At a certain point, you stop being shocked by how many people have died here. The shock is how many are still alive.
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Everyone outside the TT races talks about the deaths. It’s hard not to. More than 200 people have died on the Snaefell Mountain Course...given the loss of life that happens each year, it’s only natural wonder why the race is still allowed. The locals wonder this too. There are fears that the race could get shut down any year. It’s one thing for the riders to die, but if a spectator was killed, or if there was a particularly horrible series of wrecks, the TT could be resigned to history. And it’s not like the motorcycles running in the race are getting slower each year — quite the opposite. One has to imagine if the day will come soon when the bikes will be too much for these old roads.
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But the riders said they weren’t going because they thought they might die. They said they went specifically because they believed that they would survive and finish and succeed.