"A Plan Was Formed"

After years of wanting to, last year I attended Bonneville Speed Week. This was an astonishing other-world experience. If you're not a gearhead, this won't mean much, but if you are, it is heaven with heat.

I had no intention of joining the madness, but after watching, hearing and smelling the fun, I decided I needed to. What to run? Well, I have a few older bikes, my newer ones are way too fast for my new itch. The smallest and slowest would be the best pick. Better to start slow and gain speed as experience warrants.

I have owned this bike for a few years and had it running for about twenty seconds, once. It is a rolling chassis, a very incomplete project started by an owner who sold it to a mechanic who sold it to me. Not sure if there was a smart one in this group. Anyway, it was barely bolted together and needs to be gone through front to back, top to bottom. As it turns out the motor/trans had been rebuilt at the Ducati dealership in San Diego, CA. I actually met the guy who did the work while I was visiting the shop to drool over new Ducatis. This is a 1965 Ducati 350 Sebring.

As I usually do, I got way ahead of myself on this bike project and bought lots of the dream parts for my "new" custom racer. Old Ducati parts are not easy to find or cheap. But, this is going to be my little custom hot rod. Shaved of all extra parts and mounts, fairing added, rearsets installed, race seat, different tank, new suspension parts..... A plan was formed. But, I still didn't know if I could really get it running, not to mention the newly conceived plan to go to Bonneville. But I had decided, I will make an all out attempt at the 75MPH Barrier!

Knowing I have no way to build the bike and run at Bonneville without some help, especially mechanical, I went in search of a master mechanic. I need someone who knows the right end of the hammer to use. As you can see I found the guy working on his new Grisso.


This is Jim and he has been waiting a few years for me join him on the dark side, riding Italian. He was all in for the speed attempt. And thus was born, Team: Pasta is Fasta!