Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/177528
P24 IN THE WIND knowledge and not many of the folks who are competing have the track knowledge that we do because the World Superbike guys haven't competed here in a long time. I think there are a few…" The bottom line on why the team is opting to do the World Superbike races is pretty simple. "From a competition standpoint for us, in all honesty, it's an opportunity for us to have some fun and see where we measure up in something like this," Robinson said. "We're doing this on AMAspec Superbikes so there's no expectations from us… we're just going to go out and see where we stack up and it will be fun. "From a competition standpoint, I think it's a boost for our guys, both riders included, and certainly there is a boost for exposure for our sponsors. People are saying that we were driven to do this, but that's not really true. We do have a responsibility to give our sponsors and partners the best potential exposure that we can. But TV alone just doesn't justify taking on this type of a challenge. It's got to be doable and we don't want to be an embarrassment to ourselves and our sponsors in competition and we certainly don't think that we will be. I just think this is a cool and fun way to go do this." Paul Carruthers F or most of the factory World Endurance teams this year's 36th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was a race of crashes and mechanical woes. But for the SRC Kawasaki team of Gregory Leblanc, Fabien Forêt and Nicolas Salchaud it was the joy of victory with the team taking its fourth win in the prestigious endurance race. But although the SRC Kawasaki team won the battle, it was the Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT) of Vincent Philippe, Julien Da Costa and Alex Cudlin that won the war – with the trio giving the team its 13th World Endurance Championship title. Taking the title at Le Mans wasn't easy as SERT was one of the many teams to fall victim to crash and mechanical woes. Despite setting the pace early, SERT's Philippe crashed and although it was just a lowside the bike ended up suffering engine cooling problems that necessitated a complete engine rebuild. Just under an hour and 15 minutes later after pitting for the repairs, the SERT team rejoined the race in 54th place and was able to fight its way back to a 12th-place finish. That was enough to secure the 2013 championship by five points over the Yamaha GMT 94 team. Also falling victim to early race crashes was Foret Suzuki Endurance Racing Team's Alex Cudlin celebrates the team's 13th World Endurance Championship. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF SUZUKI RACING TITLE NUMBER 13 FOR SERT