Old Friends, New Blue

OLD FRIENDS, NEW BLUE

California Hot Rod co-conspirator Phil Schilling was unable to attend this year's 30th anniversary celebrations at Daytona. Here's Cook Neilson's letter to his old friend.

Dear Phil: Sorry to miss you at Daytona, but I'm glad to hear your health is on the upswing. Highlight of the trip: They let me out on the track with New Blue for a couple of ceremonial laps early in the week. After dealing with a personal and temporary case of brain-fade right at the beginning, it was a complete blast, and I would have stayed out there all day if they hadn't started waving red flags at me. More about that later.

But let’s go back a little bit. I’m sure you recall that last summer, in conjunction with

Ducati’s dealer meeting in Salt Lake City, _

I had a chance to ride the NCR Millona at Miller Motorsports Park. That was the first time I’d ever gotten on a bike that had been prepared for battle with tirewarmers. When I finished scaring myself to death and gave the bike back to Michele Poggipolini and Joe Ippoliti of NCR, they asked, “How was it?” My reply, as I recall, was, “The bike Phil and I used to race was called Old Blue. This is New Blue.”

And so it was. The Millona had an 1 lOOcc air-cooled desmo engine, was the tiniest and most jewel-like big-bore motorcycle either of us had ever seen, and weighed 285 pounds-about the same as a 250 GP Yamaha. I felt like I could get away with murder on that bike-I’d never experienced anything so perfectly hardwired into what’s left of my brain.

After saying our good-byes and thank-yous there at Miller, I headed home to Vermont and you to California, and I didn’t hear a word from Ducati or NCR beyond the normal pleasantries we exchange on a regular basis. Then in November I got an e-mail from Vicki Smith, one of Ducati’s Special Events operatives in Florida, informing me she was headed to Milan to see New Blue at the big EICMA motorcycle show. I e-mailed her back: What exactly are you talking about? She said, you didn’t know? I said, I didn’t know... what? She said, Ducati/North America President Michael Lock has commissioned NCR to build a limited number, 50, extremely high-tech replicas of Old Blue. In keeping with how we built the original, I later found out, NCR would start with an air-cooled SportClassic 1000S engine and chassis and go from there, adding 30 horsepower, NCR billet tripleclamps, Öhlins suspension components, Brembo monoblock calipers, a Zard titanium exhaust, BST carbon-fiber wheels, steel-braided brake lines, a slipper clutch, wave-type brake rotors and countless other elements replicated in titanium (including connecting rods) that would reduce weight by some 84 pounds.

When Vicki sent photos a couple of days later, I’ll admit I teared up a little. I know you and I both had some reservations about the seat color and a few other particulars, but I remember thinking that philosophically, mechanically and-yes-spiritually, New Blue was perfection: Take Old Blue, add 30 years of technological progress, apply the same affection you and I felt for the original, determine at the outset that no corners were to be cut, work 20-hour days, call in innumerable favors, face up to backbreaking deadlines and-most important-believe in what you’re doing.

So we heard about the bike back in November. I saw it for the first time in person at Ducati New York in mid-January, where New Blue made its American debut. As good as all the photographs were, I just wasn’t emotionally prepared for what I saw. Let me tell you about a couple of specific parts. There’s a loop of large-diameter exhaust that dips down in front of the rear tire then makes a 180-degree turn. Since you can’t bend titanium on that tight a radius, NCR fashions this curve with more than a dozen little pie-slices, all perfectly welded together. Then there’s the business with the upper shock mount bolts. Titanium, of course. But simply buying a pair of bolts and nuts of the proper dimension, which normal people might have done, was seen by NCR as a defeat of perfection by expediency and therefore unacceptable. So these two bolts are hand-made. By Michele Poggipolini’s grandfather. Who’s 81.

Time goes by, and now we’re at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, 10 days before Daytona. Cycle World has rented the track for a day so staffer Don Canet can gather his impressions of New Blue, which Joe Ippoliti has brought over from its last IMS show in Atlanta. Joe has also brought the Millona and a stock Sport Classic 1000S. I’m there too, and while the CW photo and video guys are starting their work I hop on the stocker for a few familiarization laps.

What a beautiful track-especially for a Ducati. It has a couple of pretty low-speed corners, but overall the track is lyrical, rhythmic, fast and technical. The entire facility-including the museum-is in a class by itself. Later that day I had a chance to ask Mr. Barber (he sends you his best, by the way) where his inspiration for such a stunning place might have come from. He said, “Augusta National Golf Club.”

So now the time has finally come for me to go for my first-ever ride on New Blue. Joe and Mirko (one of NCR’s mechanics) warm it gently, but not so gently that I fail to notice its exhaust bark. Even though New is quite a bit quieter than Old was-it has mufflers and Old wore gutted Contis with reverse cones welded on and no thought given to such fripperies as balance tubes-the NCR bike sounds hard, sharp and willing. With its oil temp finally in the green, Joe says, “Down for first, and it’s geared tall, so you’ll have to slip the clutch a bit to get going.”

And we’re off.

I am overwhelmed by first impressionsalthough my ride on the Millona five months earlier had given me something of a heads-up. Most notably, compared to Old Blue, New is little, light, short and quick. When I was riding Old-especially steering it through that section of left-right-leftright corners at Riverside-I was aware that my hands were connected to the clip-ons, the clip-ons to the fork pipes, the fork pipes to the sliders, the sliders to the axle, the axle to the front wheel, and the front wheel to the tire’s contact patch. With New Blue, the feeling I got was that of my hands gripping the front axle directly. It was something we were working toward with Old-that’s why we used such long rear shocks and always adjusted the rear wheel as far forward in the swingarm as we could get it. But the original bike had irreducibly slow steering and high-speed trustworthiness in its DNA, achieved with a sturdy chassis, lightness and lots of front-end geometry, and despite our best efforts I always had the feeling that the front tire was waaay out there. (I will note, however, that for a rider-me-with more enthusiasm than talent, rocksolid stability was a gift that kept on giving.)

At the same time that New transmits a feeling of absolute responsiveness in terms of its handling, you clearly get the message that the bike is there to help in all other ways.

I must mention here that I’m currently 30 years removed from any sort of competitive riding, I wasn’t all that fast to begin with (which is why we had to make Old Blue as close to perfect as we could get it), and I suspect parts of New’s character might be found in some other modern sport/race bikes. Even so, from my perspective, New’s combination of braking power, torque, lightness, horsepower, quickness, cornering clearance, stability and overall friendliness must set it apart from much of what’s out there. New Blue strikes me as being determined, honest, generous and forgiving.

Now, I know anybody else who’s lucky enough to ride New Blue is going to get it closer to its limits than I did at Barber and Daytona, and I’m prepared to accept that when pushed to extremes unexplored (and unimagined) by me, New Blue may exhibit an Achilles heel or two. But I promise you, Phil, I sincerely doubt it. It has no other agenda beyond doing exactly what you want it to do. Late in the afternoon there at Barber, with a rear tire that had been worn to a frazzle by Canet and me (mostly Don), its back end did jump sideways a tiny bit coming out of a slow corner, but that had everything to do with operator error and the tire, and nothing to do with the bike. For the rest of the day, and dozens of laps, New Blue was, as far as I was concerned, perfection.

Now the scene shifts to Daytona, where two New Blues (#31 and #72) are to be ridden in some early-week AHRMA races by CJFs Nick Ienatsch and full-time AMA’er Larry Pegram. NCR has also brought along a Millona for Valter Bartolini, and by the time the AHRMA races are done and Fve had my couple of exhibition laps, all three of these guys have become heroes of mine.

But before I get into that, Phil, I must tell you that Daytona ain’t what it used to be, and I’m afraid that with regard to its Pro roadracing program, the AMA has profoundly lost its way. First things first: The current motorcycle track is a complete abortion. In the good old days the infield part, in my opinion, was a masterpiece. Turn 1 was the best corner in all of motor racing, then there was the Horseshoe (or International), then that fast and beautiful infield sweeper, then the fiendishly complicated little fishhook right-hander, then the increasing-radius left that brought you back onto the West banking, then finally the backstraight chicane. Each of these bears fond memories for me: Calvin Rayborn going into Turn 1 ; Kenny Roberts and Johnny Cecotto blistering the 180 Horseshoe; the way Giacomo Agostini got through the sweeper; Gary Nixon’s lines through the fishhook and the last left-hander. What’s there now? Turn 1 is shaped funny, they shortened the straight going to 2, the sweeper is simply gone and the rest of the infield is a ditzy low-gear collection of stupidity and banality that dumps you out halfway down the backstraight. The chicane is still there, and so’s the East bank, thank goodness.

Now, I fully understand that the Daytona track we knew is obsolete for modern big bikes-hell, it’s obsolete for NASCAR, which is why modern stock cars have restrictor plates and go 20 mph slower than they did two decades ago-but there ought to be a way to configure the course that recaptures some of the imagination, charm and challenge of the original. Daytona used to be my favorite racetrack, for a million reasons; now, after seeing Miller outside of Salt Lake and Barber near Birmingham, I’m not so sure.

As to the AMA, they’ve got four classes: 600 FXs for the 200, Superbikes for a 50-mile main, lOOOcc stockers for something or other, and 600cc stockers. They call them all the same thing-Superbikes, Supersports, Superstockswhich is fitting, because they all look and sound the same, and they mostly go the same speed. (No, that’s not true:

The Kawasakis’ traction-control systems do cause different sounds than what comes out of the Hondas and Suzukis and Yamahas.) Remember the Yamaha TZ750? It killed GP racing in this country. The same thing could easily happen all over again. Even if today’s racebikes are made by four different manufacturers, they’re all manufacturing the same bike. It was nice to see MV Agusta there-they were red and silver-but what were they there with? Why, the Universal Japanese Motorcycle: lOOOcc, water-cooled, dohc, transverse, inline four-cylinder! Another echo in the echo chamber!

Ah, maybe I’m just being a bitter old fart. The four-cylinder bikes are going really fast, they seem for the most part reliable, today’s riders are first-rate and some of the racing was edgy and hard-fought. And Daytona is Daytona, and I’m here to ride New Blue for a couple of ceremonial laps.

This happens Tuesday, late morning. I’m leathered-up, waiting in the NCR/Pegram garage. We’ve heard the call to the grid. Joe and Mirko are trying to fire up #31, but at the last moment something having to do with a computer has come adrift (it turned out to be a sensor connector). So the NCR guys put the #31 New Blue tailsection on Pegram’s #72, get it started and I’m off to the grid.

Sort of. A few hundred yards from the garage the bike stalls-going about 60 mph. We put it on a set of rollers, fire it up, we go through the gate and get up to where the rest of the ceremonial group has gathered. They flag us off, I engage first gear, get up to about 70.. .and it stalls again. Here come a couple of out-of-breath NCR guys with their own starter mechanism, they put the bike up on its stand we fire, then I hear the magic words from Ienatsch: “You’re on Pegram’s bike. It’s UP FOR FIRST!”

So now we’re back in business, and I’m trying to program my personal computer with the new specifics of the #72 shift pattern. The #31 bike was down for first, left side. Old Blue was up for first, right side. This one is up for first, left side. Shouldn’t be too tough.

Except now I’m pissed I’m embarrassed I’ve been looking like an ancient old fool who has no business being on any racetrack much less Daytona, all the other old wobblers are miles ahead of me, and I’ve only got a couple of laps.

We did this once before, remember? Back in 1997, exactly 10 years ago?

With Old Blue? They told all of us back then to go easy. We knew that wasn’t going to happen. Beautiful day, great track, Old Blue at 100 percent. Well, this time, Phil, it was exactly the same (except for the track). I won’t bore you with the specifics, but it amounted to tip-toeing through a bunch of low-speed and unfamiliar corners, blasting down what remains of the infield straights, and letting New Blue gallop wide-open from the exit of the chicane all the way to the entry of Turn 1. The bike was tached up to between 8200 and 8400 in sixth gear across the start-finish line—I guess that’s in the neighborhood of 165 mph-and I swear, it was like riding a big featherbed: steady, peaceful, comfortable, perfectly relaxed.

By now the rest of the ceremonial bikes are back in their garages and I have the place all to myself for one last lap, and New Blue and I make the most of it. Same strategy as the first lap, only a tiny bit faster.

Around the East bank, New Blue is even steadier than it had been the first time (probably because the suspension has warmed up) and I’m thinking, I’m the luckiest sonovabitch on Earth. One last blitz across the finish line, the corner workers wave angry red flags at me, and that’s that.

It’s all over too soon. Later that afternoon Nick and Larry have a terrific dice on the two New Blues, and Bartolini wins a big Sound of Thunder race on the Millona. So for NCR it amounts to a terrific week. For me? One of the best times of my life. I’m thrilled to report to you that New Blue is everything we could have hoped for. It’s fast, it handles and stops, it’s apparently bulletproof, it’s unbelievably light, and it sounds and looks like a million bucks.

Inside? It has the heart and soul of Old Blue. Let me rephrase that: It is the heart and soul of Old Blue.

See you soon,