P72
Interview
F O R M E R DA K A R R A L LY R AC E R B E P P E G U A L I N I
BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BG ARCHIVES
An
"I
n Africa, 40 years ago, was danger-
ous," says Italian Beppe Gualini. "Was
a problem to enter because you go
completely into a war. You can go to Algeria,
but you don't know if you come back."
As you roll through life, people like Gualini
are ones who stick in your mind. They bury a
place in your memory, for people like Beppe
are prime examples of living life to its maxi-
mum potential, to leave nothing on the table
when your day of reckoning comes.
Beppe is better known these days as the
man who organizes and marshals the rides
for Ducati's international press launches,
ferrying journalists from one photo stop to
the next, at a pace he's learned to live with
compared to his previous life as one of the
pioneering Italians for African rally racing.
A veteran of 65 rallies on the African
continent, Gualini was an integral part of
the golden years of the Paris-Dakar—the
treacherous, life-affirming mission from the
French capital of Paris to Senegal's capital
of Dakar on the coast of West Africa, back
when there were no phones, no GPS, just
you and your navigational wits against the
beast that is the Tenere Desert.
Born into a family living below the poverty
african odysse y
BEPPE GUALINI IS THE MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DAY-TO-DAY RUNNING OF
DUCATI PRESS LAUNCHES, BUT HIS STORY IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT
