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Guy Martin Biography & Facts

Guy Martin (born 4 November 1981) is a British former motorcycle racer and heavy vehicle mechanic who became a television presenter. He retired from motorcycle racing in July 2017. Martin started racing in 1998 and in 2004 competed on a road circuit for the first time at the Isle of Man TT. He has a total of 17 podium finishes at TT events over several years. He has broken his back twice in racing accidents, in the 2010 TT and the 2015 Ulster Grand Prix. In August 2017, Martin joined Formula 1 car team Williams' pit-crew for the Belgian GP. Martin returned to road racing in May 2019 at the Tandragee 100 in Northern Ireland. Martin starred in Closer to the Edge, a 2011 documentary on TT racing. He has since presented programmes on various engineering topics, as well as the Channel 4 series Speed with Guy Martin when he set speed records in a variety of human and engine powered vehicles. He has written four books, and competed in mountain bike pedal-cycle races. Early life Martin was born on the 4th of November, 1981, in a suburb of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England. He was named Guy in tribute to Guy Gibson of No. 617 Squadron RAF. His father Ian was a successful privateer motorbike racer who had competed in several Isle of Man TT events, but was forced to supplement his income with a job as a lorry mechanic, additionally selling bikes. His mother, Rita Kidals, was of Latvian heritage, her father having come to Britain in 1947 as a political refugee. Soon after Martin's birth, the family moved to a house outside the town, where they remained. Martin has two sisters and a brother. His brother, Stuart, is also a truck mechanic and motorbike racer. His younger sister, Kate, was the first female mechanic in the BSB paddock before leaving to start a family with two-times TT sidecar winner, Patrick Farrance. Martin and his siblings attended every Isle of Man TT from their births, until their father Ian crashed his Yamaha FZ750 whilst racing at Oliver's Mount, Scarborough in 1988, when Guy was aged 7. After recovering from the resulting broken hip, Martin's father did not race again, but worked as a mechanic in classic bike racing. Martin attended Kirmington Church of England Primary School and The Vale Academy school, leaving at age 16. Career Mechanic Martin had shown an interest in working on trucks as early as age 12. As a child he was fascinated by engines, and would take apart lawnmowers to try to make them go faster. Post-school he enrolled in North Lindsey College on a motor vehicle engineering course, but on recognising further education without pay was not for him, he secured an apprenticeship as a truck fitter with a Volvo centre, John Hebb Volvo. He also worked for his father, who at the time was self-employed, running a truck maintenance business. Due to the filming commitments for The Boat that Guy Built, he ended up losing his job with his father, but immediately went into town to apply for another truck job. He currently works for Moody International, a Scania centre in Grimsby. He only takes short periods off to race or do television work. He also earns money by tuning fellow racers' bikes in the evenings, and takes casual work during TT race weeks. Eager to keep his options open, he has even bought a tractor, using it on biomass farms for seasonal muck-spreading at night. Racing While completing his apprenticeship as a lorry mechanic, Martin raced motorbikes in his spare time. Martin returned to the Isle of Man at age 16. After overhearing lorry driver and amateur racer Baz Kirk discussing his plans to race in the 1997 Manx Grand Prix with his father, he was offered the chance to assist him as a race mechanic. Martin decided to take up racing after a crash on public roads at age 18. He moved to Ireland to join Team Racing. In 2004 he moved to the Uel Duncan Racing team, staying with them until 2005. In 2006 Martin raced for Alistair Flanagan's AIM Yamaha race team, replacing John McGuinness. In the search for a more competitive team, Martin joined Hydrex Honda for the 2007 season. The end of 2009 saw Martin leave Hydrex for Northern Ireland-based Wilson Craig Honda, but since November 2010, Martin has raced for TAS Racing (known as Relentless Suzuki, then Tyco Suzuki from 2012 to 2014, and Tyco BMW from 2015 to present), the team run by the Neill family also based in Northern Ireland, and with a long TT heritage. This switch to what was effectively a factory team meant the end of tuning his own equipment – at TAS, he would simply be riding pre-prepared machines. Martin agreed a new deal for 2015 with TAS after the team signed a new equipment deal with BMW Motorrad, to ride the BMW S1000RR alongside William Dunlop. Martin was prepared to retire had TAS not chosen to switch to BMW, believing he had raced the Suzuki as hard as he could. With the new bike, he ran his fastest ever lap of the TT circuit in June 2015 – 132.398 mph – just outside the outright lap record. Martin suffered a serious crash in the Dundrod 150 Superbike event, part of the Ulster Grand Prix races in August 2015. Following the crash, Martin only got back on his racing motorbike in March 2016, for the filming of the F1 special for his Speed series. Since 2011, he has also got into bicycle racing, in 24-hour events. For the 2016 season Martin decided not to race in the TT for the first time in 11 years, opting instead for a mountain bike race. He was uncertain if the decision would lead him to retire from road racing, mountain bike racing, or if he would go on to do something else, but said "if I do race on the roads it will be with TAS". Martin signed a new deal with Honda Racing on 18 January 2017 to ride the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2, rekindling his ambition to win the Isle of Man TT and renewing his focus on his road racing career. Television Martin first came to the attention of TV executives in 2009 when he appeared in an ITV4 programme intended primarily for fans of that year's TT race. The then film-producer, Andy Spellman, filmed with Martin at the TT. Spellman shot some additional test material of Martin back at home in the summer and the boss of North One Television showed the clips to a BBC executive. Having engaged Andy Spellman as his advisor and agent in 2009, Martin worked with North One Television producers James Woodroffe and Ewan Keil, who he still works with to this day. Martin's first appearances on TV documentaries were on programmes based around his passion for engineering rather than his love of adrenaline sport - The Boat that Guy Built airing on the BBC in 2011; and How Britain Worked on Channel 4 in 2012. His thrill-seeking side later emerged with the production of the series Speed with Guy Martin, first airing on Channel 4 in 2013. Uncomfortable with presenting to camera or working from a script, his preferred style is to improvise his dialogue, and work by responding to questions from crew off camera. He later turned down an invitation from Chris Evans t.... Discover the Guy Martin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Guy Martin books.