Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

homologate the FP-1 for Superbike racing. Some switch. The mood of general skepticism that such a project had any basis in reality was leavened by Team Foggy Racing's recruitment on November 1 of Fogarty's former 250cc adversary from his younger racing days, 38-year-old Nigel Bosworth, as team manager. After four years as R&D engineer with Team Roberts from the earliest days of the Modenas/Proton V3 GP venture (another Petronasbacked bike project), Bosworth had moved to take over management of the Red Bull Ducati British Superbike team last season, which he promptly led to the British title. Signing Bosworth was the first of a series of high-profile recruitments by Foggy-Petronas, with young British Superbike star James Haydon next up in December as one rider in the two-man team, followed a month later by Team Foggy's star signing of a former World Champion, and Fogarty's previous teammate at Ducati, Australian Troy Corser, as team leader. In between times, to take responsibility for transforming the Sauber 990cc GP1 motor into the Foggy FP-1 900cc Superbike engine, Petronas linked in January with Swiss former GP rider Eskil Suter's Racing Technology company, conveniently located not far from Sauber's Zorich base - and, as if getting the rider who most recently turned Aprilia into a top-rank World Superbike contender on the track wasn't enough, Petronas also moved to hire the engineer who masterminded that achievement, former Aprilia SBK chief engineer Giuseppe Bernicchia, to act as the overall R&D boss of the engine project. Gathering such an array of proven experts in their respective fields together to create the Foggy Racing setup gave a clue as to the seriousness of the FP- 1 bike project - but still, the doubts kept being voiced, fueled by a mixture of skepticism that an all-new motorcycle could go from zero to raceready trim in just six months, and particular disbelief that the necessary number of streetbikes could be built in time to meet the FIM's second (and final) World Superbike 2002 homologation deadline of June 30. Only one way to find out for sure - talk to King Carl himself at length, in the wake of his first low-key press conference about the project at Carl Fogart)< (middle) Is flanked by his two new Saube,.Petr'onas WOI1d Superblke rlders: fonner teammate and World Champion Troy Corser (right! and British Superbike _ James Haydon (Ie",. Valencia, at the opening round of the World Superbike series he plans to join in on mid-season. How did all this come about - and when did it start happening? I was approached last July by a Malaysian mate named David Wong - he's always had a massive link with Petronas, and he's been running bike and car racing teams in Malaysia and Indonesia for many years, always with their sponsorship. I actually rode for Petronas back in 1992, when I did a few races for David's team in Malaysia on a Kawasaki 750. They'd had a disastrous year, I went out and jumped on the bike, won a few races for them, and Petronas were obviously very grateful for that. I stayed in touch with David over the years, and when I retired from racing he phoned up to find out how I was, and asked what I was going to do. At that stage, I was planning to run a race team with Ducati factory bikes, and was basically looking for money to fund it - my colleague Murray Treece's firm Teamwork Performance was searching for backing. David rang back in July to ask if I'd come to the Malaysian GP in October and ride this GP bike that Petronas had put together with their Formula One Sauber race team's engineers, but I said I was contracted to Ducati, so I couldn't possibly do that - but why didn't Petronas come and sponsor my team in World Superbikes, instead? David says maybe, maybe, rather off-handedly - so then the phone goes down again. But then he rings back again in the middle of the night, which would be the next morning for him, and says he's got this fantastic idea about this new bike and maybe we should race it for Petronas in Superbike. Well, one thing and another happened after that, and by the end of August I was supposed to go out there and talk seriously with Petronas about it all but I'd gone and broken my leg playing about with a Supermoto and couldn't travel. So I sent my management team out there instead, with a design and build budget for the prototype, plus a complete costing down to the last nut and bolt for the race team, everything from a fully equipped transporter down to the mat you wiped your feet on walking into the workshop. I honestly wasn't really expecting anything to come of it - I thought they wanted to go to Grand Prix with Team Roberts or someone. But David kept coming back on the phone saying he'd got deeper into it with Petronas, and the higher he got, the more excited they were about the idea it was really down to him that this all took off, because he had the idea in the first place, and went after it. The same weekend as the Sauber GP bike with the Harris frame appeared at the Malaysian GP on October 21, with Niall Mackenzie riding it at Sepang, we were out there too, knowing that the deal had already been done on October 4. They'd wanted to announce it at the GP, which apart from giving Doma a very rude shock would have been no good, because I still hadn't cleared it with Ducati. So now it was crunch time - I had to ask myself, did I really want to do this? That's the next question: had life after racing meant wanting to have your own bike company? No - to be honest, it was the last thing I'd ever thought of doing, but it's funny how things happen, and your life changes big-time when you stop racing. To be honest, people say success doesn't change you - but it does, and you can't really help it. I wasn't the same person when I was winning World Championships as I was before, and as I am now. The last 10 years have gone really quickly, and you do forget people - but if you're lucky, they'll still talk to you again after. Uke Bos and I used to race against each other, and we were sort of mates, but then we went our separate ways for seven, eight years while I was winning everything, and only met up again after I'd stopped racing. That period from 1993 to 1999 - when it was all success, success, success and it was all getting bigger and bigger - it was hard to keep a hold on reality, and it does change you as a person. Even James [Whitham] said to me, there were times when you were a twat and I was your mate, but you let it change you - and it did, but now I'm all right and much more relaxed. You want to win races so much, then you do win so much, so you become all big-headed and detached a bit from reality - you're on TV every other day, people are always stopping you in the street, you do change - how not to? Did you feel any regrets about leaving Ducati? Making the phone call to David [Tardozzi Fogarty's team manager at Ducati for the last two out of his four World Superbike Championship seasons] was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I really mean that - it were terribly hard. But, after the trip to Malaysia when it was obvious everything was going to happen, I talked to Michaela about it and it was clear that if I didn't do this, I'd regret it for the rest of my life. I wasn't happy with the role I had at Ducati - not their fault, but I really didn't enjoy being wheeled out in public as a living legend and having to just be a PR front man, shaking people's hands and being photographed being nice to them. I remember doing a Ducati ladies' track day at Oulton Park, and thinking, "This isn't me, I shouldn't be doing this. I should come here to race bikes, not to stand around watching other people enjoying themselves.' I went to Assen in September last year, already knowing this thing was bubbling to the surface, and we got there on Friday night and I already wanted to go home - and I love Assen, it's one of my favorite circuits in the world. But everyone was cue I e n e _ s • MAY 1, 2002 45

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