Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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eROAD RACE Su erbike Series: Round 7 ~ the British four-stroke racing fans . Not only did Fogarty show for the first time this year that the title might be within reach, but James Whitham also impressed a lot of people in only his third World Superbike race of the year; and Terry Rymer looked quite promising on his fulI B-kit bike - until the flag dropped. Brit Carl Fogarty (4) swept b oth legs at Anderstorp; here he leads Giancarlo Falappa (9) and Scott Russell (11). Scott Russell saw his championship points lead whittled down to onl y 11 points after his 4-2 finishes in Sweden. Fogarty does the dou in Sweden ble By Johan Vandekerckhove ANDERSTORP,SWEDEN, AUG 8 UZ zy Kawasaki's Scott Russell still has a long way to go before being able to claim the World Superbike Champion sh ip . On the same weekend that s a w th is s ea son 's first World Champion of road racing crowned - with Rolf Biland's second place at Anderstorp allowing him to wrap up the sidecar title thing s got even more blurred in the run for the superbike gold. The comfortable lead that Russell established in ' Czechoslovakia was reduced to a slim 11 points after Carl Fogarty took home two victories at the Swedish track. Meanwhile, Fogarty's Ducati teammate Gian carlo Falappa only just managed to keep up with him and Russell 's teammate Aaron Slight ended up losing more ground, especially after a collision with his Italian rival. Nevertheless, Russell can find comfort in the fact that his opponents also have a long way to go M 18 before the outcome of the battle is decided . " If Kawasaki doesn't react very soo n now, I will lose my lead in Malaysi a," a worried Russell said after the second race. Many w ould ha ve been ove rjoyed with the American's results in Sweden: a fourth and a second place can hardly be called a disappointing result. Still, the lanky Georgian remained sour and disappointed hours after fogarty's double victory. The Ducatis are being developed constantly, while team owner Rob Muzzy is still waiting for his first package of new development parts to come from Japan. But let us not forget the impressive form Fogarty is beginning to show . The fast man from Blackburn, England, only just missed finishing on the rostrum a week before at the British 500cc Grand Prix. In Anderstorp, he put the record straight on his familiar Ducati 888. And while his teammate Falappa continued to ex peri men t with the new automatic gea rchange system and the smaller 16.5inch Michelin tires, Fogarty took his own, less modified Ducati to a double victory . The new trick parts from Ducati and Michelin did not help Falappa much in his bid to get back into the (points)slipstream of his English colleague. Falappa crashed during practice and nearly did the sa me thing during the first race, before ending the day with a 2-3 tally. Slight, the last guy wi th a se riou s chance at winning the title, lost some of that h ope when he got tangled with Falappa during the first race, just barely avoiding a crash and condemned to get back on to the track in 15th place. The New Zealander fought his way back to eighth and bettered that in the second race by finishing fifth. All in all, it was a day to remember for Qualifying The circuit of Anderstorp, or - more officially - the Scandinavian Raceway, is one of those European tracks which still breathes decades of Grand Prix history, even though the fast two-strokes have not shown up here since 1990. The lap records in mo st classes are still held by gu ys such as John Kocinski and Wayne Rainey. The 2.495-mile circuit also has a double purpose: the 1.1-mile long back straight serves as a landing strip and until last year, the start and finish line were at an entirely different location than pit lane. This feature has fortunately changed, sparing the mechanics and umbrella girls a five-minute bus ride to the starting grid. Still, some people wondered if the first comer was not a bit too close to the starting line - contrary to the FIM regulations that distance being less than 660 feet. This was the least of the organizers' worries. A few weeks before the World Superbike race a World Championship Endurance round had been held at Anderstorp, and it only attracted some 2000 spectators (due to bad weather) and dropped the organizing club into a financial ravine from which they could not recover. Fortunately, the Swedish motorcycle federation took over, hoping to attract at least 5000 spectators in order to break even. On Sunday evening, some 8000 tickets had been sold - despite the rough weather in Sweden the week preceding the event. . Meanwhile, in the south of Europe, superbike engineers also had their share of work. A few weeks earlier, Ducati had developed an automatic gearchange mechanism for Falappa's bike, making things a bit easier for the still weak shifting foot of the Italian. The system can - up to now - only be used when changing gears upwards. In Anderstorp, Fogarty used the system for the first time, but the Briton was not impressed. "1 guess the only circuit where this system is really helpful must be Misano, where most turns are to the left," he said. "After a short practice run , 1 decided not to use it during official practice and race day." At the same time, rumors spread also that Ducati was not only working on a 926cc engine, but also on other cylinder capacities in an attempt to link good torque (like with the 888 version) with high top speed (like with the bigger version). At Yamaha, Rymer and his chief mechanic Bob Farnham had finally found the time to put all the B-kit parts on the bike, while the BYRD-team continued to work on their own automatic shifting system . At Suzuki, a better air induct system had been developed, and in the Kawasaki camp... well, nothing spectacular can be reported. On Friday Rymer and Whitham showed some of the things that were to come, clocking the two fastest times around the circuit that features many slightly banked comers. Whitham really made a big impression, riding his nearlystandard Fast Orange-backed Yamaha YZF like a man possessed. The only other interesting news came from Russell, who had crashed with a little help from Jeffry De Vries, whose broken crankshaft caused the rear wheel to lock and forced the Dutchman to end up in the swampy gravel pits around the Swedish track. . Quite surprisingly, the two British out-