GUY MARTIN RACING

Evening all. Happy New Year. Did you have a big un out your way last night? I must be getting old. I was in bed for ten. I had an early start at work on Wednesday morn though, and we were on another big push bike ride out Manchester way at six this morn. She was proper cold though, even the old Camelbak was frozen solid. Back in one peice, though, so can’t complain. Just getting psyched up for our trip to Wales on Sunday.
New Year’s resolutions? What a load of tripe. Luck and resolutions and all that crap. I’ve become to learn that I make my own luck. I went to ask for some luck at the Fairy Bridge in the Isle of Man last year, what did that do? SOD ALL. So I’m making my own luck, by leaving no stone unturned for the 09 season. This means right bikes and right people in the team. I’ll do a different peice on the blog for each of the chaps involved in the bike side of things next month. That will be an education!
A personal target for 2009 is to get an entry in a NPS downhill race (like BSB but for downhill mountain bikes), but this is easier said than done. I need to score some points at club events to be able to get an entry. I’m on with this now. The NPS scene is proper fast and I know I’ve got a lot to learn.
After reading the book of 1960s top pin striping legend, Von Dutch (nowt to do with the fashion Von Dutch, they nicked his name after his death) I need to stick with my original plan of doing things in life I love doing, not for money or for what it makes people think. Just for the love of ‘em, like I always have done. Racing bikes for the love of racing em, riding my push bikes for the love of it. Oh, and not worrying about my hands being permanently mucky. Von Dutch reckons this is part of the person you are, scruffy, yes , but not shy of work and I’m confident of the person I am. I’m not trying to model myself on some corporate dummy, saying the right things at the camera. I’ll stick with the truth, it’s easier.

PS The farmer’s daughter said that’s her wallpaper you don’t like. She said it’s modern or something. I wouldn’t know, the nearest I got to modern is an eight-year-old Nokia 3210i.

From Shaun Catterall

After the departure of my good mate and hero, Mr Robert Dunlop, an auction was organised at the Magherabouy hotel on the NW circuit to raise money for the family. Quite right too after what Robbie gave us over the years. Guy very kindly donated this broken crank from his TT bike. As Guy described it The bike shit itself down Sulby straight. Guy estimated the value for the auction catologue at £20. He got a shock when I rang him on Saturday morning to say it raised £600. Fair play Guy. Top man, Nice bloke, one of life’s very few honest, straight talking blokes. Out of same mould as the great RD. Cheers.

HYDREX HONDA AIM FOR TRIPLE SUCCESS IN 2009

Following on from the success gained in 2008, Teesside-based Hydrex Honda will have no less than three riders gunning for glory on various fronts in both the 2009 British Superbike Championship as well as on the pure roads around the world.

After a year away from Shaun Muir’s team having raced for them in 2007, popular Yorkshireman Karl Harris returns to the fold aboard the well-proven Honda Fireblade and is keen to put a disappointing 2008 behind him.

Harris scored a podium for the team at Oulton Park in July 2007 and has yet to record his debut win in British Superbikes but the former works HM Plant Honda rider has plenty of experience which he intends putting to good use next season.

The former European Superstock and multiple British Supersport Champion will be joined by another former British Supersport Champion in the shape of Scotsman, Stuart Easton who won the recent Macau Grand Prix for the team in Doosan colours.

Easton raced for Kawasaki last year but was sidelined through injury for the middle part of the season, and following his Macau success, Muir acted quickly to sign the Hawick rider who was the target for a number of other teams.

Both Harris and Easton will be aboard the Mick Shanley-prepared Hondas in all twelve rounds of the British Superbike Championship which gets underway at Brands Hatch at Easter and Easton’s deal also sees him race the bike at Macau in order to defend his title.

The third member of the team is the enigmatic Guy Martin who has secured a deal with Team SMR for the third year running. After last year’s abortive campaign in BSB as well as the roads, the 27 year old from Kirmington will concentrate solely on the four big road race meetings, the North West 200, TT, Ulster Grand Prix and Macau.

Karl Harris: “This is a big year for me and I’m determined to make it a success. I’ve totally changed my routines, I have a new personal trainer and I am fully focussed on winning races in 2009. I had so much bad luck last year, I must have got it all out of my system and to be offered the chance to work with the Hydrex team again is fantastic.”

Stuart Easton: “Working with the team in Macau was a real pleasure and the bike was one of the best I’ve ever ridden. As soon as Shaun talked to me about this season in BSB, I knew I had to be on that bike as it really is capable of winning the championship. I’m really fired up for next season and can’t wait to start testing as we have a real chance of success.”

Guy Martin: “I had lots of options for 2009 but I’ve always said that bosses don’t come much better than Shaun and we knew we had to do things a bit differently if we were to remain together. I’m not into all this flashy PR stuff so with his and Hydrex’s blessing, I’m going to do my own thing and to try to win the big road races. I have my own team around me and that’s important so it’s looking good, driver.”

Shaun Muir: “We made huge strides last season and had some great results so now the foundations are set to continue the success. In Karl and Stuart, we have a pair of young and hungry riders who are determined to make the most of this opportunity in BSB and I have every confidence in them. Mick Shanley and Stuart’s new Chief Engineer Pete Jennings are both determined to bring success for their riders and we expect to be in contention for the championship from the first round. Guy is the best current road racer yet to win a TT and I’m sure he’ll put that right this year as he’s now got the package that he wants in order to do that. Hopefully, 2009 will be our year!”

The team plans to unveil the new team livery and the opening of the new race HQ in the new year, winter testing will follow over the next couple of months before the season starts at Brands Hatch on Easter Monday, April 13th with the first of the major road races being the North West 200 on May 16th.

Paddy the Painter says he is willing to do some more lids. They have to be brand new, or as good as new. The paint jobs are £250. Email him wayne.1975@tiscali.co.uk

No news if next year’s helmet sponsor, AGV, will be doing replicas, but they haven’t mentioned it so it’s very unlikely.

T-shirts going cheap. Click the Red Torpedo link on the top right.

Is Saturday the 27th, Short Track UK’s Christmas Cracker at Scunthorpe. Steve Plater and Karl Harris are racing too. Should be a bit of a grudge match. That’s Guy, number 3, last year.

 

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Wayne ‘Paddy’ Paddison, who has been spraying Guy’s lids for the 2008 season, painted this Arai for big Guy fan, Derry. Cool, eh?

Paddy says ‘I’m really happy with it considering I’m only a bricklayer and only do it as a hobby, but each one just seems better than the last one. The main problem I had with this one is that it was for a paying customer so I made extra sure everything was right. A week or 2 in Guy’s posession and they look like they have been booted off a cliff!’

 

This comment is from Ricky, but it’s too good to hide in the Comments area. Cheers Ricky.

Operation Chastise did show how great the engineering minds of the brits were!
Two lights to calculate altitude (60ft) and two angled prongs to mark up against the dam towers to tel the pilot and bomber how far out to drop the bomb…..
60ft off the water at 240 mph in a Lancaster bomber with no armour!!
My other favourite story is the assault on the German dry dock in Northern France, St Nazaire!
Code name for the British commando raid on the French port of Saint Nazaire on March 28, 1942 on a 356 metre long Normandy Dry Dock. The 257 Army Commandos and 345 Royal Navy took part. The plan was to blow up the lock gates by ramming a ship, packed with explosives, straight into the gates themselves. The ship chosen for this task was an old lend-lease 1919-built American destroyer, USS Buchanan, renamed HMS Campbeltown. Internally she was stripped of all unnecessary equipment to accommodate four and a half tons of explosives made up of 24 depth-charges timed to explode at a certain time.

At 1.30am, racing full speed ahead, the Campbeltown ploughed through the anti-torpedo nets and crashed into the lock gates with such force that her bows were peeled back forty feet. Firmly wedged on the gate the crew and commandos wrecked havoc on electrical and pumping installations around the dock. As daylight broke, scores of enemy officers and men swarmed all over the ship but failed to find the explosives. At 10.35am a terrific explosion rocked the dockside as the Campbeltown exploded, ripping the ship and the lock gates apart and killing most of the German officers and men on deck. The Normandy Dock was not brought back into operation until 1948. Of the 611 Commandos who went into action, 169 lost their lives. Some 200 were captured and made prisoner, five escaped and made it safely back to England through Spain. Five men were awarded the Victoria Cross, one posthumously, for outstanding heroism during Operation Chariot.

My Grandad was a Commando in the second world war…these stories make me so proud!!

What a man to be named after……RESPECT!!

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Well, I can’t knock you, Nigel Jewel, you’re the man. Well, as I couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, i didn’t sort out a decent rig to work out who had won. So I’ve had to go off the first person to post a reply on the blog. So that’s good old Nigel.