I know this site is dedicated to Ducati, but sometimes it is worth resetting the lens to look at something significant in our sport. Today Mat Mladin announced his retirement from motorcycle road racing at the end of 2009 and I wanted to acknowledge his amazing career. Beside he raced a Fast by Ferraci Ducati and a Cagiva 500GP bike so that qualifies him as a Ducatista!

Mladin won his first national championship in Australia in 1981 on the dirt (flat track). He followed that up with 3 motocross championships in a single year. His switch to road-racing marked him as a phenom since he began winning almost immediately taking the Australian 250 Production championship in 1991 and followed that up with the Australian Superbike championship the very next year on a Team Kawasaki Australia ZXR750. The following year he was a factory 500GP racer. Just pause for a second to absorb all that. Imagine you started road-racing this year and in 2011 you had a MotoGP ride racing with Valentino Rossi and company? I know, it’s almost inconceivable. For young, inexperienced Mladin the pressure of trying to race at the pinnacle of 2 wheeled sport on the global stage on the less than ideal Cagiva proved difficult.


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I heard someone remark the other day that a recession was great – Most people have still got the same income and everything’s on sale! To prove how hard it is to sell motorcycles in the current environment Ducati has anounced today another sales promotion entitled FORZA DUCATI which offers 6.75% financing on the entire range amongst other things.

Ducati and FreedomRoad Financial have gotten together to role out a new retail financing program, FORZA DUCATI, which will include a low 6.75% finance rate for the entire range of Ducati models.


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