Guy Martin Read online

  Back in the pits, Milky’s sponsor let rip at me, calling me every name under the sun as I apologised. Strangely, he nearly ended up sponsoring me down the line, but we certainly got off on the wrong foot. Milky is now one of the key men in the running of the Isle of Man TT races, so we still bump into each other quite a bit.

  After the coming together with Milky I had hell getting the bike back to the pits, because any bikes that crash or break down get pushed into a field and collected later. There are so many races within an Irish meeting like Kells that the next grid is waiting to get out on the road to line up as soon as the previous race finishes. And these road circuits are not like Silverstone, where there are service roads that the recovery trucks can use to bring bikes back to the pits. Eventually, though, we got the Suzuki back and taped the fairing up for another race.

  I didn’t know a lot about Irish road racing. I was in the British National series and blinkered to what was going on in Ireland. The road-race scene was hardly reported in the UK at the time. Even the TT was on the wane. Everyone was interested in World Superbikes, BSB and MotoGP, but I’d seen pictures of the Northern Irish race star Adrian Archibald, in his Red Bull-sponsored helmet, and now I was sat next to him, thinking, ‘Bloody hell …’ Archibald was the man in Ireland at the time, a TT contender, who, the following year, would win the 2003 Isle of Man Senior TT. And I actually passed Archibald in my very first race. Unfortunately it was on the way to taking out Milky …

  The jumps at Kells were something else, too. I was hitting them flat-out and flying for 50 metres or more. I didn’t have any particular skill, I just wasn’t scared. And that seemed to work in Irish road racing. At least for me.

  After the raced where I tangled with Milky, I was out in the support races, for the lower level of racers – where I should’ve been from the start – and won three of them, including the Senior B and the Grand Final B races. After the prize-giving I ended up with a pocket full of prize money and a new outlook on life. We went out on the Guinness that night, got hammered, and drove home the next day, me realising, for the second time in two weeks, that I’d seen the future. I didn’t have to work 100-hour weeks to pay for my racing. I didn’t have to dance on the bar of Chicago Rock Café to the bloody ‘Hand Jive’ all winter, putting money away for tyres that were chewed up and spat out in 20 minutes. I could win a few quid and pay for it that way.

  It wasn’t the money that was attracting me to the roads, though. I enjoyed it all. Everyone involved with the race were the friendliest people I’d ever met. They couldn’t do enough for me. That’s why I’ve always had a soft spot for Kells, even though the track’s a bit nadgery compared to the ones I now enjoy the most, the Mountain Course and Dundrod. And the Irish race community lived by a saying I learnt and loved – We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.

  A couple of weeks after the Scarborough meeting, and a few days after the life-changing race at Kells, I travelled down to the Auto Cycle Union’s headquarters in Rugby for a hearing on the whole Rockingham incident. I went with Dave Johnson, who I’d bought my very first race bike from. He came to give moral support, but it didn’t make any difference. I went in front of the board, a spray of Lynx deodorant covering any whiff of nervous sweat. I think I even wore shoes to make an effort, but I was made to feel my crime was worse than Fred West’s. They sent me out of the room while they deliberated and decided to suspend my ACU racing licence for the rest of the season. Weirdly, they gave me the impression the punishment was for cancelling the cheque, not for slamming the laptop on Stuart Higgs’s hands, but I’m sure that didn’t do anything to help my cause.

  By this time, I realised that if I did go to race in Ireland it meant I could apply for an Irish race licence, through the MCUI, the Motorcycle Union of Ireland, and not have to deal with the ACU.

  Once I had decided I was going to be a real road racer, things moved fast. And again, it was weird twists of fate and chance meetings that brought it about.

  James Andrews, who’d helped me out by spannering at Kells, was racing his Supermoto bike at Anglesey in North Wales. I went and spannered for him, to return the favour. During the weekend I bumped into Sam Finley, an Irish fella who ran a small road racing team. We’d had a yarn between the races at Kells. He had someone riding for him at Kells and at Anglesey too.

  When we bumped into each other in Wales, we got talking and he asked what I was planning to do in 2003. I told him I was going to buy a bike and do some Irish road races. Sam said perhaps I could race for him. I can’t have taken it seriously, because I never asked for his phone number and he didn’t take mine.

  Then, some weeks later, I went with a bunch of mates to watch a big Supermoto race at Mettet in Belgium. We were in a pub at the first corner having a few drinks and there was Sam again. This time we did swap phone numbers. He said he definitely wanted me to ride for his outfit, Team Racing, and asked did I want to go and live over in Ireland.

  These random meetings, the last one in a pub in Belgium, led me down a completely different path. I wouldn’t be paid to ride for Sam; it wasn’t that kind of deal. It never entered my head that I would be paid, but I was being supplied a 750 to race, a van to turn up in and the chance to win a few quid in prize money. It meant I didn’t have to buy my own 750. I could race the 600 I’d been racing in Junior Superstock, at Scarborough and at Kells, and also Team Racing’s Suzuki 750.

  Sam had a job for me too, so I starting planning for 2003. It meant packing in working for my dad and moving out. I was 22 and leaving home to go to race motorbikes.

  So, in the spring of 2003, I moved to Northern Ireland. I originally lived in Sam’s spare room, sharing the house with him, his wife and his kids. He owned a few bits of property, so I eventually ended up moving into the bare shell of a bungalow at the back of a filling station, once we’d got the electricity and water plumbed in. The kitchen and toilet were fitted, but that’s all. The place was renamed the Fungalow.

  During the week I worked as a labourer for a building firm that dealt with the maintenance of a casting factory in the west side of Belfast. At weekends I’d race both on the short circuits and the roads.

  The ‘shorts’ are what the road racing community call purpose-built tracks, however long they are. Donington, Silverstone, Laguna Seca, Misano, Valencia … they are all short circuits. The racing that goes on in series like MotoGP and British Superbikes is often called road racing, to differentiate it from motocross or any other kind of motorcycle sport that happens on dirt. That’s why the TT and Irish road racing is also known as real road racing. It’s racing on a real road.

  Riders in their first year of racing on the Irish roads, are restricted to what was called the Support Class and to bikes no bigger than a 750. They call it the B race at most places now. Somehow, probably because of my good showing at my first Cock o’ the North, I was allowed to race in the main class at Kells, the race where I took out Milky, but the authorities saw the error of their ways and I was in the Support Class for the 2003 season.

  Sally, my brother Stu and Shorty, an old mate from Kirmington, came over from Lincolnshire to support me, driving the five hours up to Stranraer for the ferry over to Belfast in my sister’s Vauxhall Corsa. I remember I was up till after midnight preparing the bikes for what would be my first outing for Team Racing, the next day’s race at Aghadowey, a short, airfield circuit that had a bend called Shithouse Corner.

  I did well in the Support Class. I was fairly confident, because I had won at Kells, my very first Irish meeting in 2002 – when I’d travelled over with my own bike. Then I won quite regularly through 2003 for Team Racing. The race at Aghadowey didn’t go without incident, though. I crashed three times in a day on my debut for Team Racing. I actually crashed getting from the truck to the pits. Quite impressive.

  I also raced at the short circuits of Bishopscourt and Kirkistown. Then the road racing started with Cookstown and Tandragee. Sally would come over to Ireland regularly and
do the pit board for us – hold out the bath towel sized board with numbers that would show me where I was in the race and how many seconds the riders in front and behind were away from me. Even then she knew I might not have a long future with this team. They’d bought a few sets of Fandango headsets, with big headphones and microphones so they could talk to each other. They never worked properly and looked right out of place in Irish road racing, more suited to a Formula One pit-lane.

  That year I didn’t race at the North West 200, the season’s biggest race in Northern Ireland. My Team Racing team-mate, Liam Quinn, another businessman who owned a company that sold industrial air compressors, raced at the meeting, and I ended up spannering for him. Liam was a good 20 years older than me.

  My job was to prepare my Suzuki GSX-R600, that was in the orange, white and black Team Racing colours, for him to borrow and race. Once we were at the track, I was to get the bike through scrutineering, making sure it was safe and ready to race. I understood all that, no problem, but in the week before the race, Liam said to me, ‘Why don’t you try and get the Suzuki 750 engine out of your bike into the 600?’

  I was surprised he was willing to cheat so blatantly in a class that was supposed to have standard engines, but Liam explained that plenty of people were already cheating by porting the head of their 600s or changing the cams to gain an advantage, but why mess around like that? The class at that time was notorious, with 600s going faster than 750s. Loads of people were pulling a fast one. Liam’s thinking, he said, was that if he was going to rob the sweet shop he wasn’t just going to just take the penny sweets, he’d have the whole till.

  It made some weird kind of logic and he was the boss, so I did what I could. The 750 engine was 10 mm higher, so I made some engine mounting brackets and got it in. It didn’t do him much good, though; he still didn’t come anywhere near the podium.

  I never felt guilty about helping him break the rules, Liam’s plan wasn’t keeping me awake at night. Cheating was rife, right up to the top level, in the generation before I got involved, but it’s much harder to get away with things now, at the top level at least. There’s too much scrutiny.

  I even rode that bike in a 600 race at Nutts Corner, a short circuit in Northern Ireland. The bike was so much faster than anything else, that I ended up waiting for everyone so it didn’t look too obvious. I planned to win on a dash for the line, but, what I hadn’t worked out was, the finish line was past the braking marker. That meant, every other time I’d crossed the line, I was already braking to slow down for the first corner. This time I accelerated over the line to pip whoever I was racing. By the time it clicked it was too late. and I ended up crashing in a field. That was the first, and last, time I cheated in a bike race.

  I made a few good friends early in that 2003 season. One was Martin Finnegan, who would become probably my best mate among the other racers.

  I first met him in 2001. He was one of a bunch of lads racing in England under the name Team Ireland. He was with other Irish riders including Woolsey Coulter.

  I raced Martin in British Junior Superstock. We knew each other enough to say hello, but not much more until I went to race at Kells in 2002. I saw him there, and he gave me some petrol to allow me to keep racing, because I couldn’t get out of the pits to buy more when I was close to running out.

  He was racing the big class in my support class season and we got talking. He was a year older, but he seemed more mature, and was running his own show himself.

  Martin came from Lusk, right near the famous Skerries circuit. He was a man mountain, compared to other bike racers. He was built like a house side. He’d grown up racing motocross and he was spectacular on a Superbike. He always looked great in photos, jumping the furthest, right out of the seat, and often with the front wheel crossed up like a motocrosser. He rode the bike – the bike didn’t boss him, that’s for sure. He was a top TT man, on the podium, but never won one. He was also the top road racer from the Republic of Ireland so he always did all right for sponsorship.

  I saw Martin the following year, 2003, at the Cookstown 100, the first road race of the year of my first full season in Ireland. I think he told Sam Finley he needed a mechanic for the upcoming Isle of Man fortnight, and Sam said I’d be good for the job.

  Martin then asked me to work for him at the 2003 TT, which would be his second time racing there, and I was happy to. I drove down to his place in Lusk, not far from Dublin. I had tea with his mum and dad, then he gave me an envelope full of £1,000 cash to spanner for him for the fortnight. This was before I’d even done anything, and it was more than I wanted or expected, but he wouldn’t take it back. He just said, I want you to do the job right. The friendship grew from that TT.

  I’d prep the bikes, which was work I loved doing and took pride in. There was no pressure from that side of things, because I had confidence in my own ability. I would also be one of the three blokes doing Martin’s pit-stops. I did the wheel change for him in the Senior and it was probably the most pressure I’ve ever felt at a TT. I’d rather race the bike than be responsible for changing the wheel. I did it, no problem, but I didn’t like being in that position.

  A light goes on, on the top of the historic old scoreboard opposite the grandstand, when each rider goes past Hillberry. The pit crew then know the bike is less than two miles away from the pits. Once I saw the light go on, I got an instant shot of adrenalin. An Arai man, one of the fellas who spend the fortnight servicing helmets for the racers, did Martin’s visors; Martin’s brother-in-law, Alan, did the fuel, and I changed the rear wheel.

  As Martin came in, I jumped behind the bike, put it on the rear paddock stand. I took off the nut with a pneumatic ‘windy’ gun; took the spindle out; pushed the wheel forward; unhooked the chain; pulled the wheel out, and placed it down so it didn’t roll away in front of the other bikes all coming in and out of the pit-lane. When the new wheel and tyre go in, you have to be careful to guide the brake disc into the caliper; then you push the spindle through; hook the chain on; roll the wheel backwards; pull the wheel back; put the nut on with the gun; crack it with a torque wrench to be sure it’s tight; check the back brake; take the bike off the stand and then wait for the fuel to finish. The TT fuel systems are different to those used in motorcycle endurance racing. They’re slower at the Isle of Man, taking about 35 seconds to fill up the tank, rather than about five, but that’s a good thing, because it gives the wheel-changers more time to make sure everything is right. You’re still expected to change a back wheel in 20 seconds, though.

  Once the fuel was finished I’d give him a push off down the pit-lane, then the three crew would stand there in silence, letting out a big breath of air, before one would ask, ‘What do you reckon then?’ and we’d talk about how the pit-stop had gone.

  Martin was dead professional, and when he came in after the race he’d give a list of changes he wanted to make. It was a massive buzz and an education to be involved with a rider who was doing well at the TT. I think it also helped me, in the future, that I’d been both sides of the fence – riding and spannering.

  That July I travelled back to the Isle of Man, this time to race at the Southern 100 meeting. It’s a mid-week race, held on the outskirts of Castletown. It would become my favourite race meeting of the year, but the first visit was a disaster.

  CHAPTER 7

  IT’LL CATCH UP WITH YOU

  ‘Rather than bide my time and weigh up the options, I let my “inner chimp” get the better of me.’

  AFTER WORKING AS a mechanic for Finnegan at the 2003 TT, I was back in action racing myself and, only a few weeks later, on the ferry to Isle of Man to race at the Southern 100 meeting. It would be the first time I raced on the Isle of Man.

  The Southern is another real road race held on the same small island as the TT, but it’s a very different event. For one thing, it’s on a completely different circuit. The Southern 100 takes place on the historic 4.25-mile Billown Circuit that runs through Castletown and t
he surrounding countryside. It’s also a lot more low-key, and happens mid-week, with the big race on the Thursday. And, crucially, it’s a mass-start race, not a time trial like the Tourist Trophy. The bikes line up in rows on a grid and fight for position into the first corners. First across the line wins. It attracted the top road racers then and still does now.

  I made a good start on my first visit to the track. After Wednesday night’s Senior race I was on the podium, third behind Ryan Farquhar and Jason Griffiths on the 2001 Suzuki Superbike my dad had sold his road bike to buy me. Because this was the Isle of Man, not Ireland, and the race was run by a different governing body, I could take part in the big feature races and on a 1000-cc bike, where, in Ireland, I was still limited to a 750-cc. Because I wasn’t limited to the Support Class I was going into the final race, the big one on Thursday, thinking to myself, ‘I can win this.’

  Looking back, I was riding wild. I might have been getting good results, but I was pushing my luck. More experienced road racers, men I respected, like Finnegan and Richard Britton, had noticed the way I was riding in the Support Class races in Ireland and took the time to tell me I had to calm down. Keep riding like that and it’ll catch up with you, I was told. They were saying it in a jokey way, with smiles on their faces, but they were serious. I know they cared or they’d have kept their mouths shut, but they said it in a way that showed they weren’t telling me what to do, just giving me something to think about. I might have nodded to say I heard them, but I wasn’t listening.

  I was riding by the seat of my pants, loving the buzz and winning the support races, but I was taking too many chances.

  I lined up for the Championship race, as they call it, which that year was sponsored by the Ronaldsway Shoe Company. I looked across and saw Ryan Farquhar next to me in the purple and turquoise colours of McAdoo Racing. Farquhar was already a big name in road racing, and the Northern Irishman would go on to win more Irish road races than anyone in history. Being cocky and over-confident, though, I reckoned I had the beating of him …