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I`m back!
I got the official all-clear today and I’ll be racing this weekend. First up, the British Championship round at Culham, my first official ride in CAS Honda colors.
Today was a scan on my spine, checking the result 12 weeks after my operation. It is knitting well and although it has more progress to make, the surgeon says I’m OK to get back on the track.
At the same time my feet have been coming along well, in particular my troublesome left ankle. It’s still pretty gnarly and I hobble rather than walk. My friends give me a hard time about the way I climb out of the van (thanks guys!) but I’m wearing a great ankle brace from All Sports Dynamics (USA) inside my Alpinestars Tech 8 boot and once I’m on the bike it’s right as rain.
I’m chuffed being able to race. It’s been a long wait, and a long slow uphill battle to get to here.
CAS Honda and Honda UK have been mega.
Harry Ainsworth and all the guys at CAS have been right there with me and come up with any little thing I’ve needed on the comeback trail. (How different is that from my team down in Italy last year which hardly came up with even the basics!)
CAS Honda have had plenty of strife in the meanwhile, with Yoshi Atsuta out for a while and Crockstar having that bad shoulder which he struggled through so well at Teutschenthal. Now this week we hear that Jussi V. is out with a broken back, similar to mine but higher up.
I can only sympathise with Jussi, and also with Harry and the team who haven’t had one event with all four riders this year.
I’m here with my mechanic Fabio and the CAS team in the British Midlands as I write and things are sweet for my first outing this Sunday.
At the same time the Honda import and racing guys in the UK have been just as supportive. Roger Harvey, who looks after our whole racing effort for Honda, came to every day’s testing when I first started riding. He was even able to offer some riding tips … Roger is an ex MX-racer (about 1923 I think).
Last Tuesday we went for a promo ride day at the new circuit on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of the English mainland. Yoshi and I flew the CAS flag, with Fabio in support.
Great track! It reminds me of the GP circuit in Bulgaria (where I’ll be racing in a couple of weeks), except IoW is softer than the 40-degree hardbake out there and cut through lush green grass. Like Bulgaria, it’s laid out over a natural terrain hillside, amid the island’s white chalk cliffs.
It certainly wasn’t 40 degrees on Tuesday. More like 10, cold and windy. But the organisers are promising better for when the British Champ round is held there in the summer hols at the end of June. I’m looking forward to it.
It’ll be my second Brit outing. Please don’t expect too much at Culham this Sunday, nor at the Italian GP a week later. I feel I’ve come back OK with my riding and my base fitness is all right, but these four months off the bike have left me badly lacking ride time.
It will be a slow buildup to full GP fitness and form, but every journey starts with a little step and I’m about to take mine.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Later,
Josh
#35 British, #5 GP
