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esmOPHILES OcToBeR / novemBeR 2012 #57

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DESMOPHILES

The Newsletter of DOCNZ

Ducati Owners Club of

NEW ZEALAND

October / November 2012 Issue 57

COMMITTEE

REGIONAL CONTACTS Auckland Chris (Haldane M/C’s) 09-579-6020 Wayne Lyons 027-4728-343 Waikato Heath (Hamilton M/C) 07-849-1919 Manawatu Trevor Smart 027 727 1883

Bay of Plenty Lindsay Beck (Bayride) 027 248 2367 Hawkes Bay Nigel Taylor & Claire Miller 021 273 9450 Wellington Todd (Motomart) 0800DUCATI Chris Marer 027 447 4299 Motueka Richmond Grant 03-528-0086 Nelson Greg Monahan 021 851 916 Marlborough Graham McDonald 03-578-2490 Christchurch Craig (Casbolts M/C) 03-366-4401 Phil (Desmocycle) 03-318-8061 021 137 0309 Dunedin/Deep South Gary Winter 03-476-7515 021 206 9866

the above members and also the Ducati Dealer Network

All Magazine contributions and Membership Enquiries to:

DOCNZ P.O.Box 6537

Marion Square Wellington 6141 NEW ZEALAND

Email: secretary@docnz.co.nz

www.docnz.co.nz

President

Greg Monahan 021 851 916

Secretary

Brent (Molly)Meldrum

021 280 3371

Treasurer

Nick Brandon 021 974 487

Editor/Publisher

Richard Sabiston editor@docnz.co.nz

Webmaster

Nigel Haworth webmaster@docnz.co.nz

Communications Coordinator

Greg Monahan docnz@docnz.co.nz

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Well another couple of months have flown by, and I am looking forward to the summer months of riding, no more wear-ing the winter gear and not have any feeling left in your hands.

We have a great issue for you all to read. Lynda and Hamish's next instal-ment of their Most Excellent USA adven-ture and the last section of the History of Superbikes. The next issue will be the Christmas issue, to make it a fun issue can you please send in photos of yourself, your bike(s) or both dressed up in festive attire . All photos will be published in the centre section of the magazine, if there are enough photos. It would be greatly appreciated if you can send in some articles for the magazine. It can be about anything, it does not need to be about your Ducati trips through the Italy (although this would be nice), it can be about a cafes that you stopped at while out for a ride, motorcycle gear or accessories that you think are fantastic - anything. Please can I have any articles or photos in by 10 December.

Cheers, Richard

Ciao a tutti As I write this I have had a day in heaven on my bike, riding from Nelson to Christ-church for its first service and carbon fibre termignonis fitted. The day, a perfect 18 degrees as I leave Nelson, the sky is blue, and the traffic is al-most non- existent. For some strange, but very great reason, no cops the entire trip. The 848 evo CORSE SE is as smooth as silk, and while I am still not allowed over 6000 rpm, it's still a pleasure to ride. The only downside I can say is that it is its best at " here are my keys officer" speeds and it's very hard to bring yourself back to reality on the outskirts of towns. I just love it! And tomorrow for the trip home, it will have the right sound and another thousand revs to play with (until I do another 500kms) then it's all go!

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EDITOR’S Say

PRESIDEnT’S PRaTTLE

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6 PRESIDEnT’S PRaTTLE - COnT

Clubs stuff - in your in box last week you should have received the NDR and Turismo 2013 info packs and registration paperwork. ( if not, it's in the issue a few pages on) Please read it, as per last years NDR, we have a special deal, and the hotel is booked entirely for us, until the end of November. I know it's short notice, but if you think you might be going, send in your hotel booking form, and secure our room. You won't have to pay until after you leave the event in March. Then send in the NDR rego form to Molly at the clubs PO Box in Wellington. That's it, it's that easy, and you are in! Turismo is also open to the first in basis, as per other years, and is limited in the amount of entrants that can participate. So if you would also like to go on Turismo, get in fast. This year Turismo follows on directly from NDR. We have two very special guests at-tending the NDR this year. Paul Smart will be travelling to NZ and participating in the classics in Pukekohe and will be staying on, in NZ to join us at NDR, so we are very privileged and I know after a few chats with Paul, that anyone who talks to him, will find him such a down to earth man, and will thoroughly enjoy the experience. We also have have another Ducati legend fly the Tasman to be a guest at NDR in Ian

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Gowanloch. Ian has living and breathed Ducati since the early 70s when he rebuilt a mate's 250 Desmo. He opened up shop officially in 1977 and finally 'retired' in 1999. Now living in the countryside with sheds full of parts and his own collection, he makes wine and runs ItalSpares. What he doesn't know about Ducatis isn't worth knowing. He will no doubt share with us some of his stories, of which we're assured are plenty! This year's NDR will be the biggest ever, so don't miss you opportunity to be apart of it, get in and book your place in history, now! Until next time, arrivederci Gregorio

The NDR and Turismo entries are starting to roll in already, and that's great to see. We have some great rates for the accommodation at Bayview Wairakei so book with them early - the rooms are held until the end of November only so grab yours today. At the same time fill out your entry form and either post it (PO Box 6537, Marion Street, Wellington 6141) or email it to me at secretary@docnz.co.nz. Turismo as always is limited to numbers so if you're keen for that book the time off now and get your form in the mail! I have not managed to do a Turismo myself yet but would love to this time around, I'll see what I can wangle! It's been pretty quiet on the membership front, it always is this time of year. If you know someone that's keen to join, send them my way. Anyone who joins from now on in gets membership until January 2014 by default. Total (financial) membership stands currently at 143, it's good but I'm hoping for better for the next year! For those not familiar there's a shop in the U.K called 'Made in Italy Motorcycles', owned and run by John Fallon. His bikes are expensive but beautifully presented with after sales service to match. Just now there's a factory built TT2 for 'only' 60k Euros. This is the TT2 that has resided in the Ducati Museum for the last 14 years, and I have photos of it from every angle having just built one when I went to the factory years ago. There's a also a new FI Montjuich for 25k Sterling, apparently Nbr 001. If by the time you read this either of these are sold, check out the 'Sold' page for 2012. www.madeinitalymotorcycles.com The weather is warming, time to get out on the road (more) - see you there! Ciao Molly (aka Brent)

SECRETaRY REPORT “mOLLY’S SaY”

8 a SHORT HISTORy of supeRBiKES - PaRT OnE

A little bit of history goes a long way So here is the second and final part on “A Short History of Superbikes”. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing about them.

Back to the future: 999 Ducati's 999 started production in 2003. The 999 had a tough start in life, launched on the back of what many regarded as the most beautiful bike ever built, Ducati's 916's series. For a start there are the looks. How do you follow and, more specifically, better a bike as iconic as the 916? Something radically different was needed and, indeed, appeared. OK, for this article we are going to gloss over the controversy surrounding the design of Ducati's 999, or the man behind it, Pierre Terblanche. So let's just cut to the chase?

9 By RichaRD saBiSTOn

The main directive in designing the 999 was to make the bike easier to ride than its Tamburini-designed predecessors, while still improving the all-out per-formance that the desmoquattro has been famous for. So once you got past all the “Burn the heretic design!" griping and armchair critiquing, the big question was did the design succeed? The answer was a resounding YES. Ducati intended to create a Superbike of stunning design that improves rider ergonomics, making the maintenance easier, reduces complexity of the motor-cycle and offers performance second to none. The aerodynamics, mechanical and electronic components, chassis and running gear were developed first and styling followed. The 999's ergonomics were a vast improvement on the 916/998's uncompro-misingly racebike replica riding position. The 999 is still a narrow-focus sport-bike, with one mission: to get from point A to point B quicker than its predeces-sor. This meant that there were some accommodations made to the comfort, but there were no compromises. The bars are closer to the seat (and the reach

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can be made even shorter by moving the seat/tank unit forward), and the Ducati's midsection between the rider's knees is even nar-rower than before, giving you an im-pression more akin to a bicycle than a motorcycle. The 999 retained the

traditional L Twin Des-modromic Valve actu-ated engine, with its lin-ear power delivery and high power and torque figures available at even low RPM. Additionally, with its high spec sus-pension and trellis chas-sis, it is one of the finest handling motorcycles for its time. Subsequently, more powerful 999S and 999R versions were introduced, both capa-ble of 0-100 km/h in under three seconds with a top speed of over 270 km/h. The 999 was also named by the press to be the best twin cylinder engine ever produced for it time. It provided its riders the power they need to win on tracks around the world, but also making it easy for everyday use. The innovative and cool design immediately drew the attention to the machines dynamics.

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From the start, the 999 was extremely successful in the Superbike World Championship, winning world championships in 2003 (Neil Hodgson), 2004 (James Toseland) and 2005 (Troy Bayliss), and was raced in the World Super-bike series through the 2007 season.

The new future: 1098 & 1198 Ducati 1098 was released to the public in 2007. The 1098 consisted of three versions, the 1098, 1098S, and 1098R. The 1098 harked back to the old 998, compared to to the 999 predecessor. The 1098 had horizontally placed headlights and a non-integrated exhaust sys-tem. The 1098 also resurrected the single-sided swingarm of the 916/998. The return to the more traditional Ducati design has welcomed by many Ducati fans who criticized the 999 design, even though the 999 was a wonderfully balanced and powerful bike. On top of the standard models (1098/1098 S/1098 R), a special edition of the 1098s was produced in the red, white and green (Italian national flag colours). The model was called the Tricolore. The 1098/1098 S had a top speed of 290 km/h. To reach this speed, the bike weighed 173kg and ran a more powerful engine. The 1098 R horsepower was in-creased making it the highest power-to-weight ratio of any production sports bike of its time. The 1098 did not only create a stir with the road riders, but also with the racing world. The 1098 created a huge impact on the Superbike World

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Champion-ship. WSBK attempted to level the playing field, with a concession to motorcy-cles de-pendant on the number of cylinders and Ducati was able to capitalise on most of the conces-sions. Ducati lob-

bied FIM to update the WSBK rules to accommodate the new bike, by threaten-ing to withdraw from WSBK, as the 2007 WSBK rules limited V-twin engines to 1000cc, thereby penalising the 999 horsepower by up to 20hp. It would have also been too expen-sive to keep the 999 com-petitive. The other motorcycle manufac-turers par-ticipating in WSBK were not pleased about rac-ing against

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a bike with a larger en-gine, espe-cially a Ducati. Su-zuki also threatened to withdraw if the rules were changed, however Ducati pre-vailed. In 2008 FIM announced that the en-gine capacity limit would be increased to 1200cc. This not without concessions on Ducati’s part. Extra engine modifications previously allowed for two-cylinder machines were scrapped, thereby bringing the two-cylinder machines in line with Japanese four-cylinder bikes. Ducati won the 2008 and 2011 Superbike World Championship with its 1098 R and since the Superbike Championship was established in 1988, Ducati has won 14 World Championships. In 2009, Ducati re-modelled the 1098 to improve the performance of the Super-bike. The main changes to the new 1198 comprised upgrading the engine to the new 90° V-twin "Testastretta Evoluzione" engine, and included Ducati’s “Traction Control” for better handling. The re-model was also to celebrate Troy Bayliss' victory in the 2008 Superbike World Championship season, after which he retired. Ducati built the remodelled 1098 as a salute to him and his three World Championships (2001, 2006 and 2008). The remodelled bike also allowed for Ducati to sell a few models of the 1098 in the Bayliss’ colour scheme used during his 2008 season. Ducati also used Troy’s number "21" on the side. This model was aptly named "Ducati 1098 R Bayliss Limited Edition", where only 500 units of this new bike were manufactured. Other additions to the 1098 R Bayliss LE include carbon fibre heat shield on the exhaust and 5-spoke wheels (similar to Bayliss' original).

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It then went on to win a second world title with Carlos Checca in 2011. For 2011, two models were produced. The 1198 and the 1198SP, which re-placed the 1198S. The 1198 shared many design elements with its predeces-sor. The 2011 bike had more power and torque, lighter wheels and fairings, and a few minor paint changes. The 1198 also retained the distinctive single-sided swingarm from the 916-998 bikes. On a side note The Ducati Desmosedici RR is a limited production road-legal version of the Desmosedici MotoGP racebike. Ducati made 1,500 Desmosedici models for public purchase. The bike was launched at the 2006 Italian MotoGP event. In 2004, Ducati announced that a low volume bespoke replica of the Desmosedici would be available beginning in 2006. Termed the Desmosedici RR (Racing Replica), it was claimed to be the first true road replica of a Mo

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17 mOTOGP wORLD CHamPIONSHIP 2012

April 15 Doha, Qatar

April 29 Jerez, Spain

May 6 Estoril, Portugal

May 20 Le Mans, France

June 3 Montmelo, Catalunya

June 17 Silverstone, Great Britain

June 30 Assen, Netherlands

July 8 Sachsenring, Germany

July 15 Mugello, Italy

July 29 Laguna Seca, USA

August 19 Indianapolis, Indianapolis

August 26 Brno, Czech Republic

September 16 Misano, San Marino

September 30 Alcaniz, Aragon

October 14 Motegi, Japan

October 21 Sepang, Malaysia

October 28 Phillip Island, Australia

November 11 Valencia, Valencia

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toGP racing bike. The bike was launched at the 2006 Mugello Italian MotoGP event. Only 1,500 Desmosedici models were available to the public at a retail cost of NZ$140,500. The price included a three year warranty and servicing, cover, and a racing kit including a race-only exhaust system, a slip-on muffler, and complementary fuel and ignition mapping in a "race ECU". Production beginning in December 2007 and the first customer orders delivered from January 2008.

The new era The Ducati 1199 Panigale the world's most powerful production twin-cylinder engine with maximum 195 horsepower at 10,750 rpm and 98.1 lb-ft torque at 9000 rpm and a dry weight of 164kg. The 1199 has the highest power-to-weight and torque-to-weight ratios among all the production motorcycles. The 1199 and as new Superquadro (oversquare) engine with new gears and chains valve timing system made of gears and chains, which replaces the cam belt

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system on previous models. The motorcycle engine has also been designed as a stressed member, this allows the frame of the bike to be smaller and lighter than the conventional trellis frame. The 1199 also has electronically adjustable suspension. Rebound and compression damping is adjusted electronically while pre-load is still adjusted manually and also features a new partially exposed underfloor exhaust system.

Back to reality oopps there goes gravity Ducati where do you go from here? Will it be a revolutionary new engine? In the short term will it be the Ducati 799, with a 750cc displacement with 145hp and scale tipping weight under 160kg. Where will it race? Could this be a move to race the mini-Panigale in the World Supersport Championship?

21 TREaSURER’S REPORT - NovemBeR

Below is a summary of income and expenses for the period 1 September - 31 October 2012.

As we approach the end of the year the Club’s finances are near their lowest point as deposits have now been paid for NDR and Turismo venues. With entry fees for these two events due to roll in over the next couple of months the accounts will be replenished. Then in the new year subs will further boost funds. With a combined balance of $6,383.77 in the two accounts the Club has sufficient to cover our normal expenses. Have been getting out for a regular ride most weekends now – roll on summer! Nick Brandon

Cheque account Savings account

Balances of accounts as at 31 August 2012 $ 9,067.16 $ 5,582.81

Less expenses for the period 1 Sep – 31 Oct 2012 $ (8,837.23) $ nil

Add income for the period 1 Sep – 31 Oct 2012 $ 533.00 $ 28.03

Closing Balances 31 October 2012 $ 762.93 $ 5,620.84

22 SUPERBIKE wORLD CHamPIONSHIP 2012

February 26 Phillip Island, Australia

April 1 Imola, Italy

April 22 Assen, Netherlands

May 6 Monza, Italy

May 13 Donington, UK

May 28 Salt Lake City, USA

June 10 Misano, Italy

July 1 Alcaniz, Spain

July 22 Brno, Czech Republic

August 5 Silverstone, UK

August 26 Moscow, Russia

September 9 Nurburgring, Germany

September 23 Portimao, Portugal

October 7 Magny Cours, France

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Hamish anD LynDa’s exceLLenT aDvenTuRe

Not wanting to miss the AMA Pro National Guard Superbike race we headed back to the media center. It was a great race – Josh Hayes took the lead from the start and maintained a big gap between the rest of the field. There was some real dicing for second and third between Josh Herrin and Blake Young, with them swapping positions numerous times. Josh managed to get back past Blake in the last half of the final lap to take second place.

World Superbike Race 2 started off in the same way as Race 1, with Carlos disappearing out front. However, after four laps Aoyama had a big crash which left oil on the track. It took quite some time to clean up, and while the cameramen were trying to find something to focus on, I took my New Zealand flag off the desk and trotted out the back to find them. Sure enough, there

they were and they were kind enough to give me a short mo-ment of fame in front of 34 mil-lion people. Once again the emails flowed from our mates who couldn’t believe their eyes!!

Around 11am a shortened Race 2 (18 laps) got underway. Checa again took the lead, but after a few laps he crashed out and al-though he went back out after some quick repairs in the pits, he limped back to the garage after

one more lap and his day was over. The racing was very exciting though as Johnny Rea and Marco Melandri had some real battles, with Marco taking the checkered flag just ahead of Johnny. Max Biaggi again rode a good race to take third. The ride of the day though had to be Chaz Davies, who had his best result this season with a fourth place. He rode really well.

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I snuck out the back and congratulated Marco and Johnny as they came up the stairs. All three deserved their placings.

We spent a few hours hanging around the back of the pit garages, joined by our new American friends Jeff and Neil, and a couple of other new friends, one from Canada.

As they came past us, I introduced my new friends to the Haslam family (Ron, Anne, Leon, Oli and Ava May), then to Ernesto Marinelli, then to Davide Giugli-ano and a few others. Jeff and the others couldn’t believe how friendly and ap-proachable the riders and team members could be, when they weren’t focused on racing. It’s great to be able to share some enthusiasm with others.

Ayrton Badovini came by on his golf cart with his partner, and he very kindly signed and gave me his BMW team cap. What a lovely gesture.

Hamish and I eventually decided we’d better get back to our hotel, as we needed to pack as we were leaving Salt Lake City on Tuesday morning.

What a FANTASTIC time we have had over the last four days. Such a beauti-ful track, such great racing, an extremely well-run race meeting, and such friendly people.

Tuesday 29th May, we fin-ished packing and left the hotel around 9.30am. We decided we wanted to see Mt Rushmore on our way to Road America, so we headed east on I-80 to Raw-lins, then took the back roads heading north. We stopped the night at a little place in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, called Wright. Lovely hotel, and the restau-rant next door produced

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By LynDa BLaiR

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some of the best steak we’ve ever had. As a bonus, a huge herd of buffalo turned up across the road from the restaurant (we had a window seat looking over the prairies) and a deer bounded across the prairie too. It was lovely. I was pleased I’d chosen Angus steak, not buffalo! Wednesday 30th May Wednesday morning we had breakfast at the Wright Hotel watching the buffalos on the prairie across the road from the restaurant. If we weren’t on a time limit I would have loved to stay another night in Wright, but we had to be by Lake Michigan tomorrow night ready for the AMA racing on Fri/Sat/Sun. As we left the hotel we no-ticed a HUGE vehicle like they use in the mines in Australia, so we took a photo. It was just so big. As we drove a bit out of town we saw that there was huge coal mining going on, which is why the vehicle would be in town. There were long trains with their wagons all filled with coal, and there was also natural gas and oil

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fields everywhere. We found an oil pump close to the road, and took a photo – prior to our visit last year I thought it was only Texas that had these pumps. Under gray skies we moved from Wyoming into South Dakota with no fanfare – we didn’t even know exactly where as there was no signage on the road we were taking. The terrain changed though, from wide open prairies to hilly forested areas. We

stopped in Custer for an early lunch, at DQ (Dairy Queen). I decided I’d try a peanut butter shake. It certainly tasted like peanut butter, and it was lovely, but it kept repeating for the rest of the day. We saw a sign for the Crazy Horse Memorial, so we detoured off the main road to look at the monument that is still being worked on. I’d seen a documentary on it a while ago. They started working on it in 1947 and it’s still a work in pro-gress. It’s huge – the head is 27 metres high, and there’s going to be a horse in front of him. From there we went to Mt Rushmore, where the four President’s heads are carved into the mountain. It was very busy, obviously a very popular tourist spot. The sky was very grey and we expected to get rain soon…sure enough, soon after leaving Mt Rushmore there were a few spits that turned into rain for most of the rest of the day. Some of it was very heavy, but we were dry inside the car. The temperature dropped to around 8 degrees for a lot of the afternoon. We passed into another time zone, Central Time, as we were almost half way through South Dakota. Because we lost an hour, we decided to stay the night at Mitchell, rather than going through to Sioux City which was the original plan. We got here about 6pm, and conveniently found a pizza place next door. To-morrow we go through to Sheboygan in the shores of Lake Michigan, in prepa-

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28 1199PANIGALE DOCNZ CLUB NIGHTS

DISCLAIMER Unless expressly stated, the opinions and comments in this newsletter are those of the contributors only, and are not club policy. Nor does the club guarantee any advertisers products or servicing suggestions

made. Although all material is checked for accuracy, no liability is assumed by the editor or DOCNZ.

Our Advertisers and Sponsors Support Us Support them and Support your Club

Whenever you see the services of one of our advertisers (and isn't that all the time?) let them know that

you saw the ad in DESMOPHILES. That way they will know that their advertising dollar is being spent

wisely. It will help your club, the service provider and above all it will help you (there may be a club mem-ber discount available).

Auckland Headquarters Restaurant and Bar, 132 Beaumont St, Westhaven

1st Wednesday of each month from 7.30pm

Hamilton Hamilton Motorcycle Centre, Te Rapa Road, Hamilton

3rd Tuesday of each month from 7.30pm

Wellington The Featherston Bar and Grill, Corner Featherston & Johnston Streets, Wellington

3rd Tuesday of each month from 6.00pm (although Lynda is usually there from about 5.15pm)

Nelson Verdict Bar, Bridge Street, Nelson

1st Tuesday of each month from 7.30pm

Christchurch Dux de Lux on Montreal Street. Start time 7.30pm—1st Tuesday of each month from

7.00pm

29 Hamish anD LynDa’s exceLLenT aDvenTuRe - conT

ration for three days at the wonderful Road America race track. Thursday 31

st May

Dawn broke grey at Mitchell, but with high cloud. We had breakfast at the ho-tel. Most hotels include a buffet breakfast in the price of a room. You go to the breakfast room any time between 6.00am and 10.00am (generally) and help yourself from a selection. There’s generally always several cereals, fruit, yo-gurt, toast bread/muffins/bagels to toast as you want, muffins, and usually hot food such as small sausages, bacon, and sometimes scrambled eggs. This morning there was a crock pot filled with a grey looking thick gooey sauce, sort of like a thick custard but not yellow. There were dark specks in it, we had no idea what it was but decided to steer clear. We had almost finished our breakfast when a gentleman went up and got some of the gooey sauce, and as he was making his way back to his table I asked him what it was. It turns out it’s sausage bits in gravy. The guy (we never did get his name) was really nice and friendly, and ended up sitting at our table and we whiled away a good 20 minutes talking with him. He was on a road trip with his son and granddaughter. Our breakfast discussion had made us a bit later than we would have liked, but hey, we’re on vacation and there’s something wrong if you can’t take time out to talk with the fine people who are hosting you to their country.

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So it was around 9.15am when we drove out of the carpark, onto the I-90 East. Before we knew it we’d done 70-odd miles and left South Dakota behind, enter-ing Minnesota. It was another state we’d not visited before. The country be-came greener and a few more hills than previously. We stopped around 11.30am for a snack at McDonald’s at Worthington. There were wind turbines everywhere, we couldn’t get over it. Hilda, our GPS, decided first thing in the morning that we would be at our desti-nation, Sheboygan, at 1.06pm. That was somewhat optimistic, since we had over 800kms to do today. Come 1.06pm, she knew we had 0 kms to do and time of arrival stayed at 1.06pm, but we still had a good 400kms to do. Hmm…not sure what to do about that so we switched her off and back on again, and things righted themselves. We carried on along the I-90, through Austin (my maiden name is Austin) and around 3pm we crossed the border into Wisconsin. The border just happens to be the Mississippi River. What a HUGE river. I took a video of it as we crossed it, so I can’t attach a pic (and I can’t figure out how to attach a video clip). We stopped just across the border at La Crosse for a very late lunch. Our instruction from Hilda in the morning had been to travel 700-odd kms then take exit 106 off the I-90. When we switched her back on, the instruction was to travel X amount of miles then take exit 69 off the I-90. Hmmm. Having looked at the map book, which gave us reasonable maps of each state, we de-cided that her first instruction of exiting at exit 106 made for a more direct route to Sheboygan. So come exit 69, we ignored her instruction and carried on along the I-90. Sure enough, in a moment or two she told us to take exit 106 which we did, at a town called Portage. Soon we were given instructions to take several turns in succession, which we did. Each time the road got narrower and narrower. I started to get a bit pan-icky, and soon when the road got even narrower, guess what came the other way. You’ll never guess. An Amish horse, cart and driver. Sure enough, a short time later we went by a couple of “warning, horse and carriage” signs. I couldn’t believe it. And I can’t even show you a photo because once again I was videoing. We didn’t know what to do. We had no idea where on earth we were, the map we had didn’t even show the road we were on as it wasn’t that detailed. So we

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decided the only thing we could do was to follow Hilda’s instructions and hope we ended up in the right place. Sure enough, we did, though it was 7pm before we arrived at the hotel. When we looked at a map later, there was a good highway that we could have taken us directly from Portage to the next town Hilda took us to via a long slow round-about way. The other funny thing she did today was, in the middle of a dual carriageway, suddenly tell us to turn left down Hutchison Road. There was no road to the left, and we were on a two-lane one way northbound motorway so we couldn’t have turned right even if we wanted to. We’re thinking of trading Hilda Navman in on a TomTom or a Garmin. Much as it was a novelty to see the Amish horse and cart, I would have preferred to have gotten to the hotel an hour earlier by a direct route. Anyway, after a meal at the Italian restaurant next to the hotel, we felt a bit bet-ter. The good thing was we’d had no rain at all today, and the forecast for the next three days at Elkhart Lake (where the track is located) is good – dry with perhaps a few isolated thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon. Temperatures for Fri/Sat/Sun are 17-22-24 respectively. We’re spending all three days at the track. The café Friday 1st June A leisurely start to the day today, Friday 1st June. We breakfasted in the hotel (we’re staying at La Quinta Inn in Sheboygan), and some of the Speed guys (Speed TV covers motorcycle racing in the US) got talking with us after they saw our Kiwi t-shirts. I was wearing my Craig Shirriffs 2010 Wanganui shirt today. Turns out some of them saw me on television from Salt Lake City. I’m famous!! We left the hotel with two missions: one to buy a new GPS unit, and one to see if we could find a half decent coffee. We decided to knock off the latter

32 Hamish anD LynDa’s exceLLenT aDvenTuRe - conT

first. I’d done a google search for cafes, and decided to try one called “Z Spot”. Boy, am I glad that I did. We got chatting to the father and son (Jeff and Travis Zenk) team who run the café and I was telling Travis about how much I was missing flat whites, and that they were unique to New Zealand and Australia. No sooner had I told him that than it was out with his i-phone, a quick google, and wow, I had a wonderful flat white in my hand!! Talk about service Trevor. And to top it off, Jeff and Travis gave us a wonderful book written by Jeff’s niece’s mother-in-law (I hope I’ve got that right Jeff) Jean Davidson. Yes, THAT Davidson family. What great people we are meeting in the US – so friendly and kind. From the café it was on to Walmart for a quick visit – a short time later we have a new Garmin GPS for $179…plus a few more pair of socks and undies as I can’t resist a bargain. Now onto the serious business of the day, the racetrack. Road America is about 20 minutes drive from Sheboygan, through green dairy farming countryside. It's a beautiful track with lots of wooded areas, and lots of "ups and downs". We arrived and collected our tickets at the gate. We then drove to one of our favourite places on the track, next to the food stall selling the “brats” (Bratwurst Sausages - a speciality of the region). We started out with one brat in a bun, while watching some of the practice. Then we decided to head to different spots around the track, which gave us different perspec-tives of the track. We then headed to the pits and the shop which sold Road America souvenirs. The lady recognized us from last year which was nice. I spent up large of course. Then it was a wander through the pits saying hello to a few riders as we went. Late morning/early afternoon we spent around the track again, watching the practice/qualifying. There was no racing today, that’s tomorrow and Sunday. We went back to our Brat viewing spot and had a late lunch. I then decided to do some videoing. I’d just started when one of the M4 GSXR Suzuki’s seemed to have a brake problem and headed straight into the kitty litter. He hit the tyre wall fairly hard so we’re hoping he’s okay. Around 5pm the qualifying sessions finished, so we headed to the nearby town of Elkhart Lake to see the famous “Siebkens” bar. We found it in the middle of town, and decided to have an ice cream sundae while sitting at an outside ta-

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ble on the deck. While I was almost through my butter pecan/New York cherry delight, I saw something drop from the tree in front of me with a loud “thud”, and a puff of dust. At first I thought it must be a rock. Then I realized rocks don’t generally live in trees, so I thought it must be a huge pine cone. Then I realized it wasn’t a pine tree. At the same time we both saw what it was – a fairly decent sized squirrel had fallen from the tree – the first squirrel we’d ever seen. We couldn’t believe it. He sat there for a minute, looked around, then climbed up the trunk. He must have been sore, it was a long way from the branches to the ground. We couldn’t find him in the leafy tree to take a photo. A lot of bikers were hanging around the bar and we got chatting to some of the locals – really nice people. We spent ages chatting to Steve and Rich, who were fascinated by our accents. Steve has a mate from Wagga Wagga in Aus-tralia, so we told him to ask him who owned pavlovas and Phar Lap! Around 7pm we headed back to Sheboygan. Well, we thought we did – we didn’t put Hilda up as we thought we knew the way. We ended up getting lost but managed to find our way back to the hotel, where we got some takeout from next door then settled in for a relaxing evening before hitting the sack early. Saturday 2

nd June over here in the USA seemed a long way away from

Queen’s Birthday Weekend back in New Zealand! We breakfasted at the hotel, once again the Speed TV guys were there and we passed the time of day. After breakfast we went to see our new-found friends Jeff and Travis at the Z Spot café, and had our flat whites – bliss!! Out to the track, arrived there before the VIP suites opened at 9.00am so we went for a wander in the pits. I’d done a reason-able job of videoing the crash of the M4 rider yesterday. It was Robertino Pietri, who was in his first season on

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Due to the change of club logo here is the latest club

regalia! Shirts $25 Caps $15

Beanies $15 Pins $10

35 and that doesn’t help as I’m already somewhat saddle sore before I

ride. Saying that I still managed 200 miles without an issue and I’m

sure it is something that I will get used to.

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36 Hamish anD LynDa’s exceLLenT aDvenTuRe - conT

a Superbike. We called into the M4 pits and they were very keen to see the video. They got Robertino over to meet us and hooked the video camera up to their laptop. Robertino couldn’t remember the crash, so he was very pleased to see what had happened. He’s got some broken ribs and a very sore hand. We left them a copy of the video and carried on walking around the pits. We got talking with Jake Zemke’s team – nice guys. They are struggling for cash, so I gave them a small donation. After leaving Jake’s pit we went to Jordan Burgess’s pit. He’s an Australian guy that we know, who’s been doing AMA racing for a couple of seasons now. There was a guy standing outside the pit who had an Australian Superbike cap on, so I got chatting. Turns out it was Jordan’s Dad Peter. Nice guy. The weather was fine and quite windy, it was very pleasant temperature. We went up to our VIP suite, up above the start/finish line. The same ladies who were the hostesses last year were there again, it was nice to see them again as they were delightful. We chose our seats and settled in for the racing to start, after the race fan ride-around (they must have got to ride round the track about six or more times), the two-up rides (no thanks, I’d rather be in control of the throttle and brake!) and the opening ceremony where a member of the Mili-tary sang “The Star Spangled Banner” – very moving. Then it was on to the main event – the races. The Daytona SportBike race was very good. Jake Zemke on the Ducati came in 4th but it was still great to see him out there. A few minutes before the Superbike race was due to start (the last race of the day) all of a sudden it started to rain so they declared it a wet race and delayed the race start to give the guys time to decide what tyres to use. The wind got up very strong too, and all of a sudden the Yoshimura Su-zuki tent, which was anchored to one side of their huge transporter, blew up and inside-out over the roof of the transporter. They had some big buckets of water to hold it down, and they literally went flying and ended up about 50 me-tres away. It was really scary. Josh Hayes won the Superbike race by about 10 seconds, followed by Blake Young who was about seven seconds ahead of third place. The race was red flagged as it started to rain again. When the Superbike riders came to the podium, I went down with our big New Zealand flag. The Speed cameras filmed me when they came past, very excit-

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ing!! After the racing was over we got chatting to some local guys in the VIP suite, then we met some other local guys on the way back to the car, and got natter-ing to them. We stayed in the carpark yakking for about 45 minutes. Back at Sheboygan we got McDonalds and came back to the hotel. As we were driving in, all the Speed TV guys were there unpacking their cars…they told us I’d been on the TV!! One more day of racing to go…. Sunday 3rd June We had our usual breakfast at the hotel on Sunday, with one of the race teams in attendance (Larry Pegram, BMW S1000RR). I’d gotten muddled up with the time delay between here and NZ, and hadn’t set MySky at home for the Catalunya MotoGP (I’ve since looked at the results for all three races) but one of the race team members had the early stages of the race showing on his laptop during breakfast – which was kind of really cool! It was a really lovely day, lots of blue sky and about 24 degrees. It would make for a big crowd of spectators at the racing. We detoured into town for our flat white fix on the way to the track. We dropped some stuff off at our suite, then headed for the pits. We’d taken sev-eral Phillip Island t-shirts over with us to give away, and we found two guys in the pits who we thought were deserving recipients. They were stoked. They were team members, and couldn’t believe that we wanted to give the t-shirts to them, not to the riders. I had my photo taken with Blake Young, one of the top AMA Superbike riders. He couldn’t believe we’d come all the way from New Zealand for bike racing. He was really nice.

38 Hamish anD LynDa’s exceLLenT aDvenTuRe - conT

We spent the afternoon having lunch (spare ribs…yummm!!) and watching the racing. It was very good racing, particularly in Daytona SportBike. I was chuffed that Jake Zemke gave me a signed kneeslider as a thank you for the donation I’d made to his team yesterday. I’ve got a few kneesliders now so it will fit into the collection nicely. I wanted my photo taken with Josh Hayes, two time (and looking like it’ll be three at the end of this season) AMA Superbike champion. After his race he spent ages in the press room being interviewed. I was very happy to wait and lots of people breezed past and chatted to us. Eventually Josh emerged and was happy to pose with me.

Lynda’s New recruits

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Your Official NDR Entry Form

Your entry fee covers: administration costs, ‘NDR collection’ limited edition tee-shirt, Saturday eve-ning Gala Dinner entry (includes meal), concours entry and eligibility to win trophies and spot prizes, plus the benefit of public liability insurance cover, and your own personalised NDR tag on lanyard. You will need to organise your own accommodation at the Wairakei Resort on attached NDR / Wairakei Resort form attached. Entries MUST be booked by January 31st 2013 Accommodation must be booked before November 30th 2012, we have booked the entire hotel and they are holding rates and rooms for us, if you want to take advantage of the reduced accommoda-tion rates, book now and have it all paid off well before the event.) (usual refund policy applies for accommodation.) Note: A late fee of $45.00 extra will apply for any entries received after 30th Jan 2013.

Entry fee enclosed for …………….. person(s)... (same fee structure applies to pillion passenger) / Qty appropriate below: /__ $125.00 – Full Package including Rally Entry, Tee Shirt, Concours Entry and Saturday Gala Dinner entry. /__ $ 40.00 – Non DOCNZ Member Surcharge (includes a one-time discounted membership.) /__ $ 45.00 – Late Entry Fee

Note that refunds of fees will be entirely at the Club’s discretion

Name:

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Address:

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Pillion: …………………………………………………………………………………………………

Home and mobile phone number:

…………………………………………………………………

Email address (please print clearly):

…………………………………………………………………

Bike: (year/make/model/rego) …………………………………………………………………

Tee Shirt Size/Qty:

Small /__ Med /__ Large /__ XL /__

XXL /__ XXXL /__

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51 DOCNZ mEmBERSHIP FORm 2012

Ducati Owners Club of New Zealand

Membership Form 2012 Membership

DUCATI OWNERS CLUB NEW ZEALAND I................................................................................................................................................................ [first name] [surname] of.............................................................................................................................................................. [postal address] [suburb / city] [postcode] ......................................................... .................................................................. [Home telephone] [Cell phone] I am happy to receive Ducati related emails Y/N ............................................................................................................................................ [email address - PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY] I hereby apply to the Ducati Owners Club New Zealand for membership. In the event of my admission as a member, I agree to abide by the Constitution and By-Laws of DOCNZ. Signature: .............................................................................. Date: ............................................. Payment Details: Membership fees (please circle one) Full $50.00 or Family* $60.00 *Family member-ship - family members or partners living under same roof. Associate Membership (non Ducati Owner - no voting rights) Assoc. $50.00 You may include a cheque with the membership form, or you may pay by bank transfer: if you wish to pay this way, the details are: DOCNZ National Bank 06-0746-0276337-000 Note that you must still complete and post the membership form if you wish to pay this way. Please note that memberships expire on the 31st of January. Applications and renew-als received between November and January are registered as a membership for the following year Particulars of motorcycle/s: ________________________________________________________________ [model and capacity] [year] [Rego #] ________________________________________________________________ [model and capacity] [year] [Rego #] ________________________________________________________________ assoc. [make, model & capacity] [year] [Rego #] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Preferred method for receiving DESMOPHILES Club magazine: e-version □ hard copy □ Either post to: Ducati Owners Club New Zealand. PO Box 6537, Marion Street, Wellington 6141, New Zealand Or scan and email to: secretary@docnz.co.nz

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Cover photo and Short History of Superbikes: Richard Sabiston and various interest sites. Hamish and Lynda’s Excellent Adventure photographs: Lynda and Hamish Blair.

IF YOU'RE IN THE BUSINESS OF DUCATI MOTORCYCLES YOU MAY WISH TO REACH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE THROUGH THIS SPECIAL INTEREST CLUB MAGAZINE

SIZE 1 ISSUE 3 ISSUES 6 ISSUES

1/8 page $15.00 $30.00 50.00

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Payment is due at the time of placement of advert.

Club Classifieds

Free classified advertising for club members is available on the DOCNZ website. Registered users can surf to www.docnz.co.nz, click the Forums link, and use the Buy/Sell/Swap forum. If you have any queries or need help please email webmaster@docnz.co.nz.

Magazine Contributions should be sent to: The Editor

P.O.Box 6537 Marion Square

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Deadlines are the 1st February, April, June, August, October and December for issues due out towards the end of the month.

Display advertising is available for business – please contact the secretary. Rates above.

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