One of the highlights of the 2012 four day World Ducati Week that is being held (Sunday is the last day) at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli was the Ducati Diavel Drag Race by Tudor, starring MotoGP riders Valentino Rossi, Nicky Hayden and Ducati World Superbike riders Carlos Checa, Jakub Smrz, Sylvain Guintoli, Niccolò Canepa and Lorenzo Zanetti along with three-time and former World SBK Champion, the unforgetable Troy Bayliss.
Yesterday several of our cousins from Motoblog.
it were among the over 60,000 Ducati lovers from over 27 different countries (attendance records have yet to be released) who flocked to Misano to attend the event, and they took this big gallery of the drag race from the straight and pitlane.
The race was done in heats, with Bayliss paired up against Smrz, Guintoli vs Checa, Rossi vs Canepa, Hayden vs Zanetti and the first riders indicated.
won their respective races.
In the semi finals Rossi beat Checa and Bayliss got the best over Hayden (who wore out his tire thoroughly doing burnouts between the heats) and final showdown went down between Rossi and Bayliss.
Bayliss got the better start and tripped the timing lights at 6.
306 seconds to win, while Rossi finished 0.
023s adrift that put him in second with Hayden third and Checa fourth.
All the riders did spectacular show of burn-outs and wheelies with their Diavels afterwards and accepted their trophies to the applause of all the passionate ‘red’ fans.