MOTORCYCLING - JAPANESE WIN BOTH ROUND NINE SUPERBIKE RACES .
SUGO , Japan 1996-08-25
Teenager Yuuichi Takeda , racing in only his first season , outclassed the big names to win the first race in round nine of the world superbike championship on Sunday .
Takeda , 18 , showed poise far beyond his years to overtake Australian Ducati rider Troy Corser , last year 's championship runner-up , with four of the 25 laps left .
Honda 's Takeda was pursued past Corser by the Yamaha duo of Noriyuki Haga and Wataru Yoshikawa with Haga briefly taking the lead in the final chicane on the last lap .
But Takeda found one more spurt of power to just take the flag first with Haga second and Yoshikawa third .
Haga had the consolation of recording the fastest lap at 147.159 kph .
Corser , who crashed during practice on Friday , limped in fourth , four seconds behind Takeda with championship leader Aaron Slight of New Zealand 11 seconds behind the winner .
In the second race , Takeda again challenged strongly until the fifth lap from the end when he crashed while running second to eventual race winner Takuma Aoki .
Aoki , the elder brother of reigning 125cc world champion Haruchika , had a race-long duel with John Kocinski of the United States on a Ducati before taking the chequered flag .
Kocinski led for the early laps before he was passed first by Aoki , who recorded the fastest lap of 147.786 kph , and then by Takeda .
With Takeda out of the race , Kocinski regained second place but he could not overtake Aoki .
Haga again was the unlucky rider finishing third ahead of Slight with Corser in 10th place .
But the strong showing by the Japanese riders did not alter the championship table with Slight still leading on 280 points , followed by Corser with 269 and Kocinski with 254 .