VOL. 52 ISSUE 27 JULY 7, 2015 P33
15 YEARS ON
J
uly 2 marked 15 years since the passing of Joey
Dunlop. The most successful rider ever on the
Isle of Man TT course with a record 26 TT victories,
Dunlop was killed during a non-descript street race in
Estonia, just after taking what many consider his fin-
est race win in the 2000 Formula One TT at age 48,
using a factory Honda SP-1 to defeat the seemingly
unstoppable David Jefferies on the V&M Yamaha
YZF-R1.
Dunlop's racing career did not just revolve around
the TT. In a time when the premier four-stroke World
Championship was the TT Formula One title (road-
based engines in prototype chassis), Dunlop was a
five-time consecutive World Champion between 1981
and 1986, riding for Honda Britain. Dunlop also took
the checkered flag first at the Ulster Grand Prix an
incredible 24 times, was victor at the North West 200
13 times, and took podium places at the Macau Grand
Prix, Imola 200 and World Superbike Championship.
However Dunlop was more than just a racer. His
tireless humanitarian efforts, in which he would load
his van full of aid and travel to remote areas of Roma-
nia to visit various orphanages, would earn him an
OBE (Order of the British Empire) award in 1986, to
go along with his MBE (Member of the British Em-
pire) award for service to
motorcycle sport, earned in
1996.
Incredibly popular with all
manners of life thanks to his
apolitical and anti-sectarian
nature, Dunlop's funeral
was attended by over
50,000 people at the Gar-
ryduff Presbyterian Church
and earlier this year, Dunlop
was voted Northern Ire-
land's greatest-ever sports
star by the Belfast Tele-
graph newspaper.
Rennie Scaysbrook
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
Joey Dunlop (right) and Davey Wood (left)
at the 1991 Isle of Man TT.
Dunlop's best years were in the '80s when racing for Honda
Britain—he was almost unstoppable at the Isle of Man.
