Southern 100 organisers have rejigged Wednesday evening’s schedule after Tuesday evening’s session was red flagged because of the weather.

Last night’s session was also delayed for a short time because of overcrowding at the accident and emergency department at Noble’s Hospital.

The disruption at both ends of the session meant only practicing took place, with the night’s lightweight race red flagged two laps into it because of the showers.

Roads close this evening around the Billown Course at 6pm, with the six-lap Lightweight Race which should have taken place on Tuesday kicking things off at 6.20pm.

The Ellan Vannin Fuels Senior Race follows at 7pm, with the 600cc B Race at 7.40pm.

The H&H Motorcycles 600cc race comes next at 8.15pm with the six-lap Ace Hire Sidecar Race rounding out the action at 8.50pm.

Talking about Tuesday evening’s disruption, clerk of the course Giles Olley said: ‘We started off with a slight delay. Unfortunately, the hospital had lots of people come in in the hours leading up to the racing, which meant that they had to ask us to delay today, while they worked very hard to clear beds.

‘They did an amazing job, got it cleared within half hour, so we were able to get going.

‘We had some excellent qualifying, with some really good laps from people.

‘Unfortunately, conditions started to deteriorate. We were warned by the Met Office there was a chance of some very, very small showers.

‘However, they were unpredictable and wouldn't show up on the radar, which proved to be true.

‘By the time we got to the first race, we had some problems with bit of precipitation, which, at the time, wasn't actually going onto the road and causing it to get wet.

‘That started to change a little bit, but the roads were nice and warm.

‘So based on feedback from traveling marshals, the marshals on the scene and from the event safety officer who did a lap in the car, the conditions were considered to be good for racing.

‘Riders were happy to go and do the warm-up lap, and we put the Superbikes out.

‘They came back, and unfortunately, conditions had deteriorated a little.

‘I had some riders with whom I had agreed that they would give me some feedback when they got back from the race.

‘They did so, and therefore it was decided not to run a superbike race as they're on slicks.

‘We didn't want to take any chances with safety, so we got them to go back to the paddock and to go with the Supertwins after a short gap to see if conditions improved which they did.

‘The rain seemed to go away, and we ended up having a completely dry course.

‘We then went ahead with the warm-up lap.

‘The riders came back and the feedback again was that the course was ready for racing.

‘First lap was excellent, uneventful, really close. But we then got some calls from marshals, which were absolutely excellent, telling us that they had rain in specific sectors.

‘The rain suddenly came on, so we made the immediate call to stop the race.

‘We didn't want to take any chances with safety.

‘We knew that the riders were about 10 seconds away from the rain affected area, so we stopped it immediately.

‘We then sent traveling marshals around to sweep them back to the paddock safely. We would rather have got the races done, but we have got latitude in the schedule to put some more races in tomorrow (Wednesday), which what we're going to do.

‘We've got better weather for the next two days, so decision was made.’