Former British and World Superbike Champion Neil Hodgson today announced his retirement from professional road racing. The announcement came as a result of Hodgson’s crash during the pre-race warm-up for the British Superbike Championship season-opener April 5 at Brands Hatch. In that crash, Hodgson aggravated an injury to his left shoulder that he suffered while training on his motocross bike early in 2009. Hodgson had surgery to patch him back together after the accident, but the shoulder injury continued to hinder him throughout last year’s AMA American Superbike Championship. After the season, Hodgson had additional surgery to fully repair the shoulder, and he was returning to fitness as he prepared to start the 2010 season with the Rob Mac Racing/Motorpoint Yamaha British Superbike team. Then he crashed at Brands Hatch, highsiding and landing right on his weakened shoulder, effectively ending his career at the age of 36. “The shoulder actually made a good recovery after all the surgeries and everything,” Hodgson told Roadracingworld.com Thursday, “but I just can’t move around on the bike like I could. I’ve slowly got the right sort of strength back in it, but I always felt behind the bike at Brands. I found it really, really difficult, especially going around left-hand corners. I just couldn’t seem to get around left-hand corners right. I found myself leaning the bike over more than I needed to just to make the corners, and I eventually highsided in a left-hand corner, which was pretty ironic. “Then I landed straight on my shoulder. I couldn’t have landed worse on it, really, and it just tweaked it again. It really hurt and felt really weak again. I think almost when I walked into the medical center, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Motorcycle racing is such a tough sport, as you know, and you’ve got to be 100% committed and fit. Otherwise there’s just no point in doing it. I just felt everything drain out of me there and then. I just thought, time to call it a day and do something else with my life.” Hodgson said he was told by doctors that he stretched “everything” in his shoulder and it would be months before he would regain full strength. Facing that after what he went through in 2009, Hodgson said he felt the right thing to do was retire rather than have his new team wait for him to come back just to finish the season at something less than 100%. “I don’t want to be uncompetitive,” Hodgson said. “I hate my life when I’ve uncompetitive. It’s not just my racing. It affects my personal life and everything. I always said I wouldn’t race just for the money, because that’s not why I started. I started racing because I wanted to try and win. Racing for money is the wrong reason. That’s the only thing that would’ve kept me going this year was to think, ‘Well, I’m getting paid a decent wage.’ You know what I mean? But that’s the wrong reason. That’s when you do get hurt is when you’re just riding for money. I’m not that sort of person. I’m a real bad liar, so I couldn’t even lie to people, my sponsors and all the people who put their faith in me.” Asked what his plans were for the near-future, Hodgson couldn’t help but throw out one of his trademark deadpan jokes, saying, “Well, I’ve been thinking about it while I’ve been sitting on the couch, and you can quote me on this, I’ve been thinking about turning professional in motocross. I’m going to hopefully do some Supercross practice and try and get ready for ‘Anaheim One’ [AMA Supercross season-opener] next year. “I’ll be honest, I definitely want to stay involved in the sport because, like you, I love motorcycle racing. It’s the best sport in the world. I’ve done a little bit of TV work in the past and really enjoyed it, so I would like to eventually move over to that side a little bit. I’ve always done property work, anyway. I’ve done quite well with properties, doing a bit of buying and selling and doing a bit of restoration work and that lot. So I’ll probably put a bit of time into that. “But to be honest, I want to see what comes, if anything. I’m going to sit back for a bit. I’m not going to make any sort of rash decisions and just see if anything interesting comes. I’m going to try and enjoy the next few months of not having the selfpressure I always put myself under, because I’m constantly pressuring myself too much. I’ve always done it too much, but you can’t change the way you are. So I’m going to just chill out a little bit. I’m still going to train, though, because I love exercising. So next time you see me I’m going to have to make sure I haven’t put any weight on or else I’ll give you $10. How’s that? “I’m excited that I can really put my time and effort into other things. I’ve got loads of ideas on doing some sort of personal training things for riders through winter, full training schemes. I’m thinking of all sorts of stuff. I’m thinking of things first and foremost not that I can make money at but things I am going to enjoy doing, things I’m going to enjoy sinking my teeth into. I’ve got lots of ideas in my little head. So I’m going to take a bit of time off and make a plan. “Retiring is not a negative. It’s like I said to some friends today, ‘I can’t believe what I’ve achieved. I never thought I would have done so much.’ I wasn’t one of these really driven kids who said, ‘I’m going to be World Champion. I’m going to kick everyone’s ass.’ I wasn’t like that at all. I rode as hard as I could. I had dreams, but I never thought I would achieve them. I’m well happy. It’s definitely not a negative. I’ve had a great career, better than I could have dreamed of. I’m excited about getting into something else now. “I’m also looking forward to making it a priority to spend time with my kids, as well, and not be selfish. You have to be selfish in our sport. I’ve been selfish for so many years. My kids deserve for me not to be selfish for a bit. I’m looking forward to not being a selfish bastard.” After a successful amateur motocross racing career, Hodgson started road racing in 1990 at the age of 16. In 1992 he won the British 125cc National Championship, and the next year he joined the FIM 125cc GP World Championship as a privateer. A respectable rookie season was followed by a year of struggles in 1994, mainly because Hodgson physically outgrew his 125, but a fill-in ride on a Harris Yamaha YZR500 at the end of 1994 turned into a full-time 500cc Grand Prix ride in 1995. Hodgson spent the next three seasons in the Superbike World Championship, including two years with the factory Ducati team, but success eluded him and he returned to England at the age of 23 to join the British Superbike Championship with GSE Racing in 1999. Hodgson won the British Superbike crown in 2000 and moved with GSE Racing back up to the Superbike World Championship for 2001. In 2003, he re-joined the factory Ducati team and won 13 races and the Superbike World Championship. Hodgson got “promoted” by Ducati to the D’Antin satellite MotoGP team in 2004, before coming to race in the AMA Superbike Championship from 2005 through 2009, a period that saw Hodgson win one race but never really challenge for the Championship while racing against the likes of Ben Spies and Mat Mladin.