by Guy Martin
He came over with his phone to video the action and stood in front of the propeller – it has a full-sized propeller attached – while I was behind the seven-foot-long motor, controlling the throttle.
I got the engine cracked up, flames spitting out of the headers, then gave it a bit more throttle than I’d been allowed when the mechanical limiter was still on it. A second later my heart was in my mouth as the trolley started moving. I killed the ignition, but the propeller was still spinning and the trolley still had its momentum. There was nothing more I could do. Moody jumped out of the way and hid behind a truck that I’d been servicing, swearing loudly, his smartphone now just filming the ground and his trouser leg, as the propeller cut my beautiful hand-built Rourke bicycle in half, chopped a wooden staircase into kindling and chewed a chunk out of a concrete block wall before the propeller stopped spinning. The rubble from the wall damaged the truck I’d been working on. And I think we got away lightly.
I was a nervous wreck for a while after that. I was worried I’d wrecked the ultimate in stationary engines, that wasn’t quite as a stationary as I would have liked it, but after a good look over it, the only damage was some scratched paint on the propeller. It’s some kind of machine that engine.
Since I crashed the Kawasaki AR50 into the Fiat Punto at Barnetby Top, the 1997 accident that started me on my racing career, I hadn’t owned a road legal bike for years. Then I bought the Martek – a turbocharged one-off Suzuki.
I first saw this bike years ago, at my mate’s bike shop, Chris Gunster Motorcycles in Grimsby. I could see how well everything had been made or modified, the engine mountings, the frame and the exhaust … It was in having some work, and even though I hadn’t owned a road bike since I was an apprentice I said, ‘If that ever comes up for sale let me know.’ Gunster told me, ‘Oh that’ll never be sold.’ Then six or seven years later he told me it had come up, but looking nothing like it used to. It had been sprayed with Suzuki blue and white colours and had fluorescent pink wheels and a rats nest wiring loom, but I could see beyond that.
It was running and making decent horsepower, but the work done to finish it off wasn’t up to Martek’s standard. The original builder, Mark Walker, had sold it unfinished and someone else had got it running. I went out for a test-ride and it was the quickest thing I’d ever been on. It made my Fireblade TT Superbike of the time feel like a moped. It was ridiculous. Even off the turbo it felt quicker than my Superbike.
When I bought it, people were surprised what I paid for it (I’m not telling how much), but the work done by Mark Walker and Richard Todd, the other founder of Martek, and the parts they fitted and fabricated themselves were the business. I wanted the whole bike to be the same quality as the best bits of it.
I took the Martek to pieces the first week I had it, which was the back end of 2009 or early 2010, and it was still in pieces in 2014. It doesn’t disappoint me it’s taken this long. It’s been built a few times, but I take it to bits again because I’m not happy with something.
The engine is based on an oil-cooled Suzuki GSX-R1100 and it’s turbocharged. I was going for 500 horsepower until I talked to a turbo expert. I liked the sound of 500 bhp, it’s a nice round number, but I was told that while I could tune this engine to make 500 bhp, one run on the dyno and the gearbox and clutch would be scrap, so now I’m going for a decent 350 horsepower, after which I’ll ride it a bit, then park it up and move on to the next project.
The engine made 320 bhp when I got it, but only on 120-octane fuel. I want a genuine 350 running on pump fuel. Then I plan to use E85, fuel with 85 per cent ethanol. It’s good for getting big power out of turbo engines, but it’s a bit of a journey into the unknown.
The petrol tank has been chopped about to leave room for one of the turbo pipes and now only holds eight litres, so the bike will pass everything but a filling station.
I know the look I want to go for, a modern café racer look. When I’ve finished, it’ll look nothing like the bike I bought. I want it to be a bike that Mark Walker looks at and says, ‘I like that.’
I’ve prepared and built race bikes on and off since I started, but the Martek got me back into owning and working on bikes that are road legal – or kind of road legal. I love the attention to detail that’s needed. You can’t daydream, everything has to be 100 per cent. But I don’t tune as many engines as I used to and I don’t know if I could do it full-time, because everyone wants a million-quid job, but no one wants to pay for it. With a modern Superbike you can’t just do one thing, you have to do the complete engine to make any improvements. It’s an expensive job and no one wants to pay, so I don’t want the hassle. People cut corners, then when it blows up it’s the engine builder’s fault. With the trucks I can say, if you’re not going to do it right I’m not working on it. It keeps things simple.
CHAPTER 19
THE ULSTER
‘There are times when the side of the rear tyre kisses up against the kerb and it’ll cause the bike to wheelie.’
TRUCKS, TELEVISION, MOUNTAIN biking, a lot going on, but I still take racing seriously. It’s not my career – I lasted a morning as a professional racer, remember – but all the races I enter I go out to win. If I don’t win them, it’s not for a lack of effort.
Since the 2011 season I’ve raced for the Northern Ireland-based team TAS Suzuki – first with black Relentless Suzukis in 2011, then the white and blue Tyco-sponsored bikes. They’ve all be run by the father and son outfit of Philip and Hector Neill. TAS stands for Temple Auto Salvage, the family’s original business. Hector has sponsored riders and run teams for years, and Philip was an international level motocross racer.
As a team, they’ve won TTs, but, famously, I hadn’t won a TT at the end of 2013. I have won plenty of other races and beaten every other TT racer of my generation in International mass-start races.
The North West 200, the Isle of Man TT and the Ulster Grand Prix are the races called the ‘Internationals’ in the real road racing world. Other races, like the Southern 100 and the Scarborough Gold Cup, attract the top racers and pay decent prize money, but the Internationals are the bigger and more prestigious races to win.
I’m not much of a fan of the North West course any more, but I love riding the TT and the Dundrod circuit, home of the Ulster GP.
Matt Wildee of Performance Bikes magazine summed up the Ulster GP’s circuit well after he visited in 2006. ‘The fastest racing circuit there has ever been is little more than a collection of A- and B-roads spliced together with ribbon and hay bales. For 363 days of the year these roads are used for the school run and dawdling tractors. This is about as far away from Monza or Phillip Island as you can get.’ Performance Bikes featured a lot of road racing back then, long before any three-dimensional TT films. The same article went on to compare some of the speeds with tracks readers might know from TV.
‘The fastest lap at Phillip Island [an Australian circuit famous among MotoGP and World Superbike fans for its fast corners] is 111.734 mph [now it’s 112.9, set by Marc Marquez in 2013]. Troy Bayliss has lapped Monza at 121.317 mph. But Ian Hutchinson – a little known racer outside Irish circles – averaged 130.829 mph at Dundrod, while chasing PB favourite Guy Martin.’
Matt picked the year I won four races in a day to visit. He ended his intro saying, ‘But you’d never find a telegraph pole 78 cm from the apex of the Parabolica …’
The Dundrod is fast and flowing. It hasn’t been monkeyed around with and had a load of chicanes added like the North West has. I first raced here at a meeting called the Killinchy 150 in 2003. It used to be its own meeting, but now they run it on the Thursday of the Ulster Grand Prix meeting and call it the Dundrod 150.
The Ulster GP lap record is 133.977, set by Bruce Anstey, in 2010, making it the fastest track in the world still being used. This is what a fast lap of the 7.4-mile Dundrod circuit feels like …
I call the start–finish straight the Flying Kilo, but I’ve no idea if it’s a kilometre or not. In
2013, we were timed at 199 mph along there, but it’s dead smooth for a road circuit. There’s a really fast left at the end of the straight, called Rock Bends. In fact Rock Bends is a group of corners, all with the same name, and the first is this very, very fast left before the right. You might not think it’s a corner at all, but it is at 190 mph.
I used to be able to get through the first fast left flat-out, but as the bikes have become quicker you don’t actually want to be going through the first part that fast, because it sends you off-line for the rest of the corners, knackering your line through and out the other side. You’re better off going slower to go faster, so I roll the throttle there now and make the rest of Rock Bends more flowing and less of a panic to get through.
For the right-hander, the beginning of the second section of the Rock Bends complex, I go back two gears, to fourth, and drive hard through a few downhill lefts and rights, all on the throttle, before I’m hard on the brakes for Leathemstown, a 90-degree road-end corner. These slow corners are all about the run out of them down the next very fast straight.
I use the kerb as a stop for my tyres on the way out. The ideal racing line uses all of the road, but instead of a nice sunken kerb, like at a MotoGP or BSB track, this is a kerb that would chew up a car’s alloy wheels if you weren’t careful parking. At the end of the kerb, I’m still way over on the left of the road and sometimes in the grass and dirt while I’m firing down the next straight. I’ll have the bike upright enough that it doesn’t give too much of a problem, but I’ll sometimes feel it kicking as the tyre struggles for traction. There are times when the side of the rear tyre kisses up against the kerb and it’ll cause the bike to wheelie. That unsettles the bike and means I have to roll the throttle off, or get on the back brake to calm it, and that loses time, so I don’t want to be hitting that kerb on the exit of Leathemstown too hard.
It’s a top-gear thrash to the uphill Deers Leap that has a 180 mph blind entry. The bike’s leant over and the revs rise as the contact area of the tyre goes from middle to the side, because the diameter of the tyre is different at those two points.
In the middle of Deers Leap, I’m back two gears, to fourth. At the side of the track is the Cockwell Inn, the garage in someone’s garden that turns into a pub for the house owner’s mates every Ulster Grand Prix.
The road drops away rapidly here and you can see a huge part of the west of Northern Ireland from this point, if you have time to take it in. In a race we are accelerating hard down the steep hill. I’m using every inch of the road. You really don’t want anything to go wrong here. The last part of Deers Leap is a 150 mph downhill right. I’m hard on the back brake, stood up on the pegs, weight over the front of the bike, all to try to stop it wheelie-ing over backwards.
My guts nearly drop out of me as the road changes from downhill to climbing back uphill to Cochranstown. I’m in fifth gear again and on the back brake for a lot of this section, trying to keep both wheels on the floor. I bet the rear disc is nearly glowing red hot along here.
Then it’s over a rise going into Cochranstown. I’m back from fifth to second gear. The road is dropping away so fast that it’s a job to keep the tyres in contact with the tarmac, and it’s impossible to be too hard on the brakes. I’m trying to lose 100 mph to get around the 90-degree corner, so it would be dead easy to tuck the front after asking too much of the front tyre’s grip.
Once you’re through this road-end bend the track isn’t making any steep climbs or drops, but it’s undulating. I’ll be high up in the revs in second gear, the Superbike delivering most of its 200-plus horsepower to the rear wheel while the front wheel is just wanting to rise up all the time, so, again, I’m calming it with my foot on the back brake pedal.
Up to third, then fourth, on the run into Quarterlands, then back two gears to second. It always seems to be damp here and you’ve got to be careful on the painted road markings. I’ve had the front tuck while I’ve been braking hard and gone over the white lines. When that happens I have to instantly get off the front brake, stamp the back brake to allow the front tyre to grip again, then get back hard on the front brake to slow enough to get around the corner. If you panicked you’d be off there. Directly in front of me, when this is going on, is a copse of 100-year-old trees. No run-off, just trees.
There’s no gradient here, you’re on a level road into third, only up to about 12,000 rpm for the short straight to Ireland’s Bend. Off the throttle, still in third, no brakes, just chuck it in and run up the hill. I use the hill to lose my speed while trying to understeer through the left-hander. A barbed wire fence lines the outsides of the track.
I’m accelerating hard up into fifth gear for Budore Corner, that’s been renamed Lougher’s. It’s one of my favourite corners anywhere. It’s a difficult choice whether to be in fifth or sixth. When I’m in fifth it feels right, but the bike is revving so hard that when I lean it over, right onto the very side of the tyre, the rolling diameter of the tyre changes and this affects the gearing, making the engine spin faster and hit the rev limiter.
Bikes have had rev limiters for years. They’re an electronic safety system that cuts the ignition if the engine is trying to rev past its safe limit. When the rev limiter is hit, the engine stutters slightly and loses momentum. But if I run through Budore in sixth, to avoid hitting the rev limiter, when I stand the bike up, onto the middle part of the tyre, the revs start to drop and it’s not pulling hard enough. I’ve settled on putting up with being on the rev limiter in fifth for a moment to get the best drive out for the run to Joey’s Windmill.
The road undulates through a left and right. I go back two gears and then the road goes uphill. Bruce Anstey came off in front of me there once. A very big crash.
Out of Joey’s Windmill I’m in third. The road is rising and I’m using the hill to scrub off speed again, so I’m not hard on the brakes. It’s the same as Quarterlands – big trees directly in front of you. Anything goes wrong and you’re knackered.
Up a bloody steep hill and over Jordan’s Cross. After that there’s a kink. I’m normally revving hard in fifth gear, the shift lights all lit up on the dash, telling me to change to sixth. The shift lights are little LEDs that are programmed to indicate when it’s the optimum time, for the engine, to shift up. I don’t here normally, but in 2013 I was sure Michael Dunlop was going to put a move on me, so I put it up to sixth just to keep all the momentum and not give him a sniff of an opportunity.
When I’ve got someone that close behind I’m trying to ride defensively and not do anything daft while staying as fast as possible. I’m riding differently than if I was going for one fast lap by myself. If I was just going for a flying lap with no one trying to put a move on me, I’d leave it in fifth and run it on the limiter all the way.
Into Wheelers, there’s a place called the Hole in the Wall, where there’s a wall with a hole in it. This is all fast lefts and rights. The road is level, not really climbing or dropping, and once again I’m using every inch of the road, sweeping from the verge on one side to the verge on the other.
Wheeler’s is third gear, nicely cambered and one of the only places on the Dundrod circuit with any run-off to speak off.
Then it’s up two gears for the run to Tornagrough. I’m flat-out in fifth gear, so the thick end of 170 mph, and there is a dip in the road that makes the bike bottom out at that speed, the suspension completely compressed and neck muscles straining to stop the chinbar of my helmet from banging on the top of the petrol tank.
Depending on what bike I’m on, either the 1000-cc Superbike or the 600-cc Supersport, I then shift back to either second or third for the left-hander Tornagrough. The Superbike has much taller gearing, so it’ll go through in second. The Supersport needs to be in third. There’s a little manhole cover on the right-hand side that I use as a braking marker.
There are a couple of bumps that unsettle the bike, making the front tyre squirm and protest. Even though I’d be in second gear, and that sounds slow, I’m s
till going through here at 90 mph or so – that’s an educated guess, like all the speeds I’ve quoted, because my race bikes don’t have speedos.
Through this long sweeper the whole bike is squirming, the rear tyre struggling to cope with the amount of power it’s being asked to deal with as I wind the throttle on, just touching 100-per-cent throttle, the twistgrip on the stop, full power, maximum revs, before getting hard on the brakes for the first gear hairpin.
The hairpin is the only point on the whole seven-and-a-bit-mile lap that we’re back to first gear. The hairpin is dead tight, downhill and off-camber. You don’t want that mix of ingredients in the wet. I’m having to brake over the white lines, that have very little grip. This section feels like walking pace after some of the 190-mph straights.
Accelerating out of there, I’m hard on the back brake, even though I’m hammering up through the gears, just to keep the front wheel down. Second, third, fourth, into Quarry Bends.
I have a lot of lean on, banked hard on the right-hand side, and I know I’ve got it right when the shift lights on the dash come on in fourth as I’m leant hard over.
Quarries is a big complex of corners. There’s a lamp-post on the right-hand side and I pull as tight as I can to that. The bike isn’t trying to wheelie here, but I’m on the back brake again to try and compress the rear suspension. I’ve gone from 100-per-cent throttle to 70-per-cent, and it’s putting a lot of weight bias on the front. When I’m then going back to 100-per-cent throttle, driving hard out of Quarry Bends, there’s a lot of front to rear transition as the front suspension rises and the rear squats under the power. That transition unsettles the bike, making it buck and shake. Keeping the back brake on through the corner keeps the rear shock compressed, pulling the rear shock into its stroke, and minimises the front to rear movement and stresses the rear tyre less.