We’re halfway now in the Monster Energy MX Nationals and since the last time we caught up, things have been coming along pretty decent.

I missed out on a podium at Wanneroo by one point, but a have had a few issues that I’ve been dealing with. I’ve been working to eliminate a few minor things that have held me back in some ways.

I’m not overly happy with where I am sitting, because I had pretty high expectations on myself this year and the team did as well. I definitely think the second half will be strong for me, I’ve been working hard and I feel like I’ve taken it to another level.

I feel like I’ve worked some things out that I had to and I’m kind of glad that we had a five-week break. That gave me a chance to regroup and get a few things in place for the second half of the season that I wanted to.

The break hasn’t really been much of a break for me, because I didn’t really stop. I just kept going after Murray Bridge, continued the same sort of routine that I’d been doing and tried to actually push myself a little bit harder because I knew I had some extra time to recover. I sat down with my trainer, changed it up a little bit, and tried to find the next level.

I went to Perth and did the Manjimup 15,000 because it’s a fun race, something different, and I was actually racing the 450. I’d been practicing on it the week leading up to it, but obviously it wasn’t set up 100 percent because we were really rushed. It was good though and a lot of fun.

I had a ball there last year, so I thought I’d go back and have another go. I think I ended up fourth overall, which was pretty good with Brad Anderson, Jake Moss, Dean Porter and a few fast guys there.

After that I came back home, kept riding the 450 a bit, because when I jump back on the 250 I feel like it gives me a bit of an edge. I throw it around a little bit easier, so it felt good.

Kawasaki recently launched the 2013 KX250F. We had a day down in Melbourne with a bunch of dealers, which was cool, something different for me.

I was actually really impressed and Kawasaki has really improved the production bike, so I’m looking forward to jumping on the new model pretty soon.

At the moment I’m up in Toowoomba after another bike launch yesterday. I actually have a new mechanic, Andy Pringle, and I’ll be working with him from now on. He’s come back from Europe and has a lot of knowledge that he can help me out with.

We’re just making a couple of tweaks to the bike, so yeah, hopefully come just over a week’s time, we should be good to go for Hervey Bay.