Track motorcycling | The Isle of Man’s “death drives” are a brutal event where there are almost always dead bodies

Irish of Louis O’Regan became the 270th victim of the Isle of Man motorcycle races on Sunday. The accident happened at Kate’s Cottage corner during qualifying for the amateur Manx Grand Prix.

O’Regan, 43, was an experienced driver who first raced on the Isle of Man in 2013.

The Isle of Man rides have a reputation for rough and brutal. With O’Regan’s fatal crash, the grim statistic remained unchanged: after 1937, only in 1982 have deaths been avoided in the Games.

This year, no one died in the island’s most famous race, the TT races, in June, but in the Manx Grand Prix, only the qualifying sessions were made, when the race became fatal for one driver.

Finnish Erno Kostamo comment Motor association the website has a lot to say. He has participated in the TT races between May and June for two consecutive years now,

“This year, for the first time in 16 years, all the drivers made it [TT-ajoissa] to go home alive, so in that respect it was a good year.”

There have been no deaths on the Isle of Man in the years 1940–1945 and in 2020 and 2021. The former were the war years and the latter the corona era – the games were not held in these years.

The darkest year has been 2005, when a total of eleven people died.

Most of the dead drivers have been British, a total of 197. There are no Finns among the dead, but for example, for three Swedes, the Mansaari ajot has been the last race.

On the Isle of Man has been racing motorcycles since 1907, and the TT races organized there are the world’s oldest motorcycle competition – and at the same time the most dangerous.

The length of the track is no less than 60 kilometers and the height differences are 400 meters. The track goes around the roads of the island between Ireland and England.

“

The race itself is dangerous, but some competitors also make it dangerous with their own actions.

There are a total of 264 corners on the track, many of which have poor visibility due to trees, bushes and, among other things, stone fences and buildings. O’Regan’s accident happened at a bend where the house blocks the view.

In addition, the road surface is bumpy.

There are no safety areas at all on the track and, for example, light poles and electricity poles are covered with hay bales.

Deaths usually do not stop races. After O’Regan’s accident, there were no more races on Sunday, but races continued on Monday and will continue until August 26.

The races on the Isle of Man were part of the motorcycle World Series for a long time, from 1949 to 1975. The legendary Finnish rider was never seen on the track Jarno from Saari. The reason: he considered the race too dangerous.

from Joensuu Kostamo plans to participate in the Mansaari race next year as well, even though there have already been dangerous situations – Kostamo has at his best reached an average speed of almost 200 kilometers per hour.

“Two or three times it was a little bad – so much so that I had to blow a little. However, the situation was under control the whole time. Those near misses happen to everyone,” Kostamo stated in 2023 for HS.

The race itself is dangerous, but some competitors also make it dangerous with their own actions. The currently running Manx Grand Prix was shelved Alex Sinclair. He failed a drug test.