Satchel Paige’s famous quote comes to mind: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
This week, I’ve looked back. Looked back more than 20 years, to a time when I worked at a motorcycle magazine. Looked back to an assignment, one that I joyfully accepted, to go racing. And in looking back, I’ve realized how much time has passed, how much time has gained on me.
All this was kicked off by a note from Mark Hoyer, the current editor of Cycle World, a magazine in whose vineyards I once toiled. Someone bought a motorcycle that had been advertised as my old racebike, a bike I built while I was at Cycle World.
This gent wanted a bit of confirmation. Was this old thing really my 1965 Ducati Sebring 350?
Yes. It was.
Judging from the photos this gent sent along, the tank and seat are right, the inner fender under the seat is the original piece, and the fiberglass behind the seat still carries traces of the original paint job.
The high-zoot Ceriani fork and matching triple-clamps that I found somewhere as new old stock, and the heavily modified and polished Honda tls front brake, also are giveaways. So yeah, that’s it. My old racebike has surfaced, to my great surprise. Many times have I wondered what happened to it.
I built the thing, with a great deal of help and support, because all of us at Cycle World were supposed to build/acquire bikes and then go vintage racing. Some of the others raced throughout their times at CW, but not me. This was my chance. If I remember correctly, I was the only one who completely fulfilled this particular assignment.
I had badly wanted to do something like this because I’d been a fan of roadracing since my teens. It’s why I left a solid newspaper job a couple of years out of J-school and stupidly went to work for a small paper called Autoweek, beginning a near-death spiral into the wilds of enthusiast magazines, from which very few emerge with careers intact. I managed to get out of that and back into newspapers. I retired five years ago, a copy editor in the L.A. Times building.
I’d been a student of racing, and devoured Pierro Taruffi’s groundbreaking book, “The Technique of Motor Racing,” making sure I understood concepts like apexes and clipping points, all to do with figuring out the proper (read “fast”) line, or arc, around a corner. But I needed to prove to myself that I could actually do it, that through reading and observing, I’d absorbed enough racecraft to actually do well. This bike served that purpose, to my great joy.
Racing is very expensive. The thing with working in print journalism, something I did for 43 years, is that paychecks are small. That was why my budget for this bike originally was set at $3,000. I think I paid $400 for the core, which I bought in Tucson, then hauled home to Glendale in the back of my Mazda pickup. When the whole thing was done, after many months of spending nickels and dimes for this and that, I’d somehow put $6,500 into it. (Good god, don’t tell Laura that!) I should have spent more. For instance, I just could never ante up the loot required for a tachometer. A silly mistake.
I’m a big guy, 6’4”, maybe 240 pounds at the time this bike was built. There was no way anyone my size belonged on any racing motorcycle, especially not one this tiny. I’m sure I looked like a gorilla on a child’s trike.
Motorcycles, of course, are largely about motor. And man, did this thing have a motor. At a cost of $3,500 for just the engine work, more than my total original budget, the horsepower of the original unit was doubled. This bike was fast! And it was shatteringly loud.
It was great fun for the short duration of my racing career. I found that this bike, with me aboard, usually was good for 5th or 6th place in AHRMA’s 350 and 500 Sportsman classes. Being able to run this bike in both classes was the reason I chose 350 Sportsman, in fact. Invariably, those who finished ahead of me were either gifted or braver riders, or were mounted on stock Honda 350 Twins. Or all three. Those days one could obtain a Honda 350 for maybe $400, being it up to safety spec, and race very successfully. I was way too dumb for that. It had to be a Ducati.
Somewhere along the mid ‘90s, while testing at a racetrack in Spain, I crashed hard, cracking a couple of ribs and breaking a couple of bones in a foot. Getting over that took a while. When I was whole again, I found that I’d lost all desire to ride motorcycles, so I sold my little Ducati. I was sad to see it go. But I was middle-aged and not healing as quickly as I did when I was younger.
I’ve often wondered what happened to it. I’d catch whiffs of it from time to time. A friend saw it in the racetrack tent of its original engine builder, either broken or crashed, he didn’t remember which. I feared the worst for it. I’m very pleased that it’s still together and in the hands of someone who will take good care of it. It’s a special little piece, built carefully with the best parts I could find/afford, with assembly and fettling done by a restoration artist called Denny Berg, the best of the best.
The man who now owns my old Ducati tells me that it came to him without a scrap of documentation. That really is a shame. I kept a complete logbook that documented every detail of the bike’s build, including dates, prices, adjustments, race results, tire pressures, everything I could think of. Also, all my receipts. For someone to not pass that stuff along, especially with a bike as collectable as this 1965 Ducati, is a terrible shame.
I’ve inserted a few photos I have of the bike. The one that shows me aboard the bike at the old Donner Pass Hillclimb, shot by my old pal Eric Herbranson, is a favorite. That course was about 6 miles long with more than 60 corners, and ran up old Highway 40 from the west end of Donner Lake up to Donner Ski Ranch. It was very technical, very fast, and very challenging. I set top time in my class. I was very proud of that. How many other riders were in my class? I don’t know and I don’t care. I still have the winner’s plaque around here somewhere.
Today, Laura and I both are retired. We live a quiet life in the juniper forests of Central Oregon. It is no place for motorcycles, if only because the danger from the multitudes of migrating deer we have here is very high.
These days, at age 75, I’m healthy. I mostly pass my time reading and writing. I cook a little, fly fish a bit, shoot a little trap, sing bass with Bend’s premier concert choir, and am grateful every day that Laura, my wife of 36 years, chose so long ago to spend her life with me, something she’s done in spite of all the motorcycles.
Life has been good. Most of that is because of Laura. Some of it is because of journalism, some of it is because of a solid core of dear friends. And a tiny bit of it is because once, I did something really risky, something I’d always wanted to do. Once, I was a racer!
-JFT
Hi, Eddie -
Yes indeed, Volker's work was very special indeed. The man really had an eye and he knew how to select wonderful vantage points for his camera. Unfortunately, that story was written something like 25 years ago. At that time, I might have directed you toward his widow, who might know who now owns the rights to his photos. She has long since remarried and I have lost track of her. The one thing I might suggest is that you contact the good folks at Das Motorrad, the leading motorcycle magazine in Germany. If memory serves, Volker shot for them. They may know. I wish you luck with this quest. And I wish I could be more help. Finally, in the event that you haven't seen the Cycle World story, here's a link that will take you to it.
https://jfthompson.typepad.com/californiafiles/2014/04/volker-rauch-the-natural.html
Best - JFT
Posted by: Jon Thompson | July 15, 2020 at 01:54 PM
Hi Jon, I note from an article posted on the Cycle World website by Kevin Cameron on December 18, 2019 entitled 'Volker Rauch Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing Photo Gallery' that you wrote an article in Cycle World in May 1995 in which you mentioned the circa 100,000 photos taken by Volker Rauch during his career. Can you tell me where these are archived as I would very much like to get in contact with the owner / manager of these.
Many Thanks, Eddie Youngs
Posted by: Eddie Youngs | July 15, 2020 at 10:19 AM