In 1993 I switched to a privateer Suzuki team for a three year stint, and it was during this time that I learnt good bike set-up skills. But it looked like I was going to be out of a ride at the end of '95, so I got another job as a spares guy at Melbourne Suzuki. I tried to convince the company owner, Bruce, into going racing, and luckily he liked racing and the idea of having his own team so that was that from 1996. I should have been a salesman! I had a lot of good results that year and it felt good also beating the factory bikes a few times!

Halfway through ‘97 Bruce was running out of money and an opportunity came up for me to join the Ducati Dealer team - the official Ducati team in Australia – and I ended up fifth in the championship which wasn't bad considering the mid season change over. Bruce provided me with a great opportunity that I will always be very grateful to him for and even after switching to Ducati I continued to work in his dealership until the end of the year.

If sense had prevailed then I would've been content just with my job riding for Ducati in '98, but instead I got another job alongside my racing as a sales rep for Ohlins suspension – see, I said I should have been a salesman! However, the company owner, Steve, was the best employer I'd had up to that point for accommodating my racing with the time off I needed, so it was perfect for me. And I was actually leading the championship, but half way through the year at Phillip Island I high - sided exiting Honda corner and broke my left wrist and right ankle. That obviously scuppered any chance I had of the title as I missed out on a lot of points, but I pulled out everything in me in the last few rounds to achieve a creditable third in the Aussie Superbike Championship and also fourth in the production Championship.

There was no way I was going to make the same mistake again, so in '99 I stayed firmly in the seat and took the title in the first race of the last round – without doubt the highest point of my career yet! I actually only needed five points to win the championship going into that round and so the team was telling me just to take it easy and not risk anything, but my competitive rider nature to get as many points as possible and go all out got the better of me, as the last thing I wanted to creep in was complacency.

That was also the first year I had ridden a really competitive bike as a wild card entrant in the World Superbike Championship Phillip Island round. In race one I found I was able to keep pace with other front runner – riders who I had always seen as my idols – so that just made me even more hungry for that type of competitive racing action.
At the end of that year Ducati pulled out of the Aussie Superbike Championship, but made a 748 available for me to ride in the 2000 Supersport Championship. I really enjoyed that year, but having experienced the power of a superbike, I knew that was where my heart was. In the November, I had a call out of the blue from Pirelli asking if I would like to test the Dececco 748 Ducati at Imola on Supersport treaded rubber.