Isle of Man TT

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Good deal. Agree - thanks for the heads-up. Haven't had my nads up in my stomach since last year.....:cornut:

 

Nowadays there are usually more visitor deaths than competitor deaths - when you get 150,000 bikers from all over Europe in one place, the statistics say that some of them will crash and die. Plus there is the problem that some European bikers have never ridden on the left side of the road before, and after a few drinks, they forget to do so. The island is covered in signs saying 'links fahren' (drive on the left).

The TT preview TV coverage in Britain has some interesting data on the medical arrangements:
If the weather means the ambulance helicopter can't fly, racing is suspended.
Expected maximum time from rider coming off his bike to arrival in hospital emergency room is 20 minutes, from anywhere on the 37-mile track.
Farms are encouraged to not have livestock in fields next to the track, so the helicopter can land right next to injured riders.
There are three doctors or paramedics per mile of the course when racing or practising.
There are over 500 track marshals [US = 'corner worker'?] (14 per mile) on duty at any one time and over 1000 marshals are trained.

And of course the coolest job in the world is to be a TT travelling marshal. They go to incidents on the track and take charge. All are ex-racers and they have to be able to do a minimum lap time, so that they don't get in the riders' way, as they may ride on track during practising/racing.



But enough of that - you want to know about the really cutting-edge technology, don't you? The Leaderboard continues to be maintained by local boy scout groups who supply the data to a professional painter who writes each individual rider's lap times, in paint with a paint brush, on the leaderboard:



The clock-like things to the left were the original lap trackers - the scouts got reports form the four tracking cabins and turned the hands of the clock to indicate where the rider had passed. A few miles before the grandstand there is 'Signpost Corner', where a guy would say down a phone line which rider was passing and then a light would be lit up under that rider's name, so that his pit crew would know to get ready.

Running a race over a 37 mile race track before the days of electronic communication was a real effort!

 

I thought this photo bears being repeated - Guy Martin cutting a corner just a little too tightly. Presumably he knew it was just hedge and didn't have a stone wall inside it.

 

:cornut: It's a good thing that this race isn't in the US. They'd have all of the riders on bicycles with training wheels.:yikes::yikes::lol::lol:

Jason