Foggy

by Carl Fogarty

  I wandered over with the drinks and said, ‘I thought you were dead.’ Okay, it was not a great chat-up line, but it broke the ice perfectly. It took us straight back to the time when, as kids, I loved to wind her up. But it was obvious she had changed. The new Michaela was very confident and very brash. ‘You used to pick on me, you bastard,’ she said. ‘I never really liked you.’

  We soon got chatting about more important matters.

  ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I’m kind of seeing someone, but we’re not getting on that well.’

  ‘Do you want to go out tomorrow dinnertime, then?’

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ she replied. Bingo!

  The surgery where Michaela worked was in Langham Road, near the town centre, and I turned up in my mum’s Ford Escort Cabriolet, looking the business. All her workmates were staring out the window as she came out, still wearing her nurse’s uniform, which was quite a turn on. ‘If she lost a few pounds she’d be bloody gorgeous,’ I thought. After a few drinks, she had to go back to work so we arranged to meet up in town that evening.

  I was a bit nervous because I had known her so long, but never in a sexual way. Michaela wore another wacky outfit, a big fluffy jumper and another ‘trendy’ hat. She looked weird, but not weird enough to stop me fancying her something rotten by the end of the night.

  She shared her bedsit, which was close to the surgery, with another girl and two blokes. We ended up there and I thought, ‘Surely she’s not going to let me shag her on the first date?’ I wanted to, very badly, and we drunkenly fell into bed, laughing and giggling, and fumbling around. If I was being honest, the sex was not memorable. My leg was still sore, which limited the number of positions available for a start. There seemed to be a lot of messing around for the length of time it eventually lasted. She says it was 30 seconds!

  For the first few weeks, it was as though nothing much had changed since when we were kids. Our relationship was built around putting each other down, but now there was a physical attraction as well. I seemed to sleep at her bedsit for the next few weeks. Mum still did all my washing, ironing and cooking, but, even if I had been out with my mates, I ended up at Michaela’s with my supper – curried beef, chips and beansprouts, never anything different.

  Neither of us thought it was going to turn into anything long term and I couldn’t have been the best of company, because the injury was really getting me down. I didn’t have all that much money or prospects and I had serious doubts whether I was cut out for a career in the sport. It seemed to be one hard knock after another and the rewards were small. If dad hadn’t kept me on the work’s payroll during both winters of recovery, I would probably have looked seriously for another job.

  Michaela was starting to grow on me, though, and she was beginning to look really good again. Then I fell ill with jaundice and could hardly leave the house during Christmas and into the New Year. Michaela spent a lot of time with me; we stopped all the pretend bickering and probably got to know each other a lot better. As that year went on, I guess I must have been falling in love with her. After a few months, we moved in together and she was suddenly a part of everything I did. We rented a refurbished one-bedroom flat above one of the betting shops owned by my mate John Jefferson’s dad in a part of Blackburn called Bastwell – not the best area of town, to say the least. There was a toilet, shower, living room and kitchen, and it seemed like paradise because it was my first place away from home, our first place together and only cost £40 a week. Looking back, though, it was a shithole.

  Two things were in the back of my mind as I battled for fitness in the run-up to the 1988 season. Firstly, there was a lot more money in riding bigger bikes. So my dad, and even some sponsors like Dave Orton, were pushing me in that direction. On top of that, there has always been more prestige attached to bigger bikes. Secondly, I now knew that the bigger bikes were more comfortable for my leg. Yet, still, I was strangely reluctant to abandon the 250cc class. Maybe it was my old insecurity rearing its ugly head. Or perhaps I had my heart set on becoming the 250cc world champion. If it hadn’t been for the injuries, I think I could have achieved that.

  After all the problems we’d had with the two 250ccs the previous year, Honda gave us a good deal on a RC30 750cc Honda, my first superbike, which didn’t arrive until after the season had started. So I had to start the season on 250s, which was good in a way because I needed to ease my way back into things and the 250s were familiar territory, where I could regain my confidence and rediscover the winning touch at places like Scarborough.

  And that’s not all that I rediscovered there. I had almost forgotten that Alison was still lurking in the background!

  This time she turned up with a boyfriend in tow. She looked as fit as ever but I couldn’t quite work out the deal with the boyfriend. She seemed to be able to get away with far too much, without him minding what was going on. Alison was wearing a short skirt and another tight jumper, obviously with nothing on underneath. I had also forgotten what great tits she had. She was flirting as usual, grabbing my leg, and I responded by pinching her arse.

  All the time her boyfriend, a smallish bloke who raced single cylinder bikes, was watching and laughing along. I couldn’t see what Alison saw in him, but it didn’t bother me that she was with someone, as I was with Michaela by then. ‘Carl, we’ve nowhere to stay tonight,’ she suddenly piped up. Not being too slow on the uptake, I suggested, ‘Why don’t you come and stay with us in our caravan.’ So, after a few more beers, we all piled into the back of the van and went back to the circuit, where the caravan was parked.

  Her hands were all over me, even on the way back with her boyfriend in the same van. My mechanic Tony Holmes and his girlfriend were sleeping at one end of the caravan and, at the other end, was a bed that slept three. ‘You might as well get in here with me,’ I suggested, without even trying to sound innocent! Her boyfriend sparked out as soon as his head hit the pillow, which left Alison in the middle and me on the other side. We were both wide awake.

  I cannot quite believe it to this day but, as he was snoring next to us, I was shafting away while she stroked his hair. My mechanic got out of his bed at one point to see what on earth was happening, because the caravan was rocking like a cradle. It was too good to be true and probably didn’t last for more than a few minutes. It took a lot, lot longer to sink in.

  My theory is that her boyfriend must have been the type who got his kicks knowing that someone else was doing the business with his girlfriend. In the morning, it was as though nothing had happened. Her boyfriend was first to get up because he had an early practice. Alison and I stayed in bed, and it’s not rocket science to work out what happened next.

  That was the last I ever saw of her. The stories on the grapevine were that she soon finished with that guy and was respectably married a couple of years later. Only a year before, she had been urging me to marry her. No thank you! However gorgeous she was, I would never have trusted her for a minute, because sex was not a bit of fun, it was an obsession. And I would have been knackered!

  While it was obvious that my leg had healed better this time, and that I hadn’t lost any more movement, I could still not get my toe to the end of the footrest on a 250cc. And, especially on tight corners, I was scraping half my boot away on the ground. When the RC30 eventually arrived, there was a mad dash to convert it from a bike ready for road use, by stripping off all the shit like indicators and lights, and to tune the engine in time for the North West 200. The tuner was Tony Scott, in nearby Leyland, who probably built his reputation on the back of my success. For some reason, he insisted that he would not touch the bike until it had 1,000 miles on the clock. So I ended up riding it around the roads of Blackburn for 1,000 miles before Tony would strip the engine down and rebuild it. There was just one snag. I didn’t have a road licence!

  As soon as I sat on the RC30, it felt right. It was sitting in your favourite armchair compared to the 250cc bikes, as there was so m
uch more space between the seat and the footrest. I came fifth in the North West 200 against established international riders like Roger Marshall, Steve Henshaw, Andy McGladdery, Trevor Nation and Kenny Irons, who was to die later in the year. The 250cc race at the same meeting was one of the best I’ve ever been involved in. I was neck and neck with five or six very fast Irish lads for the whole race and led entering the final corner. I pushed too hard and ran wide, allowing Steven Cull to dive inside me while the others crossed the line at virtually the same time. They were both great results, considering I was probably only riding at 80 per cent and with the doctors’ warnings, that my leg would break if I crashed again, ringing in my ears.

  This was a big boost ahead of the TT, which doubled up as the first round of the TT Formula One World championship, a series created in 1977 to compensate the Isle of Man for losing Grand Prix status because of the obvious dangers. When that status was first taken away, the TT was classed as a one-race ‘world championship’, which meant very little. But the series, based in Britain, expanded to feature other road circuits like the Ulster GP track at Dundrod, and European venues like Vila Real in Portugal, Kouvola in Finland and Pergusa in Sicily, circuits that were also considered too dangerous to host major events. It would be wrong to suggest that it was a very prestigious championship.

  The World Superbike championship had just started and was stealing what little limelight existed for the bigger production bikes. And, even though Formula One was living on borrowed time, manufacturers still sold bikes on the back of TT successes, so they certainly thought it was a big event. I finished fourth, which meant 13 points towards the world championship, and was very satisfied.

  I was still riding within myself and we were still learning about the bike. For instance, we didn’t know any better than to race using the road suspension, and it wasn’t until we returned to the mainland that we tested a Proflex racing suspension unit. We were also racing with Metzeler tyres for the first time, for the simple reason that they were free. The company was an established producer of treaded road tyres, but had only just started to make slick racing tyres. As a result, their performance was a bit hit and miss and caused a few problems.

  But none of those frights compared with one morning at breakfast during the TT. I had noticed that one of the waitresses in our hotel had taken a shine to me. She was very young, perhaps only about 16 or 17, and we went out for a few drinks after she finished work on the Monday evening. We ended up in a club and then back in my room. Michaela flew out the next day and I was a nervous wreck for the rest of the meeting. Because the girl worked a breakfast shift I didn’t dare leave the table when Michaela was there, in case the waitress decided to spill the beans. But I still had to live with my guilty conscience.

  It eventually got the better of me and I told Michaela, many years later, mind you. I was expecting a roasting but she took it very calmly. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘I’ve been unfaithful, too. When you were in Scarborough with that girl Alison, I went back to Oxford and saw my old boyfriend. But it just proved that I didn’t want to be with him anymore.’ We were both young when it had all happened and our relationship was not too serious at that stage. And at least we had been honest.

  Following the Isle of Man meeting, and completely out of the blue, I was sent an entry form for the next round of the TT Formula One World championship, in Assen, Holland, a circuit that I would grow to love. There had been no definite decision, but it had almost become accepted that I was now switching classes to concentrate on superbikes. My mechanic, Tony Holmes, could not travel to Holland, as he probably had to sign on the dole. And my cousins had drifted away during my injuries, as I had never returned to work at the warehouse and they had found other interests. So Gary Dickinson took time off work to travel with me but the extent of his bike knowledge, at that time, was limited to changing a wheel or a sprocket. He had not even passed his driving test but took the wheel in Belgium, as I needed a break, and drove through the border into Holland. Dave Tate came along for the ride, but he did more damage than good to the bike.

  This was Blackburn’s version of the Ant Hill Mob. But the back-up team’s ability was not as important for racing superbikes, as the engines tended to be reliable for about 1,000 miles. We stopped off in Amsterdam for a spot of window shopping, where Gary tried unsuccessfully to get a wank for a fiver, and slept next to the canal in the van.

  The Assen race had attracted a lot of good riders, who didn’t mind racing on this fast flowing track but were not so keen on the other more dangerous circuits in the F1 series. We were nearly caught out before the race because we had stuffed a washer into the exhaust to limit the noise level, as they were strict about things like that in Holland. One of the scrutineers spotted us taking it out after the inspection but decided to turn a blind eye. Joey Dunlop was the man to beat and I finished one place behind him in ninth. To me, it was not a bad result in my first race abroad, and kept me in the points, but the folks back home had expected better.

  In England, I was slowly losing credibility because the TT Formula One was seen as a championship for road racing specialists, and not very competitive. It was the other British riders, not racing abroad, who were making the headlines, like Brian Morrison, Darren Dixon, Jamie Whitham, Andy McGladdery and Mark Phillips. That did not bother me, though, as superbikes were a challenge and the comfort was still a novelty.

  In one of my first races on the RC30 in England, at Cadwell Park, I witnessed the freak death of Kenny Irons, a hot favourite to win domestic titles having raced in Grands Prix the previous year with Suzuki, before unluckily losing his place. I was on the second row of the grid and was entering the back straight of the warm-up lap, when Keith Huewen’s engine cut out in front of me. I had to swerve quickly to avoid him and looked back to see Irons run into Huewen, who is now a Sky Sports commentator. Irons slid harmlessly down the sloping back straight. Another rider, also called Mark Phillips, but not the one in contention for the championship, panicked and fell off. His bike also slid down the straight and smashed into Irons, killing him. This was all televised live on the BBC, but it was the first death that Michaela had experienced at a racetrack and she seemed to cope very well.

  The next world championship venue, Vila Real, was exactly the type of dangerous road circuit that put other riders off the Formula One World championship. For instance, the F1 series leader, Roger Burnett, chose to travel to Austria for the World Superbike round, instead. The circuit was really slippery and riders had to cross over a rickety bridge, which had a 100ft drop on either side. A lot of the road surface was covered by tramlines – and it took days to reach. It was a particularly bad journey for dad who suffered travel sickness and had to bang on the back of the van every few miles of windy Portuguese country road, so that we could stop for him to throw up.

  It was the middle of the summer and bloody hot, although it poured down for race day. But I was as comfortable in the wet on a 750cc as I had been on a 250cc and was in fourth place when the race was stopped and restarted. This time I got in front until water seeped into the electrics and the bike cut out. Luckily, Dunlop also had trouble and again I didn’t lose too much ground in the points table.

  Before the next round in Finland, I rode one of my last ever races on a 250cc bike at Knockhill, where I was also an unimpressive sixth in the superbike race, but still riding within my limits as the F1 world championship had now taken on greater importance. The trip to Finland involved four ferry journeys, including a 15-hour crossing on a massive cruise ship which had a nightclub, and a mate of my dad, Lou Durkin, helped out with the driving in between ferry trips. That meant a lot of time kicking my heels and it was hard work fighting off the temptations provided by the gorgeous Scandinavian women.

  The Finnish people were like the Irish, very hospitable and always willing to please. And a fair crowd of around 15,000 turned up to watch us race around an industrial estate, where every corner was a right angle and you had to dodge the manhole c
overs in the middle of the road. This time, the lack of a proper back-up team cost us dearly. At least one fuel stop was needed for a Formula One race but the Ant Hill Mob put more fuel over me than in the tank. So I had to make a second unscheduled stop which dropped me down to fourth, behind a quick Finnish rider called Jari Suhonen, with the Swede Anders Andersson, who was to become my main suspension man in 1995, in second place. Joey Dunlop, now leading a series which probably only featured six or seven riders who took part in every round, was third and his brother, Robert, fifth.

  The big race for the Dunlop brothers was the Ulster Grand Prix on the fast Dundrod circuit, in front of up to 60,000 fans cheering on their local hero; Joey. But there was also a strong contingent of British riders. The wet weather of race day played into my hands and, from a terrible qualifying position of 21st, I was in the lead by the end of the first lap after a flying start. From that position there was no turning back and I won my first ever world championship race by 16 seconds. Michaela had not travelled with me but managed to tune the car radio to an Irish station, which was covering the race live, and so heard all the action from a shop car park in Bolton. Joey was only seventh and, from nowhere, I was second in the world championship and just five and a half points behind him with two rounds remaining.

  The battle for the title had captured the imagination of the lads back home. From a situation at the start of the season, when even I wasn’t planning any further ahead than the next race, we had assembled a crew of about 10 for the expedition to the next round, in Pergusa, Sicily. I had not bothered to ask Dave Tate to come to Ulster, as he had been stirring trouble with Lou in Finland. But the owner of a club in Blackburn, Reg Gorton, agreed to drive three others down in his Jaguar, while the rest piled into the van. We headed for Genoa to pick up the ferry for Sicily but had to catch the boat without the Jag, which did not turn up in Sicily until a day after we had arrived.