While Sunday’s six-lap RST Superbike TT was very much a Dean Harrison affair, it was also a pretty special day for his Honda Racing team-mate John McGuinness.
The 23-time TT winner, now 54-years-old, has hinted that this might be his last year at the TT and, if it is, he’ll be going out on a high. He finished the gruelling 226-mile race in fifth, posting a 132mph lap as he rode as well as he has for many years.
McGuinness grew up just across the Irish Sea in Morecambe, spending family holidays at the TT as a child, and he was already a successful short circuit rider when he made his TT debut in 1996.
Fifteen of the TT legend’s 23 wins have been on Hondas (with four coming on Yamaha, one on a Chrysalis BMW single and three electric TT wins coming on bikes developed by Honda subsidiary Mugen) and the manufacturer prepared a special bike for the Superbike TT, with a livery inspired by the Paul Bird Motorsport entered Honda RS250 he rode at his first TT some 30 years ago.
Running in the Lightweight TT, McGuinness finished 15th in a race won by the legendary Joey Dunlop. Three years later, McGuinness would win that same race, his first TT win, but even then no-one could be sure what a legend the self-proclaimed ‘Brickie from Morecambe’ would become.
McGuinness continued to mix short-circuits and the TT in the late 1990s and early-2000s. Renowned as a specialist on two-strokes and 600cc supersport machinery, he won the British 250cc championship in 1999 and was a regular wildcard entry at the British Grand Prix – usually riding for young team owner Bird, who tragically died in 2023.
Confirming his prowess as a short circuit rider, John scored points in both 250 and 500cc Grand Prix races in his early career – his best being a 12th place on Bird’s Vimto-sponsored V-twin Honda NSR500V at the 1998 British Grand Prix and 13th on the same bike two years later.
A switch to four-strokes and good results in the British Supersport Championship saw John get a full season in the 2002 World Supersport Championship, but by now he was establishing a reputation as one of the TT’s up-and-coming talents. Having won the Singles TT in 2000 and the 400cc Lightweight in 2003, he had a breakthrough year in 2004 with three wins, which included riding Yamahas to success in the Junior and Formula One TTs.
By 2005 he was established as TT royalty, winning the six-lap Superbike and Senior TTs for the AIM Yamaha squad, before reuniting with Honda for a period of dominance that saw him win 15 TTs over a 10 year period.
The last of those successes came in the 2015 Senior TT, a win McGuinness considers his finest hour, as he dug deep at the end of an otherwise disappointing week to take his 23rd win, putting him third in the all-time honours list behind his idol (and later friend) Joey Dunlop, and Joey’s nephew Michael, who currently sits on 33 TT wins. It was his seventh win in the blue riband Senior TT, placing him alongside the legendary Mike Hailwood as the most successful rider in the TT’s most prestigious race.
On the way he produced many magical moments. He was on the podium for Joey’s legendary Formula One win in 2000 and was the first rider to break through the 130mph average lap, which he achieved in 2007 – the event’s centenary year.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing in recent years. He suffered serious leg injuries at the 2017 North West 200, ruling him out of the TT for two years, while a spell riding for Stuart Garner’s Norton team gained plenty of publicity but not much by way of results.
He was reunited with Honda when the TT resumed following a pandemic enforced break in 2022. Focusing only on the 1000cc races these days, somewhat ironically in light of his early successes on smaller machines, he’s become a true living legend and a proper ambassador for the sport. He is a regular feature at shows like the recent International Classic Motorcycle Show sponsored by Carole Nash, Motorcycle Live and Goodwood, and he rubs shoulders with the biggest names in two and four-wheeled motorsport.
He genuinely loves his motorcycles, and has around 80 machines and 150 sets of leathers in his personal collection. He was awarded the MBE for services to motorcycle racing in 2022 and, while by his own admission his is no longer a match for the TT’s ‘Big Four’ of Michael Dunlop, Dean Harrison, Peter Hickman and Davey Todd, he’s still regularly banging in 130mph laps and showing younger riders how it’s done around the infamous 37.73-mile TT course – as his Superbike TT outing demonstrated.
Leading the riders off down Bray Hill and with a big number one on the front of his bike, John has been in great form during practice week. He looked visibly moved after his staggering performance, where he rode the 1996 liveried Fireblade to fifth, telling TT+ afterwards: “I'm not gonna lie, I've got a little bit emotional. (The bike) took me back 30 years, looking at the 250 Paul Bird provided for me, it’s just such a shame Paul wasn't here to see it, although the twins (Bird’s children Frank and Jordan) were here to see me go off the line. I thought the bike was really cool, with all the original letters (fonts) on and the green number plates, and I just want to thank everybody for the support for all these years.
“I was determined at the start to get a good start and get stuck in. I just put six strong laps together and had a couple of good pit stops. I saw I was nibbling into Josh (Brookes, who finished fourth) a little bit and I was like ‘yeah’ and we kept him honest all the way.”
McGuinness used all of his experience to bring his Fireblade home in the grueling one-and-three-quarter-hour race, averaging a staggering 129.497mph in a 226-mile race which include two pitstops for fuel and rear tyre changes.
“I was a little bit tired in my left shoulder,” he continued. “This place can hurt you, so I said to myself ‘you know what I'm just gonna enjoy this last lap’. What was really humbling for me were the fans all the way round. It was it just pretty special. That last lap was quite emotional. I just needed to get it to the finish but top five is where I am and it's honest result. I’m over the moon with that, as I know I’m not going to beat some of those guys.”
And while, by his own admission, the top three are on another level, if Saturday’s Senior race is John’s last TT, we wouldn’t be surprised to see him dig even deeper to end his sparkling career on a high. In our recent video interview, John told us that standing on a TT podium again would be ‘the icing on the cake’ and while he knows he would need luck to be on his side, it’s certainly not outside the realms of possibility.
Whatever happens, we doubt this will be the last that we see of John McGuinness. He’ll no doubt remain a fixture on the classic motorcycle racing scene, and at the Classic Isle of Man TT Races where he has enjoyed so much success (and where this year there will be a feature celebrating his 30 years at the TT). The ‘Morecambe Missile’ truly is a national treasure and we look forward to seeing what he can pull out of the bag over the rest of TT 2026.
Photos: Isle of Man TT Races
