After completing half of the 10-round series for Motul Pirelli Suzuki, he was three weeks into the season's six-week break when he received an email from Suzuki Australia saying they no longer required him to compete in the MX2 championship. The reasoning was down to "resources and money", and based on the fact that Suzuki Japan wanted to focus on chasing an MX1 title, Columb said.
"In essence, I was left high and dry. Plain left out in the Queenstown cold, without a team."
Columb was positioned 10th overall and had been hampered by mechanical failures, which meant he was unable to finish four races.
"I had a lot of DNFs, which is not really like me."
His final two rounds however, began to show promise, as he finished higher up the pecking order.
"I really started to find some of that old form from 2009 [before a knee injury forced him out of competitive riding for two years]."
Frantic contact with anyone who had the potential to offer him another ride resulted in nothing and a dejected Columb thought his international come-back was over. Then only days before the nationals were due to resume in Hervey Bay, Queensland, on July 1, he received a phone call from the privateer team owner of Race-Line Suzuki.
"[He] said if I can get on a plane they would have a bike ready for me to swing a leg over."
After 70 minutes testing out the Suzuki RMZ 250, Columb was as ready as he would ever be to contest the sixth round that Sunday.
He qualified eighth and went on to card a 5-10-2 set of race results - the final moto seeing him achieve the fastest lap time, despite battling a mis-firing motorbike.
Although it is a non-factory machine and has a slightly different set-up to his previous bike, Columb was happy with its power delivery. A new head has been installed before the seventh round, in Horsham, Victoria, this weekend, which "should give it more power," he said.
He is in ninth place overall and plans to spend the rest of his season chasing an elusive first win and making sure stepping on to the podium is a more regular occurrence.
