Slightly paraphrasing there but I'm also getting ahead of myself. No change there then.

The World Superbike circus finally rolled back into Europe after flogging around the Middle East and Australia for the last couple of months. Popular wisdom considers this the proper start to the season - presumably the four races which went before were just a warm-up and don't count in the championship. Hmm. Anyway, Valencia is warm, dry and the perfect place to get the European leg of the season underway. And for once things went as planned, with the sun shining and no sign of rain.

Qualifying saw very, very mixed fortunes for several teams and riders. Regis Laconi was flying on the factory Ducati, posting the second fastest time, while his team-mate, defending World Champion James Toseland, had a torrid time with front end chatter which got cured only to be replaced with bad grip from the rear. The hapless Brit came in for a last ditch tyre change to go and do a flying lap but ran out of time and failed to qualify for superpole, starting twenty third, back on the sixth row. Chris Walker fired his PSG-1 Kawasaki round in fourth place while his colleague Mauro Sanchini struggled back in twenty first. Even the all-conquering Alstare Suzuki team had mixed fortunes. While Troy Corser was by far the fastest man on the track, Yukio Kagayama had an uncharacteristic slow day to post just eighth fastest. In fact the only team showing real consistency was Ten Kate Honda, with Karl Muggeridge in second and Chris Vermeulen fifth.

Superpole saw a few changes. Corser blitzed everyone in style to secure pole. Vermeulen screamed the Honda into second while Laconi qualified brilliantly in third. Second row was headed up by Honda mounted Neukirchner, showing great form in his first season with fellow rookie Andrew Pitt next door on the Yamaha Italia R-1, just ahead of the Karl Muggeridge. Chris Walker was the only Brit in Superpole and ended up seventh ahead of Abe and Kagayama with Nori Haga rounding off the top ten.

Race day started with high drama as Laconi collided with wildcard Martinez in warm-up, ending up unconscious in the gravel. The result was that the heavily concussed Frenchman was ruled out of both races.

So the racing started with a hole on the front row. Surely a good thing for Muggeridge, suddenly gifted with space ahead of him...

Race One, then, started much as it was to go on. At the front at least. Troy Corser got the holeshot, extended a lead and simply cleared off. Andrew Pitt made a fantastic start to barge through into second ahead of Vermeulen, Abe and Kagayama. Haga and Walker followed close behind. But the big move came toward the back of the field as James Toseland moved up from his lowly 23rd to a far more respectable twelfth by the end of the first lap. Toseland would continue to make huge inroads, climbing up to eighth before the end of the race. A brilliant effort from someone who deserves a whole lot more luck.

Up at the front and Pitt succumbed to the relentless pressure from Vermeulen on lap three, falling further back and retiring on lap five with an electrical failure. So then, though there was some proper racing going on, the position sheets tell a fairly static story. Corser continued to extend a lead, pulling out over nine seconds by the end over second placed Vermeulen. Norick Abe was snapping at the heels of the young Australian and continued to do so until crashing out of contention just two laps from the end. That elevated Yuki Kagayama to third, the Japanese rider being hotly pursued by an on form Chris Walker who accepted that he wasn't going to get past the Suzuki and eased off for a safe fourth after a race long scrap. A full second behind, Nori Haga had a fairly lonely race to fifth while Sebastien Gimbert managed to muscle his Yamaha past a battered and bruised Frankie Chili to take sixth. James Toseland, as we have said, brought the Ducati home in a hard fought and well deserved eighth ahead of wildcards Sergio Fuertes and David Checa Carrera who closed off the top ten. Max Neukirchner, having qualified so well, enjoyed the highest highside of the year so far, skittling Lorenzo Lanzi in the process and breaking the Italian's collarbone. The flying Fireblade hit fellow Honda rider Karl Muggeridge, who managed to stay on despite ending up with a large amount of tyre rubber on his shoulder from the falling bike!

Race two saw Andrew Pitt get the start this time, opening up an enormous fifth of a second lead by the end of the first lap. Which was promptly gobbled up by Troy Corser who simply blasted the big yellow Suzuki past and proceeded to make the front of this race as unspectacular as the last one. Corser is, right now, simply unbeatable. He's riding smoothly, he's obviously very happy and confident in the bike and the Alstare Suzuki looks like the best overall package as well.

Someone else who seems to be getting back to the top of his game is Chris Vermeulen. A slightly lacklustre start to the season has been replaced by smooth aggressive riding. And the result is that the likeable young Aussie also overwhelmed Pitt and again took station behind Corser. But this time it wasn't to be a Colonial free-for-all. Because Brit Chris Walker was right there, rarely more than half a second back and often a lot closer after getting past Pitt on lap eleven. Pitt hung on for another seven laps before yielding to Nori Haga then, a few laps later, Norick Abe, Ben Bostrom and Yuki Kagayama all came past in quick succession. Pitt, then, finished eighth ahead of Checa Carrera and iron man Frankie Chili. The Italian, remember, broke his collarbone just three weeks ago and rode his heart out for some very well earned points.

Further back and some real excitement was going on. James Toseland, though he didn't get as good a start as race one, was working his way up through the field when a collision between Garry McCoy and another rider pushed him into the gravel. Though he managed to get restarted he needed to pit in and change the front wheel on his Ducati which was locking whenever he braked. Lapped while in the pits, the defending champion suffered the ignominy of finishing last, fifty eight seconds behind the leader. But that was about it.

So another meeting that isn't going to go down as the most thrilling ever. Plenty of drama, plenty of action and unfortunately plenty of broken bones and sore heads. But not much real edge of seat racing, despite the best efforts of Messrs Walker and Vermeulen.

Man of the meeting? In my eyes, James Toseland deserves that for the awesome start he made in the first race. But it's hard to take away the fact that Troy Corser has won five out of the first six races of the season and hasn't been off the podium once. It's consistency that wins championships and with form like that I'd like to meet the person who'd bet against him...

Race One

1 Troy Corser (Suzuki)
2 Chris Vermeulen (Honda)
3 Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki)
4 Chris Walker (Kawasaki)
5 Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha)
6 Sebastien Gimbert (Yamaha)
7 Pier-Francesco Chili (Honda)
8 James Toseland (Ducati)
9 Sergio Fuertes (Suzuki)
10 David Checa Carrera (Yamaha)

Race Two

1 Troy Corser(Suzuki)
2 Chris Vermeulen (Honda)
3 Chris Walker (Kawasaki)
4 Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha)
5 Norick Abe (Yamaha)
6 Ben Bostrom (Honda)
7 Yukio Kagayama (Suzuki)
8 Andrew Pitt (Yamaha)
9 David Checa Carrera (Yamaha)
10 Pier-Francesco Chili (Honda)

Championship Standing after three rounds:

1 Troy Corser 141
2 Yukio Kagayama 110
3 Chris Vermeulen 90
4 Regis Laconi 54
5 Norick Abe 44
6 Max Neukirchner 41
7 Noriyuki Haga 40
8 Andrew Pitt 39
9 Chris Walker 38
10 James Toseland 30