The toughest job at the Isle of Man TT

It's been one of the most difficult weeks in recent Isle of Man TT history for the organisers, with significant weather delays causing 2025 practices and races to be cancelled, rescheduled and shortened since the very first day of track action on May 26.

Despite that, we've so far seen all of the planned racing eventually go ahead.

That is, in a very large part, testament to the work that's been done by race control, led by clerk of course Gary Thompson.

The organisers have consistently not just been reactive to circumstances throughout the two weeks but proactive in making decisions ahead of time to limit disruption not just to the racing but to the crucial marshals who get locked into place on track and the residents who call the island home and who use the 37.73 miles of roads that comprise the circuit to travel to and from home, work, and school.

In fact, that's something that was brought into focus ahead of Wednesday's second Supersport TT, when Thompson was forced to delay the start by 15 minutes in order to allow medics to treat a non-racing incident in Kirk Michael and for police to clear a road traffic collision at Ginger Hall.

Yet despite the worst that the Manx weather threw at this year's TT and amid a number of serious incidents that brought out the red flags, it's testament to the management of Thompson and his team that by the second scheduled rest day of race week on Thursday, only one of the six scheduled races had still to be run, with Wednesday's second Sidecar TT bumped back to Friday lunchtime.

"Throughout the whole process, obviously the safety of the riders is paramount," Thompson explained to The Race.

"But other things I have to take into consideration are the disruption to the public, not keeping marshals out on point for long periods, and trying to get the races run as safely as possible.

"What the public won't be aware of is that we've had sightings of wallabies, we've had loose dogs, we've had non-racing medical emergencies where we've had to attend to members of the public who have fallen ill while racing is going on.

"The whole host of things that we're trying to manage in the background while keeping racing going."

Those challenges were perhaps best demonstrated on Monday and Tuesday, when a series of weather issues and non-racing incidents conspired to make Thompson's job even harder than ever.

"On Monday," he explained, "we were aware that the weather was closing in during the evening and that the whole day was being concertinaed, that the window was getting smaller and smaller. We had to reduce the races by one lap, which all the competitors understood and have been very patient with.

"Tuesday was a complete and utter nightmare, because we had the extensive oil spills. The extensive one down Bray Hill, and a diesel spill from the Mountain Box to Casey's, and both of those caused a significant delay.

"We had the weather issues, too. Showers just kept appearing, and I did everything I could. I went against my own principles, really, because I closed the roads on time then we had all these showers appearing. It just took ages for them to dry out and I regrettably had sat around all day on closed roads."

The result of that, even though racing eventually got underway, was a long day for the nearly 250 marshals needed to police the Mountain section of the course. They were in place from when roads closed at 0900 until they reopened at nearly 2200, and Thompson (who dispatched Sidecar TT winners Ryan and Callum Crowe to deliver packed lunches to the marshals trapped there) says that they're as important as the riders.

Meals on (three) wheels for the Marshals on the Mountain this evening!!

Your Sidecar lap record holders and 3-time race winners looking after the TT Marshals on a challenging day.

Thank you for your patience ???@iomttmarshals @CroweRacing7 pic.twitter.com/jZBTRmfZkW

"I can't do my job without everyone," he added, "the officials and the marshals, and I'm just very grateful to everybody for their patience during what's been a very testing two weeks.

"Hats off to the riders, too because they've been… I wouldn't say messed about, because they understand, but I am reluctant to keep them sat around all day doing nothing."

And while the schedule might have so far featured less track time than racers would have liked and they've been forced to deal with the adrenaline spikes and crashes that come from being told you're going racing around the daunting circuit only for it to be called off again at the last minute, the mood among them has nonetheless been appreciative of the work of Thompson and his team.

"At the end of the day, the organisers are not doing it to piss us off, they're doing it for real reasons," most successful TT rider of all time Michael Dunlop said after taking win number 31 on Wednesday.

"That's the long and the short of it. You can get the s**ts all you want if you're lying in the hedges, but they have to take into consideration the riders and that's what they're doing.

"When you have to sit one day, two days, five days, it doesn't really matter, if they're doing what they think is right and what's right by the riders.

"The job is dangerous enough, and they're trying to make it as less dangerous as possible so you can't knock them for that."