McPint talks about Joey Dunlop
20 years after his death, McGuinness recalls racing’s modest star
‘HE TOLD ME THE ONLY THING GLOVES DID WAS KEEP FLIES OFF’
Everybody has a favourite story about Joey and I think it’s special that after all these years we still talk about him. And because it’s his 20th anniversary there’s been different pictures of him surfacing, like I saw on Twitter a shot of him on a three-cylinder 500 when he rode as a wild card with Wayne Gardner behind him. Joey did so much stuff like the mercy missions to deprived countries where there wasn’t a motorbike in sight. His attitude to life and racing was so far away from where we are today
For example, he was never driven by money even though ultimately he could have just named his price because he was the star attraction.
When we were teammates I’d get new leathers or new boots, but he just wasn’t bothered about any of that. He told me once the only thing gloves are good for is to keep the flies off!
The last memory that most people have of Joey was of him winning that 2000 Superbike TT. Everything was against him. Few thought he could win on a big wobbly Superbike at 48. What would he be doing now? I’m not sure if he’d go to many races. I know he’d be asked to attend dinners etc, but I can’t see him doing that. He was too unassuming. He was a hero to others, but he wasn’t a hero in his own head.
There’s so many stories about what he was like off the bike, but I can remember going to the Ally Pally bike show in 1998. When we got to the show he queued up to pay for a ticket to get in, rustling around in his pocket for some change. And I asked him: ‘What are you doing? You don’t need to pay, these people are queuing up to see you!’
For me that’s absolutely unreal; he never really knew what a big hitter he was.