The TT taxes your mind.

Guy Martin

Categorized in : Your Mind Taxes

I get home from work at six or seven. When I'm busy, I set my alarm for three, get out of bed at quarter past three. I have a cup of tea and read a magazine and take the dogs for a walk up the lane. Go through my text messages and reply to anything that needs it, then get my biking gear on ready to cycle to work.

walk work home tea

I'll always give it my all, and to be with a quality manufacturer like BMW is mega.

bmw like always quality

People who race bikes don't talk about crashes. They keep going.

talk keep-going race people

I work nights on a farm in the summer when harvest starts. I work on a civil engineering site down the Humber Docks where all the refineries are. So that's my day job from seven to four. And then I build engines at night.

job day work night

If you get beaten, and you know that you tried your hardest and kept your focus, then that's all you can do.

your know you focus

When I crash during a race and injure myself, what's the point in whinging? Because I put myself in that position. No one's making me race motorbikes - I want to go and race motorbikes. The most annoying thing for me is lying in hospital and not being able to get to work. I get beside myself.

hospital myself me work

Not everybody would choose to be a firefighter or an ambulance driver. Not everyone wants to see the nasty bits of life.

choose everyone see life

Life is all about setting yourself goals and then achieving them.

achieving goals yourself life

I feel that I'm in good company behind the wheel of the Williams FW08C. It was the first F1 car to be driven by the great Ayrton Senna, and it won the 1983 Monaco Grand Prix.

feel great good car

Speed and danger don't always go together, but it's proper fun when they do.

go speed together fun

Going back because it's what I did and I was sort of all right at it is not a good reason to race the TT.

back good race reason

I fit a lot into my days.

days lot fit

I can't stop biting off more than I can chew.

than stop more i-can

I'd never be disrespectful to road racing. The sport was good to me.

road good me racing

People deal with the concentration needed to do well in a two-hour race in different ways.

well different race people

I remember, my first season was 1999, and I must have crashed about 13 times in that first year. But then, in the second season, you crash about half as much and then, in the third year, even less again.

year you half remember

For my first race, when I was 19, I'd bought a 600cc bike. And that was far too big for me, really. I shouldn't have really had something like that. But anyway, I went and raced, and I crashed. In my very first race! But I never gave in. I kept going back and back and back.

never back me bike

The most common way to crash coming out of a corner is to highside - which is where you accelerate out of the corner, and the rear loses grip, then suddenly finds grip and chucks you off the bike.

corner you bike way

TV's not really a job, is it?

really tv job

TV people are great folks, but if I said, 'Come and film a beetroot-jar-opening competition,' they would.

great competition said people