GUY’S GREAT ESCAPE
‘Let’s just go – it’s sh*t or bust!’
Absolute silence as Guy Martin hangs high in the air. He’s failed. That’s what enters our minds as he continues his arc. Too slow, wrong angle, weird launch. Christ that fence is a bit close. After years securing the field, months sorting the bike, hundreds of hours spent practising it seems like at the final hurdle, Guy Martin, the Sultan of Speed, has forgotten the one golden rule: there’s no substitute for pace.
The real deal
If you’re not familiar with the backstory, The Great Escape was a Hollywood version of a huge escape in 1944, where 76 men crawled out of a tunnel under Stalag Luft III in the hope of reaching allied territory. To honour the men who lost their lives in the escape, Guy teamed up with long-time collaborators North One and Triumph to make a programme that would tell their story. And while they were at it, they thought they might as well recreate the most famous stunt in cinema history. MCN spent time with Guy on set to find out what motivated him to take on something he’s never attempted before. “It’s the 75th anniversary of the real Great Escape,” Guy told us. “I wanted to understand the reasons they wanted to get out and why 50 of them were murdered. We owe a lot to the pain that was suffered by those boys.”
Despite his bravado, Guy has no real experience of jumping fences. In fact he’s got no real experience off-road riding at all.
“I’m a fish out of water. It’s funny because a lot of road racers are just failed motocrossers, so they have these skills. So I’m just trying to adapt what I know about riding bikes to jumping bikes.
“I’ve got lots of respect for Ekins [Bud Ekins was the stunt star who performed the original leap in the film]. He was racing the ISDT – he was a proper rider. Not like me just
having a go. It’s just monkey say, monkey do. Andy Godbold who’s been teaching me has shined up my riding no end.”
Hollywood magic
If it all went Pete Tong then it wouldn’t be a complete disaster. For all its scary stature, the fence itself was made of medium-density foam. If he hit it, the structure would just disintegrate, although Guy might well do the same if the landing went wrong as well. The barbed wire, too, was silver-coloured leather and ready to snap to order.
“It could all end in tears,” Guy added. “The plan was to be jumping all day, different fence sizes but I said to them ‘look boys I am shite’. Let’s just go ‘shit or bust’.”
The day before the jump Guy decided to have a practice run but this time on the enduro bike he’d been learning on. The power and weight were different to the Triumph and it resulted in a bad landing, a crocked ankle and a huge dent in his confidence. The morning after there were some furtive glances at Guy, while he threw some at his gammy ankle. A few cups of tea and some Silk Cut later and there appeared to be movement.
His ankle only had one jump in it, so he was sticking two fingers up to the script and going straight for the big jump. No amount of paper could have soaked up the sweat from the producer’s brow.
“It’s an honour, the scenery is amazing but I’m not thinking about that. I just want to get stuck in. What’s the worst that can happen?” Of course this whole thing had been rendered 10 times more difficult before they had even arrived. The original shot was filmed in a local field which had some natural topography that suited leaping a fence with the alps in the background. The main field itself, where the jump begins, still belongs to the same family. Unfortunately the second half, the bit where the jump ends aka ‘the landing’ now belongs to another family. In a fit of spite, the second field had been fenced off the night before, more than halving the landing area.
Time is money
“To get a good take off you need to be on the power as you come up the ramp,” Godbold told us. “Guy is taking a long run up, then questioning his speed so he’s off the power as he takes off, which makes the nose of the bike want to dive. But I have a plan to sort that.”
What Andy did, without telling Guy, was shorten his run up. The idea being that by the time he was on the ramp, Guy would realise he didn’t have quite enough pace and give it a handful of throttle. The front would go light, he’d sail through the air and Switzerland would be waiting. Unfortunately that’s not quite what happened. To begin with, Guy gave no-one any warning, which isn’t what they really like in TV land. No scouting pass, no warm-up run. He just dropped his shoulder, turned into the run-up and nailed the throttle. Only not enough. First gear, second gear, just about third gear – where’s the throttle? Where’s the oomph? Where’s the bloody speed? Guy and bike chugged up the ramp, took off and hung in the air for an eternity. Then wallop he was down. Two feet on the pegs, two tyres on the ground. Most faces went pink as all the blood came back, but Guy’s was split in half by a grin, ear to ear. “Bloody ’ell!” was all he said.
O The Triumph Factory Visitor Experience is screening the show on Thursday, January 30 at 6pm at an event featuring special guest John Leyton. www.triumphmotorcycles. co.uk/visitor-experience/events
‘He needs to be on the power or the front will dive’
‘It’s funny. I’m like a fish out of water jumping bikes’