Foggy on Bikes
Carl Fogarty with Neil Bramwell

Copyright

Neil Bramwell, who collaborated with Carl Fogarty in writing this book, is a freelance sports journalist. He is the former sports editor of the Blackburn-based Lancashire Evening Telegraph and a former BT Northwest Sports journalist of the year. This is his second book with Carl Fogarty, having previously co-authored his bestselling autobiography, Foggy.

Harper Nonfiction

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

© Carl Fogarty and Neil Bramwell 2002

The Authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007118397

Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007390380

Version: 2015-09-10

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Section 1: What Makes A World Champion

1: Tools for Success

2: Starting to Race

Section 2: Racing Techniques

1: Positions

2: The Perfect Line

3: Braking

4: Tyres

5: Suspension

6: Engine

7: Conditions

8: Beyond the Limit

9: Celebrations

Section 3: Preperation

Physical Preperation

1: Fitness and Diet

2: Kit

3: Teamwork

Mental Preperation

1: Build-up

2: Danger

3: Aggression

4: Opposition

5: Negotiations and the Media

Section 4: Racing

Testing and Setting-up

1: Testing and Analysis

2: Adjustments

3: Qualifying and Superpole

Race Strategy

1: Starting

2: Strategy

3: Overtaking

Section 5: Other Types of Bike Racing

Competitive

1: Endurance

2: Enduro or Trail Riding

3: Motocross

4: Speedway

5: Trials

6: Supermotard

Leisure

1: Roadcraft

Plates

Keep Reading

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Introduction

I was knackered. We had been riding for a couple of hours and had just reached the halfway point of a really tricky steep section called Walna Scar in the Coniston area of the Lake District. It was more suited to trial bike riding than trail bikes – a slippery gully filled with boulders, and water running off the top of the mountain. I remember once following Dougie Lampkin, the world trials champion, up there and he made it look easy. I had already fallen off three or four times but I still managed to catch a lad called Kevin Moore, who had come past me laughing his head off. He was always pretty quick up that section because he had strong legs from his days playing football for Swansea City, when they were at the top of the old First Division. Sure, you need strong arms for balance, but when you are trying to keep the bike upright and to push off the rocks when your wheels are spinning, all the effort comes from your legs.

I could just about see the dry stone wall, where we always stopped for a break and which served as a finish line for the ‘race’, and saw a chance to overtake Kevin at the last minute. So I went for the tightest of gaps, he came across and we smacked into each other. I fell off, but he fell underneath me and we were both howling with laughter as we scrambled to pick the bikes up and reach the wall first. For the record, I won!

During the break, the banter was flying round about the exploits on that last section. Another mate of mine, Austin Clews, a director of a company in Blackburn called CCM which makes motorcycles, came round to have a good look at the new bike I was riding, a Suzuki DR400. It was a bit lighter than the other bikes because I was still struggling with my injured arm. Then, before we’d hardly had a chance to catch our breath, someone shouted, ‘Right, we’re off!’

The next section was also full of rocks and shale, so I decided to try and ride on the moorland grass, thinking I would manage to get up to the top if I got a good enough run at it. By this time the weather had closed in and I could hardly see more than a few yards ahead because of the mist. I just about made it over a little ridge at the top of the slope when the engine suddenly cut out. Every time I tried to start it, it died straight away, and I was getting more and more tired just trying to hold the bike up on the steep slope. It did not have a kick-start, so I was worried that the battery would go flat. Everyone else had cleared off. I could barely hear them, never mind see them.

When the bike eventually fell over, I decided to go back down the hill and try to start the thing on the way down. It would not bump-start because it was sliding on the grass, and even the electric-start would not work. What the hell is wrong with this thing? I thought during a minute’s rest back down at the wall, staring at the bike in frustration.

Then it hit me: the fuel had been switched off. It must have been Austin when he was examining the bike. I had been left with enough fuel in the pipe to get the bike started and perhaps run it for about a mile on the flat. I flicked the switch back on and eventually made it to the top, falling and stalling on the way up because I was so shattered. I was panting like a dog when I reached them. They had been waiting so long that Austin had actually forgotten he had switched the fuel off! Bastards!

When I smashed my arm at Phillip Island in Australia in April 2000 – the injury which forced me to quit racing – I was more pissed off at having to miss days like this one near Coniston than I was at missing the actual superbike races for the rest of that season. For me, racing in the World Championships was never fun. It was a serious business – I had to win, and people expected me to win. It was hard to enjoy something when there was so much pressure on you to do well.

Most people who own a bike find it difficult to understand that I didn’t get a thrill from putting my knee down at a corner. That’s part and parcel of the fun of bikes for them. But I can count the number of times I’ve ridden a bike on the roads in the last ten years on the fingers of one hand. I took my enduro bike out onto the roads a couple of times, just to get a feel for it and run it in for a few miles before taking it up to the Lake District. One of the other few times I have been out on the roads was when travelling between the hotel and Misano for the World Superbike round in Italy in 1999. As at most circuits on race days, the traffic approaching the track is bad. So, rather than have fans banging on the window while I sat in a hot car in a traffic jam, I decided to use one of the Ducati scooters to ride to and from Cattolica, where we were staying. I’ve seen Eddie Irvine do the same thing, and it’s quite funny watching people’s reactions when they realise who it is flying past, especially in Italy where I have a huge following because of my association with Ducati. They just about manage a ‘Ciao, Foggy!’ before I’m off down the road, riding like a typical Italian.

The bikes I keep at home are also used more as ornaments than as functional bikes. The 996 Ducati on which I won the world title in 1998 is mounted in my hallway in front of a mirror. There is also a replica of that bike, given to me by Ducati, in the new office and trophy room we designed at home. Then I have a Ducati 900 Monster, also given to me by Ducati. That bike has been fettled to make it a 960. It has a different exhaust, pistons, barrels and heads. My intention was to ride it on the roads occasionally, but I’ve had it for two years and never taken it out.

The bike I probably use the most at home is my KTM 250cc motocross bike – at least until the arm injury prevented me from using it on the small track I built in a field behind the house. I also bought two Honda XR100s from America to use at Fogarty Park, so that I could find someone to race against – and beat. Then Malaguti gave me a scooter, after they did a deal with Ducati to produce a series of Foggy replicas. It was sprayed up in the same colours as the bike on which I won the 1999 championship. That has also done zero miles! I bought Danielle a Yamaha TTR90 for her ninth birthday, and the girls also have a little quad bike. And I’ve got a Birel four-wheeler, which has a steering wheel and a four-stroke lawnmower engine. The manufacturer also sprayed that red, put some Ducati stickers on it and sold a few on the back of the fact that I owned one. It was useless for riding on grass because it had slick tyres and would not have had enough grip, but I did ride it around the paddock for a while because it looked different and a bit freaky – the Volkswagen Beetle of the biking world.

I also have a 90cc Honda Cub field bike, probably best suited to teenage lads, which I bought for £500 from a shop in Burnley in 1996. Don’t ask me why. I used it as a paddock bike when I was with Honda in 1996, and it’s a good bike for pulling wheelies as it has a lot of low-down power. You can get the back wheel up pretty easily, as long as you keep one finger on the back brakes to stop it going over! Finally, there’s the mini-moto, which lives in the lounge area of the kitchen. These are actually raced in Italy and are really difficult to control, as the engines are really ‘wick’. It’s not like a little four-stroke that just chuffs along. Danielle is already very confident on it.

But while my own are used mostly as toys, bikes still play a major role in my life. After the crash at Phillip Island I started to think about the possibility of running my own team. The logical thing was to ask Ducati for help and my company, Team Foggy Racing Limited, set about trying to attract enough sponsorship. Then I received a call from a Malaysian-based businessman called David Wong, whom I had raced for in the Malaysian championship in 1992, backed by that country’s state-owned petroleum giant Petronas.

I told David that I was thinking about running my own team and he said he would speak to Petronas. A couple of days later he came back to me, saying that he needed us to come out to Malaysia to discuss an exciting project. My manager and agent, Neil Bramwell, and a businessman called Murray Treece, who had been trying to find sponsorship for the team, travelled to Kuala Lumpur and were told that Petronas had funded the design of a new triple, called the GP1, with their Swiss-based joint venture company Sauber Petronas Engineering. Petronas had a number of options on the table to lease the engine out to Grand Prix teams but were very interested about the possibility of using my name to manufacture and sell the first Malaysian superbike, as well as funding my own superbike team for five years. Having my own team was a big enough step but having my own brand of bike was just mind-blowing!

It was a massive project and something that I could not turn down, although it meant breaking my ties with Ducati. The call to my old team boss Davide Tardozzi was one of the hardest I have ever had to make, but Ducati appreciated that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. So suddenly I was a team owner and facing a whole new set of pressures. Petronas wanted us to start in the 2002 season and we set ourselves a massive engineering task in order to meet homologation requirements. I managed to snap up two top-class riders in Troy Corser, my former Ducati team-mate, and James Haydon, a fast British rider with loads of potential, for our debut year. I also picked my old mate Nigel Bosworth to be team manager, as I was convinced he was the best man for the job. The next big task was to make sure the bike was competitive, as there was no point me doing this if we weren’t going to be at the front of the grid within a couple of years. It was actually that win-at-all-costs attitude that stopped me from going over to Malaysia during the early negotiations.

Whenever I’m riding a bike, whether it’s a CCM 600 up a mountainside or throwing my Honda XR100 over jumps at home, I always go for it 100 per cent.

That’s probably why I was pushing so hard at a track at Anglesey in North Wales when I suffered my latest bad injury in September 2001. I’d been booked to ride for CCM in a big supermotard race in Belgium and was keen to put in as much practice as possible, as I would have been up against people like Jamie Whitham and Ruben Xaus. I also wanted to give the regular supermotard guys a proper race. But I high-sided on a gravel section and snapped my tibia and fibula on landing. The weird thing about it was that the circuit is an absolute dead ringer for Phillip Island. It’s situated at one end of Anglesey, the sea surrounds the track, and the bend where I went down exactly matches the one where I crashed in Australia in 2000.

The first operation to reset the joint wasn’t successful so I had to stay in Bangor Hospital over the weekend in order that the doctors could have another go. I had plenty of time to think things through. As much as I like riding competitively, I can’t afford to get injured again. So I will have to stop. I’m 36 years old – not 20 any more. I don’t bounce like I used to or heal like I used to. And I do have to think of other people as well – like Michaela because she has to look after me and hump me around when I’m in plaster. But there’s no looking back, and I have no regrets as I now have the Foggy Petronas Racing team and the Foggy FP1 (the name of the new bike that we are building from scratch) to concentrate on and throw all my energies into. I want both the team and the bike to be the best. It’s as simple as that!

That kind of commitment and desire made me the best superbike rider of all time. Four world titles are proof of that fact. Sure, a lot of the other riders had the talent, but not the same hunger for success. That is something that cannot be taught. It has to be there inside you. But there are certain techniques, practices and principles that can give you an edge over the next guy. I was never a textbook rider; I had my own distinctive and aggressive style around the track. It was the same in my early days in motocross, not to mention on the road circuits where I won another three world titles, before clinching my first world title on the track with the World Endurance Championship in 1992.

It goes without saying that much of the advice contained in this book is not best suited to safely riding your own bike – preferably a Foggy FP1!! – on the country’s roads. But after reading about the secrets of my success – as well as the scrapes, problems and laughs along the way – every rider, whether a world championship contender or a weekend plodder, will be able to get even more performance and enjoyment out of his or her machine.

Section 1 What Makes A World Champion

‘I’ve always admired Carl as one of the world’s best motorcycle riders of the 1990s, regardless of whether you’re talking 500cc or superbikes. Carl won four World Superbike Championship titles and no one gets lucky four times. He worked hard, he had talent and determination, and he deserved all the success that came his way.

‘Our careers had a lot in common. Both of us won our first world championship in 1994, and we each had more than 50 race wins in our respective categories. Unfortunately we were also both forced out of the sport by injuries from crashes within a few months of each other.

‘So what makes a world champion? To be honest, there’s no secret recipe. Every rider is different and so much depends on your team, the support of the manufacturer you’re racing for, the level of competition, tyres, plus a slice of luck here and there.

‘I went to quite a few World Superbike races over the years and Carl seemed to have a good relationship with his team and Ducati. He also had a strong attitude, and the right level of self-confidence that you need to win – a bit like Eddie Lawson had when I first went into 500cc.

‘Sometimes both Carl and I were called ruthless when we were racing. What people don’t always understand is that on race weekends the main priority is getting yourself in the best possible position to go for the win on Sunday afternoon. Winning gives you the most satisfaction, and Carl did plenty of that.

‘Over the years I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked, by the British in particular, how I think Carl would have gone on a 500. I’m sure he would have been very competitive, but he had a good, longstanding relationship with Ducati in superbikes, like I had with Honda in 500cc, and he may have felt better off staying where he was. You spend years building up working relationships, and it’s a big risk going to another team, or category. That’s one of the reasons I stayed with Honda throughout my 500cc racing.

‘At the end of the day Carl didn’t have to race 500cc to prove he was a good motorcycle rider. He’d already done that in superbikes. He was a great champion and role model for young British riders. Above all, he was someone who knew how to win.’

Michael Doohan

Five-times 500cc World Champion

1 Tools for Success

Ever since I was a small boy, I hated losing. At school, I could not stand losing at football. Nobody else seemed to be all that bothered. I did not take part in athletics because I knew I wasn’t good enough to win. Looking back, that was the wrong attitude to have because I missed out on a lot of fun – but then again, the boy who thought coming second was pathetic turned into one hell of a winner.

Bike racing was the only thing I knew I would be good at. But even when I started racing, I had a fear of what people might say if I did not win a race. I imagined them laughing or pointing at me behind my back. So, as a boy, I was always more comfortable flying around the fields on my own or racing against a few mates who had hardly ever ridden before, situations where I knew I would come out on top. Some of my mates were able to do tricks, like pulling wheelies, better than me. I did not seem to have that natural feel for a bike. But I hated it if they didn’t tell me I was faster, and I would really get off on it when they did.

We even tried to do wheelies on a step-through Honda 50 – a ‘plastic chicken’ as they were called, because of their shape. I never really knew who owned that bike because it was just left at our house, and it soon became a total wreck. One day, when me and a friend were bored, we decided to trash the thing by throwing it in the stream at the bottom of my house, then setting fire to it. A couple of weeks later, a lad who lived up the road called round to ask if anyone had seen his bike. ‘Nope, I’ve no idea where it is,’ I said, knowing it was a heap of molten metal.

Riding a Honda 250, not the fastest Honda in the world, to fourth place in the 1987 Junior TT on the Isle of Man.

All this time, I had an ambition to be the next Kenny Roberts. But, looking back, I wasn’t exactly doing a lot to make that dream come true. I wasn’t training every night or riding my bike around the fields when I came home from school. The kids of today who want to make it in racing are out riding mini-motos from around five or six years old. My nine-year-old daughter Danielle is already pretty confident on a bike, whereas I didn’t even get my first bike until my ninth birthday, so I was a pretty late starter.

By the time I did start racing motocross at the age of 15, I had already missed out on a lot of development. When you look at the successful riders today, they all started around the age of 10. I really wished my dad had pushed me into proper racing at an earlier age, though I would only have gone kicking and screaming. Had I started earlier, I can’t help thinking that I would have been an even better racer than I turned out to be.

To me, there are only two reasons for riding bikes: to win or to have fun. Right from the start I was always desperate to win, but in the early days, when I travelled around England with my cousins, I guess we also had a lot of fun. The higher I climbed up the racing ladder though, the less fun it became and the more anxious I was to learn and improve. It was probably only at the age of 20 that I thought Shit, I can be really good at this and make a good living. It was around that time that I really put my mind to it and improved as a rider more quickly than at any other period in my career. By the age of 23, I was a world champion.

In some ways I suppose I was lucky because alongside the determination to be the best I also had natural talent. There were those who had as much, if not more, talent, but there were never many with the same hunger. The Australian Anthony Gobert was a case in point. He could do things on a bike I could never do. Gobert had the ability to slide a bike going into or coming out of a corner like nobody else. But I’m mainly talking about playing around on a bike outside races. For instance, he could stand up and pull a wheelie with one hand and one leg off the bike. In my mind, there’s no doubt that he had the talent to become one of the best riders there has been, but talent alone is never enough. Gobert did not put in the hard work that is necessary to make it to the top. Instead, he went off the rails a bit.

It’s also one thing to have the determination and motivation, and another to stay at that same level year after year. The American Scott Russell was another rider blessed with a lot of talent, and for a couple of years he wanted to win races and the World Superbike Championship just as much as I did. But he lost the will to win – just like that. When I beat him at Phillip Island in 1994 he made a gesture to me as I passed him which said that he was throwing in the towel, and from that day on it seemed as though he was out there just to get paid and pick up the odd result. In fact, I think the only major races he has won since then have been at Daytona. There was no way I could have gone through the motions like that. Had injury not ended my career, I would have known when to call it a day: the minute I stopped having the motivation to win every race.

Not every rider wears his heart on his sleeve, though, like I do. Troy Corser, my team-mate in 1998 and 1999, always reminded me a lot of the Irish riders, who seemed very laid back about it all. He’s another who can do all the tricks, but when it came to riding round a track for 25 laps, he wasn’t as good as me. And the bottom line is that I would always rather be great at racing than good at tricks.

I was wearing a borrowed helmet in this club race at Darley Moor in 1985 because there had been a fire in our caravan.

Track 1Assen

NetherlandsRating: 10“All circuits should be like this! I won 12 out of 14 races here!”

There is no doubt that Assen was my favourite track. More than anywhere else, this circuit suited my riding style of being able to keep good speed through the corners. It’s a real rider’s track, with a lot of camber on the corners. And my record there is second to none. Towards the end of my career I was virtually unbeatable. From 1993 onwards I won 12 out of 14 races there, which is pretty amazing, including five double wins.

The Van Drenthe circuit dates back to 1925, so it has a rich history. I started racing there back in 1988 in the F1 TT World Championship – my first race experience abroad. Right from those early days, the omens were good. At that time, the rest of the more established Formula One teams were using quick fillers to force the fuel into their tanks and make pit-stops as quick as possible. Our lot was not that sophisticated; my main mechanic, Tony Holmes, hadn’t even travelled with us. Towards the end of the race, my mate Gary Dickinson, who wasn’t really a race mechanic at that time and was only there for a laugh, had worked out that we needed only another four litres to finish the race. While the others were filling their tanks with these contraptions, we used a jug and funnel, saved loads of time and I ended up finishing ninth, which I was pretty chuffed with. The others must have finished with half a tank full of fuel. It also meant I won £600, so for once I was able to pay our way home instead of relying on the money my dad had given us. Needless to say, we spent most of it by the time we got back to Blackburn!

Things hadn’t really run as smoothly as that, though. For a start we were placed over in the lepers’ paddock, way over on the other side to the Grand Prix teams, who were at the same meeting. There were only three of us, so whenever the weather changed we had to load different tyres onto a pole and I had to cart them over to the pit-lane myself. It was real low-budget racing.

Earlier at the same meeting, we had been warned that we wouldn’t be able to race until we controlled the noise of the bike, which was way over the protected limit. Another racer, Roger Burnett, told us about a way of getting round it by taking off the silencer and inserting a washer in the exhaust. All of a sudden, my bike went from the noisiest thing on the track to the quietest, so the stewards, who are as strict at Assen as they are anywhere, knew something was up. When they found the washer and started bollocking us, I went mad. ‘What do you want us to do? We’re just starting out and can’t afford all the stuff we’d need to meet your standards.’ They eventually let us off with a warning.

Gary must have had a thing about the stewards at Assen. Nearly 10 years later, when he was working for Sean Emmett, there was a big argument on the grid. Neil Hodgson’s bike had got some air in the clutch and the officials allowed him a minute to bleed it. Gary’s team thought he was getting special treatment, so they decided that when the time came to leave the grid, they would leave it as late as possible. When they tried it on, one of the stewards, a massive bloke, picked up Emmett’s front stand and hurled it over the barrier. The red mist came down over Gary and he smashed the bloke with his torque wrench. The following year Emmett was not allowed to race until he paid a £600 fine for what Gary had done the previous year!

Here’s a description of my flying lap around Assen. I would go through start–finish in second gear and move up to fifth through Timmer Bocht at the end of the pit-lane, where you run across a white line and a hump that can sometimes upset the bike, and straight-line it through the kink. Then I drop down two gears for the proper turn one. I enjoy this third-gear corner. You go in quite hard and then just let go of the brakes while the camber of the track holds you tight into the corner and helps you turn in. The other riders seem to keep braking all the way round. As soon as possible, just after going into the corner, I’m onto the gas and using all the room on the exit before going up through the gears to fourth and moving side to side through a couple of slight kinks left and right. This section is called Witterdiep, but they cannot really be called corners.

The next turn, Madjik, is possibly my favourite corner in racing. I go down two gears to this straightforward right-hand corner, with plenty of room going in and plenty coming out. As soon as I exit, I’m straight on the gas and can feel the bike sliding at the rear, which is a really good feeling. Then it’s up through the gears and through another dog-leg kink before getting hard on the brakes for the tight, well-banked, second-gear Osserbroeken. I exit that in second gear, climbing over the bike as I change up into third and go through another kink and under a bridge before shutting off the throttle and keeping it in third around the right-hander. More often than not I will try to run the bike in second gear through the De Strubben horseshoe, but I used to go down to first for the slowest corner on the track. That was a bit too low and upset the bike too much on the exit.

Then you are onto the back straight, the fastest part of the circuit, although it’s not technically a straight as you’re switching from one side to the other while veering slightly left all the way along. That’s characteristic of the Assen circuit. I short-shift through the gears before the first kink and get on the limiter – I never used sixth gear at Assen – before getting hard on the brakes into Stekkenwal. You have to be leaning slightly over to the left while braking, which has never been my favourite thing to do. As soon as you lift the bike up for the tight right-hander you go down into second, throw it in and exit in the same gear. I’m quickly up to third before another straightforward kink and into the banked, tight, second-gear De Bult left-hander. This is another nice, smooth corner. A few people are caught out going too fast through here and lose their front end but I have never had a problem with it. In fact, I have never ever crashed here, which is another very unusual fact.

I can then just get away with leaving the bike in second before the Mandeveen turn. Occasionally I went up into third, depending on the state of the race and whether I was trying to save the engine a little bit. I stay in second for that double right-hander. The first part is pretty straightforward before I lift the bike up a little bit, move it up to third and push it back in again into Duikersloot. It’s a bit tall, but by the time I come out into the long run towards start–finish, third gear is fine. I will leave it in fourth through the Meeuwenimeer, a very fast right-hand dog-leg. You cannot get through there flat out, you have to shut off the throttle and then move up into fifth gear through the Hoge Heide dog-leg.

The last section is all left-handers, and I move down to third through Ramshoek, although it’s hard to move quickly down through the gears here because you’re always going from one side of the track to the other. I pick up speed mid-corner through this long left-hander before the final GT Bocht chicane. This was possibly my fastest part of the circuit, a good place on the track for it. If you can get through this section quickly then you’re in a good position to get up someone, like Chili, through the chicane. Most people will run through this in first gear, I use second really well. I passed Troy Corser while in second gear in 1999 and I could tell he was still in first. However, if I have to protect my line by braking a bit later, I use first gear at this point. On the exit of the chicane I am back all over the front of the bike trying to keep the front wheel down and running across the kerb on the inside to straight-line it through start–finish.

Worst Crash: Never had one Best Moment: The double wins of 1999, my last proper racing weekend, or the double of 1995 that clinched the would championship. Closest Finish: Kocinski came past me going into the last corner, ran wide and allowed my Honda back underneath. Kocinski also allowed Corser into second. Best Other Rider: Frankie Chili. He has come from 250cc GP’s and so has a similar style to mine. Worst Moment: Being splattered by a bluebottle and losing to John Kocinski in 1997.

2 Starting to Race

Danielle gets to grips with a Foggy replica scooter.

As a general rule, girls and bikes don’t mix. I’d be far happier if my two daughters, Danielle and Claudia – and Michaela, who has just passed her test – did not become involved. There are women who give it a go and do okay, though. The German racer Katja Poensgen has just become the first woman to compete in a 250cc Grand Prix and she seems to be beating a few of the men, which is some going.

I think it’s great that women get involved. For a start, Katja’s an attractive girl. That’s probably one of the reasons why she has got to where she is, because sponsors know they will get a lot of exposure for their team. If she was a pig in a wig, things might have been different! But there’s no question she can ride a bike, and I have seen her go very fast at times. I remember once winding up Karl Harris about her when he was riding Superstock in 1999. I asked him at a meeting how he was doing.

‘I’m doing pretty good, up there in fourth,’ he replied, forgetting to mention that Katja was second quickest.

‘What are you talking about?’ I came back. ‘You’re letting a bird beat you, you silly sod!’

I laughed, and Karl went out for the next session and went quickest! But I hope Katja does well because she has been around the World Superbike paddock for the last five years and gets on well with everyone.

There are quite a few women who also race at club level, although I’m not sure exactly how many because I don’t follow club racing. My old mechanic Anthony ‘Slick’ Bass’s new girlfriend, Juliet Manning, is part of a four-woman team racing at that level. There they are not so much at a disadvantage because on a 125cc or 250cc strength does not play a big part. There used to be a Finnish female rider, Taru Rinne, who was very fast in the 125cc GPs and probably finished in the top 10 on a few occasions in the late eighties. I think she even qualified in pole position once. It’s a different matter on a superbike or GP 500cc bike, though. There will never be a successful woman in those series, although I would like to be proved wrong. I don’t think they could ever have that aggression or ‘bastard’ attitude that some of the men have.

But it has been interesting to watch my girls starting out on bikes. Danielle has a little Yamaha TTR90 and Claudia has an old Yamaha quad that I’ve been servicing. I ordered a new plug, an on/off switch because the old one was broken, put some air in the tyres and changed the oil. When I stripped it down, and all the parts were lying around the garage, Michaela took one look at it and said, ‘Well, that thing will never run again.’

She was wrong, but she had a point. In all my time in racing, I never really had to be the one who bothered about making the bikes work, but once I had started on one bike, I tried to get a few of the others that had been standing around for years to start. The Birel had done about 10 miles at the most, yet the lawnmower-style pull-start would not work. I pulled and pulled at it until my arm ached. I took the plug out for a check, but that looked okay. I then checked there was fuel coming through, but that was fine too. I began to get really pissed off. Then, after I had charged up its battery, the Honda Cub kept cutting out after running for just a second or two.

Leading Michael Doohan in the Czech Grand Prix of 1990, while standing in for the injured Frankie Chili.

Why is it that when machines are left for twelve months they will not start? Maybe the fuel had gone a bit shitty after sitting in the carb for so long. I wanted to ring someone in Japan and drag him over for an explanation. It made matters worse that my kids were watching me fail – miserably. I don’t really have the patience, or the time, to mess around for too long before giving in and taking them down to the local bike shop. I’m not too bad on simple things like cleaning the filter of a two-stroke, but anything more complicated than that and I’m soon out of my depth.

It took some time for Claudia to gain confidence on the quad, which was strange because she is usually the one who will have a go at anything. We had to buy her a crash helmet the last time we went skiing because she goes so quickly. At one point she started crying because we wouldn’t let her go down a black run. I thought she would enjoy messing around on the quad, but she is much happier on the back with Danielle driving. Maybe it’s just that she’s not happy around machines.

Danielle was very confident on the quad, and she was soon asking if she could have a bike of her own. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good idea, but I got her the Yamaha anyway. I don’t really know where it’s all leading. After she had been on it a couple of times, I asked whether she wanted to continue on it or get a new quad, but she was adamant that she wanted to carry on riding the Yamaha. She’s actually very smooth on it, even though it’s probably a bit too heavy for her with its fat 90cc engine, which can be difficult to move around. Sure, she could get hurt on the quads, but being automatic and having four big chunky tyres means they are a lot easier to have safe fun on. And it’s an easy way for children to start riding because the throttle has a restrictor that puts a limit on how fast they can go. As they become more confident, the screw can be loosened so that the quad can reach higher speeds. With bikes it’s a different matter, and there can very easily be tears. If we had a little boy, there would be no problem with him tearing around, falling off and collecting a few scars. It’s a different matter with girls, though.

Michaela is also pretty confident riding the bikes around the field. And she was full of herself recently when she passed her road test. Mind you, she was wearing my lucky green T-shirt, so what do you expect? Seriously, though, I was convinced that she would fail because she was due to take the test on a 500cc when she had been learning on much smaller bikes. I thought that was a pretty stupid way of going about it. I sent her instructor, John Stone, a note saying, ‘Thanks for putting up with her.’ So I couldn’t believe it when she rang to say that she had passed first time. I was really proud of her. She knew she would never have been able to live it down in and around the World Superbike paddock had she failed, and said the whole experience was worse than giving birth. She won’t be going out riding on the road, but she might buy a 125cc or 250cc trail bike and come enduro riding in the Lakes. I’d be quite impressed if she could do that, although she wouldn’t be able to do the really tough stuff and would have to stick to the fireroad sections. But it just wouldn’t be her, somehow. She’s better suited to playing tennis or shopping in Manchester!

I remember the very first time my dad sat me on a bike quite clearly. He had bought me one for my ninth birthday, a bike made up by a Honda dealer called Ken Martin. It was basically a ‘monkey bike’, with a Honda 50cc engine and a chassis made up from different parts. It was a case of crash and learn. At one point, having fallen off a few times, I was convinced I would never be able to change gear. So we started again by dad putting the bike in second gear while I got used to the throttle. I opened it up and shot off down the drive, out of control! There were a couple of ornamental statues at the bottom of our garden, but they didn’t last long!

Dad let the other kids at my birthday party have a go, and one lad shot off the back when he opened the throttle too quickly. The bike did not have much to speak of in terms of top speed, but it accelerated pretty quickly. It seemed a long time before I was riding with my feet on the footrest instead of sticking them out in case I lost balance. Maybe I tried to go too fast from the start, because Danielle never seemed to have the same problems when she was learning. Perhaps she had more sense and took it more slowly, realizing she could get hurt if she fell off. Bikes do need to be respected.

The next step was obviously learning how to shut the throttle off while changing gear. But for my next birthday I was given an XR75, a four-speed bike with a clutch. I couldn’t get the hang of the clutch at all. When a bike revs loudly, or stalls, or jumps in the air, it puts you off trying. So I thought I don’t really have to use the clutch. Dad will put it in second gear and I can just let the clutch out once and ride around forever in second gear. The bottom line is confidence, and it takes a while for anyone to learn how to ride a bike. I certainly didn’t take to it like a duck to water. In no time, however, I was pulling wheelies with the older boys, my dad and his mates, and all my early problems were quickly forgotten.

I had fifth place in the British GP of 1992 in the bag at Donington until my Harris Yamaha hit coolant that had leaked from John Kocinski’s bike.

The hardest thing for me was making that step from mucking around to actually entering my first race, which I did at the age of 15, a schoolboy motocross 125cc event in Carnforth. I was not that good at motocross but I did win every now and then, and within two years I was up against senior riders. That summer of 1983, I went to the Isle of Man, as usual, to watch Dad in what was to be his last-ever TT meeting. Immediately I realised that I had been wasting too much time in motocross and that my heart lay in road racing. This was what I knew I could be the best at. All it needed was for dad on my behalf to apply for a novice licence and enter me in a race meeting at the nearest club – Aintree, in Liverpool.

Anyone can do this by approaching their local branch of the Auto Cycle Union. Novice riders are forced to wear an orange jacket for 10 races so that the better riders know to stay clear for their own safety, but all the novices have probably been brought up riding bikes and know the basics. It would never be safe for someone to come off the street and race without any knowledge of bikes, even if they were wearing the orange jacket. When those 10 races are complete, you are free to enter club races without having to wear that jacket. It was a bit different with me, though, because I was beating people who weren’t novices from the word go.

The other way to get a head start is by going to a race school. I have just set up a Carl Fogarty race academy in conjunction with Brands Hatch and Ducati. The aim is to get riders, especially those between the ages of 12 and 18 who cannot get track time due to licence requirements, up to ACU licence stage five. That way there should be opportunities for riders to get cheaper bike insurance, and some of the best pupils will get a chance to test with Ducati’s race team, as well as British superbike support teams.

Riding the Honda RC30 on the way to my second World Formula One title in 1989, with one of the Nortons in the distance.

For the first level of training, riders must have some experience of bikes or scooters and be able to balance without aid, steer, and be able to stop and start the machine. Specific points will include the need to look ahead, throttle control and how to build a rhythm through a slow start. To test their skills, they will have to perform an extra-slow slalom, another slalom at 30mph so that they begin to appreciate weight shift and balance, and a triple hairpin to develop steering and balance control with braking and accelerating. The second level is really an extension of these disciplines for the slightly more advanced young rider. The third, though, takes on board other disciplines such as pit-lane and circuit entry, overtaking, braking, gear change and body position in corners, for riders with a full licence. Riding dynamics will be tested, as will braking performance, and in addition to another slalom course there will be riding in a circle to examine position on the bike. Again, the next level, four, is a refinement of these disciplines to get riders ready for racing in level five, after which I’ll be giving them individual tips.

It all sounds very straightforward, but sitting on a racing bike seemed like the strangest thing in the world at first. I had been used to having the handlebars sticking straight out on a motocross bike. To suddenly find myself in this strange, cramped racing position took a lot of getting used to.

Track 2Brands Hatch

Great BritainRating: 6“Brands is not one of my favourite circuits from a riding viewpoint. It was the crowd which made it so special”

Brands Hatch has always held a special place in my heart because of the amazing support I received there, but it wasn’t a circuit on which I really enjoyed racing. I was either very good or very bad there. It’s a typical British track, where a rider is on the go all the time. I could never feel relaxed at any point, as it’s not a track that flows smoothly. It’s a very demanding and challenging circuit where people really struggle on their first visit, so the British riders tend to do quite well there.

The local support is like nowhere else, and that includes Italy. The event in 1995, when I won both races in front of around 60,000 people (which was the biggest crowd at a British event for a long time), was one of the highlights of my career. And to race in front of the 120,000 fans who turned up for the 1999 round was an unbelievable feeling. That day, though, was probably one of the lowest points in my career. I desperately wanted to send everyone home happy but tyre problems ruined my first race and I had to use a different tyre for safety in the second race. The grip was awful, and I felt I’d let everyone down. That included a group of fans who would sit opposite the pits from the crack of dawn cheering my every move. It’s probably one of the worst places to watch the action from, apart from the start of the race.

I only used to touch fifth gear for a second coming through that start–finish position before braking at around the bridge before Paddock Hill. It’s a corner I enter quite quickly, running over a white line at the exit of the pit-lane to get my line. From there I drop it down two gears to third and keep the bike in tight because the corner drops away sharply, so the last thing you want to do is turn it in late. As soon as I’m over the kerb, I take the weight off the front by getting on the gas and driving down Hailwood Hill and up the other side in third gear. There might have been the odd occasion when I shifted up to fourth before dropping quickly back down.

On a clear flying lap I enter the next corner, Druids, in second, while riders who don’t carry as much corner speed take it in first. That made it difficult for me to pass people on the entry to that corner, because you obviously have more chance of overtaking in first. If anyone was ever holding me up, I would use first gear to spoil their line and get past them, even if that meant I was slow around the corner. And the line of the corner was so tight that they would struggle to come back past me.

I was leading the race in 1997 when it was stopped after Graeme Ritchie was killed. After the restart I got stuck behind Neil Hodgson and John Kocinski, both of whom were holding me up at Druids. I was getting really frustrated. At one stage I tried to get on the gas too early exiting the corner and I brought the rear right round on myself so quickly that, although it didn’t high-side me, it did drop me down on a low-side. I took Simon Crafar with me when he hit my bike and Chili missed running over my hand by half an inch. I felt as low as I’d felt in my first-ever superbike race, when I was leading at Donington and crashed. I had been all set to win both races in front of a massive crowd.

You sometimes run out of road and get onto the rumble strips on the exit of the next second-gear left-hander at the bottom of Graham Hill. I try to leave the bike in third gear going along the straight behind the pits, although it will get close to the limiter for fourth gear. The next second-gear corner, Surtees, is pretty difficult because there are a few different lines. Some riders will go wide while others come up the inside, and a few bumps make it even trickier. On the exit, you’re accelerating hard up the hill to get on the back straight and it’s very hard to keep your front wheel down. You could sometimes see me, crossed up and leaning over to the right, trying to keep the front wheel down while changing to third gear.

Pulling the bike over to the right before the dog-leg, going over the rise onto the back straight at Brands, while trying to keep the front wheel down at the same time.

Before you brake for Hawthorn, you hit a dip at the bottom in fifth before the track shoots you back up the hill. There are some markers at the side of the track, numbered three, two and one, which helped me to decide when to brake and drop quickly down to third. Late in the race, when the tyres have gone off, you get a lot of movement on the exit of that corner. Then I usually stay in third gear along Westfield Bend, a fast downhill right-hander, before the track opens up to Dingle Dell in fourth.

I aim for a tree as a peel-off point for Dingle Dell Corner, and when I hit that point I look away and start to turn in because you can’t see the corner, which I take in third. It’s almost a straight line through, touching two corners on the inside and the middle one on the outside. The bike is light and nervous at that point because you’re also on the top of a brow. It’s quite spectacular.

Then I hold the bike at half revs in third gear before dropping to second for Stirlings Bend, which is a corner I don’t like. The camber of the track doesn’t seem to turn you into the corner and you have to push hard to hold the front end in. I crashed there in 1996 when I lost the front end of the Honda. It always seems to be the corner that catches you out on cold tyres, and it’s probably my least favourite corner at Brands.

When you go under the bridge before Clearways in fourth, it feels like you’re entering a stadium, with a massive crowd on the left-hand side. I like to get into the corner early, although there are a few preferred lines again, and accelerate into Clarke Curve in third. On the exit there’s a pretty bad bump which can upset the bike. On the Honda, I had to take my backside off the seat when the bike hit it because the back end of the Honda always seemed out of control. On the Ducati in 1995 I short-shifted into fourth to keep it nice and smooth through the bump and stop it wallowing down the straight. Then it’s through the start–finish straight, which typifies Brands because it’s not really a flat straight as it slopes down towards the pit-lane.

Worst Crash: The restart of the second race in 1997. I hit the gas too early exiting Druids and robbed myself of a double win. Best Moment: When I won both races on a red-hot day in 1995, virtually clinching the world championship. Closest Finish: In 1998, Troy Corser opened a three-second gap but I had to hold off Jamie Whitham and the two Hondas for second place. Best Other Rider: Giancarlo Falappa won both races in 1993 by a mile in the worst rain I’ve ever seen. Worst Moment: I’ve been either hit or mis at Brands but the tyre problems I had in 1999, in front of 120,000 fans, was the lowest point.

Section 2 Racing Techniques

‘Carl Fogarty the person and Carl Fogarty the rider are two different people, but his personality has a lot of influence on his riding. Sometimes, he had to be aggressive off the track because it was the only way he knew how to transmit his personality. When he is with other people he sometimes looks uncomfortable if he doesn’t know them. Carl is still a bit shy, even after all his success.

‘In the beginning he was a bit hard to manage because I had first to try to understand him. Then I was lucky because we found a very good feeling together. It’s not so difficult to read him. It means looking him in the eyes and already knowing what he needs and what he wants, or what he wants to say. Also, he understood that I was often already doing what he was going to ask for.

‘Carl was very aggressive on the throttle, so we needed to set the bike up hard on the rear. Especially when he thought the grip was poor, he would turn the throttle so quickly that it was difficult to set the rear suspension. But, at the end of the day, you could always say that Carl would ride round any problems with the bike. He would try hard during qualifying but we always knew that he would put in 110 per cent on race day.

‘His body used to move a lot on the bike and he would use his weight to adapt to different corners. And if there were problems with the bike, he would use his own body to solve them by hanging off at different angles. He would not hang off as much as someone like James Whitham, but just use his bodyweight to hold the corners. In that way he could carry high corner speed, a big part of his technique.’

Davide Tardozzi

Ducati factory team manager

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