The tragic reality that confronts the stars of road racing
So wrote Michael Dunlop in his 2017 book Road Racer: It’s in My Blood This week, he buried his brother William, the third member of the family to die on the roads
AS crowds converge on Walderstown this weekend, on a small country road outside Athlone, an absent friend won’t be far from any mind. A year ago, William Dunlop had competed in the ‘Race of the South,’ finishing second. This past week, many of those competing in the midlands today watched as he was buried in Garryduff cemetery, beside his father and uncle.
In this age of social media, crosspollination among sports is hardly unusual but the manic energy and loud roaring engine of Ireland’s road-racing scene is about as far from the staid, hushed stuffiness of golf’s European Tour as one can get. For a brief moment in Ballyliffin last week, though, those worlds did intersect.
Graeme McDowell is from ‘Dunlop country’, the triangle of roads between Portstewart, Portrush and Coleraine that hosts the North West 200, the largest annual sporting event in Northern Ireland. William Dunlop’s death in Skerries had a deep impact.
‘I never had a chance to meet him but I know the family,’ McDowell explained. ‘Growing up in that part of the world, the North West 200 was always in my blood and the Dunlop family were some of our heroes. It’s such a dangerous sport. They know the dangers that face them out there but it’s in their blood and it’s what they love to do.
‘These guys are unbelievably brave, brave people and the Dunlop family were heroes of mine growing up. They still are.’
Here was a golf Major winner and Ryder Cup regular explaining how he hero-worshipped some roadracers. It sounds odd but if there is a cultish element which has kept this sport alive in Ireland, the Dunlops have always transcended it. The story of their triumph, reverence and tragedy is unsurpassed by any single family this side of the Kennedys. So rich is the pathos of their history that they are to road-racing what Joe Kennedy’s brood in Massachusetts is to American politics and society.
From April to September on this island, thousands gather on ordinary country roads from Cookstown to Kells to watch their heroes and revel in their speed. These races only penetrate the mainstream when there is a tragedy to report.
William was the third member of the Dunlop family to lose his life on the road while competing in the sport he loved. He had spoken recently about having his own doubts about what he did for a living. That’s not unusual. His father, Robert, and uncle, the legendary Joey, both wrestled with their own doubts about their way of life. But they always came back.
The spectre of death stalks the sport. Every day they go out, they know that it might be the day they are not coming home. Michael Dunlop, William’s younger brother who famously won the North West 200 only two days after his father’s death in 2008, outlined in his autobiography, Road Racer: It’s in My Blood, the risks that road-racers accept in their way of life.
‘Death is a familiar foe to road racers,’ Dunlop wrote. ‘She’s always there, just out of the corner of your eye. Watching, waiting… Death is responsible for the man I am today – my Dad going, my winning that race the day before his funeral, continuing the Dunlop dynasty. These events shaped me in ways I could never have imagined if they hadn’t happened.’
The younger Dunlop has not yet turned 30 and has already achieved everything there is to in the sport but he admits with some poignancy that he would give up all his achievements, just to have his father back for a single day.
Robert Dunlop’s last act was to slam on the front brake of his bike when practising for the North West
The races only penetrate the mainstream when there is a tragedy
200. A puff of smoke had come from his motorbike as it seized at 160 mph. He was launched over the handlebar onto the road, dying from severe chest injuries. Michael was the first rider on the scene.
36 hours later, Michael, who had just turned 20, won the race. Stewards had declared both himself and William unfit to race, but the pair went down to the start grid with their bikes anyway. William’s bike didn’t play ball and re-fused to start but Michael turned his grief into anger and fury and claimed the title. The following day, he buried his father.
Michael explained in an interview a few years later that it was a coping mechanism. ‘It was just my way of dealing with it. There was no other option. Maybe it was a bit selfish... we don’t know anything else. But I don’t think it helped any.’
It was an event that just added another layer to the legend of the Dunlop family, a legend that was started by Joey, the reluctant superstar named ‘King of the Mountains’ who managed to bridge the sectarian divide in the North during the 1970s and 80s by winning five world titles in-a-row and more Isle of Man TT races than anyone in history – a record that his nephew Michael is on course to break.
He was the doyen of Irish and Manx roads but lost his life after crashing into a tree on a drenched road in Estonia in May 2000. More than 50,000 lined the roads around Ballymoney for his funeral.
It was the outpouring of grief and emotion for his uncle that convinced William to get into biking. Prior to that, he was more interested in being a professional footballer.
In the compelling documentary made about the Dunlop family, ‘Road’, narrated by Liam Neeson, William comes across as the more affable and engaged of the two brothers. But in it they are both alltoo-aware of the dangers of the sport.
How could they not be? They had seen their father, Joey’s younger brother, recover from life-threatening injuries to get on a bike once more. Practising for the TT races in May 1994, Robert had such a bad crash, that he spent six months in hospital and was bed-ridden for a year. The power on one side of his body was greatly reduced. But he was back on a bike within a couple of years.
That sort of courage can often be overlooked amid the carnage. But the fact remains that no sport is as familiar with death. Since its inception in 1907, 257 competitors have lost their lives in the Isle of Man TT. Sixteen competitors have died in the North West 200. Spectators and stewards have also died. Just this past week, another promising road racer James Cowton perished during a run on the Isle of Man.
Death never leaves the shoulder of competitors. It is something that Joey Dunlop learned early in his career. Within two years, he lost two of his closest friends, Jim Kennedy and Meryn Robinson, on the North West 200 track. That sense of loss, and their ghosts, helped propel him to greatness.
All signposts are pointing his nephew Michael to even greater heights than his legendary uncle. But as this past week has shown, like Joey, he will not just be competing against other riders and the road itself, but the ghosts that will haunt him for the rest of his career.
Death never leaves the shoulders of these competitors