ONE daring, slightly foolish and ultimately naive photographer pushed his luck that little bit too far.

In the quest for that perfect picture of Carl Fogarty setting off from the Ducati pit lane garage, his chosen angle was a touch too front on.

With a flick of the wrist, Fogarty fired a warning from his exhaust. It was not heeded.

By the time the bemused guy had regained his balance and composure, Fogarty was out of the pit lane and on to the Misano track having missed flattening the snapper's toes by the width of a Kodak Instant.

Nothing and nobody gets in Fogarty's way when the serious stuff starts.

Take lunchtime for example, in the Ducati hospitality compound of a vast and lira-laden track paddock.

The mechanics wolf their pasta, team-mate Troy Corser brazenly asks the stunning waitress her name and Fogarty sits alone in front of the television watching Eurosport's live coverage of . . . motorcycling, of course.

Fogarty and Corser are like chalk and mozzarella.

The Australian is aware of his celebrity status and is comfortable with all the attention.

He has his own Internet site and his own logo, a crocodile in Crocodile Dundee gear, dripping blood from its fangs.

Corser lives in Monaco and lists golf, wakeboarding, motocross, jet-ski and go-karting as his hobbies. For pleasure, he rides a Ducati 916, a Ducati Monster 900, a Huskvarna 250 and a Yamaha 400.

For all their differences, though, the two riders have a good working relationship, something of a rarity for Fogarty.

"All the other riders think they are superstars. I am the only superstar and I don't even act like it," chuckled Fogarty.

"Troy's good to work with. At the end of the day's qualifying, we will have a meeting to go through things.

"Troy will have tried some tyres that I won't have tried. "Both riders are set up differently as everybody has their own style. I usually run different gear settings for instance.

"But with tyres you usually find what works for him will work for me and vice versa," added Fogarty, after the mild irritation of an interview for Tele Monte Carlo, made worse by the fact that he had to wear a mock crown for its duration.

That impish streak then came to the surface as Fogarty slipped into fantasy mode and contemplated working with a nightmare colleague, John Kocinski, a notorious obsessive. He gleefully imagined riling the American by snaffling his regimented chocolate intake or leaving dirty underwear around the garage.

Corser has potential to fit that nightmare tag, if the first day's times were anything to go by.

There was a round of applause from his mechanics greeting the Aussie after he posted the quickest lap of the day.

Across a thin divide of computers, Fogarty was in intense discussion after his own best shot at provisional pole.

That intensity does not let up, even when chief mechanic Anthony Bass is wiping Fogarty's visor clean of flies.

In a neck grip that Hulk Hogan would envy, Fogarty's helmet and, of course, head are pulverised until the merest hint of a bluebottle's entrails is eradicated.

And, all the time, another key cog in Fogarty's Ducati machinery is keeping a keen and experienced eye on proceedings. Those who thought that wife Michaela basked in the limelight of race day, have not seen her attention to detail when the cameras are not switched on.

She meticulously records every lap time and is recognised as an integral part of her husband's success.

As Ducati spokesman Michaeli Morisetti explained: "The Italian word is like 'complicity,' but it is not that.

"They have a strong relationship. Whenever racing is tense they do not seem to need to say anything, their touch says it all."

Michaela is his number one fan, which is a fairly distinguished mantle considering Fogarty expects 10,000 Brits to make the journey for tomorrow's race.

He has already bumped into a couple from Accrington in Cattolica on Thursday night and 26 members of the Swedish Ducati Club rode from Scandinavia to be here in time for yesterday's preliminaries.

And, in a committed crowd of around 1,000 at Santamonica circuit in Misano yesterday, the native klaxons sounded for one rider only.

"Ideally they would want an Italian to win riding a Ducati, but I am the next best thing," said Fogarty.

Troy Corser may have a few things to say about that.

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