Canadian Ducks

Canadian Ducks

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

“IT’S ALL SET,” MY FRIEND MIKE CECchini said over the phone, long distance from Bethesda, Maryland. “I’ve entered you in the Ducati Owners Club of Canada annual rally at Grattan, Michigan. I’ve rented a garage at the track, which you can share with me, and I got you a room at the Candlestone Motel near the track.”

“Okay,” I said, chuckling at the irresistible streamlined efficiency of it all, “you finally pinned me down. I’ll be there.”

Mike has been trying to get me to go to this rally for about 10 years, like an evangelist attempting to lure his wayward brother to church on Christmas Eve, certain that the inspirational atmosphere will effect a permanent life change.

Normally, of course, it doesn’t take a lot * of prodding to make me hang around a racetrack full of Ducatis and other European bikes for a weekend, but this particular event has been cursed. I’ve planned to go half a dozen times, but every year, like celestial clockwork, there’s been a wedding, a funeral, a family illness or some other train wreck that’s forced me to miss it. Nearly all my Ducatisti buddies have attended by now, but not me. No. While my friends have been dragging their knee pucks through Grattan’s famous Soupbowl turn, I’ve been standing in front of an industrial church fan in a tux and a ruffled shirt the color of mint sherbet.

Not that I don’t approve of marriageheck, what would I be without it? Illegitimate !-but it makes a poor substitute for a track day.

This year, however, I defended the sanctity of that weekend like a pit bull with a pork chop and allowed nothing to interfere, even if I had to stretch the truth at times. (“Sorry, I’d love to attend your anniversary dinner, but I’m beginning a long prison sentence that weekend at Alcatraz. Alcatraz is closed? Damn! Well, maybe it’s Devil’s Island they’re sending me to.”)

I not only cleared the weekend for myself, but found that my pal Pat Donnelly was free and would be able to come along with his Ducati 900SS SP. We decided we would load our bikes in my van and take the Manitowoc-Ludington ferry across Lake Michigan from Wisconsin, avoiding Chicago traffic.

I had initially planned to bring my own 900SS, which is virtually the spittin’ image of Pat’s, but just three weeks before the Grattan rally I learned that a gentleman named Jim Blundell, who bought my old Ducati 996 two years ago, was thinking of selling it. After the usual obligatory thrashing nights of sleepless fiscal indecision, I decided to buy it back.

Jim had put only 500 miles on the 996 and had kept it in immaculate condition. How could I resist? This is a bike I bought new, broke-in myself and ran on track days at Elkhart Lake. I sold it in a fit of practicality and have regretted the decision ever since.

“Why do you need two red Ducati sportbikes?” my wife Barbara asked, stunned.

“The 900SS is a better all-around streetbike,” I explained, “but the 996 is a magnificent track bike.” She wandered off in a trance, apparently dazzled by logic. (Note to self: Take wife to Tahiti, if you can ever afford it.)

I didn’t explain to her Jack London’s theory that “ƒ like” are the two most powerful words in the human vocabulary, and they tend to blow away all our philosophical constructions like a house of cards. Also our retirement savings.

Anyway, I got the bike, taped the lights, removed the sidestand, changed the potentially slippery anti-freeze over to water and applied my new DOCC numbers to the fairing and sides in crisp white numerals, slightly misaligned by me for that accidental Toys-R-Us effect. Pat and I loaded our bikes and leathers, drove to Manitowoc, boarded the USS Badger car ferry (an oddly un-nautical name; can badgers swim?) and chugged to Michigan on white-capped seas. We drove south through Michigan’s apple and cherry orchard country and got to the track just before dark. Mike’s garage was the one with the Bimota flags flying, and his SB3 poised within.

We unloaded bikes, dined slept, and the next morning we rode.

The Grattan Rally has grown from a casual gathering of a few hard-core members to a big event with 194 riders and 250 bikes registered for the track sessions in five groups, based on speed and experience. Pat, who had never ridden a bike on a racetrack before, was in the Orientation group. As a relatively late entry, 1 was placed in the theoretically tame Fast Touring group, which was okay with me. I hadn’t been around Grattan since my very first motorcycle race in 1979, a cold, rain-drenched affair on my Box Stock Honda 400F, and I needed some orientation myself.

As it turned out, there were way too many entries in the Hot Shoe class, so every group had its share of fast riders and there was always someone to chase or-more often-blow your metaphorical doors off. And there was plenty of track time, at least four 20-minute sessions a day-and lots of volunteer track marshals and instructors in orange vests (Mike among them) to show you the way around. As the weekend progressed, Pat and I both got progressively faster and smoother, happily without crashing.

So. Did we have a good time?

Does the Pope live in the same country where Ducatis are made?

I hesitate to expound, fearing to drive up registration, but the track is fun (even run backwards, which is how we did it on Sunday), the outdoor evening track dinners (Thai and Italian) are wonderful, there are plenty of cold beers opened at the end of the day, and the Canadians who run the event have a relaxed, low-key sense of contagious good cheer that seems to permeate the weekend. It’s a great bunch to hang out with.

Pat, who normally races formula cars, had such a good time on two wheels he’s thinking of getting a bike strictly for track weekends (an Aprilia RS250?), and I felt that the sacrifices I made to get my 996 back were vindicated by this one weekend alone. But there are many more ahead. Mosport, perhaps, and the DOCC rally at Grattan again next year. Gotta go. Pat says he’s coming back, too. The Jack London syndrome really works.

I think Mike knew that when he made our reservations.