Former Manx Grand Prix winner Darryl Tweed says career could be over after North West 200 crash - 'I got away with my life'

The 36-year-old crashed during qualifying for the Supersport class on the exit of Dhu Varren in Portrush at the Whins, where several serious accidents have occurred previously.

England’s Malachi Mitchell-Thomas was tragically killed following a crash at that section of the 8.9-mile course in 2016, while Ryan Farquhar suffered life-threatening injuries after coming off at the same spot during the same year.

Republic of Ireland racer Michael Sweeney also crashed at the Whins in 2023, sustaining a catalogue of broken bones.

Tweed suffered a badly fractured right leg in the crash over five months ago and shattered his left shoulder.

After making history as the first rider from Northern Ireland to win the International Road Racing Championship Superbike title (IRRC) in Europe in 2025, he had joined forces with former sponsor Stanley Stewart to ride Triumph Supertwin and Supersport machinery in 2026 and a Honda Fireblade for Lyons Racing.

He was excited for the future, but Tweed accepts he may have ridden in his last race.

“The motorbiking aspect looks grim at the moment to be honest,” he said. “I’m 36 now and you’re not going to go back a couple of years or a year off 40 and start to try and set the world on fire again.

“There’s no point, it wouldn’t happen. I’ll maybe just go and ride my bikes with my mates and have a bit of craic.

“It’s that far away down the line and at that stage in my life I don’t think there’d be any point.

“It would take a couple of years to get back to being competitive again. It’s easy enough getting back on the bike but getting back to the guy you were is the difficult part.

“[Michael] Sweeney seems pretty good at it, we know the Dunlops are good at it, but I’m 36 and not wanting to put myself through that again.

“It could be a lot worse and I’m happy enough that if that’s the way I have to finish, then that’s the way I have to finish,” added Tweed, who was a double winner at the 2018 Manx Grand Prix.

“I had a good career and enjoyed a lot of it, some aspects of it I didn’t enjoy so much.

“It’s hard to pick a highlight out because you always think of the most recent stuff in your memory, but when you look through photos and whatever some of the greatest days I had were in and around that 2018-19 period for pure enjoyment, when me and my mates were doing it.

“That was before it went serious to riding for teams and having to be chasing money, which I didn’t enjoy at all.

“The Manx wins were pretty special but I enjoyed every bit of it to be honest, and getting to race around Europe was something different.

“I got away with my life and I’ll get to enjoy it in the future watching other boys doing it hopefully.”

Tweed has been in and out of hospital since his accident and recently had a cage fitted to his injured leg. He hasn’t been given a definitive recovery timeframe but says his shoulder injury will likely be his biggest issue in the future.

“I have to go back every week for check-ups and I’m still dealing with wounds and stuff down the leg and I’ve a cage on my leg now as well,” said Tweed.

“I had the rod in to begin with and that was meant to be in for around 12 weeks before they would start to try and get me weight-bearing again.

“But the rod failed and I got an infection, so it had to come back out again.

“So I had to get this thing fitted that sits on one side of your leg, which is drilled into my bone top and bottom and then there was a few rods down it to hold it stable until the infection cleared. I had to spend another month and a bit in hospital after that until the infection was sorted.

“Once that was sorted then they fitted a ring cage and they haven’t been able to give me timeframe for how long that will need to be on because of the size of the area that they’re trying to heal, which is literally in pieces.

“The more walking you can do on it then the better it will be, but I’ve had the cage on for three weeks and I’ve been off my feet since May, so you can imagine it’s not just a case of getting up and going unfortunately.

“I shattered my left shoulder too and to be honest, that’s probably going to be my biggest drawback in the rest of my life,” he said.

“I’ve lost quite a lot of mobility up around my shoulder and strength, and I don’t know what the case will be with that. It’s just as much as I can push it to see what comes back and what doesn’t – it’s uncertain.

“I have a review on Wednesday but I’ve had quite a lot of those and it was just [about] healing, because I shattered it that badly; it was absolutely smashed and I’ve three plates up around my scapula and shoulder, and around my collarbone.

“They have to give it time. It just needs time,” he explained.

“I’m able to lift anything off the ground, but the problem is getting my arm up and out in front of me, that’s my problem.

“Our motto is you have to keep her lit and it’ll be all right.”

Tweed was due to marry fiancée Emma Ferris this month but the couple have had to postpone their wedding plans.

“We had to call wedding off because there’s no point spending that money when I’d only be able to stand there with a cage on my leg for 20 minutes,” he said.

“The plan is to get my body working again and usually they say six to eight months in a cage but they’re telling me it could be eight months to a year, and maybe beyond that because my leg’s just that badly smashed.

“It doesn’t seem to be healing very quickly and my leg is just not the same.

“There is more to life than racing but you don’t see it so much when you’re in that circle and it’s such a big part of your life.

“I had talked about retiring a few years ago with Adam McLean, who I’m quite friendly with, but then the European chance came up and that gave me a new spark in the sport or I probably would have retired back then.

“Sometimes you think when you get an opportunity you can’t pass it up.

“I was in bonus time in my eyes anyway.”