Motorcycling: Locals eclipse Fogarty

CARL FOGARTY maintained his lead in the Superbike world championship with a fourth and fifth place in the two races at the eighth round in Laguna Seca, California, on Sunday.

Ducati team-mates Anthony Gobert and Ben Bostrom took full advantage of their wild card entries with a victory each. Gobert, the former Australian champion whose 500cc grand prix career was derailed by a failed drugs test two years ago, finished 3.15sec ahead of Bostrom in the day's first race to record his seventh World Superbike victory.

Race two was shaping up as a repeat with the pair - who race in the US Superbike championship - running in first and second place when Gobert crashed on the 12th lap of the 28-lap race. Bostrom, a US national champion, took over to claim his first WSB victory, while the Australian Troy Corser, on a works Ducati 996, finished second.

Bostrom snatched second place in the first race from Akira Yanagawa on the last lap, diving under the Japanese rider's Kawasaki at the entrance to the sweeping hillside track's infamous Corkscrew.

The Texan Colin Edwards finished fourth on a works Honda, more than 10sec adrift of Yanagawa. Fogarty maintained his series lead over Corser by 49 points, with the next WSB round at Brands Hatch on 1 August.

Results, Digest, page 27