<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Arrabbiata1 @ May 14 2009, 04:38 PM)
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Are you not aware that the Island used to be part of the Grand Prix calendar? Are you similarly unaware of names like Carlo Ubbiali, Geoff Duke, Les Graham, Carl Fogarty, Steve Hislop, Phil Read, Mick Grant, Jim Redman, Gary Hocking, John Surtess...and here's two that even you might have come across despite your overwhelming stupidity - Giacomo Agostini and one Mike Hailwood do they not ring a bell? All of which I think you'll find could just about hold their own on the short circuit.
Is someone sponsoring you to be an ..... of such immense magnitude?
The Island has an exceptional racing heritage, of that there's no doubt. There is still the question of what the abilities of the current participants are relative to the best world-class riders compared to when the participants
were the best world-class riders. I don't think any of us will deny that certain aspects of racing have changed a lot over the past 2 or 3 decades. Safety at pretty much everywhere except the Island has gotten a
lot better. Money's gotten bigger, and the bigger names have specialized more. To pick another random name and event, Eddie Lawson was world champ and Daytona 200 champ in 1986. Would a world champ contender likely entertain the idea of competing in that race today? No. It's a race for domestic support series riders these days. I'm not at all suggesting that the races on the Isle of Man have suffered a similar downfall - but I want to make it clear that the schedule of todays top racers and those of the top racers of the past are a lot different.
Today, a top rider contesting a race like the Isle of Man TT would expose himself to greatly elevated danger relative to "normal" racing and impose a significant financial risk on his sponsors and team. Your list is heavy on guys that raced a long time ago, with some relatively recent national-level champions as well. There's enough reason for most world-class riders to stay away these days. It doesn't mean it's not an amazing race and spectacle, but to claim that racers like Agostini, Read, Ubbiali, etc represent an accurate sample of the racers that contest the TT in modern times is more than a bit of a stretch. An outside "elite" rider contesting the TT these days is the excpetion rather than the rule.
