With the 2023 Isle of Man TT wrapped up, and a fortnight of glorious sun and record-breaking speeds coming to a close, we spoke to race fans and Bushy’s TT Village manager Dave Wookey to find out how they found this year’s festival.

This TT will be remembered for breaking records, with Peter Hickman smashing his own outright lap record with an average lap speed of 136.358mph, and the Birchall brothers breaking the 120mph average lap barrier on the 100th year anniversary of sidecar racing at the Isle of Man TT.

The most noticeable difference at TT 2023 from last year was the new race schedule, with the Senior TT Race moving from Friday to Saturday and the number of races extending from eight to 10.

This year there was one fatality during the races, compared with six last year, with Spanish rider Raul Torras Martinez killed in an accident at the Alpine during the final lap of the first Supertwin race on Tuesday.

During both qualifying and race week not one red flag was displayed, and it was the first time since 2019 that there were no recorded non-racing deaths.

There have now been three TTs in a row without any fatal accidents on the Mountain Course on open roads.

The police figures on accidents and arrests are yet to be released.

We spoke to TT enthusiasts, both local and from afar, to see how they enjoyed this year’s event.

Annie Durant, TT fan and director of the Vintage Motorcycle Club, said: ‘I have found it absolutely brilliant.

‘There’s records being made and records being broken in the same race. They are on the limit and the speeds have been incredible.’

John Gelling, from Onchan, said: ‘It’s been tremendous.

‘The improvements on the track have been brilliant and the bikes have been going quicker and quicker.’

Another local TT fan, Laurence Tracy, said the change in schedule for this year has made the event ‘a bit different’.

He added: ‘I haven’t decided yet if it’s better or worse, but I’m enjoying it.’

Ashley Hurst and Katy Webb travelled from Blackpool to the island, with Katy being an avid racing fan, and Ashley happy to accompany her.

She said: ‘There’s been less rest days obviously, but we’ve packed in what we can.

‘We’ve been to Port Erin and Ramsey, so we have used our rest days but we are a lot more tired than we normally would be.

‘You’ve got to experience the TT at least once in your life, but also just come to the island because the Isle of Man is gorgeous.’

Mr Hurst added: ‘I’ve enjoyed it [the racing] but it’s not my thing really.

‘It’s a great place, I do love it here, and although it’s not my thing I love it.’

Always a popular venue during the TT period, the Bushy’s TT Village returned to the Villa Marina Gardens.

The ten day event had a variety of live local musicians and retailers, and introduced new features such as a big screen for fans to watch live racing coverage, and a crazy golf course on the terrace.

The manager of Bushy’s TT Village, Dave Wookey, said: ‘It was really good, obviously the weather helped.

‘We had a lot of retailers and good sponsors in. ‘We had a new headline sponsor called Orsted this year, and they were just fantastic.

‘The sales were really good this year compared to last year, we had more people through the doors than 2022.

‘Our aim was to lessen the waiting times, and I know the queues were big but they went down quite quick and once people got into the festival they could get served very quickly.

‘We are very pro local bands, and we had 40 local bands performing throughout.

‘We had a big screen showing the racing for the first time this year, and that will happen again next year.

‘We’re just going to evolve every year, we’ll tweak and change a few things here and there like we always do, and just try and make it bigger and better!’