Guy Martin

When I was little, I would open up lawnmowers and try to make them go faster. I wasn't strong enough to do some things, so I'd wait for my dad to get home from work to help me. He was great, but he never really encouraged me, and I'll be the same if I have kids: I'll leave them to do their own thing.

I work nights on a farm in the summer when harvest starts. I work on a civil engineering site down the Humber Docks where all the refineries are. So that's my day job from seven to four. And then I build engines at night.

It's bred in me that I only see real work as getting stuck in and getting your hands dirty.

If I'd done 'Top Gear,' I would have had to have left my job, and I've got the best job in the world. To do 'Top Gear' and do it properly would mean leaving work, and I can't. I don't want to leave work.

I do all that TV stuff, and it's not real work.

I don't go out. I work, go racing, then go to my shed and make things.