John McGuinness reveals how his spine-tingling Joey Dunlop prediction came true

John McGuinness told Joey Dunlop a bold prediction which eventually came true.

The Joey Dunlop Exhibition on the Isle of Man marks the 25-year anniversary of Dunlop’s tragic death in a road racing accident.

His nephew Michael Dunlop carries the family legacy, and broke Joey’s record for the most wins at the Isle of Man TT (now at 33).

McGuinness, a 23-time TT winner, was a teammate of Joey’s in his younger years and remembers him fondly.

But before then, he met his hero Joey as an aspiring racer.

"I bought a picture in the Strand in 1986, and he was at a garage at the bottom of Bray Hill, and I pedalled over on my BMX and asked him to sign it for me," McGuinness told ITV.

"He signed it. I said to him, I was probably a smart bugger, 'I’ll stand on the podium with you one day, Joey'.

"And I did. Eleven years later, in 1997, I stood on the podium with him.”

McGuinness opened up about the true nature of the relationship he had with Joey, who became his teammate.

"He was a man of few words; he didn’t really say a lot," McGuinness said.

"I would make him talk to me, and he accepted me in the end. I think so, I would like to think he did.

“When I got to talk to him in the way you can with other riders, when the camaraderie starts working, a few weeks later, we lost him.

"But those memories were so special. I went to his house and saw some of his trophies and the family said to me that I got a bit closer than a lot of people did, which means we hit it off a bit.

"That was really nice."

John McGuinness ‘shocked’ by Joey Dunlop’s death

Dunlop died just weeks after winning a hat-trick around the Isle of Man TT in 2000.

“I was shocked, like everybody would have been," McGuinness remembered.

"A little bit of disbelief. You always thought Joey was invincible; you always thought it was never going to happen to Joey.

“A piece of racing died at that moment, it was a real big piece of history gone.

“I’ve been around the game a long time, I've lost a lot of friends, a lot of riders have fallen over the years, we don’t forget about any of those guys, but Joey was just that little bit extra special.

“A piece of my world collapsed."

McGuinness described Dunlop: "He’s a role model. Somebody to look up to.

"A lot of people’s hero. Someone they’ll never forget.”