Guy Martin

by Guy Martin

  He said he’d been interested in the TT for a long time, and had started noticing me specifically in the last couple of years. He thought we were on the same wavelength.

  While the film crew were fitting on-board cameras to the bikes we were chatting. We were talking about wheelies. I’m crap at them. He told me he once wheelied his pushbike for two miles. I’d struggle to wheelie the length of the garage we were stood in.

  He explained that he was calculating about the risks he took, and how he can picture things in his head, see a specific set-up, whether it is something in the streets of Edinburgh or a dam in the middle of the Highlands. After he visualised them, imagined what he’d like to do, then he would push for it. Obviously he doesn’t just fling himself off stuff. He’s riding within his capabilities.

  While he crashes a lot, he reckons he actually takes very little risk. He reckoned I’d jumped further on my race bike, at 160-plus mph, than he’d jumped on his pushbike, and maybe he had a point, but I’m as blown away by what he does as he seemed to be by what I do.

  The TV show wanted to describe some of the psychology of so-called risk takers, so they had a psychologist called Dave Collins, PhD along for the day to monitor heart rates and give his view on stuff.

  He said that he didn’t agree with the idea that people like Danny and me don’t think of the consequences of what we do. He said we just don’t dwell on what could go wrong. Danny obviously has a very good sense of what he can and can’t do; it’s just that his limit, on a bicycle, is very different to yours and mine. The psychologist went on to confirm what I already know, that I’m not a psychopath – someone who ignores the consequences of his actions.

  Collins debunked a lot of the crap that is talked about people like TT racers or extreme sports folk. He reckons people who take risks have a lower susceptibility to the stress hormones, so it takes more to make them worried than someone who is nervous. He added that there is a psychological effect, that people in these sports have an identity that is tied in with their dangerous activity. We don’t see it as dangerous, because we are in control and see being on top of it as an important part of who we are. He also reckoned that there is a social effect, that risk takers gain social status because they behave in a certain way. There are a lot of things humans do that can be accounted for by an interaction of these three areas.

  The psychologist said, ‘The brain and the body do very, very clever things when you push them to extremes, when you force them to function at a different level. And it is very addictive – people feel really alive in the flow state: “This is me, this is what I am.”’

  The ‘flow state’, he said, is when the challenge and the expertise needed to carry it out are roughly balanced. If the challenge is greater than your ability, you’re nervous or anxious; if it’s less, you’re bored; the flow state is a space in between. I can definitely relate to that.

  Collins went on to say you couldn’t race the TT unless you were really in the moment. You don’t have the time or space to be thinking, ‘Ooh, hell, I might crash.’ He’s right about that, too.

  It’s hard to say if MacAskill gets the same kind of buzz from what he does as I do from racing. He said that if he was doing tricks he’d never attempted before or a line that needed a lot of speed, jumping into a lot of air, as he put it – the kind of jump, that even if he landed it perfectly, would leave him with sore wrists and ankles – it would take him a while to get over the fear. Sometimes, he said, he’d get a block in his head, thinking he was going to crash, but it only took him one attempt, whether he crashed or not, to keep going at it till he achieved what he was trying to do. His pay-off was not getting beaten. He’d have a dream scenario in his head, sometimes thinking about a jump or trick for months while he was injured, then he’d go and make it work. After it, he said, he’d get the feeling of satisfaction and relief that he didn’t get skewered by the spiky fence or break his neck. He reckoned what he did was more about achievement than adrenaline.

  Collins the psychologist also talked about people experiencing different levels of ‘super-perception in moments of extreme pressure’.

  Listening to that made me think of the way I dealt with the slide that led to my crash at the 2010 TT. It all happened in the blink of an eye, less than two seconds from the front tyre beginning to slide to me admitting defeat, but I tried a few different things to save the crash so it felt like so much longer.

  Whatever Danny’s surgeon and his personal trainer had said to him went in one ear and out the other, because he climbed on the back of the Suzuki GSX-R1000 as the tyre warmers were taken off.

  ‘I want to be scared for my life,’ he said.

  The crew pulled out a special belt to fasten around me with handles for Danny to hold on to, but I didn’t think he needed it. ‘Just hold on round me, you’ll be right,’ I told him. Then we rolled out into the damp and windy Irish weather.

  Danny had never been on a motorbike before, not even on the back of a Honda Knobber 90, so he was stuck to me like shit to a blanket. He did well, though. We had the bike wound up to 150 mph or so. It was wheelie-ing with both of us on, and the wind would catch the front wheel when it was off the ground, pushing us a bit off line.

  We did ten laps before pulling in, and the first thing Danny shouted was, ‘That was ace!’ Then he reckoned it didn’t feel scary, just fun and exciting. He couldn’t stop smiling. He said the braking was ferocious and that it was over too soon. He definitely is on the same wavelength.

  As I said before, if road racing didn’t exist, the people who raced at the Ulster and the TT would find something else that gave us the buzz, whether it be BASE jumping, downhill mountain biking, slackline rope walking or some other dangerous sport or pastime. We wouldn’t be stamp collecting.

  CHAPTER 21

  WHERE NEXT?

  ‘But I’ve brainwashed myself into needing to work on trucks’

  SO WHERE NEXT? It’s a big question, but not one that keeps me awake at night. You’ve probably got the picture that I’m not much of a forward planner. When I first started working on this book I was thinking very hard about packing in the trucks, because it was getting harder to fit everything in. If I manage to get on an endurance team it will become even harder.

  The biggest problem with the truck job is, the tail wags the dog. And I’m the dog. The hours are unsociable. I can work with my boss, Mick Moody, to slot trucks in for their six-weekly checks and pre-MoT work, but the trucks still have a window of time within which they need to be seen. Race meetings go in the diary first. Then I put all my MoTs in for the next three months. Finally, the TV fits in around all that. Of course there are truck breakdowns to deal with too.

  I had an idea that I would like to start my own workshop and build bikes. If I was building bikes for people, I could choose my own hours and only work from eight till five for customers, and outside that time I wouldn’t answer the phone. It would be me doing the work, not just someone else working under my name. A one-man band to start. With Moody’s I’m there from six or six-thirty in the morning till five in the afternoon, and I regularly work Saturdays and Sundays to get caught up. The thing that’s stopping me leaving the job is simple: I love it.

  I like the pressure of having to have everything done yesterday. It keeps me honest. The truck driver who’s having a go at me because he has a ferry to catch isn’t bothered if I won a race two days ago or a TV show I’m on is going to be shown that night; he just wants me to finish his truck so he can be back on the road and earning a living. Spannering trucks is dealing with the real world and I need to do that. If I don’t, I miss it too much. It’s hard for some people to understand, but it’s just the way it is.

  I see it as good honest work. I’ve been doing it since I was 12 years old and I still can’t get to work quick enough. I get a lot of job satisfaction from it. My dad’s the same, but my brother, Stuart, isn’t. He’s good at his job, but he doesn’t have the same passion for truck-fitting as I do. He does h
is work, then goes home and doesn’t give it another thought till he gets back the next day, but I’m always thinking about it. Most people would say that Stu has the balance right: it’s a job, concentrate on it when you’re getting paid and forget about it when you’re not. That’s his attitude.

  The bits of truck-fitting I like is seeing the whole job through. I like fault-finding and finishing the job off right. Making sure all the bolt heads are lined up and the washers are the right way around, the cables are routed tidily and the cable ties are cut off neatly. A truck I was repairing for Moody to sell had a damaged mirror adjustment unit. A replacement costs £400, because it has CANBUS ECU receiver in it, like a mini computer in the door. I took the broken one to bits, built it up with Araldite and fixed it. I don’t cost Moody much money and I’m good at my job. He’s flexible with me, so it all works. We suit each other. I think he likes the soap opera of my life.

  I prepare the trucks for MoT, and I didn’t have a failure all through 2013 and I’m proud of that. Racing sometimes gives me the same feeling of a job well done, but very, very rarely and it’s nothing to do with winning. Winning the Gold Cup doesn’t. The first Senior TT, back in 2004, did. As did the 2006 Ulster Grand Prix, the 2013 Southern 100 and the 2013 Ulster Grand Prix. I’d won at the Ulster before, but I still got a lot of satisfaction from winning that one. The 2013 Le Mans gave me a load of satisfaction too.

  The TV work is getting better all the time. I enjoyed making How Britain Worked more than The Boat That Guy Built and I enjoyed Speed most of all, but it isn’t the real world and I definitely don’t want to become a full-time TV presenter. I’m afraid it’s going to change me. I used to say that TV didn’t give me any opportunities that I couldn’t probably sort out myself if I really wanted to, but that’s changed. I’ve done plenty now, and they’ve been experiences that money couldn’t buy.

  I’m not meaning to be disrespectful to the TV people I worked with. The directors and cameramen graft, and there are dozens behind the scenes working hard to keep everything on the rails, and I enjoy working with them, but I still don’t see it as a proper job. I’ve been brought up with trucks, and even though I’ve had my eyes opened to all these other things, I still love going back to them after racing or filming.

  I’m not so into the TV job or the money it pays that I’ll do everything they push in front of me. I get about ten requests from TV shows and nearly as many sponsorship offers a week, but they all go to Andy Spellman, who deals with that side of stuff so I don’t have to. I don’t know why they think I’d want to do a cookery show … but never say never.

  Channel 4 have a big series, that might be out by the time you read this, about classic cars – restoring them, driving them, rating them – but it’s all been done before. Or I felt it had, so Andy let them know I wasn’t interested. This, I’m told, is not the done thing. Andy told me they were a bit miffed I had turned it down. I don’t think it computes with most of the TV folk, because nearly everyone else they deal with is desperate to be on TV, chomping at the bit for every opportunity. My problem with the classic car series was that they already had the idea planned out, and then they decided who they thought would be interesting to present it – and I’d rather be doing ideas that they’ve come up with for me to do. That’s what Speed was, and that was definitely a bit of me.

  Becoming a full-time motorcycle racer is even further away from becoming a reality than being the next presenter of the BBC’s Question Time.

  I do love racing motorcycles, but I have never seen it as a career; and as I get older, and there is more attention on the events I used to love the most, like the Isle of Man TT, it means I’m not as into it as I was ten years ago.

  When the hassle surrounding racing does outweigh the buzz, I’ll pack it in. I know I’ve made a rod for my own back by doing interviews and all the TV stuff. People rightly point out it that if I say I don’t want to be famous in a TV, radio or magazine interview, it doesn’t add up, but I really don’t want to be famous. It’s not what drives me.

  I’m still happy to do interviews with the right person, but it’s getting me in the right situation. I sometimes enjoy doing an interview, if I like the person who is doing it. Now, though, so much stuff has been changed and twisted that I think I just won’t bother. I’m sometimes not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to talking to journalists. I think they’re just having a yarn with me to pass the time of day, but then something I’ve said in passing ends up on the front page of a motorbike paper.

  If I’m being encouraged to do interviews because the team want me to, then I do what I can to get out of it. I make arrangements with the teams I race for that I won’t take their money and they won’t ask me to do PR stuff I don’t want to do. It was their idea in the first place and it suits me fine. The problems starts when people, whether it is sponsors or the organisers and promoters of races, put out press releases saying that I’m going to be doing this or that before they’ve even spoken to me to confirm it. Then, when I say I can’t do it, it’s me who looks like the dickhead.

  I still love racing bikes, there’s no doubt about it. The kind of race I like the best is one like the Southern 100. It’s organised with military precision – and I like how the schedule says stuff like ‘18:46 – bikes to pre-grid’. I like the way the organisers hand out vouchers to the racers for a cuppa at the tea hut over the road from the paddock. The track is hardcore and the weather’s normally good. Also I can go on a Monday, be back for work on Friday, so I’m not too long away from work, compared to the TT, and I’m getting a lot more races than during a BSB weekend. I’m not bothered about what make of bike I’d race. I’ve been using big four cylinders for all my racing life and they’re all pretty much the same, the throttle is on the right. Some are better at one thing, but worse at another. I wouldn’t be bothered what I’m riding, unless it’s a Britten. That’s a dream.

  Ideally, I’d have one motorbike and one mechanic and be working out of the back of the van. I’d arrive in a Transit. Well organised, with a small generator, a toolbox, a couple of sets of wheels. Some people want a best mate or their missus, with them, but I don’t. Racing has to be fun, but I take it seriously when I’m there and want the best results, without distractions.

  I used to say I would win a TT before I went to the grave, and when I said it, it was the right thing to say. It’s what I believed. I don’t regret it. If it comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, so be it. But the amount of attention that has been brought by me not winning one is almost driving me away.

  I don’t enjoy the whole experience of the TT now. The time I’m on the bike is the best thing. Money could not buy the feeling, but as soon as I get off the bike, the shit I have to do nearly outweighs it. I get asked the same questions I’ve been asked for years. That’s why I love getting back to Moody’s. When those gates are closed, no one’s getting in.

  For a time I thought there was a mental block stopping me from winning a TT. I’ve seen a pit board, when I was leading the Senior, and it said P1 +7 – meaning I was leading the race by seven seconds. It was skin-of-my-teeth stuff, bouncing off kerbs and skimming walls. When I saw the next pit board and read that the lead had decreased, I genuinely thought to myself, ‘At least I won’t have a load of hassle at the end of the race.’ I remember I was at the Guthrie’s Memorial section. I didn’t want the grief and all the interviews. Once that thought entered my head, the race was over. I was never going to win it that day.

  When I leave a TT disappointed with the results, I think, ‘It’s only motorbike racing. Stop mincing around with them and go back and do your proper job, fix some trucks.’

  I’ve always got an excuse. I can always say, ‘It’s not my job. I’ve got a proper job. I might be a shit racer, but I’ve got a proper job to go back to. I’m only a truck mechanic.’ It’s not a lie, but I say it out loud so I don’t ever get above my station. I’m not suddenly, at 32 years old, going to become a professional motorcycle racer. That’s t
he last thing I want to become. I think it’s a joke. What are you really doing? Going around in circles for 15 weekends a year? Get a grip.

  I truly don’t give a monkey’s what people think or say about me, but there are plenty who are spouting about me being too busy with the TV job, or that I’m not focused on racing because of this thing or that thing. I won at 2013 Southern 100 and Ulster Grand Prix, where I won three races, out of five starts, beating good riders at the top of their game, on good bikes. I really had to race for them. Nothing was gifted to me through breakdowns. I had to catch the leader, pass him, and then I pulled away from him. I don’t give a damn about the critics, but I knew I’d given the competition something to think about. I think some had been starting to believe I was a soft touch. That if they put a hard move on me, they wouldn’t see me back again.

  I’m different to some of the riders I race. All the boxes have to be ticked for me to really push, but when they are, I’ll give it my all. Sometimes that’s still not enough. I’ve done that and still come second, but on that day, with the bike and tyres I was on, I can look at myself in the mirror and know I couldn’t have done anything more.

  I’ve always said – and over ten years since my first real road race it’s still the case – that I’m not afraid of dying, but if it happens I want to be at lap record pace and battling for the lead. I don’t want to risk everything while splashing around in the wet on the wrong tyres. Some lads will hang their balls out, whatever the conditions, and I admire that, but it’s crackers. Tomorrow’s another day. I was once told a saying: ‘There are plenty of old riders. And there are plenty of bold riders. But there aren’t many old, bold riders.’

  There are still other motorbike boxes to be ticked. I want to build a few specials – mega motorbikes, then race them at places like the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado. I would like to race the Suzuka 8-hour Endurance in Japan, the Bol d’Or if it goes back to Paul Ricard in the South of France, and I want to race the Daytona 200, too.