23 April 2006
Round 2– Le Mans, France
Diablo 666 Kawasaki had finished 8th in Round 1 of the 2006 World Endurance Championship in Assen, Holland, but only just after only having two gears. The weather in Le Mans was glorious on race day and a wet race based on the weekend forecast was unlikely.

With only 56 riders being allowed on the grid everyone had to work very hard to qualify and avoid being excluded from the race. Diablo 666 had qualified well in 17th position when up against all the French factory superbike teams that appear only at the French 24 hour races.

Olivier Ullman had the honour of starting but found a false neutral and was slow away from the start proper and came round at the end of lap 1 in a 30th place. He knew he had to make amends - and do that he did making up as many places as possible and after 20 laps had taken the Diablo bike to 22nd place.

Olivier handed over to Marko who also put in some of his fastest laps on race rubber. He was messed up by two safety cars sessions, the first being after the No. 1 Suzuki highsided Kitigawa at least ten feet into the air. Ouch, that must have hurt!

A further period behind the safety cars cost Marko yet more time but at the end of his session Diablo were now up to 15th. Young Alex Cudlin was up next and put in consistently fast laps and suddenly Diablo were now on the first TV screen showing the race positions and lap times displays. Things were looking good but there was a long, long way to go.

As things settled down as the evening drew in after four hours, Diablo 666 were lying in a very respectable 11th. There were five other WEC regulars ahead of them including Diablo’s partner team, Bolliger Kawasaki, lying in 6th.

After 255 laps Diablo had broken into the top ten with Bolliger running a strong 5th. However, the gremlins had begun to creep in again. All three riders were complaining of the gearbox jumping out of third gear. Rebuilt bike, rebuilt gearbox, surely Diablo were not going to be plagued with the same problems as at Assen? We would have to wait and see.

Then another gremlin struck. Known for not being one of the best lit race circuits and with the added problem for the riders at Le Mans of the smoke which drifts across the track from the many bonfires that the fans light during the night – unfortunately cut short Marko’s stint by completely flattening the battery after the temptation of running two headlights instead of just the one - and the ensuing 7 minute pit stop to change batteries dropped the Team back down to 19th and out of the points.

Back again into a points scoring position after 12 hours – 15th, but soon real disaster was to strike again. With Marko on board the gears began to once again jump out of 3rd and 4th and finding any gears at all was becoming increasingly more difficult.

Just after 4 am, Team principal, Miles Hutchins, made the only decision possible – and withdrew the bike from the race not wishing to have the gearbox seize and cause a major injury to any of the riders. “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if we had pressed on and the worst happened. We were out of the points when we withdrew and very unlikely to work our way back up the leader-board with the lap times possible with the damaged gearbox – had it been only two hours to go (as at Assen) then we would have tried to ride round the problem”.

Alex Cudlin was also downbeat but added, “What an experience to come here and ride for Diablo 666 at the famous 24hrs race at Le Mans. They are a bonzer bunch of guys and had all worked so hard to get the bike so far up the leader board and we were catching the guys ahead of us too”.

It was a disappointing end to a race which had promised so much but once again showed that Diablo 666 can run with the cream of both the World’s best and the French specialist endurance teams.

The next round is in a month’s time in Albacete, Spain.

< Back to main news page