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/128117
(Leftl The new Fogarty 54 isn't just a pretty face, although the paint scheme is designed by renowned stylist Aldo Drudi - the same guy that paints the helmets of Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi. (Right) The Ducati Corse badge on the front fender alludes to the increased performance of the limited-edition Fogarty 54 Monster, The horsepower has been increased' from 101 to 110 by adding the Termignoni oval silencer, new computer chip, and new superbikestyle carbon-fiber airbol[, chosen with success by many stars of the past, from Kenny Roberts and Sito Pons, to Giacomo Agostini or Virginio Ferrari. This, however, requires quite a different expertise from carving out victory for yourself on the racetrack - people-managing others to title success is a special skill not all former champions possess, especially when it also requires them to be diplomatically adept at coaxing technical support from a factory, as well as financial backing from a sponsor; makes outbraking your rivals into the chicane at Assen on the last lap of a race to score another famous World Championship race victory seem almost straightforward. Following another favored option by switching from two wheels to four mature retirement by the arm injury sustained in his freak accident at Phillip Island last season. It must be especially hard for King Carl, of all people, to have to sit this year in a TV commentary booth and watch the man who replaced him, Troy Bayliss, carve out a succession of World Superbike race victories and a healthy lead in the points table, aboard the works Ducati that until a year ago had Foggy's name on it. However, fortunately for Foggy, if there's one single country in the motorcycle world above all others that pays ongoing homage to bygone champions and remembers and respects their achievements, that nation is human, history-conscious Italy. You have only to observe the is in some ways even more fraught with risk; for every former bike star like Wayne Gardner or Johnny Cecotto, Jeff Ward or Mike Hailwood, who makes such a switch successfully there are a dozen such others as Giacomo Agostini (before he got smart and started his own racing team) or Barry Sheene, who for whatever reason just don't cut it in cars. Back to Plan A - motorcycles. So for four-time World Superbike Champion Carl Fogarty, the choice had to be a difficult one for a postretirement career, made all the harder by the fact that Foggy lived to race as few other riders have ever done (especially at his stratospheric level of achievement) until forced into pre- ongOing respect and unfailing support that Ducati as a company still accords to Giancarlo Falappa, another great rider from its road racing past, whose career was cut short almost a decade ago by an even more critical injury, to appreciate that to name a new model after King Carl is a sign of respect, as well as smart business on both sides. Foggy's postcompetition role as an official ambassador for the marque whose ongoing commercial success he helped fuel, is sure to provide him with at least a part-answer to the life-after-racing conundrum. So, while it's undoubtedly thanks to the keen marketing skills of the company's American-inspired man- motion to make me realize that La Fogarty is in fact the bike that I've been forecasting Ducati would develop ever since I had a similar debut ride on a pre-production S4 street rod upon its launch last September, and found myself just halfway to paradise on the desmoquattro Superbikeengined naked street rod that Ducati had been promising to build for the past decade, ever since the first desmodue M900 Monster was launched back in 1992 and renamed a Ducati, instead of the Cagiva it was originally branded as. For behind the very fetching Italian tricolor-motif paintwork designed by noted Italian style guru Aldo Drudi (whose day job is to create individual helmet and race leathers designs for many of the world's top riders, like Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi - it's the Latin equivalent of having Troy Lee paint up a Suzuki Bandit) the S4 Fogarty is that inevitable thing: an EvoMonster. For Ducati hasn't stopped at commissioning Drudi to redesign and repaint the Monster's fuel tank, front mudguard, headlight fairing, seat cowl and footrest brackets, and to color-code these with the specially painted frame and wheels. In addition, he's added extra carbon-fiber features like the two new cowls which should offer some extra protection to the rather exposedlooking radiator, a pair of air-scoops aimed at improving cooling of the rear cylinder, and a good-looking agement that the newly announced Ducati Monster S4 Fogarty was created in the first place, it's also a sign of the respect that the legion of ducatisti have for' /I Leone' that such a bike could ever have been considered worthy of development, and launched exclusively via the internet as a limited-edition, 300-off, individually numbered commemoration of the King Carl magic. Especially when his name is used not merely as window dressing on what is an undeniably costly model, retailing worldwide for Euro 18,000 ($15,829, compared to a stock S4 Monster's Italian market price of $9990), but to denote that the owners of the 27 bikes sold within the first ten minutes of the S4 Fogarty's order book opening at a minute past midnight Italian time on June 20, rising to a total of 112 machines in the first 24 hours (of which 81 were sold in the USA and Japan, eight each in Italy and Great Britain but none at all in Ducati's top Euromarket, Germany!) do actually get something for all that extra cash, besides limited-edition exclusivity. Because what I'll admit turned out to be a surprise lay in store for me that very same June 20 day when I became the first outsider to sling a leg over 'La Fogarty' in what I had expected to be a quick showbiz story about a dressed-up desmoquattro dreambike that was all show, with no extra go. But - not! Instead, it took the first 100 meters of Monster cycle n e _ S • AUGUST 15, 2001 29