Recently described by his team boss, Carl Fogarty, as one of the top six Superbike riders in the world, Steve Martin rounds off 2005 with his final exclusive Crash.net column.
I am back in Adelaide and again I can report that the sun is shining and the temperature is now in the mid to high 30s. It may sound like not much has changed from the time that I was writing my last column but it has been a hard month.
My aim was to get back on the bike for the Qatar test after having missed out on the Valencia test so everything that we did on arriving back in Oz had that focus. Initially I was a little concerned when, two weeks before the test, I still had pain just from getting out of bed in the morning. But we worked out a plan which involved short walks and afternoon naps in the first week and then in the second week short cycle rides every other day.
I knew that with the test only being six weeks since the operation (five weeks and six days to be exact) I would still be very weak compared to normal. But my aim for the test in Qatar was to just give feedback on the new developmental parts and not to push for a lap time since I couldn’t really afford to get the bike out of shape or moving around too much.
The team were great in understanding my limited fitness and we had a pretty structured plan of what had to be tested so that I didn’t get too worn out. And to lap two seconds faster than what we did in the race last season was a real surprise. At the end of the test there was only a second to the main group of riders in front and I am confident that when we finally get all the parts that we have been testing together as a complete package, and I am back to full fitness, we should be able to close that gap and some.
