Just a little more news on the TT type event the Mayor of Tokyo is trying to organise on the island of Myakejima south of Tokyo .The island is actually under the Tokyo city government.
Found out too late that there was a motorcycle event held here in Odaiba yesterday to support the 'Challenge Miyakejima' idea.
It was a variety of motorcycle events and demonstrations but good to see the idea is still alive.
Air services have been restored to the island now after the devastating volcano a while back.
If you scroll down the riders on the right side of this website you may notice what looks like the IOM in the sidecar section.
http://challenge-miyakejima.com/special/...rider.html

Looks suspiciously like Guthries,Don, but I don't know what Japan is like!

More news here:
http://www.challenge-miyakejima.com/index.html
The island will again be hosting a motorcycle festival this year on Oct 17th - 19th 2008.
There does not appear to be any roadracing involved (officially) but there is still very strong interest and support from the motorcycle community in Japan as well as the sponsors.
One of the supporters listed is "The Isle of Man TT race" which is really nice to see.
The bike importers like Harley, BMW, Triumph etc are supporting the event.
Good luck to them.

Yes Don, that is last year's TT and the rider is Masahito Watanabe (passenger Hideyuki Yoshida.) Their manager was Masato Kumano, who was a world championship contender 30 years ago.
At the newcomers day last year I was there with Jock Taylor's niece, Yvonne, and he spotted her and came over to talk about Jock.
I'd love to see more Japanese sidecar people across here... good practice for their own TT, too!