by Carl Fogarty
Recovering from that broken arm, a clean fracture that healed quickly, was nothing compared to coping with the death of my gran, from a tumour. It was a big shock because, even in her seventies, she was as fit as a fiddle despite the fact that the first of her four sons was only born after she had turned 40. I still miss her, even now, as she would do anything for anybody. I appreciate that fact more now than perhaps I did at the time. At the funeral, everyone was crying and I couldn’t understand why I was the only one who wasn’t. Again, I put it down to the fact that I was at an age when death didn’t really affect me.
If it had happened later in life, I would have been much more upset. But I really wish she had been able to share in some of my glory. It would have been nice to buy her things, to show how much I appreciated everything she did for me as a boy. At the time, though, the only tribute I could pay her was to win at the next meeting. Fittingly that was Aintree, where she’d just started to enjoy watching me, standing with everyone else at the start-finish line. I managed to win both races, but it felt strange without her there to congratulate me.
Despite the injury and gran’s death, I was still in with a shout of winning the Marlboro series at the final round at Silverstone. I had only won two other rounds, at Lydden and Thruxton. So I had to win, and Darren Dixon had to break down, for the title to be mine. It was an incredible race, again live on BBC Grandstand, and I passed him on the last corner to win. He won the championship, but I felt that winning that race was more important. I watched the race on video every night for the next three months.
Another highlight was the Manx Grand Prix newcomers’ race in September. I had travelled over to the Isle of Man with Chris a couple of days before the race. We did 12 laps a day in the car, that’s 37 miles each time, so that I could learn the circuit – and it paid off. I was leading by about 30 seconds at the start of the last lap of the race in which, like all TT races, riders set off at timed intervals. So I slowed up to make sure that the bike would finish. Another rider, who wasn’t in contention, came past me over the mountain. I thought, ‘You cheeky bastard’ and decided to tag onto him a little bit. If I had not speeded up by doing that, the guy in second place would have won because I had slowed down so much that he closed to around seven seconds. In the main open race I was third, setting the fastest lap of the race, which was a real feat.
During celebrations later, we ran straight from the hotel sauna into the freezing Irish Sea with some champagne and, at the presentation ceremony, the lads carried me up to the stage on their shoulders, where I said a few embarrassed and drunken words of thanks.
But I saved the real fireworks for the final race of the year, at Darley Moor. I was riding in the support race for the main event, the Stars of Darley. Someone from Preston had lent me his 350cc Yamaha, which was a beautiful bike to look at. I never really discovered what it was like to ride because, as I came out of the first corner, something shorted and smoke billowed out from the bottom of the bike. I threw it on the floor before sprinting away. The marshals, who looked like something off the Camberwick Green kiddies’ programme, were not quite so quick to react and the bike was burnt out by the time they got there. The guy from whom I borrowed the bike wasn’t all that happy when I returned a heap of scorched metal.
It was an ironic end to the season, because I didn’t think I had set the world on fire in 1985. I was quick, and I was winning a few races on a good bike, but I had let myself down on too many occasions. I was vulnerable away from my favourite circuits, Oulton Park and Aintree. This was all going to have to change in 1986 because, almost overnight, I had decided there was no point just going through the motions – I had to start winning all the time.
To achieve this, there would have to be a new approach. So this time around, I did not waste the winter. I studied a lot of magazines, videos and photos of myself and realised that I was not hanging far enough off the bike around corners. Dave Orton had provided a caravan and helped out with some more cash, along with a few new sponsors. We bought a new Yamaha 250cc – one of the best bikes I had ever owned. John Gibbons had agreed to carry on as mechanic, even though he’d been involved in an accident during the winter, when a bit of metal flew into his eye. He was sure that it wouldn’t get in the way of the racing. Also, during the previous year, I had built up enough national results to apply for an international licence. So this was it, I was all set.
It was obvious that I had moved up a notch in my first outing at Oulton Park. When I turned up, everyone else’s attitude was, ‘What the hell is Fogarty doing here, he’s got an international licence?’ Sure enough, I won all four races in what was a warm-up event for me. But John was struggling with his eye, which he was eventually to lose. We all decided that it would be better if I looked for a new mechanic.
Somebody put me in touch with Tony Holmes, a Blackburn lad who raced a bit. I had no idea whether he was any good with bikes but he seemed confident enough, so we decided to give him a go. He certainly knew his bikes, but the two of us never really got on. I thought he was a pain in the arse. It was a real effort for him to get out of bed before 10 o’clock. And, while the bike ran well, he never wanted to clean it or put new stickers on. He knew that we couldn’t afford to pay him anything, yet he was always moaning about money. By the same token, I don’t think he was too keen on me. Perhaps I wasn’t the easiest person to meet for the first time and he thought I was a bit spoilt. So he was always putting me down, which I didn’t like.
After a few national races I was beginning to find my feet and entered a three-race international series called the 250 MotoPrix championship, in which foreign riders were paid to take part. I was third in the first round, which was an unbelievable result. The second round was in the pouring rain at Thruxton, which had a really abrasive and stony surface. For some reason, I used intermediate cut slicks (racing tyres with hand-made grooves) instead of the expected grooved wet weather tyres, which have a far better grip in these conditions. I always fancied my chances in the wet, probably because I was a bit daft and didn’t realise how fast it was safe for me to ride. I led the race from start to finish, beating Grand Prix riders like Alan Carter, Donnie McLeod and Andy Watts.
For the first time, the press wanted my opinion. ‘You’re leading the series with one round to go, Carl. Can you go out and win it?’ I gave a pathetic answer, something along the lines of, ‘Well, I have done it twice, so I don’t see why I can’t do it again.’ Nobody would be stupid enough to ask me the question today! I thought I would be on the front page of The Sun the next day. No such luck, but I did earn around £500 for winning a round and there was £2,000 up for grabs for the overall winner.
The final round was at Mallory on a hot day. I needed to finish in the top three to win the series and was sitting comfortably in third place when my gear lever broke. But, as I pulled in, another rider crashed and the race was stopped. While the other riders were making their way back to the grid, I frantically managed to fix the bike and rushed back to the line.
Just as the race was about to restart again, Chas Mortimer, the team manager of the factory Armstrong team, which included McLeod and the injured Niall Mackenzie, made an official complaint. He was well within his rights, as I had broken down before the crash and so wasn’t allowed to carry on. I was pulled off the line and was out of the championship. My moment of glory had slipped through my fingers and my reaction was predictable. And it wasn’t ‘Ah well! That’s life.’ I wanted to send Dave Tate round to their garage to sort them out, but dad calmed me down.
When the dust had settled, it was obvious that people were starting to see me as a real talent. Suddenly, I was being tipped to do well at the Isle of Man TT, which was an event that I had wanted to compete in ever since I was a young kid. There was no point entering just one class, as that would have meant spending two weeks on the island for one race. So all the riders tried to take as many bikes as they could, and enter as many classes as possible. I had the 250cc, a Formula 2 bike based on
the 350 Yamaha RD LC that I had already ridden in the F2 national championship, and a horrible 400cc which sounded like a sheep baaing. I had another new sponsor, a bike cleaning product company called Magnaseal. They gave me new leathers and resprayed the bike and, for the first time, I felt part of a proper team. Another of their riders was a really good lad, Gary Padgett, who won the 400cc production class that year, but was killed on the road a few months later.
On the ferry over to the island, I was casually flicking through a motorbike magazine, which included predictions from various journalists for that year’s races. Then I saw it. The words leapt from the page. Someone had tipped me to win my main race, the 250cc, ahead of top riders like Joey Dunlop and Brian Reid. Within about five minutes of us docking, I bought as many magazines as I could get my hands on. ‘That’s me, Carl Fogarty, predicted to win the 250cc,’ I told anyone and everyone who cared to listen.
One of those included a waitress who I pulled after a night out in Ramsey during the practice week – and before my girlfriend Christine had travelled over. My mechanic, Tony, shagged the waitress’s mate in the other bed of the hotel room, but we couldn’t wait to get rid of them in the morning. Take it from me, Ramsey is one of the easiest places in the world to pull. In fact, that kind of thing is fairly common during TT week, as the island just buzzes. The pubs are full, there are wet T-shirt competitions everywhere, and just about anything goes.
It must be something about the TT meeting, but riders didn’t seem to care about being up bright and early for morning practice. So, when another conquest called Angela, if I remember rightly, asked me to walk her home, I was more than prepared to sacrifice a bit of sleep. She was pretty nice and I didn’t moan, even though she was staying right at the other end of the capital, Douglas, near a place called Onchan. It was starting to get light and the seagulls had begun to fly around.
When we finally reached her hotel door she said, ‘Thanks for walking me home. I think you’re really nice, Carl. Can I see you again tomorrow night?’
‘What are you on about?’ I replied in shock. ‘I thought I would be invited in for a shag.’
She was horrified. ‘Oh no! Never on the first night. I didn’t think you were like that.’
Bloody right I was like that. I couldn’t believe it. ‘Well, can I still see you tomorrow night?’ she asked again.
I tried my best to be polite. But it was a good job there were no dogs and cats up and about to kick during the long and lonely walk home.
It was after four in the morning and I was due to go practising within an hour. When I got back to my hotel, the mechanics were just getting up and, after a quick cup of coffee, I went up to the circuit, put my leathers on, hopped onto my 250cc Yamaha and I was away. I didn’t properly wake up until I hit the bottom of Bray Hill. Looking back, it’s amazing how I got away with it but, when you are younger, you don’t think about the dangers.
Clearly my cousin Chris and Dave Tate didn’t think of the dangers when they thought they would do a lap of the circuit on the 600 Yamaha that someone had lent us for running errands. I was a bit annoyed, because they were both big lads and it was obvious it would all end in tears. Sure enough, Chris lost control and ran wide into a bank. Dave smashed his ankle and spent the next week or so in hospital in Ramsey, while Chris escaped with cuts and bruises. Later the same week, my uncle Brian took the 400cc Honda road bike out and fell off at Quarter Bridge, the first corner, and broke his collarbone.
In many ways, I was also unlucky throughout the whole TT. But, in another, I was one of the luckiest riders on the island. I was lying around sixth or seventh, which was not bad going in my first appearance, when my bike seized up on the far side of the island. As I was waiting for help, I heard some piercing screams from about a mile further down the road. A horse had strayed onto one of the fastest parts of the track and was hit by one of the race favourites, Gene McDonnell, who was in third place and about to come past the point at which I was stranded. The horse had been spooked by a helicopter, which had just attended another accident, and jumped out of its field. McDonnell and the horse were killed. It was one of the worst accidents the TT has ever seen. My friends back at the paddock were worried that I had been involved, because I had not come round and there was no radio contact. Christine was stood near to Gene’s girlfriend and saw her break down in hysterics on hearing the news. Christine was obviously very upset but my reaction was a simple ‘That’s awful’. It wasn’t an option to let danger into your head. All I was concerned about was winning the TT, so it was straight out for the next race, almost without a second thought.
That race was the Formula 2 and, again, I had a decent chance of a good finish. I was on the same bike as the favourite, Brian Reid, and had the same engine, which was tuned by the same guy, Arnie Fletcher. There was just one problem. Someone forgot to mix the fuel with oil, as is necessary for a two-stroke engine. So I seized up by the time I had travelled 200 yards to the bottom of Bray Hill. Not surprisingly, nobody has admitted to the mistake to this day, and I was livid. My big TT debut was effectively over, because I hated riding production road bikes and didn’t stand a chance in the next two races.
But the TT experience worked wonders because, back on the mainland, I broke four lap records in four successive weekends at Donington, Aberdare, Scarborough and, finally, Snetterton, where I was beaten in one race by Grand Prix rider, Andy Watts. At the next meeting, at Mallory, he crashed, damaged the nerves in his arm and never raced again. He had been due to ride in the British Grand Prix for a German guy called Dr Joe Ehrlich who, when he realised that Watts was out of action, asked me to take his place. ‘Yes! This is it. This is the big time,’ I thought. I had heard all the stories that Ehrlich was a bit of a weirdo and very strict with his riders. But there was no way I was going to pass up this chance, as I was in the best form of my life.
The usual crew set off for Silverstone in our van and we had reached Holmes Chapel on the M6 when the front windscreen suddenly shattered, for no apparent reason. I smashed a small hole in the window with my elbow, so that I could see where I was going, and swerved onto the hard shoulder. There was no point trying to fix it there and then, because we needed to be at Silverstone that evening. So we smashed the rest of the glass out and I carried on driving in the pouring rain, wearing my racing helmet and sat next to my two cousins, who were also wearing spare helmets. The other two were crouched behind the partition, trying to keep warm. We looked a really professional outfit as we rolled up at Silverstone and asked for our passes!
The first job was to introduce my team to Dr Ehrlich. ‘Oh, Mr Fogarty!’ he said, ‘I am sorry but you vill be using my mechanics.’ That annoyed me, for a start, and was a real blow for the rest of the lads. Even so, I was desperate to ride, so didn’t kick up a fuss. When I sat on his bike, I started to move the bars so that I was comfortable. Ehrlich wasn’t happy.
‘Mr Fogarty! Zees is not the way to ride zees bike. You tuck zee elbows in to reduce wind resistance.’
‘Eh? I like the bars out here. This is how I ride,’ I explained.
It was clear this was going to be a stormy relationship and, after the first session, I hated the bike.
‘The front end is chattering everywhere,’ I complained.
‘Zees is how Andy Watts liked it,’ barked Ehrlich.
I trudged back to my mates muttering, ‘I’m not riding that heap of shit. I don’t like the guy anyway, he’s a twat.’
Some bloke overheard all this and promised that he could pull a few strings and get me into the race, riding my own bike, which we had brought down as a precaution. I sent Chris over to tell Ehrlich. ‘Carl says you can stuff your ride,’ he reported bluntly. In the meantime, I was in the office begging for a ride in Sunday’s race.
‘Come on, please. I have already done one practice day, you’ve got to let me in,’ I pleaded.
‘You’re not really experienced enough, but we can squeeze you in as the last entry. But you’d better not get
in anyone’s way or cause any crashes,’ said one of the organisers.
I quickly had to switch numbers back to my own bike before the final day’s qualifying, in which I knocked two seconds off my quickest time on the other bike. I qualified in 26th position out of a field of around 40, which was pretty good.
Come race day, the heavens opened, which played right into my hands. I was as nervous as hell because I was lining up against guys who were my heroes like the Venezuelan, Carlos Lavado. I couldn’t believe it when he winked at me when we were lining up. I was so wrapped up in the event that I hadn’t even thought of spraying anything on my visor, or taping it to stop it misting up. I couldn’t see a thing, and was so busy trying to open my visor as the race started that I cut straight through the rest of the field. I was riding by sheer instinct and, with three laps still to go, Niall Mackenzie came past me into the points in 10th place – and he was already being tipped for a 500cc ride the following year.
To me, that was a brilliant achievement and again, I expected full recognition in the motorbike press. There was the odd mention, but the reaction was nearly as disappointing as when, earlier in the season at Brands Hatch, I finished second in an international race. My local paper, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, ignored that fact but did an article on another Blackburn rider, Geoff Fowler, coming fourth in the same race.
Even so, I was full of it. It seemed like I couldn’t do anything wrong and I was tapped up by Chas Mortimer, who wanted me to ride Grand Prix for his Armstrong team, the biggest and best in the UK. I met him in a pub with dad and we agreed to have further discussions about me turning professional. Meanwhile, the next race was at my favourite circuit, Oulton Park, and I was expected to win my first round in the British championship. So I decided to go to Oulton for a day’s extra practice on the Tuesday before the race.