It's been a while since I’ve done a web column and the funny thing is that before you start writing you have to sit back and think about all that has happened in your life in the last two or three months – and that’s a lot of information to recall!

To say our racing season has been pear shaped this year is probably an understatement, but there have been some great high’s but also a lot of low points. Obviously the high points for me this year have been putting the FP1 on the front row of the grid two meetings in a row. To be on the front row with three world champions at Phillip Island on a 900cc triple and then to back it up by qualifying 0.2 from pole position in Valencia is definitely what keeps me motivated and in a project like ours it is the only way to keep on top of your game..

Even though at every track we have been to this year I have managed to set a new best lap for the FP1, and at some circuits this has been up to two seconds quicker than the previous year, the races have still been difficult. It is a credit to everyone involved in the project that we have improved the lap times so dramatically and we are finishing closer to the leaders, but compared to the 1000cc out there, we are still lacking a lot of power and acceleration. This has made the races extremely difficult as even the riders that can’t ride around the corners fast can open the throttle on the straights, get past and there is nothing I can do about it. At Phillip Island and Valencia I managed to get a few more point this year compared to last but this year there are a lot more bikes between first and fifteenth, so every point feels like I am racing for the win not just for a minor placing.

Monza was an absolute nightmare and it basically boils down to the fact that we are riding a 900cc against 1000cc so to try and compete, everything in our engine is on the absolute limit and you combine that with a track where you spend over fifty percent of the time at full throttle - well we know result……….

Silverstone shouldn’t have been as bad as it was and as far as the capabilities of the bike is concerned, there’s not much point in saying what I could have done other than that I think we under performed and didn’t get the most out of the FP1.

First qualifying was actually going well and I was sitting well within the top sixteen when I came in for a new tyre and then on my out lap had a huge highside and seven of us all went down on that corner. Nakatomi crashed the same time as me and they red flagged the session to clean the track but for me it was a bit late. With about fifteen minutes to go the guys helped me get onto my second bike, which we knew from the dyno for some reason was down on horse power compared to my number one bike, and I managed a slight improvement in my time but not enough to make any real difference. The weather conditions on Saturday meant that there was no chance of improving my qualifying and I ended up not riding at all which was probably good for the injuries as by Sunday morning I was feeling and walking a lot better - until I had another highside at the end of the warm up session. In race one I was black flagged because a preload adjuster came out of the rear shock and the oil was hitting the exhaust causing a bit of smoke and in race two, I actually set a half respectable best lap of the weekend with my bike running at a very high water temperature. A few laps later, I had to pull in as the bike temperature just kept rising – so it was just another one of those weekends……

It seems the mechanical things in my life at the moment are really testing my patience as I have also been waiting for the last month for the Sherco factory to send me the hot start kit for my 4T. It still hasn’t arrived which is really frustrating as the bike is a lemon to start when it is hot. It feels like I have spent more time working on it than riding it lately, and my mate just happens to have a Beta identical to my one in Australia sitting in his shop at the moment and I have almost talked him into doing a deal with the Sherco. It hasn’t all been bad though as I’ve had some fantastic trials rides over the last couple of months and I am definitely doing bigger sections than last year. Me and my mates have also ridden to the top of the mountains at Biasca a couple of times and no matter how much we go up there it is still awesome – the next time we are going to helicopter the girls up and stay over night in a mates rustico house up there.

So much has been happening lately, from coming second in my first soccer match in thirty years against the other riders on the Thursday at Silverstone and playing Bocci for the first time at the national Bocci championship here in Ticino, to friends of ours teaching us how to make the authentic Italian pizza! We also managed a couple of days up in the lakes district in the UK before the Silverstone round and put through its paces, the Volvo XC90 that Volvo UK had lent us, over some of the mountain passes in the absolute pouring rain – it was actually a lot more fun than it sounds and the scenery was fantastic!

But some good news, or actually, some great news, is that Sandra and I are expecting our first baby which should arrive around what was scheduled as the Kylami race at the end of October. So the fact that Kylami has been cancelled is what I call perfect timing, as I really want to be there to hold Sandy’s hand and act like I’m in pain too!

Well I have to go as I have got a plane to catch to get to the Brno test, which I am looking forward to as we have a new engine configuration to test and I have a good feeling about this one, so I will let you know how it goes…………

Steve