According to the Manx Radio News at 4 pm Tuesday's MGP-practice is cancelled because of bad weather.

Yup.. is pretty dull at the moment. Looking out of my window, the sky is as grey as a sharks armpit

Isn't it time they looked at Sunday afternoon practise sessions for both TT & mgp Sat practice is regularly lost at both events its now going to be Wed before a lot of competitors get a lap in.

All the new safety stuff is all very well but it only adds to the chances of having reduced, untimed or no practice at all .. it's about time the practice schedule/time available was updated/increased to match the increase in new regulations and can/can't do's .. sadly I think nothing will change until a few bigger "names" or teams are unable to race because their machine isn't qualified.

(25-08-2015, 05:59 PM)Bill Peacock Wrote: Isn't it time they looked at Sunday afternoon practise sessions for both TT & mgp Sat practice is regularly lost at both events its now going to be Wed before a lot of competitors get a lap in.

(25-08-2015, 07:21 PM)Alfie Noakes Wrote: All the new safety stuff is all very well but it only adds to the chances of having reduced, untimed or no practice at all .. it's about time the practice schedule/time available was updated/increased to match the increase in new regulations and can/can't do's  .. sadly I think nothing will change until  a few bigger "names" or teams are unable to race because their machine isn't qualified.

I don't know if you're on the island at the moment, but it was certainly peeing down in Douglas earlier this evening and it would have been impossible to have any practice.

You have to be very careful in trying to get more and/or longer practice sessions. There is a small, but growing, minority of residents who are against the TT/MGP/FoM

We do have to go about our daily routine - getting to and from work for example. I can remember one occasion a few years ago when it took me two hours to drive from central Douglas to Onchan during TT when racing was delayed and the roads didn't open as scheduled.

If the practices or racing were seen to impinge more on the normal lives of locals, the small minority of antis would soon start winning over those who are currently sitting on the fence when it comes to being pro or anti racing.

Be careful what you wish for - you could end up with less than you started with

Hi Stroller, not back home at mo, the point/issue i'm trying to put over is that we have far more potential scenarios now for not going out for practice or for having the session stopped and at the very same time we have much less practice time available to the riders than we used to have. I'll admit that the weather never used to bother me back in the day - I was happy just to be out there on my machine but at the same time being literally sent out there in the p'ing rain howling wind 92 Lightweight MGP probably wasn't ideal. I know residents have to be considered but for me I can't understand how the ongoing increase of reasons why we can't put on or continue a session whilst having less practice time is ever going to be a good thing, a few different outcomes last night with the 8 accidents, more inclement weather t'row and we could have riders easily be sat waiting on Thursday without a timed/completed lap put in, especially if entered on 2/3 machines - this for me is just as important as getting home on time.

It's a problem and I don't have the answer. Do you send riders out in poor conditions, considered dangerous; or start races when a good many may have had little time to learn the course sufficiently well to enable them to race safely?
I wonder what the difference in track time is between say, the sixties, and now? It must be enormous, and the irony is that in those days the conditions had far less impact.

I guess it depends on the definition of poor weather. If mountain visibility was outwith the operating limits of airmed then its game over and has been for many years. if we're talking about a wet track however, then this is a much more recent safety issue as we can all recall days or yore when racing and practice took place in the wet.

I think we have to accept that things are different now and react accordingly. The road closing orders are published well in advance and give plenty of opportunity for the majority of locals to arrange their lives so as to minimize the impact of road closures. The IOM motto is "quoqunque jeceris stabit" which means whichsoever way you throw me I always land upright. Some local residents need a little more of this kinda thinking.

Given the choice of riding in the wet or not obviously I'd rather not but it never bothered me, not everybody thinks the same which is fair enough and i'm not saying we should start in wet. One of the things I really used to like about "The Manx" was the amount of practice time available particularly if entered on a Senior and Junior machine, there was very little pressure if any on me to get laps in due to a cancelled session or mechanical issue because I knew there would be a lot of other time available, back in those hazy days I can't recall a session red flagged for any reason, we'd sometimes be parked up somewhere while the situation was dealt with and then we were set on our way again having been informed what to expect to find as we continued - flags, track condition etc - not saying this is a good thing but that's how it was back then and we just got on with it, these days we have multiple reasons why a session doesn't go or gets stopped which is fair enough but the amount of practice has been reduced which looking at it obviously is only ever going to be to the detriment on the rider which doesn't seem at all fair to me. Put it this way if the IoM had the weather i've had the last few days you'd have had no practice at all so far and there doesn't seem to be any consideration for such things.

Why on earth they stopped early morning practice beats me. It worked for a long few years, and I personally liked it - rain or shine. No accounting for what Mother Nature can throw at you, and the organizers have some bloody tough calls to make. Clearly, safety comes first, and we definitely don't want to give the naysayers any more fodder to chew on, but - I just wonder if the reduced practice times are somehow linked with the fact there are a LOT more experienced (TT) riders these days, and it's another 'squeeze out' of the true MGP, as it used to be?