We Need to Weaken the Mixture

by Guy Martin

  The Nürburgring Nordschleife is a 12.9-mile-long public toll road in the forests of western Germany. There’s a modern short circuit, also called the Nürburgring, but I’m not talking about that.

  The Nürburgring was built in the 1920s. It was used for Formula One races up until 1976, but a few fatal accidents, and Niki Lauda’s infamous fireball accident in 1976, made the car racing authorities think twice about the place.

  They still race saloon cars around there, including a 24-hour endurance race, but for the majority of the year it’s a one-way toll road with no speed limit that road-legal cars and bikes can belt around. It’s rented out to companies, too, for organised track days, schools, testing and photography as well. As long as it’s not booked out, you can turn up on anything road-legal, pay your toll fee – that was €25 midweek, €30 for a weekend when I wrote this – and do a lap. On a public day everything’s out there, from Porsche Carreras and Superbikes to coaches full of tourists. As you can imagine, there are a lot of crashes there.

  Over the years I’ve spent a few days getting my eye in at the Nürburgring, but I’ve never got to the stage where I felt I could go for the record on a bike and confidently beat the 7 minutes 10 seconds motorcycle lap record. I had been thinking about it seriously, at the back end of 2014, early 2015. I was just going to take a bike out in a van, then the TV lot got involved and it all became a lot more official than just turning up in a van, paying the money and going for it. Once it had become a TV production it wasn’t long before the Nürburgring authorities pulled the plug on it, saying they didn’t want to publicise motorcycle record-breaking. I can sort of see where they’re coming from, but they still run the place as a speed limit-free road and profit from people going balls out round there, so it seemed a strange time and place to draw a line in the sand. It’s not like doing fast laps at the place is a big secret: that’s the whole point of it. Anyway, they put a stop to it, but it was still on the to-do list.

  The van record isn’t the same as the bike job, but it’s still something to have a go at. The current record is held by Dale Lomas, someone I met through Performance Bikes. He was a writer and road tester for the magazine when I used to do a lot of stuff with them. Dale got so into the Nürburgring that he moved to Germany. Now he’s one of the instructors in cars and one of the Ringtaxi drivers – someone trusted to take paying punters as passengers on flying laps around the track. You can sign up to be driven around by an expert who is licking on, in a fast BMW saloon. Dale is not a messer round there. He knows what he’s doing and there won’t be many folk in the world who have driven, or ridden, more laps.

  The TV lot knew Dale because they had made a programme with Paul Hollywood, the Great British Bake Off bloke, about car culture in different European countries. During the filming of the German episode they went to the Nürburgring and Dale took them on a flying lap in one of the Ringtaxis. They got talking to him and found out about this record. Craig, from the TV lot, told me, ‘Dale wants you to break his record.’ I couldn’t help screwing up my face as I told him, ‘Does he hell! Who holds a record and wants to have it broken?’

  Then one of the TV lot said, ‘Why don’t you have him in the passenger seat?’ The honesty Tourette’s kicked in again and, without thinking, I said, ‘Fuck off! He’s fat as fuck! Why do I want him in the passenger seat?’ Then I remembered, he’s lost a load of weight, but anyway, even if he was seven stone, why do I want to be carrying any more weight than I need to? That van is heavy enough as it is, much heavier than standard, because of the massive roll cage and all that welded into it.

  To break the record Dale had been supplied a VW Transporter that had been tuned and modified by UK VW specialists Revo. He broke the record set by another Ringtaxi driver, a German woman called Sabine Schmitz. Her record had been filmed for Top Gear. She did it in a fairly standard Transit, with a time of 10 minutes 8 seconds – from Bridge to Gantry. That means it was done on a public day when it’s not possible to do a full flying lap because you have to pull off the track and into the car park before you complete a full lap. The van Dale drove was a used Volkswagen twin-turbo Transporter, with a remapped ECU, new exhaust, intercooler, new suspension, alloy wheels, sticky rubber. Revo reckoned it made 220bhp. Dale did a full lap, which is longer than Bridge to Gantry, in 9 minutes 57. That was back in 2013. Either people haven’t been able or bothered to try and break it.

  When I got the van back from the museum in February 2018, I had a few days to look around it and decided what I’d change; then Ed, from M Sport, a Transit specialist, wanted it for a load of dealer shows, so he had it for a month. Then, in early March, Ed took it straight to Cadwell where I was going to drive it while the TV lot filmed the beginning of what will become the Nürburgring van show.

  I had Cadwell to myself, a private track day in the van. What a day! Still, the day before I was thinking, Why am I doing this when I’m so busy at work? I’ve got enough to do in my shed. I don’t know what’s up with me sometimes. Part of the problem was my lack of interest in this Trannie, but that wouldn’t last. Once I’d done a load of changes it’d be a bit of me. It didn’t take me long to realise what a lucky bastard I am, getting to razz this 700-horsepower Trannie round a deserted track.

  The only real experience I’d had in the van, since it was fitted with the daft engine, was racing it at the Silver State Classic, and that was pretty much a straight flat-out race for 90 miles with a handful of corners along the way. Then I drove it on Bonneville Salt Flats, flat out in a straight line, trying, and failing, to break a land-speed record there. Both those places were about flat-out speed, acceleration and, in the case of Bonneville, traction, not handling. The van did eventually get up to 170mph on the roads of Nevada, but I was worried the wing mirrors would be scraping the floor going around corners on a race track.

  I was sure it was going to be proper shit around a place like Cadwell, but I was impressed. It wasn’t bad at all. The gearbox was terrible, but everything else was all right. The gearbox was out of the smaller of the Mustangs, the 3.7-litre one; it was a Getrag gearbox. The gearbox to have is a Tremec T-56, which Ford fit to the 5.0-litre Mustangs. Then you can get a sequential kit for them. Sequential gearshifts mean you change gear by pulling the lever back and forwards, not moving it through an H-pattern gate like a regular manual car. It makes gear changing very slightly quicker.

  The main people who were involved in getting the van ready for the original Silver State programme were at Cadwell – Paul and Dan from Krazy Horse and James from Radical. The idea for the day was for me to take the Transit around the track, to get a measure of how good or bad it was, then those involved would decide what happened from there.

  They were all there, while the crew are filming, ‘Yeah we can do this, we could do that.’ Then someone came up with the idea to put an independent back axle in it, so the van would have independent suspension. At the moment it’s got a live axle in it, which is the diff (that is the differential) and the axle all in one lump. By that I mean the diff is in the axle casing and the wheels bolt to the axle casing. It’s not a very sophisticated set-up.

  The diff that is currently fitted is shit; it’s out of a Ford F-150 pickup, and this van, with all the power it has and the plans we have for it, could do with a limited slip diff. With a live axle, as soon as one of the back wheels goes light all the power goes to the wheel still in contact with the ground, because that’s how a diff works. When that happens the whole van would go into a spin if you’re not careful. Nearly all recent rear-wheel-drive cars have IRS (independent rear suspension), but American stuff doesn’t usually. Live axles, like the Transit currently has, are good for drag racing, so maybe that’s why the American manufacturers stick with it. Performance on the quarter-mile drag strip is the traditional American way of selling speed, performance and fast cars to the masses.

  While everyone’s talking I’m not saying anything. They’re all clever lads and that, but it was my idea to get the van out of th
e museum and do some work on it, and I think one of the biggest problems is I’m sat so high up. That means my mass is high so the vehicle’s centre of gravity is higher. No one’s mentioned that. Can’t the seat be bolted directly to the floor of the van, so I’m virtually sitting on the floor and have a pedal box? We don’t need more power, we don’t need a lighter crank, or some of the other stuff they were talking about.

  The reason I didn’t say anything was because I’d already made my mind up that I’m going to do it all. I know that the next time I do a filming job I’ll be asked when they can pick the van up to deliver it to Krazy Horse, or whoever, and perhaps I should take the path of least resistance, and let them, but I’m not going to. This van, and what I have planned for it, is down to me. I don’t want it to be farmed out, just to make sure it’s done to a timescale the TV lot have set. Uncle Rodders and his mate Tim Dray will help me out with it, but I want it to be done in my shed at home. The plan? I’m going to take the engine out and put it in the back, mid-engine it. Then it really will be a bit of me.

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘Back in my shed it was like Crime Scene Investigation’

  AS YOU’LL HAVE already read, I was done with serious racing. Properly done this time, but I was spending as much, if not more, time in the shed working on bikes than I’d done for years.

  Les Whiston, a Rob North specialist, had loaned me one of his Rob North BSA Triples to develop and race. The basis of the bike is the same as my dad’s, the first proper race bike I’d ever ridden, and also the same basis as the Wall of Death record bike. I’ve been making a load of parts for it and I want to race it in Ireland and at CRMC, Classic Racing Motorcycle Club, races on short circuits.

  I entered the classic class at the Cookstown 100, the start of the real road-racing season in Ireland, held at the end of April 2018, just outside the village of Cookstown in Co. Tyrone. The filming job in Russia and working long hours in the truck yard meant I ran out of time to be ready to get out to Cookstown, but I thought I could race at the CRMC’s Snetterton round nearer to home in Norfolk. I’d much rather do a road race, but you’ve got to look at how much time you’d get on the bike. If I went to the Cookstown, I’d get half an hour of practice and a half-hour race, so it wasn’t sensible. And not having to travel out to Ireland meant I’d have another couple of nights to get ready. I rang the CRMC’s race entry secretary, Anji Yardley, to get an entry, and she was spot on. Then, at the eleventh hour, I couldn’t get there either.

  The problem causing the hold-up was the prototype gearbox that Les was developing. It’s a cassette-style ’box, a much more modern design than the shit one these engines originally had, but it was taking a while to get all the bugs out of it. In the meantime, I couldn’t even use a regular gearbox, because I’d altered my engine cases for this new style and couldn’t go back without fitting a new engine, so we had to persevere with it.

  We’d tried loads of stuff with the gearbox on the dyno, that’s a rolling road that measures the power and torque. Then I was mucking about with it on Race Lane, a road out the back of work. I did maybe 20 to 30 miles up and down there. The gearbox was still far from perfect, but it was rideable and the only way to make it better was to keep riding it and changing a bit and riding it again.

  The weekend after Snetterton was Tandragee, where I’d raced the Honda Superstocker in 2017 to get all my signatures for that year’s TT. It’s another Irish road race on a circuit I love. I’d had my Tandragee race entry in for ages, but as the date drew closer I realised it wasn’t a sensible place to race a new, untested bike with a gearbox I wasn’t 100 per cent sure about, so, again, I changed my mind at the eleventh hour. I was fairly confident in the bike by now, but I pulled out because it was all a bit unknown and Tandragee is not a track you want anything going wrong on. If you think the TT is short of places you’d want to crash, you want to see Tandragee. There was a track day at Cadwell Park in Louth that weekend and going there to test was the most sensible option. I’d get more time on the bike and, within reason, I could come in and out as I pleased.

  Cammy and Trellis came with me, which was good. Cammy’s my mechanic mate, and I’ve known Trellis – Johnny Ellis – since we were at school and we were apprentice truck fitters together at John Hebb Volvo. Trellis moved to Ireland to be my mechanic, in 2004, when I was racing for Robinson’s Concrete. We both lived in an old Mercedes race truck at the concrete yard for a few months, me racing every weekend I could and both of us servicing their trucks in between.

  The weather was brilliant when the three of us rolled into Cadwell’s paddock. When it was time to get on track all the riders in my group did three laps behind the marshal’s bike, as you have to do, then I did five laps before the gearbox grabbed two gears at once and the gearbox shit itself. The first thing I thought was I’m bloody pleased I wasn’t at the Tandragree!

  When it grabs two gears like that the gearbox locks up and the bike breaks the weakest link in the drivetrain. Normally the weakest link is the connection of the back wheel to the track, so the bike starts skidding and you’ve got a job on to control it, because pulling the clutch in doesn’t make any difference. But, because I’d done a few laps, the track was dry and hot and the tyres were warm, it didn’t break the friction and the back wheel kept turning, so something else had got to give to allow the bike to keep moving forward. The next weakest link was the teeth on the gears themselves, so it broke them, but I could keep rolling.

  I managed to roll back to the pits at walking speed, the bike going, stuh-shom, tuh-gom, stuh-shom. Trellis said, ‘Right, what are we doing? Getting it in bits to see what’s up?’ ‘No, boys,’ I told them, ‘she’s fucked.’ I didn’t need to look inside to know I wouldn’t be riding it again that day.

  It’s only a half-hour drive home, so we got the bike back to my shed and drained the gearbox oil. It was mint, so I thought, Maybe I am wrong. Maybe it is something simple. I was expecting to see it pouring out like liquid metal, full of bits of broken gear teeth and shards of wreckage. Then we took the side casing off and realised that the oil was clean because all the bits of metal were so big they wouldn’t come out of the drain hole.

  Les races one the same and he’d had the same problem with the gearbox at Mallory Park. He thought the problem was a stretched circlip, used to retain part of the gearbox. He’d had his gearbox in and out that much, and hadn’t put new circlips on every time like you’re supposed to, and he reckoned one had jumped off and that’s what allowed him to grab two gears.

  Back in my shed it was like Crime Scene Investigation as the three of us tried to work out what had happened. All the circlips were in place, so it wasn’t that. We saw that the shim washer had broken. A shim washer is a flat spacer, like a washer that goes under a nut or bolt, and is available in different thicknesses. Fitting the correct thickness allows you to space the gearbox accurately. This 3mm-thick shim washer had shattered, fallen out and allowed the gears to move and grab two together. It turns out the washer had gone through the wrong hardening process and had been through-hardened, not case-hardened. It was a perfect example of 50p part buggering the whole job.

  I’d had a bit more luck racing a classic Suzuki Superbike. Peter Boast is a mate of mine who has raced everything for ever, set up the whole flat-track series in Britain, instructs on track days and runs his own flat-track school, on Tim Coles’s family farm near Caenby Corner. I’ve known him for years and he asked if I wanted to do some Classic Endurance racing, the pair of us as teammates. I was well up for it.

  The first time we raced as a team was a four-hour Classic Endurance race at Spa in Belgium. As a team we were, I suppose you’d say, the official Suzuki lot, Team Classic Suzuki. The bike looked like a Katana, but had a special frame. They had built it as a bit of a marketing exercise for the classic parts side of their business, assembling it at the Motorcycle Live, NEC bike show in November 2015. Nathan Colombi built it and did a hell of a job of it. He works with Steve Wheatman, the owner of
Team Classic Suzuki Racing, restoring a lot of his Suzuki stuff.

  Me, Shazza and my dad drove out to Spa in July 2017. We travelled out earlier in the week, so I could do a track day beforehand, on my Africa Twin road bike, to get an idea of where the track went. What a track.

  On Friday morning we went to the Bastogne War Museum, in Belgium. The museum is quite new, only opening in 2014, and it focuses on the Second World War Battle of the Bulge, which took place in that region in the winter of 1944–5. It was the Germans’ last big push and it caught the Allies by surprise. There’s disagreement over the combined number of servicemen who died on both sides, but the smallest estimates are over 150,000. The battle began six months after D-Day, with the Germans trying to push forward to seize the docks at Antwerp, control the Western Front and then concentrate on the war with Russia on the Eastern Front, but the Allies won the battle and Germany never recovered. We were all well into the museum, and it was good to spend some time there away from the racetrack. Then in the afternoon we did qualifying ahead of the race on Saturday.