Veteran motorsport journalist and former Isle of Man Today sports editor John Watterson MBE reflects on the future of sidecar racing at the TT following the unprecedented decision to cancel the remainder of the class’s events at this year’s festival...

It would appear that the TT has reached a major crossroads in its 119-year history, for the sidecars at least.

The decision by organisers to cancel the 2026 sidecar races is a significant step, arguably a necessary one under the current regulations and rules.

The chairs were first included at the TT in 1923, but only lasted three years before being scrapped from the programme because of a lack of interest.

Reintroduced on the Clypse Course in 1954 as a round of the world championship, the sidecar class returned to the Mountain Course in 1960 when the Clypse event halted (125 and 250cc solos were also held on it).

The chairs have been a firm fixture ever since and extremely popular, but the class has had a chequered history. As speeds increased, together with engine capacity, a number of serious incidents in the 1980s led to the larger capacity engines being outlawed. Eventually, the 600cc capacity became the norm, but modern technology has led to road bikes becoming ever-quicker.

The older chairs were not as well engineered as the current ones and an early issue with sidecars was engine blow-ups, resulting in oil being dumped onto the road. This led to accidents as crews lost control because of a lack of adhesion.

All-encased ‘skirts’ were made compulsory for outfits, consisting of a huge tray to collect oil deposits in the likelihood of engine blow-ups.

But the panels can be lethal when the wind gets beneath them. Dave Molyneux and Craig Hallam had a huge crash exiting Rhencullen during practice for the 2006 TT when the wind caught the underside of the ‘tray’ and basically flipped them over backwards.

Another similar incident occurred in the last decade or so, and last year Peter Founds and Jevan Walmsley suffered an almost identical crash to Molyneux’s using a lightweight so-called aero panel.

Tuesday evening’s accident involving four-time TT winners and reigning champions Ryan and Callum Crowe was another extremely worrying incident.

Mercifully they escaped with relatively minor fractures and friction burns, but their 600cc LCR Honda flipped almost Donald Campbell Bluebird-like as the wind got underneath it.

The consequences could have been much worse.

The serious crash 24 hours earlier involving Maria Costello and Shaun Parker was very different, but huge nonetheless.

The double fatalities of two crews in near-identical crashes at Ago’s Leap on Quarter Bridge Road in 2022 have been weighing on the minds of race officials ever since and, although the two accidents were not linked, there were alarming similarities.

Speeds now achieved are immense - 162mph on Sulby straight last year and a new lap record in excess of 121mph. Clerk of the Course Gary Thompson, after consultation with technical officials and other race organisers, introduced ‘calming down’ measures for this year’s TT, including the compulsory use of ‘pump’ fuel and the fitting of restrictive plates between the throttle bodies and the manifolds of the engine to narrow the air-intake capacity.

It wasn’t particularly popular with many crews, least of all the Crowes, who worked on other marginal-gain tweaks to retain top-end power and speed.

The monocoque chassis used in many outfits are made from aircraft aluminium glued and riveted together, not the old Reynolds steel tubing welded together in days gone by. The passenger platform is carbon/aluminium honeycomb, and fairings are also made from carbon-kevlar for more safety. They are extremely light, perfect for short circuits and are above the minimum weight limit for the TT.

Over the winter several of the leading teams approached organisers with suggestions including the banning of the lightweight aero floors. Perhaps these will ultimately be outlawed and the whole matter given a rethink to ensure sidecars continue at the event.

It would be a huge travesty if sidecars were permanently lost from the TT, but to retain them there will have to be agreement and reasoning from both sides.

Sidecar is not the only class under threat, last year the Senior TT was not held for only the third time in its history (two World Wars, foot-and-mouth and a pandemic apart). The last-minute cancellation was down to high winds.