'I'm so glad I'm still motivated; I still have the urge to go racing'

Jeremy McWilliams contested MotoGP when the paddock was a wild place full of wild men. And he is still racing and still winning, on a 290-kilogram, 290-km/h tourer...

-  Mat Oxley 

When Valentino Rossi retired from MotoGP at the end of the last year, he had been racing motorcycles for 31 years. amazing, is it not?

But what about Jeremy McWilliams who has been racing on and off for 35 years and is still going strong?

the 58-year-old northern irishman is a gnarly old warrior, whose hands and fingers (what is left of them) are such a mess that they look like he has gone a few rounds with a shoal of Great Whites.

eighteen months from now he will be able to claim his over-60s bus pass but still he comes back for more: earlier this year he won a race at Daytona and stood on the podium at the north West 200.

there are three main factors that motivate professional racers to risk life and limb: money, ego, and thrills. So, which of those keeps McWilliams at it?

‘the adrenaline, first,’ he answers. ‘and that feeling of contentment you get when you pull something off, like the win at Daytona. You don’t come down from something like that for days.

‘i’m so glad i’m still motivated. i still have a need to go racing, i still want to be competitive, i still want to earn bonuses, i still want to learn new things, and i still want to help factories on the development side.’

McWilliams’s career has spanned generations of riders and a huge array of machinery. he has shared GP grids with everyone from Kevin Schwantz to Rossi and has raced everything from a Yamaha RD350lC to a YZR500, from an aprilia RSW250 to an aprilia RS Cube MotoGP bike, and from a harley XR1200 to a vast 1,769-cc indian Challenger, which he rides for the american marque in the popular King of the Baggers championship, USa.