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Flotsam and Jetsam 10/18/2004

Yes, it’s been a while. Thank you for being patient. Several random events have taken precedence of late. Let’s play catch up shall we?

The dinner with Troy Bayliss was a resounding success. As an added bonus, Loris Capirossi turned up, and signed some autographs, and took some pictures. Troy spent a huge amount of time with the Ducatisti, taking pictures, answering questions, and generally being very obliging. Livio Suppo, the team director, gave us a speech, and answered several questions about the team, the bike, and the future.

I was in conversation with Sonia Braggio, who works with the Ducati Press Office, and I asked her point blank about Troy’s future with the team, and she answered rather diplomatically that it ‘was under discussion’. The question has now been resolved, after Claudio Domenicali, the Managing Director of Ducati Spa, sent an e-mail confirming that Troy had been fired and offered a ride in SBK.

Troy was apparently very vocal this year about the performance of the 2004 Desmosedici, and quite obviously Domenciali didn’t like it. Capirossi’s showing in Phillip Island yesterday was proof of what Livio was telling me over beer during the dinner. They’ve made changes to the bike, and are definitely going to bring the fight to Honda next year. Livio admitted that Ducati had fucked up for the 2004 MotoGp year, but intend to make amends next year. I certainly wish them all the best, and will be supporting them at Sepang next year, as I have the past 3.

Attending the MotoGP at Sepang was something else this year. A good friend, Mike O’Connor, flew in from Melbourne, and as we did last year, went to the races. The difference was this year, I was now an insider to the Ducati MotoGP team, and was given several ‘privileges’, one of which was the courtesy of watching the race from their hospitality suite. It was outstanding, sitting there in a leather armchair, in air conditioning, watching the race from the actual race cam monitors as used by the teams. Eating pasta and sipping wine. Filippo Centamori was on hand, and we had an interesting discussion about bikes and racing. Which ended with Datuk Zul, the CEO of Next Bike, the authorised Ducati distributor for this country, pressing me to buy a Monster S4R.

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