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/128240
.... .... _ : -I- · ...,.,..... ... • •... . ... .......... ..,.,. .." Happenings In Motorcycling While m oonl ighting as a co-host for Carm en Electra's tele vision program "Li vin' Large," AMA Superbike star Ben Bostrom attended his first NASCAR race, with the assignm ent of interviewing Dale Eamhardt Jr. " He had n o c l ue who I was," laughed Bostr om. "But we ended up cl ick in g on a bun ch of things, wh ich w as pretty co ol. Turns out he's a really nice guy " Bostrom said tha t the two had basicall y grown up and don e th e exact sam e th ings , alth ough on diffe rent sides of th e m oto r sp orts sp ec t rum and on opposite sides of the country. While Bostrom and h is f r ie n ds w o uld c o b bl e t ogether sco oters an d race t he m n at t rac k -sty le until t he y broke , Earnhardt J r. w as doing th e sam e th ing , but with old junk cars. "We h ad a goo d l augh ab out that," Bostrom sai d. "In fact, he still does stuff like that at their shop !" Bostrom 's intervie w with Dale J r. should air on "Livin' Large" before the first of the year. By ALAN CATHCART • - Vespa Goes Dutch! Th at' s the botto m line of the news that th e takeover by Itali an financier Rob erto Colaninno • previously the savio ur of Olivetti and Telecom Italia - of Italy's troubl ed scoo ter giant Piaggio is now com plete . wi th the ratification by a spec ial shareholders me eting on Septem ber 25 of. th e restructurin g deal previously acc ept ed by the men who control th e heavily indebted cornpany's pursestrings - it s bankers - back in May, but not yet implemented. Some 86 .5 percent of Piaggio equity was previously owned by Deuts che Bank's Italian venture capital fund MOPE, which in 1999 acquired the company from the Agn elli famil y (of Fiat fam e) , with 8 .5 percent held by Du cati 's American owners TPG. and 5 .0 percent by Spain's Mercapital-Rabasa group. as a residual com ponent in the takeover of Derbi in 2001. However , in acquiring a controlli ng share in Piaggio in 1999, MGPE did so without putting up very much of its own cash. Instead , it borrowed huge sum s of money - reportedly m or e than half of Piaggio 's reported Euro 570m (just ove r $665 million) debt is down to It - from several different banks to payoff the Agnelli family , then loaded up the balan ce sheet with that debt and hoped t o be able to trade its way back to profit. It never happ ened: The co lla pse soon after of the European scooter market saw to that. with the result that the Piaggio Group has wallowed hop elessly in the red. in spite of the optimistic improvement in trading condi tions . which has seen Piaggio increase its market share in Europe during the past 18 m onths. The agre em ent between MGPE and Col aninno's IMMSA hold ing company calls for the creation of a new Dutch company called Piaggio Holding B.V., which now owns the scooter giant outright. and whose share capital is split into four different forms of holding (A . B, C, D) , each Minutes before midnight on th e chill y evening of March 12, 192 8, the Saint Francis Dam fail ed. The dam's 200 -foot high concrete wall crumbled and collapsed, sending billions of gallons of raging flood wate r down San Fran cisquito Canyon. about five miles northeast of what is now the city of Santa Clarita . The avalanche of water swept 54 miles down the Santa Clara river to the sea. No one knows the exac t dea th to ll, but more than 45 0 peo ple perish ed in the disa ster. Shortly before 1:30 a.m. on March 13, 1928, an urg ent m essage of imminent di saster reached th e night telephon e op erator in Sant a Paul a and was quickly relayed to police officers, ci ty officia ls and then homes in th e lower portions of town. Am on g th e many heroes of the flood that evening were two motorcycl e officers who rode thr ough the night to warn the sleeping citizens in the low er-ly ing areas of Santa Paula that a torrent of water was about to inundate th eir homes. Their hero ic efforts sav ed co un tless li ves . Their wild ride tha t night was st opped at 3 :05 a.m . wh en the wall of w ater swept through Santa Paula on its way to the ocean. Many stor ies of heroi sm an d courag e em erge d in the afterm ath of the floo d. Th is m onument represents o ne such ac t of h er oi sm a nd w as de d i ca te d in March of 2003. Bev and Bill Turnbaugh with different rights and responsibilities. In return for a cash inv estment of Euro 100 million (about $1 16 million ) , IMMSA{Colaninno has been granted 100 percent of the A ·c1ass shares, in turn endowing it with 31.25 percent of Piaggio 's total equ ity - but more to the point. a con tro lling majorit y of votes in th e co m pany's assemblies, as well as of seat s on the board. Colaninno has been appointed pr esident of Piaggio Hold ing B.V., which means he now contro ls th e dey -to-day operatio n of the com pany through his new CEO , Rocco Sabelli. The bal anc e sheet has been clea ned up significa ntly wlt h .a reducti on of around Euro 250 million (about $29 1 million) in the accumu lated debt , thanks not on ly to IMMSA 's Euro 100 million (about $116 million) cash inj ecti on , but an additional Euro 150 million (about $1 75 m illion) by the conversion int o stock of that am ount of debt by the bank s concerned. The last hurdle to the company's new lease of life was rem oved on October 23 , when the agreement of the trad e unions was given to the deal, which will surely lead to job losses as Colan inno's famed shar p kni fe is taken to restructuring the busin ess, in spi te of his public assuranc es to the con trary. It remains to be seen what a more hands -on , focused m anagement will make of Piaggio's hu ge potential both abroad and in Ital y, where it registered an 18.3 percent sales increase in the first nine months of th e year , and the new range of scooters headed by the Beverly range has been topping th e sales charts. But for sure Colaninno will be looking to gain significant add ed value from the inherent worth of Piaggio's trophy m arque , Gilera - Italy's oldest and argu ably m ost hi sto ric m otorcycl e marque, wh ose pot enti al has been fr ittered aw ay or ignored altogether by successive managem ent. punctutated by the abortive effort to rekindle its motorcyl ing heri tage with the debut of the Suzuki -enqi ned 600 Supersport four years ago, which has now been jettisoned. Piaggio technical boss Lucio Masut has done all the hard work by creating a modular 90-degree V-twin rang e of engin es. headed by a fuel -injected dohc 8V Superbike motor . Now it remains to be seen if Colaninno will give him the green light to constru ct a line of sporting motorcycles akin to Aprilia 's V-tw in range . and thus of Widespread international appeal. around these. To casl your vole, log on 10 hllp:/ /www.cyclenews.com. ROl!d Racl! covlerllgl: 5upercrD5s /Matoc r05 1i CDv erillgl: Dirt Track cove ntg! Oll-Raad cav erage 1i!.Jii!% 25 .79% IS .lI6% 9 .~3% SUpErmoto caVEntgr: 10 .13% Spl!l!dwlly coverZlg e .... . .. .. . . . . . . . .. . . .• . 6 .93% Hillclimb caverage 0 .2 6 % Drag Rael: coverage 0 .1 9% New Mo tocross bike tEsts/ shoota uts 3 .72% New 51'eelbike le sls / s ha a ta ul• . . • •... . ... . . . I.~ I % Raceb ih: fEat urEs/ h::sts 0 .77% Regiona l events cov erage 3 .85% In the Wind ., 9. 1 1% Voices D.6Q% 1559 cue . e n e vv s NOVEMBER 12. 2003 7