Getting the Motor running at a young age
By Thomas Conway
Flick through the television channels any given Sunday morning from March to November and you’re almost certain to pass by some fleeting images of Formula One cars, flying around tracks at supersonic speeds, well above the maximum limit permitted on Irish motorways.
There is perhaps no other sport on Earth which weaves science, skill and business so seamlessly as Formula One. The sport is powered by more than just engines though. Behind the champagne podiums and exotic locations, there is untold passion.
This year’s F1 season ends on Sunday with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Around the time that Lewis Hamilton and co. are skidding around the Arabian tarmac, seven year-old Conor Fogarty is likely to be doing a scaled-down version of the same thing at Pallas Go Karting track in Tynagh, just outside Portumna.
Watching from the wings will be Conor’s father Eoghan, along with his uncle, both of whom come from a Roscrea family which has been welded with motorsport for as long as memory serves. Conor represents the third age of the Fogarty motorsport brand – his grandfather Michael was an accomplished driver, winning his class to pick up two Irish Rally Championships in 1993 and 1994.
Eoghan’s first spin in a kart came at age 17, but these days youth is everything. The earlier you start, the more you learn.
“If you tell a young lad at say 12 years of age to jump into the kart and do 85km/h, he won’t do it,” Eoghan Fogarty revealed.
“But Conor is coming from 30/40kmh upwards and he doesn’t know any different but to be hitting 60km/h. There’s a lot of learning in it too though, they have to learn about their corners, their apexes, their lines on the track, their breaking lines. These days, if you’re not in a kart at 5 or 6 years of age, you haven’t really a hope when you get older.”
He may have been a late starter, relative to his son, but Eoghan Fogarty’s credentials speak for themselves. He swept to victory in both the 2013 and 2014 Grade 2 Irish Touring Cars Championship, before landing the Grade 1 in 2015, finishing atop the 15 driver table after 12 races in locations all around the country.
For more, pic up a copy of this weeks Nenagh Guardian