There’s no better way to kick off Season Three of Café Racer than to talk about one of the biggest names in motorcycles – Ducati.

  They are known as both superior racing bikes with a storied history of wins, and as high end rides that enthusiasts virtually slobber over.

You have to love a bike that has a name for its owners – the Ducatisti. That pretty much tells the tale doesn’t it? Once you own one you are now part of an elite club.

No one knows about this passion for Ducatis more than the owners of Desmo Pro – a custom shop specializing in vintage Ducati repairs restorations and custom builds. Rich Lambrechts and Vicki Smith are Ducatisti.

Rich Lambrechts is an engineer/designer that comes from a long line of master machinists and metal artists. Inspired by his Great-Grandfather and Grandfather – who both worked at Packard – Lambrects started out working on high performance open cars. His skills as a master metalworker (and just about everything else) made it easy to transition to the restoration of such high performance motorcycles as the Ducati. His ingrained love of the machine and the men who perfected the special style and performance of the Ducati is clear through his choice to specialize in these special restorations.

Vicki Smith also got her start with cars – she was a race car driver for almost 20 years and discoverd her passion for speed easily translated to Ducatis. She dedicates her time to promoting the joys of ownership through maintaining Ducati.net and managing events she and Rich have founded to gather the Ducatisti to share their love of the special high-performance racer. Smith works with Ducati North America, and is also a noted photographer, historian and author. She can tell you what’s old and what’s new.

These are definitely the right folks to take us on a journey back to Ducati’s roots in Italy!  More (and more photos) here: http://blogs.discovery.com/velocity/2012/04/caf%C3%A9-racer-season-3-the-ducatistiand-breaking-ducati-news.html