Foggy!

Thirty years on from his first World Superbike race win, Carl Fogarty remains one of Britain’s best-loved bikers. So what made him so good on a bike and so beloved by race fans? And how did he manage to transcend the relatively niche sport of bike racing to become a household name?

- Stuart Barker

It’s incredible how much Carl Fogarty has changed since he retired from racing in 2000. Once the angriest, most aggressive racer in the world, he’s now so chilled out and respectful of others that he’s barely recognisable. But it was that anger and aggression that took him to four World Superbike titles and more WSB race wins (59) than any man who had gone before him.

Before he turned his hand to WSB in 1992, Fogarty had already enjoyed a successful career as a pure road racer, winning the TT Formula One world championship in 1988 and 1989, then winning the title again in 1990, when it was downgraded to the TT F1 Cup, rather than counting as a full FIM world championship (the TTF1 championship was initially roads-based but by Foggy’s time it also took in many short circuits). He also won a Manx Grand Prix and three TT races, including a Formula 1/Senior double in 1990. In 1992 he set an outright TT lap record (123.61mph) that was so fast it stood for seven years. And Foggy was road racing at a time when Joey Dunlop, Steve Hislop, and Phillip McCallen were amongst the opposition, so he didn’t exactly have it easy.