Foggy

by Carl Fogarty

  Steve Hislop, who was riding a Norton, was also without a win and desperate for success. And our battle was probably one of the best races that has ever been seen on the island. It reminded everyone of the days when Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini were up against each other at their peak. I was riding number 4, while Steve was 19, so we were miles apart on the circuit as the starting order is decided by the number on your bike.

  But the lead changed after every lap and I was riding so hard that the bike was falling apart around me. None of the clocks were working, the front fork seal had gone, the rear brake arm was bent up, the rear shock was broken – the bike was an absolute mess. I was nine seconds behind at the start of the final lap, which was a lot to make up. To make matters worse, the exhaust blew coming over the mountain as I made that final push. After I had finished, I could hear the commentary over the tannoy, ‘… And here comes Hislop, he wins by four seconds …’

  To pull back five seconds was amazing and, in doing so, I had set a new lap record of 123.61mph – the average speed over the 18 minutes 18.8 seconds it took to complete the lap. Okay, Steve had won the race, but I had always wanted to be the fastest man around the Isle of Man TT circuit. To me, on this occasion, that was better than race victory.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I told Steve, ‘but I’ve got the new lap record.’ He obviously didn’t believe me. ‘I broke your lap record on the last lap,’ I insisted.

  I could tell that he was a bit pissed off. Don’t forget that the Norton was between 10 and 15mph faster than my bike, not to mention its better acceleration. And Rob McElnea had said that you only had to shake my bike for bits to fall off after the race. I still maintain that no other rider on this planet could have matched what I did on that lap on that day. Not bad for my last ever lap around the circuit!

  The record stood for seven years until beaten by Jim Moodie in 1999. Ironically, his mechanic was my best man, Gary Dickinson. Moodie lapped in 18 minutes 11.4 seconds, at an average speed of 124.45mph from a standing start. But I was not sorry to see the back of the TT.

  Nowadays it only survives on riders who specialise in that sort of thing and who don’t do very well on the short circuits, because it doesn’t guarantee a world or even a British championship ride, as it did in the 1980s. I was the last of the big name riders to go there and also win a world championship in the same year. Nobody has done it since, and nobody will do it again.

  And no other rider had to put up with the journey that I had for the next two rounds of the World Superbike championship in Spain and Austria. It was not until I was halfway through Spain, after a ferry trip from Portsmouth to Santander, driving our massive Chevrolet motorhome which was pulling a caravan, that I wondered what the hell I was doing.

  The caravan was for dad to stay in because he insisted on travelling with us. We had Danielle in with us, sleeping in a do-it-yourself cot that I had knocked together to fit into the bath. Mum had seen sense and flown to the Spanish round at Jarama, where I was fifth in the first race and lost the front end in the second race when I was in second place behind Doug Polen. She then flew home, while the rest of us – plus caravan – set off for the next round at the Osterreichring in Austria.

  When a fuse blew on the way there, causing us to stop for a good few hours, my patience snapped and dad took the brunt. ‘Why the frigging hell don’t you stop in a hotel like everyone else, so we don’t have to lug that thing all over Europe?’ I shouted at him. That delay, though, was nothing compared to the trip home from Austria, where I finished sixth and seventh.

  Having reached Germany late at night, I was grabbing a few hours shut-eye in the back of the motorhome, while dad was at the wheel with Michaela navigating. I was woken up by a loud crash and scraping noise. The powerful eight-cylinder motorhome had been too much for the flimsy caravan and had pulled the connecting A-frame almost clean off. There was no way we could continue and we parked up at the side of the road for the rest of the night.

  In the morning, I’d had enough. I wanted to leave the caravan there and tell the insurance company that it had been nicked and burnt out. We tried some local garages and, after eight hours at the side of the road, someone turned up to weld a couple of plates and a new ball-coupling joint onto the caravan, which was enough for us to be able to tow it back to England. Back home, I felt ill through exhaustion and did not speak to dad for a couple of days. Needless to say, we didn’t take the caravan with us ever again.

  The remainder of the World Superbikes season was a story of inconsistency. I was always a regular pain in the arse for the factory riders at the twisty circuits like Assen, where I was fourth and second and the top points scorer on the day. At quicker circuits, like Mugello, I could pass the likes of Raymond Roche and Rob Phillis almost at will around the corners, only to see them breeze back past me down the straights on their faster bikes.

  The penultimate round at Monza typified my bike’s unreliability, as I broke down in both races. We were learning all the time, though, and the factory Ducati team that was run by Franco Uncini, as well as Amatriain’s outfit backed by Marlboro, were very helpful with advice. Even so, although I hadn’t competed in every round, I still managed to finish ninth, which was enough to impress the Ducati top dogs.

  Between WSB races, the World Endurance championship continued at Spa in Belgium. This was the only time when I ever felt that I had cheated death – and I didn’t even fall off my bike.

  I had qualified in pole, which earned me a £1,000 bonus. Rymer thought the cash went to the team and was annoyed when he put his invoice in at the end of the year and found out that it had gone to the individual rider with the fastest lap. We led the race, but were being pushed hard by the Suzuki team. We were faster on the track but the Suzuki boys were quicker in the pits and kept pegging back our lead, although they could not pass us. My race wasn’t going well, as I had leaned over too close to one of the little poles that carry the square reflectors for night riding. It caught my little finger and cracked the bone, so I was in agony for a few laps.

  To make matters worse, when I was due to take over from the third rider, Jehan d’Orgeix, one of the mechanics pulled the nozzle out of the fuel tank and sprayed petrol straight into my eyes. ‘Fucking hell. I can’t see a bloody thing. Jehan will have to get back on,’ I shouted. But, just as he was about to set off about 30 seconds later, my vision started returning and, because he was the slowest in our team, I almost dragged him off the bike.

  Then, all I remember is coming out of the fast Blanchimont corner at top speed and realising that the bike was starting to slide. It just about registered that the oil flags were out and an ambulance was parked at the side of the track, tending to the Suzuki rider, Herve Moineau. His engine had blown, dumping a load of oil on the surface. I hit the oil and was out of control. At that instant, I knew that if the bike went from under me, there was no way I could avoid smashing straight into the ambulance. There was no grass or gravel to slow me down. It would have been helmet against solid metal at 120mph and only one outcome – certain death. The bike twitched but incredibly I stayed on, missing the ambulance by the skin of my teeth.

  When I returned to the pits, I was as white as a sheet. I sat in a corner on my own, trying to take in what had just happened. One of the mechanics asked, ‘What’s up?’

  ‘You will never know just how close I have just come to losing my life,’ I replied.

  Everyone else forgot all about it straight away because I hadn’t even fallen off. But it had scared me rigid and stuck with me for a few weeks.

  Despite my close shave we won the race comfortably making it two out of two in the World Endurance championship, with the Suzuka 8 hours to come. I didn’t even get a chance to ride the bike in the race, which was fortunate because the weather was so hot as to make riding unbearable. The bike was fast, but bulky and difficult to handle, and I had a big crash in practice, when the fairing caught the track and threw me off. So Terry set the fastest qualifying lap and starte
d the race for the only time that year, but crashed twice within the first hour to put us out of the race.

  I was watching the monitor for the first fall and said to myself, ‘Leave the bike, don’t even try to pick it up.’ It was hideously hot and the race was inevitably going to be won by Grand Prix hotshots, who had no chance of affecting our championship standings.

  We expected Terry to hand straight over after his fall, but he carried on only to come off on the very next lap. ‘Give up,’ I whispered to myself. ‘Do not press the frigging start button.’ By now I was just thinking about the cool swimming pool at the hotel around the corner from the circuit.

  When Terry finally conceded defeat and placed the bike up against the bales, the rest of the team were gutted. I had to pretend I was too. After a couple of less than impressive ‘Shit, damns’ I ran out of the back of the garage rubbing my hands together and shouted, ‘Yes!’

  I bumped into the Australian, Rob Phillis, who had just finished his stint and looked absolutely knackered.

  ‘We broke down, Rob. Just off for a swim,’ I said gleefully.

  ‘Jeez mate, I wish I was in your shoes,’ he replied.

  Back in the cooler temperatures of the British climate, I was selected, along with Jamie Whitham, as one of two local riders allowed to take part in the British Grand Prix. I was offered a ride on a Harris Yamaha by Stuart Medd, whose company, Medd Brothers, were running two bikes for Kevin Mitchell that year. Stuart was a really nice guy who had put a lot of money into racing over the years, but didn’t enjoy the returns that he deserved.

  Of course, I still felt that I had a point to prove in Grand Prix racing after the episode in 1990. Everyone had always said that it was difficult switching to 500cc, but I found the Yamaha easy to ride and qualified on the second row ahead of Niall Mackenzie, Doug Chandler and Alex Criville, which was embarrassing for them. I don’t think that, to this day, any other privateer has put a bike on the second row of the British Grand Prix.

  Their attitude was, ‘He’s only doing well because it’s his local circuit.’ But my bike was nowhere near as fast as the big-bang engines ridden by Gardner, Lawson, Rainey, Schwantz and Doohan. Even so, I was up in fifth with four or five laps to go and winding down, because nobody was pushing me from behind.

  The next thing I knew, I was on my arse going into Redgate. The bike fell onto my foot, pressing it into the track and shaving some skin off my toes as I skidded along. I had to kick the bike off with my free leg to prevent more damage. Only then did I see Kevin Schwantz standing waving a flag that he had snatched from a marshal, while Doug Chandler picked himself up out of the dirt.

  We had all touched some coolant, which had spilled out of John Kocinski’s bike when his engine had blown a couple of laps earlier. The coolant had dried quickly, making it difficult to notice. I was in tears again as I trudged back to the pits. Aussie rider and race winner Wayne Gardner was also whining about the way I passed him on the first lap.

  ‘You were going too slow, what do you want me to do?’ I said.

  ‘It was the first bloody lap, mate, how could I have been going too slow?’

  He didn’t take too kindly to me telling a live television interview that it was a typical reaction, as he was always moaning. ‘I’m glad he won, as he’s one of my heroes,’ I said. ‘It’s just a pity he’s obnoxious off the track.’

  The papers recognised my achievements with headlines like ‘Wild Carl’. And that’s probably what a French marshal also thought of me at the next round of the World Endurance championship at the Paul Ricard circuit in Bol d’Or. I was trying to drive into the paddock, and had the right pass, but there was just no way that this jobsworth was going to allow me through. Stopping and trying to argue with him would only have made matters worse, so I edged the car forward while trying to convince him that I had the right pass. The idiot just stood in front of the car, shuffling back as I was moving forward.

  I must have reached a speed that he couldn’t match. So the car sort of scooped him up and he rolled off the side of the bonnet and onto the floor. I thought, ‘Oh fuck. What have I done here!’ I panicked and shot off through the paddock, hoping that nobody had seen what had happened.

  No such luck. The police became involved and I had to explain to the Team Kawasaki France manager, Christian Bourgeois, what had happened. The gate-man was limping around like I had driven a tank over his leg, but there was nothing wrong with him. I had seen him walking normally just a few minutes before I was questioned. It resulted in a £100 fine and a warning about my future conduct from race officials.

  Worse than that, I had to apologise to the little bastard. ‘I am very sorry and nothing like this will ever happen again,’ I told him, before going out, pulling a massive wheelie at the end of the warm-up lap, and winning the race. Well, I’m telling him now that I wasn’t sorry and, if I do ever see him again, I’ll finish the job off good and proper.

  We had won all three 24-hour races without any problems, although the team told me that it would be better for the bike if I didn’t do wheelies before the race! Normally, during a 24-hour race, you at least fall off once, or have to push the bike back to the pits. For us, it had been a piece of cake and I don’t think any other rider has won three consecutive 24-hour races at their first attempt. However, it hadn’t been quite enough to clinch the championship and Kawasaki France, who hadn’t really wanted to travel for the final two rounds in Australia and Malaysia, decided that they wanted to play safe.

  Before those rounds, though, I raced for a Singapore businessman, David Wong, in the Malaysian national championship, with a view to him providing sponsorship in 1993. There were about five people watching but the racing was heavily sponsored even though there were only about nine riders on the grid, including a couple of fast Aussies. I think I lapped the fastest Malaysian after about five laps and won. Wong knew how much money I had spent during the season, so offered to buy the Ducati off me when I returned to Malaysia for one final race in December. His only condition was that I would return the following year to race it for him.

  Back in England, the Ducati in question was becoming more and more unreliable and I was getting fed up with it. So I asked Kawasaki if they would take their superbike in their freight to the next World Endurance round in Australia, so that I could also compete in the World Superbike round the following day. The freight was already paid for because I had finished in the top 10 the previous year, so it didn’t cost them anything. It also meant that I could ditch Doug, which I had wanted to do for some time. Even the little things about him, like his catchphrase, ‘Let’s get organised,’ were starting to bug me.

  I did have some extra freight of my own for the journey, though. Michaela had brought Danielle to all of the races in Europe that year but this was the first long haul trip she attempted, as her mum was now living Down Under. It was a big mistake because that flight is no fun with a 13-month-old baby.

  It was windy and freezing for the penultimate World Endurance race at Phillip Island, run half in daylight and half in the dark. As many as 20 marshals were taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia – in Australia of all places! Phillip Island is bleak enough at the best of times, without the wind blowing bits of rubbish and twigs all over the track. When I finished my first stint, I pleaded with officials to at least cut the race down to six hours. You feel the cold more in an endurance race because you are not going as fast as in a superbike race. Yet we won by three laps and our main rival, Michele Graziano, was only third. That meant Terry and me were World Endurance champions. On the rostrum, there was only one thing in my mind, and that was a nice warm fire back at the hotel.

  The World Superbikes race, which was probably more important for me as I was still angling for a contract for the following year, was something of an anticlimax. I was absolutely knackered from the day before and chose too soft a tyre for the first race, when I was seventh. Then, in the break before race two, something occurred to me. Terry had exactly the sa
me number of points as me in the individual Endurance championship, as we had ridden every race together. But, if I were to injure myself in the second WSB race, I might be unable to ride in the final World Endurance race of the season, the following weekend at Johor in Malaysia. That would mean Terry would go on to be the individual world champion. I wasn’t prepared to let that happen. It also started to drizzle just before the second race, which made me even more miserable. I just wasn’t up for it at all and I wasn’t going to impress anyone riding that Kawasaki, which was fast but difficult to handle. So I thought, ‘Fuck this’ and I pulled in at the first opportunity. ‘The engine is back-firing, I can’t ride like this,’ I told the team when I retired from the race. Nobody realised nothing was wrong with the bike.

  While I went off to race in Malaysia, Michaela stayed in Australia to spend a week with her mum near Brisbane. She has only seen her once since that occasion, when I clinched my first World Superbike title in 1994 at Phillip Island when she visited us for a few days. Since then, there has been a bit of a fall-out. I think they have always been a bit distant. Even when Michaela moved down to Oxford, her mum ended up moving even further south. So, when she finished with her boyfriend, Michaela decided to return to Blackburn. It’s not for the lack of trying on Michaela’s part, as we have offered to pay for her mum to come and see us in England, but she hasn’t bothered for some reason.

  After the final World Endurance race in Johor, which turned out to be as much of a cakewalk as the rest of the championship, I returned home briefly to meet up with Michaela and Danielle. Then it was back to the Far East as me and Jamie Whitham had been invited to ride Yamahas in the Macau Grand Prix by a businessman called John Stratton. It was a GP, but not part of the world championship.

  Macau is an island near Hong Kong, where the Chinese go to gamble and throw themselves off the bridge when they lose! It has a dodgy closed-road street circuit, with a terrible surface. We were there basically for a holiday and our plan was not to go out and kill each other trying to win, so we agreed to try and win one of the races each. I qualified in pole, but our plan went out of the window when Japanese star Toshihiko Honma started riding like a madman.