TT 2024: Hail Michael Dunlop, the new King of the Mountain

The mercurial Ballymoney racer equalled his revered uncle Joey’s record of 26 wins in the opening Supersport race on Saturday – his fifth successive triumph in the class on his MD Racing Yamaha – to abundant acclaim, but Dunlop has written a new chapter in the chronicles of the TT’s hall of fame.

Robbed of victory in Sunday’s Superbike race after a visor issue wiped out his 25-second lead, Dunlop came out fighting on his MD Racing Paton.

With a new record tally of victories amassed around the hallowed Manx roads of the infamous 37.73-mile Mountain Course, Dunlop has surpassed a record once thought unconquerable.

Michael Dunlop has become the most successful rider in TT history after clinching a record 27th victory

Five-time TT Formula 1 world champion Joey – a national treasure and a hero of the Ulster people – won his final three TT races during a vintage year in 2000.

Aged 48, he rolled back the years to win the six-lap Formula 1 race for a seventh time, securing the victory he wanted to savour one more time on a special factory Honda VTR SP-1.

It was a privilege to be present at the TT in 2000 to bear witness to Joey’s finest hour.

He won the Lightweight 250 and Ultra-Lightweight 125 races to complete a hat-trick during an unforgettable week, setting a benchmark that stood for 24 years – one that I believed would never be topped in my lifetime.

Tragically, Joey lost his life in a racing accident a few weeks later at Tallinn in Estonia.

It was the end of an era, but Michael’s maiden TT success in the Supersport class nine years later heralded a new beginning for the Dunlop dynasty.

His father Robert – himself a five-time TT winner whose career was severely limited due to the injuries he suffered in a crash at the TT in 1994, restricting him to the smallest 125cc machines – died a year before Michael’s first TT win following a crash in qualifying at the North West 200.

While his older brother William opted to sit out the TT in the aftermath of his father’s death, Michael made a last-minute decision to travel to the Isle of Man.

It was only his second appearance at the event following his debut at the centenary meeting in 2007, but Dunlop marked himself out as potential future winner.

A best result of eighth place in the second Supersport race stood out, with the 19-year-old beating established TT riders including two-time Senior winner and fellow Ballymoney man Adrian Archibald, Dan Stewart, Chris Palmer, and Carl Rennie Davy Morgan.

That was the moment when I knew Dunlop was a TT winner in waiting, coming only weeks after he had displayed unfathomable resilience to win an emotion-charged 250cc race in his father’s memory at the North West 200, less than 48 hours following his death.

Once the breakthrough was made in 2009, he quickly ticked off the big TT milestones: a first big-bike success in the Superstock race in 2011; his maiden Superbike triumph on the factory Honda TT Legends machine in 2013, beating John McGuinness in his prime; a first four-timer in that same year, matching Phillip McCallen’s 1996 feat; another four-timer the following year in 2014 that included his first top step in the Senior TT; a Superbike and Senior double in 2016 and the first sub 17-minute lap of the TT course; a treble in 2018 and his third four-timer last year, when Dunlop became the first rider to lap at over 130mph on a Supersport machine.

I was there to witness every one of those TT wins but of all his extraordinary accomplishments, Michael’s achievement of matching and then beating Joey’s record felt like a seminal moment.

As I waited to interview him, I couldn’t help but think back 24 years previously to Joey’s final TT.

What odds another member of the Dunlop family would one day take Joey’s record.

Yet here he was. The new King of the Mountain.

Michael was humble, paying a respectful tribute to his sacrosanct uncle.

Still only 35, he has triumphed against all odds and defeated overwhelming adversity to reach the TT summit – the Holy Grail for motorcycle road racers.

The sacrifices have been many.

After his brother William’s fatal accident at the Skerries 100 Irish road races in 2018, Michael was carrying the Dunlop name alone: the last bastion of the esteemed Northern Ireland motorcycling empire.

He has relit the Dunlop torch and the proud family name for so long synonymous with the world’s foremost motorcycle road race will remain the yardstick for TT greatness for a long time to come.

It has been an honour to behold it.