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Competitor Profile: Steven Thompson

TT Career Summary

Position3850
No of times11

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Biography

Born in Texas in 1948, Steven L. Thompson started racing in 1967 while he was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. In the '87 TT, Steve rode a new "box-stock" U.S.-specification Suzuki GSX-R750 in the F1 and Prod 750 classes. His Entrant was Team Cycle World, whose Team Manager was TT veteran Terry Shepherd. He recorded his fastest lap of 101.2 mph in the Prod 750 event.

Steve's Isle of Man experience began with the 1970 and '71 Junior Manx GPs, which he entered while stationed at RAF Mildenhall in the USAF. His mount was a Kawasaki A1R he'd brought with him from the U.S.A., modified by Terry Shepherd to meet the Junior class regs. He'd won the 1969 Austin (Texas) International 250cc GP race on the bike and also raced it at Daytona that year, before being transferred to the U.K. He was unable to start either MGP due to machine failures.

By trade an author and magazine writer-editor, as Editor-at-Large of Cycle World in 1987, Steve wrote a feature story on his TT racing, which appeared as "Isle of Man TT 1987: The Long and Winding Road," in the Sept. 1987 issue of Cycle World (pp 40-47). He had previously been Editorial Director of Cycle Guide, Editor-in-Chief of Road Test, Executive Editor of Car and Driver, Executive Editor of AOPA Pilot and was also a Contributing Editor of Air & Space/Smithsonian.

Four of his novels had been published by May 1987; two more were subsequently published, and a movie based on his first novel was released by 1992, when he retired from racing.

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