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Round 10: Assen, Holland oped ver ion of Slight's bike). For Slight, brake trouble on the opening laps left him with a very difficult race. At around the halfway point, Crafar still held down second, only a few bike lengths behind Fogarty. Corser, Slight and Lucchiari had been battling it out for third place, with Lucchiari losing ground as the race wore on. The trio had at that time lost Pier-Francesco Chili. The former Grand Prix rider had been very impressive again, coming I:?ack from a poor start to a top-five position after a couple of laps. After five laps, the Italian notched up the fastest lap time of the race to momentarily take over third place. Two laps later; however, Chili crashed (again) and was battered so much that he opted to sit out the second race. Five laps from the end, the top five was established. Fogarty went on to win his 11 th race of the season as well as his second World Superbike title, with Crafar a surprise second. Corser finally got (left) earl Fogarty (1) leads Simon Crafar (5) in the first leg of the World Superblke race at Assen. Fogarty look the win and with it earned his second World Superbike Championship. (Below) Fogarty's wife and crew cheer him on. By Johan Vandekerckhove Photos by Gold & Goose ASSEN, HOLLAND, SEPT. 10 or a while, Troy Corser looked set to postpone the outcome of the 1995 World Superbike Championship - at least for one more race. During wet qualifying on Friday and Saturday on the difficult Assen circuit, the Australian Ducati rider was much faster than championship leader Carl Fogarty. The Brit was being cautious on the wet surface; Corser wasn't. But on Sunday morning everything changed as Holland awoke under a clear blue sky and the sun scorched a hole in Corser's title ambitions. A few hours later, Fogarty did exactly what everybody expected from him - he won the first heat, building an unbeatable advantage in the championship point standings to win his second World Superbike title. But the Dutch round of the World Championship was marred by the fatal accident 01 Yamaha's Yasutomo Nagai. The Japanese ace crashed during the final laps of the second race, causing the race to be stopped prematurely. Nagai was initially listed in critical condition with serious head injuries, a broken pelvis and a punctured lung, but he succumbed to his injuries on Monday, September 11. r L!') 0\ 0\ ...... a N li) ..g 1=0 ~ 0.. QJ (/) 6 RACE ONE With the sun making its reappearance over Holland, the Su~t?i~ riders were granted an extra 10 minutes of practice on Sunday morning, allowing them to set up their bikes for the dry track. At the start of the first heat, Mauro Lucchiari pushed his Ducati in front of Fogarty's bike at the first corner. But that was about the nearest anyone would get to the World Champion for the rest of the day. For Yamaha's Colin Edwards It that same first carner was as far as he would go. '1 was in the draft with the rest in the first' comer," Edwards explained. '1 hit the brakes, but nothing happened. I went straight and a few seconds later I hit the gravel. That was it." Up front, Fogarty seemed to have implemented his usual tactic of getting away from the rest as soon as possible. Much to the surprise of the 25,000 fans, • Fogarty's biggest challenger was not Troy ~orser or ~O}\ Slight, but Slight's teammate Simon Crafar, on the Rumi Honda (which is a slightly less-devel- the better of Slight, whose brake troubles had worsened by the end of the race. Lucchiari secured fifth in front of the heavily dueling John Reynolds and Nagai. Muzzy Kawasaki's Anthony Gobert came home ninth behind Paolo Casali after a race-long battle with Fabrizio Pirovano, Steve Hislop and Piergiorgio Bontempi. _, "This was a hard rac.e," said newly crowned champion Fogarty.