pritch
29th June 2014, 11:15
Thinking I'd been a bit slack of late I made a list of jobs I needed to do. Before I started work on my list I checked the letterbox; my copy of
“Guy Martin My Autobiography” had arrived. Cancel everything; book to read.
The fact that the book is an autobiography was somewhat surprising. Sometimes sports people have a co-writer as with Casey Stoner's book. Sometimes someone else writes the book completely as Matt Oxley did with his Mick Doohan book. I can't remember too many sportspeople who wrote their own book. Guy Martin, it would appear, is nothing if not multi talented.
The book starts with the usual family background, although the background of his family is not all that usual. Guy's maternal grandfather, a Latvian, was conscripted by the Nazis during WW2 and sent to fight on the Russian front, his paternal grandfather was a marine commando. Tough buggers up both branches of the family tree.
Both sides of the family had a huge work ethic and as he explains, the Martin kids were bred to work. (His younger sister became a racing mechanic.) He hung out in his fathers workshop when he was twelve and it comes across repeatedly in the book that he is never happier than in a workshop.
His primary school was run by a somewhat eccentric character, the kids did all the work around the school. They mowed the lawns, including the headmaster's golf hole, they marked out the playing fields, and did any of the other tasks usually performed by a groundsman with a range of machinery. All very practical, but the Health and Safety people wouldn't have a bar of it these days. When he got to high school he discovered, “We were thick but we knew how to lift heavy loads.”
Like many of us, he and his mates did some crazy shit when they were young. And sometimes when perhaps they should have been old enough to know better? Nobody was killed but there was some excruciating pain inflicted.
As is to be expected the major part of the book is about his motorcycle racing. It traces his career from the early days on the track and his move to the roads
through to current. He describes the teams he has been in and how they were organised and why he moved on the occasions that he did change teams. There are detailed descriptions of how he rides some road cicuits.
Some people have criticised Martin in the past for being too involved with the mechanical side of his teams. His approach has been unfavourably compared to that of John McGuinness who turns up and rides the bike without involving himself in the mechanical minutae.
Being a mechanic himself though Martin can tell quickly whether another mechanic knows what he is doing or not. The mechanic supplied to him by one team was lock wiring a sump plug incorrectly. When one of the bikes arrived with the exhaust can at an odd angle because the bracket had been fastened back to front. Martin was just not prepared to ride the bikes.
With no margin for error, the Isle of Man is no place to be riding a bike prepared by a Mickey Mouse mechanic. Martin's father and a friend rebuilt the three bikes within a very short time frame, the bikes having been delivered late as well as in suspect condition. Martin was annoyed because his dad and friend were working unpaid to do work that someone had been paid for.
At this time, having had trouble getting some crew chiefs to agree with him in the past, but subsequent events having proved him right, he had done away with the crew chief position. He communicated directly with his mechanics. He found though that in reality though this was too much to take on. When he should have been thinking about riding the next race, his mind was still occupied with technical set-up details.
He had talked to the team owner about the lack of ability of the mechanic as Martin seemed to suspect some form of financial mischief. Other people though were telling the owner different things, and he was listening to them.
Reading all this, the impression is created that, despite an impressive reputation, Martin did not much trust Simon Buckmaster who was running the team. The antipathy may well have been mutual. While Martin was recovering from the injuries sustained in his 2010 crash at Ballagarey on the IoM, he read that Buckmaster was quoted in a magazine interview as saying Martin's behaviour had been unprofessional. Buckmaster had his say, now it's Guy Martin's turn. Who's right? You read it and you decide.
He rates the bicycle speed record he broke in the TV series “Speed” as the scariest thing he has ever done. He was talking about when he crashed, not if he crashed. He gave the driver of the racing truck he was to slipstream instructions to speed up when he saw him crashing; under no circumstances was the driver to slow down. Martin wanted the truck as far away as possible when he hit the sand at 100mph plus. He also took the precaution of giving a TV crew member his mother's phone number. While harbouring thoughts like that, he then went out and did 112mph on a pushbike anyway. Gonads like melons. And I missed that bloody episode!
He describes some rather startling violent thoughts he had been having which eventually must have seemed odd, even to him. He was talking about these to a woman he knew. She told Martin that her sister was a psychiatrist, and she thought he really should talk to her sister. He made the necessary appointment and was advised that he was diagnosed as having Asperger's syndrome which is on the autism spectrum although the psychiatrist could not specify exactly where on the spectrum Martin was. If you really want to know about Asperger's or autism you can Google them.
At another point in the book Martin and Danny MacAskell, the stunt cyclist, were being interviewed by a psychologist who was interested in the psychology of risk taking personalities. The comments shouldn't be surprising to any motorcyclist.
Martin writes much as he talks, except of course, it's easier for kiwis to understand without his accent. He uses some colloquial English that lends colour to his writing, and there a quite a few comments that made me laugh out loud. At one point I wondered what my neighbours would make of these outbursts of merriment.
He has upset other riders by making remarks along the lines of, “I'm a truck mechanic, I only race bikes for fun.” The other riders take that as a put down. He doesn't mean it as an insult, he genuinely sees himself as a truck mechanic first, second, and third. That is when he is happiest, and he says if the bike racing ceases being fun he'll stop doing it. When he was bike racing, mountain bike racing, doing his TV shows, or all of the above, he always held down a job as a truck mechanic.
One morning he thought he would try being a professional motorcycle racer, that lasted until lunchtime.
His love of machinery is such that at times it's difficult to comprehend. At one point on seeing a rare Ford Transit he offers the owner his Aston Martin V12 in part exchange. The Transit owner looked at Martin as if he was crazy, but he writes that he was indeed serious.
He has a Rolls Royce Merlin engine from a WW2 Lancaster bomber, complete with propeller, all mounted on a trailer. Running the engine at normal speed the trailer remained still. Martin wanted to know what the engine would go like with the rev limiter removed. With the increased revs the trailer started to roll, he shut the throttle but the thing had momentum and the propeller demolished a substantial part of his friend's workshop.
He has a turbo charged Suzuki GSXR 1100 that he wanted to make produce 500bhp. Wiser heads prevailed, he was told that he might not get one dyno run before the clutch and gearbox disintegrated. He decided to aim for a more modest 350bhp.
He mentions at the end of the book that there are still some events that he would like to try. Pikes Peak being one. Coincidentally he is scheduled to ride that turbo Suzuki at Pikes Peak later today (29/6/14). Go Guy!
Possibly because of the breadth of his experiences, and the fact that he wrote it himself, this book strikes me as the most interesting book by a sports personality that I have read thus far.
Guy Martin: truck mechanic, motorcycle racer, mountain bike racer, TV presenter, and now published author. Proper.
“Guy Martin My Autobiography” had arrived. Cancel everything; book to read.
The fact that the book is an autobiography was somewhat surprising. Sometimes sports people have a co-writer as with Casey Stoner's book. Sometimes someone else writes the book completely as Matt Oxley did with his Mick Doohan book. I can't remember too many sportspeople who wrote their own book. Guy Martin, it would appear, is nothing if not multi talented.
The book starts with the usual family background, although the background of his family is not all that usual. Guy's maternal grandfather, a Latvian, was conscripted by the Nazis during WW2 and sent to fight on the Russian front, his paternal grandfather was a marine commando. Tough buggers up both branches of the family tree.
Both sides of the family had a huge work ethic and as he explains, the Martin kids were bred to work. (His younger sister became a racing mechanic.) He hung out in his fathers workshop when he was twelve and it comes across repeatedly in the book that he is never happier than in a workshop.
His primary school was run by a somewhat eccentric character, the kids did all the work around the school. They mowed the lawns, including the headmaster's golf hole, they marked out the playing fields, and did any of the other tasks usually performed by a groundsman with a range of machinery. All very practical, but the Health and Safety people wouldn't have a bar of it these days. When he got to high school he discovered, “We were thick but we knew how to lift heavy loads.”
Like many of us, he and his mates did some crazy shit when they were young. And sometimes when perhaps they should have been old enough to know better? Nobody was killed but there was some excruciating pain inflicted.
As is to be expected the major part of the book is about his motorcycle racing. It traces his career from the early days on the track and his move to the roads
through to current. He describes the teams he has been in and how they were organised and why he moved on the occasions that he did change teams. There are detailed descriptions of how he rides some road cicuits.
Some people have criticised Martin in the past for being too involved with the mechanical side of his teams. His approach has been unfavourably compared to that of John McGuinness who turns up and rides the bike without involving himself in the mechanical minutae.
Being a mechanic himself though Martin can tell quickly whether another mechanic knows what he is doing or not. The mechanic supplied to him by one team was lock wiring a sump plug incorrectly. When one of the bikes arrived with the exhaust can at an odd angle because the bracket had been fastened back to front. Martin was just not prepared to ride the bikes.
With no margin for error, the Isle of Man is no place to be riding a bike prepared by a Mickey Mouse mechanic. Martin's father and a friend rebuilt the three bikes within a very short time frame, the bikes having been delivered late as well as in suspect condition. Martin was annoyed because his dad and friend were working unpaid to do work that someone had been paid for.
At this time, having had trouble getting some crew chiefs to agree with him in the past, but subsequent events having proved him right, he had done away with the crew chief position. He communicated directly with his mechanics. He found though that in reality though this was too much to take on. When he should have been thinking about riding the next race, his mind was still occupied with technical set-up details.
He had talked to the team owner about the lack of ability of the mechanic as Martin seemed to suspect some form of financial mischief. Other people though were telling the owner different things, and he was listening to them.
Reading all this, the impression is created that, despite an impressive reputation, Martin did not much trust Simon Buckmaster who was running the team. The antipathy may well have been mutual. While Martin was recovering from the injuries sustained in his 2010 crash at Ballagarey on the IoM, he read that Buckmaster was quoted in a magazine interview as saying Martin's behaviour had been unprofessional. Buckmaster had his say, now it's Guy Martin's turn. Who's right? You read it and you decide.
He rates the bicycle speed record he broke in the TV series “Speed” as the scariest thing he has ever done. He was talking about when he crashed, not if he crashed. He gave the driver of the racing truck he was to slipstream instructions to speed up when he saw him crashing; under no circumstances was the driver to slow down. Martin wanted the truck as far away as possible when he hit the sand at 100mph plus. He also took the precaution of giving a TV crew member his mother's phone number. While harbouring thoughts like that, he then went out and did 112mph on a pushbike anyway. Gonads like melons. And I missed that bloody episode!
He describes some rather startling violent thoughts he had been having which eventually must have seemed odd, even to him. He was talking about these to a woman he knew. She told Martin that her sister was a psychiatrist, and she thought he really should talk to her sister. He made the necessary appointment and was advised that he was diagnosed as having Asperger's syndrome which is on the autism spectrum although the psychiatrist could not specify exactly where on the spectrum Martin was. If you really want to know about Asperger's or autism you can Google them.
At another point in the book Martin and Danny MacAskell, the stunt cyclist, were being interviewed by a psychologist who was interested in the psychology of risk taking personalities. The comments shouldn't be surprising to any motorcyclist.
Martin writes much as he talks, except of course, it's easier for kiwis to understand without his accent. He uses some colloquial English that lends colour to his writing, and there a quite a few comments that made me laugh out loud. At one point I wondered what my neighbours would make of these outbursts of merriment.
He has upset other riders by making remarks along the lines of, “I'm a truck mechanic, I only race bikes for fun.” The other riders take that as a put down. He doesn't mean it as an insult, he genuinely sees himself as a truck mechanic first, second, and third. That is when he is happiest, and he says if the bike racing ceases being fun he'll stop doing it. When he was bike racing, mountain bike racing, doing his TV shows, or all of the above, he always held down a job as a truck mechanic.
One morning he thought he would try being a professional motorcycle racer, that lasted until lunchtime.
His love of machinery is such that at times it's difficult to comprehend. At one point on seeing a rare Ford Transit he offers the owner his Aston Martin V12 in part exchange. The Transit owner looked at Martin as if he was crazy, but he writes that he was indeed serious.
He has a Rolls Royce Merlin engine from a WW2 Lancaster bomber, complete with propeller, all mounted on a trailer. Running the engine at normal speed the trailer remained still. Martin wanted to know what the engine would go like with the rev limiter removed. With the increased revs the trailer started to roll, he shut the throttle but the thing had momentum and the propeller demolished a substantial part of his friend's workshop.
He has a turbo charged Suzuki GSXR 1100 that he wanted to make produce 500bhp. Wiser heads prevailed, he was told that he might not get one dyno run before the clutch and gearbox disintegrated. He decided to aim for a more modest 350bhp.
He mentions at the end of the book that there are still some events that he would like to try. Pikes Peak being one. Coincidentally he is scheduled to ride that turbo Suzuki at Pikes Peak later today (29/6/14). Go Guy!
Possibly because of the breadth of his experiences, and the fact that he wrote it himself, this book strikes me as the most interesting book by a sports personality that I have read thus far.
Guy Martin: truck mechanic, motorcycle racer, mountain bike racer, TV presenter, and now published author. Proper.