August 2001
I wasn't surprised to see the results from the Donington WSB races, with most of the five riders I said would do well doing well.
Chili, Corser, Hodgson, Edwards, and Bayliss, although Bayliss had a bit of nightmare with his tyres. It seems to be the way things are going this year, and it'll be the ones who get the right type of tyres. I still think that the best two guys out there are the ones who are 1-2 in the Championship: Bayliss and Edwards. They are the fastest two guys, but they have to find the right rear tyre to use at any track.
In the past there haven't been so many fast guys on Dunlop tyres, which helped the Michelin guys a lot. So even in the past when you struggled on Michelins it wasn't so bad. I really struggled on Michelins at Donington in 1999 for example, but I still won, because I was fighting against someone else with the same tyres.
But now you've got some quick guys on Dunlops. The guys know from the moment they go out on the track for the first session on Friday they are trying to find the right rear tyre for the race. That decision is now made right at the last minute on Sunday. It is that hard now. I still think that Edwards is the fastest guy out there. Not by a mile, but he's the best rider, then Bayliss, then a slight gap and then Neil, Corser and them.
If the bike is perfect, Corser is perfect. If it's not, he's not. When we he rode with me in 1999 he could ride as fast as me but when the thing starts falling apart around you, which is ninety per cent of the time, you've still got to find the aggression and the way to get round it. But when Corser can ride smooth he's very difficult to beat. The Aprilia does look smooth with him on it. You never see him out of shape at all. Bayliss and Edwards have theirs moving about a lot more because they can't help it when their tyres go off.
We've moved into the new house in Spain and right away had some dramas. First off we had no electrical power and had to stay in Alan Pendrie's house (the guy from On Fire clothing) for the first night.
Then we got moved in the following day but only after getting help from the next door neighbour but one. He's an English bloke and he saw me as he drove past our house and turned to the person in the car next to him and said, "I'm sure that was Carl Fogarty!"
I came out of the garage and he was hanging over the wall, so we got chatting, and he said, "Hey I've got your book. I'm just reading it at the moment - would you sign it for me?"
I said no problem - and asked him if he could sort me out with some electric. So we got an electrician down and he ran a cable from his house to mine so we had some power.
Ruben Xaus came down to see my new house so the first night I was there, so was Ruben! He was a big help moving us in and arranging things because he can obviously speak the lingo.
I had arranged to have a 40-foot container full of our stuff brought over from England. I started unloading all the stuff out and it was stinking hot in the container and the things to get out of it were three CCM off-road bikes. I thought, "there was no way to get them out without jumping them out." I stood next to the trailer and the bed of the truck was under my chin, so it were a good 5-foot high.
I rooted out some body armour and a helmet before I attempted it. My mouth was dry and I was shitting myself. I went for it off the back of the trailer and the bike landed crossed-up, my foot came off the footpeg, and I nearly crashed it. Michaela was going mad! My confidence improved after I got the first one out and I was quite stylish by the third one!
I haven't seen much of the GP scene this year but I watched Rossi fall off on the last lap at Mugello, which was daft. He'll have to figure that one out and it is something he will have to sort out if he wants to win the Championship. Consistency seems to be his problem - but I still think he will win it.
He is frighteningly fast and he's been like a breath of fresh air in that class. It's all 250-style riders coming to the fore again.
In the late 'nineties you could tell it was changing when Biaggi jumped on a 500 and won his first GP. Doohan always says that the later 500s don't slide right, they feel slow, just like a big 250 and so on - but he's probably right. That's the way to go fast on them now. I think that's why Chris Walker is having such a hard time, because his style is like a big rear-end Superbike rider.
A mate of mine, Rob Sawyer, owns a load of night-clubs and he asked us over. It was really funny because I spent the night mingling with the stars. Going down to London I thought I would be a small fish in a big pond, but it was the exact opposite. I get recognised all the time.
Even by really big stars like Mick Hucknall. He shouted to me, "Foggy, Foggy - respect, respect! Respect to you man!" JK from Jamiroquai... He were all over me, just wouldn't leave me alone. He said, "Oh man, since Denise left me I haven't been good." He was like almost crying on my shoulder. So I asked Michaela to come to my aid. He kept going on about it and I just said, "well, get another bird - and you'll be fine." Perhaps it wasn't the advice he was looking for, but I was a bit pissed at the time...