That's a bit over-provocative even for ITPRO!
I watch the TT because the riding, the speed and the skill is breathtaking. Everyone who takes part realises that an accident at those speeds is never going to end well, it's their choice just as it is the choice of other young men to voluntarily be beaten to a pulp in the name of sport. I don't like boxing, but I don't call for it to be banned.
In other times, such people would have been awarded (possibly posthumous) VCs for attacking machine gun nests armed only with a colander and a pop gun. There have always been and always will be people who get their thrills from being right on the edge. Anyone who races anything to a certain extent is in that situation, it's just that we don't have the courage/conviction/talent to drive/ride something so fast that it will kill us if we make a single mistake.
Times have changed. Up until the early 70s the population was recovering from such mass slaughter that the loss of the odd racing driver didn't even raise a blip. Motor racing was dangerous, but not as dangerous as flying a bomber over Berlin. Indeed I remember at the time my father talking about Jochen Rindt as being "the first posthumous World Champion" as if it were a badge of honour. I hope to goodness there isn't a second, I bet it's a record Mr Rindt himself would not have wished to hold.
To accuse spectators as being "ghouls" is a gross injustice. I'd be a "ghoul" if I watched the videos all over YouTube of fatal accidents but I don't. I watch lap, after lap, after lap of breathtaking skill and daring where everyone comes home in one piece.
As a close, today someone else has been killed on the IoM. He was flying a helicopter, should we now ban those too? We have lost many sports stars to flying accidents, but no-one is spouting rubbish about travelling by air being past its sell-by date.
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