A NEW TROPHY FOR 2006...

...for the World Endurance Championship Rookie of the Year...more details to follow.

FIM World Endurance Championship organisers FGSPORT have announced an agreement with website www.MotorTV.it which will see the official championship highlights programme made available online. The 26 minute television programmes will feature English language commentary by championship expert (eh??)...me. They will be available online to all World Endurance fans from the Friday after each race, and there will also be short video clips providing interviews and behind the scenes footage.
This is a great opportunity for fans of World Endurance Racing to re-live the highlights of every race and also to get closer to the riders and teams that provide such a unique motorsport spectacle.

More information from www.WorldEndurance.com and www.MotorTV.it

DIABLO'S CUDLIN Vs PHASE ONE'S CUDLIN - THE YOUNGER BROTHER'S STORY

Alex Cudlin (Diablo 666) used the test as a chance to learn the Le Mans circuit and gain more experience on
the Diablo Kawasaki.
"I've got a lot to learn this year. Every circuit is new to me here, so Le Mans was no different. It was real hard to learn, but it was such a buzz to be riding the famous Le Mans circuit for real and not just on my Playstation!" The track had everything from 50km/h turns to 250km/h ones - and it was very physically demanding. Doing the 24 hour there won't be easy"
Alex was joined by brother Damian at the circuit, who was also testing for his Phase One Yamaha team over the 2 days.
"It's fun hanging out with Damo here, and although we were both kept pretty busy at the test, we could still have a chat and help each other out here and there." Alex said.

PHASE ONE TESTING AT LE MANS - WARWICK...

Le Mans Shakedown 4-5th April -

"Tuesday and Wednesday provided glorious blue skies and plenty of sunshine for the annual pre-season Le Mans test.

The atmosphere was alive at the northern French circuit as a record number of teams took part in the frantic 2 day test. Looking more like a qualifying session, the 2 days provided action packed viewing for the surprisingly good number of spectators.

Amongst the action were a large number of fallers including my team mate, Christer Minin. Christer fell on the new section of the Le Mans circuit which is also the fastest part! The 250km/h crash was put down to a lack of grip on the new asphalt and very low track temperature. Other teams that were kept busy with repairs included the Factory Castrol Suzuki team and Yamaha Austria.

Christer’s fall occurred after only 20 minutes of the opening practice and sidelined us until after lunch. Once out on the circuit, we encountered many problems that didn’t affect us two weeks ago. The surface, the undulating nature and the cold track temperature changed our bike’s behaviour dramatically. The majority of our work was aimed at improving acceleration out of the corners. And, we did improve the bike and learn more about the new parts we have this year.

By the end of the first day we had changed gearing, rear shock settings, linkages, ride height and tested 3 different rear tyres. Again, Dunlop were by our side and in our garage all day, their support is priceless. I remember struggling with the bike and the tyres I had last year and have been looking forward to riding the Yamaha with Dunlop tyres again at Le Mans. My fastest lap time was 1.41.9 which is so much better than last year.

Day 2 of the test was aimed at completing long runs. I’m always telling the team to leave the bike out on the track for an hour! But, it never happens that way. On the final day, and with the sun shining, everyone was trying very hard… too hard! I think the red flag was out every 20 or 30 minutes! I also got caught up in the ‘try too hard’ area and touched a few bikes, ran someone off the track and had a small race with Castrol Suzuki’s, Vincent Philippe and Yamaha Austria’s, Sebastien Scarnato. It was great for me to see where they are stronger and where their weakness is. Going into the corners I could catch them, in the middle of the corners they were in my way, on the exit, they were so much better. They drive off the corners so smoothly whilst I am spinning and trying to stand the bike up still turning. I came back into the pit garage (a bit fired up!) asking my team manager Russell Benney to help me beat these ‘girls’ that can’t ride through corners!!!

Throughout the day we still managed to improve areas of the bike that will make life more comfortable after several hours racing. My team mate, Damian Cudlin, was learning the circuit and not feeling confident with the bike. However this improved late in the day and Damian managed to do 1.43.8. Christer managed to get back up to speed after his tumble and lap consistently in the 1.44’s.

I was able to equal my first day time of 1.41.9 and lap consistently in the low 1.42’s. However… this is not good enough. We need to find something extra to beat the Factory bikes. We are not far away, but still not where we should be. And of course, Damian and Christer need to get more comfortable with the bike.

I don’t know any official lap times but riding with the Factory bikes on the track, I think they would be lapping between high 1.40’s to high 1.41’s.

Next week the wait will be over as the curtain rises on the most intense Endurance World Championship in years. The battle will commence with Round 1 of the 2006 series at the new look Assen circuit in the Nederlands. As usual, I can’t wait! But, this week the team and I will go through everything we have learnt over the past 2 tests and be prepared for Assen and… just a few days later, the famous Le Mans 24 hour festival."

Team-mate and fellow Aussie, Taree's Damian Cudlin completed the final pre-season test of the year for his Phase One Yamaha team this week in cold but dry conditions at the Le Mans circuit in France.

The test, which was held over 2 full days, was attended by most of the teams that will compete in the World Endurance Championship including reigning champs Suzuki and younger brother Alex's Diablo Kawasaki team. Cudlin used the small time he had over the test to learn the technical Le Mans circuit and familiarise himself more with the Phase One Yamaha.

"It was a pretty hard test for me to be honest" said the young Aussie.  "I've always learnt tracks pretty quickly but found this place real tricky to get right. It's really technical and only started making sense to me on the last 5 laps of the last day!" Damian said. "Alex said the same thing to me. We both just wanted more track time. Still, I made some progress with my feel on the front end, which is my biggest problem at the moment, and worked with Dunlop again to find a good tyre that worked, so I'm confident I'll be back on the pace for the first race in Assen next week."

"DEMON" ROWLEY - HE'S LIGHTER...EVEN MORE SO WHEN THE STITCHES COME OUT...

The day started off with a clear blue sky but it was also a little cold. We arrived at the pit garage to find the bikes and team prepared and waiting for us. I headed straight off to the circuit office to sign on, with this done I was
left with just enough time to have a quick look at the awesome grandstand and pit area that will seat thousands of people for race day in less than 3 weeks. Whilst I was wandering I ran in to a few familiar faces, Maria Costello and Steve Plater. After a quick chat it was time to get my leathers on!

After a short briefing with the mechanics, riders and tyre men it was decided that Alek would be first on track as he had done a 24-hour race here, then Leroy and myself. I can tell you I was a little concerned how I was going to get on, as it was exactly 7 days to the hour that I was under the knife having my appendix out!

The last words I got from Russell Benny were:
‘Just take it easy, you don’t have to prove anything, remember Assen is only 2 weeks away’.

With that in mind and the fact that Christer had just crashed at the firstturn at around 150 mph I headed out on to the circuit. The first time I came to the super fast 160mph first turn I had a little bit of a shock. When the bike hit the dips and bumps in the track it was becoming very unstable and was trying to tie itself in knots. The last thing I needed now was to crash like Christer.

I spent the next 8 laps familiarizing myself with the circuit and trying not to get in the way of the faster riders. I was finding the quick direction changes a little difficult, I knew if I did too much I could tear my stitches out We spent most of the day trying to sort out the stability problems and getting our race set up for 3 weeks time. I ended the day just over 3
seconds slower than my 2 team mates, I was a little disappointed with this but knew I couldn't push myself as much as I desperately wanted to because of the stitches.

Wednesday 5th April

Wednesday started very cold-just 4 degrees C with a track temperature of zero. I was first out this morning. Overnight the team had made a few changes to the bike hoping to sort the high-speed wobble. I did 10 laps 8 seconds slower than the previous day. The front just felvery vague! I wasn’t sure whether this was the cold track & tyres, the
changes the team had made or my head saying don’t fall off but things just weren’t right.

Leroy and Alek both went out to test the changes made and to my relief they were both slower. After a short discussion we put the bike back to how it was at the end of the day 1. We all went for a quick three laps and agreed that
was better. By now the sun was up and I had done about 25 laps, my confidence growing. With a new rubber front and rear I set off to scrub them in and find some quicker guys to learn from.

After 3 laps a group of 6 bikes came past me so I tagged on the back and got my head down, this was to turn out to be a lesson and a half. I had only been taking the first corner in 5th but now with faster guys in front I was in top gear all the way now. A couple of the riders pulled in to the pits leaving only a GSXR1000 and myself together. For the next few laps we swapped places which was good as I was learning where I could pass. It was no surprise to find that I had gone 12 seconds faster than the morning and 4 seconds faster than the previous day.

I decided to end the day early with myself in one piece. I was only 0.4 slower than Alek and again only 2 seconds slower than Christer, 3 seconds slower than Damian Cudlin. I had achieved what I set out to do which was just to learn the circuit; I didn’t expect to be so close to the other guys and faster than Leroy.
I’ve had some good news from Graham at GLF Accessories, my leathers are on their way and I should have them in time for Assen!

SORRY IT'S A BIT LATE...

With a Slot 1 processor that decided to vapourize (taking out the ADSL modem with it), it's been a while since I've been able to get everything back together on a brand-new computer...expect more hiccups...but at least I'm back online...

DIABLO 666 GOES TESTING

Endurance Superbike Team, Diablo 666, had a final shake down test at Brands Hatch, Kent, last weekend with this season’s new line-up of riders - James Hutchins, Marko Rohtlaan and Alex Cudlin.

The Sunday (March 19) test session was the Diablo 666 riders last chance to get some laps in on their Kawasaki Bolliger bikes before the team’s first official test at the Le Mans circuit in France in a week (April 8 & 9) before the 2006 World Endurance Championship kicks off in Assen on Easter Monday (April 17).

Whilst Hutchins lives in London, Rohtlaan made the trip over from Estonia specifically for the test and Alex Cudlin, brother of Damian, returned from Australia in order to base himself in the UK for this year’s Championship. The occasion was the first time that all three riders had had the opportunity to meet up again and compare notes on the performance of the much-improved Kawasaki ZX-10’s after the first test session of the season at the Jerez circuit in Spain in late January.

Disappointingly the weather conditions at the Kent track were far from ideal; a bitterly cold easterly wind meant that the riders could only spend 20 minutes on the bikes at a time before heading back to the pit lane. The bikes however ran faultlessly thanks to Chief Mechanics, brothers Geoff and Doug Randall, who have spent a huge amount of time over the winter break, fine tuning and improving the Kawasakis.

“The Diablo 666 Team is entering this season full of excitement and enthusiasm,” commented Miles Hutchins, Team Manager. “We have a fantastic trio of remarkably quick and committed riders in James, Marko and Alex and Geoff and Doug (Randall) have done wonders with the bikes over the winter break making them both fast and reliable. We will be going all out to win each race and strongly believe that we have a realistic chance of at least a podium finish at every race.”
Diablo 666 is this year looking to improve considerably on its fifth place finish in last year’s Championship.
 

LE MANS 24 HOURS...AND YET ANOTHER POSSIBLE FEMALE RIDER...

Britains Maria Costello will be testing at Le Mans for a possible place in an as yet un-named team for the 24 Hour race...more news about this when it arrives!

DAMIAN ROWLEY - PHASE ONE RIDER PRESS RELEASE

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since the NEC at the end of November. After finishing 2nd in D class in the KRC endurance championship it looked like I was all set to ride for Uprite Racing again on their near stock Suzuki GSXR750K4.

I met up with some of the team at the NEC with the view to ride for them again in 2006, when the team manager told me a Slovakian team had contacted him looking for riders.
With the possibility to ride the World Endurance Championship spinning around in my head I made contact with them as soon as I got home.
After doing a little homework and making dozens of phone calls I ended up on the phone to Russell Benny from British based Phase Endurance looking for a bit of advice and guidance. This lead on to Russell asking me if I could find the financial backing would I be interested to ride for them in the Shell Endurance Academy.

Well the answer was yes!...now the hard part, finding a financial sponsor.

I turned to my very good and loyal sponsor from the last two seasons ‘John O’Neill Racing’ from Belfast. Good news John agreed to help me for a 3rd year. Also MJK Leathers, Held, AGV Helmets, WIZ Racing are all onboard again and I have new sponsor Adrenalin X.  It’s now the middle of January and time I visited the Phase One head quarters down in Somerset to see the team’s set up and the bikes I would be riding this year. I was impressed they are very professional. I couldn’t wait to get my grubby little mitts on one of these little beauties.

Alemeria was to be the first 3 day test at the end of February. This was the first time I met my new teammate Leroy Verboven. Leroy had been riding in the European Super stock championship for the last 3 years so was very familiar with a litre bike. I also met the team and one of the senior riders for 2006 the very competent Christer Miinin.

The weather was bitter, snow on the mountaintops and a strong chilling wind, it was woolly hats and thermals rather than shorts and T-shirts. I thought it was meant to be warm in Spain!

Considering this was my first time on a super bike and the first time at Almeria things were going pretty well. This was to be the start of a very big learning curve for me, 28mm off set yokes to 30mm, then ride height, chain length etc the list goes on. Set one bike up then set number 2 up then back to number1. This is where you find out how to bikes the same feel oh so different and up end up preferring one to the other.
We had a "scratch" race on last day with a few of the local Spanish racers making a grid of about 30. Christer started from pole and was first home, I started from 10th and was 5th and Leroy started from 5th was 6th. I finished the weekend 0.1 of a second slower that my team mate over a 1m 46 lap.

Middle of March was the next full team test at Albacete organised by Dunlop. Riders like Michel Rutter, Glen Richards, Leon Haslam, Gregorio Lavillia, Jay Vincent, Anthony Gobert & and of course myself to name but a few were all present.

The first day started well but by the time I got to the end I was getting a little lost and finding the bike felt very vague. This meant I hit a mental wall and just couldn’t seem to go any quicker.
To complete the rider line up for the Juniors team Alek Dubelski returned for his second year with the team. He arrived on the second day and was fast straight away. I found this frustrated me more and more. I had to keep telling myself that I’ve never ridden any of these tracks and it’s only the second time on a 1000cc bike.

At the beginning of the 3rd day I walked the track in the morning with Christer, then spent quite a bit of time talking with Steve Male from Dunlop and with my chief mechanic Keith. This helped me loads and by the time we reach the end of the day I’d got past my mental wall and all three of us were within 0.5 of a second of each other. More importantly we had closed the gap on the very fast Christer to within 2 seconds.
The last test before the first race at Assen will be an official test with Dunlop at Le Mans on April 4th & 5th.

Since I have returned from Albacete I have been working hard on my fitness, loosing a little more weight and trying to build my stamina and strength. This had all been going well until Monday when I was rushed to hospital with appendicitis. This is all I need one week before Le Mans and 3 weeks before the first race.

I had some more bad news today. MJK leathers have had a few problems and don’t know whether my new suit will be ready in time for the first race! Graham from GLF accessories is doing everything he can to sort this. If push comes to shove Leroy will collect them for me from the factory in Holland on his way to Assen.
They say things come in 3’s so I’m just waiting for the next one!

Thanks to all my sponsor who are supporting me this year.

John O’Neill Racing
MJK Leathers
AGV Helmets
WIZ Racing
Adrenalin X

The next update will be when I return from the Le Mans test.

MACO MOTO No.14...NICE YAMAHA, MATE!

...but they are still after another rider...those interested contact Denisa Gresko HERE or telephone +42 1903 723738