Road racing legend Ryan Farquhar inducted into Irish motorcycling's Hall of Fame
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Road racing legend Ryan Farquhar inducted into Irish motorcycling's Hall of Fame
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Ryan is pictured with his daughters Keeley and Maya at the Irish Motorbike awards on Friday night in Belfast.

Road racing legend Ryan Farquhar was inducted into Irish motorcycling’s Hall of Fame on Friday night in Belfast.

The 43-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries in a crash at the North West 200 in 2016 and hasn’t raced since, although he continues to run his highly-successful KMR Racing Team at the international road races.

The Dungannon man is the most successful Irish National road racer ever and last year his achievements were officially recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records, with Farquhar setting a record of 357 race wins in total throughout his career.

He joins a host of legendary names in the Hall of Fame, including Joey and Robert Dunlop, William Dunlop, Eddie Laycock, Johnny Rea, Phillip McCallen, Brian Reid and Steven Cull.

Farquhar said:

“I’ve had a fantastic career and I’m still here to tell the tale, whereas there were a lot of other fantastic road racers who had great careers, but never got the opportunity to sit back and look at what they achieved over their racing lives. From that point of view, I’m very lucky.

“You can count on one hand the number of top riders who are here today to be able to look back on their achievements, riders like Phillip McCallen, Adrian Archibald, Brian Reid, Ray McCullough and the likes of Steven Cull – there are very few, so I’m very thankful because I was very close to becoming one of those riders who had that chance taken away from them.”


The Dungannon man is justifiably proud of his achievements and says he wouldn’t swap his career for anything.

“When I look back to when I started racing on a TZ350 that my Grandad let me ride, I never dreamt I’d end up with the wins and championship that I have had.

“I’ve raced against and beat the best over the years, riders like Joey Dunlop, Adrian Archibald, Ian Lougher, Martin Finnegan, Richard Britton, Darran Lindsay, Cameron Donald, David Jefferies, Iain Duffus, Michael Rutter – the list goes on and on.

“I’m very thankful as well to the people who gave me my big breaks. The two key moments were when Steven Ewing bought me an ex-James Courtney 250cc Honda, which made a big difference to my career,” added Farquhar.

“After that, my next big break was with Winston McAdoo, which came after Bob Jackson got hurt. Kenny Harker too played a massive role in my career and was probably the sponsor who was with me for the longest period of time. My wife, Karen, has always been there for me too.

“I have some great memories of those early days and those weekends, going down south and working out of a small van with a few bikes. Those days were the best days, going out there and getting a few wins and having the craic, those times were very special to me.”




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Kyle White

18-01-2020, 06:44 PM
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