seventh on the grid of the British 500cc GP race , before an unlucky fall . On a Harris Yamaha . Versatility or what ?
But it was on a Superbike and at Donington Park where Fogarty really blew the bloody doors off of his global career expansion . On a privateer Sports Motorcycles Ducati 888 , with the iconic number seven on it , no less . And not much budget . Fogarty secured pole , crashed out of the first race but then went on to beat Ducati legends and world champions Doug Polen and Raymond Roche in Race Two . And all while wearing those crazy off-the-peg pink and white ‘ acid worm ’ leathers …
Fogarty would get a very strong Ducati in 1993 via the same Raymond Roche he had beaten at Donington the season before , but he could not quite wrestle Scott Russell into submission . It was a great grudge match for the fans , with Foggy as fast with the lip as he was with a throttle .
His first WorldSBK title in 1994 came via another racing legend , Virginio Ferrari , on the shark-nosed Ducati 916-derived twin . He won by 25 points from Russell , and in 1995 Fogarty was a full 139 points ahead of a career-long WorldSBK icon in his own right , Troy Corser .
Fourth overall in his single big-money Castrol Honda year delivered disappointment alongside ‘ Foggy ’ s ’ four race wins . A subsequent return to Ducati , inside the new ADVF squad , saw him miss another championship in 1997 , but his final two WorldSBK triumphs in ’ 98 and ’ 99 cemented the legend of ‘ King Carl .’
On a Ducati again , Fogarty started the 2000 season reasonably well . Then the gods of racing reminded even the GOAT that he was as mortal and fragile as the rest of us , no matter how remarkable his racing prowess . A fast collision with a backmarker at Phillip Island took the ball-joint of Carl ’ s shoulder almost clean off . Once the reality sunk in , his riding career was over .
Ending up with four WorldSBK titles and 59 wins was amazing and record breaking but Fogarty was not done with racing entirely .
In 2002 Fogarty tried what was to finally prove to be impossible . The eventual Foggy Petronas FP-1 was a 900cc triple and Carl was hired by the Malaysian oil giant to head up the team itself and look after the chassis side of the engineering . An always unreliable engine , with back to front exhaust and intake arrangements , scored a very few podiums . Eventually it all just fizzled out . Two attempts to run his own teams , with Ducati and then MV Agusta machines , never quite happened .
With his iconic WorldSBK status already well intact , maybe Fogarty would just take up gardening ?
Not quite , but he was about to become more famous than ever , thanks to a jungle-sized garden .
He took part in the 14th TV series of ‘ I ’ m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here ’ and went on to win it . The first ‘ challenge ’ saw him locked in a glass box full of snakes . He laughed it all off . Too easy ! He was a sure fire certainty to win after that and he suddenly became super-famous way beyond his already assured iconic status in WorldSBK .
In the real world of global sport he is , to this day , still the most revered and recognised WorldSBK icon of all time . He is , simply , King Carl .
OFFICIAL PROGRAMME 53
ICONS OF WORLDSBK