Guy Martin
Martin was born on 4 November 1981 in a suburb of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England. He was named Guy in tribute to Guy Gibson of No. 617 Squadron RAF. His father Ian was a successful privateer motorbike racer who had competed in several Isle of Man TT events, but he was forced to supplement his income with a job as a lorry mechanic, additionally selling bikes. His mother, Rita Kidals, was of Latvian heritage, her father having come to Britain in 1947 as a political refugee. Soon after Martin's birth, the family moved to a house outside the town, where they remained, having four children in total.
Guy Martin
Source for episode titles and broadcast dates:
In this live special, Martin attempted to set a world speed record on a purpose built version of the wall of death fairground attraction. It also featured recordings of Martin being trained by experienced rider Ken Fox on an existing wall to overcome dizziness, and being given aerial training to overcome the chief limiting factor, the effect of G-force on the human body. The science was explored by Hugh Hunt of Cambridge University, revealing the equation G=S/(25*D), where G is G-Force, S is speed in mph, and D is diameter of the wall, in metres. This revealed the chosen location, a hangar on Manby Airfield, would be too small for Martin's desired target of 100 mph, but with a revised target of 80 mph while remaining below 7G, the 37.5 metre wall that was ultimately built would suffice. This would allow Martin to challenge a previous claimed record of around 70 mph, which the programme believed was wrong, determined through video analysis as having been 45 mph. For the show, Guinness World Records created a new record, Highest speed on a Wall of Death, and set an initial qualifying benchmark of 60 mph in one of two attempts. On a first attempt, using an Indian Scout motorcycle, Martin managed to achieve 70.33 mph, while on a second run, on a bike purposely built by Martin (a 1972 Rob North T160 Trident triple), he extended the record to 125.77 km/h (78.15 mph). Prior to Martin's attempt, on the smaller wall cyclist Shanaze Reade also set the Guinness record for Highest bicycle speed on a Wall of Death, at 42.94 km/h (26.68 mph).