A LEDBURY businessman with a love of motorbikes is waving a fond farewell to life in the fast lane at the youthful age of 82.

Phillip Moss of Moss Engineering has closed the doors of his business after 41 years of reconditioning car engines, and he looked back this week on a most eventful life, including a passion for two wheels, the chequered flag and speed.

It was a passion that led him to take up motorbike road racing at the age of 52 and take part in the world famous Isle of Man TT.

He only stopped competitive racing a few years ago, in his mid-seventies.

Mr Moss, who still rides motorbikes on occasions for pleasure, said: “I’ve done more in my life than most people could do in 10 lifetimes.

“Once they drop the flag, you are singled-minded. You don’t think about anything else.”

Mr Moss is well known for his motorcycle skills, thanks to a career in racing spanning six decades.

A founder member of the Ledbury Motorcycle Club, he took up road racing three decades ago when he decided he was getting too old for motocross.

Since then he has participated in no fewer than nine races at the Isle of Man TT circuit, where his best position was 18th.

He said: “Once I was lying higher than that, when the crank-shaft broke.”

Racing on bikes finely tuned and prepared by himself, Mr Moss estimated that he has raced between 800-1000 times in the UK and Europe, racing at some venues in up to four events in one day.

While racing at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire, he had his best-ever result in a single day – “two wins, a second and third. Four trophies”.

Moss Engineering closed on September 13, and the building will now be used as extra premises by Ledbury Exhaust Centre, which is run by his nephew, Stuart.

Meanwhile, Mr Moss’s enduring love of the petrol engine goes on.

This week, as a special retirement treat, he went with a friend on a visit to the Morgan car factory at Malvern.