Luca Filippin struggled to get used to the dust and sand. The Dakar is not exactly like the golden world of MotoGP or the Superbike World Championship where everything is sterilized and you work in air-conditioned environments.
Passionate about racing, Luca started working at the school of the legendary Doctor Claudio Costa. “Galeotto was the Motorshow in Bologna, an unmissable appointment at the time for all motor lovers. I met Claudio and we started talking. Working in the clinic was my dream”.
One phone call changed her life. “Costa called me and asked me if I wanted to go to Phillip Island. It was the early 2000s. Thus began an adventure that lasted more than 15 years”.
In Superbike with Dr. Corbascio, Filippin has worked with all the greats, from Troy Bayliss to Neil Hodgson, James Toseland and James Rea. In MotoGP, one name above all: Marco Simoncelli.
The photo of him with Sic hangs today on the walls of his clinic in Vicenza, where 18 people work. Following Franco Picco, from Vicenza like him, Luca discovered the great rally raid marathon.
“Now I’m getting used to it and getting passionate, but at the beginning it was strange to do massages and bandages under a tent in the dust, the heat during the day and the cold temperatures as soon as the sun goes down”, says Luca.
In support of Picco and Simone Agazzi’s RS Moto team, Luca’s tent soon became a meeting point for Italian riders and beyond. Also because he is very good and the word spread at the bivouac, which in the end is a traveling village of 3,500 people.
“I was already working with Picco as regards the preparation so I was curious to come and see the world of these adventurers with my own eyes,” says Filippin.
At 66, Franco Picco is a hero. “It’s unbelievable. On the bike he looks like a 20-year-old boy, but then you see he has his ailments. A 28 Dakar palmares are enviable. Last year he was even on the bike, without assistance. He still suffers it today.”
Accustomed to MotoGP, where the physiotherapist is the closest person to the rider, Luca pampers Franco from the morning when he prepares his breakfast or helmet. “He is happy as a child”, smiles Filippin. In addition to Picco, Luca also treats the riders of the RS Moto team every day such as Catanese and Gritti, but every now and then some other Italians arrive, see Paolo Lucci, from Castiglion Fiorentino.
“The Dakar is an incredible race. I’ve never seen so much passion. If I come back? In the meantime, I’m enjoying the adventure”, says Luca, who like everyone accuses the long journeys (750 km today) and the wake up calls at dawn. But the Dakar is the Dakar and can only be truly appreciated in its uniqueness once you return home.
Paolo Lucci
Photo by: Maria Guidotti
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