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TT 2013: Matsushita’s death the ‘final straw’ for retiring Lougher

ILR’s Ian Lougher announced this week that he will be retiring from racing at the Isle of Man TT, and after 30 years of competing at this prestigious event decided that after the death of Tyco Suzuki’s Yoshinari Matsushita last week it was time to finally hang up his leathers.

“I think I have had a good run at it as I have been racing for 31 years, and at the Isle of Man I have been racing for 30 years. Also a friend of mine Yoshinari Matsushita, who rode for me in 2009 was killed this year at the TT and that was the final straw. I was thinking about retiring before that and this has done it for me really,” said Lougher, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

The Welshman has knocked up ten TT wins during his time out on the Isle of Man circuit, and has broken lap and race records in the process. But his favourite memory was his first win, back in 1990.

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“My first TT win sticks out in my mind. My friend Steve Hislop was a works Honda rider at the time and I was on a privateer Yamaha and I went on to beat him and we both broke the race and lap records by a lot, and the lap record stood for nine years after that. It was not something I thought I could achieve at that time, and we took 38 seconds off the lap record, and that was a tremendous achievement really, even when I look back at it."

But just because the Cardiff born rider is retiring doesn’t mean he won’t have his hands full. He is currently running his own team in the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 championship, in the MCE British Superbike series and wants to continue running a team in the TT too, so he can develop young riders.

“As you get older, it gets to a point that youth will win through, but now I feel the time is right to retire, as you can’t go on racing for ever. It is difficult racing against the youngsters as they have a little bit more desire to achieve something, as I have got ten TT wins already. I will probably still run my own team around the TT, and bring on some more young riders.”

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