Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127870
VINTAGE Paul Smart's Imola 200-W inning Ducati 750 would be its production fra me. And as I and other Du cati 75055 cus tomers were Soon to d iscover, Smart' s Imola winner was indeed th e p rot otype for a ro ad legal s treet replica tha t co ul d also be raced successfully. Imola proved racing really d oes imp rove the breed . Yet tod ay, it's also hard to imagine how, back in the ea rly 70s, Italian bikes we re so essentially unfashion able. Those of us out side Ital y who admired them were consid ered eccen tric, and thos e w ho actually bou gh t one wer e consid ered practically certifiable. MVs we re a di ffer ent matter, of cou rse - they were two-wheeled Ferraris, and as such were uni versal objects of desire - but any thing else was definitely qu estionable. Sm a r t' s Im o la v ic to rv - a nd the decade of d esmo dominance it ushered in, cu lmina ting in Hailwood 's his toric 78 IT comeback - changed all that in a way tha t noth ing that Gu zzi, Laverda , Benelli or Gilera accomplished ever did . The Duc a ti ' s u niq u e a p pea l was th at here was a works racer tha t won the Big Races, ye t was id en tif iab ly sim ila r to wha t you and I cou ld (and d id) bu y for the street. A qua rter-century later, that's . still th e essen ce o f Ducati ' s cu rre n t m a gi c, the fu n fa ct or th a t g iv es it s mot orcycles their ap peal - as every 916 owner will tell you. Ca rl races one like By Alan Cathcart Photos by Kyoichi Nakamura A B ~ ยง 40 fter winni ng six World Su perb ik e ti tles in th e p as t se ve n yea rs, we ten d to take Du cati's cu rre nt domination of top-level four -stroke racing for granted but u ntil one Italian spring day 25 years ago , the Bologna factory (then owned by th e Italian governme n t) had precisely zero big-bike crede nt ials, instead being known primarily as a producer of smallcapacity four-stroke singles, some with the q u ir ky a d d ition of d es m od rom ic valve gea r. As for developing a big twin that cou ld bea t the fou rs bu il t by GP world champions MV Agusta or Ho nda, or the ne w-gen erati on Jap a ne se tw ostrokes, let alone the host of esta blished British and Italian twins and tripl es - forget it. Ducati was an outsider in a big-bike broth e rh ood p opul a ted by BSA, Triumph, MV, Honda, Moto Gu zzi, BMW, Laverda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Bertelli, Norton - oh, and Harley-Davi dson, too. Paul Sma rt's Irnola 200 race victory on Ap ril 23, 1972, cha nged all that. By w in ni ng the firs t big- bucks 200-miler held ou tsid e th e United Stat es for th e new generation of lar ge-capacity motorcycles em b raced by Fo rmula 750, the British rider no t onl y put Ducati on the map, he also kickstarted th e development p rocess tha t led to today's World Superbike champions. . The works 750cc Ducati V-twins On which Smart and teammate Bruno Spa g. giari finished one-two at Imola tha t da y set a whole Series of benchmarks whi ch appear no less sign ificant tod ay, a quarter of a centu ry later . Th ough deriv ed from its 1971 500cc V-twin GP kid sister, this was th e firs t time a 750cc Ducati (Above) As it was : Paul Smart put Ducati on the big-bike map with his win In the Imola 200 in 1972. As ide from pretrack prep, the bike is as it was on that historic day. (Right) With its long. 50-inch wheelbas e, "0 1' number 16" is a stable bike, most at home blazing through fast sweep ing turn s. Changing direct ion quickly takes a lot of . mus cle. desm o had raced in-"""---:.o.:._':';:'::~ a n ge r, a n d the Im o la win wa s therefore the first of literally thou sands of others d own the yea rs for suc h produ cti on -d eri v ed 90- deg ree V-tw in desmos, in all their vari ous forms. Furthermore, th ou gh th e Imola 750 ha d a two-va lve cyli nd er-h ead d esign with beve l-d riv en s ingle o v e r hea d camshafts, it was still in every way the forerunner of todav' s belt-driven OOHC alto valvole superbikes, This wa s the racewin ning debut of what would become Ducati's uniqu e, trademark big-bik e format: the 9O-degree d esm o V-twin. But there's more: Unlike almost all its com pe tito rs in Formula 750 - the class, brough t to Europe fr om th e Un ited Sta res , tha t decreed that each race engine must be homo logated for us e on a producti on road bike - Ducati lifted the curtain on today's su perbike class by equippin g the Smart/Spaggiari racers with a stre et chassis as well, u sing the very same heavy, Seeley-derived steel frame fitted to its new street V-twi ns, com plete wit h lugs for the centerstand . Yes, ra ther than building a fa ster-steering, ligh tw eight race cha ssi s lik e th e BSA/Triurnph tripl es' Rob orth fram e or the '72 John Player No rton's pannier-tank semim on o coqu e, Du cati went with wha t () thi s - righ t? Go tta be good, then .... As p a rt o f hi s rew a r d for setting Du ca ti on th e track to s u p erb ike suprem ac y , Pa u l Sm art w as actually given his Imola-winning bike by a grate: ful management. That 25 years late r he still owns it in its unrestored, completely original form , exa ctly as it competed in its las t race, makes this historic racer one of the .tru ly great two-wheeled icons of the modem era .