Akira Yanagawa

Akira Yanagawa is a Japanese occasional motorcycle road racer, born on 15 July 1971. He won three World Superbike Championship races and finished on the podium on 20 further occasions. After starting on mini-bikes he became Japan's 250cc champion in 1989 and moved to the national Superbike championship in 1993. In 1997 Kawasaki entered him in the Superbike World Championship, where he became the first Japanese rider to win a race outside his homeland, at the A1-Ring, and added a win at Sugo to finish fourth overall. He was fifth overall in 1999 and 2000 and ninth in 2001, after which Kawasaki turned to its MotoGP project and he raced in Japan's Superbike series while testing that bike.