The Joey Dunlop Injured Riders Fund made use of the Hailwood Centre this TT week to try to sell goods to raise money for what I consider to be a good cause. Unfortunately, if my own experience is anything to go by, this was a bad move.

I had arranged with a prominent member of the committee, who I know personally, to go to the centre to pick up and pay for some goods I had asked to be put aside for me.

As I approached the path to the Hailwood Centre on Friday (Senior Race Day) I was stopped by an official who said I couldn't go any further without a Paddock Pass. I tried to explain that I had business at the Hailwood Centre but was simply ignored and informed that, no matter what, I couldn't go further without a pass but would be allowed in after the race had finished. She employed that well worn phrase, "I'm just doing my job."

I returned when the race had finished to be told, by the same person, that I couldn't come in without a pass. All attempts at rational discourse with this person were fruitless. In a less than happy state of mind, I was just leaving when someone who knew me came and asked me what was going on. They gave me their pass and I went to the centre where the staffed but, obviously, very unbusy JDIRF stall had my goods.

Had the Fund opted to have a "pitch" in the traders area, they would have had to pay a pretty hefty site fee and compete, in terms of visual prominence, with all the commercial traders. At least, however, it would have been permitted to have custom during the racing period.

The really stupid part, in my mind, is that the precious pass that I was supposed to have to reach the centre can be obtained by just about anyone on any pretext as long as they know someone involved in the racing or its organisation i.e. they serve no useful purpose in keeping the paddock secure and the riders free from autograph hunters and sight-seers. They DO stop riders' charities getting bothered by customers when you have "jobsworth" security geeks, however.