by Carl Fogarty
It’s easy to say people like that should be locked up. But I don’t tend to pay much attention to politics. I don’t think I’ve ever voted and perhaps it’s time I started taking a bit more notice. It pissed me off, though, when I found out that Blackburn council would not give me their highest honour – the freedom of the borough – when I retired. The best they could offer was a civic medal. I know a lot of sportsmen who have been awarded the freedom of their town for doing a lot less than I have. Apparently Blackburn only awarded the freedom of the borough to politicians, like Barbara Castle. And I thought she trained dogs!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Race Weekend
Winter used to be a time when I could wind down and recharge my batteries for the season ahead. Away from the day-to-day pressures of racing, I could try and be a nice person again. But even without all the upset caused by the battle with my uncle, it felt like I didn’t get a minute’s peace after the 1999 season. If anything, I was even more in demand than I was during the racing season.
Luckily, my contract for the 2000 campaign had been sorted out long before the end of the previous season. The figures were agreed at Brands and it was a lot easier getting the right money out of Ducati than usual. It was basically agreed in a 10-minute phone call to Domenicali, but the deal was kept quiet until Hockenheim because Corser’s future was not as clear. All the way through the season there had been press reports suggesting I would move away, including one that Suzuki had offered me £3 million. I might have made it sound as though they were interested, but there was no approach.
It was no great shock when the news was announced that I would be returning to Ducati. But there was one surprise still in store. Following the final races in Sugo, Ducati announced that Corser would not be re-signed for the following year. Instead they went for a talented young American rider called Ben Bostrom, who had looked fast at the Laguna Seca round.
There were suggestions that the American owners of Ducati wanted to expand the profile of their company in the States. But Troy had also asked for stupid money, and you can only do that if you are the world champion. On top of all that, Ducati were not impressed by his performance in Japan. While I battled away, with nothing at stake, to finish second and fifth, Troy was way down the field in eighth and 14th. He had still been in with a chance of making it a Ducati one-two at the top of the championship, but allowed Edwards to draw level on points and become runner-up because he had more race wins.
I also realised that Ducati were about to make another change to the team. Every year I’d had a battle to keep Slick on and there had been more problems again during 1999. Some of the other mechanics had complained about his work and Davide was not happy with some of his behaviour at hotels and his appearance on race day. I could have dug my heels in and insisted that he stayed but I had already sensed that Slick was no longer happy. His heart wasn’t in being somewhere that he wasn’t wanted. His role had changed so much that he was almost just in the background. And I felt sorry for him. ‘I don’t want you just to be there for me. I want you to do something for yourself. You know that Ducati don’t really want you, so I don’t think you really want to be there either,’ I told him. He came to stay in Blackburn for a few days and was pretty upset. But racing has changed and maybe Slick hasn’t changed with it.
He has made it hard for himself at times, although he was always dedicated to Carl Fogarty more than any other person in racing. That might not have gone down well with people at Honda or Ducati because he always wanted to do what was right for me and not necessarily the team. And he didn’t care who he upset along the way. But it was sad and strange to start the 2000 season without him. Ducati offered him a job in the factory, but that wasn’t Slick. He also had a few other options and I would like to have seen him set up his own business on the back of my success. Instead, I think he took the easy option by going to work for another team, Level 3, run by Ray Stringer, with Michael Rutter and Paul Young riding Yamahas.
Going from one of the biggest teams in the world to a privately-run Yamaha team was never going to be easy. Slick must have been frustrated and started to shout his mouth off, so it didn’t last long. For the 2001 season he was due to team up with Scott Russell in the American championship, working on Ducatis. He always got on well with Scott because they are both party animals, so it was anybody’s guess how that would work out. They would either get on like a house on fire all year – or it would kick off straight away. But he has to be careful that he does not lose all credibility and start running out of options.
Almost straight after the Sugo round there was a test in Croatia. It rained for the whole two days and was a waste of time. Then it was Foggy Day at the NEC Bike Show, organised by MCN, where a lot of people were disappointed because I couldn’t cope with the demands on my time. I had a 20-minute slot racing someone on a video game, then a 15-minute auction, and then autograph sessions when I knew I wouldn’t get through half the queue. It became one mad rush with four big bodyguards keeping people away. And that doesn’t go down well with the fans. I tried my best in an exhausting and hectic schedule but there is only so much you can do in a day.
Some of the money raised from the auction went towards Princess Anne’s Riders For Health appeal, which I presented to her in London at a later date. She tried to tell me that the Badminton Horse Trials are the biggest single-day attended sporting event in Britain. I put her right! Auctions are the best way for me to help charities because I am just too busy to do personal appearances and visits to injured riders in hospital. I get letters every day, addressed to ‘Carl Fogarty, Blackburn’, asking for signed photos but I have to admit that most don’t get a reply. There are just too many to go through.
But I did manage to start a leg of Ian Botham’s walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End in Bristol. When I was chatting to Botham, and picking up a few blisters, it was clear we had a lot in common. When he was at his peak, he didn’t train anywhere near as hard as the others. He was able to beat them because he was the best. The same went for me for a long time, although I did a bit more preparation as my career went on.
For instance, this year I did a week’s motocross riding during a break in Tenerife between the Misano and Valencia tests, which set me up nicely. It’s the only thing, along with trail riding, which I can motivate myself to do, as I don’t like mountain biking and, while I’ve built a gymnasium at home, it bores the shit out of me. I’m trying to do more enduro riding and now have even more incentive after Michelin bought me a brand new KTM bike for winning the world championship and a Blackburn company, CCM, gave me a trail bike. Michaela now has a job promoting their company – it’s about time she brought some money in! – and her latest idea is to get a road licence for riding bikes, so that she can come with me. I can’t ever see her riding a bike on the road – she’s not even safe driving a car! And we would only fall out because we’re very competitive at sport. We play a lot of tennis and I always win, despite the fact that she has had lessons for two years. She reckons she’s a better swimmer and sprinter – but it’s not true!
The highlights of my TV dates were my second A Question of Sport appearance and Through the Keyhole, which must have been a nightmare for Lloyd Grossman to film as he wandered round our house.
The first thing you see as you walk through the door is my 1998 championship-winning bike in the hallway. And the rest of the house is packed with biking stuff like my leathers, trophies, a wicker bike and a lethal little two-stroke mini moto, which Danielle rides up and down the drive. Sure enough, the panel didn’t take long to say, ‘There has only been one racer who has done anything since Barry Sheene and that’s …’ I was sure they were going to say something like Ron Haslam!
Before a week’s testing in Australia we managed to squeeze in a few breaks for ourselves. In January I went skiing for the first time in Italy. I absolutely loved it, despite a big fall on the first day in which I damaged my left shoulder ligaments because I was trying to keep up w
ith Davide. If the scheduled first round in Valencia had not been cancelled because of the Spanish elections, I might not have been ready for the season.
But the highlight of the winter was a visit to Bahrain, as guest of their Crown Prince, to help promote the launch of a new powerboat by watching an attempt to go round the island in a record time. There was no existing record to beat, so it seemed a bit pointless. I was quite nervous when we arrived at the palace but the Prince broke the ice straight away when he said, ‘Hi Carl. I’ve been following your career since 1992.’ Somehow, I couldn’t see Prince Charles knowing so much about his sporting guests. Formula One driver Mika Salo and his Japanese wife Noriko were also there and we were treated like royalty the whole week. They took us riding bikes in the desert, and provided a horse for Michaela.
One morning we went diving for pearls. We just snorkelled on the surface but Salo and Noriko had scuba licences. When they toppled backwards over the side of the boat, she went down headfirst with her feet stuck out of the water, flapping around. Everyone else was really concerned but I had to run to the other side of the boat, crying with laughter. Then they couldn’t get her weights right and she kept bobbing back up to the surface.
All this made her seasick and, when she clambered back on board, she looked like a drowned rat. ‘Ooooh, seeeek, seeeek,’ she groaned, as she puked everywhere. She curled up in a corner, as sick as a dog and shivering. The devils in my head were telling me to go ahead and laugh aloud, but I managed to cover my head in my hands and run to the other end of the boat again.
There’s no doubt that I’ve got an evil streak because I always tend to laugh at other people’s misfortunes. If someone had broken a leg, it wouldn’t be funny, but anything like that, which is not too serious, I always find amusing. Salo was a decent bloke, but a bit of a dominant character with his wife. And, if we ever said something was nice like a jet-ski, he was quick to say, ‘Yes, I’ve got one at home – well, two actually.’ I don’t tend to bump into the Formula One guys too often but, when I do, I always get on well with Eddie Irvine. He is also a friend of Alan Pendry.
When it came to the end of March, I had almost forgotten that I had to go out and race. The test at Phillip Island was also pretty much a waste of time because I caught some kind of virus out there. At first I thought it was the food on the plane but I realised it wasn’t food poisoning when I was constipated for three days. It wasn’t until the final day that I began to feel better and I nearly killed Colin Edwards in the end of testing press conference when I let off three days’ worth of farts.
At the next test in Misano things started to click for us. I was joint fastest with Edwards after the three days and continued that form in Valencia when I was fastest until I had a big crash on the afternoon of the second day. When I realised that I wouldn’t be able to take one corner I ran off into the gravel, expecting it to slow me down. It didn’t and I ditched the bike with the barrier fast approaching. I must have fallen awkwardly because I damaged ligaments in my right shoulder and knocked myself out for a few moments – for only the second time in my career. It meant that I missed the final day of the Valencia test, when Edwards on the new twin cylinder VTR1000 set a faster time. He was obviously going to be the one to look out for. And, for the first time, the Honda riders would not be able to moan that the two-cylinder Ducatis were better than their two-cylinder bikes.
Honda had to change Edwards’ team-mate at the last minute after Aaron Slight was taken ill following the tests at Phillip Island. It was discovered that he had a small brain haemorrhage and he needed brain surgery in Sydney. At the time, I couldn’t really see Aaron racing again, which was sad, even though I didn’t get on with him. No one would have liked to see a good rider finish his career like that. Simon Crafar was hired by Honda to take Slight’s place for the first few races. My shoulder injury meant that I had to cancel another brief skiing trip, to Bormio in Italy, to present the trophy on behalf of our sponsor Infostrada to the winner of the World Cup downhill. That trip was planned for just two weeks before the opening round in Kyalami, so it was perhaps for the best. Even so, when it came to leaving for Kyalami, the shoulder was still very sore and worrying me.
I don’t think many people realise the drag that these long journeys can be. Bike racing is certainly not always the glamorous lifestyle that it’s cracked up to be. For instance, this trip started on the Tuesday afternoon before the race and it upset Michaela when Danielle burst into tears when she dropped her off at school in the morning. We took a connecting flight from Manchester to Heathrow, where British Airways at least try to make life a bit easier. They had spotted that I was on the flight and a guy met us at the other end to bypass the transfer between terminals by driving us there directly. Then we were upgraded from Business Class to First Class, which often happens, so at least we had a bed and some free pyjamas! But I didn’t sleep too well on the 11-hour flight to Johannesburg because I couldn’t get comfortable with my shoulder. To add insult to injury the captain wished the Honda team, who were on the same flight, the best of luck for Sunday’s race!
We were met at the airport and, in pouring rain, driven to our hotel in a Bentley by a guy who owns a Ferrari dealership near Johannesburg. Then I went straight up to the track in the afternoon to see the doctors about my shoulder. The injury had meant that I hadn’t been able to do any motocross riding in the build-up to the first race so I made a token effort and went for a run around the track with a friend.
Davide was also worried about the shoulder and arranged a scan in Pretoria. After hanging round at the hospital for hours, the machine broke while I was inside! So all the next day was spent back at the track with the doctors and physios, trying to find out exactly what was wrong. The initial diagnosis was that I had torn some cartilage in the rotator cuff of the joint and I had a painkilling injection in my backside – which I hate – but it seemed to help.
South Africa, and Johannesburg in particular, is not a place where you can wander round and experiment with where to eat and drink. All the hotels and houses are protected by barbed wire and the crime is so high that you stick with what you know. So we went back to Montego Bay in the main square of the huge Sandton City shopping centre, where you feel safe enough – apart from one waitress who was after tickets for Sunday. When we went back on the Thursday, the owner gave us the meal on the house. My new team-mate, Ben, and his girlfriend at the time, Leeann Tweeden, a model and TV presenter from Los Angeles, also ate there on the first night. We had all been winding Michaela up that she now had some competition on the pit wall. I was told later that Leeann thought I was sweet, which is the first time I’ve ever been called that!
Ben seems a typical Californian, very laid back although he takes his preparation seriously. He is always mixing high-energy drinks and eats a high protein diet right up until race day. I tend to eat what I want – although I won’t touch alcohol for about a week before a race – and I discovered oysters for the first time at Montego Bay. The next day, Ben had an upset stomach and I felt fine. He’s a talented rider who was bound to go fast at some tracks, but I also felt that he would struggle on others.
Thursday was also the day of the pre-meeting press conference. The FIM told us about some new fines and Chili stood up as usual to do his grandfather bit. He has a point, though. These things are always imposed on the riders without any discussions. Riders should have a representative on the governing bodies. But the most bizarre question came from one journalist who asked, ‘Why do all the riders wear their sunglasses on their heads?’ The answer is obvious, because most of us are sponsored to wear them.
My shades are provided by Oakley, and I had already done them one favour that year. For Christmas, Michaela bought me a solid gold Oakley watch that weighed a ton. The strap was too big for my wrist at first and I had to have a couple of links removed. This proved handy for Oakley as Mike Tyson bought the same watch when he was in Manchester to fight Julius Francis. But his strap was not big enough to fit rou
nd his wrist so we gave them back the links to add to his watch.
I bought Michaela some diamond earrings. Her presents get more and more expensive every year, but what do you buy someone who has everything? One year I bought her a solid gold Rolex and put it in a massive box filled with rags and her knickers. I videoed her searching for the small box, which was wrapped in wallpaper and stuck together with duct tape. Her face was a picture.
It was actually getting quite difficult fitting all the sponsors’ badges on my leathers. But I had just done a deal with Motorbikes4U, a company that I had invested some money in along with a few other riders like Barry Sheene, to wear their new caps that advertised my new web site www.foggynol.com. I also stuck a small strip across the top of my visor because, due to the problems I’d had with Brian, it was important to get the message across that I now had an authentic official site.
In the first free practice session on Friday morning I had a few suspension problems and Edwards was quickest, with Haga also going well. He always seems to be good early in the season when his Dunlop tyres suit the first few circuits. I did 18 laps and the shoulder was still troubling me at three points on the circuit – two chicanes where I had to flip the bike over quickly and at one hard-braking corner. In the first qualifying session that afternoon, we tried some new forks because the track seemed bumpier than the previous year and they seemed a lot better. I also used a 16.5in tyre, which I had never raced on before. I haven’t liked it in the past but it felt good and I reduced the difference between Edwards’ fastest lap from 1.5 to just 0.3 seconds. I would probably have gone quicker than him if a slow rider hadn’t got in my way on my last lap.
It was another long day at the track, with a lot more physiotherapy on the shoulder plus more injections. After each session there was also a technical meeting with the engineers to discuss plans for the next day. And the BBC also wanted to do a piece with their presenter Suzi Perry, out on the track before the light faded. The very fact that it was their first race added to the pressure on me because I was aware that a lot more people would be watching back home. By the time we left the track in our hire car it was dark. You are always fairly nervous driving around over there, as the latest crime wave is car-jacking. So, when we drove past some flashing police lights at the side of the road, with what looked like a dead body sprawled out in the middle of the road, we didn’t stop to see if it had been a shooting or a car accident!