Christian Iddon

Loads has been going on in my world this month, as the British Superbike Championship has fired into action and had its first round. Going hand in hand with the start of racing also comes all the race-related commitments like testing, dealer days, sponsor appearances and all the other shiz which means I’ve been racking up the mileage lately in the trusty old Transit.

- COLUMNIST

With the sun also making a firm appearance lately, we have popped the cherry of my friend’s flat track circuit and it’s so much fun. We have an oval and a ‘TT’ circuit to use, which is a pretty epic little facility for a private track. It’s now been bedded in and rolled again to get some blue groove so I can’t wait to get back out there.

I'm also back coaching with the JW track training crew on the track days, which I’m always happy about because it really is a happy place of mine. This first one for me this year was a two-day at Anglesey (my personal favourite track and location this great isle has to offer) and despite picking up a heavy dose of man flu, it was still an enjoyable couple of days. To be honest, one of the things I really like is that I get to spend time with some of the guys from racing but not being at a competition. We enjoy the simple pleasure of riding motorbikes together. But anyway, on with the serious stuff, and we are now one round deep into the 11-round series - and that first round was a bit of an interesting one from my racing point of view.

Saturday (Bank Holiday weekend) went without a hitch, and I made it directly through to Q2 which is always nice, and in that qualifying session the following day I set my best-ever lap of Oulton Park! Doing that was pretty cool, but such was the pace that it was only good enough for seventh on the grid for the first race. Despite the position, I was still pretty chuffed, but that’s where it all started to go just a little bit wrong.