David, on the official TTXGP website, there are pictures (in the media section) of amongst others, Chief Minister Tony Brown and Simon Crellin, the TT press officer and PR guy. You'll no doubt recognise some other faces too, so I guess it's all for real.

According to the initial regs posted on the forum (the final article in the hands of the ACU is late in being released...) the bikes are expected to average at least 60mph (!) over 40 miles of variable terrain...

I posted over on the 'other side' that while this sort of thing is bound to come one day, next year is way too soon. If you were going to take a model of conventional motor cycle that had never been raced before, 9 months would NOT be enough time to develop it as an effective racer, yet whoever is behind this can't see a problem in allocating that small amount of time to develop technology that's never been near a race track before and then debut the bloody thing on the most demanding race track in the world. It beggars belief really.

TTXGP claim that so far 39 'teams' have registered interest. Will any of them make it to the grid?