Worms to Catch Read online

  Because F1 fuel regulations are so tight the latest cars do another dead clever thing. When it goes into a corner a turbo car needs to vent the pressure in the plenum chamber – the pressurised airbox the engine breathes from – so you don’t stall the turbo. But dumping the pressure you’ve built up into the atmosphere is also wasting energy. So, instead, the two halves of the turbo, the intake and exhaust, are split and linked with a shaft. The turbo can spin at 120,000 rpm, so the shaft runs through a gearbox with an output that drives a motor. Instead of dumping the plenum pressure, this motor connected to the shaft acts as a brake to slow down the turbo, and then reverts to being a motor to spin the turbo back up and reduce any turbo lag. It’s dead clever. The saying is that racing improves the breed, and F1 is the pinnacle of racing technology.

  Another two races were organised for day two. The first was a slalom through nine cones spread in a straight line over 150 metres. It was a bit like a motorcycle CBT course. The car went first with its new front tyres, giving it more front grip. David explained that the throttle pedal movement is only summat like 50 mm, a couple of inches, and he was spinning the rear wheels to get the back end sliding to line up for the next gap between the cones. I was doing the timing with a stopwatch, stood right next to the finish line. There was a 30- or 40-metre gap between the last cone and the finish line, enough for him to gun it. He accelerated past where I was stood, two metres away, and I could feel the exhaust pulses in my chest. I stopped the clock at 12.87 seconds. He was happy with that, reckoning he had some good momentum. Then it was my go. I took it easy, dead smooth, swinging through the cones that were far enough apart to allow an F1 car through, which wasn’t hard. I did it in less than ten seconds. We’d won one at last, but if I hadn’t won that one I’d need to pack in.

  The final test was a race around the Silverstone circuit. The TV lot looked at the F1 lap record and the motorbike lap record. The Superbike lap record at the time was 2:03. The F1 lap record was over 30 seconds quicker. So the car was quicker, no question, and a handicap race was the answer to keep things more interesting. It was worked out that a car should be able to do four laps in the time a bike could do three. Coulthard hadn’t raced an F1 car for years and I was rusty, so it was a fair comparison.

  Like in the drag race, I got off the line quicker and beat him into turn one, so I was happy with that, but he went around the outside of me and left at warp speed. He had to do 3.6 miles more than me, but he was doing 120 mph through Copse and I was nearly 40 mph slower, with my knee on the deck and the bike weaving and spinning on the cold track on the exit.

  It was like swimming with a shark. I knew that if he did catch me I just had to keep doing what I was doing, not lift it up or be worried he was going to stick it underneath me. And he did catch me in the Farm section, with not much of my last lap to go. When he got me in his sights he couldn’t take much out of me while we were both accelerating down the straights, but he made up so much time in the braking area. Obviously, there are no mirrors on a race bike, but I knew he was there, because I could hear him. The current F1 cars aren’t as loud, but the car they used in the programme was the last of the V8s, and it was noisy – and actually a quicker car than the new one. He just came around the outside and it was game over. It was an honour to be involved with something like this.

  We had Silverstone to ourselves, so after filming I did some laps, mucking about, and by the end of it I thought, I’m bored of this now. It was another confirmation that I’ve had enough of racing motorbikes.

  We didn’t swap phone numbers – I’m not one for handing my number out and my phone is never turned on anyway – but if you’re reading this, David, I’m still waiting for my invite down to Monaco.

  CHAPTER 4

  They needed to have faith in me

  AROUND CHRISTMAS TIME the TV lot started talking about a new date for the wall of death attempt. The wall had been built and was sat idle, waiting for me in an aircraft hangar in Manby, Lincolnshire. March or April was mentioned – it had to be around then so that North One TV’s insurance company would be happy that my back injury wasn’t going to be a problem. The idea, for those who didn’t see it at the time, was to set the fastest-ever speed recorded on a wall of death. I was determined to do it on a bike I’d built myself and had started making parts for it on the milling machine in my shed.

  We weren’t messing. It was going to be the biggest wall of death ever, at least twice the size of any other in the world, and as the date got closer I was working flat out on the Rob North triple, my wall of death bike. Every spare minute I had was spent working on it. I felt that this was the biggest thing I’d done in motorcycling, and a big part of that was down to me building my own bike. Riding the wall itself wasn’t what made it special, it was the whole thing combined – building the bike, the wall and the riding. Who is ever going to do that again? But all that would have to wait a while.

  I went to see a back specialist after typing ‘Spinal specialist Lincolnshire’ into Google. It came up with Christopher Lee in Grimsby. I rang the receptionist, booked an appointment and went with Sharon to see him. He wasn’t someone who specialised in treating motorbike racers, but he had seen enough. He was very thorough without being too cautious. Everyone around me had said I was doing too much, because I had gone back to work within two weeks of the accident, but he said if I was getting away with it, then that was alright. After he’d looked at some X-rays he was happy enough with me doing whatever felt comfortable. He looked at what the surgeons had done in Belfast and said it was exactly how he’d have done it. Still, he wouldn’t have a good idea about how long it would take me to get back to full fitness until I’d had a bit longer to heal. It could be six months, it could be a year, he explained, so I made an appointment to go back to him six weeks later. When I heard it might be a year I wasn’t disappointed, it was just what it was going to be. You can’t argue with the facts.

  I also went to see Isla Scott, of Scott Physiotherapy on the Isle of Man, three times during the recovery. I’d drive over to Liverpool on a Wednesday, catch a cheap flight and fly back the same day. Isla would see to me until two o’clock, then I’d fly back at four – all done and dusted in the day.

  I’d be there having four hours of massage treatment, to get the movement back in my neck and shoulders. I’ve known Isla for years and she’s treated me for loads of knocks and strains, going back to the crash I had at the North West in 2008, so she knows what kind of movement I have when I’m fit and what she had to help me get back to.

  During the first visit after the crash she didn’t do much of what she calls manipulation, because the injury was all a bit fresh and still swollen, but she had the doctor’s notes and was getting an idea of what had happened. I was telling people I was fine, that I’d just slept awkward, but I could hardly move my neck at first. I didn’t have a lot of movement in my arms either. I was tight all over the place. She gave me a few exercises to do at home, but she was nervous of going hard at it. I did a load of the exercises and when I went back she gave me a load of new ones to do. Sharon went with me once, and there was an area that was hurting like buggery when Isla massaged it, because of a trapped nerve or summat, so Isla showed Sharon what to do so she could have a go at it at home. I only let Sharon do it once, but I think it cured it. After the third monthly visit to Isla I felt I was 100 per cent fit.

  A big day in the whole wall of death job was when Ken Fox came to Manby to ride the big wall and prove it could be done. Ken was the programme’s expert and the man who taught me how to ride on the wall. He is the son of a wall of death rider, and the Fox family have two walls of their own. Ken runs one of them with his youngest son, Alex, while his eldest, Luke, runs the other. They’re at shows all over Britain and Europe from spring till Christmas.

  Ken’s test day on the big wall was 19 November. He was there with his missus, Julie; Ewan, Tom and Sarah came from North One; Paul and Curly from Krazy Horse brought their bike; and Sharon came with
me. It had been worked out that a bike had to do a 4.5-second lap, at a minimum of 57 mph, to generate enough centrifugal force to stick to our big wall. Ken was the first and, until I was up to the job, only person to ride it. He rode a 2015 Indian Scout that had been built to his specification by Krazy Horse. The Indian made sense, as 1920s and 30s Indian Scouts are the traditional choice of bike to use on the wall of death. Other walls in the UK, Europe and the USA use the old American V-twins too. The Foxes run four of them, but use 1970s Honda CB200s, and that’s what I was learning on.

  Indian motorcycles are now made by a big American company called Polaris. Like all the companies that revive an old firm’s brand name, they’ve used the famous model names of the original company, and the twenty-first-century Indian make a Chieftain and a Scout. The Scout is an 1130 cc, liquid-cooled V-twin cruiser. Krazy Horse of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, had been contacted to build a backup bike, in case the Rob North BSA triple I was busy building broke down. The attempt was going to be on live TV, so I couldn’t be checking spark plugs if it played up.

  Ken had visited Krazy Horse – they aren’t far from him – and told them how he wanted it changing. He was well impressed that they’d done everything he’d asked. He wanted footboards (instead of footpegs), so he could move his feet back and forward, a shorter tank to allow the seat to move forward, and rigid forks and rear end, so no suspension at all.

  On the smaller wall you’re creating more centrifugal force at lower speeds, so you don’t have to ride as quickly to stick to the wall, but the G-forces increase massively at much lower speeds than we wanted to attempt. Hugh Hunt, the doctor of mechanical engineering from Trinity College, Cambridge, who did the maths for the wall of death, says 80 mph on the small wall would exert 14 g, much more than a human could cope with.

  It was always the plan, broken back or no broken back, that Ken was going to be the first man to test the wall. He had the most wall-riding experience and was the programme’s expert. I was dead nervous watching him, even more nervous than I would be when it came to my chance to ride it. Everyone else was too, because only the maths said it was going to work – no one really knew. But I’d been into the wall weeks before and thought, Yeah, I can do this. Before that, I’d only seen the drawings and plans, and I was worried, thinking, When I see this with my own eyes will I be wondering what the hell have I said I’m going to do? Seeing it for the first time, even though it was massive, put my mind at rest.

  When it came time to see how the bike would behave on the big wall, Ken put leathers and a helmet on. It would be the first time he had worn a motorcycle helmet on a wall of death. He looked like a fish out of water in all the borrowed kit. He did about ten laps of the track, the angled section at the bottom, came in and had a word with everyone about the time he was lapping it in. Then Ken went for it and proved to everyone it would work. The strangest thing was Ken admitting that this was the fastest he’d ever been on a motorbike. Not just on a wall of death, but in his life. A few people said he didn’t look like he wanted to go back on the big wall, but he’d done his bit. Soon it would be my turn, but I had some more time on the little wall before I was ready for the big one.

  I’d hardly been on a motorbike since the crash, and only ridden a road race bike at Silverstone against David Coulthard. I’d ridden a bit of flat track in October, just on the farm, but really I had about two and a half days on a bike until I went back to the Foxes’ in Cambridgeshire for two days of riding right at the beginning of March.

  The Foxes’ yard is out in the Cambridgeshire countryside. When it comes to their business the family are nearly self-sufficient. They have sheds and workshops in the yard as well as their homes. There are only a few jobs they don’t do themselves, and I admire that. They maintain the trucks, mend the wall, do all their own paintwork – the family even built a new wall from scratch. They service the bikes and, when I was there, Luke and a couple of the other lads and lasses were converting a Transit van into a camper for one of the crew to sleep in when they’re away at shows. When they’ve got a bit of spare time, Luke and his brother Alex modify cars: a Land Rover Discovery for off-roading and an old Mini with a Yamaha R1 1000 cc motorbike engine in it.

  Up until recently, the whole family lived in the same yard, but Luke, Kerri and their little ’un had just moved out. Alex still lives there with his girlfriend, Abigail, in a static caravan, the kind you’d find in a holiday park. Ken and his wife, Julie, live in a bungalow, kind of like a sectional building, but a lovely place.

  The family have ducks and geese, and as soon as I got there on the first morning Nige, my Labrador, jumped out of the van and went straight for the ducks. He had a gobful of feathers before I knew what he was up to, so that wasn’t a good start. I tanned his arse for that and he was alright the rest of the time, tied up on a rope. The family have dogs too, and they have a mad half-hour every now and then chasing and killing the birds, so they weren’t too surprised at Nige.

  Tom and Sarah from North One TV were there, just keeping an eye on everything – they weren’t filming me getting re-acclimatised to the wall. There were a couple of ambulance folk that the insurance company insisted had to be there. The whole insurance job around me and this wall of death was a carry-on, but it’s just as well North One had it, as the cost of housing the wall in the hangar at Manby went through the roof because of the postponement. A couple of folk from national newspapers turned up at the yard for interviews.

  It wasn’t possible for me to just turn up after a few months and get straight on the wall – it was a bit tricky to get the hang of it again – but Ken was dead good, as he had been all along. He had me riding the track at the bottom, the angled transition between flat and vertical, a few times before attempting to get up on the wall. He’s a brilliant teacher, really precise about what he wanted me to do: ‘Right, ride the track, get up into second gear, then come back in, reset, have a cup of tea.’ He wasn’t assuming anything or expecting me to get straight back up there, and he wasn’t putting any pressure on me. The opposite, really. He was always very measured about it all. Nothing was rushed, just take one step at a time again.

  I was still getting dizzy. I was always dizzy if I rode long enough, but it gets better the more you do it. Before I turned up for the first day of practice, I thought I’d try to get away with doing only one day, but by the end of it I knew Ken expected me there the next day, so I drove the three hours home to do some work on the bike and set off early the next morning back to Cambridgeshire. Whichever way I went, I couldn’t get the journey under three hours in either direction.

  It was worth the drive because any spare time I had – nights, weekends, even an hour before setting off to work at half-five in the morning – from November onwards was spent building the Rob North BSA 750 triple I was going to use on the wall. I could have done with using the two days I was at Ken’s improving the bike, but I knew it would be useful to spend time on the wall too.

  Two weeks after my training down at Ken’s yard it was my turn on the big wall. We were still 12 days away from the live TV programme, but it was a big day.

  By now the Fox family had erected their own wall of death in one corner of the hangar at the disused Manby airbase, which was nearly full to bursting with the big wall. Ambulance and fire crews were there, as well as the TV bods, Krazy Horse folk, a load of the Fox Troupe’s extended family and my dad.

  I turned up in the van with Sharon and Nige, and the Rob North BSA (let’s just call it the triple to save time) in the back. It wasn’t totally finished, but the TV bods wanted to see it. They had expected me to finish the bike and test it on an airfield or summat weeks before, but they should have read When You Dead, You Dead. If they had, they’d have seen: ‘Even though I’d really like to have it finished and sat in the shed ready and waiting to go, that’s not going to happen. It’ll become a priority when it becomes a priority.’

  And that’s what happened. I wanted to make a load of parts for it myself, not s
ub them out or buy them in. But that meant I had to learn how to make them too. My dad came over to mine to work with me on it for four or five Sundays on the trot towards the end of the job.

  To build the triple I had to learn CNC machining. I only went on the course that would teach me enough to make the bits to build the bike on 23 December, at OneCNC in Dudley. They make a CAD (computer aided design) system that works with my XYZ milling machine. I was a bit stuck so they squeezed me in, but it meant I was the only person on the course. I’d had the OneCNC system on my laptop for a year, and I’d taken it to New Zealand over Christmas 2014, because I’d been told to try to learn it a bit myself so I knew what they were on about when I took the free classroom course that came with the system. I didn’t know any CAD beforehand, and I didn’t really need it until I got into building this bike. I struggled on without it, using my milling machine, but not to anything like its potential.

  A CAD program like SolidWorks is easier for drawing parts and altering the drawings, but when it comes to making toolpaths for the milling machine to follow, it’s not as easy as OneCNC’s system. I thought I could just draw what I wanted and send it to the machine, and it would make the part and I’d be away. But it doesn’t. The machine doesn’t understand the picture. It only understands numbers, so you have to convert the drawing into numbers, but that’s not as easy as it sounds.