Onchan resident Neil Hodgson makes his comeback to Championship racing later today.

After a year in the wilderness, the former World Superbike Champion is competing at the first round of the AMA Superbike series at Daytona Beach in Florida.

He has a two year agreement with American Honda and has Miguel Duhamel as his team-mate.

Hodgson will ride the latest spec Fireblade and is quoted as saying on the official website:-

“The Daytona 200 is the most important race of the year. For me, I always think it’s a fair representative of what happens on the race track does happen on the street. You don’t just ride on the street for 30 minutes, you can ride for two hours. The race is two hours long. You need reliability. Honda is famous for the fastest and most reliable bikes out there hence the success in this race over the past 67 attempts. I hope everything stays the same. I can’t see why anything would be any different. Honda definitely has a fast motorcycle for me and I’m going to turn the throttle.”