A while ago I was emailing back and forth with Jan-Willem of the Dutch Brothers. We were talking about Carlo Talamo, the super-influential Italian Harley, Triumph and Bentley importer. J-W pointed out that if anyone is the father of Euro flat track it could be the late Carlo T. It's a shame he's no longer with us. I know there were one-off races in the UK, but this was a series. GI
'Regarding the father of european flat track, once Jacapo [Monti] was explaining me that him and Marco used to race short track in Italy. From what I can remember they had 25 years of shorttrack in Italy!
it started in 1979. The italian Harley importer was crazy about flat track and he had a whole batch of Wood-Rotaxes made. There were probably more real Wood-rotaxes in Europe then in America!
At some point they even had an 883 class, all on the Italian speedway tracks.
In the glory days they even had up to 3000euro prize money for a race win!!
Marco [Belli] was champion there a couple of times and Jacopo too. The real fast guy was a guy named Elvi or something. I rode with him ones in Badia Calavena.'
Jan-Willem
Carlo Talamo was an absolute genius when it came to ideas. The Italian Flat Track series was just one of the great ideas he masterminded. He was the first guy to use the Speed Triple name on a limited edition aluminium-bodied T301 Trident that you could buy in 1993. He also was making short-tailed Speed Triples two years before the 1050 came out. He reinvented motorcycle advertising in Italy. His Harley ads were more like poetry than bike ads (they were even turned into a book.)
ReplyDeleteSome info on the aluminium Trident: http://www.fedrotriple.it/special_alu_talamo_triumph.html
Some info on the short-tailed Speed Triple:http://www.fedrotriple.it/special_speeds-talamo.html
Unfortunately both are in Italian.
Ciao,
t_s
Thanks for the info and link t_s. A man ahead of the game.
ReplyDelete