HEARTBEAT

THIRTY years ago, the Moto Guzzi Daytona high-cam eight-valve engine made its public debut in the US Battle of the Twins, before reaching production for customer sale in 1992. The saga of American dentist Dr John Wittner and his ‘Dr John’ Guzzi racers is a motorcycling fairytale, with then Moto Guzzi owner Alejandro de Tomaso in the unlikely role of fairy godfather.

In his spare time from dentistry, Wittner had played with tuning Harley-Davidsons for road racing. Then in 1983 he bought a Moto Guzzi Le Mans. “I bought it with the sole intent of forming a team of friends to go endurance road racing,” says John, today living in retirement in Philadelphia. “I had worked on and ridden a number of Guzzis and knew they were extraordinarily reliable, the perfect weapon for endurance competition.”

And so the Dr John Racing Team was formed and in its first year of competition won the 1984 US Endurance Championship’s middleweight class. The following season, after Wittner sold his dental practice to concentrate on racing, the team