Dead Men Don't Tell Tales by Guy Martin

Author:Guy Martin [Martin, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473586932
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2021-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

13

Saturated in Horsepower

EVEN WITH EVERYTHING else going on, the 300mph job was always in my mind. What can I do to go faster? How do I make it more stable? Who can give me some advice? Because there are so few days when the conditions are ideal, I started looking for places other than Elvington that I might be able to use. Through John McAvoy, a mate who writes for Performance Bikes, I heard about Cottesmore, in Rutland. Cottesmore was an RAF base, but now it’s an army base, so the runway only gets used half-a-dozen times a year for Hercules touch-and-go training. Through John’s dad, who was the chaplain for the base in the 1980s, we made contact with Richard Chesterfield, Cottesmore’s commanding officer. I’m sure I have heard him called the commandant, but that sounds French and I won’t use French words if I don’t need to. I won’t use the word garage, because there’s a British word that does exactly the same as that: shed. Anyway, Richard’s the man. He’s into bikes, and owns an old BMW GS. He’s a big tank man, high up in the 7th Armoured Division, the famous Desert Rats. I love talking to him. With the help of John McAvoy I managed to set up an arrangement where I could use their runway as long as I gave them enough notice, and Richard was on site. I started going there in 2020, with my dad helping me.

In the run-up to a day at Cottesmore, I’d contact John and let him know there looks to be a good window of weather coming up. I’m not usually telling him anything he doesn’t know because he looks at the forecasts as much as I do. We look as far as ten days in the future and get a feel for the weather. If it looks good he contacts the army base to see if it’s possible for us to run on that day. Nine times out of ten the answer is yes, so we keep an eye on the weather to see if it’s improving or the forecast is getting worse. Obviously, I’m not running in the rain, so it has to be a fine day with next to no wind.

I load up the night before and get there for about seven or half-past. I have to sign on at the front gate, then meet Richard in his office. The office looks fairly normal, except there’s a shell, an armour-piercing tank shell, on his desk with a depleted uranium core. It’s not very big, but it’s so heavy because depleted uranium is 59 per cent heavier than lead. We drive out to the runway, unload the bike and get the kettle plugged in. At Cottesmore we have access to a disused pilot’s mess that dates back to the Cold War, with badges and plaques of squadrons from all over NATO on the walls. We put a tyre warmer on the back wheel, I don’t need

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