Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

(left) Ground cle arance on the rig ht is limited by the exhaust, run low Instead of high to keep from overheating the rider. (Right) Lead ing-axle Marzocch i fork was made spec ially for Ducati. For the t ime, the 280mm Brembo discs and AP-Lockheed calipers set the . standard fo r stopping power. (Below) The Spartan cockpit has only a white-faced Veglia tachometer. As such, it has a value beyond measure - meanin g that w hen, a qu art er-eentury o n, Pa ul a ll o wed m e to rid e it aro und Brand s Hatch, the site of its last victory, for 30 lap s at full thro ttle, it wa s a genuine act of trust and friendship. For a lover of Italian bikes who hun g over the fence a t Pad dock Bend almos t ex ac t ly 25 yea rs ea r lie r to th e da y, wa tch ed th a t tit a n ic du el with P h il Read 's Norton resol ved in the Ducati 's favo r by the nar row est of margins, then promised himself that, if eve r it wo uld be possible to bu y a stree t version of tha t Italian V-twi n, he'd d o so, the chance to ride tha t ver y sa me motor cycle a qu arter-eentury later on the same track (albeit the "right" way around, not in reverse d irectio n as at the "Hutch:") mad e this track test a d ream come tru e. It wa s also a trip d own mem ory lane for with the lavout of the Brands Hatch sho rt circuit u nchanged since those days (though the new su rface pu t down this ye ar offe rs much better gri p) , and the layou t and rid ing position of the Imola 750 comp letely ind istingu ishabl e from the 75055 prod uction racer I raced there back in the mid -7 0s, the tides of reminiscence cam e flooding back. Okay - the Smart bike has a full fairing whereas mine had to make do wi th the ca fe-ra cer half-fair ing im posed by Prod uc t io n Racing (PR ) rules, just as deliv ered; bu t, externally at least - that's it! Same lazy, off-beat lilt to the torqu ey, pu nchy engine's thun derous note; same st re tch ed -o u t rid in g position; same spare, spa rta n cockpit peo pled only by a white-faced Veglia tachometer red lin ed at 8500 rpm as on every one ever made (tho ug h, iro nica lly, on th is bike it was the limit Paul a lways st uck to - exce p t for that time he outdragged Phil Read to the line); same long, Tommaselli hand lebar s fitted with slender, cu rved levers tha t nestle easily into your glove ; same stiff operation for the we t clutch, with a sud de n pickup as it grips; same fantastic braking res ponse from the cock ta il of twin 280mm Brembo cast-i ro n front d iscs and AP-L ockh eed t w o- pi ston calipers tha t set new benchma rks fo r stopping power; same trucklike 6O-inch w hee lbas e, exacerba ted in this case by the leading-axle forks made specially by Marzocchi for Ducat i an d nobod y else, and repla ced by "proper" straight ones only at the end of '72 in preparation for the coming seaso n. Otherwise, th is is in every w ay th e recogni zabl e g ra n d da d d y of every 7505/55 and 90055/52 race-replica roads te r tha t e ve r b oomed o ff the Bor g o Pan iga le assembly lines, th e bik e that made me and thousands of others thirst to wo rsh ip at the altar of Dr. T by buyin g a V-twin desmo more than 20 years ago. But th e re' s m ore: In m y case, fo r example, this is the motorcycle that d ictated the rid ing style I still have tod ay. Paul Sma rt hung off the Du ke an d won . So that had to be the Hot Tip : Severa l ra ce crash es later, a fter re p e at edl y g ro u ndmg o u t th e low-rise s t reet exhau st s w e we re forbid den u nder PR ru les fro m replacing w ith a hi gh -rise race set, I'd not only become an expert at bas hing out d en ted Conti sile n cers to restore them to somethi ng a PR-eligibility scru ti neer woul d accep t, I' d al so learned that do ing it like Pa ul di d wa s not only desirable, but necessa ry. Kee p 'er u p right b y hanging off well, it meant that, come the slick-tire era a cou p le of years do w n the road, th e h ol e s I' d wo rn in t he kne es o f my leathers had alread y been covered up by primitive s liders: I was read y fo r th e modem era! H ow eve r, th at was b efore Gir lin g introd uced th e ir ex tra-long 13.5-inch rear s hocks , w hich had tw o ben efit s when fitted to a Duke post-'75: One, they jacked up the rear end and gave vital extra gro und clearance; two, the y sha rpened u p th e s tee ring by red u cing the effective head an gle and trail. By contrast , the Sma rt Imola winner still has very short Cerianis fitted at the rear, just as raced . Not havin g used the Ducati for a couple of years, Paul need ed the help of my race mechan ic, Alista ir Wag er, to ge t it track-read y fo r Brands. Tw o d a ys o f intensive pre paration had the Imola winner running stro ng and hard - only not for long. After a hand ful of lap s, it started misfiring down the pit straight - oh, no, I bro ke it! Well, no C in fact, history wa s repeating itself in more ways than one. 'The battery 's not as fresh as it cou ld be," sa id Paul con fid ently in pit lan e, "and in fac t th at was a littl e bit th e A chill es' h eel of th e bi ke wh en w e brou ght it to race in England . In both the two other races I d id here, at Silverstone and Snetterton, it sta rted misfiring just like this, each time wh en I was in seco nd place and about to have a go at taking the win. We found afterward that with the total-loss dual igni tion, you need to have a very strong batt ery to let it rev properl y. So now we need to borro w one off someo ne." Five minutes later, thanks to a cooperative Ducati 916 owner, we had it. (We Ducatisti always did stick toge ther.) Back on board wi th all systems go, I could really ap preciate the fine eng ineering th a t Du ca ti d esi g n g u ru Fa bio Tag lion i (the famo us Dr. T) inves ted in p roducing this moto rcycle engine. There are those who insist his triple-cam 125cc desmo GP racer is Tagli oni's finest creation; others would vote for the belt-d rive n Panta h V-tw in that ush ered in the modem otto va/vole era of bikes d esigned by his successo r; Massimo Bord i, But for me, the bevel-drive V-twi n is Dr. T's signature motor, especia lly when compared to o the r tw in -cylind er e ngi nes d eveloped before it- or since. For a start, it has the traditional lack of vibra tion of a 90-degree V-twin that w e n owad a y s take fo r gra n ted bu t which, back then, was revolu tionary - as anyone w ho's ever ridd en even a wellbalanced Bri tish p ar allel-t win, or any Harley, will confirm . Co nceived long befor e the ad ven t of ' power-s a p p ing co u n terba la nce rs, Taglioni 's so-called "L-twin " Ducati may have lo o ke d s t ra nge when it fi r st appeared in public, but it worked - and this is the proof. Even with the high (er)-lift lmo la cams beloved by.so man y lat er 75055 racers, the Sma rt Ducati pulls like a tract or from low revs, with waves of grunt and cleanly delivered torqu e on tap from as low as 3000 rpm . With the open-m ega phone exhaus ts, there's lots of rolling thunder, and it d oesn't run that cleanl y at the bottom of the rev range. But just above 4000 rpm the megaphonitis cleans out, lea ving the d esmo V-twin to run hard a nd stro ng all the wa y to that 8500-rp m red lin e - w ell, it m ight ha ve, except I restricted th e vicar's handiwork (se e Smart in te rvie w!) to 8000 rev s for th e test, even though the engin e gave every sign of wanting to rev on. The close-ratio five-speed gea rbox fitted to th is w ork s eng ine has a clea n, sharp, one-up righ t-foot change whic h isn 't, how ev er , so crisp yo u ca n thi nk abo ut cha nging up wi tho u t the clu tch. H owe ve r (thoug h o ne reason mi gh t have been the amo unt of flywh eel on the motor), th ere' s noticeab ly less ine r tia than on my production racer of the era, so th e e ngine pic ks up s peed more quickly an d has an eager a p pe tite for revs (probably helped by the absence of a generator on the total-loss ignition of th is F750 racer, w he reas of cou rse th e 75055 did carry one). At racing speeds, the eng ine pickup out of turns is outs tand ing, aided by the accelerator pumps fitted to the relatively lig h t-a ct io n 40mm Dell 'Ortos . Th ese were pretty revolutionary for 1972 and u nd o ubtedly a facto r in th e Ducatis impressive accelerati on ou t of turns. Yet, with suc h a lo ng w heelbase, there's no risk of wavi ng the fron t wheel in the air hard on the ga s, so the 84 b hp a t 8800 rpm that the engine delivers at the rear wh eel gets put cleanly to the ground for ma ximum drive via the race-com pou nd Pirelli tires Paul has now fitted . Du nlo p triangulars (such as those on w hic h he raced the bike) might have hardened up a bit in the past 25 years! Yet if the Ducali' s engine beha vior brought the mem ories flooding back, the way it stee red a nd h a n d led a ro u n d Bran d s d id so in spa des. This was the track on which I did mos t of my early racing, th is was the bike that spawned the one I did so aboard: yesterday once . mo re. One thin g felt d ifferen t: The steering of the Imo la bike is even heavier an d m ore p ond erou s th an was m y own bike's, and part of the reason for that is the s hort rear sho cks , an d part is the leading-axle forks which kick everything ou t even farther. Ducatis have always been super-stable handlers - b ikes on w hich you go look ing for fas t, bu mpy comers whe re you know the opposition will be struggling - and that's as tru e tod ay with my Supermono sing le as it was 25 years ago with the Imola 750... except, this is too much of a good thin g on the Smart bike, which you really have to muscle around to make change direction . Mind you, it pays off: Back then, I always looked forward to Bottom Bend, becau se sweeping d ownhill through there hard on the gas allowed you to p ick up man y yards on your rivals who were mounted on shortwh eelbase bikes that wo uld leap around and shake their heads trying to keep up. With the Smart Du cati, it w a s no excep tio n; it w as on ly th e tr aditional 41

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