BLACKBURN bullet Carl Fogarty enters spaghetti western territory this weekend aiming to gun down his Superbike rivals in a Spanish showdown.

The Ducati king arrives at Albacete - scene of the 60s movies - in mean mood after opening up a 23 point gap in the race for the title.

And with history on his side, after Ducati have won 10 of the last 14 WSB races there, he is confident of blowing away the opposition again.

"Albacete is one of my favourite places - I really love it there," said Fogarty.

"The circuit seems to be built for me because I've won there quite a few times over the years.

"It's a flat circuit with loads and loads of corners.

"But I really need to take full advantage of the circuits I know I'm strongest on because, after Albacete, the Hondas are going to be really strong over the next few rounds."

Fogarty and Ducati team-mate Troy Corser have stormed ahead in the race for the championship so far this season thanks to the consistency of their 996s.

But the triple world champion had to pull out all the stops in the last round at Donington to ensure he maintained his impressive start. Tyre trouble forced Foggy to push his bike to the limits as Honda duo Colin Edwards and Aaron Slight finally showed their mettle for the first time this season.

And that's a problem his team will have to work on between now and Sunday if they want to conquer Albacete.

The Spanish track is flat, but very tight and twisty, which generally favours bikes which have good mid-range power to squirt from corner to corner.

"I was pleased with the way I rode at Donington. In fact, it was probably the best I've raced for quite a while," said Foggy.

"The bike wasn't as good as it has been and we had some problems with the tyres because we couldn't get any mid-corner grip.

"But I rode really hard in that first race and threw caution to the wind because I desperately wanted to win for the fans.

"Now we know we've got to work very hard to get the right tyres between now and Sunday. It's an area we've struggled with all year, probably because the power of the bike has changed a bit."

Before the last round at Donington, Superbike bosses were talking about imposing weight penalties in a bid to halt Ducati's dominance. But first and second place finishes for arch rivals Edwards and Slight seems to have taken the sting out of that argument, for the time being at least.

"I don't think anything at all will happen about that now," said Fogarty.

"It was just a few riders who were having a moan. But you can't start changing the rules halfway through the season.

"Even if they did put the extra weight on, it wouldn't bother me anyway - it would just make me even more determined to win the championship."

Last season, Fogarty had an indifferent time on the Spanish circuit.

He finished outside the top six in the opening race but fought back to take the chequered flag in race two.

That summed up a year of inconsistency, which was hampered by technical problems.

He's had no such problems this term, finishing in the top two in every one of his six races so far.

And it's a record he won't surrender in a hurry.

"Last season my results were so inconsistent but everyone has worked hard to get things right.

"I want to keep that run going before the Hondas start to come good."

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