Foggy

by Carl Fogarty

  In the first race, Honma and Jamie were swapping the lead while I sat in behind, wearing a dark visor which became smudged by flies. The track was dangerous enough, without having to struggle to see what was happening ahead of me. But they both made mistakes and I slipped through, posting the fastest lap of the race. Jamie tried to out-brake me at one corner, but crashed into the bales and bounced back into the middle of the track. I was half an inch off hitting him. The overall result was decided on times and I managed to build an eight-second lead over Honma in the last three laps.

  All I had to do in the second race was sit in behind and make sure that the gap didn’t approach eight seconds. But the bike was running rich and I kept losing a few hundred yards on the fast coastal section, before pulling it back on the top twisty part of the circuit. I held on, though, to finish third in that race and first overall. Technically, that makes me the only rider ever to have won a World Superbike race, a Grand Prix, a TT F1 race and a World Endurance race!

  I returned to England to be punished for going too fast – in my car. I had reached 10 points for a variety of speeding offences and was passing through possibly the worst place on earth for traffic police – Dumfries. I was doing 93mph on the A75 near Annan, on my way to catch a ferry from Stranraer to Northern Ireland for the North West 200 earlier in the year, where I rode Simon Crafar’s Honda RC30 and came fourth.

  You could murder someone up there and get away with it, but if you are caught speeding they throw the book at you. So, in November, I travelled up to plead my case and told them all about my charity work and how I needed to be able to drive. ‘We do not allow speeding in this district,’ said the beak. Bang. Six points. Banned for six months. No arguments. Bastards.

  I decided to drive home anyway but, when I got back to Blackburn, the local paper already had their billboards out, ‘Blackburn bike ace banned for six months’. I tried to hide my face for those final few miles until I could park up at home in safety. It was just at the start of winter when I really needed my car and I was totally gutted.

  My last race of the year was back in Malaysia, the final of the three races for David Wong. I took a couple of lads from Oxford Products, who had run a Ducati team in England that year, out there with me to look after the Ducati before I sold it to David. When they started to set the bike up one of them said, ‘There’s a part missing off the bike.’ I was sure that it had been in working order the last time I had ridden it.

  Within a couple of hours, a fax arrived from Doug Holtom in England. It said that he didn’t trust us to pay him the money that he felt I owed him, and he had taken the part until he got his cash. He could kiss goodbye to his money. I had fully intended to pay him but, instead, I decided to buy the part from Ducati Australia at a good price. The bike had problems cutting out in the torrential rain but Wong stuck to his word and bought it, which was a load off my mind.

  It had been an incredible season, probably the one that helped me reach where I am today. I had been Ready Rent-a-Rider, on a Ducati in World Superbikes, a Yamaha at the TT and in a Grand Prix, and a Kawasaki in World Endurance. For much of the year, everything that I had touched turned to gold and the financial gamble had paid off, as I was easily in pocket. Surely the offers would come flooding in for 1993.

  They did – but nothing was ever that simple …

  CHAPTER NINE

  Luck of the Irish

  The fiasco at the start of 1992 with the mysterious Mr Bogo had taught me a lesson about placing my trust in strangers. And that experience probably prevented me from getting in over my head with the businessman who invited us to Macau, John Stratton.

  Before that trip, Stratton had contacted us through former racer Mick Grant, a good friend of Jamie’s. Stratton’s plan was to run a couple of Harris Yamahas in a Grand Prix team run by Mick. After a successful first meeting, at Grant’s house, we met Stratton alone, at a hotel near Brig-house on the M62, when he produced a couple of thick contracts. He wanted us to sign there and then.

  ‘It all sounds really good, but I want to show the contract to a couple of people before I sign anything,’ I told him.

  ‘What do you mean? The contract’s fine, you can see for yourself,’ he argued. ‘No, I’m not signing anything yet,’ I insisted.

  Jamie agreed with me and Stratton’s mood changed quickly, as though we had insulted him.

  ‘Fine, if you want to be funny about it,’ he snapped.

  The next day he was back on the phone, as nice as pie, wanting to know what alterations were needed. But Mick insisted that nothing would be signed until there was money in our accounts, as a gesture of good faith.

  In the meantime, Stratton had arranged for us to take part in the Macau Grand Prix, on a couple of bikes that were sprayed in hideous colours and displayed the logo of a credit card that nobody had ever heard of. The bikes were leased from Padgett’s, a big family-run racing bike shop based in Batley. The warning bells started to ring loudly when we arrived in the Far East and the bikes hadn’t been paid for. They refused to let us use them until the money showed up. The money never did arrive, but in the end Padgett’s, knowing we would be stuck out in Macau without a ride, agreed to let us use them anyway. That was the last anyone ever heard of Stratton and we will probably never know the full truth of it. Fortunately, though, this all happened before Christmas and there was plenty of time to look elsewhere.

  Ducati had obviously shown a big interest at the end of 1992, but nothing was ever put in writing and, although the lure of Stratton’s GP ride was tempting, I had never been put in a position where I had to turn Ducati down. There was some talk in the press that Garry Taylor wanted me for his Lucky Strike Suzuki team. I now think that was just his way of signing Doug Chandler at a cheaper price.

  It was also difficult to convince non-English sponsors to employ an English rider. The Grand Prix circuit was, and always has been, very political and it’s not always the best rider that is given the opportunity. There were a lot of offers to stay and race in Britain, but that was never going to be a serious option. Kawasaki France also wanted me back for World Endurance but, again, that was not a road that I wanted to go down.

  But in January I was still without a confirmed ride for 1993 and was worried that there might be a repeat of the previous year’s last-minute panic. I needn’t have bothered, as Ducati were notorious for leaving things like that until the last minute.

  I received the first call, from Davide Tardozzi, my current boss. He had retired as a rider at the end of the previous season and was set to run a factory Ducati team in World Superbikes. The Belgian rider, Stephane Mertens, was to be my team-mate. I named my price at £50,000, but Davide knocked me down to £40,000, and insisted that I used their mechanics. I didn’t want to commit myself and said that I would call him back to confirm.

  The very same day, former world champion Raymond Roche called. Throughout 1992 he had been telling me that he wanted me for his factory Ducati team that he was planning to set up. But it never went any further than that. This time he meant business.

  ‘What are you doing for a ride this year?’ he asked in his pidgin English.

  ‘Nothing has been sorted yet, but I’ve just spoken to Davide Tardozzi,’ I told him.

  ‘Ah yes. He is also running a team. But I have the official factory team with Giancarlo Falappa. I need an answer, as I am here at the factory now with Claudio Castiglioni.’

  Castiglioni was the owner of the Cagiva Group, which in turn owned Ducati, and he had run Eddie Lawson’s team in GPs. When I told him that I wanted to sign, we started to talk money. I knew that Davide had knocked me down from £50,000, but thought it was worth another try. I could hear Roche consulting with Castiglioni on a three-way line before agreeing. Encouraged by that I thought I would try my luck a bit further. ‘I also want my own mechanic, an English guy called Slick. And … what about expenses?’ I asked, timidly.

  There was more discussion before Roche came back. ‘We will pay you £55,000 a
nd you sort out your own hotels. You can have your mechanic as long as he is not a troublemaker. Fly here tomorrow to sign.’

  Bingo! I was more than happy, until Roche later told me that I should have started the bargaining at £100,000 and I might have been paid £80,000!

  I was shitting myself when I arrived in Italy but didn’t sign the contract until I’d had a chance to chat with Raymond over dinner. I trusted him and he assured me that it was the same deal that he had signed the previous year. ‘With the Castiglionis, contracts mean nothing. When you are with the family, it is their word that counts. Sign it and shut up,’ he grinned. It was time to put pen to paper.

  The money didn’t matter, but it was handy. We had only just moved house, having bought Verecroft, where I lived as a teenager, off dad, while he used our old house as part exchange on a new one for him and mum. So the new deal allowed us to spend money on it. But the main thing was to have my foot in the door with a major factory team, whether it was in World Superbikes or Grand Prix. The big money would eventually come with success.

  It was to be a big year for the WSB series in its battle to become established on the world scene. The top three riders from 1992 were no longer in action. Roche had retired and Rob Phillis’s contract with Kawasaki was not renewed, as they felt that he was too long in the tooth. Instead, they went for Scott Russell and Aaron Slight. The third big name, Doug Polen, had returned to race in America. He was the loudest of loud Americans. He could frighten the life out of you with one ‘Hey Carl’, if you were doing something like cleaning the motorhome windows with your back to him and didn’t spot him approaching. In Britain, the profile of the series was boosted when the Sky Sports channel abandoned their coverage of the Grand Prix series to concentrate on World Superbikes.

  Raymond had promised to ride one more race, at Daytona, before packing it in. When he returned home to Cannes, in the south of France, he found Slick sat in a van on his driveway.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m Tony Bass – Slick – here to start work,’ he answered.

  ‘You are here two weeks early,’ said Roche.

  He had given Slick completely the wrong date. It was a sign of the disorganised way that Raymond would run things in his first year as a manager, and Slick had to sweep the floor in the workshop for a couple of weeks to kill time.

  I enjoyed riding for Raymond, as he was laid back and one of the lads, similar to Davide Tardozzi, but not as motivated and efficient. He was also very helpful in setting up the bike and knew what made a rider tick, having won the World Endurance title and the World Superbike title in 1990, not to mention some great results in GPs.

  The first test on the famous red factory 888 was at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before, as I didn’t want to show myself up. ‘I hope I can still ride a bike. I hope I haven’t lost it,’ I fretted. The bike didn’t seem too much different from the one I rode the previous year. But it was a lot more powerful, and that was the thing that had stopped me challenging the factory guys in 1992.

  The nerves still hadn’t gone in time for the first round at a cold and wet Brands Hatch, although I led the first race on the opening lap. But, coming into the final corner, I had conflicting advice running through my head. Roger Burnett had warned me not to use the inside line, while another rider told me exactly the opposite. I was so confused that I stuck to the middle of the track, slammed on the brakes and almost took my team-mate, Falappa, out as I fell off. I seemed to gather speed as I slid into the gravel, crashed into the bike and smashed into the tyre wall, damaging ligaments in my right shoulder and almost dislocating the joint. Funnily enough, after a skiing accident this year, the doctors took X-rays of my left shoulder but were puzzled by the size of the gap in my right shoulder socket. It was probably caused by that crash.

  The pain was unbearable, but it was difficult explaining that I couldn’t take part in the second race when no bones had been broken. It wasn’t a great first impression for my new team, but Roche just said, ‘We fix you and you win the next round.’

  Meanwhile, Falappa won both races at Brands, while I moped around with my shoulder in a strap, feeling pretty sorry for myself. And that’s rare for me, as nobody could call me soft. The only thing I ever moan about is the number of colds that I catch. If there’s a bug going round, I’ll catch it. This all probably dates back to when I broke my nose as a 15-year-old, mucking around in Blackburn town centre chasing one of my mates. He was a bit too quick for me and, when he changed direction quickly, I carried on and smacked straight into a concrete post on the multi-storey car park. There were little birdies flying round my head. Ever since then I have had sinus trouble, not particularly during the racing season, but definitely during the winter.

  Confidence was restored with a couple of decent results at Hockenheim. After the race, Slick spewed his guts up out of the window of the motorhome all the way from Germany to Dover, as he had worked his balls off that weekend in hot conditions. The boss of the UK importer for Ducati, Hoss Elm, had also asked me to ride a bike in a couple of British rounds but he didn’t enjoy the first meeting, at Oulton Park, where I didn’t finish either race. It was the first time he had been in charge of a team and didn’t really know what was happening. He would ask some stupid questions like, on a wet circuit, ‘Do you not think you should be using slick tyres, Carl?’

  ‘No, Hoss, it’s pouring down!’ you would reply.

  Being a successful businessman, he was used to things going his way. I didn’t even see him after the races, as he’d sulked off home.

  His mood changed at the North West 200, in what was to be my last ever road race. Dad had once finished second here and I had been trying to win for years, but had never found success – or much luck. For some reason or another, I always seemed to break down and not finish. So, when someone asked me how I thought I would do in that year’s race, I said, ‘Oh, it’ll probably be the same old story. I’ll be leading until one lap from the finish and then something will go wrong with the bike.’

  The bloke replied, ‘What you need, is the luck of the Irish. Wear something green and you’ll win the race, to be sure.’

  It was worth a try, so I asked Michaela if she had packed anything green. She pulled out a Benetton vest, which I wore the next day for the races. Sure enough, I won both and set a new lap record.

  Ever since then, the green vest has been an essential part of my kit. Of the 59 World Superbike races I had won by the end of 1999, 57 were in that vest. For the other two wins, I had left it behind but still managed to wear something green. The first time was in Indonesia when I had packed it, but left it in the team hotel, which was half an hour away from the track. There was no time to send anyone back to fetch it from my room. So my boss at that time, Virginio Ferrari, went to a nearby supermarket and bought the nearest thing to a green T-shirt that he could find and cut the arms off, so that it would still feel like I was wearing my special vest. Sure enough, I won the first race. The other time, I borrowed something green from Kawasaki.

  People might not think so, but racers do occasionally wash their kit and the green vest has shrunk severely over the years. So, now, when I take my leathers off, people see this skimpy little number that finishes half way up my stomach. It must look odd, but I don’t care what people think as long as I think that it will bring me luck. In 1999, I wore the same pair of underpants for every race, because I started the season with a double win in them. Believe me, I washed those after every round.

  I took some photographs of my North West 200 win to show Raymond, who hadn’t even known I was taking part. ‘You crazy Englishman,’ he laughed. ‘Now you concentrate only on the world championship. Now you win for me.’

  I did just that at the very next round, at Albacete. It was there that Raymond noticed that I was trying to ride the Ducati like the Honda. He said, ‘You don’t need to use all the gears all the time. Last year I won here using just four of the six gears. Us
e first gear wherever you can.’ The advice helped a lot and I won both races, my first win on a factory Ducati and my first double win. The results gave me a lot of confidence and I felt that I no longer had to prove myself to Ducati.

  My team-mate, Giancarlo Falappa, was leading the championship going into his home round at Misano. The first time I set eyes on Falappa in the paddock he frightened the life out of me, as he looked a bit of a thug, like an English football hooligan. Danielle was also scared stiff of him and would start screaming every time he came over to say hello. It was very embarrassing because he was a genuinely nice guy, very softly spoken and we never had a falling out. But he wasn’t someone I would share information with or go to for advice, or even socialise with. The Italians tend to go out later in the evening and have wine with their meal, whereas we prefer an early evening Chinese and a few beers. His bike set up was strange, more like a motocross bike than a superbike. But I felt that his was that little bit better than mine, and that he was receiving more help from the team.

  The Misano round proved to be a case in point. Falappa’s bike was fitted with an experimental gear change device, a button on the handlebars. Normally, you change gear by pressing the gear lever without shutting off. It cuts the engine out for something like a 1,000th of a second. That lever is on the left-hand side of the bike. So it’s harder to change gears smoothly at Misano, which is all left-hand corners, as you’re constantly leaning over to that side. It was soon obvious that the device gave Falappa an advantage, as he was pulling away at the long corners and won both races. If a team-mate was given preferential treatment now, I would be ranting and raving. But, because he was leading the championship, it seemed fair enough.