Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW World Superbike Champion Carl. Fogarty A World Champion and his toys. because him and his bike were better than anybody else. Since then it's got a lot bigger and there's a lot more factory teams involved. I remember riding against Doug in '91, when I was on the Honda. It was just ridiculous. His bike must have been 15 mph faster. It was just crazy. He was a good rider, but he certainly had it a lot easier than it is now. All the manufacturers are in it now, whereas back then it was just Ducati. Is it an advantage for you to know exactly how the Ducati works now that you're going to be on a Honda? Knowing when the Ducati riders have to accelerate out of a comer, say_. No because I'll just get on the bike and if I've got a problem going into a corner I've just got to try and solve it, whether the other bikes are better or worse. You just know from being a rider that you should be better in this ~ction or that section of a track. Has your domination of World Superbike racing made young English riders concentrate on superbikes rather than GPs? That's the way it seems to be happening. Nowadays, it depends upon which country you come from as to which championship you think is the biggest. In England, it's superbikes. It's big in America as well. In Australia, because you've got Doohan and Beattie in GPs, superbikes is not quite as big. In the rest of Europe, like France and Italy, GPs are still the main class, even though superbikes are obviously quite big in Italy because of DucaIL It just depends on the country. Do you think there are some young English riders ready to explode on the international scene? Yeah, there are now. I think what I've done in the last couple of years has turned people round a little and they're starting to look over here more. You've got riders like Neil Hodgson who's going good and has now got a ride with Ducati. That might not have happened a couple of years ago. There's Jamie Robinson; Chris Walker, Darren Barton on the 125, whom] think is going to win a GP next year for sure, he's that good. It's all happening now and the funny thing is, Neil Hodgson lives 10 miles away from here, Darren Barton lives five miles away from here, and we all used to go to the same motocross club. So it's this area, the northern area. We don't take no shit up here (laughs). But you are well-known in this area, aren't you? Fame is a funny sort of thing for this part. of England. It's a fairly tough old place to come from. Because of who I am, I might be pampered in other areas, but here I'm just the guy who races bikes and does well at it. You don't get treated special and I don't expect to be.. But you wouldn't go and live somewhere else? I've never thought about it. I've always been a home person and I think it would be too much for me to move way from my family and friends. If I'd been to another country which I thought was better then I might have considered it. But I've never come across a country that] thought was better than England. Do you reckon Hodgson will do well on the Ducati? Maybe not straight away. But he's got the right attitude for the job. He wants to win, that's it. That's all that matters to him. Eventually he'll get it right. It might be sooner, it might be later. But I think Ducati have made a good decision by signing him. Will you be available to give him advice if he needs it? No, not now! (laughs) All the psychological stuff that you tend to do when you're racing, like being overtly critical of your opponents, is that something that comes naturalIy to you or is it forced? I think a bit of both. It is something that comes natural. I don't know, I sort of like to annoy people and wind them up before a race. Is it something you've found to be effective in helping you to win? I don't know. I think with guys like Scott Russell, they don't care. He says things about me and I don't care. I think we just do it for the press really; it looks good for people watching it on TV. But to be honest] don't think it bothers any of us what anyone says. It's just part of the show? A little bit. What do you enjoy doing when you're not actually racing? ] enjoy getting home. Going out for a drink with my mates and going out for a meal with the missus. Just relaxing. Do you spend a lot of time in pubs? Not a lot of time. Probably once a week on average. I'm not a big drinker, only a few beers, that's about it. I'm usually on my back after four anyway (laughs). What sport do you enjoy? Football. I watch and play quite a bit of football. I like motocross. I play squash. Have you ever felt the fans turning against you, like your football (sOccer) hero Eric Cantona? Motorcycle racing's not like that. There was something at the beginning of the year about what I was supposed to have said about Americans, which wasn't exactly true. The way it came out was that I hate all Americans. But what I'd actually said was that I hated the way the Americans run the Daytona 200. So that limited that to about six or seven people in the entire nation. When I went over there, there were a few flags and that flying around, but it was nothing. It just.made me laugh, really; it didn't bother at all. On the slowing-down lap after the race I might have given them a finger or something like that, but nothing special. But of all the places I've been, apart from Italy and England, I seem to have the most fans in America. You're not going back to Daytona this year? No, it's. a race that doesn't mean anything to me. I think it's just a lot of hype and it's just something for the Americans. For me or anyone else to win it is nearly impossible. You've got to have so much luck on your side and the right pace car coming out at the right time. The race is a nightmare. It's badly run. Even qualifying's crazy. But the biggest thing is that it's just dangerous. Very dangerous. You're going round the banking at about 180 mph and there's a concrete wall two inches away from you. I saw that last year and I thought, "That's just not for me." If there's a big accident I wouldn't want to be partof it. Some people have linked Yasutomo Nagai's death to the Ducati being too unreliable. What do you think of that? That's just crazy. Any bike can blow up at any time. It's just a freak accident. For anyone to blame it on Ducati is just ridiculous. Is that something you think about, that aspect of racing? No, you don't think about it. I think when you beg"in to think about it, that's the time to stop. fN ~~~ 've always lived in and around Blackbwn. I went to schoo1 here. I was completely useless at school. I took no exams. I hated every day I was there. I just looked out the window, thinking about getting home and getting on my bike. As far as I can remember, I always wanted to ride a bike. My dad used to race so 1 was always going to races with him. He was a pretty good racer. He did well at the road racing circuits like the IT and Ire\and. "I started racing n:lOtorcross when I was 14. I switched to road racing when I was 17, in 1983. My first road race was in August of that year, on my dad's Formula 2 Ducati600. "My first real season of racing was 1984. I was second in my first race and I won my second race. But when I started to go really good on the international scene, I got injured. I finished llth in the 1986 British GP and I broke m leg the week after. So that ended 1986 and I struggled to get back to 6tness:;h 1987. Then I broke my leg again So I went through two difficult years, at a time when I might have got into Grands Prix. "I won the Formula One World Championship in 1988. The following year, Honda helped me out and I won the F-1 again and the IT for the first time. In 1990 I wanted to go .intO World Superbike because I thought that would be the way into GPs. 1 signed with Honda in 1990, but they wanted me to stay another year in F-l and win that again So I did. I also woo the IT again and a lot of races in Britain. In 1991 I went into World Superbike, but by then the RC30 was way past it. But I proved that 1 was capable of going good by beating Fred Merkel. I was seventh in the championship and he was eighth. "At the end of 1991, I spent all the money r d made in the previous years, bought a Ducati and a truck and -m World Superbike racing. I also signed for Kawasaki France for endurance and rode for Yamaha at the IT. I just rode for everybody that I could that year. It was the I

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