Guy Martin - Guy Martin: My Autobiography

CONTENTS

Guy Martin takes you on the ride of his life.

Knee down, wrestling with a 210-horsepower superbike and tearing up the tarmac at 180 mph. For international road-racing hero, maverick star of the Isle of Man TT, petrol-head and truck mechanic Guy Martin, nothing feels as good as the adrenaline rush at killer speeds.

In this explosive and revealing autobiography, Guy tells it straight. He takes us behind the scenes of modern road racing and into the pits with his mechanics, his bosses, his machines and his fellow racers.

Meet his family, his friends, his rivals and find out where it all began; from the small-town boy growing up watching his Dad build superbikes, to the headstrong young racer and his first taste of success at Cadwell Park and Rockingham, to the underground Irish scene and riding the greatest road race of them all, the Isle of Man TT. Discover what it feels like to stare death in the face and risk it all for the craic, to survive a horrific 170 mph fireball at the 2010 TT, and come back to do it all again.

This is the thrilling story of how a working-class lad with a passion for speed, a determination to succeed, and an endless capacity for endurance and hard graft, became an icon of world sport.

Except for one summer spent sleeping inside a truck in a concrete yard in Northern Ireland, Guy Martin has lived within 20 miles of the Grimsby hospital he was born in, on the 4th November 1981. But that hasnt stopped the professional truck mechanic from winning multiple international road races, including eleven Ulster GPs and eight Scarborough Gold Cups, plus scoring thirteen Isle of Man TT podiums. Neither has it prevented him from presenting three critically acclaimed prime-time TV series, being the subject of a BAFTA-nominated film or breaking British and World land speed records along the way. Not bad for a truck fitter. Guy still lives in North Lincolnshire.

ID JUST LEFT the pits after the fuel stop. Head down, wrestling the 210-horsepower Honda Fireblade through the outskirts of Douglas, the Manx capital, and out onto another 38-mile lap of the island. One of my mechanics, Cammy, had told me I was in the lead, but only by a second. I could hear a difference in his voice. Hes normally as calm as if he was reading a shopping list, but there was an edge this time. He knew we could win.

It was the start of the third lap of the 2010 Isle of Man Senior TT, the last race of the fortnight, the race I have been desperate to win since 2004, and the last chance to get a TT win for another year. I was pushing hard.

I had already missed out on a win by three seconds that week. Three seconds in a race held over 150 miles. A race that lasts one hour and 12 minutes, or 4,300 seconds. That means the winning margin was 0.21 per cent. Its obvious that every second counts in modern real road racing.

Down Bray Hill, with a full tank of fuel and a new rear tyre. The bike goes from nearly bone dry to brim full, and the extra 24 litres of unleaded always makes a difference to the handling, but I know how to deal with it.

Then, three miles from the pits, comes Ballagarey. This is the kind of corner that keeps me racing on the roads. Its a proper mans corner. You go through the right-hander at 170 mph or more, leant right over, eyes fixed as far down the road as its possible to see, which isnt very far. Like so many corners at the Isle of Man, and most of the other circuits I specialise at, its blind. I cant see the exit of the corner when I fully commit to the entry.

Id been through Ballagarey 100 times flat-out, but this time something happened. This time the front end tucked, lost grip and started sliding. Its the beginning of a crash. Thats not unusual. Im saving slides regularly when Im pushing for wins. Through the fastest corners the bike is always on the edge of crashing, just gripping enough to keep on going in the right direction. Go slightly too fast and the tyre shouts, Enough! Go slightly too slow and youre no longer in the hunt for wins.

As the front tyre carried on skidding across the top of the road, I tried to save the slide. I thought, Ive got it, Ive got it, Ive got it, Ive got it I can sometimes get away with front-end tucks, when the bike is leant so far over that the front tyre eventually loses grip and begins to slide. You can save them on your knee, or give it a bit of throttle and itll come back to you. One things for sure, you dont do anything major, like grabbing a handful of brake, and you dont panic because thats when you come off.

I went through all that thought process, as the bike was steadily skating, increasingly out of control towards the Manx stone wall that lines the outside of this corner. Then the thought Game over entered my head. At those speeds, on a corner like that, youre not jumping off the bike, just letting it go. I was leant over as far as a Honda CBR1000RR will lean, and a little bit more. I released my grip on the bars of the bike and slid down the road. I didnt think, This is going to hurt, just, Whatever will be, will be.

The spaghetti measurer would be out and the chase would begin.

I REGULARLY USED to say I was born and bred in Kirmington, because up until recently I always thought of the real town of my birth as a shithole. The truth is I actually arrived in the world in Grimsby, in 1981. I was born in the maternity hospital in Nunsthorpe, the roughest estate in the town. I was, and still am, Guy Martin no middle name.

My dad missed my arrival. He was in the hospital for the birth of Sally, my older sister, but he had to stand outside because she was in breech and the father wasnt allowed in when things were getting complicated back in those days. When it was my turn to pop out, Dad was there with my mum waiting for me to appear, but at eight at night the midwife told them nothing would happen until midnight, so Dad went out to get some bits from Scanlink, the local truck part specialist, for a job he was working and missed me being born at just gone ten. He was there for Stuarts birth and Kates, though. My little sisters was so quick she wrecked the interior of his Ford Granada on the way to Grimsby Maternity Hospital.

My mum, Rita, is nine years younger than Dad. She was only 16 when they met. I think the age difference caused some friction between Dad and his mates of the time, but when I see old photos of them together, even with the nearly ten-year age gap, they dont look wrong together. They always look dead happy.

Ian Martin and Rita Kidals married six years later when my mum was 22, and their first child, Sally, was born a couple of years later. Sally was only four months old when I was conceived. Mum says it all happened at the end of her first night out after Sallys birth.

On 4 November 1981, the Martin family, now with a 13-month-old girl and a day-old baby boy, left hospital, jumped in the car and drove the 12 miles to my very first home, a flat above the old Co-Op in Caistor. It was a second-floor flat with a nice, big garden that had a sandpit in it. Our entrance was around the back of the shop, off Bank Lane.