By David Swarts
You’re the Chief Medical Officer for MotoAmerica and you have the weekend off. What do you do? Go racing, of course! But Dr. Carl Price isn’t just any doctor and he didn’t go to just any race.
On most days, Dr. Price is a board-certified plastic surgeon with a thriving practice called The Center for Plastic Surgery, located in Springfield, Missouri. And about 10 weekends a year, he serves as the Chief Medical Officer for MotoAmerica. Before he became the Chief Medical Officer, however, he was a racer with several point-scoring finishes in MotoAmerica Twins Cup and was a principal of the Robem Engineering Aprilia Twins Cup race team in MotoAmerica, which won the Championship with Kaleb De Keyrel in 2021.
Recently, between the MotoAmerica rounds at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota and Ridge Motorsports Park in Washington, Price decided to enter a race…in the Aprilia RS 660 Trofeo, which is part of the CIV/Italian National Championship, at Mugello.
As a race team owner and sponsor, Price has helped several young riders over the years, and in 2022, he helped Max Toth win the Aprilia RS 660 Trofeo Championship. So, when he saw the opportunity to race at Mugello emerge on his schedule, Price said he called up his friends at the Maurer Racing Team and BK Corse and asked, “Do you happen to have a seat open for an old fat guy to go race? And they did actually have a seat open.
“Mugello is a wonderful track. It’s pretty cool and it’s an easy track to learn, but it’s a really hard track to go fast on. So, to be honest, I kind of sucked in the dry. I wasn’t DFL [Dead F***ing Last], but I was close to it. I think I was 22nd on the grid, and actually, I ended up finishing that [22nd] on Saturday in the dry.
“Then it rained on Sunday, and I love to race in the rain. I really do. It’s a great equalizer, as you well know. And so, on Sunday, I started 22nd on the grid and by the second lap I was in ninth place, and I ended up finishing seventh. I was actually the top finisher on the team. I beat all the other guys on the team. So, old dogs rule!”
That would be a good enough story for most to tell, but Dr. Price’s story only got better.
Each motorcycle in the Aprilia RS 660 Trofeo comes with two mechanics, one a professional and second mechanic that is a student from an engineering program at an Italian University. Price’s second mechanic was Marco Rivola, as in the son of Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola.
“Marco was the nicest kid you’d ever know, and he was very good with the data,” said Price. “He was actually using Massimo’s computer.
“I know Massimo from when we ran the Robem Engineering Aprilia team, so on Monday we went to Aprilia Racing headquarters in Noale for a little tour. Massimo is an absolute gentleman, and we were in his office talking to him for a while. Then a guy comes in and reminds him of something [in Italian]. We walk out and Marco Bezzecchi is sitting there waiting to sign his new contract with Aprilia. Wow! So, Massimo was in there talking to us knowing Bezzecchi was waiting. Like I said, a true gentleman.”
