WOFld Superbike Champion Carl Fogarty
By Johan Vandekerckhove
Photos by Gold & Goose
n the last week of Sep tem ber, Carl
Foga rty left his home in Blackbu rn ,
Engla nd, to fly to th e fina l Wo rld
Superbike round of the year in Japan.
He arrived at Sug o third in the charnpionsh ip p o int s ta nd ings, behind both
Troy Corser an d Aaron Slight. A few
days later he returned to England as the
World Superbike Champion. Unlike his
championship rivals , Fogarty did exactly wha t he needed to do in Japan.
Despite the fact that he ventured to
Japan trailing both Corser and Slight,
many still lis ted hi m as the favorite.
There we re six point s bet we en Fogarty
and Corser, with .Sligh t sand w iched in
between, bu t the pressure see med to res t
solely on th e s hou lders of the riders
from 'Australia and New Zealand. Co rso
er had seen his points lead dwindle in
the rounds leading up to the series
finale, and Slight had the constant pres·
sure of never being able to win the big
one. This was to finally be Slight's year,
but the pres sure was im mense.
For Fogarty, winning the title wasn't
his main objective when he boarded his
plane for the long fligh t to the Sendai
airport. Just a few weeks earlier, Pier-
I
(Right) Fogarty gets mau led in the pits by
his crew afte r clinching the 1998 World
Su perbike Championship .
