by Carl Fogarty
I stopped him in full flow. ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, so fuck off. I’m not interested.’
Doohan carried on shouting, but some of my mechanics had separated us and shoved him out of the door. Maybe he was a bit touchy because he hadn’t won a Grand Prix by then, and saw this new guy on a Honda as a bit of a threat. Since then I have always got on well with Doohan. He seems pretty quiet and laid back. In some ways he is a lot like me, avoiding the publicity and superstar status of an attention seeker like Max Biaggi, preferring to be out of the way and doing his own thing.
In the next session I was quick again, but crashed for what seemed like the 12,00th time. On the last day, I was third quickest with 10 minutes remaining but dropped back through the field to qualify in eighth or ninth. Even so, I was up with the top four in the race until the rear tyre shredded again and I finished eighth, although I was only something like 23 seconds behind Schwantz in third. Ironically, Doohan had gone on to record his first GP win.
I was pissed off to say the least and felt a million miles from home, with only my dad for company. While I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, I was too young to have been given that chance. The fact that I couldn’t set the bike up didn’t really help. And the team that I was with had helped even less.
A couple of years down the line, I would have been more prepared. So, when they offered me one more race in Australia, I told them where to go and I was slaughtered in the press. Their line was, ‘How does he expect to get a regular 500cc ride if he doesn’t want to race in the Australian Grand Prix?’
Maybe I should have gone. But I didn’t see the point of travelling all that way to ride a bike that didn’t work for me, in a team that didn’t help me. It made more sense to return to winning races at places like Oulton Park, my favourite track, where the next British race was being held.
Neil was happy to get me back and, sure enough, I won the Oulton race, which put me back in with a shout of the MCN British Superbike championship. So Neil got me a late entry in the next round at Cadwell, the very next day. For some reason he was not at the meeting, which was also staging the one-off annual King of Cadwell race. It was the biggest race of the day, but I had only been entered in the British championship races. I had won the second and was feeling pretty good, so I said to my mechanic, Dennis, ‘I might as well do the King of Cadwell.’
‘You know that Neil said you weren’t to race in that,’ he warned.
‘Bugger that, I’m entering anyway.’
Sure enough, I won that race as well, and was headline news in the racing papers. Within a couple of days, a written warning dropped through the letterbox. Neil said that, because he had been disobeyed, we would no longer be able to contest one of the World Superbike championship rounds in France.
As always, it came down to budgets. Taking part in the King of Cadwell could have cost no more than £30 for a tank of fuel but, apparently, it had blown our allowance. He was just sulking again. As it happened, he backed down and let me compete at Le Mans in France. But he stopped Jamie from going, using the excuse that he had been crashing all year.
I was convinced that, having had a few decent results in the Grands Prix, I was ready to win a World Superbike race. Instead, I got the shock of my life. I qualified in 12th and had to be content with trying to beat Rymer, when I was eighth in the second race.
My final race of the year was at Brands Hatch, where I still had a mathematical chance of stealing the MCN British F1 championship, if Trevor Nation crashed and I won. But I had missed too many rounds to have a realistic chance. And, always in the back of my mind for the final race of the season, was the dread of spending another winter injured. Sure enough, I lost the front end in one race and crashed out, before finishing third and fourth in the other two. It also proved to be the last time that I raced as Jamie’s team-mate, as I think he crashed out in all three and was sacked by Honda. Typically, Neil didn’t confront him, but allowed Jamie to find out from one of the mechanics instead.
In December, at the end of another hard season, we went on holiday to Fuerteventura with Jamie and Andrea. The scenery on the journey from the airport was bleak. The island is like a desert and we were on a coach full of Germans driving through the sand dunes when a dot appeared on the horizon. It was our hotel and it was in the middle of nowhere. We would obviously have to make our own fun, if the holiday was to be a success. All the beaches were for nudists, so we found a secluded spot and walked around stark bollock naked, occasionally bumping into some old Germans with shrivelled todgers and tits like Durexes.
We also introduced a system of penalties to spice up the evenings’ drinking. Michaela is usually pretty good at Trivial Pursuit but, one night, she got herself into a mess. She seemed to answer all the early questions wrong and the penalty that night was a foul potion of four liqueurs in one glass, which had curdled to make it even more disgusting. It looked and tasted disgusting. Each time she slipped up she had to drink this horrible cocktail. And the more she drank, the more questions she got wrong. She was soon off her trolley and refused to drink any more penalties. So we introduced forfeits. Sure enough, she got the next question wrong and had to perform the forfeit, which was to give me a blowjob under the table. She did, and was sick five minutes later, which I can only presume was down to the drink. I could never get her to play the game again.
Danielle was conceived on that holiday – it might just have been that night – and Michaela found out that she was pregnant on Christmas Day. This was only a month after she had started taking fertility pills.
We had not been taking precautions, yet nothing had been happening so we both had to have tests. I had to wank into a bottle at home with a bit of help from Michaela because I was too busy laughing. Then she rushed it up to the hospital, with the heater on in the car so the sperm didn’t die. The results were magnificent! Then they discovered that Michaela was having trouble ovulating and the pills did the trick.
Once news of the pregnancy got out, everyone started telling us that we should get married. After a while, Michaela started agreeing with them. So, when the subject cropped up again when we were tenpin bowling with a few of her mates, I thought it might be the respectable thing to do. ‘Okay then,’ I agreed. ‘But I’m busy with my racing. You sort it out and let me know when it is.’
Okay, it might not have been the most romantic proposal, but it got the job done. Within eight weeks, Michaela had her side of the bargain sorted and the date was set for 16 March.
I was re-signed by Honda for 1991 for £22,000, a company car and a new motocross bike – Neil’s way of keeping my salary down. I was promised the top bike, direct from Japan, to race in the World Superbike championship. It was to be exactly the same as the factory bike provided for twice world champion Fred Merkel, a typical surfy Californian – long blond hair, bronzed and a part-time model – who had just lost his title to Raymond Roche. I always got on with Merkel really well, which is unusual for me with Americans.
The Honda Britain team had a new sponsor in Silkolene, a bigger budget and I had a new high-profile team-mate in Niall Mackenzie, who had come straight from 500cc GPs. He was a very quiet guy, who didn’t cause any problems and kept himself to himself. It was good motivation as he was possibly regarded as the best rider in Britain, even though I felt that I had proved I was better. Rymer was riding a factory Yamaha again and he was another rival to my status of the best rider in Britain.
To prepare for the battle ahead, I went swimming every day during the winter at a local hotel’s fitness centre, feeling like Rocky with a mental picture of Rymer as the opponent.
The TT Formula One championship had been scrapped, so there were no distractions from superbikes. The stage was set to make a big impression on the world stage. I just hadn’t bargained for the speed of the Yamahas, Ducatis and Kawasakis! Or the fact that, not only was the Honda still handling badly, it was now one of the slowest bikes and well past its sell-by date. It was to be a ver
y tough year.
I didn’t win a single superbike race in Britain during 1991. Whenever I returned from the World Superbike championship, I was up against guys in the new Supersport championship, who were set up for F1 rules. And those open rules were just as much of a joke as ever. Britain remained the only place in the world where the Norton could race. It just wasn’t eligible anywhere else, as it did not relate to a street bike in any way. Suzuki were running a three-year-old bike that was rumoured to be an 850cc, on which Jamie had some incredible results. There were also suggestions that the Yamahas were 1000cc, and I could not touch the Kawasakis of John Reynolds and Brian Morrison, guys who I should have been beating. But my bike just couldn’t compete.
The first race of my season was again in Daytona and it was an almost exact repeat of the previous year. I had led at one point, until the officials brought out the pace car after an accident. This car drives round at the front of the field until the wreckage has been cleared, allowing all the other riders to bunch up behind the leader. The Americans like to use it to liven up a boring race – or to help one of their riders. Despite this, I was still in contention in fourth place with a couple of laps to go. Suddenly there was smoke everywhere and, before I could complete the ‘oi’ of oil in my mind, I was on my back sliding down the banking before turn one, a very fast part of the track. It was like a toboggan run and I was travelling so fast that the friction almost burnt through my leathers, even though I was trying to lift my back up off the track as I hurtled along.
When I came to a stop, there was not a mark on my front and I ran towards the bike, hoping that it wasn’t too badly damaged. When I saw oil pouring out, I knew that my race was over. Back at the pits, I was told that I had been docked a lap for passing another rider when the yellow warning flag was up, preventing overtaking. I didn’t bother arguing, because I had crashed out. But I had already had enough of the place and was in no rush to go back. Even after the 1990 race, when me and Jamie both crashed out, we had been told that the Americans would have disqualified us in any case, for using illegal forks and having non-standard fairings, the fibreglass bodywork. It was bullshit. And, by then, I was convinced that you weren’t going to win the race unless you were American.
I had been lucky to escape without serious injury in more ways than one, as our wedding was the following weekend. Michaela would have killed me if I’d had to limp down the aisle on crutches. There was no time for a stag do and, to be honest, I’m not really into all that anyway. But on the Friday before the big day, my mechanic Dennis rang to tell me that my new Honda was in the country. And Rev Phillip Webb, who was due to marry us, had already suggested that I bring it along if possible.
There was just time. I would be able to get it to the reception if we moved quickly. One call to the team boss, Neil Tuxworth, and it was all sorted. The bike was driven up to Blackburn in a van on the day of the wedding, at the United Reformed Church, and was waiting for us at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel when we arrived for the reception. It was on nearly all the pictures and, whenever there was a gap in the speeches, I couldn’t stop myself nipping outside to sit on it.
Gary Dickinson’s best man speech was hilarious, because he was as nervous as hell. He had it all carefully written out but muddled up all his pages. So, when he started to lose track of where he was supposed to be, he lost the plot altogether. At one point he tried to tell the story of the night that I had met Michaela again in town, as he was with me at the time. But, instead of saying that we had bumped into her, he said, ‘Me and Carl both banged her in town.’ The whole room was rolling around laughing.
The father of the bride speech was just as good. Alan, a former traffic cop, started by saying he couldn’t ever remember seeing so many people that should have arrows on their pyjamas! Let’s just say that there were times during his career when he came across some of the Fogarty brothers. So you can imagine his face when I first turned up on his doorstep with his daughter!
Michaela looked absolutely stunning and I just knew that we were meant to be together. Quite a few other riders were there, such as Steve Hislop, Robert Dunlop and Jamie Whitham. The ushers were Paul Kay, another long-standing friend, and my cousin, Chris. It was great having all my mates in one place and all looking pretty smart, apart from my dad who was wearing the wrong waistcoat.
My dad, with his arm in a sling after breaking his collarbone in a racing accident, holds me in the backyard of our first house at Lindley Street.
Check out the Disney T-shirt in this class photo at Feniscowles Junior School, aged 10. I’m fourth in from the left on the back row
Standing in front of Italian legend Giacomo Agostini at the Isle of Man TT, aged five.
Riding schoolboy motocross in 1982.
One of my sponsors, Dave Orton (right), helps celebrate my first ever TT win in the 750cc production class in 1989.
The metal frame used to stabilise my leg after the second bad break in 1987.
On my way to the FI TT title in 1990. You can see the determination to win in my eyes.
The V for victory after securing my first world title, the Formula One TT championship at Donington in 1988. Amongst those helping me celebrate the moment are Reg Gorton (fourth from left), Paul Russell, still sporting the scars from his crash in Sicily, 'Taste' (fifth from right and partly hidden), Lou Durkin (thumbs up), my cousin Chris (third from right), and someone I wish I’d never set eyes on, my uncle Brian (second right).
Crashing out of the British Grand Prix at Donington in 1992 after hitting some coolant from the bike of John Kocinski. I shaved the skin off my toes and had to kick the bike away with my free foot to prevent more serious injury.
My gran Vera cooks up another of her massive meals during a dinner break while working for my dad.
The night of my double win at Misano in 1999, with our good friends Graham and Louise and Geoff and Mandy. Louise is with son Matthew, while Danielle and Claudia are either side.
Breaking my wrist at Hockenheim in 1994 after flying over the front of the bike. When I looked up from the gravel (inset) the first person I could see in the crowd was Michaela. It was probably the first and last time she ever watched me from anywhere but the pit lane.
A very emotional moment after clinching my first World Superbike title at Phillip Island in 1994.1 had to push the television crews out the way so that I could hug Michaela.
Ducati chief Gianfranco Castiglioni helps celebrate Ducati’s 100th superbike win at the Salzburgring in Austria in 1995. Anthony Gobert was second and Troy Corser third. During the second race there had been a huge brawl between track marshals and my Ducati team.
The lap of honour after clinching the 1995 world title at Assen. I had asked the fan to tie the flag around my neck but he thought I meant jump on the back. It earned me a warning from the FIM because I wasn’t insured to carry a passenger.
My new RC30 for the 1991 season was delivered to our wedding reception.
Danielle tries one of my helmets on for size in the back of our motorhome on the way back from Hockenheim in 1993.
Photographer Annabel Williams took this family photo.
The media frenzy on the grid before a race. As usual, Michaela is holding my umbrella.
A record crowd of 120,000 turned up at Brands Hatch in 1999 – but the races did not go to plan.
Deep in thought in the pit garage during a qualifying session.
Hannah Walsh, the daughter of our friends Graham and Louise, who died in a tragic accident in our swimming pool.
And I guess I must also have been sinking a few beers on the sly as, when it came to the business end of the night, my engine backfired. I wasn’t in the best of moods, anyway, because some tosser had filled our bed with biscuit crumbs. ‘Bloody childish,’ I moaned. ‘I’m going to have the bastard that’s done this,’ as I cleaned the bed and Michaela tried the Jacuzzi out for size.
I jumped in for a glass of champagne but I was more interested in getting to bed – for some sleep. She did
me proud, though, when her friends asked the inevitable questions about how I had performed that night. ‘Oh, it was fantastic. Just as I imagined,’ she said.
There was no honeymoon as it was straight into the World Superbike championship at Donington, a race that provided the first signs of the struggles ahead for that year. This was what I had prepared for all winter, yet somehow I didn’t feel up for it. I was blowing hot and cold, probably through a lack of confidence. I retired in the first race, when the gears broke, but finished ninth behind Niall and Merkel in the second. So, for once, I couldn’t really blame the bike. The outlook was no better after the second round, at the Spanish circuit of Jarama. Two Spanish riders on Hondas, Juan Lopez Mella and Daniel Amatriain, were third and fourth, and Merkel beat me in both races, while I was breaking my back just to finish ninth and eighth. It seemed that my bike was even worse than the previous year.
I couldn’t even claim any satisfaction when we murdered the Yanks in a special challenge series at Mallory and Brands. It was embarrassing. We turned up to be told that it was open rules. So the American riders, who included people like Scott Russell, Freddie Spencer and Miguel DuHamel, were in the same boat as me – on superbikes against British riders on all kinds of different bikes. There was no contest.
At Mallory, a local rider called Ray Stringer won all three races. It was not surprising, because he was riding a 1000cc Yamaha – a missile – while I had to weave all over the track just to try and hold people up, which prompted a complaint from Ron Haslam. ‘I’ve got to do that because my bike is so slow,’ I grunted back at him. I think I pissed a lot of people off that weekend.