A. By the end of that year, I was as low as I've ever been in my life. Horrendous. I completely hated motorcycles, and I hated racing them. I had no confidence. I had no confidence in my own ability. I'd completely come to a decision that I definitely didn't have what it took. I was 24 years old, and thought, "Well, whatever life's got for me in the future, it's not going to involve racing bikes." I was that down on it. Honestly. I'm not trying to hype it up to make the story sound, "Can you believe he was that low?" I was that low. I hated it. All I wanted to do was be the old Neil Hodgson with a smile on his face and enjoy doing things.

Q Did you have opportunities?

A Basically, there were a few opportunities to stay in World Superbikes, but they were slim opportunities. My manager was chasing them, and as he was chasing them, I always sat in meetings thinking, "I hope I don't get this deal." Because I didn't want to. I'd had enough. Completely had enough. I actually didn't want to race at all, so I certainly didn't want to race in World Superbikes. Because I didn't think I could win. So what's the point? It all felt horrible. So luckily, none of the opportunities that were sort of on the fringes ever worked out.

Once with the GSE team, Hodgson's never looked back image by tim huntington

Obviously, when the season ended, I was in to my manager all the time, and he was making inquiries for me, like any good manager should. There were a few possibilities, and then all of a sudden there was a chance to race in England, which I didn't want to do, because the tracks are really dangerous, and I thought I was better than that, to be honest. I don't know. It was just like that. What to do. Whether to go back and race in England, or just call it quits and think, "Well, I've had a short career, but I've done some good things, and I want to enjoy myself now." Anyway. I spoke to my family for a long time, my wife, my mum and dad, and we basically, as a team, came up with the idea - and my manager - that we'd give it one last shot. We'll go and race in England for a year with this GSE team, that was not a very good team at the time, believe it or not, because it's funny as it turned out to be an incredible team, and seems to get better all the time. But the team was quite new. Riding Ducatis, and just give it a go, really. And it was a really weird year, because as I'd lost confidence throughout the [preceding] years, I'd gained confidence throughout that year, all the time, picking away, gaining more confidence, being more and more relaxed, more and more enjoyment. It was a funny year, really.

"I remember waiting for Lavilla - because Lavilla had got my ride on the Kawasaki - I've never actually said this to an interviewer. I waited for him, looking around, and I saw him and let him go, and then I chased him, and I passed him as close as I could."

Q Who was your teammate that year?

A Bayliss. He was a great guy. He was one of the first nice team-mates I've had. A hard rider. A great rider. Nice guy off the bike. No mind games. His mind game was, "I'll go out and go faster than you." Great. There's no silly mind games. Petty little shit. So I really enjoyed the year. The team was absolutely incredible. Apart from 1995, the first really good team I'd been with. Better than what the old factory Ducati team was. Certainly better than Kawasaki.

Q A supportive crew at that stage is ultra-important for a rider, especially a rider in that position.

A Yeah. A rider that's really, really low. And I'd gone from the past three seasons, I'd been in foreign teams, with all foreign mechanics, and no matter how good an Italian guy speaks English, or a German, it's not the same, you know what I mean. And I went to this English team that was ultra-professional, and you went to work and went to play, and it was just what I needed at the right time. A little bit like what's happened to Lavilla. He obviously just needed it at the right time, and it's just fallen for him. And it just fell for me. And I had a really tough year in '99. I had to re-learn how to race. Because I'd got really good at being passed, and not fighting back. I re-learned the skills, gained a lot of confidence.

Q Which was probably the most important part of it?

A The most important part of it. And by the last quarter of the season, I was not in there really for the championship, but Bayliss was, so I was under team orders, and that sort of helped me in a really strange sort of way. Because then I was racing for myself, I was racing for the team and Bayliss, and the last few races, I was the best rider on the track, and at a couple of the events I (had to) let him past. And then come to the last race where Troy had won it, and they said, "Just go out and do your own thing," and I just completely cleared off, and won easily.

And that, then, put me into winter. I went into winter with a lot of confidence. And the best thing that happened that winter was all the press wrote me off. When they asked all the so-called experts in the country who's going to win the BSB (title) in 2000, who's your top three, out of about ten people they asked, I got on two or three people's third place.

Motivation's not the word for how that affected me. I stuck the article up on the bedroom wall, I said, "Yup. That's okay. No problem. You write me off. I'll fu*&ing kill you." And that's what I felt like. I just felt so motivated. I just knew. I just knew - I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I just knew I was never going to let myself down. That's the main thing in this sport. Don't let yourself down. I knew it wasn't going to happen.

Q So you went into the next year a lot smarter, a lot more experienced, knowing that you had to keep a shield around you?

Hodgson and the GSE team made each other stronger image by tim huntington

A Exactly that. It's exactly what I felt. And I just knew I wasn't going to let myself down. Not one time I got off the bike and think, "should've tried harder, why didn't I try harder?" Don't get me wrong, I didn't win every race, I wasn't fast in every practice session, but I had a dream season. It went like - like Mat Mladin's year last year, you could say. You can see, that's exactly what he thought. But it was a great year. I had a fantastic race with Chris Walker, who obviously felt exactly the same as I did going into the season, and felt like that all the way through. So when you get two people that are at that level, it just makes for a good championship, and we banged bars, really, all season.

Q Would you say you were callused against - things that had bothered you previously, you wouldn't let them bother you that year?

A Yeah. Nothing could bother me. That's how I felt. I never had a dip in confidence. I never questioned anything. I knew I was going to be - I felt like I would win every race. I didn't, but there was always a reason why I didn't. I'd either make a mistake, or something had happened.

Q Most importantly, were you liking racing again?

A Loving it. Loving it. I've said this before in other interviews, and it's a good comparison, and the layman can understand this: when I was riding for Kawasaki, it felt like I was going fast. When you're doing 180 mph on a Superbike, it felt like I was doing 180 mph on a Superbike and it was going to hurt me. In 2000, a total reverse. I felt like I was doing 40 mph when I was doing 180. It was totally impossible that this thing would ever hurt me. I could step off at 180 mph and it wouldn't hurt. That's how it would feel. Everything was in slow motion. When you've no confidence, and it's all going wrong, and you're tense, everything's in fast motion, and the bike's a missile.

Q And you were in front of the bike, as riders say.

A Completely. Three steps ahead of the bike everywhere. That Kawasaki, there was half a lap, they were putting me that far behind.

Q Then Ducati came calling, right?

A Yeah. Pretty much. Right at the end of the year, I remember Paolo [Ciabatti] coming to Donington. It was great to see Paolo, because Paolo was with the factory in '96 and '97, but I'd been such a letdown and such a failure, it was nice to see Paolo smiling, and he was proud of me, because I'm there trying to win the British championship for Ducati. It was a real nice feeling. But the highlight of the year was not winning the British championship, it was winning the World Superbike race as a wild card. I won at Brands and Donington. It was just - the weirdest thing was, and it's quite a nice story, in '99 the team were talking about being wild cards at Donington and Brands, and Bayliss really wanted it, because he was the man, and he was flying. And I didn't want to go. I remember the team talking about it, and I had to do and say all the right things. "Yeah, we'll go to do World Superbikes!," as I'm thinking, "I'm not ready for it. I'm definitely not ready for it." Anyway, the following year, the team talked about it, and I knew I was. All I wanted to do was go back in that paddock the new Neil Hodgson, with my shoulders back. And I knew everybody would still - because they don't know, and I knew everybody would be still doubting me, but I knew. I knew I was completely different.

I remember I couldn't wait for the practice to start. And all I wanted to do, as I passed people, I just wanted to be as close to them as I could, because I had that much confidence. I remember waiting for Lavilla - because Lavilla had got my ride on the Kawasaki - I've never actually said this to an interviewer. I waited for him, looking around, and I saw him and let him go, and then I chased him, and I passed him as close as I could. As close as I could. Just as to say, "You've got my ride, but you're shit." But that's the arrogance I'd got, and that's what you get when it's going well.

Q Arrogance, or -

Hodgson and GSE then raced World Superbike and in the no pressure environment, Hodgson continued to flourish. image by tim huntington

A It is an arrogance. It is an arrogance, and unfortunately, you need it on the bike. As long as when you take your helmet off, you've understood that that was just you on the bike. But you need that fu*&-you attitude on the bike.

Anyway, I managed to win the second race, which was obviously my first ever World Superbike win. I got the best feeling I've ever had in my life. Just absolutely incredible. Blew me away. Nothing's - winning the World Championship at Assen, on a scale of 1 to 10, honestly, the feeling I got when I crossed the line was about 2, compared to the 10 going around that last corner at Donington. I just felt like - two fingers, that's the English version of your American middle finger- I just felt like going like that on pit lane to everyone. Yeah, you're all fu@*ing wrong.

"But I've always said this: when balls were being given out, I was at the back of the queue. Because there's no way. If it's balls that that's what it takes to go down Bray Hill flat-out, I haven't got them."

Q After the race, it must have been odd, people who wrote you off are shaking your hand ...

A Oh! I've got all sorts of new friends. I mean, I wasn't liked in the paddock in '96 and '97. I was just a waste of a factory ride. (Then) everybody loved me. It's a funny sport. You do become cynical when you've raced as long as me. It's not a chip on your shoulder, you become a bit cynical, because you see it. You see - I've been on both sides of the fence.

Q Let's change subjects. You live on the Isle of Man, but you have never raced there.

A No. I would never race there. It's really awkward when you're a Manx resident, like I am, to say bad things about the TT, because you can get shot for it. The Manx people are very proud of the heritage of the TT races. But I'm not a fan of the TT races. I think it's way too dangerous. I think the modern-day bikes - I think the old bikes were too fast, but the modern-day bikes are crazy fast. So I'm not a fan of the TT. I watch it. I've got friends that do it. I'm just glad when it's over.

Q Living there, don't you have people, like when you go to the pub who say, "Why don't you be a real man and race the TT?"

A You know what? I'm very fortunate, I've never said I was going to do it, and I've never done it, and I think people sort of appreciate that. Don't get me wrong. It has happened, very, very occasionally. But I'll tell you who used to get it terrible, and I had a lot of nights out with him, was Steve Hislop. He got so much shit. Because Steve was a TT legend, and then he turned his back on the TT, and that's exactly how they viewed it. All the Manx people did. He used to get so much hassle. And I'd be sitting next to him, and no one would say "boo" to me, and he'd be getting some aggressive guys pissed off in a nightclub. "You turned your back on the TT, you bastard." I felt sorry for Steve. He got a lot of grief that way.

But I've always said this: when balls were being given out, I was at the back of the queue. Because there's no way. If it's balls that that's what it takes to go down Bray Hill flat-out, I haven't got them. I'm not too proud to say, "No, that would scare the shit out of me. I do not want to die. No." Call me an old-fashioned bore and a gay man, I don't know, but I don't want to die. And if you do the TT, you go down Bray Hill that first lap, you have to say to yourself, "If I make one mistake, if I have one technical problem with this bike, I know the consequences, and I'm prepared to take that, because this means more to me than my life." You have to. And if you don't do that, you're going in there with the wrong conception of what it's all about.

Q Coming from your background, how do you keep yourself grounded, when now you're cashing pretty decent-sized checks?

A I'm real. I'm not a flashy sort of person at all. I put it all the way back to being a builder. I still think it's - somewhere deep inside of me, I still think I earn £29.50 a week, which is like $40 a week for the first year on this scheme. And somewhere deep inside me, it's like I still earn that money.

In the past I've been called tight, which is a real horrible word. I don't know if they use that word in America. It's like "mean". And I'm so not mean. A tight person is someone who would try to avoid buying his friend a drink. People like that exist. I'm not tight. But I'm careful with my own money. I'm not a flash guy. What I want to be able to do is, the day I retire, is continue on that level that I'm on.

Q Living the lifestyle that you're living now?

A Yeah. And I've had conversations with a lot of riders. Perfect example: Jeremy McWilliams, last year. We stayed in a really nice hotel in Melbourne before the race in Phillip Island. I said - it came to, when we checked in, it's really expensive, nearly $400 a night. I'm like, "What are we staying here for?" He said, "Oh, it's really nice." After the first night, I thought we were staying there one night. The second night, he said, "Oh, we're going to stay tomorrow night as well. And I said, "F&*k that, I'm going down to the track then, because I'm not spending $400 in a hotel." I just can't do that.

I could afford to live there, let alone - not being a dick, but I could probably buy the hotel. You know what I mean, in a daft sort of way? But my grass roots are my grass roots, and I will not blow money away like that. And I don't regret that. McWilliams said something like when he retires, he'll have to sell some of his nice cars. And I said, when I retire, I'm hoping to buy more cars. I don't want to have to step down, I just want to keep it, because I've got a great life. I've got everything I need.