John Hopkins takes his first laps on a DMG-spec Superbike at Fontana. The former MotoGP rider will race in America in 2010. image by knudt J nelson

John Hopkins was sore but happy last night after 63 laps at Fontana's California Speedway. After a dalliance with a new MotoGP manufacturer for most of the new year, Hopkins signed to race an M4 Monster Suzuki GSX-R1000 out of the Team Hammer garage.

Hopkins—who will be 27 in May—hadn't ridden anything but a dirt bike in six or seven months before swinging a leg over an ex-Chris Ulrich GSX-R1000. He did a track day at Fontana last weekend and sixty-three laps yesterday and was within a second of riders who had raced and tested at Fontana previously. Hopkins left the US for 500cc Grand Prix before Fontana joined the US Superbike schedule.

Two full days of testing without any drama is a welcome trend for a rider who has been injured in a frightening number of MotoGP and WSBK crashes in the last two years. Hopkins no doubt wants to put all that behind him at this point and is back in the US working with many of the mechanics that prepared his Supersport and FX bikes before he left for Grand Prix.

Hopkins returns to the US with a vast amount of experience on different tracks the world over and a knowledge base bolstered by riding motorcycles as diverse as the last Yamaha YZR500 two-stroke to a 990 GP1 Suzuki MotoGP bike to a Kawasaki 800 to a Stiggy Honda WSBK racer.

After the devastating injuries he's suffered in the last 24 months, what Hopkins needs at this point in his career is familiar faces and bikes that aren't going to try and kill him. Whoever is paying his medical bills must be happy that Hopkins won't be racing and developing a kooky mad-scientist MotoGP bike.

"He seems happy," says his team principle, John Ulrich. "He's happy, we're happy. The bike is solid and we think we can give him a competitive Superbike."