Despite a strong competition, the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team took victory at Bol d’Or with Vincent Philippe, Freddy Foray and Olivier Four. The official Suzuki wins with a three laps gap over the Honda Michelin Power Research Team of William Costes, Matthieu Lagrive and Josep Monge, and seven laps over the GSR Kawasaki of Kenny Foray, Javier Fores and Kenny Noyes. The unfortunate looser of this 73rd Bol d’Or is Yamaha France GMT 94. Fighting for victory from the beginning of the race, the official Yamaha had to give up early this morning with an over-heating engine. The same problem occurred on the Yamaha Austria Racing Team, and got even worst with some electric troubles. Stopped in the pits at 12:30, the YART went back on track for a last lap to ride under the chequered flag and ended up the race in XX position. YART missed the victory and the podium, but can satisfy themselves with the 2009 Qtel FIM Endurance World title. Kawasaki Maccio Racing took victory in the Superstock class, ahead of the Suzuki Motors Event Joe Bar Team and the Qatar Endurance Racing Team. The QERT clinched the 2009 FIM World Cup, before the 8 Hours of Doha, that will take place on next 14th of November in Qatar. More, from a press release issued by Kenny Noyes’ publicist: 73rd Bol d’Or, round 7 of 8 of the World Endurance Championship Kenny Noyes’ Team (GSR Kawasaki) Third in Bol d’Or Kenny Noyes, riding with teammates Kenny Foray of France and Xavi Fores of Spain, took third on the Team GSR Kawasaki ZX10-R entered by Kawasaki France in the 73rd running of the Bol d’Or 24 Hours and the Spanish-based American roadracer described his feelings after the podium ceremony: “We were racing for third for a long time with Yamaha YART, both on the timing sheets and on the track. I was having a lot of trouble at night out there until Steve Martin came by on the YART Yamaha and I was able to tuck in and figure the place out running with him. Eventually they retired with some kind of engine problems and that meant we could ease up a bit over the last three hours. “I think people have the idea that endurance racing is easier because you don’t have to ride flat out all the time. The hardest thing about a race like this is making sure you are not part of somebody else’s crash and taking a little extra care of the engine and gearbox. There were times out there in the night when things were getting real sketchy. For the French riders this is their Superbowl, the big one, so you have to expect anything, anywhere. They are fast and they know this place so well. But there are also really, really slow riders out there too and they are right on racing line, maybe racing with another guy who is also going the same speed, in some places, maybe 40 mph less on the entry to a fast corner. Imagine you are running in the dark, almost no lights except your own bouncing headlight beams on the black road, and there are fires all around at trackside! The fans started burning things in the night, eventually they set a grandstand on fire, so you are running past some big fires, coming up on some guys who are lost in their own race, moving around, and you know if you don’t pass them you might lose a second in the section, and about the time you decide there is just room to slip in under them, here comes this French guy, riding like there is no tomorrow and makes the kind of pass that I’d only make for the win on the last lap of a Spanish national! “This team worked real well, never slipped up, but the bike was hard to ride, hard to change directions, weighs probably 40 pounds more than my Extreme Kawasaki in Spain, and it took some time to understand the Pirelli tires, but they worked and gave good feel. I have a long ride in the car back to Barcelona in front of me now, a day to rest up, and then two days of team practice at Albacete to get ready for the next Spanish Extreme round. So, sure, I am happy, happy to be third but happier to survive!” The race was won by the Suzuki factory team (SERT) with the Michelin Power Research Honda team second, but, Yamaha Austria (YART) won the title in spite of retiring with overheating problems in the twenty-first hour while battling on the same lap for most of the race with the GSR Kawasaki team. Members of the Championship winning YART team, Igor Jerman of Slovakia, Steve Martin of Australia and Frenchman Gwen Giabbani, managed to get their R1 ready to do one final lap in order to be classified as finishers, but they didn’t need to because their only mathematical rival for the title, RT Racing Suzuki finished twelfth, meaning that YART took the title with one more round, Qatar, left to run.