Hodgson: I haven't retired!

2003 World Superbike champion Neil Hodgson may have appeared on track as part of the legends parade at Donington Park last weekend, but the Briton was at pains to point out that he definitely hasn’t retired.

Hodgson left WSBK for MotoGP following his title winning season, the last campaign before the Pirelli control tyre rule was introduced, but just a year later found himself back at Ducati Corse in the AMA Superbike championship when his GP dream turned sour on a year-old d'Antin Ducati.

Citing technical restrictions, Ducati were unable to challenge for the AMA crown, leading to the Italian manufacturer's withdraw at the end of 2006. Hodgson then expected to be placed back into Ducati's world championship team, alongside reigning double champion Troy Bayliss, this season - but was left sorely disappointed when he was overlooked in favour of Lorenzo Lanzi, a decision Hodgson believes was influenced by Bayliss.

With his sights still set purely on challenging for a second WSBK crown, Hodgson turned down a return to d'Antin Ducati and an offer from Rizla Suzuki (BSB) but - despite having won 13 SBK races during the 2003 season - the Englishman was left empty handed when rumoured rides at Ten Kate Honda, Klaffi Honda and finally Carl Fogarty's team all failed to materialise.

Hodgson was back on track at Donington last weekend (top and middle pictures), but only as part of a parade to celebrate WSBK's 20th anniversary. Afterwards, Crash.net spoke exclusively to the Briton about his current racing status and future plans.

"It feels horrible to be back. I'm hating it!" Neil began. "I hate being here and not racing. In the past I've never really liked going to races when I'm not competing, but it's worse now because I've not actually got a job.

"It's like being an alcoholic and then you've got to go and stand around a bar with all your friends and I'm not allowed to drink. Do you know what I mean? It's like someone rubbing salt into my wounds.

"I enjoyed riding the bike around on the parade lap, but it was still almost too much for me because I'm not retired, I'm not an old man, and I almost feel like I'm being put in those brackets. 'Wa-hey! Let's roll out the ex-champions!' and all that. I just feel like saying 'whoa, I'm still a young guy who wants to race bikes and I've got a lot to give the sport'."

Earlier in the season it had been rumoured that Hodgson might be taking a much more active part in the Donington weekend, by signing to a late deal to ride a second Team Yamaha YZF R1, alongside Shinichi Nakatomi, from round three onwards.

"Nothing came of it really," revealed the 33-year-old. "They were exaggerated rumours to be honest. There were a couple of phone calls and then it became apparent that they had no money and no bikes - not to a decent standard anyway."

Are there any opportunities at the moment?

"Not really, no," replied the 16 times WSBK race winner, 16 times pole position holder and 41 times podium finisher. "There are a couple of really, really, bad opportunities that you wouldn’t want to take. It's frustrating not racing, but it'd be even more frustrating taking a really crap opportunity and battling for tenth place and thinking 'what am I doing?'. So I'd rather not do that, wait, and certainly focus on next year.

"I'm keeping as fit as I can. I do quite a lot of motocross and mountain biking in the Isle of Man," he continued. "I race every weekend, either mountain biking or motocross. I love the competition. I've actually been quite busy. It's surprising, you'd think I'd just be sat watching Jeremy Kyle [UK daytime chat show] or something, but I've been really busy. I also own quite a lot of properties so I've been doing some buying and selling.

"Keep your fingers crossed that I'll get a ride sorted soon."

Crash

sounds a bit frustrating