Today was the Ducati On-Line owners party, which is organized by Vicki Smith and the rest of the group at Ducati on line and is called DDD. They are an American internet based community of Ducati owners who are very active and spread all across the country. Vicki is a good friend of the company and always does a good job with whatever she does when it comes to Ducati. She has been organizing these events for well over 10 years now.

The party takes place at a little go cart track across the street from the big speedway and has a very casual and laid back feel to it. Her event is always a fun stop in Daytona, and brings out many people from across the country. I understand that she had over 3000 people show up this year. As is common with all Ducati enthusiast events, everyone there is very friendly and eager to say hello and chat and ask what is new. For me, it is always interesting to meet so many American Ducati fans, some of them friends for a long, and some of them brand new.

The party has many events, ranging from a bike show to fashion show and even a noise contest, to see which bike makes the best Ducati noise.

Among the many cool bikes entered in the show, we saw a crazy Ducati “Chopper”, which was powered by a monster 900 air cooled motor and made by Donny Jackson. This is not a typical Ducati! But the sound that it made during the noise competition was very familiar, and I believe that he was the winner of this event. These noise contests are always my favorites.

After the noise competition, the main part of the event was the bike show.

The judges were an odd combination of Ducati people, including Jeff Nash, who is an American dealer and former professional racer from Texas, (but has a funny drawl like he is from New Zealand) and Marco Dal Puppo, who is a Roman Italian Ducatista who came over for the races and for the party. Normally it is difficult for other Italians to understand Marco, so I don’t know how he spoke to Vicki and Jeff who don’t even speak Italian. The other judge, Blair Bozic, is a retired pilot who flew spyplanes for the air force and is a proud owner of several Ducati’s.

The bike that won the best in show was a very nice 1982 Mike Hailwood, which is somewhere between the modern the modern sport classics and vintage bike. Also, Norm and Jeff Brown had some very interesting Monsters, named the “Golden Monster” and the “Hurricane” monster.

Also, a highlight was a that I finally got the meet the president of the central Florida Ducati owners group, who has many Tattoos, and among them, the Ducati Corse logo tattooed on his head. You can’t miss this guy! I finally got the meet the man behind the head!!! His picture appears in the 2004 yearbook and I was amazed when I saw it.

I also met Gary Eagen, who is a crazy American “Iron Butt” (Culo di acciaio) champion, and who owns world records in the US for point to point distance riding on the roads. Gary, who rides a basically stock Multistrada or ST, has the record for riding from Prudue Bay Alaska to Key West Florida, which ONLY took him 101 hours for the 5700 miles. It is a crazy story when he told me, as after the first 125 miles, he start got run off the road and crashed, which resulted in him breaking a finger and two toes. His “race bike” is 100% stock, except windscreen, seat and fuel tank. He says that he only slept for 6 hours for the whole 101 hour trip. Wow – I could not imagine that myself, but I was happy to hear that a Ducati made that distance with no mechanical problems.

Gary was giving the people a presentation on all his motorcycle travels and special set up tips for ST’s and Multistradas, two motorcycles for which he has ridden over 600,000 miles on over the past few years.

I was also able to meet a few North American Ducati dealers, including a new dealer in Austin, TX, and Gus Albertini and Fabien Viteri from Ducati New York. Also, we had our new dealership from Tampa Florida set up with a trailer and selling lots of clothing and Ducati apparel. It was nice to see such dealer support and interest in the event, as well as just how many people were buying things from the guys at Euro Sport Cycles.

At 2:45, Paolo Ciabatti, who manages our worldwide Superbike program, brought over the Neil and Ben to sign autographs. The racers are always a hit wherever they go, and the as usual the line to see them was very long.

At night, we went to the Daytona Supercross race and watched the dirt bike races. Tomorrow is the start of the AMA superbike series, and I am looking forward to watching Neil and Ben do very well.