I think it's a travesty that you can basically come to the island with two engines and compete in every class - even the sidecars!!!

Now I know there is no way one 600 engine would do Supersport 1, Supersport 2 and two sidecar races, but you know what I'm saying!

What gets me is the lack of something different. Now of course I am FAR too young to remember the days of being excited by "the sight of an overseas multi cylinder bike being on the TT course" to quote Nick, but they all look and sound the same. It's fairly boring!!! I was glad to get my hands on the BMW's this year, just for something new to look at. In fact, I've got to the stage where I am scrutineering bikes and will be down on my knees thinking that if it wasn't for the position of the oil filter, these bikes would all look the same!

Thanks heavens for sidecars where we can at least appreciate some real racing machinery.

However, back to the original question, yes, more variation is definitely needed. Exactly what though, I'm not too sure. I struggle as I miss two-stroke racing so much (to the point of deliberately sitting by a bush in my garden that attracts hundreds of wasps and wishing the noise was the buzz of two-strokes again! Can't believe I've just admitted that on a public forum, mind!) but there's little point to me wishing we had two-strokes back when they aren't being made any more.

I agree with Nick that the bikes are too fast to learn the course properly. I don't have his vast experience of riding bikes of course, but I have always found less powerful bikes and cars far more fun because you can have a proper play with them, rather than just getting a corner before a long straight right and using the point and squirt technique.

Nick, I too had that familiar feeling of the mix of triumph and tragedy again this year. And while I would utterly defend the right of anyone to have the opportunity to race on the TT course, it is getting harder and harder (personally) to come in on a race day morning to be called together and receive the latest tragic news.