Carl Fogarty

This is a carving of Carl Fogarty, in Lime, the companion piece of the Aaron Slight carving. Carl, for those viewers among you not familiar with him,is a legend of World Superbike racing, winning 4 World Superbike Championships as well as 3 other world championships and also held the Isle of Man outright lap record for years. I think this commission was due in no small part as a celebration of Carl riding for the team.

 Here they are, together.

You can see the difference in body positioning, as I've written about on a previous post. You may also notice the different shaped brake levers on the handle bars of the two bikes. No much of a difference admittedly but the team would notice these things (Aaron had mangled his little fingers in a crash years before so used a shorter lever so his little fingers wouldn't get snagged on it). When I'm carving identical bikes, these little details do help the sense of achievement and completion when they're handed over.

One detail I was particularly proud of was a shark with spiky teeth, wearing sunglasses,veneered onto the back of Carl's crash helmet. Difficult to see clearly in this photo, but the shark is only about 6-7mm high.

I will post some of the early stages of the Carl Fogarty carving soon.