To be honest... shit. What the Top Gear guys were doing in this clip is no different from any other game of tweaking your out-group. Here we have people on this show that can afford to occasionally crash very very very expensive cars, driving through one of the poorer parts of the US, waving their Alien Values high. Then when people say "Hey, what the fuck, are you trying to start trouble or something?" they pretend innocence. In an accent that says they're clearly Very Alien. They're mocking a fourth-hand caricature of the South, and are surprised when this offends.

To me, that clip looks no different from that Something Awful guy who snuck into some furry con to plant little flags all around. Hello, I am mocking you, and I am trying to start some shit. They're doing it FOR TEH LULZ and it's no surprise that this sometimes gets reactions larger than they expected.

I wonder if they got releases from that gas station manager, and 'the boys'?