Folch Yamaha (Noyes-Salom-Salom) Wins Six Hours of Almeria by Five Laps Folch Yamaha, Spain’s top endurance racing team for many years, opened defense of their Spanish Endurance title with a convincing victory at record pace at the Circuit of Almeria. Team leader Kenny Noyes was joined by the Salom brothers, Antonio and David, and the trio took their Michelin-shod Yamaha R1 to a five-lap victory over the Motobox Yamaha team of Pitarch-Segarra-Segarra. The Kawasaki Autoferro team of Perez-Perez-Gil was third, nine laps back of the winners. The second Folch entry of Hervas-Cabana-Lara were running second to their team mates when they were forced to retire with a blown head gasket. Team owner Josep Folch has not yet decided on his final line-up for the two machines he is entering in the World Endurance round scheduled for Albacete on April 20-21. “We found two problems with our winning R1 at Almeria, plus the gasket problem on the second bike, so we have work to do.” said Folch. “The lead bike had a problem with the quick-change rear hub that we found during qualifying and during the race we lost a couple of laps replacing a gear lever, a problem caused by a mistake I made in designing the new linkage. We’ll have both problems sorted out before the next national at Albacete on April 30 and we are gearing up to make a real run at the World Championship round at Albacete on May 20-21. So far we have been third and second in the Eight Hours of Albacete World Championship rounds that we have finished. We were second last year with Noyes, Ribalta (who has gone to Motorrad Suzuki) and Cabana. This year we are going to use only two riders in the World Championship race, the two fastest, Noyes for sure”¦he set a lap record here in 1.41.0 in practice and was the fastest rider in the race every time out, and probably Josep Monge. Monge is still recovering from a badly broken wrist and we decided to send Kenny out this time with the two Salom brothers, both young riders who performed well. When it comes to the 24 Hours of the Circuit of Catalunya, we’ll go with Noyes, Monge and Salvador Cabana. We want to win the 24 Hours again, because last year we hit un-flagged oil with two hours to go when we were leading and we were only able to finish second to Catala Suzuki.” Noyes’ next ride will be in the Valencia round of the World Supersport Championship on April 23, where he replaces David Checa on the GMT94 Yamaha R6 for Yamaha France. “This was a good tune-up for the season,” said Noyes. “But for the World Endurance round we are going to have to run road race pace for the whole eight hours. I have to forget about the R1 for a while and concentrate on the R6. The only way to keep concentration in a six hour race when you have such a big lead is to keep a steady, fast but safe pace. Even though the safety car was on the track twice this year and did not go out at all last year, we broke the record set last year.” Results Six Hours of Almeria (Round Run of Spanish Endurance) 1. Folch Yamaha YZF-R1 (Noyes-Salom-Salom) 200 laps 6:01.12.6 2. Motobox Yamaha YZF-R1 (Pitarch-Segarra-Segarra) 195 laps 3. Autoferro Kawasaki ZX-10R (Perez-Perez-Gil) 191 laps Starters 20 teams Finishers 15 teams