Island's cultural heritage got TT race fan 'hooked'

A visiting TT fan has said the races may have first brought her to the Isle of Man but the island itself has got her "hooked" to keep returning.

Julie Sun travelled to the island from her home in Orange County, California, for the full two weeks of the event.

It marked her fifth trip to watch the bikes race around the 37.7-mile (60km) Mountain Course.

While the accessibility of the racing was a big attraction, she said, as "a bit of a history buff", the island's heritage railways and museums also gave her cause to keep coming back.

Her first introduction to racing on the island, like many TT fans, came through seeing the event online.

She said: "I saw clips of them on YouTube, I was like, how do I get there?

"Right now I've a Triumph Street Triple at home, so obviously I'm into motorbikes and that's what drew me here.

"But the cultural stuff on the island, it's got me hooked as well.

"The steam trains, the electric railway, all the cultural stuff here, I love them. I absolutely love the museums here."

And it was the "wonderful" friends she made on her first visit who introduced her to various sites on the island, like Cregneash and the Sound, which were "absolutely beautiful", she said.

"Even though the island's so small, there's still much more I haven't seen."

Julie's love of the TT itself came from how "absolutely different" it is from other motor racing events around the world.

"You could just sit on a hedge and you're that close to the bikes and that's the thrill of it for me. I love how close you can get," she said.

"The other thing I love, is the course is so long, you can come back every year and watch from a different spot every day, so that's one of the other draws for me.

"There's like nowhere else in the world like it."

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