John Hopkins Ready for Comeback

When last we heard from California racer John Hopkins, the former MotoGP racer announced he would return to British Superbike racing after being out of action for nearly two years due to various injuries.

With the 2014 BSB season starting in April, Hopkins spoke with Suzuki’s official racing website to provide an update on his impending return with the Tyco Suzuki team. Hopkins says he has been practicing on a motocross track and is close to a deal with the Yoshimura Suzuki AMA team to test on a Gixxer.

“Things are coming along really good. It’s just a matter of getting back on a road race bike real soon, but I have been riding my motocross bike loads. I’m just trying to work something out now to get out with the Yoshimura Suzuki team here in America as they have a test track quite close to me,” says Hopkins. “It’s really just a couple of track days I’m looking for to get ‘acclimated’ to a road race bike again, but my fitness is great and my hip is better than it has been in years – probably since 2008 or 2009 at least.”

The last time Hopkins raced a full BSB season, he missed out on winning the championship by just 0.006 seconds on the final race of the 2011 season.

“I still feel that I have a point to prove in British Superbike after coming so close to winning the championship there in 2011,” says Hopkins. “It definitely weighed on me a little bit afterwards, so there’s no doubt about the fact that I’d like to go out and clinch the championship this year with Tyco Suzuki.”

[Source: Suzuki Racing]

By Dennis Chung