That's what I call a smart move Gary Thompson and his team deserve a round of applause.

I imagine Gary will be glad to see the back of 2019, and be able to spend more time with his remaining hair.  Such a professional, always calm, he even takes time to go to the Manx Radio Commentary box.

He deserves a knighthood to add to his MBE and BEM, he's led an eventful life, his biography would be most interesting

Have been able to see naff all throughout today on the Bungalow webcams, they certainly made the right call by racing on Thursday.

Brave decision!

Great move.

Is it correct that a change to the road closing order was required to move race days forward?

It's a sensible option in my opinion, it makes the TT, Classic and mgp a lot more flexible in the future.

I was a bit puzzled by the statement of "if we close roads on Thursday we can't on Friday" because if for example the Wednesday programme had been pushed to Thursday due to weather we would still have had Friday's race day as normal, we have in the past, although as per forecast the weather on Friday was pants so it would have been cancelled anyway!!

Very confusing. We have always been told for the TT that a race day cannot be brought forward. Rumour went around at TT 16 that Thursday was being considered to run the senior. Paul Phillips tweeted it was not allowed per road closing order. Maybe something has changed.

MGP did have the option to push Friday’s race to Saturday this year just like the TT does every year (not sure what the weather forecast was).

Either way, given the lack of appetite for sending bikes out on a wet track, the organizers need every ounce of flexibility for getting practice and racing in. TT is a slightly different animal with their commercial considerations - would be interesting to see if the same call is made at TT20 with a bad Friday forecast.

I just had a quick look and the Road Races Act was updated just after TT in 2016, this may be when the changes happened.

I think, as Malcolm points out with the road closure post (http://www.ttwebsite.com/forums/showthre...?tid=28458) the roads can be closed any time during that order. I presume this is applied for well in advance & has to be agreed by all.
Also, in that order details it does say "...on one Sunday only...." during either races. Don't know why that would be?
Also, it says "....Festival of Motorcycling, previously known as the Manx Grand Prix....", so there we have it, official word.