CARL Fogarty had to settle for third in the Suzuka 8 Hour Endurance Race in Japan after crashing just before halfway.

The Blackburn ace and his Castrol Honda team-mate Takuma Aoki looked set for victory until Fogarty slid off on a slow left-hand corner.

"No excuses, it was my own fault," admitted a despondent Fogarty.

"We had the race in the bag."

Colin Edwards and Noriyuki Haga, riding a 750cc Yamaha, took advantage of Fogarty's mishap to claim victory.

Fogarty crashed on lap 103.

He remounted but the time lost was too much to claw back. He and Aoki could do little but battle their way up the leaderboard to eventually finish third, the final place on the Suzuka podium.

The Kawasaki pairing of Anthony Gobert and Simon Crafar finished second.

RESULT: 1 Colin Edwards, USA/Noriyuki Haga, Japan (Yamaha) 214 laps; 2 Anthony Gobert, Australia / Simon Crafar, New Zealand (Kawasaki) 214 laps; 3 Carl Fogarty, GB/Takuma Aoki, Japan (Castrol Honda) 213 laps

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.