We Need to Weaken the Mixture

by Guy Martin

  The 4326 racing truck uses a Finnish chassis with a Swiss engine with Belgian suspension, a German gearbox, brakes and axle. The 1,000-plus horsepower, 16-litre, V8, Liebherr engine is also used as a crane engine. The German truck manufacturer MAN use a similar one, but with 650 horsepower, but you don’t see many of them on the road. They’re as rare as rocking horse shit.

  It’s a combination Kamaz has got working very well but it’s still a massive team effort to go and win the Dakar. I have no interest in doing the Dakar on a bike – I’m not much of an off-roader – but I’d like to do it in a truck. These are four-wheel-drive, four-wheel trucks. Each truck needs a three-man crew, driver, navigator and mechanic, but each of them has to be able to do each other’s job.

  We were taken to the test track to have a go in this year’s Dakar-winning truck. The track was in snow-covered woods with frozen lakes. We drove there in people carriers and when we got there the truck was waiting for us. I asked how it had got there and they told us that this year’s Dakar-winning driver had driven the 2018-Dakar winning truck there from the factory. I was impressed.

  The driver, Eduard Nikolaev, who has won the Dakar four times, was really humble, but very, very proud of the whole Kamaz success. He’d worked there since he was a kid. He was a mechanic originally, and he explained he was just a small part of the whole effort. I was told only Russians have ever been on the Kamaz team.

  The racing truck weighs nine ton, but it’s got 1,200 horsepower, with a normal 16-speed truck gearbox, so it moves. Eduard was jumping the bastard! In the cab you’ve got cooling fans, all the GPS and gauges, but it isn’t comfortable. The Dakar is 14 days of racing and you’d know about it, spending that long in the cab of that truck at speed. It was brutal: the heat in the Atacama Desert, in fireproof suits, sat three abreast across the cab on top of a racing truck engine and the heat it’s kicking out.

  It was a good end to a part of the trip that involved flying here, there and everywhere around Russia. The next day we’d fly back to Moscow. We were 14 days in and had another 12 days to go, before we left for home.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘He wore big spacers on the bottom of his shoes’

  ANOTHER DAY AND another flight, this time from Naberezhnye Chelny back to Moscow. Every flight we took, and there were ten in all, we had to book in summat like 40 extra bags over our regular allowance, because we had so much camera and recording kit. Every bag cost at least £100. I wouldn’t want the bill for that.

  Most of the day was spent travelling, but we did a bit of filming on the bridge near the Moscow hotel just about what we’d learned up to then. It was another piece to camera. James spotted somewhere that would make a good background so we climbed out the van and were done in ten minutes.

  We hadn’t done anything to do with motorbikes up till now, but that changed on Good Friday when we met up with a motorbike gang called the Night Wolves. They are back-patch club, meaning they’d be compared to the Hells Angels. They’re not riding around in hi-vis or replica leathers. They’re unusual in lots of ways, compared to most bike clubs, because they have very close links to the Kremlin. Putin goes riding with them and turns up at their events. They get hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of funding from the Kremlin every year to help educate Russian youths, no doubt following guidelines from the Kremlin. They have very strong views on stuff. They’re not sharing much of an inclusive message when it comes to gay rights. That was clear.

  The day I met them, the Night Wolves were holding a press conference, but we met them at their clubhouse first. I was introduced to the leader, Alexander Zaldostanov, also known as the Surgeon. He was the one who’d be holding the press conference. He was a scary, authoritative bloke. Alexander demanded respect wherever he went by saying nothing, but he wore big spacers on the bottom of his shoes. I noticed that. He only wanted to be filmed from one side. He was raised in Sebastopol, in Crimea, and he’s a Russian nationalist, proud of his country whatever it does. He always wanted Ukraine to remain a part of Russia and told me he thought that independence has buggered the country.

  The Night Wolves’ clubhouse was much more than that. They have a custom-vehicle building business. It’s open to the public, and they do real good food, and put on shows over the Christmas period and all through the summer. The shows are aimed at families, and are exhibitions of the machines they’ve made, stuff like talking trucks; machines the size of buildings that move, like robots; massive army trucks with their cabs made into wolves’ heads. These things are works of art, and more Mad Max than Mad Max.

  At the clubhouse there are pictures all over the place of Alexander riding with Putin. The Night Wolves are all massive supporters of Putin and every year they ride somewhere, sometimes Ukraine or Poland or Germany, to celebrate Russia’s military conquests and victories. When they go to Crimea, which was an independent republic before Russia moved back into it in 2014, they ride through Poland, and the Polish don’t like it. The Polish government doesn’t agree with Russia’s aggression in the region, and might even be thinking they’re next on the list, so a few of the bike gang got arrested last year on their ride through. They planned to ride to Berlin one year to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Germany in the Second World War, but they had their visas refused. They were accused of attacks on naval bases and natural gas plants in Ukraine when it was all kicking off between Russia and Ukraine, and in Crimea too. People don’t seem to talk about the Night Wolves without bringing up their politics.

  They’d heard of me, and I was a bit disappointed about that. I was embarrassed. What have I done to earn respect, riding around a bit of tarmac in a circle a bit faster than a few other people? How does that make me better than anyone else? But it did mean that when it was time to go to the press conference, they trusted me to ride one of their bikes, so I rode to the press conference with Alexander. I was on a Honda X11, the factory streetfighter with the Blackbird engine. Another bloke had a Harley. Alexander was riding a tricked-up modern Yamaha V-Max.

  The press conference was a dead official-looking thing, with loads of film crews and 100–150 people in the room. I don’t know if Alexander’s mate Putin had pulled a few strings to get people there.

  Because the TV lot were following in people carriers, travelling from the clubhouse, they couldn’t keep up with the bikes, so they only arrived for the end. Until then I couldn’t follow what was being said. When the translator arrived Alexander, the leader, was answering questions from the journalists. He was very calm, but talking in an authoritative way. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I knew, whatever it was, he meant it and he was saying it with passion.

  The translator explained later that someone in the press conference was saying that they’d been on the rides with the Night Wolves and they didn’t need to go through Poland and cause a load of upset. Alexander replied that he was proud of his country, he was proud of what they’d done and they, meaning Russians, I suppose, don’t need to be ashamed. It turned out, he told the bloke who made the point summat like, ‘You can ride where you want, with a rainbow flag stuck out of your arse.’

  I ended up riding back to the clubhouse with them, and was shown Alexander’s collection of bikes. He told me about a big bike show they organise in Sebastopol, and that I was welcome if I wanted to go. He said a British bloke used to ride there every year with a motorcycle and sidecar powered by a Daihatsu car engine. Alexander described it as the most Soviet-looking bike he’d ever seen. The British guy wouldn’t sell it, even though he kept being asked, then one year he told Alexander, ‘I’m done with it now,’ and it became the pride of the Night Wolves’ collection.

  While nearly all of the civilian stuff we’d arranged to film had gone ahead without a problem, there had been a couple of cancellations that were down to the diplomatic bother after the Salisbury poisonings. One example was the space centre, where, as I’ve mentioned, we hadn’t got the access we wanted, but it worked out all right in the end. Back in Moscow it w
as obvious the original plan of me going up in a MiG was something not even Misha could sort for us. We’d been sent an email saying that foreign citizens would not be allowed into the Kubinka Air Base, where the flight was going to take place. Misha, proving he really was the best fixer we’d ever worked with, had got on the case and suggested another idea. A lot of former Soviet trainer jets were sold off at the end of the Communist era. At the end of the 1990s, the country had something like 800 of these planes they didn’t need, or want, and some were sold to private companies. One of these companies offers passenger rides in their jet, from an airfield two hours’ drive south of Moscow. Misha arranged for us to visit and for me to go up in it.

  It wasn’t a MiG, but the plane looked like what it was, an ex-Soviet Union jet trainer, a Czech-developed L-39 Albatros. The Soviets must have different opinions of the actual albatross than the British, to call it that. The design dated back to the early 1970s and was built until 1996. They built the thick end of 3,000 of them and they were good for 500mph.

  I wasn’t that pleased with the change of plan. It’s one thing going up in a current military jet, looked after by the air force, but because this thing was now in private hands I wasn’t that keen on flying in it. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I know how complicated these things are and what’s needed, from the electronics side, to keep this thing in the air. Anything could go wrong with it and, if it did, it would be messy. I didn’t say anything to the TV lot, but I’d decided I was going to have a walk around it and tell them I wasn’t going up in it.

  Brian, my inner chimp, was getting a bit revved up by this stage of the job. This was day 18. We’d been from here to there to there, and I hadn’t had a sweat on or felt like I’d done anything physically constructive in all that time and I wasn’t in the best of moods.

  We rolled up to the airfield and it made me feel even more certain my gut feeling was right. It was an old knackered place. Then I started looking around this plane and realised it was mint. I got talking to the pilot, Vassily, who was ex-military, in his fifties, and I thought, He’s still alive, so that’s a good sign. I looked at the plane, looked at the pilot and watched his mechanic for a bit. I could tell he knew what he was doing too, and decided I’d trust them.

  Vassily, the pilot, said, ‘Are you all right for me to give it some?’ I told him to go for his life. I hadn’t had any breakfast that morning and hadn’t eaten anything on the way there. Even though I’d been in two minds about the whole idea I’d primed myself. I knew if I was going to get in the jet, and he did go for it, I shouldn’t have anything inside me wanting to get out in a hurry.

  I climbed up the ladder into the cockpit and the way they strapped me in put me more at ease. The engines were started and we were off down the runway, Vassily dodging potholes – no joking – then woof! We were off and flying for three-quarters of an hour.

  I’ve been in quite a few unusual planes as part of the TV job. I’d been in a stunt plane getting used to G-forces before the Wall of Death attempt and also in a two-seater Spitfire and taxiing in a Vulcan bomber. I knew this bloke wasn’t messing. We were going fucking fast in the old trainer and pulling a lot of G. It wasn’t as wild as the stunt plane, but it was wild. I probably would have puked up if I had eaten anything that day.

  Before we took off, the film crew, through Misha, had said to the pilot, ‘Get as low as you can over the runway so we can film a flypast.’ The pilot looked at Misha and asked, ‘Are you sure?’

  No one had any idea, except the pilot, of course, how low he was willing to fly this thing. He can’t have been more than a few metres off the runway, at close to 500mph. From my seat it felt that if my Transit had been parked on the runway we’d have hit it. I’m not kidding. You’d have never got away with doing something like that in Britain. Then he pulled back on the stick and we went into a climb, pulling 7G, seven times the force of earth’s gravity. The training I’d had with Mark Greenfield, the stunt pilot, for the Wall of Death, all came in handy. I closed my lips tight shut, started blowing on the inside of my cheeks and tensing my legs and stomach, all to make sure I didn’t grey out or lose consciousness. Then Vassily said I could take control of the plane, like it was the most normal thing in the world. He had me doing loop the loops in a Cold War jet trainer. Even after all the stuff I’ve done and all the opportunities I’ve been offered, I still can’t believe some of these things are happening. When we landed it was one of those times I had to tell Brian to keep quiet. You cannot buy experiences like this.

  Day 19 would be the last full day in Russia, and I spent it being attacked by dogs. We hadn’t had a lot to do with the military, because it wasn’t what the programmes were about. We wanted to see what normal Russian folk got up to, so one of the few military things we had anything to do with, other than the jet fighter and that was civilian-owned now anyway, was a place that trained dogs to be used by the armed forces.

  I like owt to do with dogs, so even though I was ready for home by now, Brian was keeping quiet. The dogs were mainly German shepherds and I dressed up in one of those big bite-proof suits and a helmet before the handlers set a dog on me. It went for me a couple of times, took me right off me feet and marked me through the suit. It didn’t draw blood, but I knew it had hold of me, that’s for sure.

  It was Easter Sunday, so the staff at the dog training place had put drinks on for us, sat us all down and gave us a bit of cake. We were in a big Soviet building that had been converted for its new use. They gave me a book of the history of dogs in the Russian military that they signed, lovely people. And that was the last job in Moscow.

  Russia had been brilliant. The folk couldn’t have been friendlier. Misha taught me loads about the place and its history. If we’d have been going home now, 19 days in, I’d have been happy, but we were heading to Chernobyl. And Brian wasn’t happy.

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘There’s stories of people being so poisoned by radiation that their eyes changed colour’

  WHEN WE DROVE to the airfield to film the fighter jet thing we were probably only a five-hour drive from Chernobyl, not even that, but you can’t get permission to cross the border from Russia to Ukraine because of all the bollocks going on with the annexation of Crimea. So we had to drive two or three hours back to Moscow, stay another night, then fly from Moscow to Warsaw and from Poland to Kiev, Ukraine.

  At this point I’d had enough travelling. I wanted to go home and do some proper work and I’d half told the crew that much, saying I didn’t feel I was doing anything constructive. They’d get pissed off when I said that, reminding me that this was their job. When they did, I’d tell them, ‘Yeah, but you’re working, I’m just fucking about, being a puppet on a string.’ I get paid well for it, but there are times it annoys me because I feel I’m not doing proper graft.

  One of the crew told me I was educating the nation and that wound me up even more. I thought, Don’t give me that shite. I wasn’t having it at that point.

  From Kiev it was another three or four hours to Chernobyl, on fairly shit roads. We had a new fixer by then, a Chernobyl specialist called Dmitry. He was older than me, but a bit hippy-happy, bandana tied on his head, that sort of boy. Right from the start some of the TV lot were slagging off the new Ukrainian fixer, because he didn’t have everything laid out on a plate for us. Part of it was we had all been spoilt by Misha, who everyone thought was the best fixer we’d ever worked with. I agree that Dmitry could’ve been better at some stuff, but give the man a chance. Ukraine is classed as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It can’t be easy getting everything set up 100 per cent. Sometimes you’ve got to wing it and work it out when you get there. I felt the crew weren’t being polite, or some of them weren’t. Then it made me realise that some of them are not polite as a rule, they just turn it on when they want something. This didn’t help improve my mood either.

  Another bloke had joined us by now, Ian, a radiation specialist from the UK. Like Aldo and Stu, he wa
s another ex-military fella.

  All the crew had been made to have specific training before the TV company’s insurance would let us go into Chernobyl. In TV, every risk has to be assessed, whether it’s visiting a factory or doing something like the Wall of Death record attempt. You can go ahead with it, but they want to know the risks involved, so if the shit hits the fan they have their arses covered and can say they did everything by the book, then point to all the paperwork to prove it. The radiation training was part of that process.

  I’d missed the course when the rest of the crew went on it in England, because I had too much on at the truck yard and couldn’t get the time off. I was going to be away for the best part of a month and there was a lot on. So, I had my training in Ukraine. That worked out all right, because it ended up being filmed.

  The Chernobyl training could be summed up in a few lines: Don’t wander off on your own; Don’t touch this; Don’t do anything unless Ian does it. The training took all afternoon, but I reckon it could’ve been crammed into half an hour, 15 minutes at a push.

  After that we were ready to drive into Chernobyl’s 30-kilometre restricted zone to have a look and get our eye in. There was a lot of paperwork flashing to get in.

  There are people living inside the exclusion zone, perhaps a thousand spread over the countryside, who moved back when they were eventually allowed to. There’s no industry so people are doing what they can to get by, growing their own veg, keeping a few livestock, the odd chicken or summat. They’re mainly old women: babushkas, Russian for grandmas, is what they call them. Most went back illegally, some telling the soldiers who tried to evict them that they could shoot them if they wanted to, but they weren’t leaving. These old women had been through so much in their lives in Ukraine before then, back in Stalin’s days and in the Second World War, that a bit of radiation wasn’t going to scare them off. They’ve been living in the exclusion zone for over 30 years now.