Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
TV presenter and former motorcycle racer; 17 podium finishes at Isle of Man TT, seven speed records, and hosts engineering/adventure programmes.
On the island
Eight records
Alabama 3 featuring Aurora Dawn
This song is massive standout because they came and they did a gig in Grimsby… and it was two hours late coming on stage and the place was going wild. And yeah, this was just a standout song.
Because of the last few lines in the song… 1984, George Orwell. I read that book twenty years ago… I just got into reading deep books… and listening to Rage Against Machine, and just the words from the end of that song. I thought, hang on. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. I thought, I've heard that before, and I know where I've heard that. I've read it in 1984, yeah. They're just sort of simple words but yet so so meaningful.
I never need to take drugs because I might as well have been taken because of that's… I don't need to get drunk because that song does it all.
'Cause at the time I've always listened to the music, but at the times of racing, doing dangerous things. There was just lines in this song that stood out to me and I thought, Oh yeah, that can sort of I can reason doin' these things. What's it like up there? Does the pain stop when you see the light? You know what I mean? Maybe I'm over-exaggerating these lines, but I can sort of justify. Oh, yeah, if I'm gonna yeah, the fair chance I might not come back. But does the pain stop when you see the light? But this song really just cause I could pick lines out of them, I just thought I could sort of justify what I was doing.
This was the Red Tranny again W17380, right? Driving to Spain, me and Johnny… and Longy… borrowed my dad's van… and we had one of those devices that you could put the tape in that had wires coming out of it that would actually play CDs… We didn't have many CDs, but one of the CDs was Robbie Williams' Escapology. We flogged it to death. Yeah, and me and my monkey, we just thought, that's yeah, such an odd song.
As bigger fan as I am of the Prodigy, I only got to see him live for the first time a few weeks ago. We got me and Sharon got married recently… that was a wedding present. It was Prodigy tickets.
With or Without YouFavourite
My wife, she has a Sharon, um, she's Irish… So we've got a bit of U2 in there, haven't we? She's from Ireland… I bloody cry when you play [it], but I don't… she's mega. She deals with me. She's brilliant.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:10Where do you get your hit of danger these days, day to day?
It's never stopped and I am looking forward to the day when I can get up in the morning and I'm just happy doing not a lot. But I can't see that day coming any time soon. So s just since the racing stops, yeah, be getting on for… sort of at a professional, that was 10 years ago… that's because I got bored… I was riding round the on these motorbike races thinking, what am I going to have for my tea? What's happening at work? And I just thought, right, something needs to happen here if I'm not fully concentrating on what I'm doing I'm going to end up with a wooden top… End up with a coffin lid.
Presenter asks
3:35What does [going 280 mph] feel like?
I go to a speed event and I have a good run, everything goes well, I do 270, 280 miles an hour. I and I'm not I genuinely do not sleep for two days. There's just the rush is like nothing I have ever experienced before. No matter how extreme the road racing was, does not come up to the knees of mile racing. It is like nothing else.
Presenter asks
13:42What did you learn from your dad [Ian Martin]?
I've been doing it this way for forty years. That's the way it's done. But I learned some off my dad. Just very meticulous in the way that he does things. Very much stuck in his ways, but he was, yeah, I just as a kid, when he was building his motorbikes, he'd let me sit on his bench in the shed while he was building his motorbikes. I wasn't allowed to say anything, I could sit on the sh just watch him. Yeah, just, yeah, fascinated by how things work, what's going on.
The keepsakes
The book
Mat Oxley
It's a story about Nazi V2 rocket technology being used for two-stroke motorbike exhaust technology. And this technology was all in East Germany at this point. It's an amazing story about a rider nicking the technology, getting it across the border… and then he just took off in motorbike racing from then on. And I just, yeah, I've read that book loads of times. It just, yeah, I still pick bits and I think that's what a story.
The luxury
The complete back catalogue of Race Engine Technology magazine (145 issues at the time)
I think we're at about one hundred and forty five magazines, race engine technologies. I think that's what number I I I bought the the h the first a hundred back catalogue of race engine technologies and it just blows my mind.
Presenter asks
32:05After losing mates like Tommy Clucas and Martin Finnegan, was there a point you thought this is not a healthy response to people you know dying doing the thing that you're doing?
No, it didn't, and I still don't. Because no one is making anyone do anything… We all know when, man, the buzz, you cannot money cannot buy that. And we all know the price to pay for that sometimes is not coming back. [Going to] funerals does not do your head any favors… So they stopped that. They just carried on. And and to be honest that was the but that was the only way to deal with it.
Presenter asks
32:51What did you take away from [the book] The Chimp Paradox?
I do stupid things on impulse sometimes. And it's made me understand why I do these things. The only way I could deal with doing these stupid things was this mad part of my brain is ran by a monkey… I know what it looks like… Ben Kingsley, sexy beast, right? But imagine Ben Kingsley as a chimp… That is my chimp… And that's how he talks to me, pointing at me and telling me exactly how things are going to be done… But now I now know how to deal with Brian, and you have to put him in his box… Go and sit on my push bike for a couple of weeks and pedal to Mexico… The only way to deal with the chimp is to sit on a push bike and suffer for a couple of weeks at a time.
Presenter asks
42:37What was it like to find out you're neurodivergent [in 2013]?
I don't see it as a problem. I think whether it's the lads I work with or my wife, it just makes them understand a bit better. But I'd just say, if anything, gives me… honesty… I'm just straight to the point. I'm black and white, and then it maybe upsets a few people, but it yeah, it I think it helps, it helps me, it helps me deal with situations better, that I'm just straight to the point everyone knows where to stand. That it makes me and we're all different… I think it's a benefit.
“It's never stopped and I am looking forward to the day when I can get up in the morning and I'm just happy doing not a lot. But I can't see that day coming any time soon.”
“I've been doing it this way for forty years. That's the way it's done. But I learned some off my dad. Just very meticulous in the way that he does things.”
“We all know when, man, the buzz, you cannot money cannot buy that. And we all know the price to pay for that sometimes is not coming back.”
“I'm happy. I'm happy. I don't need I'm just happy. I've got my wife, got me daw, got me dogs.”
“I bloody cry when you play [it], but I don't… she's mega. She deals with me. She's brilliant.”