Change In Pressure
CHANGE IN PRESSURE
GUY MARTIN BUILDS A TURBOCHARGED, BIG-BORE SUZUKI GSX-R1100 TO TAKE ON AMERICA’S OLDEST ROADRACE
Gary Inman
I THINK IT'S THE BEST THING I'VE DONE IN MOTORBIKING. IT'S A COUPLE OF MATES AND AN ODDBALL BIKE.
"It's different, isn't it? I just want my eyes opened. I know there's more to motorbike racing than what I do," says British real-roads racing specialist Guy Martin, explaining why he's halfway up an American mountain at 4:15 a.m. He's sitting in the back of a rented U-Haul van parked between trees in the temporary pits of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
Guy, like 70 other motorcycle racers, is waiting for the sun to rise. His dirty hands are wrapped around a polystyrene cup of something warm and brown. A few yards away sits his bike, one he simply refers to as the Martek. It’s a wildly modified and turbocharged Suzuki GSX-R1100, the thinking being a turbo would maintain a high level of power at altitude. The basis of the engine and chassis dates from the late ’80s and early ’90s. Its name comes from the nowdefunct UK-based chassis builders and fabricators who built the original incarnation of the bike.
Always looking for new challenges and with the ear of the TV production company that has made all the series he’s fronted and produced the Isle of Man TT coverage, Martin pitched the idea of racing his own bike at the famed hill climb.
The Martek has been in hundreds of pieces for much of the four years Martin has owned it. “I had made the odd spacer, turned the odd bolt, that was it,” he says. The TV deal just got him here sooner.
“I’ve been [roadracing] for 12 years, and I want to do different stuff,” Martin says. “I love motorbikes, but I sometimes forget it. People might think it’s a cheesy thing to say, T just want to ride my motorbike,’ but I do.”
In speaking candidly with the Lincolnshire man, there is a very apparent level of disillusionment with some of the bigger races he’s involved with, particularly the Isle of Man TT, and Pikes Peak has a purity that drew him here. “Here it’s just, ‘You’ve got a bike? What size is it? Thirteen hundred? With a turbo on it? Yeah, we’ll find a class for you,’ ” he says.
But things didn’t go smoothly. A laptop is frequently connected to the Martek to try to dial in the fueling.
The powerful machine is popping and grumbling when it comes onto boost at 5,000 rpm.
“I’ve gone full circle,” Martin says. “I enjoy building and fettling as much as I do riding. But this is a journey into the unknown. Look at the bike.”
Overnight tuning on a local dyno didn’t fix it, but the bike did produce 273 hp at the rear wheel. The Martek will have to be raced as is.
At 8 a.m. on race day, the first competitor is flagged off. A few places behind him is Martin and his brutal, gray and bare-metal Suzuki.
I decided to watch from the cold finish line. As bikes arrive I hear the riders whoop with relief as two checkered flags wave. They don’t know their time or result; they’re just relieved to arrive in one piece. There is no such hollerin’ from the Englishman. He accelerates over the line, clocking a time of 11:32.558, winning his class. But the fastest motorcycle time of the day, 9:58.687, is posted by Jeremy Toye on the factory Kawasaki ZX-10R.
Guy leans his bike against a boulder, marches into the café, slides into a booth, and pulls out a book, Animal Farm by George Orwell, that he’d shoved down his leathers. He knew he’d be stuck up here all day. He’ll eventually climb on his bike and roll back down to the pits, after the last racer appears, nine hours later.
“I knew what I had. I couldn’t rev it to more than 5,000 rpm. If I did, it was ba-ba-ba-baarrrppp,” he says, imitating a bike running badly. “I’m not going to have a hissy fit. I knew it would get to the top—just not quick. The experience has been mint. Sitting here, I think it’s the best thing I’ve done in motorbiking. It’s a couple of mates and an oddball bike. That’s what I want. If I was racing something mass-produced, I’m just a sheep following the next sheep.”
And Guy Martin is no sheep. “I’m going to build something even more oddball,” he says.
See you at the top.
