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Guy Martin: "I'm not a bloody TV presenter... actually that's a lie"
Fast-lane broadcaster Guy Martin leads a turbo-charged and dangerous life. Would he ever consider calmer waters?
James Woodroffe
- Bill Borrows
Published: Monday, 8 June 2026 at 5:00 pm
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This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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“I’m not a bloody TV presenter,” replies TV presenter Guy Martin when asked if he objects to references to him in the media as a TV presenter. “Actually, that’s a lie. I do present TV programmes but they have to stand a bloke next to the camera, generally the director, and I talk to him. That’s what we’ve been doing and getting away with for 17 years, but talking to a camera is not something I feel comfortable with.”
Perhaps then, as he releases All the Medals Have Been Handed Out, the latest instalment of his bestselling series of autobiographical accounts to join several companion books to the TV shows on which he has appeared (but absolutely not presented), he considers himself to be an author?
“I’ve only bloody done six,” he says, mildly offended. “The publisher rings up every few years and says, ‘Do you want to do another book?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, what do you want me to write about?’. This one just starts where the last book ended about four years ago and includes my last few daft push-bike rides, my Scott Trial challenge, the TV programmes we’ve made in the meantime and my 300 miles-per-hour job.”
Martin is referring to Project 300, his attempt to become the first person to reach 300mph over a standing-start mile on a conventional motorcycle. It should be noted that this is not really a job.
“I just work in a truck garage and I work on a farm,” the former professional motorcycle racer eventually confesses. “I build engines. I was fannying about in the workshop building bloody race engines when you called. That’s what I do.” The 44-year-old is, of course, all the above and more besides, but also a fascinating example of a man marching to the beat of his own drum and thriving outside normal behavioural norms.
Guy Martin. Channel 4
It’s probably this quality that has allowed him to claim 17 podium finishes in that most intimidating of motorsport challenges, the Isle of Man TT. It was also behind his decision to quit professional motorcycle racing. “I raced because I was sort of semi-competitive at it without putting a massive amount of effort in. But it stopped scaring me and this is a dangerous thing,” he explains. “You need to be fully concentrating on what you’re doing when you’re riding round the Isle of Man TT circuit or wherever. And I wasn’t – I was just bored, because I’d done it for years.”
That would, at least in part, explain the extracurricular obsession with setting world speed records that replaced the professional racing circuit – since 2014 they have included those for the fastest tractor, soapbox, gravity-powered snow sledge and motorbike inside a “Wall of Death”.
“I’ve no idea which of them still stand,” he says. “Maybe the Wall of Death. But it was never an ego thing for me. It’s not easy doing these things but that’s what I love, it’s the challenge. Yeah, there is a price to pay for it and if something goes wrong, it’s probably going to kill you.” Which brings us back to the present day and Project 300.
“I was racing in the North West 200 in Northern Ireland a few years ago,” he continues, “and Jarrod ‘Jack’ Frost [another motorcycle engineer/competitor] asked me to try out a bike he’d been putting together. I’d just been racing the greatest Suzuki GSX-R1000 ever at almost 200 horsepower, but this bike that a bloke had built in his shed was 500 horsepower.
“Holy s**t! It didn’t just grab my attention, it changed my life. We need two miles of tarmac to hit 300mph over a mile. At 120 mph, I’m seeing 2.2G and accelerating twice as fast as a Grand Prix bike or a Formula One car. But it’s not just the speed, it’s the engineering that’s the buzz.”
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The bike in question is a 2018 Suzuki Hayabusa purchased for £5,000 and which has been fitted with a turbocharger and extensively modified.
“You have to calibrate your mind because when everything’s flexing and twisting underneath you and making stupid noises, you need to have a mechanical sympathy to feel what’s happening, because if something’s going to go wrong, you need to be aware of that and know when to back off. I’m quite good at crashing but I also know that anyone who is quite good at [setting extreme speed records] is generally dead.”
And that doesn’t concern him? He pauses for the first time since picking up the phone. “I can control most of the things that are happening [on this attempt to hit 300mph on the bike], but something might happen outside of my control, whether it’s a tyre blowout or something snapping on the bike, and I can’t account for that.
“I understand all of these things but I’ve been doing this for long enough, so it doesn’t put me off. The day it does, I probably need to pack up, and I’m sort of looking forward to getting up in the morning and just being happy doing nothing, right? But it’s not going to come any time soon.”
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