As an entrant in this year's Senior, I was very disappointed that we couldn't get an outing on the big bikes. The MGP is the biggest event of my racing season and is the meeting that I devote the most preparation, expenditure and effort to.
Obviously the weather has been a major disruption to almost all of this summer's racing and I can understand why the organisers are reluctant to let us out in anything but dry conditions these days. The unfortunate consequences of the insurance/legal situation we've ended up in means they have to safeguard themselves as well as exercise a duty of care to the competitors. The nanny state is encroaching everywhere.
There are lots of interesting points made in the earlier contributions to this thread - marshalling levels, race schedules, machine classes, entry numbers, Mountain Course licenses. The one thing they all appear to have in common is to call into question the health of the MGP.
There doesn't appear to be any problem getting enough marshals for the TT but the MGP is another matter altogether. In recent years I've always marshalled on the day that I'm not competing but that's really a minor contribution to what is clearly a major problem for the MMCC. Perhaps if there were fewer race days then we wouldn't have such an acute problem? However, which classes would we drop? Or could we run 3 races on each of 2 race days instead of the current format of 2 races/3 race days? Would the club be prepared to let competitors do 2 races on one day if there were only 2 race days? Which days would we run on (-bearing in mind Monday is a Bank Holiday and lots of local marshals don't mind helping out)?
Falling entry numbers aren't helping either. The Mountain Course License has been instrumental in putting people off, especially amongst the Classic riders as their machines are particularly fragile and expensive. I have friends who've effectively given up racing because they can't afford or aren't interested in meeting the license conditions. The subsidiary point that has been endlessly made is that nothing prepares entrants for racing on the Mountain Course other than practice on the Mountain Course. Circuit racing is a complete waste of time in that respect and I am firmly of the view that the high number of fatalities in the year preceding the course license introduction was nothing more than a tragic statistical anomaly.
The definition of a 'classic' has always been something that invokes strong views. As appealing a sight and sound as they are to a certain age group, they are of little interest to many riders. Their enormous expense in comparison to modern machinery makes them way beyond the means of all but the deepest pockets. If we're going to get fuller grids, it's clear that either the definition has to be changed/loosened or supplementary classes introduced to augment the grid. Perhaps some kind of air-cooled, twin shock, wire wheel class? There must have been loads of machines production raced in the 1970s that would attract spectator interest and encourage entrants?
The one thing that has changed the nature of the MGP more than anything else for me in recent years has been the desparate lack of practice time. There seem to be endless delays in getting sessions started and an early halt often seems to be called, the 'Roads Open' car going out with almost unseemly haste. The implications for safety are obvious - the pressure to get fast laps in from the word go is always there.
The lifeblood of any race meeting is the number of entrants the event attracts. If we don't figure out a way to make the MGP more attractive to greater numbers of entrants than we're currently seeing, we're looking at its demise - death by a thousand cuts. That's the last thing I'd want to see.