With the 2006 Corona Extra Superbike World Championship back in full swing, Foggy Petronas Racing rider Steve Martin has been back in race action in Qatar and at Phillip Island. He tells all in his exclusive Crash.net column.
Well it's great to get back into the swing of things and February turned out to be pretty hectic although enjoyable, apart from jet lag from the long haul flights. I am really glad that that the season is underway again as testing during the winter went well and we were able to get down to some really good times compared to last year but it was just a matter of waiting to see how much the others had improved.
I had one last weekend free before Qatar and for a change it wasn't two wheels keeping me interested but sail power and lots of it. We were invited with a group of friends to go sailing on an around the world Volvo 60 racing yacht .Theses machines are every bit as high tech as my Petronas, made completely of carbon Kevlar and stainless steel. They sail twenty-four hours a day when racing and the crew live on freeze dry food for months at a time, we of course only went for the day and had a fully catered lunch.
On the way to Qatar after a lot of trying Sandra finally talked me in to a stop over in Dubai which I wasn't overly keen to do as I feel that when I go racing I go racing and not holidaying, although her argument was that it would help me adjust to the time zone difference coming from Australia. When I saw the hotel I changed my mind. It was absolutely awesome, but when the receptionist said we were at the wrong place I thought it looked too good to be true until they drove us by boat along a canal to one of the villas with our own twenty-four hour concierge. We only stayed one night but it was definitely worth breaking the journey.
