I'm just sitting here at Daytona in my hotel room at the Holiday Inn.

I'm really sorry I haven't been able to do a column earlier, I was just so focused on my AMA 600 supersport debut at Daytona that I didn't really have time to set my mind on anything apart from training and riding.

Daytona has now been and passed and it all went pretty good for myself, but not so well for my other family members....we'll get to that later.

I came back over to the States about three weeks before Daytona for a one day test at Willow Springs, a couple of hours away from our house in California, my brother Aaron and his girlfriend Mel drove me there, thanks guys!

The test was scheduled just for the Honda factory supported teams to break in our new 2002 model bikes. We have been doing all of our testing on the 2001 model bikes, so it was nice to get on my own new, fresher bike. Unfortunately the new CBR 954's aren't quite ready yet so we just did 20 laps on each of our new 600's, setting foot peg and handlebar positions and just making sure they were good and ready for Daytona practice.

After the test we drove back home, Aaron is renting a house just across the street from Anthony's house, so I have been staying with Aaron lately.

We have just been doing the usual, riding MX at all the local tracks about five times a week and then going to the gym and either swimming, doing cardio or just lifting light weights. We try not to lift too much because we can't afford to bulk up for the road racing.........even though the girls around don't look too impressed when we are lifting such light weights!!!!

I have really been trying to find all the right fitness techniques this pre-season, so I can stay consistent and focused in the longer races over here in the AMA series.

I have always wanted the Australian superbike series to have longer races to prepare us younger guys for overseas racing, so it's not such a big eye opener when we have to race 20 lap races instead of 6 laps. Luckily I had the opportunity to race at Valencia in the world supersport race last year and that has given me an idea of what it will be like over here. I remember when it got to around lap 13 I was so tired, not so much physically, but definitely mentally.  I'm positive I have prepared well for this season in AMA and I am ready to race.

About a week before we left to go to Daytona, I bought a new Dodge ram truck. It's a 1500 V8 and they don't have them in Australia. I got the sport model, it's awesome! But I must say that I have scared Aaron and Mel with my dodgy driving skills on the right hand side of the road!

Chad Reed has been hanging out with us a fair bit so that has been cool, and also John Hopkins has been coming over and riding MX with us and playing Playstation a bit. We play MotoGP 2 and we ride mainly at Sachsenring, Az and Anthony and I get really competitive and it's kinda funny, but I guess that's just how we are. My best time is a 1:23.7, Aaron's is a 23.8 and Anthony is a 24.0 so we are all pretty close, make sure anybody that plays writes me an email at alex@mcnews.com.au and compare some times!

So we left for Daytona on the Sunday before the race week, the 600's ride on Wednesday, Thursday and the race is on Friday at Daytona. We had a couple of days to adjust to the east coast time difference and then the first practice day of the new season was finally here!!

The first session on Wednesday went alright, we had a few drama's but nothing too big. I ended up 21st I think, it is such a deep field of awesome riders in the AMA 600 series but still I wasn't happy with my lap times.

The afternoon session didn't go all that much better and I dropped to 25th, my confidence wasn't dropping at all, because it was only the first day and also my first AMA pro race weekend.

Morning practice went pretty good on Thursday and I was in 17th position, a full two seconds faster than I could manage the day before. There are about 24 factory supported riders plus a lot of other guys that are capable of going fast, including Craig Connell who used to be Steve Martin's team-mate on the Ducati team in Oz superbike.

I was pretty happy because I went faster in the session than what I did at the Daytona Dunlop tyre test in December, so I am improving and that is mine, and Honda's goal.

My team also entered me in the 750 superstock class for extra track time, because we don't race Formula Extreme at Daytona. It was a big help, a lot of other 600 guys do it as well except I had a bit of a coming together with another rider in turn one and had a pretty decent crash. My Bruce Transportation Group Honda team mechanics fixed my bike and we were ready to go for the one, and only 20 minute afternoon qualifying session.

The AMA splits up the 600's into an odd and an even numbers separate qualifying sessions. I knew it was going to be a tough session for me, because all the guys I had been hooking up with and drafting with in the earlier sessions, plus my two brothers were even numbers, and my number (121) is odd. The 20 minute session was over before I knew it and my time was 1.4 seconds slower than my best in practice! I was pretty disappointed and I qualified 23rd but my team crew was 100% behind me, so I was still confident for a good showing in the race. That's what happens without a draft at Daytona, I was really sure I could do 55's but it just didn't turn out that way.

Friday morning warm up went pretty well and we just tested a few different tyres for the race, and then it was race time.

I got off to an awesome start and passed a few guys in the first few laps, I was in about 18th. I caught up to Steve Rapp, he rode for the HMC Ducati factory superbike team last year and also Jimmy Moore, the 750 superstock champion of 2001. I drafted passed them two guys and everything was going great.

I saw the waving yellow flags coming out of the super fast left-right-left chicane before going back up the 31 degree banking and I knew there must've been a big crash. I had a slight glimpse down and it was the worst feeling you could have during a race, I saw Aaron lying on the ground and Anthony's #16 R6 on the ground up the track. It really played with my head during the race and Aaron wasn't taken away for about 6 more laps so I was reminded each time I went past him. I was in 13th after their crash and I kind of lost concentration a little.

I had a pretty good battle with Rapp, Jimmy Moore and Roger Lee Hayden who also rides for Honda on the Erion team. I ended up finishing in 16th and I was really happy with that.  My times were consistent the whole way through and my training had really paid off.

After the race, my team were congratulating me and they were really happy with my race. Chuck Miller from American Honda and also Kevin Erion of Erion racing also were pleased with my efforts. I just can't thank those guys, or my team, my crew chief Joey, my lead mechanic Poncho, my other mechanic Lee and also Bruce Lyskawa, the team owner from Bruce Transportation group enough for this great opportunity.

Kurtis Roberts took me straight to the Hospital after we got changed and we went to see how Aaron and Anthony were.

You all probably know the extent of their injuries by now and it was really sad for our family and also for everybody who knows Azza. We are expecting him to be back in action at either round three or four and his condition is improving every day. Mum is over here, and Mel and Anthony and I are all keeping him company everyday but I'm sure when he is back, he will be as fast as he was, if not faster and maybe still even have a shot at the FX championship.

He is thankful for all the emails and cards he has received and will reply as soon as he is healthy enough to do so. We should be heading back to California on Saturday the 23rd and then I'm heading to a test at Laguna Seca to break in the 954's before the first FX round at California speedway on April 5-7.

I'm really looking forward to that round and I'm hoping to be right up near the front on the 954 formula extreme bike and also in the top 10 on the 600. A couple of the top superbike rider's (Nicky Hayden, Miguel DuHamel, Kurtis Roberts, Eric Bostrom and others) only did Daytona as a one off race for their teams, so they wont be on the 600 at California.

Well I'm sure this column will take up plenty of your time so I better be off now.

See you later.

Alex Gobert
Bruce Transportation Group Honda
#121 AMA 600ss - Formula Extreme