising that driving is fun. It should always be fun. Yes, there is competitive racing, with results and pressures, but the bottom line is that driving should always be about the fun. I feel very fortunate to be a racer who has experienced that fun side of driving to the extreme through TV shows like Top Gear. Top Gear is literally this show where people sit in cubicles coming up with fun things for you to do with cars.

Some drivers literally just do this for a job, and to get a result - they like to be good, but they would rather not drive outside of that. Whereas I've always been the type to make car noises in the grocery store. I will be that guy who is taking a proper line from rows three to four in the grocery store with my shopping cart.

I've always been about the driving. I love everything that it has to offer, and Top Gear was something that taught me that.

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