Well, this is the first of many columns for 2004. I'll be updating you after every race meeting and may throw a few extras in there if we are away from the race track for too long.

2004 has been busy to say the least. Actually, since finishing up at Barber in September, it has been very busy. Every year I go home and say I'm going to take it easy and give the body time to do a bit of recuperating. Well, I made the LA to Sydney trip on Thursday after Barber, I landed in Sydney at eight in the morning and went to work, couldn't help myself, I love being busy.

With the arrival of Emily Jean on October nineteen, the eyes were hangin' out of the head for a couple of weeks. It's amazing how things change when a baby comes into your life. Yeah, the biggest change was that Janine could get up four times a night and not be tired. My wife loves her sleep, but all of a sudden she's dancing around the house all night. I'm regularly out of bed at four thirty or five and a sleep in is six, but for four weeks I didn't see the sun come up—it was weird. So mum was great and dad was tired. We are back in the groove and ready to fight another day.

As most now know, I am with Joe Rocket from now and into the future, and this is mostly the reason for my being so busy—thanks Bruce. Mat Mladin Imports is now the Australian and New Zealand distributor for Joe Rocket. My companies are no Microsoft, Wal-Mart or General Electric, you get the picture, but it is becoming big enough to get my heart pumpin'. I enjoy the pressure of having to get it right or else. Sometimes you lose, but success never comes if you are scared of failure. I said to my employees and I say it every year in January, I'm looking forward to getting back to the States for a holiday. A few hours of training a day is easy compared to going to work for a living. Some would disagree with this, but since entering the world of business a few years back, I have been smiling at the racetrack more, under the helmet of course. I have some good people looking after things back home which allows me to do what I do. We video conference a couple times a week so I can stay up to speed.

We arrived Stateside at the end of January and funnily enough I've been busy. With doing some painting (Emily's room), odd maintenance jobs, training and, of course, baby duties, there hasn't been much time for anything else, especially after leaving fifteen hours of summer daylight in Australia and arriving to ten hours of winter light.

Onto the racing. We have been doing a fair bit of testing in the past four weeks, four days at Sepang, Malaysia and four days in total at Fontana. We have lost some acceleration and top speed compared to last year but after our last test, our lap times are very promising. Showa and Suzuki have been working together on some new settings and the bike feels good. Dunlop have been working hard on tires, so things should be better there.

I rode the Suzuki GP bike at Sepang. I can't say I tested it, because I got about thirteen or fourteen timed laps on the bike. I thought they wanted me to test it for the day and try and give some valuable feedback. Well, all it amounted to was about an hour of seat time and the funny thing was I was called in to have a meeting and, you guessed it, evaluate the bike. So with very limited time, the first time I've ever sat on the bike and the first time I've ever seen a Bridgestone slick, I was supposed to let them know some areas to work on. They were happy that I said a couple things that resembled complaints that their riders had been complaining about and that was that. Funny thing is, I thought the bike felt pretty good but the main problem was not enough motor.

Daytona is upon us again. What can I say other than I'd prefer to be at Brainerd or Road America or Fontana or even Pikes Peak, you get the picture.
I've often been critical of Daytona's race track for the simple fact that it is so dangerous. To me it's hard to get my head around the fact that they make us do it, actually that's not correct, they don't make us do it, we just have to if we don't want to be behind thirty six points after the first race. At this time of the year, I am very focused on the fact that there are seventeen races after Daytona and you can't win the championship there but you can certainly lose it. 2002 comes to mind. We will take it as it comes and see what the outcome is.

I am looking more forward to this season than any other since arriving in the States over eight years ago. I see it as being tough and I can't wait. After seeing the enthusiasm in my guys at Fontana and seeing them all working together so well it is hard for me to just think of not giving it everything. Championship number five is the only result we will be happy with and my boys and I will strive for nothing less. The number one is back on the bike and I won't be happy without it.

I hope you enjoy the racing this year and I'll check in after Daytona.

Cheers
Mat