One of my fondest memories in this job was the press launch for the 2019 Ducati Scrambler Icon, held in the beautiful setting of a vineyard in Bologna, Italy. The launch was conducted by the usual Ducati folk, but there was one staff member who stood out, whether due to his booming voice, his mannerisms, or his firm but welcoming demeanor.
That man was Beppe Gualini. I knew Beppe used to do a bit of off-road racing but saying that is almost as naive as saying Valentino Rossi used to be pretty good on a road racer.
I asked Beppe to tell me his story, so, with the band playing in the background, I grabbed a glass of the vineyard’s finest red, put the voice recorder near him, and said, “Start talking.”
Over the next three hours, I barely asked a question as the man—who is undoubtedly Italy’s most decorated rally racer, with 65 African rally starts to his name including 10 Paris-Dakar events—told me his monumental story as briefly as he could (you can read that interview at https://www.cyclenews.com/2019/01/article/former-dakar-rally-racer-beppe-gualini-interview/).
Beppe’s is a truly incredible life. From the early days as a physical education teacher, Bergamo-born Beppe was bitten by the rally and adventure bug, but I doubt even he could believe where this new love would take him.
I remember telling him he had to write a book on this epic life. I highly doubt I was the first one to tell him this, but a few months ago, a glorious, full-color, landscape-style book in lovely thick paper stock landed at my house titled Beppe Gualini Una Vita Fuori Traccia (A Life Off Track).
It was Beppe’s book! I could hardly believe my eyes, and it’s taken a lot longer than I hoped to read, because it is so in depth and so detailed, with stories that need to be read to be believed.
Written with one side of the page in Italian and the other side in English, I had an inkling as to many of the tales hidden between the 320 pages of Una Vita Fuori Traccia thanks to my spending that evening with Beppe at the vineyard. He’s a man I previously knew better as the authoritative voice who said where we were riding and what we were allowed to get away with on the numerous Ducati press launches I attended over the years. But to see the effort that’s gone into expanding those stories with even more anecdotes shows what you can really accomplish when you put your mind to a meaningful task.
While I knew much of Beppe’s rally exploits, I knew little about his foray as one of the leading lights behind the Camel Trophy, where he represented Italy in the 1985 event held in Borneo. The Camel Trophy was a mind-blowing adventure race held in Land Rovers and Range Rovers and, for a short while, on Honda Dominators, in a separate race called the Camel Marathon Bike.
The Camel Trophy wasn’t really a race, even though there were winners awarded. It was a staggering event of human endurance, one that valued sportsmanship and community equally to outright speed.
Each race had a special mission to help the country in which it was run, such as providing drinking water, so it gave back to the locals as a thank you. Beppe was instrumental in getting the two-wheel version of this race going, and some of the things they had to do just to make it to the finish defy belief. In today’s sanitized world, it would be almost impossible to get a race like this going now. The term “he’s a man’s man” was probably created to describe Beppe Gualini.
One facet of Una Vita Fuori Traccia is the incredible collection of photos Beppe has amassed over the years. A gifted and enthusiastic photographer, Beppe, along with help from longtime friend, legendary MotoGP photographer Gigi Soldano, whom Beppe met on that first Rally of The Pharaohs in Egypt in 1982, has backed up each story with visual proof. From the little Fantic 125 sliding around in front of the great pyramids of Egypt, his words about Dakar founder Thierry Sabine, being held at gunpoint near the Libyan border, to becoming the first motorcyclist on Machu Picchu in Peru and getting his leg almost cut off in a chainsaw accident gone wrong in Brazil during the Camel Trophy, it’s all there.
My job leads me to meet some incredible people, but few have left as lasting an impression on me as Beppe. This man has done more in his lifetime and a hundred people combined and refused to be drawn in by the mundane trap that encapsulates the world. Una Vita Fuori Traccia is a testament to one man’s will to live life to the fullest, embracing the uncomfortable to find an inner promised land most think is a fairy tale.
Each chapter in the book is marked by a quote about the never-ending quest for adventure, but few sum up this lifestyle better than the final words. “Adventure doesn’t exist. It is only in the mind of the man who pursues it, and as soon as he touches it, it vanishes to appear much further up, in another form, at the limits of the imagination.”
Beppe’s adventure will only end when he’s breathed his last breath, but he can probably take it easy given all he’s accomplished in his lifetime. Thankfully for us, he’s created this incredible book, Una Vita Fuori Traccia, for us all to vicariously live that adventure with him.CN
Beppe Gualini Una Vita Fuori Traccia
By Beppe Gualini
Price: $87
Published by Beppe Gualini
https://www.gilena.it/libro/una-vita-fuori-traccia-dalla-paris-dakar-al-camel-trophy
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