The “best street racing in the world”. Yeah, no kidding.

I’ve been to England before, and the Isle of Man is kinda the same thing, geographically speaking, just miniaturized. Just don’t tell anyone there this observation. They are Manx, and that’s where it stops.

For the two weeks I was there I was amazed at how absolutely beautiful the weather was. It’s sad to report that these two weeks were apparently the warmest two weeks in decades. It rains a lot apparently. It was quite common to talk about how beautiful the weather was for racing, only to hear “yeah, well you should be here the other 351 days of the year”.

The island seemed to have it all – some plains, mountains (relatively speaking), incredible history going back to the Vikings, and all kinds of pubs and neat places to check out, hiding here and there, just off the beaten path. Take the trolley for example. It goes all over the island and up grades steeper than I’d want to walk. You remind yourself of that fact when you cross some tracks through one of the many no-limit speed zones. Combined with 15 foot hedgerows, it makes for some white-knuckle high speed motoring. How do I always come back to driving a car? I know, I know, life is like a car, this sandwhich is like a car…I get it.

Speaking of which, the food is stereotypical english food. A normal breakfast consists of, well, anything that can be fried in bacon fat, and I couldn’t stop myself from consuming a hearty portion each and every morning. Luckily I had a direct phone number to a local Gastrointerologist in my wallet.

All in all, a place I would visit again. I post this as I am reminded that the next TT Race is coming in three weeks and it’s the 100 year anniversary. Of any race in the world to be hitting a milestone, this one has all the purity of a motorsport required to call it a Classic event. They are expecting twice as many people as last year (250,000) – I don’t know where the hell they are going to stay. The island was almost at capacity then. Can a country have a patron limit? Isn’t it a fire regulation or something? Maybe they will all shack up in the homes of all the locals who are flying to the mainland to get away from the 336 hour long party. I’m sad to miss it. I’ll just have to borrow this year’s DVD from my father.