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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ROAD RACE WR O LDSUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP v, ' By Johan Vandekerckhove Photos by Gold & Goose ALBACETE, SPAIN,SEPT. 21 t may go down as one of the darkest da ys in Ducati history. And one of the brightest for Honda. In front of roughly 15,000 fans at th e Albac et e circu it in Sp ain, Carl I'... Fogarty crashed ou t of both races and ~ ma y ha ve thrown away any hopes of ...... w inning a no th e r Wo rld superbike , Championship ...... stru ctors' title fornot to mention the conDucati . .... ClJ Instead . the man of the mom ent was o .... u o 6 Cas trol Hond a's John Kocinski. The former 250cc World Champion is now on the brink of capturing his first Wor ld Su p e r-bi ke C ha m p io ns hi p a fte r two s tunning victories in Spain. Kocinski did everything he could to make Fogarty's ..0 life miserable and, as the Brit put the Ducati on the ground in both races, the Amer ican stood tall on the top rung of the winner's rostrum. With a lead of 52 points in the cham- pion ship cha se w ith tw o ro u nds (fou r races) remain ing in Jap an and Ind onesia, things only look undecid ed from a mathematical poi nt of view. In reality, this one may just be over. With Kocinski w inning both races, second place was split between two rid ers: CastroI Honda' s Aa ro n Slight and Kawasaki' s Simo n Crafar. Slight ended up second-bes t to his teammate in the firs t leg a nd C ra fa r man a ge d to give Kocinski a run for his mon ey in the second of the two races. The New Zealanders backed op their runner-up finishes with a pair of thirds. Yamaha's Scott Russell had a tou gh day in Spain , beginning when he was knocked down in the first race by Suzuki' s Jami e Whitham. The Georgian bounced back with a fifth-place finish in the second leg on his factory Yamaha YZF750. Suzuki's Mike Hale, the third American in th e series, ended up finishing eighth and ninth in the two races. RACE ONE With only two points separating him fro m th e lead in th e World Ch a m p ions hip point sta nd ing s, Fogarty knew what was expec ted from him. In the first race, he took the lead in the first corner after a cannonball start from Simon Crafar. "I had a very good start," Crafar said . "I was 100 percent on the brakes going into the corne r, but I could n' t s to p Carl (Foga rty) from getting past. Until the eighth lap or .so, I thought 1 stood a good chance of winning my first World superbike rac e, but I didn't manage to ga in ground on 'Carl. I couldn't keep the Hond as behind me, either, even though the Dunlop front worked very well here." After one lap, Fogarty was lead ing Crafar , Slight , Whitham, Kocinski, Hale, Akira Yan agawa, Pier-Francesco Chili , local boy Gregorio Lavilla and Piergiorgio Bon temp i. Fogarty an d Crafar looked like they were getting a way a little bit early on as the Castrol Honda pairing were able to pull clear from the rest of the po rsuin g pack. After 10 laps, Fogarty was still leadin g, with Crafar breathing d own his