Just past eight o'clock, the spectator stands outside the racetrack were already a third full. In France, the twenty-four-hour endurance race was a highly popular sporting event.
On the track, the participating brands and riders had all arrived in the pit garages. The factories participating in the endurance race were more numerous than...
Due to the longer duration of the main race, the schedule for the twenty-four-hour endurance race was also quite tight. Qualifying was scheduled to start at ten-thirty, and the main race at noon.
The qualifying session would follow a two-lap rule, with the fastest lap time determining the starting grid for the main race.
Inside the pit garages, technicians from various manufacturers were fine-tuning their respective racing machines.
Ling Mu naturally had his own superbike, the Ling Mu Da R.
BMW had the S1000RR, Kawasaki the ZX10R, also known as the Kawasaki Da Niu, MV Agusta the F4, Yamaha the R1, Ducati the V4, RC8, Honda the CBR1000RR Fireblade, and Aprilia the RSV4. A total of nine participating teams and eighteen competing riders.
It was the old rule for endurance races: riders change, but the bikes do not. Each rider would race for one hour, with one motorcycle running for twenty-four hours. If the bike encountered problems, crashed, or ran out of fuel, the rider had to push it back to the pit garage for repairs, with the repair time counting towards the race time. The team that completed the most laps within the entire twenty-four hours would win.
Last year, the Suzuki team won the twenty-four-hour endurance race with 855 laps. Suzuki had always been a dominant force in the twenty-four-hour endurance race.
In the Suzuki pit garage, the person in charge wore a relaxed expression. He sat in his chair, watching the racing data on the computer screen while observing his technicians fine-tuning the race bike.
When he saw the weather this morning, he knew that if nothing unexpected happened, the championship was practically secured. The weather today was bright and clear, with no clouds, and none of the smog from yesterday. Excluding weather as an unforeseen factor, there were essentially no other unexpected situations to anticipate.
"Put the race fuel into the cooler."
"Yes."
Glancing at the time, Suzuki's负责人 (person in charge) gave an instruction to his technicians, then continued to focus on the computer screen.
...
At nine-thirty in the morning, one hour before qualifying, the spectator stands were already mostly filled. Nearly 150,000 spectators had flocked to the venue, a remarkable turnout for any event in France. The stands were packed with dense black silhouettes, and the pit garages were filled with a tense atmosphere as everyone busily prepared the race bikes.
China Spectator Stand.
The number of people in the China spectator stand was far less than at the eight-hour endurance race, with only a little over ten thousand. Due to the absence of their own national riders, these spectators were there to support riders from other countries.
"Go Kawasaki, go Dos, blow Suzuki away this year!"
In the center of the stands, a young man wearing a white t-shirt with a Kawasaki logo stood up and shouted with a flushed face. Based on his words, he was clearly a Kawasaki fan. The surrounding people did not show any displeasure at his loud shouting, as they felt the same way.
However, the young man did not howl for long before someone from behind pulled him.
"Sit down, you. Your Kawasaki will still be crushed by my Suzuki this year."
"What the hell! It's one thing to insult Kawasaki, but what do you mean by pulling me!"
Being pulled and having his faith insulted, the young man became angry.
"Alright, stop arguing. Why don't you cheer for Ducati instead?"
Seeing that the two were about to get into a scuffle, another person next to them immediately intervened. However, their words were quickly shut down because Ducati was very poor in endurance races; if not last place, it was close to it.
"Tch, if I'm going to cheer for them, I might as well do it at home instead of coming to watch the race."
Hearing the other person say this, the young man snorted dismissively, showing no restraint in his words despite it being a brand from his own country.
Seeing this, the other person could only sigh helplessly.
...
At ten o'clock in the morning, half an hour before the race began, over a hundred broadcast personnel holding cameras entered the nine pit garages.
Outside the Kawasaki pit garage, next to Ducati's.
"Hey, buddy, don't you think that Chinese woman looks familiar?"
A staff member, squatting on the ground by the entrance and wrapping tire warmers around a race bike, suddenly said to his colleague opposite him.
"Which woman?"
His colleague, while checking the tire temperature with an instrument, scanned the surroundings, not spotting the Chinese woman the other person mentioned.
"She's behind you."
The staff member nodded his chin, gesturing for his colleague to look back. Hearing this, the colleague turned around and saw Su Mojin standing at the entrance of the Ducati garage.
Upon seeing her, he was instantly struck by her beauty.
"No, I don't recognize her. However, I must admit, this Chinese woman is very beautiful."
His colleague shook his head, stating he had not seen this Chinese woman before.
Hearing his colleague's reply, the staff member squatting on the ground opposite had many of his thoughts disappear. He couldn't help but glance at the Ducati pit garage again. For some reason, he felt he had seen this woman before while watching races; it seemed... very similar to the girlfriend of that Lin Shen from China.
As a motorcycle industry professional, his daily life naturally involved watching races. It was not impossible for him to have seen Su Mojin on television.
However, speculation was speculation, and he dared not think too much about it. If Lin Shen's girlfriend was present, then Lin Shen would also be present. In a twenty-four-hour endurance race, if GP Ge made a move, it would be like cheating.
"Boss, smellarat (something's wrong), quickly look at the pit garage broadcast feed!"