The story of Paul Smart taking Ducati’s first headline victory at the Imola 200 in 1972 is a corker. Maggie, Paul’s wife, takes a phone call from a fledgling Ducati, asking if Paul would be able to race its new 750 V-twin for £500 in Italy, and while he is on his way back from racing ‘an evil-handling’ Kawasaki at Atlanta, USA, on his behalf, she says ‘yes’.
Smart’s career is taking off, with TT podiums, a Hutchinson 100 victory, and a place in the Transatlantic team, all in the last year. And now he’s on a flight to Italy, to race a bike from a little-known manufacturer he’s never seen, let alone ridden, that others have turned down, and a racetrack he’s not ridden.
The rest is well-documented. The…