Ben Oates Wrote:Moving dates is always a much bigger problem than you originally think. It has a big knock on effect.

Early morning practice could work again. It really adds to the atmosphere of the TT and could give another 5-6 hours a week practice, plenty of time for the 2 strokes. Minimum marshal manning levels could also be reviewed. I counted 13 marshals at Hillberry this year, 16 at Ballacraine last year and lots of similar scenarios around the course. And with all the headlines promoting just how many signed on this year, would it really be a problem?

Early morning practice has finished and will not return, logistics firms have their depots in a few of the places that are not accessible during the roads closed and these firms now take deliveries from the boats from 5am to 8am. We would not get enough marshalls for the mornings, most of the old boys that loved the mornings are no longer with us, times change so we must move forward and as for practice for the two strokes you will have to accept they are finished on the mountain, the experiment at Billown this year proved that they cant get enough entries, sorry but that's the way it is.

Another idea that might work is shut the mountain for a couple of afternoons, riders like to have roads to set bikes up, run engines in etc. It would not take many marshals to run the mountain area and it could be policed quite easily, after all riders that wished to use the facility had completed their run over the mountain they could be escorted back over to a starting point by the TMs.