DFX Honda and Karl Muggeridge had their first outing down in Spain.

The team tested for a couple of days in Cartagena and then moved up to Valencia for another couple of days.

In Valencia, Muggas was able to ride the new CBR 1000 for the first time on the second day for a few hours as the bike only just made it down in time since Muggas Chief Mechanic was working till  the late hours to get everything together to get the new 2008 Honda CBR ready for the track.

With the bikes only arriving the week before Christmas the DFX Honda team was flat out to build a race bike for Muggeridge and trying to get him a ride on it down in Valencia. Muggas was impressed with the new machinery and the work the team has put in and believes the 2008 model is a great bike.

Muggas comments: "The first two days down in Cartagena I was riding Michel Fabrizio's 2007 bike and I was quite impressed how good the bike was and how fast it went. My crew is working really well and professionally and I'm very happy with the team and being back on the race track. In Valencia I got the chance to test out the new 2008 Honda CBR thanks to all the work my chief mechanic Lucio and the other technician's have put in. The new bike felt straight away a lot better than the 2007 model. It's a lot easier to handle and we were able to lap withing 2 tenths of the old bike and this with a still having a lot of standard parts on the machine and an engine that needs some more tuning work done. So this looks very promissing. We are still waiting for parts from Honda, but hopefully we will get the new clutch and swingarm in time for the Qatar Test on the 10th/11th February 2008. In any case we will be going to the test with one old and one new bike, as it's not sure yet if we can get two bikes ready for the first two rounds.  I look forward to the start of the new season and a great year with DFX"