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ROAD RACE World Championship Superbike ROlld Race series By Johan Vandekerckhove Photos by Gold & Goose SUGO, JAPAN, AUG. 25 hile the Japanese riders were .generally expected to put on a good show in front of their home crowd at the Japanese round of World Superbike Championship, no one expected the local show was going to be this good. For the first lime ever, a Japanese rider stood atop the victory podium at a World Superbike race. That rider was Yuuichi Takeda and he was accompanied by countrymen Noriyuki Haga and Wataru Yoshikawa on the race one podium. Race two br.ought a bit of a return to normalcy, but only behind second Japanese winner Takuma Aoki. Chalking a few strokes up for the series regulars were Ducati Corse's John Kocinski, second place after a race-one fifth, and Aaron Slight, who finished third in race two and sixth behind Kocinski in the first heat. Notably absent from the podium at Sugo was Promotor Ducati's Troy Corser, desp~rate to make up points on series leader Slight. Unfortunately, Corser lost points here, six to be exact, after suffering once again from his seemingly endless stream of bad luck. The Australian looked set to win the first race after taking the holeshot and motoring out to a comfortable margin, but then things went wrong. Shifting trouble and a spent rear tire relegated Corser to fourth, as the three charging Japanese sped past him to fill the podium. A heavily vibrating engine that was producing minimal power-left Corser ninth in race two and 13 points behind championship leader Slight, 283-270. Kocinski's relatively consistent showing has him a few points closer to Corser with 254. Though Carl Fogarty is still running fourth in the points (238), his eighth and fourth did little to stoke his championship hopes. W 20 Round 9: Sugo, Japan (Above) Troy Corser (2) gets the jump on the field from his Inside starting position In the first of two World Superblke legs at Sugo. (Right) John Kocinski (11) fared the best of the series regulars with his 5-2 finishes on the day; here he's trailed by Corser in the second race. RACE ONE Corser knew what he had to do. The Australian took th.e holeshot and looked set to open up a big gap right away. After two laps, he was leading Wataru Yoshikawa, Noriyuki Haga, Kocinski and the rest of the pack. By that lime, two Italians already had left the battlefield. Paolo Casoli crashed out of the race and Pier-Francesco Chili decided not to tempt fate any longer, feeling too much pain in his left knee ligaments after his fiery crash in qualifying the day before. After 10 laps, Corser had a com fortable lead in hand, his race evidently moving according to plan. Running some distance behind him was a group of three very aggressively riding Japanese: Takeda, Haga and Yoshikawa. A bit further down the field was a very lonely Kocinski, an equally lonely Akira Yanagawa and a group consisting of, among others, Norihiko Fujiwara, Aoki and Slight. Just when everyone expected Corser to settle to cruising speed after half-distance, Honda rider Takeda started to speed up and left his two countrymen fighting it out for third place. It was.only when Takeda got on Corser's tail with some five laps to go that the .21,500 spectators realized that something was seriously wrong with the leading Promotor Ducati. It became very clearly evident this was so when, in the closing stages of the race, Corser first had to let Takeda past, and then also Haga. A daring maneuver by Yoshikawa in the tight chicane before. the start/ finish line topped it off for the Aus- tralian: he crossed the line in fourth position behind Takeda, . Haga and Yoshikawa. "I had a lot of problems choosing third gear coming out of the chicane," Corser said. "And the rear tire had gone off after haJf-distance. J had a couple of big slides, after which J decided not to cook it. J settled into a constant pace and tried not to spin the rear tire too much. J knew that I would not stand a chance against Takeda's Honda in these circumstances. That bike was very fast on top speed and the rider knew the way through that infamous chicane. Too bad that I missed the podium after my confrontation with Yoshikawa. He cut me off in the chicane. I had to grab the brake and went into the grass." . Takeda was of course overjoyed with this first Japanese victory in World Superbike racing. as well as leading the charge that also made it the first lime a rostrum had been filled by three Japanese riders.