That Italian guy on the Ducati Corse GP team--he's not an Italian, he's American Mark Elder. image: thanks Ducati Corse

With his dark shock of black hair, two-day growth of beard and quick smile, it never ceases to surprise people when they learn that Mark Elder isn't a native Italian. And, for Elder, it's still a bit of a surprise that he works on the World Championship Ducati Corse MotoGP team. Because there was a time, not that long ago, when racing was the furthest thing from his mind.

While born and raised in America, Elder looks so much like an Italian that even some of the Bologna locals are fooled into thinking he's lived there all his life. Not only does he look the part, he also speaks Italian fluently and has adopted most of the traits of an Italian man: dark looks, playful charm and the swagger.

Elder and the entire '06 'Capirossi crew' pose with their machine. image: thanks Ducati Corse

Elder worked with Loris Capirossi for the past three seasons in the Ducati MotoGP team and, while racing now dominates his life, there was a time when not only was it a non-factor, he didn't like seeing it in his portable media. He explains, "I'm a proud graduate of MMI. Basically, I was interested in Harleys. I just wanted to be a Harley mechanic. So I went to MMI for a year and a half to be a Harley mechanic, and I ended up doing the Suzuki program also. Then I went to England, got a job in a Moto-Guzzi shop in London. Came back to America and tried to get a job working in a Harley shop, just a regular mechanic. I totally wasn't interested in racing. They were the pages in the magazines that I didn't understand why they put them in there. They'd have some Harley race results in Easyriders and I didn't like it at all."

Ready to spend the rest of his life in America, Elder was blindsided when the woman he then loved broke off their relationship. "If she hadn't broken up with me, I probably would've stayed, and who knows what I'd have been doing now. Might've been President of Yamaha USA or something, but you know, I could've been picking up trash on the 101, too."

Easyriders. Okay, this has been a long personal journey, then.

Bartels Harley-Davidson put forth a strong 883 effort in the early-to mid-1990s. Elder had applied to be a mechanic at their dealership, and instead he wound up being assigned to the race team. He hasn't looked back yet.

A very critical hook-up for Elder happened right away. He was assigned to be Ben Bostrom's mechanic on the team. He left Bartels not long after that—going to the rival Miller Electric team where he worked with Mark Black as his rider—and a season with Eric Bostrom soon followed. Together, they won the 883 championship. Those who remember that team also recall that year as a rowdy, bawdy season for one and all. At the same time, Elder cemented himself into the paddock as a crafty and serious mechanic.

Vance & Hines came calling—hiring Elder as an engine builder on the just coming on-line V&H Ducati effort. There he built engines for ex-Superbike champion Thomas Stevens and others. Elder stayed when the team upgraded riders, and he reunited with then-Superbike champion Ben Bostrom in 1999. Vance & Hines and Bostrom narrowly missed out on the championship after a disastrous mechanical at Mid-Ohio that year. Problems that season with the team's star rider, Anthony Gobert, and then the loss of the championship gutted the red team. When the season ended, most involved were looking for a short rope and a long drop. However, instead of being demoted, Bostrom was actually promoted to the factory Ducati WSBK team. Elder went with him, although initially not as an official member of the team, per se.

"My girlfriend had just broken up with me, and Ben asked me to come to Europe with him, to be his motorhome driver, helper, friend. I did that for a year and then, when Ducati started the L&M team, I went back to being his mechanic. I did it for two years.

Elder was closely linked with the Bostrom Brothers early in his career. Here he and Ben and the NCR Ducati crew are on the grid at Misano in 2000. image by dean adams

One day, you're working in the U.S., eating sliders for lunch and then the next you're driving on the other side of the road and trying to figure out the 24-hour clock. Needless to say, it can be difficult for anyone, any American, to survive in international racing. Or, perhaps more to the point, you've got to have the right attitude if you're going to make it long-term when working closely with the Latin-based sect. Elder agrees, "For sure. There are definitely some very strong personalities around. One of the strongest would be (World Superbike Team Manager Davide) Tardozzi. I like the guy. He was always great. Always treated me really well, and very honest. He's a good guy to work for. But he's a very, very strong personality. Yeah. You have to be easy-going. For sure, it's helped me. I've known quite a few mechanics who would speak their mind every moment that something comes up, and in the end, they don't seem to hang around, at least in the World Championship. In MotoGP and Superbike, the guys that are kind of loud-mouths and "I did this" and "I do that," "I'm the greatest at whatever I am," don't seem to stay around all that long."

While it would seem that the pivotal incident in Elder's career was the season in which Bostrom narrowly lost the title to Mat Mladin, he sees it slightly differently. Ready to spend the rest of his life in America, he was blindsided when the woman he then loved broke off their relationship. He explains, "If she hadn't broken up with me, I probably would've stayed, and who knows what I'd have been doing now. Might've been President of Yamaha USA or something, but you know, I could've been picking up trash on the 101, too. So who knows?" The opportunity to beat tracks to Europe with Bostrom showed itself, and Elder quickly packed his bags. He had the right background for a job in international racing. Elder had lived all over the U.S., then in England, and back again.

"I liked it. First of all, working at Vance and Hines, there was Ernesto Marinelli; there was Claudio Perietti; the guy with the number etched in the back of his head, Vittorio Bolognese. So I worked with those guys, and I thought they were great. I loved the Italian clothes, the food, the coffee. I just liked it right away. I'd never been exposed to it before, so that was the first kind of experience. But I loved it. Then, when I got over there, I just, I immediately fell in love with the people. I think the Italian people are great. I think they're, I just think they're great people."

He then remembered how his friend described Europe and while he found it different, of course, he didn't find it different in a bad way.

"I got over there, and I didn't see it that way at all. Man, you kind of see—I love America, it's my home, still, but there's a lot of messed-up things in America, too. And over there, it's just—I just didn't find it that way. I found out I just loved it. Even from the beginning, when I couldn't speak the language, it seemed like I felt quite at home there. For sure, also, because the team. They helped me. They bring you in. If they like you, and you fit in. I had some great friends. I couldn't have done it without some of the guys on the team. Tardozzi helping me out, loaning me the car for—the team car for the winter break—or during the summer break, and things like that. Some of the guys, I slept at their houses for months on end. They'd take you in. They're incredibly hospitable, the Italians."

Elder's experience should no way be inferred as the norm, that your average Yank who knows the difference between phillips, flat and torx screwdrivers can jump on a plane and get a job in racing and it'll be all good. Elder didn't speak the language but what he did have was his easy-going personality and a can-do attitude. Bike number two needs to be rebuilt from the wheel bearings up? Correct response: where are the tools? If they don't like you, international racing will chew you up and spit you out.

Elder agrees. "If they like you. Oh, no, they can be deadly, especially in this, in racing. They can be ruthless. So, if you're on the right side, it's great."

Spending a few days running from the top of Italy to the bottom in a tour bus can give you a glimpse of Italian life but, to really understand Italians, you need to live there. After a few months, Elder saw this.

"Most people have an idea of what Italy is and what Italy's like. And I thought I did, too, in the beginning," says Elder. "But in the end, until you really go somewhere, and you—I mean, you can do it in a short period of time, also. You don't have to actually live somewhere. But if you can spend even two weeks—not a day or two in every different place and seeing tourist things, but if you can see, if you can stay in one place, a small town, whatever it might be, for a couple weeks, and hang out with somebody who's Italian, who lives there, is working, whatever it might be. I think that's probably the only way you get to see what Italy's really like."

Racing and contests of speed were a way of life in Italy 400 years ago, and the passion they have for riders and racing today is just as popular. Elder learned this when he married a good Italian girl and moved to a new house. "There's probably not many 65-year old ladies in America who know MotoGP and who Loris Capirossi is, but my mother-in-law knew of him, of course."

Elder also has a shop at home where he works on his own bikes when time permits. Here he and his daughter stand in the shop. image: thanks mark elder

Elder and his wife moved to a new home recently and word spread through the neighborhood that he worked in racing. He was introduced to an older gentleman who invited him to his home and gave him a glass of wine that he thought Elder would find special. "The wine was made not far from Imola, so he chose this wine to give to me, saying it was from the land of racing." Next, another neighbor chatted him up and told him that the company he works for sponsored Ducati in Grand Prix in the 1960s.

To the people who find paradise in Italy, the long-distance to family and friends in the U.S. is never easy. "I'm very fortunate, for sure. But I miss my family. That's the hardest part, probably, is not being around--being away from my parents, my brothers, my nieces and nephews."

Some Americans settle in Italy and never come back, finding a synergy with Italian life that they couldn't in the Land of the Free. Elder's not one of those. The open mind and aforementioned easy-going nature show themselves again. "I wouldn't mind, actually, coming back to the States someday," he says, "if I had a good opportunity. But it'd have to be something good, because what I've got right now is pretty good."