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/128226
.... _:-1.... ., - ."'~ ~ • .... - Happenings In Motorcycling flil@7]@@[J@00 flilfiJ!JlilDD@ \!ll!J0DD@0 @@[jfjiJ@ WG!J@ Ben Schaefer, a seventh grader at North Rockford Middle School, was granted his personal wish to meet his aU-time hero, AMA National Motocross Champion Ricky Carmichael at the Red Bud Nationals in Buchanan, Michigan. Ben was granted bis wish by the Make-A·Wish Foundation of Michigan, a nonprofit organization that provides chil· dren with serious and life-threatening conditions a chance to make a wish come true. As Ben cheered, Carmichael took his sixth win of the season in the AMA Chevy Trucks Motocross Championship. According to Caroie Erickson, a local Rockford volunteer with the Ma.ke-A·Wish Foundation, "Many of the children wish for a trip to Disney World or a new comput· er, but Ben, a 12-year·old motocross enthusiast, had a different wish." "I wanted to meet Ricky Carmichaei and Chad Reed," Schaefer said. Ben's dream was to become a profes· sional motocrosser. He was diagnosed with sideroblastic anemia at DeVos Chil· dren's Hospital last November and requires monthly blood transfusions to keep his energy up. Sideroblastic anemia is a rare disease in which the bone mar· row does not produce healthy oxygen· carrying cells. Ben was also able to meet James "Bubba" Stewart, Chad Reed, Kevin Windham and Ezra Lusk. "Bubba was really nice and showed me the scar he got when he broke his shoulder this year," Schaefer said. Red Bud's Ritchie family supplied all the necessary passes and seating for the race, while Scott USA provided the hospitality and TLC to make this event "extremely" special for the Schaefer family. "All of the race teams and riders have been very generous," said Ben's mom Ruby Schaefer. "Ben is on top of the world. He has been granted more than a wish, more like a dream come true." . By ALAN CATHCART - • Remembering Alejandro de Tomaso With Alejandro de Tomaso's death in Modena this past May at the age of 74, one of the more controversial figures in modem Italian motorcycling left us. Born in Buenos Aires to a wealthy Italian immigrant father and a mother from one of the country's leading landowning families, after leaving school at 15 to manage the family haciendas in the wake of his father's untimely death, the Argentinian financier moved to Jtaly in J 955. There he began a short but successful career as a racing driver, first with Maserati, then with Gsca sports cars, in company with the woman who would later become his second Wife, American heiress Elizabeth Haskl!lI, herself a capable racing driver. In 1959 he founded De Tomaso Automobili and used his considerable ingenuity and promotional zeal to come up with a succession of innovative four-wheeled designs, the most famous of which was the Ford V8-engined Pantera. De Tomaso cars also raced in Formula 1 and in 1970 provided Frank Williams with his first competitive entries en route to establishing the current world title·win· ning Williams F1 team. After using his wife's fortune to acquire the troubled Ghia coachbuilders in Italy in 1967 then adding the famous Vignale styling house soon after. De Tomaso later sold these very profitably to the Ford Motor Company - so profitably, in fact, that soon after he moved into the motorcycle business by acquiring 85 percent of the troubled Benelli company in 1971, following up two years later by purchasing a controlling interest in Moto Guzzi. Using govem· ment grants to maximum advantage, he built an ultramodern new factory in Benelli's home base of Pesaro where a range of four· and six-cylinder sohc bikes clearly based on Honda's CB750 were constructed, some bearing both Moto Guzzi and Benelli badges, alongside small· er·engined Guni V-twins. In due course, this plant and the Bene.lli marque were sold in 1989 To cast your vote, lag an to http://www.cydenews.cl1m. 6 AUGUST 6, 2003 cue. e n eVIl's to a local woodworking machinery company, which terminated motorcycle manufacture but kept the Benelli name alive until it was sold to the Merloni group in 1996. The larger capacity Moto Guzzi models continued to be made in the company's historic Mandello del Lario factory on the shores of Lake Como, but De Tol'(laSO was reluctant to invest greatly in Guzzi, beyond the development of the eight·valve DIlytona verson of the 1000cc V·twin in 1989. In the meantime, he had acquired the historic Maserati car company very cheaply with a clean balance sheet from its Citroen owners in 1975, which he turned into a volume production marque via the twin ·turbo· Biturbo V6 rllnge, ensuring that Maserati stayed alive until 1996 when he sold out to Fiat (it's now part of Ferrari). That same year, he finally ceded control of Moto Guzzi to the American Trident Rowan investment group, having suffered a stroke in 1993. which confined him to a wheelchair, though he retained his razor· sharp financial intellect. In 2000 the historic Italian bike firm, currently Italy's oldest-estab· lished motorcycle manufacturer, was bought by Aprilia, which is currently engaged in revers· ing the decades of underinvestment under De Tomaso's control, to tum it around. De Tomaso was a hard·nosed businessman who often left those who did deals with him bruised and battered, though his workforce respected him for saving their jobs, and he had the sometimes grudging respect of the world's automotive and motorcycle press. He was nor· mally reluctant to invest in new machinery for his factories· but gave designers and eng.i· neers a free hand in drawing up innovative new designs, within the cost and R&D parameters he'd set them. A charismatic and daring car man, he did however stick with his less ebullient motorcycle interests much longer than anyone had expected him to when he Ilcquired them, and the fact that Moto Guzzi managed to survive long enough to be taken over by Aprilia and given a new lease on life· albeit it at some cost· is a testament to his stubbomess and determination. However, as Wally Wyss says in his biography De Tomaso· The Man and the Machines, "When De Tomaso looked in the mirror. he saw not just an ex-racing driver bu worldly and refined gentleman, fluent in three languages, a yachtsman, an admirer of archi· tecture, a connoisseur and patron of the arts. an accomplished horseman, and an internation· al businessman of whom it was said 'whatever he touches turns to gold,'" Some of that was actually true - but as a self·made man whose entire career was all about being in charge, the De Tomaso motorcyling legacy is more about what might have been than what actually was.