Day 2 was dry at least but boy was it cold, the wind was blowing us off line in a lot of places just for good measure. The lap times were poor but we where all on the same boat, Rutter was quickest most of the day from Shakey. I was still trying to find my way around the circuit, Shakey offered me a few laps behind him to suss out the blind corners and I gladly accepted. I matched the times he and Rutter were doing and it felt comfortable. It rained again after that session so that was it for our December test, we headed home and the team went back to the workshops to continue the development of the bike.
I headed out on the annual skiing trip with my brother Eugene and a couple of mates just after the New Year and we had an awesome time, we were grabbing some major airtime this year in the freestyle area. I’m just sitting watching the Winter Olympics as I write this and I have realised the Ireland squad is in need of some representation in the Alpine skiing events, I must let them know I’m available for Vancouver in 2010! If I wasn’t a bike racer I would love to be a skier no joke!
I got a couple of days at home before I was packing my bag to head for Spain again; we were headed back to Almeria for a further 3 days. The weather was kinder to us this time around although it did get colder with each day. We had a busy track this time with most of the Honda teams from the British and World Superbike championships attending. As usual Kiyo was the pace setter, Blade had warned us he was fast around the Almeria circuit having spent the previous winter trying to chase him. We had to just forget about what he was doing and get on with what we needed to do, to be fair the Michelin boys had a bit of an advantage around there.
![Michael Laverty [Pic credit: Gavan Caldwell]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/180805.jpg)
