How the TT Ticks…

The TT is one of the toughest sporting events in the world to run and organise, as Grace Webb discovers from the man that makes it happen.

Job Title: Clerk of the Course

Location: Isle of Man

Event: TT Races

Description: You will make decisions that stop races. You will make decisions that allow them to continue. You will carry those decisions with you. You will rarely be seen by the public, but your influence will be everywhere. This is not a job. It’s a responsibility carried at 200mph. Apply now?

The Isle of Man TT is the world’s oldest motorcycle race and considered to be one of the greatest motorsport events on the planet. It’s an event that’s rooted in history that races on closed public roads; however, it’s seen many changes since the first lap back in 1907. Even in recent years there’s been new road surface laid, updated technology for time-keeping, new race control exercises, modern risk assessment paperwork, additional safety measures to support the growing speeds of superbikes…. just to name a few. Would you want to be in charge of those decisions?

The weight of bringing the world’s most demanding race to the start line in the safest and most exciting way, all whilst being viewed worldwide on a live streaming platform? Well, there’s one man that’s stepped forward and taken on one of the hardest jobs in motorsport for the past 14 years as Clerk of the Course for the Isle of Man TT Races; Gary Thompson MBE. “Most people think I only work for two weeks of the year,” he said to me over a steaming cup of tea, as we sat down for a chat, before the most iconic race fortnight begins for 2026 – in a matter of days. Those brews soon went cold as we chatted for several hours about the intricacies and intersections of risk and tradition, with many stories littered across the time we spent together in a local cafe, close to Gary’s home in Lincolnshire – a conversation that could’ve gone on for days. The TT appears a thoroughly organised event for that two-week window, but what level of planning and coordination actually sits beneath the surface? And how do you manage that ethical and emotional weight of leading an event that carries such a high risk? Grab your own cuppa ready for this conversation…

Having been part of the presenting team for four years myself at the Isle of Man TT, there are some things I’ve seen there that I’m certain will always remain the same. Before dawn during that fortnight, the roads around Douglas are quiet in a way that heighten your senses. The seafront is still dark, the grandstand empty, the start line nothing more than metal barriers. But across the island, long before the first motorcycle fires into life, the race has already begun. At a lay-by twenty miles away, a marshal in an orange vest unfolds a camping chair and checks his radio. Another pins a yellow flag to a wooden post hammered into the verge. A third studies the sky above the slopes of Snaefell, where low cloud can roll in without warning, potentially shutting down an entire race day. Around them lie hedgerows, farm gates and stone walls – ordinary roadside details that, within a few hours, will frame one of the most pressured sporting events in the world. This is the quiet choreography that precedes the Isle of Man TT. By sunrise, hundreds of volunteers will be stationed around the 37.73 miles of the Mountain Course. “There’s nowhere else in the world where one lap would cover this distance. A six-lap Senior TT is the equivalent to three Grand Prix races,” Thompson explains. Some Marshalls stand at village corners; others occupy grassy banks overlooking fast, blind crests. Many have been returning to the same stretch of road for decades, becoming the eyes and ears of a race that unfolds across an entire island. Back in Douglas, the lights flicker on inside race control. Screens glow with timing feeds and camera views. Radios crackle to life as piece by piece, the course comes online – every corner, every village, every stretch of open moorland connected by a web of voices and signals. “As Clerk of the Course, I work on this event all year round and one of my most favourite parts of the job is when the first newcomer lines up on Glencrutchery Road at ten o’clock on the first day of practice. That makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck”.

When the first rider finally rolls up to the start line that morning, the crowd will watch the bikes; the flash of colour, the thunder of engines, the blur of speed disappearing over the crest of Bray Hill. What they won’t see is the network already in place around the mountain. “For me,” explains Gary, “the fact that the event is being held on closed public roads, from an organiser’s point of view, it’s exciting. We’re not turning up to a course that’s already made – we’ve got to make the course and check it throughout the year. That’s all part of my TT. There’s actually a lot of work going on right now to get the course ready for the end of May because we’ve had a pretty harsh winter which has affected the road surface. We have to start preparing at the end of June for the following year’s TT. I need to have debrief meetings, review technical regulations, meet with the whole race organisation who make up Race Control, produce Event Safety Plans and Risk Assessments, liaise with the medical services, technical director and head of time-keeping. We also need to organise marshals. We have 581 marshals positioned around the TT course as a minimum for manning any qualifying or race session to take place, but over the two-week TT period, we have around 1,800 marshals sign-up. My work as Clerk of the Course for the Manx Grand Prix and Classic TT, as well as an ACU Track Inspector takes a lot of my time as well”.

Can you even imagine what the Isle of Man TT Risk Assessment and Safety Plan looks like? Us neither. But to help you visualise, it’s about six hundred pages in total, apparently. The Isle of Man TT has always been defined by the riders who conquer it. But before the throttle opens and the stopwatch starts, the race belongs to the people watching the mountain.

So, how do you get involved in the highest level of decision making at the world’s most unique motorsport race? Well, when Gary described to me some of his experiences across his 25 years in the military after the age of 16, including how saving a life in a minefield resulted in his MBE recognition, I wasn’t at all surprised why he landed the role of Clerk of the Course, when you think about the similar personality traits needed for handling pressure and the dedication involved being in the army as well as organising the famous mountain course. “I was a TT fan anyway and started working for the ACU just after I left the army. Six months after joining the ACU, I became involved at the TT in 2003 as Assistant Race Secretary”. And it was at this point, Gary knew he wanted to invest himself in a sport he loves. “That year we unfortunately lost David Jefferies, and the TT wasn’t in a good place with the way it was being portrayed, the standards of the paddock, just as a whole, it wasn’t in a good place at all and I agreed with others who said that if we don’t make the TT better, we’re going to lose it”. A dark thought for any motorcycle fan, but especially for one who sits at the heart of the operation. Thompson moved up the ranks from Race Secretary in 2008, to Deputy Clerk of the Course in 2009, before taking on the top role of Clerk of the Course in 2012 and at this point Thompson worked closely alongside Head of Motorsport for the Isle of Man Government, Paul Phillps and Rider Liaison Officer, Richard ‘Milky’ Quayle to pitch for more funding and a renewed presentation of the famous annual races. “It’s been great to watch the event grow from when I first got involved and there’s been a seismic shift in terms of professionalism, presentation and coverage of the event”.

You’d maybe expect someone in Gary’s role to come across a few challenges in their time, but what we spoke about next sent a chill down my spine. I could see a man who makes decisions with his heart yet showed the emotional resilience to carry on. “We lost the TT for two years during 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID pandemic,” which if that wasn’t bad enough already, listen to this; “At the same time, it was on Christmas Day of 2020 that Race Control was flooded. A sprinkler system went off and completely wrecked the building”. If there was anyone to find a positive in the face of adversity, it would be Gary Thompson; “we took this as an opportunity to give the TT a complete review – look at how we do things, on the organisation side, promotion side, marketing, the state of protection, re-surfacing – the whole thing was completely looked at and that started with building a new Race Control”. So, you’ve been given a blank piece of paper to design a new hub for the most daring race on Earth… where you do you start? Pens? “Even though we were aware of the risks, everything we had before then was mostly reactive to risk, rather than proactive. Some of that was down to funding but some was down to attitude, thinking – it hasn’t gone wrong there before so we don’t need to fix it. But now everything is looked at completely differently and is in a much better place than it’s ever been. We’ve got banks of screens with live feed from the tv producers, we can access every camera around the course including the heli-cam and select these to have on a widescreen. As well, every competitive and non-competitive vehicle that may need access to the TT course has got GPS trackers fitted which shows where every machine is at any time and one of the biggest improvements we made was the introduction of digital flags. There are 41 digital flags around the course now that are operated by myself from Race Control, so I can literally press one button on my laptop and that initiates flags across the course. If I had unlimited budget, I’d simply make Race Control bigger. Every year, we have Tabletop Exercises, which means I write down various scenarios which test our procedures and, as a result of these, we’ve moved the layout of Race Control which means we improve our information flow. We work with the space we’ve got but if I had a magic wand, it would be nice to have a bigger space. Ultimately, all of these features enhance marshalling; we couldn’t do it without them”.

For someone that’s been at the core of the event for more years than many and has been a spearhead for the safety measures that are needed, it’s then even more heart-wrenching when the death of a rider arises, but especially, straight after all these procedures were implemented. 2022 saw the worst toll of deaths in the event’s history, equalling the number of fatalities at the 1970 TT – and was also the year that the event was televised Live for the first time. “After all we’d applied to the course, it looked the best it ever had in 2022. Tragically, we had five deaths during the fortnight and one further death months later as a result of injuries. I thought, God, what else can we do? Was my heart really in it anymore? That year broke me, to be honest”, Thompson whispered with a croak in his voice as I could see he was reliving flashbacks of that year’s event. I thank him for his sincerity and openness to talk about that time, which was a dark shadow for the motorsport world and one that had to be handled with care as the event moved on. “I went with other riders to where the incidents took place and we also had the Department of Infrastructure there, where we all looked at the road. Any fatality is tragic, but to have so many, when you know how much work has gone on behind the scenes is very upsetting. It was a heartbreak in 2022. We did everything we could, and we will continue striving to make the event better and safer in all areas.”

Motorbikes come with undeniable risks and small mistakes can have serious consequences, especially at the Isle of Man TT. It’s easy to understand why people see motorcycles as dangerous at high speeds and in racing environments, but at the same time, there’s a powerful appeal; the sense of freedom, the connection to the road, the search for skill and the adrenaline that comes with riding. For many it’s not even about the speed, it’s about a passion, a challenge and a way to feel fully alive. “Personally,” Gary defends, “I don’t think it’s the most dangerous race. I think there are other races out there that are more dangerous than the TT. I think people are heavily influenced by what they see online and that’s made a significant impression on people. I often have a look online to see what’s out there about the TT and there’s a lot of compilations put together of crashes or near misses, and so for the people who have never been to the TT before, you can understand why it gets some bad phrases associated with it. In any motorsport event, there’s always an inherent risk, I recognise that. The riders all sign-on accepting the risks and I do my upmost to make the TT course as safe as I possibly can before anyone turns a wheel, considering the safety protection, the conditions of the course and more. Knowing what we do to make this event as safe as it can be, I don’t think the word ‘dangerous’ is justified to describe the event”. There’s no questioning the millions of viewing figures that TT+ has received since the sport has been globally televised, and even for me holding a microphone on the event for the past few years, it brings about pressures of the language used and a level of courtesy that is more considered than any other event I’ve worked on. And Gary explained that he felt similar in his role. I guess with a lot of jobs, you start to feel the pressure when there are more eyes on what you’re doing. “In a nice way though,” Gary described, “I’m aware of the global reach we’ve now got and I’m conscious that we’re there to put on a show, however I wouldn’t compromise safety for that. We’re actually starting to see a range of different spectators and the fan base is widening, so I’m acutely aware that we need to continue to educate viewers and get the right messages across about our sport”.

As well as strong viewing figures, the TT continues to see healthy and well over-subscribed entry lists. Riders can submit their entry in the winter before a TT event and all entries are reviewed by the Entry Management Team, which takes into account previous performance results, lap speeds, timings and previous experience. The races can only cater to so many riders so unfortunately there are always entries that miss out, making this an even rarer opportunity to race at the historic event, but when Gary was telling me that the Supersport, Superstock and Superbike classes are almost always brimming with entries, it was great to hear that so many riders are still extremely keen to race at the TT after all these years. “The uniqueness of the TT course and being able to race a bike at incredible speeds for such a distance is one of the main reasons I think riders keep coming back year after year. The amount of time a rider gets to spend on the bike is far greater compared to other events, meaning they have a lot of practice time and racing time. But other than this, the TT course is just iconic – I’ve heard some of the riders say that they race around with a big grin on their face! It’s fantastic to hear”.

Those grins now travel round the TT course at speeds of over 200mph… and counting, so Gary and his team are constantly looking at where core protection is deployed based on the increase in speed and technology of modern motorbikes. Race Control has access to bike data, rider feedback and camera footage each year to be able to make these weighty safety decisions. This is predominantly led by a TT Course Review in the autumn, where 12 sectors of the course have their own Chief Marshall who works with Thompson and the team to review the marshal positions, radios, flags, tarmac inspections and more to culminate in a ‘Sector Service Programme’.

My eyes were opened to hear just how much of an examination every inch of road is given. However, I still couldn’t help but wonder that with the growing rate of motorcycle tech and the exclamations I hear from riders who describe their machines as absolute animals; could we see a day where Superbikes will be too fast for the TT course? “I don’t know when, but I think there will come a time when someone somewhere says ‘that’s enough speed’, not just at the TT but across motorsport in general. I think manufacturers have a responsibility in that. To ride a superbike now, it’s a 200mph missile, as is pretty much the superstock class and so we’re seeing the increasing popularity of the Supersport genre and I think that will be the new ‘top’ class in the future”, thinks Gary. But surely, on the other hand, if things become too strict then it won’t be the TT, will it? “We’re always looking at what we can do to improve the TT, looking at many safety strategies and, at the moment, I think it’s in a really good place. Although we want to make it as safe and as successful – and as modern as possible – we don’t want to get away from what the TT is”.

Having ridden for 20 years himself and now currently owning a Yamaha Tracer 9, Thompson told me that he’d ridden his bike on the open roads of the TT course many times, but never when the roads were closed. I asked if he would ever want to. And without hesitation, “Yeah. I’d love to. I’d absolutely love to”. I don’t know how we can make this happen, but surely this has got to happen? While I was thinking of a plan to help Gary onto closed roads, we were being ushered out of the café at closing time, showing how long we’d been there, getting lost in one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had about this sport. I needed to ask one more thing. I knew he was great at his job for over a decade, but I’d never sat down to properly chat with him and to really experience his calm nature, ability to recall precise information and to see how he really wears his heart on his sleeve – so I couldn’t help but think after meeting today, who else would step into a job like this and how will that affect what the future of the TT looks like? “I think the TT has got a very long and bright future ahead, with the increasing film and television opportunities, this will have an impact on the fan base. Aside from this, we’re doing a lot of work on the safety and on the brand of the TT. Every aspect is being looked at to see what we can do to improve the event for the future. I hope that the TT will be here for a long time to come. I turn 63 soon and I’ve got maybe 5 or 6 years more in this role. I’ve had conversations about what will happen when that time comes and I’ll certainly be somewhere in the background to assist but soon it’ll be time to hand over the reins”. And with that, something pricked in his eyes. It’s incredibly refreshing to speak with someone who is so passionate about what they do and the thought of him stepping down struck a chord. Gary Thompson MBE is someone who has stood in a marshal’s shoes over the years so he could have an awareness of what was needed at that angle, he gets out on his motorbike on race mornings to inspect the course conditions himself, but humbly says, “I can see why residents get frustrated with me because I’m fairly well known for putting in delays! But they know I only put riders out in the best possible conditions”. I saw just how pivotal the Clerk of the Course role is in making a sport we love continue in the best possible way, and Gary spoke both factually and emotionally about his job, which made me think that the TT is in very good hands, both now and in the near future. For me, Gary has unfolded a narrative: from awe and spectacle, into responsibility and control, and finally into the raw, human reality behind one of motorsport’s most extreme events.