Superbike icon Carl Fogarty (61): his brain and hands were his electronics

As a four-time world champion and winner of 59 races, Carl Fogarty was the most successful Superbike rider for many years, until the Englishman was overtaken by Jonathan Rea. The career of the now 61-year-old came to an abrupt end in 2000 following a crash in the second race at Phillip Island.

Fogarty embodies a different generation of riders: unpolished, apolitical, straightforward. Even 25 years after his last Superbike race, ‘King Carl’ retains legendary and cult status.

Fogarty’s career is closely linked to Ducati. He secured all four of his titles and 47 of his victories on bikes from Borgo Panigale. Naturally, Foggy was invited when Ducati celebrated its 100th anniversary at this year’s World Ducati Week.

‘It’s nice to have made a small contribution to these 100 years of Ducati,’ said Fogarty in an interview with our colleagues at GPOne. ‘Those were special times when I was racing – good times; people call it the golden age. It was great to win with Ducati. These days it’s become boring – it’s not like it used to be. Even the motorbikes are far too technical. In my day, there was just the rev counter and the temperature gauge; the electronics were my brain and my right hand! Today, everything’s completely different, and I don’t enjoy it quite as much anymore.”

During World Ducati Week, Foggy had the chance to ride the latest version of the Ducati Superbike – he’d expected more power.

“I did a few laps. I don’t know, somehow it feels as though my old motorbike had more power,” Foggy mused. “The new ones have 240 PS; mine back then only had 160, maybe 170 PS. But with mine I could do a wheelie quite easily – now I can’t, even though the power is much higher – very strange!”

Today’s Superbikes, of course, have various electronic riding aids, such as Ducati’s anti-wheelie control, which is probably finely tuned.