Sadly, we are subjected to delays again. The likelyhood of seeing any racing today is remote.

After the debacle of 2011 and the subsequent arrival of Gary Thompson in 2012, there's been no wet racing. I concur with Gary wholeheartedly, I do not believe that TT should be run in the rain or for that matter when conditions are not consistent. That, however, creates the delays we are experiencing.

Last year, the weather was exceptional, as it is this year but diametrically opposed. There are few TT's without rain but will these conditions with the current diktat maintain TT's sustainability? I doubt it.

The Isle of Man is not the easiest place to get to whilst also being far from inexpensive when there, £45 to get into Bushys, what a nonsense. Many Marshals are visiting the Island and without them, racing will not happen, being sat at your post for 7-8 hours in wind and rain with nothing happening is far from amusing. I've been there. Many of these Marshals and visiting fans are not going to be prepared to spend, certainly in my case, a lot of money getting there for nothing. Fans, I believe, will stay away. The NW200 is a case in point, there are a lot fewer there now than in its hey-day.

Sadly, I believe TT's day's are numbered.

Sadly since they decided they wont run on wet roads back in around 2010 this fortnight was always going to eventually arrive, i'm only surprised its taken this long given our climate.

Right i'm going to be controversial here.

As long as there is adequate visibility and no STANDING water, I think they should run the races, it is up to the riders whether they wish to enter the TT in the first place, how fast they wish to go, which tyres they wish to use, or if they wish to ride in a particular race, for the same reason that we cant move the walls and trees, we cant change the weather either!!

This is the TT, the ultimate test of man and machine, it is unique in the world, a test of speed and endurance over a varied course, and up to 10 years ago in varied conditions too, sadly it has now become some kind of extended BSB meeting.

I really do think it is time for the organisers to sit down and have a meeting to decide just what the TT now stands for, and whether they should either make some changes, or scrap the whole thing.

Unless they move the event to Tenerife or somewhere with a similar climate, this is going to happen again and again, and as pointed out above, there are only so many years that people will continue spending huge amounts of money to get here, to sit watching the rain from their tent or hotel, or huddling in waterproofs staring at an empty road, likewise the marshals who we so rely on are faced with all the same issues.

They won't race in the rain Warrior, ever again. This likely extends to patchy conditions too.

Whilst it's not carved in stone, since Gary Thompson became CoC (2012),  there's been no wet racing. Gary Thompson is the best CoC that TT has ever had, secretly, I believe that he will never sanction a wet race again. I agree. It's too bloody dangerous. You run slicks, find it's wet under the trees or raining at Kirkmichael or over the mountain, tip it in and you're on your ass heading for a wall, a tree or even a drop off the side of the mountain, (a la Conor Cummins). Run wets and they're not going to do a lap if it's dry in parts of the circuit. The sheer size of the course and the typical Manx weather leaves us with this conundrum annually.

You mention Tenerife, that will be great for me it's only 30 minutes on the plane. However, I'd rather you brought it here.

Some years ago myself and a friend went to the North West 200 something we had wanted to do for a number of years and that turned out to be a disaster , poor weather all week wet and miserable conditions for racing on the Thursday night scorching weather on the Friday and Saturday cancelled owing to torrential rain and roads like rivers. Would I go again sorry but no after that experience and first time visitors to the island will do the same. It costs just to much to get there and now all the other extra costs when you are over there with people jumping on the band wagon and basically getting a non event makes it just not worth it. I have been over for the Manx the last couple of years and the weather for that has been dreadful cold wet and miserable . The weather in November was warmer and better. I think last year has made up my mind and will not be going again.

2 weeks of rain and half the forum wants to scrap the TT. Quite insane, isn't it? And this has nothing to do with the TT and less with sports. Every Outdoor activity could be rained out. Thats no reason not trying to do it, in worst case, there is another year next year.
Was there ever somebody who asked for scrapping wimbledon, because it could be rained out? bullcrap that is! I can't when the downhill world cup on the world famous Streiff was last run over the full distance. Every year they have problems with snow, fog, rain or even the sun. Nobody stops coming, nobody asks to scrap the race.
And would it be so bad, when some spectators would stay at home? In the last years I only read about full ferries, full hotels, full camping areas, ... Perhaps prices would drop for everybody, when the run to the island would be a little smaller.

But what I would want to know is why it is not possible to race in the wet. Is it the modern bikes and tyres or what. They race in the wet on circuits. They did it on the mountain course for nearly 100 years. And I can't see more heavy crashes back in the day.

(05-06-2019, 03:43 PM)milestone 11 Wrote: They won't race in the rain Warrior, ever again. This likely extends to patchy conditions too.

Whilst it's not carved in stone, since Gary Thompson became CoC (2012),  there's been no wet racing. Gary Thompson is the best CoC that TT has ever had, secretly, I believe that he will never sanction a wet race again. I agree. It's too bloody dangerous. You run slicks, find it's wet under the trees or raining at Kirkmichael or over the mountain, tip it in and you're on your ass heading for a wall, a tree or even a drop off the side of the mountain, (a la Conor Cummins). Run wets and they're not going to do a lap if it's dry in parts of the circuit. The sheer size of the course and the typical Manx weather leaves us with this conundrum annually.

You mention Tenerife, that will be great for me it's only 30 minutes on the plane. However, I'd rather you brought it here.

This pre-dates Gary, I wont go into detail, but it started creeping in around 2008 or 9

I have been to the island many times and was there on the Friday in 1972 when Gilberto Parlotti lost his life on the mountain. I was at Governor`s bridge watching and the weather was atrocious, Parlotti had pulled out a huge lead on Charles Mortimer who was an excellent TT rider so the only way he could have done that was over riding the conditions and the end result was he killed himself. You will always get riders pushing to hard in the wet conditions so they need protecting from themselves, is the racing entertaining in filthy conditions certainly not, short circuit safety has improved to the extent some riders push the limit to see how far they can go before they crash knowing if they do they will walk away ( look at Marquez ) the TT has not improved in that way and never will. I love the TT and the riders are heros but the weather is killing it and I don`t want to see the weather killing the riders. The TT is in the lap of the Gods but the decisions made this week have been the right ones unfortunately the weather may dictate the future of the TT and whether the costs to the riders involved are worth it and also the cost to the the spectators. When I was younger perhaps my thinking would be different but now I am older and don`t find wet racing good or entertaining , that`s my personal opinion.

It's a rock in the Irish sea !! I think all the hardy annuals will still come, it's the bucket list brigade that are whining, personally I think the insurance, or lack of will kill it, till then I will keep coming.

Milestone 11 where did you get £45 to get into bushys? It's free to get in.
I for one wouldn't like to see wet races. It's bad enough riding on your own road bikes round hear in the wet never mind a 200hp race bike.
A wet tyre would be in bits after one lap. Today iv been in bright sunshine at black dub. Yet my mate 5 mins up the road in Ramsey had heavy rain. The track is to long and the weather to changable to run a wet race in any safety.

After watching the footage tonight of the 600 race,
One thing that did catch my eye,
From all the on board footage and outside shots, On the second lap on the west coast,
There was not waved yellow flag to warn the riders of rain in the air, let alone the flag that a lot of these guys are now used to at short circuits, the white and red one,
2/3 riders knew at which point to take there hand of the bar to signal that things weren't correct, In a place that you wouldn't normally let go full stop,,,,
So had they been briefed ? Or just showing there dismay at the lack of flags ??

Like some of you have said, Gary has done a great job, since being in charge, More so with all the Health and Safety these days,
But it was Neil the ex Coc that decreed that there would be no more wet races, And that trend has carried on, much to the detriment of the event in my opinion, ( But being old school when we raced in all weathers, I might be biased,, )


Just my thoughts for now,

Yellow flags are incident related and would never be shown, stationary or waved, in the event of rain.


Rain/damp-patch flags are only at allotted points  and is the red diagonal cross on a white background and would only be shown if the surface in the next section had become wet or damp, not for a suspicion of rain in the air.

There's no way I'd stop going just because of one year being badly hit by the weather.

Somebody made a good point above, the hardy annuals will come year on year but the bucket listers won't be happy.

I'm on the island now and looking forward to a very full Thursday.

For me, I think it's better for the fans that there are no wet races, it saves us hanging round all day in the rain waiting for nothing to happen..... As per the 80's and 90's

Gary Thompson is the best CoC I've seen on the island. He seems to make a good call in difficult conditions.

Don't panic.... It's not over yet!

(05-06-2019, 06:25 PM)warrior Wrote: This pre-dates Gary, I wont go into detail, but it started creeping in around 2008 or 9

The riders were falling like nine pins in '11 due to the rain, only then it was red flagged.

(05-06-2019, 08:26 PM)Chrisp955 Wrote: Milestone 11 where did you get £45 to get into bushys? It's free to get in.
I for one wouldn't like to see wet races. It's bad enough riding on your own road bikes round hear in the wet never mind a 200hp race bike.
A wet tyre would be in bits after one lap. Today iv been in bright sunshine at black dub. Yet my mate 5 mins up the road in Ramsey had heavy rain. The track is to long and the weather to changable to run a wet race in any safety.

I'm in full agreement with your sentiment Chris. Regard the Bushys, £45 to go upstairs.

(05-06-2019, 08:37 PM)BenjiesDad Wrote: After watching the footage tonight of the 600 race,
One thing that did catch my eye,
From all the on board footage and outside shots, On the second lap on the west coast,
There was not waved yellow flag to warn the riders of rain in the air, let alone the flag that a lot of these guys are now used to at short circuits, the white and red one,
2/3 riders knew at which point to take there hand of the bar to signal that things weren't correct, In a place that you wouldn't normally let go full stop,,,,
So had they been briefed ?  Or just showing there dismay at the lack of flags ??

Like some of you have said, Gary has done a great job, since being in charge, More so with all the Health and Safety these days,
But it was Neil the ex Coc that decreed that there would be no more wet races, And that trend has carried on, much to the detriment of the event in my opinion, ( But being old school when we raced in all weathers, I might be biased,, )


Just my thoughts for now,

Eddie Nelson was CoC immediately prior to Gary Thompson.

The practicalities of so much different weather at different points on the circuit makes racing in wet problematical at best. Wet in some places and dry in others makes tyre choice almost impossible. Even damp and wet conditions would destroy a wet tyre. The only way a wet tyre would work is if the whole circuit is wet and I'm not sure racing should be happening then anyway. These are racers and, yes, they could ride to conditions but they will be pushing the boundaries of those conditions to win and it will end in tears for someone.

Rain will always effect some outdoor sporting events. I have tickets to three cricket world cup matches this summer but I know that rain could effect them (or even cancel them) but it won't stop me attending cricket matches in the future. I stayed in a damp slightly leaky tent during practice week but that won't stop me coming back to the TT in the future. Ferry and camping costs alone equated to around £100 per hour of practice that we saw, but when the bikes were on track and we were trackside all the wet woes were forgotten. Remember this is a bad year at the TT but this would be roughly equivalent to the cost of a Premier League football match or a cricket test match. Wimbledon (I believe but have no experience of) can cost even more and that is weather dependent too.

It is disappointing if your holiday is ruined by the weather - but weather (long distance at least) is unpredictable, do you stop going on holiday?

I don't come to the TT every year (every other year is more likely) but it would take another year or two (in a row) like this year to make me consider if it was really worth it any more, and even then I would probably just not camp anymore. Until then I'll continue to come when I can. I do accept that it isn't cheap though and people could choose to spend their money in other ways instead. Perhaps it just won't be so busy in future (or contribute economically as much to the Island).

The weather will always play it's part: but the last 2 days have confirmed why it's still the greatest motorcycle event on Earth. 'Nuff said.

When I was racing there was a number of half wet/dry races and it caused a number of bum clenching moments but few incidents. With the ability to change starting times, good weather reports and decisions an amazing amount of races were run dry. Only 2 races out of about 85 that I started were dreadful and I pulled out.
I was my own master though being a owner rider and could choose unlike a substantial amount of the riders now in teams that have sponsorship commitments. 
The commitment of the riders now to lap at the speeds we thought could never happen is amazing and I fully understand why the no wet races rule is enforced.
There was a ACU statistic some years ago that gave the most dangerous place for motorcycle racing as Redgates corner Donnington in the dry and the safest was the IOM in the wet! 
Thank goodness the TT ended with a full 6 lap senior in great conditions. Its the last bit that gets remembered!

Fair summary there Steve, your input is appreciated.

Great post Steve. So pleased that we somehow got all the races in, albeit most were shortened. Friday went off perfectly. Huge congratulations to Gary Thompson, his team and the Orange Army.