Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Pier-Francesco Chili and Piergiorgio Bontempi. For someone used to upholding the Italian twin-cylinder flag in quixotic fashion in world-level TT Formula One four-stroke racing, the chance to ride Marco's MagicTwin was like a glimpse of the promised land - especially after he'd blasted past my works 750 desmodue Bimota DB 1 earlier that year in qualifying on the Daytona bankings with a good 12 mph in hand. Doing so more than lived up to expectations - rather like discovering that good-looking girl you'd been eyeing across the room really is as great to talk to as to look at. Love at first ride. This first desmoquattro was wider than I expected it to be, and the bulbous fuel tank (complete with clear fiberglass sight strip as a rudimentary fuel gauge) needed to keep the twin injectors per cylinder supplied with squirt (fuel), added to the impression of bulk, especially with Marco's chosen stance fresh from his 500cc GP racers, so one sits very far forward, though quite low down. But it handled okay, and was pretty stable while adequately quick-steering - but thumbing the start button was the entry ticket to the 851 engine's twincylinder paradise. There was muscular acceleration from little more than idle - just like a desmodue racer and then some, thanks to the light-action butterflies of the 46mm Weber/Marelli EFl's throttle bodies, which already made riding the bike seem so different from others fitted with carbs. But then, around 9000 rpm when a racing Ducati 750 Pantah would start to run out of breath, the desmoquattro chameleon took on an entirely different color, as the engine note changed from a throb to a rasp, the exhaust from a thunder to a howl, and you felt yourself catapulted forward with decisive force. The improved engine performance at higher revs, up to the 8V's 11,500rpm power peak, was like no other twin-cylinder racer yet conceived but that hit of top-end power wasn't achieved by sacrificing the midrange torque that all desmo V-twins have always been famous for. The best of both worlds - and the prototype for Ducati's future dominance of World Superbike, which others discovered the hard way they could only emulate by copying. The only Ducati 8V/851 ever made now sits in the factory museum at Borgo Panigale, an enduring memorial to the ability of the design team headed by Bordi, which also included Pierluigi Mengoli, the man who today heads up Ducati's engineering department and was responsible for creating the 998R, to break the mould of twin-cylinder engine design. This was the bike that founded the desmoquattro family that now proliferates on the highways of the world and on the World Superbike race grid. The start of it all. CN 3RD ANNUAL CHARLOTTE GRAND NATIONAL Last year's race was the BEST half-mile in history! Don't JmSS the greatest flat-trackers" in the '''orld. when they return to Charlotte! ~ TICKETS START "@.' PLUS: S211 Expbre beaItiful Ncrth Ol'oliTla Ride the Blue ~ PlI'!m"Y \'tSit the heart rI NA9::AJl

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