20 year old Australian,  Alex Cudlin,  has recently returned to his homebase in England following the 2nd round of the World Endurance Championships at Albacete in the south east of Spain. Alex arrived in Spain with high hopes for the team in the 6 hour event, after having had a somewhat disappointing Round 1 in France a few weeks earlier. After setting fast times throughout practice, Alex's team, Diablo 666, were anticipating some good results in this round, but things started going wrong in qualifying.

Alex’s team mate, James Hutchins, had a pretty big crash, which resulted in an injury to his arm which required several stitches and strapping to his right elbow. It was then up to Alex and French team mate, Olivier Ullmann,  to set fast times for the rest of the qualifying sessions.

Alex's times in qualifying were great, and he knew that if Olivier put in some good times, the team could qualify in the front rows. "Unfortunately, Olivier struggled to come to grips with the circuit and couldn't get his rhythm, so his times were a bit slower" said Cudlin. The qualifying this year is based on the average of the team's times, not the fastest rider's time, so even though I set the fastest time for the team due to the averaging, our team was starting the race in 18th position on the grid. It was decided that Alex would start the race, as he was the fastest rider in qualifying. Alex pushed his disappointment at starting so far back on the grid behind him, and put his mind to the job of getting a good start for the team. This event would have a Le Mans start, which required the riders to stand on the opposite side of the track to the bikes, and when the flag dropped, all the riders would run to their motorcycles, jump on, start the bike and begin racing. Although I have raced bikes all my life and have raced in World Endurance for a year and a half now,  I have never actually done a Le mans start, so I was a little nervous. I just didn't want to let the team down" said Cudlin.

As it turned out, Alex had a brilliant start and on the first lap, took the bike from 18th position to 8th position, where he stayed for the next 38 laps. The bike was then handed over to Olivier and James to race for the next 2 hours before Alex would jump back on the bike. During that  2 hours of racing, the Diablo team had some problems with the brakes on the bike, which meant new front calipers had to be fitted and they also had a broken gear selector pin which meant lengthy pit stops lost them valuable time. By the end of the race Team Diablo 666 crossed the line in 15th position, giving them a single point in the championship. Alex and the team now have an 8 week break before they head to Japan for round 3 of the Championships,  where they plan an all out assault to propel them back into the championship standings.