The Bag Wrote:2 Putting newcomers at the back of Junior/Senior MGP races could be a major safety issue due to the fact that the leaders of the said racers would catch the slower newcomers and passing would be dangerous. Whilst top MGP racers and newcomers are mixed in practice, overtaking is not critical to a race position so a top mgp racer would be lenient, in a race situation this would be unlikely to happen. That fact was put across by myself and other mgp winners. It is also important that newcomers can have their first race without having to worry about very fast racers passing them.
It was decided that the newcomers event needs a big push similar to the TT to see if more can be attracted.

Russ, I agree with most of what you say. However I have grave reservations about the problems of running 2 races on the final Friday in view of the changeable weather we have had in recent years (which looks set to continue if the global warming crowd are to be believed) and I truly believe that unless the organisation of the meeting adapts to take account of this you will see more riders not coming. It's a lot of time and money not to race, and the programme I suggested would normally allow time to run a single race on Friday with the option of cancelling the afternoon parade which would be a lesser penalty. Please bear in mind also one of the attractions to the Classic boys is the ability to have both races done by Wednesday and away before the end of the week, missing the weekend ferry rush and allowing time to get settled back at home after 2 hectic weeks away.

My main disagreement is with the concept of the Newcomers race still being valid. Remember these boys are in many cases also getting entries for the Junior and Senior so despite having their own race at the start of the week they will still be running at the back of the major races and many will be passed. I am not aware this has been a problem. It happens in the NC race anyway doesn't it, where you have 750s out with 125s? If you can attract enough interest and new blood over to fill the grid in a NC event that's great, because as stated that equates to bigger grids overall. However while you have high costs, more bureaucracy, less practice and races being cut to the length of a practice session I think you will struggle.

As for putting FE machines in with Newcomers I think it's a mistake. Firstly because I think there will be a lot of interest in FE/F750 and you don't want to be turning people away or they won't come back. Secondly I think you underestimate the speed of the older bikes. The 500 classics are lapping over the ton and I reckon the faster FE bikes would be not far off 110, considerably faster than the smaller NC machines and probably half the NC 600s as well. You won't get away from passing if you mix classes.

And don't cut race lengths. I did 6 lap races on my TZ350 back in the 80s and never once had a DNF. It was tiring, sure, but cutting back to 4 laps was a blow and cutting further would be an insult. The TT still runs 6 lappers, and those boys don't have to fork out entry fees like we do at the Manx.

And lastly if I may make a suggestion, people who try to decide what the races should be by talking to current riders are missing a trick. They should be talking to those who have abandoned the races and finding out why, or those who haven't been yet and finding out what it would take to get them across. There's no point selling to people who are already your customers.