Rider of the Month: July - Carl 'Foggy' Fogarty

Carl Fogarty, or Foggy, is a name widely known across the UK, not just for motorcycling. I don’t know the status of Fogarty’s fame outside of the world of motorbikes before he was crowned ‘King of the Jungle’ back in 2014. But since he was born on July 1st, we thought he'd be a pretty good candidate for July's feature... so here we are!

Carl Fogarty: Back in the 60’s

Carl was born in early July 1965 in Blackburn, Lancashire. His dad, George is also a familiar name in the industry. Although he never quite reached the stardom as his son, George was a very competitive rider who enjoyed partaking in the Isle of Man TT. In various interviews, Carl recalls fond memories of visiting the TT for annual holidays as a child.

What was Foggy’s first bike?

For his 10^th birthday, young Carl was gifted his first bike. At this point in his life, George was friends with the Honda team. Ken Martin was looking to upgrade his son Chris’ bike, so he sold his old C50 to George for Carl. Ken had the Honda C50 custom-built and named it the ‘Motochris’. Speaking to Visordown, Foggy recalls how the bike featured a ‘homemade chassis and three-speed 50cc engine’.

Carl Fogarty approached Solihull’s National Motorcycle Museum back in 2015 to commission them to rebuild the bike to a ‘new’ looking status. Foggy was thrilled with the results and the bike now resides in its rightful place back in his garage.

The Start of Foggy’s Racing Career

Unsurprisingly, Carl’s introduction to racing was a successful one. At the age of just 13, George saw big potential in his son and decided to enter him into his first road race. Foggy wowed the crowd as he finished in second place! If that’s not saying something, I don’t know what is!

The next few years consisted of various races in preparation to follow in his dad’s footsteps. It didn’t take long before we saw young Fogarty in the spotlight. He first made his TT debut back in the mid-eighties and in 1985, we saw his first win in the Lightweight Newcomers category aged just 20.

Introduction to Ducati

When we hear the name, Carl Fogarty, we instantly picture him with Ducati, right? Well, I do anyway. Foggy spent a large amount of his career racing red. The first time we saw foggy hit the tracks with Ducati was on an 888 at Donnington in 1992. The following year, the Italians were so impressed that they invited Foggy to be their official rider.

Accepting the invitation to Ducati proved a successful career for Foggy. During the nineties, he succeeded to win 4 World Superbike Championships. He has also won 59 races as a professional racer.

Carl Fogarty’s Retirement to Racing

Carl’s racing career ended in the millennium of 2000 at Australia’s Philip Island. During the race, he sustained an injury to his shoulder after colliding with Robert Ulm. The injury would not heal well enough for him to return to the track again.

Luckily, Carl’s personality shone through. Although, he may not be liked by many due to his competitively constructive nature of his peers. Carl has been invited to various tv stints of which we will talk about in a minute!

Post Racing Antics

Actually, before we begin, let’s talk about the fact that in 1998 he was awarded an MBE!

The other half of the UK was more or less introduced to Foggy when he made his appearance on the popular TV show, ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’. Get this, so he had such a life-changing accident back in Australia, then the next ‘major’ thing back in Aus, and he won it!

A few years ago in 2018, Carl released his popular book, ‘A World According to Foggy’, which I actually own, even though I don’t really read much – but I highly recommend it!

His Home Life

Carl married his wife Michaela back in 1991. In that same year they welcomed their first daughter, Danielle into the world. In 1994 their second daughter Claudia was born.