How good was Foggy really?

[BootsOntheSide]

Looking back through some old Superbike review videos, I can't help but wonder whether Carl Fogarty's status as statistically the most successful rider in series history slightly flatters him. In 1995 he had a dominant bike and a weak team-mate - Corser, Pirovano and Chili all outscored Lucchiari despite Troy and Frankie being series rookies. In 1998 he had all the luck when Slight had none. He had a few inexplicably slow displays and several bogey circuits. Does the fact that he never attempted Grands Prix full-time also count against him?

[275 GTB-4]

Coooor luv a duck!! the fella got out there and wrung the neck of the best available machinery of the time and had some success...so what do we do now?

Compare him to Mike the Bike, Ago etc

Sad to see him stay just a tad too long....but he certainly had his 15 minutes in the sunshine

[gomick]

twice as good as troy bayliss - thats coming from an aussie too ( 4 world titles, 59ish wins)... just on double of troy's

loved foggy's attitude, he was a hard man, a real prick of an attitude towards the opposition & the media - a world champion with a "winners" attitude

would be great to see troy bayliss be better than "half as good as foggy - stats wise" ... cause i think, troy is faster

[Gerben24]

I see where Boots is coming from. I've asked the question many times... Foggy was good, absolutely. But when he jumped from the Ducati to the Honda you saw he didn't have it!

[offtopic]Gomick, what model R6 do you have?[/offtopic]

[jhansen]

Originally Posted by Gerben24

[offtopic]Gomick, what model R6 do you have?[/offtopic]

I just asked him the same question the other day. He has a 2005 R6. Although, I'm not sure which color. Gotta love the supersports! At the moment though I'm slightly biased towards Honda. However, I see a Gixxer in my future!

[f1manoz]

Foggy was good, but he wasn't a great. Certainly helped out by the machinery (although most riders are helped out by machinery) and there is no doubting his will to win, but I think there have been and will be better Superbike riders.

[chunder]

I cant think of any better superbike riders past or present really.

He won on every kind of bike he rode, remember he didnt dominate on the RC45 but still got more wins than Slight who spent his whole career *****ing about Ducatis coz he was never man enough to ride one! And he also won everywhere on an RC30 before that, and also was Endurance champ twice on a ZX7.

Yes you can say he had a bike advantage, but when you talk to guys like Russell or Gobert, they will tell you his bike wasnt really that much better, coz they managed to get wins on 4 cylinder bikes, its just that Foggy managed to get his bike set up very well and dialled in to every track.

For me the best comparison is Kocinski. John was average on a Duke that was an alien bike to him, the RC45 was much more like a GP machine and suited him very well, plus he bullised the team incessantly!

Foggy was unbeatable on a Duke and also pretty good on a Honda when they werent the quickest bikes.

Also his 500 form was expectional really and was only that fact that he was British kept him away from a decent ride, great rides on a Honda in 91, should ahve been fifth in 92 beating Kocinski and Macekenzie on a yonk old Harris, should have been third possibly second on the Cagiva til the fuel ran out and his brake lever came back to the bar, totally caing Chandler and Mlain in the process.

But he was always man enough to say he wouldnt sell his soul for a 500, he was totally mind strong yet showed weakness which is why he was so popular.

For the UK he dragged biking into the limelight and Rossi has managed to keep it there, he's that vital and pivotal in the UK.

[BootsOntheSide]

I hardly call Kocinski's 1996 season - 3rd overall, on a set of largely new circuits on an unfamiliar style of bike, in a team he'd fallen out with - 'average'. It was a lot better than Foggy's year on the RC45. What was Hodgson's season on the same bike?

When compared in like-for-like situations with the guys who did well in 500s or MotoGP - Edwards and Kocinski especially - there are a lot of question marks. An emerging Edwards had the beating of him at times in 1998 and 1999, and that was as the clear #2 to Slight. Kocinski's 1996 Ducati and 1997 Honda records beat Foggy's equivalents, and that was from a rider who hadn't raced Superbikes in years, and hadn't raced anything with wheels for a year.

[chunder]

Hang on, Foggy won five races on the RC45 didnt he!

How many did CockStinky win on the Duke?

I agree that John was awesome in 97 and had the beating of Carl fair and square, in fairness to Carl though he inherited the bike that John left and was totally unsuited to Carl's style.
and as for Edwards being the understudy, fair enough in year one but in year two he battered Slighty and was also one of the first people to admit that Carl's bike was no quicker than his.
Plus Edwards has done naff all in GP despite being on very, very good bikes.

Kocinski is world class and would I say be better than Carl on most bikes, but people forget that he drove Roberts to almost insanity at Yamaha and had one of the best bikes on the grid in the 94 Cagiva as Rainey and Doohan will tell you, but squandered the lot.

Carl, though not as quick maybe, never gave up any chance to try stuff and do the business.

Speak to the riders mate, dont believe what you read in the rag!!

[Knowlesy]

Fogarty was the best Superbike rider there ever was, well from my time watching it anyways.

A real character as well. I still miss him, but even so wish he had retired after 1999. He very nearly did himself in at Phillip Island.

[chunder]

Well for me he retired on the top, yes he didnt win the first races of the year but he was still up there and very quick, he came off after an error of judgement on his and maybe the other riders part and the injury was somewhat of a freak in that damage it did.

What people also forget is that Carl was carrying a lot of injuries from early in his career

[Knowlesy]

Yes, and some very bad injuries at that.

[bigtom]

Foggy is the best superbike racer ever. And when things were on his side, he was in another class to the other riders. But he showed himself to be one of the least adaptbale riders ever when he changed to Honda and had a pretty pathetic year. He won more races than slight, but finished lower in the championship (so he was beaten by him). Then, pretended his work was done and moved back to Ducati, only to find the bike wasn't exactly as he left it, and as a result he couldn't ride it. Those two years weren't helped by the fact that Kocinski was around, because he is a clearly better rider than Carl.

As for Foggy's abilities on a 500, the reason he never went was not because he was English, but because he would have been another guy fighting in the midpack and loosing to Doohan, and carl would have hated that.

[chunder]

I am not too sure that Foggay year was really that disastrous on teh Honda, he was only 30 odd points off the winner and actually was more than that in 97 on his own bike!

As for the 500 thing, he really never did get any decent offers, he was very close to a ride in 91 with Harris and Whitham, then again in 95 whyen he mnoved to Honda there were rumours of a link with team Roberts, where I think he may have flourished as Luca rode the same way as Carl.

Main thing with Carl was he was not too great at riding a bike that wasnt perfect, he would stay on and get a result but that year in 96 there were four guys all taking points off each other, Corser,Slight,Kocinski and Foggy. Carl was a winner still but had the odd crash and slow ride.

[BootsOntheSide]

Some fair points, but I think you need to be adapatable to truly class as the greatest of all time. Corser has won races on Ducati, Aprillia and Suzuki, and probably pushed the Foggy bike to its limits.

[bigtom]

I agree, Corser has shown to be a considerably more adaptable rider, and a better development guy. But at the end of the day, in a fair race Foggy would out ride him (1999). SO despite his lack of adaptability, i maintain that King Karl is the best superbike rider ever. However i think its pretty close for the second greatest between Bayliss and Corser, perhaps this year will be the decider.

[Knowlesy]

Bayliss is a country mile better than Corser. Corser is fine when the bike is out front (usually with his excellent development input). But when it comes down to gritty, elbow to elbow stuff Corser suddenly looks extremely flimsy. In adversity he is a bit off colour.

[bigtom]

Corser may not be so great in elbow to elbow battles, but Bayliss has his troubles too, he makes too many un-forced errors. And when the bike isnt working right he is likely to be too aggressive and over ride it.

[Knowlesy]

The Bayliss errors thing is a strange one. I thought he made an unacceptable amount of errors last season, but I think this was mainly down to nobody pushing him much.

During his last WSBK stint he was fine I thought, he made the odd error but not too many I don't think. Although that fall in Assen 2002 was unnecessary and crucial!

And Corser is hardly the most mistake free rider either. In fact last season it seemed like he fell off about twenty races in a row!

[chunder]

I think either Troy has their own troubles really, Bayliss has bene shown to not quite have the speed to compete at the very highest level against the very best and also has a tendency to fall off when being pushed very hard, other than that for me he is the complete article and should be recognised as such.
Corser is far more of an enigma and for me is teh Luca of superbike, on his day utterly unbeatable bu anyone, Doohan,Foggy,Schwantz etc. But when he is in the packk and fighting he cant ride that way, plus he had a tendency to lose speed in the races in the nineties.
Also he was abject on a 500!

[Slippy Diff]

Originally Posted by chunder

CockStinky

I would of thought that his obsessive compulsive disorder would have meant it was squeaky clean at all times.

[nihil]

I'm not much of a Foggy fan really, but when pondering adaptability I don't think any of the other riders mentioned have ever competed in the TT, let alone with the reasonable degree of success that Foggy managed. In itself, the ability (and the desire!) to race on both short circuits and road circuits has to count for something.

[BootsOntheSide]

The TT may be a challenging and dangerous circuit for a rider to take on, but I don't think it can be used as a pure measure of talent or commitment, simply because so few non-British riders have gone there since the 70s. Success on multiple bikes or in Grands Prix would be a better measure of adaptability

[chunder]

Yes I know that, but the fact that guys liek Hislop, Rutter, Simpson, Moodie and Foggy can race on there and be just as quick as they were on the race track says a lot.

Of you loo at the likes of Joey, McCallen and Jason Griffiths, they are not so good on the track but brilliant on the rods, that to me shows a certain adaptability that can only be a feather in their cap.

And in Carls and Steve cases not just quick but record breaking speed aswell, would like to see Kocinski or Bayliss have a go round the TT course, they would still be quick but would they even try if they had to!

[Slippy Diff]

Originally Posted by chunder

Moodie and Foggy can race on there and be just as quick as they were on the race track says a lot.

You can't compare the two disciplines at all. Different circuits, different bikes, different teams, different team mates etc etc. You can have no idea if Fogarty would have beaten the superbike riders of the time on the TT course and therefore you can't say that Fogarty was kjust as quick at the TT as he was at somewhere like Donington.