Risk is difficult to define, I agree. But there is also a subjective element to it, which will depend upon the skill and mental attitude of the person in question. To jump on a bicycle and ride for 10 yards in a straight line would hardly be risky for most of us, but watch a child who has just had the stabilisers taken off and after the first attempt and inevitable wobble and crash, they realise that for them, this is risky. But they soon acquire the skill to do it and the risk involved drops dramatically. As their skill develops they are also learning what the inherent risks are - just watch the first corner as the handlebars are yanked round too sharply and off they come. But they refine their movements and acquire the skill to corner and in no time at all riding a bike is, subjectively, not much of a risk and they enjoy doing it because they can do it well - the mental attitude is confident and positive and at a subconscious level they have absorbed the ability to make risk assessments.

That subjective level is regulated with motorbike racing through the licensing system and I think it is a reasonable assumption to say that people who are motivated enough to get themsevles a national racing licence will be people who really enjoy racing. Logically, they will be people who have developed a high level of skill (thus reducing the overall risk invovled) and in doing so will have absorbed a lot of knowledge about those very risks. The child with poor balance and co-ordination is unlikely to find riding (or rather repeatedly falling off) a bicycle much fun and is unlikely to hanker for a motorbike, let alone race one when he is older.

There are also the objective risks which include in large part the external things over which you may not have much control but also includes the fact that people sometimes make a mistake. Would I gallop a horse across a field? Yes. Is that risky? Subjectively, not really because I can ride and from years of doing it I know the inherent risks and can therefore assess them. Would I ride the Grand National? No, because for me there would be too many inherent risks which would be beyond my control and I just don't have any desire to do it and lack the skill anyway. In other words, having never acquired steeplechasing skills and having no desire to do it, it would be very risky for me to jump on a horse and have a crack at it. But it is far less risky for the time-served jump jockey who has built up, (inter alia) the skill and risk knowledge. It would be madness for me to try it but few people would honestly say that he is mad to do it.

So it is with racing motorbikes around here. If you find yourself on the start line at the Grandstand, you must really have wanted to be there and you must really enjoy racing. That is almost certainly because you have a good level of skill (some more than others). From the moment you first fell of you stabiliser free bike as a child you will have been learning about the risks of being on two wheels and will have developed the skills to minimise those risks but you will never forget what they are. The risks of racing here are greater than in many pursuits and just simply different to those in other pursuits. But the person best able to assess the risk and decide whether it is, for them, worth taking, is the person with the skill and motivation to do it. It is likely that those same people are best placed to give their thoughts on how the risks can be minimised and in saying that I am not suggesting that those of us who don't race can have no valid input. It is just that what to me seems horribly risky (and I use my example of the Grand National) will be seen wholly differently through the eyes of a jump jockey.

Just to finish on a lighter note, I wonder how many bits of cine/video footage are lurking out there of those first endeavours on two wheels.