Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127862
ROAD RACE WORLD SUPERBIKE C HAMPIONSHIP SERIES Final Round: Sentullnternational Circuit porary moun t, fightin g back and forth wi th Kawasaki. mou n ted Akira Yanagawa in both ra ces. Un fo r tu na tely for H a ga , Yanaga wa had the ad vantage at the line bot h times ou t. Yanagawa took fourth in race one, then ended up with a podium fin ish in race tw o afte r the Kocinski / Crafar incident. Yama ha's other rider, Scott Russell, su ffe red in the fi rst race "fro m a poor start from which he ne ver really recov- ered, thoug h he managed to make it to sixth. The second time out, he imp roved his run ning to fifth, just behind Slight. RACE ONE If anything, the aftereffects of a bou t with food poison ing over the wee kend seemed to have made Kocinski go even (Left) Newly crowned World Champion John Koci nski (3) leads Simon Crafar (6), Aaron Slig ht (2) and carl Fogarty (4) In the first race of the Indonesian round of the World Superbike Champ ionsh ip. Kocinski won the first race with Slight second and Fogarty third; Cralar pu lled out with a bad front tire. (Below) Noriyukl Haga (41) l ill ed in l or Co lin Edwards II In Indonesia. Here , he leads Aaron Slight (2) and Scott Russell (22) In the second race , By Johan Vandekerckhove Photos by Gold & Goose SENTUL, I1\'DONFSIA, OCT. 12 ith the rider' s title settled one week ago in Japan, and th e .. • • manu fac tur e r's titl e o nly a si ng le po in t fro m b e in g d ecid ed , Castro l Ho nda 's objective lor the final round of the season was clear: Take that last point to secu re the manu - r-, CT\ CT\ ,..... N N ... OJ ..!:l a ..... u o 12 fac turer's titl e and help Aaron Sligh t o ve rcome the seven -point ga p to Carl Fogarty and second place in the cha mpionship stand ings. Along w it h all this, Jo h n Koc insk i - a lready th e Wo r ld Su perb ike Cha mp io n afte r th e la st roun d .. was going after his n inth and 10th win of the season. Somewhere along the way, though, thin gs ended up not going quite according to plan. Slight looked good for the win in race one, lead ing on the final lap in front of Kocinski and Fogarty - until Kocinski d ived in hard at the chicane an d stole the win from his team mate. Tha t move took Kocinski - always the racer's racer one step closer to his goal of winning 10 races in the season, but left Slight a few steps sho rt o f th at ru nner-u p cha mpionship spo t he wa s after. Still, he finished seco nd in fro nt of Fogarty - and there was always the second race. Race two quickly turned into a Simon Crafar affair, the Kaw asaki rider bouncing back st rongly from his chunked-tireind uced first-race DNF to lead convincingly in the second part of the race - just ahead of Kocinsk i, on the prowl for his final win of the season and the attainment of his goal. As he wa tched Crafar sli d e a ro und d uri n g th e final la ps, Kocinski made his bid , a t th e chica ne w here he'd taken the win from his team- ma te in race one. Onl y this time, thin gs didn't work ou t. Kocinski appea red to have lost the front end on his RC45 and made contact with Crafa r. Crafa r loo ked as if he m igh t sa ve it. bu t u lt ima tel y both riders ended their day in the gravel trap, Crafar wi th a broken collarbone, Kocinski unhurt - thus carding his first non-fini sh of the seaso n and missing ou t on 10 race wins. Slight, meanwhile, made some mistakes early in the race, letti ng bot h Fogarty - and any hope of taking second in the cha m pions hi p - ge t aw ay, as th e Castrol Honda rider finished off his season with a fourth -place finish and third in the cham pions hip. With Kocinski and Crafar ou t, Fogarty took the race- tw o w in and secured second in the championship. Japan ese rider Nori yu ki Haga - filling in fo r the sti ll -recovering Co lin Edwards II - did a fine job with his tern- fas te r than h e n ormall y d oe s .• Th e Hon d a rid er came a round leading the pack after one lap, followed by Crafar, Sligh t, Pier-Francesco Chili and Fogarty. The ne wly crowned Worl d Cha mpion stayed ah ead for two laps, and then Crafar mad e his wa y in to the lead . After five of 25 laps, Crafar, Kocinski, Slight, Chili a nd Fogarty ha d mad e a br eak, wit h Yanagawa alone behind an d Hodgso n and Haga in there as well. Chili was soon out of the lead group, however, w hen he overshot the chicane