Content From: Motorcycle Sport & Leisure Magazine

Ducati's making a habit of doing on the dirt what's become second nature for it on Tarmac by winning races – this time in the Rocky Mountain high that's America's oldest race after the Indy 500, the iconic Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, first staged in 1916 over a partly paved, part-gravel course climbing steeply up the side of a 14,115ft high mountain.

Words: ALAN CATHCART

Fresh from upsetting Harley-Davidson by taking victory in this year's Arizona Mile on 1 May (a feat you read first about in MSL) thus defeating the Yanks on the dirt tracks they previously dominated, less than two months later Ducati then took the battle to BMW in the large-capacity dual-purpose sector the German manufacturer calls its own.

'RACE TO THE CLOUDS'
Hollywood stuntman Greg Tracy, 44, rode the new Multistrada 1200S entered by the Mission Viejo, California-based Spider Grips Falkner-Livingston Team to victory in the 1250cc class of the 88th running of the legendary 'Race to the Clouds' held each year in the Rockies above Colorado, 60 miles/100km south of Denver.

Aboard this otherwise stock race-prepared streetbike powered by the liquid-cooled 1198cc Testastretta Evoluzione eight-valve superbike motor, Tracy finished second-fastest motorcycle in the results to his brother Gary, sho rode another Italian bike to overall victory that was built just down the road from the Ducati factory, a TM 6600cc Supermoto single. But, more to the point, Greg Tracy accomplished Ducati's objective of breaking BMW's class record set in 2007 with the HP2 Megamoto, albeit by a fraction of a second, thus establishing the Multistrada's mastery over the German brand's top-of-the-line dual purpose models.

SERIES OF IRONIES
However, in one of a series of ironies, the record Greg broke was brother Gary's, who won that '07 running of the race as leader of a team of five factory-prepared BMW HP2 Megamoto racers, clocking a new record time of 11 min 46.47 sec for the 12.42 mile-long course. With its 156 turns, this climbs 4725ft in elevation from the start at the Mile 7 marker on Pikes Peak Highway at 9390ft in altitude, running to the 14,115ft summit on a mix of tar and dirt sections averaging a steep 7% gradient over all of the course, In clocking 11:46.55 aboard the Ducati, Greg Tracy also beat his own 2007 time of 11:59.06, in finishing fourth in the race as a member of that five-man BMW team! Mission accomplished, then…

Ducati came close to making it a one-two finish this time around, with a second example of the new Multistrada 1200S finishing third, ridden by Greg Tracy's teammate Alexander Smith. The 25-year-ole son of off-road legend Malcolm Smith, a star of the greatest bike movie ever made, On Any Sunday, Smith Jnr Slid off on the very last turn after a faultless run up the mountain, losing a minute in time before he was able to remount and cross the finishing line, so forfeiting second place to Buell-mounted Walker Pew. He still beat his dad, though-for in shrugging off the effects of Parkinson's disease, 69-year-old Malcolm rode his 570cc husaberg single to 10th place in the 750cc class, barely a minute slower than his son. Once a racer, always a…

OPTIMISE PERFORMANCE
But in the hands of Pike's Peak veteran Greg Tracy, the Multistrada 1200S rode up into the clouds to take the class win. Tracy ran a smooth race, demonstrating the exceptional dual-purpose capabilities on and off-road of Ducati's innovative new model, which uses four different electronically adjusted riding modes to optimize performance in all road conditions, across any passable terrain.

"It's been an exciting week, I've got to say," said Greg Tracy at the post-race award ceremony. "I want to thank Ducati for the opportunity they've given me. The spider Grips Falkner-Livingston multistrada was an amazing ride. Everyone did an awesome job and that motorcycle is crazy fast. It hit 137mph at one point up the hill, and it worked great both on the dirt and the asphalt. When I was growing up, and all these factory teams would win races, I was sure they had these $100,000 engines, and that was why they went so fast. I was wrong. This is my first year on a factory motorcycle, and I'll tell you that bike was box-stock. It had some carbon, and few tweaks, and that was it. "Check out his ride on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JQdgvzuL0&feature=player_embedded

"I have to repeat everything Greg said about the bike, it was really perfect," said Alexander Smith. "The race was good, and if you see the start line footage you can tell how awesome the bike was working. It was a pretty smooth race up until the last corner where I kind of laid it down. I got up real quick and remounted which was still good enough for third, putting both the Multistradas on the podium."

Indeed so, for after successfully pitching Ducati North America/DNA to support their attack on BMW's record, Paul Livingston and his wife Becca, co-owners of the team through their Spider Grips handlebar grips concern www.spidergrips.com in conjunction with their partner Rod Falkner, proprietor of racing lubricants manufacturer Dumonde Tech www.dumondetech.com took delivery last February of the first-ever example of the new Multistrada 1200 to reach the USA.

LAND SPEED RECORDS
A pre-production model sent over for evaluation. An ultra-professional operation focusing on the USA's trophy events in different spheres of two-wheeled motorsport, primarily Pikes Peak, the Baja 1000 off-road marathon, and the Bonneville Speed Trials at which they've set many land speed records on bikes ranging from a 50cc Aprilia to a 2.3 litre Triumph Rocket III, the Falkner-Livingston team had already linked with DNA in 2008 to race a pair of the then-new Ducati Hypermotard 1100 models up Pikes Peak. Their riders then were the same pairing as this time around, with Greg Tracy again winning the 1250cc class from their KTM competition, and the less experienced Alexander Smith coming home fourth.

BIG SURPRISE
After both riders tested the pre-production Multistrada 1200 in a private session at the Adams kart track in Riverside, Ca. to see how it performed in stock trim-remember, the press launch hadn't happened yet, and the bike was still on the secret list – the team had plenty of confidence for the project ahead of them, according to Paul Livingston. "I was very pleased with our first baseline test," he said. "I think the big surprise for us was how much fun the bike is in showroom trim – it tempted mo to just keep one stock as my every day bike! But the test gave us a good idea of what we needed to do in order to win this race."

SHAKEDOWN TEST
But the Spider Grips race team had to wait until May to receive the first three production 1200S Multistradas to arrive in the USA, tow to be trrned into racebikes, the third as backup (and Livingston's eventual street ride!). After the shakedown test three months earlier it had been decided to leave the 150bhp engines untouched, apart from fitting the Termignoni aftermarket 2-1 exhaust with double-stack silencer and consequent ECU remap, and installing a Power Commander to optimize performance at elevations of 14,000ft and more, when the thin air will reduce engine output by more than a quarter. But the bikes were lightened 13kg to a fighting dry weight of 179kg by Stripping off the lights, horn and other street equipment, together with the passenger seats and footrests, then fitted with the carbon fibre parts from Ducati's aftermarket catalogue, like the air intake 'nostrils', engine covers, mudguards etc. The stock radial brakes remained untouched, but the bikes were shipped to noted SoCal suspension guru Paul Thede's Race Tech shop in Corona, Ca. for blueprinting and fine-tuning of the Ohlins 48mm forks and MotoGP/Superbike-derived TTX shock, both featuring the versatile and user-friendly DES/Ducati Electronic Suspension that's digitally controlled via stepper motors for compression and rebound damping, plus rear spring preload. Thede actually entered Pikes Peak himself, riding a Lightning DB2 electric motorcycle in the class for such bikes, but failed to finish.

Bridgestone supplied a wide range of tyres to suit every type of condition, ranging from wet weather race rubber to BT-003 track day tyres, via intermediates and full treads. Tracy chose a wet GP tyre for use in the dry conditions on his #55 bike, in order to help the front wheel stick in the loose gravel without any risk of overheating on tarmac sections, thanks to the cool high-altitude conditions, matched to a BT-003 semi-slick rear which he hand-cut personally to add extra lateral grooving. Smith opted for a pair of stock BT-003s on his #555 motorcycle. With the bikes prepped up in good time, the team headed for the hills with plenty of confidence they were going to beat the Beemers' time…

ALTITUDE SICKNESS
When the 165 starters for the 2010 running of the Pikes peak classic assembled at Race HQ in Colorado Springs, they discovered that the route which was once all gravel had now been paved even further since last year, with another 1.7 miles of new asphalt, leaving around a one-third gravel, two-thirds asphalt mix. 2011 will be the final year in which the course will feature any dirt sections at all, with the Colorado state government committed to completing by 2012 the paving of what during the rest of the year is a scenic tourist route, albeit with the mountain on one side and a sheer fall on the other ranging anywhere in distance from a 50ft jump to a 6000ft abyss, unprotected by guard rails! And that's before you have to work on countering the effects of altitude sickness at over 14,000ft of elevation…

As the team headed up out of Colorado Junction at 3am at night on Wednesday 23 June for the first of three days of officials early-morning closed-roads practice, the full moon was just beginning to set as they drove into the bowl that forms the pit area there, known as the Devil's Playground because lightning frequently strikes this area during mountain storms. Because of time constraints, there's no chance to run the whole course in practice, only along different sections representing about one-third of it in length that are usually a combination of dirt and paved road, which you then have to string together in the race. Practice went well for the team, and both riders were confident on getting the most from the new bikes.

On the Friday evening before the Sunday race all the 160 entries – cars and bikes, both – convened at the Fan Fest held in downtown Colorado Springs, when this year more than 35,000 people came to admire the entries lined up in the centre of the town that had been closed off to normal traffic – many more than the 5000 or so who lined up at 4am on raceday to pay the quite steep admission fee to choose a place alongside the course to watch Sunday's race. Unfortunately, though it held dry for the Fan Fest and its firemen's chilli cook-out, it rained on the Saturday, which meant that the dirt surface laid down by the organisers along the one-third of the course that's still not paved, got very slippery, as the magnesium carbonate they laid packed down to a hard, smooth surface that was as hard as concrete in the dry, but slippery in the wet.

SATISFYING DEBUT
Though it dried off by race day's 1.30pm start for bikes, after all the cars had climbed the hiss, traction was still poor, making the Multistrada's 150 bhp power output more of a hindrance than an asset, since it was easy to spin their rear wheels. But the digitally controlled DES/Ducati Electronic Suspension came into its own allowing both riders to optimize grip via the four riding modes – Sport, Touring, Enduro and urban – that Ducati has wrapped up in the single Multistrada package. The result was a satisfying debut victory on a bike about which Greg Tracy is still enthusing. "I'm convinced the Multistrada will dominate this race for the foreseeable future," he says. "Even right now, the electronic control makes the performance usable on the dirt, so you can ride it like a Supermoto in spite of it being quite a bit heavier – and once they finish asphalting the entire course, we'll be able to use the extra power to maximum advantage."

PRETTY IMPRESSIVE
Looks like the Ducati Multistrada will be aiming for overall victory and a new outright course record next time around – but 2010 was a pretty impressive demonstration of the potential of this dual-purpose desmo, a true total motorcycle!