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/127995
Road Race Round 4: Albacete, Spain WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP (Above) Noriyuki Haga (41) leads Akira Yanagawa (4) in their battle for the raceone vic10ry in the World Superbike race in Albacete, Spain. The win went to Haga. (Left) The second race saw a battle between Colin Edwards II (5), Yanagawa (4) and Haga (41). Edwards won when Haga retired from the lead with mechanical probems. I I S i. Q By Gordon Ritchie Photos by Gold & Goose ALBACETE,SPAIN,MAY16" ~ny lingering doubts as to the • competitiveness of the top m Japanese works teams in this 8l year's World Superbike Championship were quashed after Yamaha's Noriyuki N Haga and Castrol Honda's Colin i:' Edwards Il scored a win apiece at the :IE twisty Albacete circuit in southeast 16 Spain. :6 In an incident-packed meeting, injuries, crashes and breakdowns made themselves felt with alarming regularity, with many of the top riders suffering reversals of fortune. Troy Corser, already injured from a practice crash, was reduced to the level of a bit-part player in both races. A ruptured fuel hose in race one meant a start from pit lane on his spare bike, netting him a seventh-place finish after a hard fight through the field. Race two was almost as bad, with Corser struggling with suspected stretched and snapped shoulder tendons; he netted sixth. Fellow walking-wounded man Aaron Slight was in a similar predicament. "When I got here on Thursday, I didn't even know if I could ride or not, so to get fourth and seventh is a massive boost for me," Slight said at the end of the day. Slight's atrociously damaged finger, a legacy of his Donington Park crashes, stopped him from making his usual impact in either race. That honor was left to Haga, the Japanese rider giving Yamaha its first R7 race victory of the year, but only after holding off a determined Akira Yanagawa and a fading Carl Fogarty. "I am very happy to win this race with the new bike, especially as we have got a lot of races to go," Haga said after his race-one victory. "For the bike to be working so well at this stage, 1 am very pleased." He was equally nice after race two, when his triumphantly rapid and sweethandling R7 turned into a stationary one after his engine stopped. Yanagawa was particularly impressive on his Dunlops, attacking at every opportunity but unable to make progress because of his spinning rear tire. '1 tried many times to pass Haga, but 1 could not," Yanagawa said. "Many times, I was spinning the rear tire. At the beginning of the race, I tried to save my tire, but it didn't make any difference." Edwards, a hot favorite for at least one race win, had to wait until race two for it to come; in the opener, after running off the track, he retired on lap two while dicing with the pack. '1 felt 1 could have done the double