On Saturday, 10th January, the sky above The Empress Hotel, Douglas will be lit up by the multitude of TT Stars who will be attending the annual Joey Dunlop Foundation Dinner.
Established 14 years ago, Joey’s charity now operates three holiday apartments at Braddan Bridge and it is the Trustees intention to build a further two more apartments by summer 2016.
Traditionally, the Joey Dunlop Foundation is held on the second Saturday of the New Year, the highlight for many is the draw for the tombola prize which this year is a Honda 600 in John McGuinness Padgett Colours and for the first time our bike has been fitted with many extra’s by Clive Padgett's race team. Clive said this bike is virtually a replica of John’s bike apart from the tuned engine.
Over the past 12 years, we have attracted MotoGP, World Superbike and TT stars to the dinner, however this year we have plethora of guests which include Peter Hickman, the fastest ever TT Newcomer who also achieved his first British Superbike win on the RAF Reserves Honda.
Joining Peter are Lee Johnston who is already a North West 200 and Ulster Grand prix winner and probably a future TT winner. Ivan Lintin who learnt his apprenticeship at the Manx Grand Prix and risen to the ranks of best privateer at the TT, must surely be a future winner on his RC Express Kawasaki.
Probably the busiest man at the TT was Paul Shoesmith who is team manager of Ice Valley Racing which this year had six riders entered including Peter Hickman. Paul is also a competitor at the TT and this year he was responsible for the sale and distribution of the Simon Andrews Unstoppable stickers. Simon was a good friend of Paul’s and the Joey Dunlop Foundation.
We also have several local stars riders attending, Honda Legends Conor Cummins, Dan Kneen who dominated the Irish Road Race scene and achieved his first international road race win at the Ulster, like our other guests both these riders will be hopefully on the top of the podium. Pending confirmation, James Cowton and James Neesom will also be in attendance.
Kevin Quirk of JDF said ‘
2014 was an exceptional year for the charity, the facilities received an ‘Excellent Grading‘, we worked closely with Wish upon a Dream and brought a four year old boy to the island, he had a holiday of a lifetime. The No Vacancy sign was in the window most of the summer months. We have recently provided accommodation for people who are between hospital and home. ‘The facilities are now in demand for virtually 12 months of the year and it is becoming imperative that we start the construction of additional facilities as soon as possible. The dinner is our first event of the year and with a Sell Out, we envisage having a good start to our annual fund raising’.
Details of our facilities can be found at
www.joeydunlopfoundation.com or if you would like to assist with fund raising then please phone Kevin on 01624 677741.