Isle of Man Guide

Weather conditions for the planned second practice failed to improve as much as predicted, and after two delays of 15 minutes apiece Controller Gavin Corkill announced that the session was being cancelled altogether.

A large field of machines and riders had assembled, including the 500cc Paton twin to be ridden by Steve Linsdell. He said it was brand new throughout and certainly looked resplendent. Steve said he had only done a few miles on it at Cadwell, but rain had put paid to any thoughts of a serious try-out. It was therefore doubly disappointing that rain again put paid to progress.

In fact, the general standard of machine preparation was high, a tribute to those labouring in less-than-ideal circumstances in the camp sites. And after all the hard work by the scrutineers in examining nearly 300 bikes it was a sad sight that everyone was frustrated in their endeavours to have a run out.

But with a rainy day throughout, and water running off the fields onto the roads, the expected sunny evening would still have been struggling to dry out the surface.

With morning practices this year restricted to emergency use only, the next session will be tomorrow evening - Tuesday August 24th, followed (hopefully) by Wednesday evening, Thursday afternoon, Friday evening and Saturday evening.

More stories >>>