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   Ducati 999 Guitar Debut!

Ducati race fan Tom Truskolaski went along to the Virginia International Raceway round of the AMA Superbike Championship last week and took a well-tuned 999 along for Bostrom and Hodgson to sign – his Ducati 999 guitar.

Tom, who lives in Radford Virginia and rides a Ducati 916 and a 749 is a regular at the VIR circuit. "I brought it to VIR over the weekend and almost didn't pull it out at all, but a few friends of mine persuaded me to bring it in to the Ducati North America hospitality tent for an autograph signing with Eric and Neil. Turned out everyone really loved it!"

The guitar, appropriately called the "999", boasts Testastretta decals and Ducati Performance logos clear coated in the Ducati red paint. Tom asked artist Sean Philbin, who also paints bikes, to take care of the paint and the difficult process of embossing the Ducati logo. The concept of the guitar was first realised back in March 2005 when Tom, who has played for some 24 years now, decided to marry one of his greatest passions to another. Starting with a box of high quality guitar parts that were just sitting around waiting for him to assemble, he contacted Sean about the idea and then shipped the bodywork along with some ideas to Pennsylvania to get the project in paint.

Tom let us into the tech spec secrets of his special 999: "I bought a Paul Reed Smith pick-up to replace the old EMG and replaced the old volume and tone controls that would definitely have caused an issue with noise in the system. The input jack was replaced with a gold anodised one, which looks pretty cool, and I used the old Hamer tuning gears and the very competent Floyd Rose Tremolo System."

While we have absolutely no idea what Tom is talking about, we are interested by his final claim: "If you think this is cool, wait until you see what my Ducati dealer in Yorktown, Virginia is doing to my 749!"

Read more about the "999 guitar" in the next issue of the US Desmo club magazine Desmo Leanings. ^{_________________________________________}