Taree’s Alex Cudlin Has just returned to his home in England after competing in the Oschersleben 24 hour Endurance Race in Germany .

Racing for the Diablo Kawasaki 666 team. Alex went to Oschersleben with high expectations. After qualifying, the decision was made by the Diablo team boss to have Alex start the race. As the clock neared 3pm on Saturday it looked as though it would be a wet start.

"The rain was falling fairly hard all morning on Saturday. As I went out to do my sighting lap it was really wet. I knew my stint would be for an hour, so I thought I would take the risk and I opted for a Wet Front and an Intermediate Rear Tyre. I thought that it would dry up, as it turned out my choice of tyres was fairly good. I took off from the start and quickly got up to the Front Runners. It was great for around the first 35 minutes until the front tyre started to fall apart. We had to pit a little early but as it turned out it was still a good choice for the prevailing conditions." Said Alex

Diablo 666 then got into a fierce battle with Yamaha’s Moto 38 for the next 16 hours of racing. Running in 4th position, during the night, the race was looking promising. Then at 7am Sunday morning whilst Alex was onboard the bike stopped around the back of the circuit. Alex then had to push the bike for over one kilometer back to the pit box. The Diablo 666 Kawasaki team crew went work trying to find the problem that had stopped the bike. After 5 minutes in the pits, the team diagnosed the problem as a fuel pump fuse. They returned to the race in 10th position.

"I was going down the back straight then all of a sudden the bike just stopped. I tried to restart it but I couldn’t. I had to push the bike back to the Pits. I ran as hard as I could pushing the bike and eventually got back to the pits, but obviously we lost many laps." Said Cudlin

The team then raced hard until the end of the race to climb back to 7th place outright and 6th in class by the end of the 24 hours.

Cudlin and Diablo 666 team have now moved to 8th in the World Endurance Title standings.

"Three weeks ago we were 24th in the World. We went to Suzuka and moved up to 16th. we have now finished Oschersleben and moved to 8th position. We still have 2 rounds to go, so lets see where we end up. The good thing is we are climbing up the ladder and if we don’t have any problems at the next 2 rounds, we will end up hopefully in the top 5"  smiled Cudlin.

Alex has now got 4 weeks before round 5 of the World Championship which will be the Bol Dor 24 hour at Magny Cours in France.