Albacete 6hr Night-time Endurance The big four Japanese manufacturers go head to head A clash of the titans is set to take place at the ‘Albacete 6 Hours Night-time Endurance’! Next weekend on Spanish soil the four giants of Japanese motorcycle construction will take their places among the highly competitive line-up of permanent teams in the second race of the 2007 QMMF Endurance FIM World Championship. A nail-bitingly exciting battle is expected between the big four rivals. The Suzuki Endurance Racing Team, reigning World Champions and first and second place finishers at last month’s ‘Le Mans 24 Hours’, will fly the flag for Suzuki with its GSX-R1000 ridden by Vincent Philippe, Matthieu Lagrive and Julien Da Costa. Kawasaki Motor France, third at Le Mans, will themselves be looking for the win with the ZX-10R of Steve Plater, Gwen Giabbani and Julian Mazuecos. The Qatar Endurance Racing Team will be hoping that the same Kawasaki serves them well in the hands of Jose Luis Cardoso, Ivan Silva and Maschel Al Naimi. Those teams will first have to overcome several king-sized adversaries if they are to be victorious in Albacete. Among the Yamahas, the Spanish Folch Endurance team looks like it has the best chance. Specialists in this discipline, Folch Endurance has finished second and third in the last two seasons’ races at Albacete respectively. On board its R1 will be Victor Casas, David Tomas and Alex Martinez. The biggest surprise, however, could come from a Honda. One of the most eagerly anticipated machines is none other that the CBR1000RR of the Japanese FCC TSR team, ridden by, among others, Takeshi Tsujimura, winner of the ‘Suzuka 8 Hours’ in 2006. The fight between these four Superbike teams is certain to begin from the very start of the qualifying rounds on Friday afternoon. In Superproduction, the permanent team of Zone Rouge (Yamaha), third in the category at Le Mans, is likely to be battling it out with Team 18 Sapeurs-Pompiers (Suzuki), Superproduction winners in France last month. In Superstock, the absence of Junior Team, winners at Le Mans, could open the door for the LTG 57 (Yamaha) team, who currently lie second in the category. They will have to contend, however, with the other French and Spanish teams taking part at Albacete, in the fight for the points. The only European bike in attendance this weekend at Albacete – the Ducati 1098 of the Spanish RPM Expert Flumotion team, ridden by Dani Ribalta and Pascal Pegaz could also shake things up among the battling Japanese rivals. The ‘Albacete 6 Hour Night-time Endurance’ will begin at 18:00 on Saturday 5th May, finishing at around midnight. Twenty-five points are on offer for the winner.