TT Legend Hangs Up Leathers After 42 Years Competing In The Island

After more than four decades of blasting around the Mountain Course and Billown Circuit at frankly terrifying speeds, TT legend Ian Lougher has officially decided it’s time to hang up his leathers.

The Welshman’s career stats are ridiculous, 10 TT wins, 29 podiums and over 130 starts since his debut at the 1983 Manx Grand Prix.

His first TT victory came in 1990’s Junior race, where he set a 250cc lap record that stood for nine years. Nine! Some of us can’t even keep a houseplant alive that long.

Lougher’s been a master of all things two-wheeled, taking wins across 125cc, 250cc, Supersport and Production classes, and he even pulled off a tidy double in 2002 with victories in the 125cc and Production 600cc races. His final TT wins came in 2009, proving that age and experience can still outpace the young guns.

The Southern 100 has also been a huge part of Lougher’s Isle of Man legacy.

He first rode the Billown course in 1983, finishing 10th in the 350cc race on a then-sponsor Ray Cowles Yamaha.

His first victory came in 1987 in the Solo Founders race on an EMC machine, and over the decades he racked up an incredible 40 race wins, with his final triumph in 2013’s Ultra Lightweight 125cc.

Among these were five Solo Championships, in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008, the second-most of any rider around the iconic course.

Ian Lougher (Photo: Peter Callister)

While he’d stepped back from the main TT a few years ago, Lougher’s still been rattling the Mountain Course in the Classic TT, finishing on the podium again this year at the age of 62.

But now, he says, it’s finally time to give his body a rest.

‘Forty-four seasons is a long, long time to still be racing,’ he told iomttraces.com.

‘I’ve always said I’d keep racing as long as I was competitive, and I like to think I’ve managed that. I’m not one for just riding around at the back.

‘I’m 62 now, and while I still don’t get nervous going through the bottom of Bray Hill at 140mph, you can’t go on forever, and I don’t want to put my old body through any more. Racing has literally been my life.’

He might be done racing, but he’s not leaving the paddock just yet, his ILR Racing team will keep developing the next generation of road-racing heroes.

A proper legend of the roads.