Picture: Cardoso, Kagayama `fight`.

One of the Alstare Corona Extra mechanics summed up this weekend's antics as the "weekend of punching" and one of the riders involved in the incidents was Jose Luis Cardoso of the DFXtreme Yamaha team.

Cardoso had a run-in with Yukio Kagayama during practice, it all started with an incident on the track and ended with Kagayama storming into Cardoso's garage to "settle" things once and for all. The upshot of their impromptu "boxing match" was a fine of $1000 dollars each.

Afterwards, the young Spanish rider gave his side of the story to Crash.net:

"I feel bad for that problem, but sometime on the bike you are a little bit more aggressive than normal but what happened is not my fault," he said "I try to catch Kagayama, you know, stay behind him to improve my lap time.

"He doesn't like so much, so he watch behind and make one finger. You know one finger and he try to kick me. I stop three corners after and I try to find a reason. Then we make a little bit discussion in the track, then when we come back he come to pit box and he try to hit me. This is no good, something happen and I am so sorry for this."

Cardoso is from southern Spain so the high temperatures aren't too bad for him but they do seem to be affecting a few tempers. Yukio Kagayama is usually very 'chilled' but he wasn't happy with Cardoso at all, however Cardoso feels he didn't do anything wrong.

"I just try to improve my lap time, I catch him just for this. For sure I didn't disturb him I did nothing just tried to stay behind. He is not happy with this and he answer with this (gestures) I no understand why. I go a little bit aggressive behind him and then start discussion and then he come here (pit box) and it become worse. Anyway I forget it," commented Cardoso.