Sat 5th May - Floodlit but Deserted - FCC TSR - Folch Yamaha - Moto Guzzi

What: It's the second round of the QMMF FIM Endurance World Championship. As it's a 6 hour race there are only 25 points awarded to the winner rather than the 35 available at a 24 hour race. The track is the only fully floodlit circuit in Europe, but that just helps to show how few spectators are in the grandstands.

When: The race starts at 18:00 CET on Saturday the 5th of May. Don't expect to find any TV highlights on Eurosport, but in previous years it's been covered on local radio in Albacete. Like that helps.

Where: Albacete is in south eastern Spain, around 160km or 100 miles west of Valencia. The circuit itself is a short distance to the east of Albacete, on the CM332 which runs from junction 250 of the N301 motorway. Depending on how you look at it it's either conveniently situated a couple of hours drive from the Costa Blanca resorts and airports, or it's in a desert on a plateau in the middle of nowhere.

Who: SERT Suzuki entered two bikes for the Le Mans 24H race, and the No.2 team - who aren't contesting the full championship - won the race, denying the No.1 team - who are contesting the full championship - 7 championship points which could prove vital at the end of the year.

Team Kawasaki France (3rd on 22 points) and Yamaha Austria (4th on 18 points) are likely to prove the main challenge for the Suzuki, but don't discount Yamaha Phase One Endurance (9th on 10 points) who made a fantastic charge from the back of the pack at Le Mans or Bolliger Kawasaki who had a rare engine failure.

Other notable entries for Albacete include the Suzuka 8H winning FCC TSR Honda of Tsujimura and Sugai. Described elsewhere as a factory Honda entry, the FCC TSR team are actually very independent from the Honda factory, and took great pride in beating the full works Seven Stars Hondas in both qualifying and the race at Suzuka last year.

Expect a high-tech approach to the race from the Japanese team, but if riders Tsujimura and Sugai find the deserted but floodlit Albacete circuit as alien as most western riders find Suzuka, they could be in for an interesting time.

It's great to see a Japanese team making the trip to Europe (first time since Tiger Sohwa's Kawasaki squad in the late eighties/early nineties?), so we wish them the best of luck.

Not to be overshadowed are the local Moto Guzzi MSG-01 (probably) entry of Guzzi Motobox and the Folch Endurance Yamaha of Casa and Martinez.