Macau Grand Prix record holder Michael Rutter on dating Stanley Ho’s granddaughter
The British motorcycle racer whose autobiography, The Life Of A Racer, co-written by John McAvoy, was released last month, reveals why he loves coming back to the casino enclave
Racing in the blood: I was born in 1972, in Wordsley, which is just inside the Black Country, in England’s West Midlands, a built-up, industrial area. I’m an only child. My dad, Tony, was a world champion motorcycle racer and I followed him around the world when he was racing, going to lots of the circuits. He always wanted to go to Macau. For racers, it’s the end of the season and he never quite made it.
I first rode a bike when I was four, pottering around paddocks and fields on a mini bike. There are a lot of motorcycle racers where I come from, because there are five or six circuits within 100 miles (160km), places like Donington Park and Silverstone. I didn’t enjoy school – I was useless at it and probably played up more than I listened. I wasn’t badly naughty, just disruptive. I only wanted to be around bikes. I wasn’t so bothered about racing, I was more interested in the mechanical side of it.
Collision course: In 1985, my dad had a massive crash in Barcelona, in the world championships. It didn’t finish his career, but it was near enough. When I was 16, I started riding his bike and ended up doing club racing. Because my dad was so good, everyone assumed I was going to be good, but it’s not like that – there’s a lot to learn.
When I started out, I couldn’t believe how bad I was, how difficult it was, but I stuck at it and got better and better. I got a job working in a motorcycle shop, which I enjoyed, and when I was 20 someone saw something good in me and offered to pay me to race full time. That was nearly 30 years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Shock and awe in Asia: I was 21 when I first raced in Macau. It was a shock coming to Asia for the first time. I remember taking the jetfoil from Hong Kong, I’d never been on anything like it. Arriving in Macau I wondered what I’d come to. We ate at Pizza Hut and McDonald’s, there weren’t that many options then. It’s amazing how Macau has changed.
In that first race, I got about a mile down the road and my bike blew up. These days they make you bring a spare engine, but back then it meant I was out of the race, so they got me to do some commentating on television. The next year I came back to Macau and did quite well, and I had my first win there in 1998. My teammate, Ian Simpson, and I were on good factory Hondas – RC45s – it’s fantastic riding something like that.
When you win this race, everyone thinks you must be a millionaire, but the prize money is small – £2,000 (US$2,600). We get sponsors – I’ve got MGM this year, and Bathams Brewery sponsor me in the UK as well as lots of individual people; without that we wouldn’t be here.
Better safe than sorry: I’ve had plenty of crashes. I’ve broken my pelvis, collar bone, ribs, legs, bits and pieces – you take a battering. Because of my dad’s accident, I’ve always tried to err on the safer side. I saw my dad in a coma with a broken neck, ribs, arms. The shock knocked in his eyes, he had brain damage, he was in a bad way. He was lucky to survive.
I’ve seen a lot of people, friends, get killed. You do say to yourself, “Why do you do it?” But at least we are doing something we enjoy. We don’t earn enough for people to say, “They’re doing it for the money.” You could make more doing something else, but you do get a lot of satisfaction out of it.
Love and other things: Motorcycle racing hasn’t got the image of Formula One. You get a lot of money behind car racing because anyone can drive a car and race it – to get to a high level you’ve got to be good. To race a motorcycle, a lot of things have to come together for you to be successful, and it’s a lot more dangerous. The Isle of Man TT race offers good prize money, about £10,000 to win, but the rest of the prize money is nothing.
It is amazing the people who you get to meet. In the late 1990s, after a week in Macau, we used to go for a week in Thailand for some end-of-year fun. That’s where I met the mother of my two kids. She is French and was working for a Formula One car-racing team, they used to do bike racing as well on a small scale.
My daughters – Juliet, 19, and Cecilia, 18 – go backwards and forwards between France and the UK. They are very competitive. If we go go-karting they’ll do anything to run me off the track. I was lucky to meet Faye Ho 10 years ago. Faye (a granddaughter of Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun) was sponsoring some of the car racing and I met her at a party afterwards. We didn’t see each other for eight years and we met up again in 2017 and now we’re going out with each other.
Team building: This will be the 25th year I’ve raced in the Macau Grand Prix – I’ve only missed a couple of years. I’ve had 20 podium finishes and won it eight times. Macau suits my style. I don’t move about on the bike too much. I like high-speed corners and breaking hard, which Macau has got. I’m 47 now. Most racers in the pack are in their 20s or 30s.
When I was on the podium last year, the others were 19 and 21. It’s catching up a bit more now because I’m starting to run my own team, Bathams Racing. When you race, you’ve got to be selfish and focus on yourself, all you worry about is going as quick as you can. Now I’ve started a team, I’m thinking about what’s right with the team and have things on my mind other than racing.
Beyond the circuit: When you go bike racing anywhere in the world, you basically land, get to the hotel and go backwards and forwards between the hotel and the circuit. You see about 1 per cent of the city and then fly home. Going around Hong Kong and Macau with Faye, she’s shown me so many places I never realised existed, temples and other places I’d never have seen.
I will continue racing until I no longer enjoy it. It’s brilliant to pull out of the pit lane, especially in Macau, because you’ve got the arm curve barriers either side and you can race off at 180mph. The Macau track is special because it is so different. You’ve got high barriers and hotels and casinos flashing past. There are fast straights, a twisty section over the top where the hospital is, a tight hairpin, the slowest hairpin anywhere in the world, and then fast straights back to the bottom end of the circuit. There’s a bit of everything, very narrow to very wide, it’s a unique circuit.
