KEITH Amor will be back on the Isle of Man next week, sampling the unique spectacle that is the Tourist Trophy race. But the closest the Scot will be to the track is when the fastest road racers in the world hurtle past the hospitality tent where he will be holding court.
A past winner at Ulster Grand Prix and the North West 200, he also rode at Le Mans 24-hour for the Honda Legends team. And now with a successful business restoring, re-engineering and building custom “cafe racer” bikes, Amor is well and truly retired from the road racing scene, even if others were desperate to tempt him back.
“There were a couple of people who rang and asked if I was still riding and whether I intended racing this year and with genuine offers. But it was one where I had to say ‘no I’m done’. If the wife says no, and the kids say no, and my body says no, then it’s no,” he says. “There comes a time when you recognise your responsibilities and that they outweigh the risks, totally. Get it wrong, especially at the TT, given how quick you need to go to have a chance, and you are going to have a serious accident.
“If that happens, there will be consequences, although there is a good chance the consequences won’t affect you, because you might not be here. And that is the reality of what you do for a living.
“The last full season I did was 2015, having had a couple of accidents in 2014 – including a biggish one at the Ulster GP. Dean Harrison had a crash in front of me, and I had to ditch the bike down so I wouldn’t kill him, and the bike behind decided to run me over, which was nice,” he says in the matter-of-fact way these bikers approach such incidents.
“Road racing is a very selfish sport. Everything is about you – being at your best, being on the best machinery, being at your quickest – and nothing very much comes into your thoughts other than that. That isn’t really the way to be thinking when you have a wife and kids.”
Wife Charlie and children Cooper and Emilie would agree.
Instead, Amor – with five career podium finishes to his name on the island – will be giving his opinions to those being wined and dined track side. And it was from a similar position a few years ago that he saw, first-hand, what he and others were doing around the TT course.
“In 2009 I stopped during practice and hitched a lift to the bottom of Bray Hill. John McGuinness, Bruce Anstey and Guy Martin came past and I felt physically sick. I had to walk away, I couldn’t watch.
“On the bike, all you are concentrating on is getting from A to B as quickly as possible – be that the next section, or between one corner and the next. Your perspective is to get that done as quickly as possible. If that means doing 180, that’s what you do. If that means hitting 190, that’s what you do. Half the time you have no concept of speed.
“Off the bike, and seeing it at first hand, that’s different. The top guys are banging in 134mph laps – that’s about 24 seconds a lap quicker than I’ve ever done. That is bonkers. I know how hard I rode to do my quickest ever lap around there on a superbike, when I was riding for the factory Honda team, and I did a 130-something – not perfect by any means – but it was difficult to get your head around how anyone could be 20-odd seconds quicker than you.”
The 130mph average speed, for so long an almost mystical number, is now just average if you want to get on that top step. That’s 130mph as your average speed around a 37.73-mile course where some corners are taken at 10mph. That means, on other stretches, the top guys are hitting nearly 200mph, perhaps most noticeably when the TV helicopter is left behind over the mountain section.
While races are decided against the clock, the rivalry between Michael Dunlop and Ian Hutchinson has been an added attraction of late.
“That is a real rivalry – no love lost there,” says Amor. “Michael does tend not to like his nearest challengers, and just now that would be Hutchy. But Hutchy is a very driven and focused individual, and unlikely to back down, not when you see what he’s been through in recent years. So what Michael says isn’t going to upset Ian. Does it add something? Yes – not that bikes doing 200mph-plus between stone walls, trees and on public roads needed spicing up.”
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