Isle of Man TT races

[Belly Buster]

This has just finished for 2013. Has to be the most insane racing in the world.

The main perimeter (public) road on the Island is closed off for the fortnight, and then bikers take over and rag it up to 200mph along the tiny roads, inches from stone walls, houses, trees, spectators etc.

Worth taking a look.

[PLOL]

Pokerstars, Is this true?

[Belly Buster]

Pokerstars, Is this true?

They're a key sponsor, I think they sponsor the "main event".

[Lord of the Fraud]

You need balls of steel or shit for brains to take on that course. 200 odd people have died over the years trying to take it on. Some poor Jap was the latest victim just a few days ago.

Decent write up on the dangers of it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/co...3/How-die.html

CARNAGE came a little earlier than usual this year on the Isle of Man.
Practising for the TT Races, which begin today, David Jefferies struck a telegraph pole at 160mph and was killed.
While not anticipating such a violent end - he was a champion rider with nine TT victories to his name and last year established the fastest-ever lap time around the 37.75-mile road circuit - he well knew the appalling risks.
'Anyone who competes on the island,' he had said with chilling prophecy, 'must accept that he might be going home in a box.' His death added to a total of more than 200 riders who have been killed there. Seven died in 2000 and, in the blackest year of all, 11 were killed in 1993.
These are statistics the Isle of Man Tourist Board are not keen to propagate. The TT Races, attracting up to 50,000 visitors and generating minimally Pounds 25million, are the island's greatest source of income.
Criticise the madness of it all, as I did to my extreme discomfort on my first visit there in 1973, and you are verbally abused by Manx residents and the close- knit motorcycling fraternity alike.
Admittedly, I had broken a cardinal rule of journalism by becoming emotionally involved. I had met a young man named John Clarke, from Northampton, who was about to ride the first TT of his life.
HE WAS a privateer - a nonworks rider without factory backup - existing on a meagre budget. Having decided to follow his fortunes, the Daily Mail were happy to help out with a few square meals, over which we became friends.
It was a disaster. John streaked down Bray Hill from the start line, safely negotiated the acute righthander at Quarter Bridge and then, at Union Mills, struck a stone wall at full speed. He died instantly of massive chest injuries. The Mecca of motorcycle racing had claimed another victim inside two minutes.
I was deeply upset and wrote accordingly. That year he became the 161st rider to be killed since the races began in 1907. When, I asked, perhaps intemperately, would the law put a stop to this slaughter?
The emotive headline 'Island of Blood' above my column hardly soothed the ferocity of those who attacked me in our hotel breakfast room next morning.
But I was by no means the first to raise the question. The most qualified critic to raise the hackles of the Isle of Man residents was Barry Sheene, who actually knew what he was talking about. Sheene rode the TT only once, in 1971, and vowed he would never return.
'It is impossible to make that course even reasonably safe,' he said. 'It is 37 miles of stone walls and telegraph poles. If you come off you hit a solid obstacle. I don't think hitting a stray horse in the middle of the road is a true test of men or machines.' SHEENE was reviled on the Isle of Man from that moment. One former TT rider said: ' Sheene is calling us idiots. He should shut his mouth and mind his own business.' Sheene's own business was to become a legendary motor sport icon, hugely brave and much injured. It was cancer that killed him earlier this year, not hitting an immovable object on the infamous Mountain Course.
Paradoxically, he didn't want to see the TT Races banned. He said: 'Riders can do what they want to do. It's their lives and they can do what they want with them. But the Isle of Man is not for me.' His point was that it was not only human error that claimed the colossal toll of life. Apart from the rare stray animal there were greasy manhole covers and diesel spillages on the road.
There was one point where a rider on the fastest racing line had to incline his head sharply to the right to avoid being decapitated by a telephone standard.
At a time when traditional sports like rugby and cricket are being abandoned by some schools for fear of being clobbered by compensation claims in the event of even minor injuries, it would be illogical to disparage the survival of the TT Races and the nerve of those who compete in them.
And yet, and yet . . . By two weeks today, how many more bodies, like that of the 30-year-old David Jefferies, will have been delivered back to their homes in boxes with full motorcycling honours?
Meanwhile, the Manx economy will have been stoked up for another year and thousands of vicarious spectators will have swarmed over the most deadly sporting arena on earth.
It was the late, great James Hunt, Grand Prix driver, who told me in a deeply cynical moment: 'They don't pay all that money to see us drive, you know. They come to see us killed.' Pray God, there will be no further fatalities on the Isle of Man this year. But I wouldn't bet on it.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/co...#ixzz2Ve3OK4GH
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[Deal]

Pokerstars, Is this true?

They're a key sponsor, I think they sponsor the "main event".

Exactly the target market they should go after. People that won't properly evaluate risks. As a player on Stars I approve.

Next should be the "Poker Stars annual running of the Bulls in Spain"