Last weekend that is exactly what Graham Hicks, 43, set out to do. Blind since the age of six and deaf since three, Hicks was hoping to break the world quad bike speed record of 104mph. The attempt was all the more remarkable since the record is not for disabled people only — it is open to anyone.
“I’m just not interested in trying for disabled records,” says Hicks, who “hears” through letters traced onto the palm of his hand, but speaks with his own voice. “My aim is to show that, given the opportunity, disabled people can compete on an equal footing with their able-bodied counterparts. Besides, you don’t get into the Guinness Book of Records unless the challenge is open to everyone.”
Brave? Definitely — though arguably not quite as brave as his pillion passenger acting as his eyes and ears. Unlike Hicks, Cambridgeshire policeman Brian Sharman can not only hear the frantic scream of the quad bike engine, but see exactly how straight — or otherwise — Graham is steering. And it’s his job to make it known if the bike is even minutely veering off course.
Not easy when your driver can’t hear a word you’re saying. Which is why the two men have developed a system based entirely on touch. “If I want him to speed up, I squeeze him with my knees,” says Sharman, 43. “If I want him to slow down, I tap his chest with both hands. And if I want him to stop, I pull on his chest with both hands. It’s not just a matter of the odd tap here and there — every run is a constant series of taps and pulls, from start to finish.”
It doesn’t always work. During training the pair came off the bike. “Graham tried to do a bit of a wheelie, and it didn’t work,” says Sharman, rubbing his thickly padded police leathers. “It wasn’t too serious, because we weren’t going at any speed, but it gives you a taste of what it would be like if we were going at 100mph — and it wouldn’t be very nice at all. We’ve got no seatbelts or anything, so we’d be straight off and onto the tarmac.”
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The accident aside, there is a deep understanding between the two men. “I trust him completely, and he trusts me,” says Sharman. “That is the key to success.”
Hicks, who works as head of challenges for the charity Deafblind UK (www.deafblind.org.uk), is no stranger to world records. Last year he set the record for longest jet ski journey — speeding from Norfolk to Holland in six hours on a two-seater jet ski. For his latest attempt he is using a specially constructed machine — made up of a Honda TRX 400 quad bike chassis powered by a Honda CBR 1100 Super Blackbird motorbike engine. The whole thing held together by reinforced joints that would do credit to a tank.
“You could drop that bike from a plane and it would just bounce,” declares its creator Terry Chard, a former Ducati race mechanic who is now wheelchair-bound after breaking his back in a paragliding accident.
For the moment, though, the target to beat is 104mph, and if ever conditions were going to be right, then today is the day. Blue sky, warm sunshine, and two miles of impeccably flat runway made available by RAF Wittering — whose acting commander just happens to be Andy Green, holder of the world land-speed record of 763mph, achieved in 1997 behind the controls of Thrust SSC.
“I know just how much hard work goes into achieving a speed that no one has ever touched before, and I have to take my hat off to Graham and Brian,” says Wing Commander Green, addressing the crowd of 200 spectators, relatives, friends and well-wishers (plus ambulance crews) who have gathered.
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The two men mount their bike with grim determination on their faces and gun the engine. Viewed from the control tower, it’s hard to tell how fast the bike is travelling, other than that it seems to cross the horizon in an unfeasibly short time with the two men clinging to each other, heads bowed and leaning hard into the wind. “It’s about the same speed as I do in my Harrier,” whistles an RAF pilot, admiringly.
And then comes the news. According to the official Guinness timekeeper, Hicks has done it: over two runs he has destroyed the old record with an average top speed of 130.78mph.
Champagne corks pop beneath the nose cone of a fighter plane but the expression on Hicks’s face is far from elated. Is he not happy with the speed? “Quite,” comes the reply. “But I’ll be happier when I hit 150.”
AGAINST ALL ODDS
Miles Hilton-Barber
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The blind father of three has circumnavigated the world using 80 forms of transport, and scaled Kilimanjaro. In 2002 the 55-year-old from Derbyshire set the lap record for a blind driver at the Malaysian Grand Prix circuit.
Billy Baxter
Last year this 40-year-old Cambridge man, nicknamed “Billy the Whizz”, set the overall blind land-speed record, reaching 165mph on a motorbike.
Mike Newman
In October Newman, 42, will try to set a new blind speed record in a car: reaching 200mph in a supercharged V8 version of the Invicta S1. The Cheshire man already holds the record, having hit 144mph unassisted in a Jaguar XJR.
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Steve Cunningham
Last month Cunningham, 41, from Oxfordshire, became the first blind person to fly a plane around the UK — aided by “talking” controls.