Guy Martin on…

On Sunday, April 21, the International Classic MotorCycle Show at Stafford will be delighted to welcome Guy Martin as a special guest. Stuart Barker spoke to him about his love of classic machinery. Photographs by Leanne Donahue.

Anyone who has seen road racer, TV presenter, record breaker and truck mechanic Guy Martin being interviewed or has watched one of his very entertaining TV programmes will know his endearingly scattergun approach to conversation. So, instead of the staid and conventional interview format, here’s Guy on a few topics…

GUY ON… How it all started

“Classic British bikes were where it all first started for me. The first race bike I ever rode was my dad’s 1972 BSA Rocket 3. That was at a track day at Cadwell Park in about 1997 or 1998, and I was just obsessed from then on, really. I was always obsessed with motorbikes but, from that point on, I just wanted to go racing. I worked my arse off to get enough money to buy a race bike and I did club level stuff, then British Championship stuff, then started on the Irish roads. The roads allowed me to ride modern bikes and classic bikes at the same meetings.”

GUY ON… Being versatile

“I was only about 16 when I rode my dad’s BSA, and it had a right-hand gearchange and a racing gearbox. Working on an old classic bike taught me how to be versatile with modern stuff – how to swap things around to however I wanted them. I’ve got my land speed record bike in the shed (a streamliner using two de-stroked and supercharged Triumph Rocket III engines) and I’m always mucking about with that; changing the clutch to be thumb-operated, having the back brake being worked by my fingers… the bike’s completely back to front.

“At those first Irish road races, I’d be getting straight off a modern Japanese bike and jumping on to a 1972 BSA, with the gearbox on the other side, and it didn’t bother me. That made me more flexible. If you’ve ridden with a left-hand gearbox for 20 years, it would be very hard to change over, but I was doing it right from the start of my racing career.”

GUY ON… The Rob North BSA Rocket 3

“Les Whiston called me up. He knew I was into my racing, and he knew I liked racing triples. He explained that he was building a Rob North frame but was going to break the rules a bit. Les offered to give me the modified frame and all the parts, and then I could build the bike and do whatever I liked with it. I got those parts in about 2016 or 2017 and, since then, the bike has been in a sort of constant state of evolution. I’m still mucking about with it, and I still race it here and there on the odd occasion but, technically it’s Les’s bike, not mine.

“The sides of the oil tank on those bikes are always parallel. So, the frame comes down from the back of the tank and goes into the oil tank, and the sides of the tank are always parallel. But, on this one, there’s a five-degree, either side, angle on it, so it’s slightly narrower. That’s all, but nobody messes with those Rob North frame dimensions – it’s viewed as sacrilege! I was dead honest with the CRMC (Classic Racing Motorcycle Club) about it, though; I wanted it to be all legal and above board so that I could race it.”

GUY ON… Being a purist

“I’m absolutely not a purist when it comes to these things. It would almost insult me to be called a purist. I can’t be bothered with people that point out the bike should have different bloody valve caps on it to be authentic. If people want to be like that with their own projects, that’s fine, but don’t criticise me for doing what I feel works best for me. The end result is all that matters to me – not how I go about it. If the bike needs a laptop plugged into it, then that’s what we’ll do.”

GUY ON… The Manx Norton

“The Manx Norton, I mean, how long did that bike dominate for? What a bike. I read a magazine called Race Engine Technology and it very, very rarely does features on motorbikes, because it’s all about cutting edge technology. But there was a feature on some of the most efficient engines ever built, and the Manx Norton was right up there in the BMEP charts. A BMEP (Brake Mean Effective Pressure) number is an overall number that indicates an engine’s overall efficiency. It takes all the engine details into account

– engine size, peak bhp, peak torque, whether it’s got a turbocharger or whatever – and calculates one number that accurately measures an engine’s efficiency. It’s like assessing a boxer on a poundfor-pound basis. The Manx Norton’s engine is still well up there in the list of most efficient engines of all time.

“My dad had an ex-works Manx Norton. It just sat in the corner of the shed for years after he’d raced it a couple of times. His mates used it like a stool and sat on it to smoke fags and drink tea. Can you imagine what a proper ex-works Manx Norton would fetch now?”

GUY ON… Electric bikes

“As well as my Triumph Tiger Cub, I’ve got a Stark VARG electric motocross bike, and

I’m adapting car technology to get more out of my land speed bike. I’m not a rocket scientist, but I want the latest thing, any advantage I can get. I’ve got solar panels and batteries and an electric car, so I don’t shy away from those things – I try to incorporate them and use them to my advantage.

“I’m not saying electric bikes or cars are the whole future, but they do have their place. Take my electric motocross bike – it’s at the limit of human technology up to now. I might sound like I’m contradicting myself, because I love my classic bikes, but I think there’s room for both.”

GUY ON… Modern motorcycles

“I find modern bikes boring. I don’t think there was anything that came out during my whole racing career (2003-2017) that genuinely excited me. There’s been nothing like the Honda RC30 or the Fireblade or the Ducati 916 in that time. Those were bikes that moved the game on, but they’re all so similar now. If the Britten V1000 suddenly came into production now, that would be a benchmark, but that’s not going to happen, is it? I just wanted the best tool to do the job when I was racing – and I rode some great bikes – but there was certainly nothing that came along that blew my mind. Nobody’s pushing the boundaries out there.”