FEATURED IN THE FEBRUARY 2019 ISSUE OF ROADRACING WORLD…
Tavullia has been Rossi Town for a couple of decades. Pretty much every tree, lamppost, and window flies a VR46 flag. The speed limit is 46 kph, instead of 50 kph, and the town square—flanked by his pizzeria, gelateria, merchandise shop, and bar—is basically a shrine to the 115 Grand Prix races and nine World Championships he has won across the globe.
But it gets better than that. Take the south-east road out of town, towards the war memorial that marks the Allied breakthrough of the Nazis’ Gothic Line in 1944, then turn left, down a steep single-track road that drops down into a valley through half a dozen tree-lined hairpin turns.
Coming out of the woods there appears an epic dirt-track circuit that twists and turns across the hillside. And there is the man himself, racing his friends, kicking down a couple of gears, throwing his YZF450 sideways into a corner and filling your face with sand. Thanks, mate.
Cynics might dismiss this creation as nothing more than the plaything of a multi-millionaire petrol-head, but in fact it’s much more than that …
— Mat Oxley/MotoGP Analysis, in the February 2019 Issue of Roadracing World
Andrea Migno leads Valentino Rossi, Marco Bezzechi, Niccolo Antonelli, Franco Morbidelli, and Lorenzo Baldassarri—most of them on mini road racers—on a kart track. Photo Courtesy VR46 Riders Academy.
Valentino Rossi’s ranch is home to the dirt track where the nine-time World Champion trains to keep his skills MotoGP sharp, but a new generation of road racers trains there as well. As Rossi prepares to unleash his proteges into the Grand Prix fray, Roadracing World Grand Prix Editor Mat Oxley examines the Rossi model, which might serve as a prototype for a renaissance for U.S. road racing as well. Read Oxley’s insights in the latest issue of Roadracing World & Motorcycle Technology !
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