In his latest of his exclusive Crash.net columns, Chaz Davies talks about the disappointment of missing out on an Ilmor MotoGP test and recounts his first encounter with the legendary Daytona International Speedway....

Hello everybody. It hasn't been too long since my last 'check in', but I thought I ought to let you know how my first proper stateside test went. However, before I talk about that, I'll fill you in what happened with the Ilmor test.

On the Monday of the Jerez MotoGP test, we spoke to Mario Illien, the boss of Ilmor. He said to come down to Jerez as they were testing on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Straight away, I was on the case and trying to find a flight out from the UK to Jerez, but there was nothing as it was too late. I had to wait until the following day when I got a flight out of Stansted directly into Jerez.

The day we arrived, it had been raining all day, so there was hardly any testing done by anybody. Also, Jerez has the same characteristics as a sponge in the way it holds its water. It takes absolutely ages to dry as the water continuously seeps back up through the tarmac. If the sun is out all day, then you might be lucky if it dries completely.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Ilmor had a lot of work to do from the lack of track time they got on Tuesday. Having 'McWill' and all his experience in the team has been guiding them in a good direction and given them a lot of things to work on because he knows exactly what he wants and which direction things need to go. And for this reason they are flat-out all day working in all sorts of areas with the bikes! To intervene on their work in the middle of a busy day wouldn't have been a particularly good idea and neither would it be very productive for them.

That Wednesday evening, I had a flight booked back to the UK because I was flying to America on Friday afternoon. I could have flown back on Thursday, but really didn't see that there was any chance to get a test on the bike, so I didn't want to hang around. Also, the flights back were over £200 and the funds are running dry! It was a bit
of a shame not to have a blast on the bike but, hopefully, I'll get my chance one day.

On Thursday, I went in to central London to get a bit of early Christmas shopping done. I did pretty good for my standards, as I usually just put it off time after time and end up sprinting around town on Christmas Eve!

I had to get it done really though as, on Friday, I flew from Gatwick into Orlando, which was about a nine-hour flight. It was cool though, as I had about half the plane to myself so I couldn't complain! It took me ages to get from the airport in Orlando to my hotel, which was right next to the track at Daytona - about 70 miles away. I waited four hours for a bus to Daytona and then the trip to my hotel took about another three hours. I was knackered, but at least I had given myself plenty of time to recover as I didn't have to get on the bike until Monday.

On Saturday, I went for a run in the morning and then did a bit of exploring of the road which runs alongside the circuit. I went into most of the shops just to kill some time. On Sunday my team, Celtic Racing, arrived after a long drive down from New York and we got set up in the circuit. I met up with Ben Spies, who told me he'd take me for a lap around the circuit and give me a couple of pointers, which was handy.