THE push for World Superbikes Championship success in 2013 is keeping Huddersfield star Tom Sykes away from home – and a different type of hard graft.

The runner-up in 2012 championship to Italian Max Biaggi, who announced his retirement from racing last week, Sykes is out in Spain for further testing with the Kawasaki Racing Team.

Along with teammate Loris Baz, Sykes gets down to business testing the new Ninja ZX-10R SBK racebike today at the Motorland Aragon circuit in Spain.

Sykes said: “I am all ready to go testing again, though I am not getting much time to mess about at home and get my DIY work finished at my house.

“But I am getting to ride my Ninja ZX-10R again, which is always a very positive thing. We are at Motorland, which is a circuit we have a good reference data from.

“We have some quite key things to test and those things should help us a lot.

“We have two days on track and I hope we get good weather for all of it so we can work in consistent conditions.”

Sykes was fastest of all at the Motorland tests in October, finding himself in a familiar situation given his amazing abilities in SBK Superpole competitions last season.

Kawasaki Racing Team manager Guim Roda said: “Tom is so strong and we need to keep him learning day-by-day to arrive at the first race in Australia in the most competitive way possible.”

After the Aragon tests there will be a two-day track outing at Jerez (November 26 and 27 ) before the winter test ban kicks in during December and the first half of January.