MARCO LUCCHINELLI
Future 500GP World Champion Marco Lucchinelli began racing internationally for the Laverda team at just 20 years of age in 1975 – an arrangement that happened almost by accident, as Piero Laverda explains:
“In preparation for the 1975 season we went to Mugello to conduct a 24-hour simulation test, completely in private, with no press present. We started in the morning, and then our factory test rider Fernando Cappelotto crashed and one of the bikes caught fire, but not big damage. So I asked Roberto Gallina who had been racing for us for several years if he knew any rider who could come and join us, and maybe could be a reserve rider for the 24-hour race in Barcelona later that year.
“Roberto told me, ‘I have a young boy from my home town of La Spezia named Marco Lucchinelli, who has been racing 250 and 350 two-strokes –he’s really promising – he’s working driving a refuse truck.’ Mugello is not so far from La Spezia, so I told him, ‘Okay, please call this boy, we have the opportunity to test him today if he wants to ride for us.’ My dealer in La Spezia gave him a 3C 1000 to ride to Mugello, and in a few hours, Lucchinelli was with us, ready for the test that afternoon. I remember he was very young, so I let him sit on the bike and I said to him,’listen, Mr Lucchinelli, you are here just because we need an extra reserve rider for Spain, so you have nothing to prove to us, just ride easily and quietly to learn this machine, because in any case you’ll come to Spain with us. Anyway we already had one machine catch fire, so not another, please!’ He said, ‘Okay, no problem!’ and then he goes out to ride.
“Within four laps, he has gone faster than everybody else – with no crash, unbelievable! So he went out on the track as a reserve rider, and came back in as an official starting rider!
“I remember during the Montjuic 24 Horas he got a flat tyre on this street circuit, so he was riding slowly back to the pits on our bike when he was hit from behind by one of the crazy local riders on a Bultaco – but he hit Lucchinelli hard on the knee. Marco managed to get back to the pits but he was in tears because of the pain. So I asked the other rider Fougeray to go and ride as long as possible, called the ambulance, and sent Marco to the hospital in Barcelona where they checked him with X-rays and found everything was just bruising.
“So then Marco came back to the track, and after Fougeray did two back-to-back sessions, he went out again, and in the end they came 6th – a fantastic result after being hit, and going to the hospital in the middle of the race! But the guy on the Bultaco never came to say sorry……”