Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127847
~ .WORLD SUPERBIKE PREVIEW By Stephane Van Gelder Photos by Gold & Goose 28 ou hav e to ad mire Ca rl Foga rty for being w ill ing to put h is money wh ere his mouth is. After two World Superbike Champion ships w ith Du cati, and as many seasons of hearing pe opl e tellin g him that he was only a winner thanks to his bike, Fogarty switched to Hond a. A br ave move, which certainly helped s p ice up th e series. Fogarty ended up enjoying a successful season at Honda, taking hom e a lot more wins than anyo ne would have bet on at the beginning of the season. Then he shocked the world - once again - b y a n no u nci ng tha t he wo u ld be switc hing back to Du cati for the 1997 season. With the ben efit of hindsight, that may not have been suc h a grea t idea. Since its inception in 1994, Honda has turned the RC45 in to a very p otent ma chine - to the point that it now seems to offer equa l, if not superior, p er for mance to the Ducali. Combine that with the fact that, in the tw o years since Fogarty last rod e it, the big Duke seems to have grown a lot harder to control. No t surp risingly, Foga rty ha sn't enjoyed an easy star t tn the 1997 season . He only won his first race in the second leg at Donington Par k, three rounds in to the series - a far cry from his dominant days on the Ducali in 1995. Still, if you look at the top of the po int s chart, you see his name. And, des pite any difficulties, Fog- arty is a lot happier back in Virginio Ferrari's Du cati Corse team. When you first rode the Du cali 916 again, what surprised y ou the mo st about the bike? It just felt like a differe nt bike to ride through the corners. I seem to reme mber havin g a very smoo th and flowing bike in '95, but now, in the middle of the comers, I've go t a bit of a beas t to ride. It seems th at w e 've go t to work really hard to get the bike set up - whereas it seemed easier in '95. Is it the power deli very th at has changed? It's hard to say after a yea r on the Honda, bu t I don't think the Ducati is as. smooth now as it was in '95: It's obviously a faster bike, bu t we've just got to try to make it as smooth as the '95 bike. Before you left Ducati in 1995, you tested the '96 prototype with the 995cc engine. Did it already feel d ifferent then? It did, yes. I had problems with it at the last race. 1 didn't win it, and I was a bit annoyed that I didn't win tha t race in Phillip Island . I should have done. They just put the big engine in my .ch~is and it altered the handling of the bike. It's-just different, really. Obviously, it's the right way to go, because the lap times are better, but it's just a hard er bike to ride. You must have known it would be hard to adjust to the Ducali after a year with Honda. Did you do any specific training to prepare for that, last winter? No t really. 1 keep myself fit anyway. But I knew what to expect, because I'd been the re