This week, CARL FOGARTY, four times Superbike world champion

MEMORY: My first day at Feniscowles Primary School. My mum took me and I was really scared. I went with another lad from across the road and I can remember seeing all these kids messing around in a sandpit.

HERO: Kenny Roberts, American motorcycle racing champion, in the late 1970s when I was about 13 years old.

DRINK: When I was about 14 years old my mum and dad went out and left me and my sister at home. We found a bottle of whisky and were really ill afterwards. It was a bad experience.

HOLIDAY: My first holiday abroad was in 1976 when my dad was racing in the Spanish Grand Prix and we went out for a week's holiday, down the coast from Barcelona. I was 11 years old and nearly drowned, I had to be rescued from the sea.

JOB: I worked for Holden's Transport, Blackburn, in the workshop as an apprentice motor mechanic. I hated every single day. The lads were quite good fun, but I didn't want to do anything but ride bikes.

CAR: When I was 17 I had a white Vauxhall Cavalier. Looking back it was a pile of junk, but it was great at the time.

PET: A really cool Alsatian called Rebel. He was a brilliant dog, my best mate.

HOME: A house in Columbia Way, Lammack, in December 1990, just before Michaela and I got married in March 1991. It was a nice little place, and we stayed there for two years.

RECORD: Heart of Glass by Blondie. I used to have a picture of Debbie Harry on my bedroom wall, and one of Kenny Roberts. LOVE: I was a bit of a later starter and was more interested in bikes than girls until I was 17 or 18. My first love was a brand new Yamaha 125 motocross bike which I got for Christmas in 1981. It was excellent.

LIE: When I was about 15 I went off in my dad's car to the top of the road. I must have parked it in a different place or not parked it the right way round but I told my dad I hadn't driven it when he questioned me.

RACE VICTORY: This was in 1981 on my Yamaha 125 in a motocross race on the Rossendale club circuit.

EMBARRASSMENT: On New Year's Eve, 1981, there were a few of us out on mopeds. I tried to out-brake my mates and lost the front end and slid off. My mates were laughing.