Lougher to retire? No way!

Two fourth places in the Supersport races on the Balckhorse Finance Yamaha  during Saturday’s Ulster Grand Prix went a long way to shut up the armchair critics who reckon Ian Lougher should quit racing.

The forty-something Welshman who lives at Dromora, Ireland, and has 12 Ulster Grand Prix wins to his credit, showed he’s still got plenty of fire in his belly on the roads as he mixed it with the best of them, 0.79 covering race winner Ryan Farquhar, Ian Hutchinson, William Dunlop and his Blackhorse Yamaha in the first race.

And while Dunlop got away in race two, Lougher was in thick of another manic scrap for second with 09s covering second place Farquar,  Bruce Anstey and him.
Lougher said: “Blink and you lost three places. I think I rode well and if it wasn’t for a false neutral at the Hairpin in the first race that meant I run wide I could have done even better.

“The first four or five got clear but I caught them back up but they were four and five abreast and there was no way by. Then Keith Amor crashed and I got right back on the group and took third at the Hairpin.  William (Dunlop) pushed me back to fourth at Quarry Bends but fair play to him. He came underneath me so hard – he had so much confidence in the front (tyre).

“There were six of us under the lap record in that first race but that’s the way it is on the roads now. It’s so competitive. You can’t ride 90%. It has to be 100% just to defend your place.

“I’ve read stuff on forums saying I should quit but while I’m able to ride like that, why should I consider retiring?”

Lougher had been down to ride the AIM Yamaha in the superbike races but the team pulled out of the event two weeks ago and left Lougher with no other option but to race his own 2008 Yamaha and finished seventh and fifth.

“The bike is nowhere near the spec of the 2000bhp Stobart Honda I raced here but I still lapped as fast on the old Yamaha. That pleased me.”

One disappointment for Lougher – and no doubt the fans – was his absence from the 250 race. His Barnes Jackson Racing Honda threw a rod and wrecked the motor. Lougher had been seen as the one man who might have broken the stranglehold on the race held by the Dunlop brothers, William and Michael.