The fourth round of the Superbike World Championship at Valencia in Spain proved another saga filled race meeting for Steve Martin, with the ongoing events of the weekend leaving him speechless. Following the troubled weekend, he has decided that Monza will be his last round with the DFX Treme Honda team.
The vastly experienced Aussie rider was initially left perplexed when he was approached by fellow countryman Andrew Pitt, informing him that the DFX Treme Honda team had contacted him about testing the Honda CBR1000 machine.
This news was then compounded when, due to a lack of mechanics, team-mate
Michel Fabrizio's father was brought in as a substitute mechanic for Martin, having never worked in a Superbike paddock before.
“I'm pleased that Andrew came and spoke to me as at least we were able to have a good chat and establish how things stood. But needless to say it was a bit of a shocker and what with that and then finding out about my mechanic situation, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!” said a very bemused Martin.
The bikes arrived at Valencia directly from the previous round at
Donington, without any mechanical preparation or set up work, leaving Martin's crew chief and chief mechanic with their work cut out from the start.
Martin spent much of the first free practice session setting up the new HRC electronic system on his number one bike, which proved a much welcomed benefit to his Honda's performance and helped him achieve 7th position in the morning timesheet.
A quick shifter problem and other niggling mechanical set-backs during the afternoon dry qualifying session caused him to switch to his number two bike, but, this didn't have the new electronic system set up and, coupled with only minutes remaining of the qualifying session meant that Martin was unable to improve his lap time and qualify anywhere near his capability.
