The Ducati SituationThe Spanish kid Lavillia signed with Harald Eckl's Kawasaki team this week, which is good and bad from an observational standpoint. Good, in that the kid stays in the WSC series and the Spanish fans have someone to cheer for (or more importantly from a Spanish standpoint, someone to boo against, as in us against them). Bad in that Ducati loses a definite up and comer in the WSC series to a rival factory.
The entire Ducati racing situation is a quagmire of politics right now. As this is written, on Wednesday afternoon, there is exactly one real factory Ducati team and two riders in the world that have Ducati contracts:
The Vance and Hines Ducati team, with riders Tony G and Ben Bostrom.
That's it.
And for those viewers just swimming out of a coma, Ducati won the World Superbike championship two weeks ago. Reigning world champion Carl Fogarty does not have a Ducati contract, neither does Troy Corser, Frankie Chili, and none of their team owner/managers, Virginio Ferarri or Dave Tardozzi. The gents at TPG and in Italy are weighing some heavy issues right now as to racing activities worldwide. Earlier in the year they were considering proposals that would allow only one Ducati World Superbike team in 1999, and although it was going to be a big team, a Superteam if you will, it didn't have room for everybody. It's going to be interesting as to what happens. They were interested in talking to Roberts (and did, twice) because they felt he was the man to run such a team.
Ducati corporate men are probably pretty involved in the much-rumored about IPO stock offering that Ducati will make soon (industry rumor has it December). Maybe they're looking for a quick fix to this racing situation.
Rumor control has it that Scott Russell is on the Ferracci shopping list this week, that's not my information, but it again points to the point made above: Ferracci can't sign Russell or Kipp or Szoke or anybody until he has a Ducati contract, and as of a few days ago, he didn't.
Eraldo tried hard a week ago to sign Gobert to ride for him next year, but Gobert's management didn't dig the fact that Eraldo was without a Ducati deal. So he went the VHR route.
And to be fair, Ferrachi has been negotiating with Ducati since July on a five-year Ducati deal. So don't get the impression he's a man without a country, he isn't.
And even if Ferrachi doesn't get a Ducati deal, there's the small matter of "The Brothers" Johnfranco and Claudio Castiglioni, recently selling the rest of their interest in Ducati for probably more than $150 million dollars. And now, if they are true to form, the brothers will give Ferrach' a morsel to develop bikes with, and then they'll spend the other 147 million on a one-year Return of Cagiva GP program: hire John-Marvin again, (Kocinski's Arkansas name), give out Ferarris, the works. Whatever happens Ferrach' will be covered.
TPG buying out the brothers, according to my sources inside Ducati, solved a lot of internal problems. Like the fact that Claudio liked to land his helicopter on the roof of the Ducati building and they feared the big machine was going to come crashing through the roof.
If you need to put a fine point on the situation at Ducati, consider this: Ferrachi is at this moment negotiating his deal with Ducati. Conversely, today at VHR the boys were boxing up their 1998 works bikes and sending them back to Italy, while their 1999 works bikes will be passing the old bikes at 37,000 feet above the Atlantic late this week. VHR will have 1999 works bikes as soon as the new machines will be released from customs.
And speaking of high altitude, there will be a small dam in the flow of bad humor, disinformation and fact from this digital e'zine, as tomorrow I hop a flight to LA, then on to Sydney to ride the new R6. I'll be on a series of planes for about 20 hours, so no updates will be flowing within that period. But, and this is a big but, IF I can get a connection in the Land of Wayne Gardner, I'll toss some R6 ride report stuff up ASAP.
Yamaha US, say my sources, has a prototype R6 out there in Cypress that they ran on their dyno which, without any prep, including no race gas, turned 105-106 horsepower at the rear wheel. With stock exhaust. That's about what a prepped front-running GSX-R600 or Muzzy ZX6R will push. Should be good.