My love of trucks started here. I’m thirteen months old and it’s my second Christmas. The truck was a present from Mum and Dad.

Me and my grandma, Double-Decker Lil.

My mum tells me this is Silverstone. We’d go on a Thursday and come back on a Sunday night when my dad was racing. We had an old ambulance converted into a camper that the four of us, Mum, Dad, me and Sal, would sleep in.

Me and Big Rita. The best mum I could hope for. A proper grafter who didn’t take any nonsense. Looking back, she did everything the right way as far as I was concerned.

The four Martin kids and my dad. He still looks the same now, over 20 years later. That’s Sally at the back, with Kate in front of her, Stu next to her and then me.

On my Raleigh Chopper with my dad’s bike workshop, a converted chicken shed, in the background. I spent many a night after school watching him build his race bikes.

The Martins. Me, eight; Kate, two; Sally, nine; and Stuart, three.

My first-ever motorbike, a Yamaha TY80. I still have it now. The little trial bike started the motorcycle obsession. It also started a lot of arguments with my older sister Sal, who I was supposed to share it with. That’s my dad’s works van in the background.

On the KX125 at Barnetby quarry, just up the road from where I lived. My first motocross bike, paid for by working with my dad. I rode it every chance I got, more often than not in one of Mr Lancaster’s farm fields. That got him revving.

The VW LT35 that my dad painted to look like the A-Team van because we were all so mad about the TV programme.

The Transit van, M303 GRH and my Suzuki GSX-R600 Junior Superstock bike.

My first time ever on a race bike, just before I stalled it going over Cadwell’s Mountain. My dad’s BSA, and look how nervous he is!

Me, with the farmer’s daughter, dressed up for the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2008. I may have been drinking before this photo was taken.

On the podium at Rockingham in 2002, just before the fingers-in-the-laptop moment that turned my racing life on its head.

Ryan Farquhar (left), my little sister Kate – who went on to be a race team mechanic – and me (right) at Scarborough, 2003. I have black tape on my arm, so someone must have died.

The 2009 Isle of Man End-To-End race. A year into my serious cycling habit.

Nutts Corner, 2003. That’s an Irish Superbike race and I’m on the GSX-R1000 my dad bought me, in the Team Racing colours. I’ve never had a problem racing in the wet.

From left to right are Richard Britton, Martin Finnegan, Darran Lindsay’s mechanic, Trevor, and Uel Duncan. This could be a scene from any Irish road race, but I’m sure it’s Dundalk, 2004. My team-mate Darran had crashed and broken his wrist but he could still win the Irish championship if I took a win away from Ryan Farquhar, so I agreed to ride his 250.

And that’s me high-siding Darran’s 250 at the same meeting, with Ryan Farquhar arriving on the scene. I didn’t hurt myself and tried to get back on, but the bugger wouldn’t start. Obviously, I didn’t beat Ryan that weekend, but I won at Killalane and Scarborough to give my team-mate the championship.

Another one from Dundalk that shows how wild the Irish road circuits are. They’re like motocross on tarmac. I’ll have hit this jump at over 130 mph.

This is the first photo a lot of people saw of me because it was used in a few British bike mags. It was taken by Stephen Davison, at the Scarborough Gold Cup meeting in 2004.

You can tell I was green, I’m even wearing the team’s shirt. 2004 Isle of Man TT awards with my bronze replica. I’m not sure where it is now. Maybe my dad’s got it.

Mid-Antrim 2005, I had finished second to Ryan Farquhar all day, but in this last race, the grand final, I won. I’ve raced Ryan hundreds of times. That’s the last time I raced this hardcore track. It took so much learning, because there are so many places you need to be fully committed.

Me and Trellis – my old mate, Johnny Ellis – in the pits at Macau, 2005. We are relaxing on the shipping containers the bikes are sent out to the Far East in. This was the first year I rode there.

Ireland’s Corner, Ulster GP, 2006. I won every race besides the Superstock race that day.

2007 TT on the Hydrex Honda Fireblade, at St Ninian’s crossroads, on the way to second in the Superbike TT.

This is the 2007 Superstock TT and I ran out of petrol because of a fault with the bike. This is Tower Bends, before you get to the Gooseneck. I look really uncomfortable in this photo, not in my normal riding position.

Showing my bruises a few days after a big crash at the North West 200 in 2008. I’m wearing one of my first pair of Hope shorts. I’ve probably worn the arse out of ten pairs of them.

I led both the big races at North West 200 in 2008 before mechanicals put a spanner in the works. First time, the brakes went; next race, the hose clip broke, both when I was out in front.

The Pre-TT Classic races, 2008, on the Billown Circuit. I came off in this race when the battery fell off and jammed the back wheel on the last lap, when I was leading the race by a minute. I shouldn’t be here now, really: that accident should’ve been the end of me. I spannered myself, and I had to tell my team boss, Shaun Muir, who didn’t even know I was racing, what happened.

With Valentino Rossi. The man’s a legend.

Going past the Memorial at Scarborough’s Gold Cup in 2009. That’s Stuart Easton’s bike, because the team had sold mine. A lad called Michael Pearson is behind me. He was a bit wild, but he never bothered me.

In the gutter, because the road’s all there for using. 2010 was a bit of a disastrous year. This is the North West 200 on the Wilson Craig Honda Superstock Fireblade.

This is what can happen if you crash at 170 mph at the TT. That’s the petrol tank in the top left and my foot in the bottom right. When I was in hospital I couldn’t understand why my fringe was burnt. I don’t remember the explosion, so I must’ve been knocked out for a second.

Dainese and AGV took this photo of the kit that did a great job of saving my skin in the Ballagarey crash. The paramedics cut the suit off me, but other than that it looks bloody good considering what it saved me from.

That won’t polish out. The remains of the Wilson Craig Honda Fireblade that exploded after I crashed going through the 170 mph Ballagarey corner at the 2010 TT.

In Nobles Hospital with the team on the evening of the crash. Everyone’s smiling even though I broke my back and there’s still smoke coming off my eyebrows, because they know how bad it could’ve been. I was racing three months later.

I had a few podiums during the 2011 TT, but McGuinness did the winning. I have massive respect for him.

I’m trying here. I can’t do wheelies on purpose. All I’m trying to do is get the front wheel down on the ground.

The Southern 100 takes place on the Isle of Man, but not on the TT circuit. It’s probably my favourite race of the year. It’s mid-week, the track is proper hardcore and when you sign on with the organisers they give you a handful of tea vouchers.

Pit stop at the 2011 TT. Having done both, I can honestly say I’d rather be racing than changing the back wheel. Pressure?You can’t imagine it.

The Dundrod circuit, home of the Ulster GP. I love it round there. This is the 2011 Superstock race.

Me and Mave, Mark ‘Mavis’ Davis, just before we started our first ever filming day for The Boat That Guy Built. Spellman took the photo and we’d just had a decent sized row about calling it all off. You can see by my face I was still more than half thinking of going home.

Filming The Boat That Guy Built. We crashed Reckless, as she was called, a good few times that day. Didn’t feel like a real job then and still doesn’t now.

Getting my John Thomas out in front of the crew for the shower scene in the boat series didn’t bother me one bit. Here I am trying to show Mave I didn’t have skid marks in my boxers. What a couple of pros.

I think this is the biggest crash I ever had, and I came away unscathed. It’s the North West in 2012. I’ve crashed a lot of motorbikes and I always know why; I’ve been trying too hard or I’ve done something wrong, but the cause of this crash is still a mystery to me.

The TAS Suzuki team at the Ulster GP in 2012. Team owner, Hector Neill; me; team boss and Hector’s son, Philip Neill; and my team-mate that year, Conor Cummins.

I’ve had some battles with Michael Dunlop at races like the Southern 100 and Ulster GP. Sometimes I come out on top, sometimes he does. This is one of the times, in the Superbike race at the Ulster in 2012, that I did.

Like a spaniel with its head out of a van window. This is the locomotive 5164 I had a hand in restoring for the How Britain Worked series. I need to be involved in TV where I’m getting my hands dirty.

The MacMillan, a pioneering bicycle with wooden wheels and metal ‘tyres’ that me and Mave helped make a replica of for the telly. Not suited to crossing cattle grids at speed.

Welding a gear for a Victorian lawnmower. Mowing used to be the thing that helped me relax, getting all the lines dead straight and then tidying up the headlands. Now I don’t even get time to do that.

And sometimes I even have to get my feet dirty.

Tower Bends,TT 2013. That bike never ran right, it took everything for me to scrape into the top ten. Look at those beer bellies! Proper.

Without doubt the most scared I’ve ever been on two wheels. 113 mph on a pushbike, an inch or two from the back of a racing truck. Riding blind and tearing the muscles off my bones to keep going. A hell of a buzz, though. I’m still amazed it didn’t go pear-shaped.

The engineering department and students at Southampton University were the brains and I was the brawn, pedalling like hell to get our HPA – human-powered aircraft – off the ground. It worked, too. More people have been into space than have flown under their own steam.

The sledging record in Channel 4’s Speed series was the perfect mix of cutting-edge engineering and danger. Flying down the side of a mountain in a carbon-fibre sledge, designed just for the top speed record. I crashed on the practice run, then did 83 mph, smashing the existing record that stood at 62 mph.

The 2013 Le Mans 24-Hours stands out as the best thing I’ve done with motorbikes. I just love racing bikes and to do it for over eight hours in two days is great.