Cook's Last Ride

Cook Neilson had decided, quite some time ago that when and if he took his last ride on a racetrack it would be here, at Barber, on the exact replica of the California Hot Rod known as "Deja Blue". It had been 35 years since he and Phil won Daytona and Old Blue now quietly resided in a collectors living room, it's music bottled in it's engine, perfectly preserved atop an oriental rug. A few years before, the Barber museum staff had commissioned Rich Lambrechts of DesmoPro to make an exact replica and exact it was. So much so that when the bike was rolled out for the first time both Cook and Phil thought somehow Barber's had managed to buy Old Blue....
To read the whole story click HERE: http://www.ducati.net/2012/12/end-of-an-era-cooks-last-ride/
Words and photos by Vicki Smith