DAYTONA · 1977
THE RIDER AND THE TUNER
Two men, one motorcycle, and the win the New Blue was built to remember.
SCROLL
MARCH 1977
THE WIN
On March 11, 1977 Cook Neilson won the Daytona Superbike race on a Ducati 750SS prepared by Phil Schilling. The bike belonged to Cycle magazine. Everyone called it Old Blue.
It was Ducati's first win at Daytona, and the margin was twenty eight seconds.
Thirty years later NCR built fifty motorcycles to remember it. This site is about one of them.
THE RIDER
COOK NEILSON
Neilson rode. He carried the number 31, and every New Blue carries it on the fairing.
He rode a New Blue again at Daytona in March 2007, aged 63, in his 1977 leathers. The laps were ceremonial. He took one more than he was given.
His words about the machine are on the homepage, where the people who wrote about it speak for themselves.
THE TUNER
PHIL SCHILLING
Schilling wrenched. Old Blue was his work, and the win was his as much as it was the rider's.
He entered the AMA Hall of Fame in 2011. He died on May 26, 2015.
Both men entered the Ducati North America Hall of Fame in 2006, at the dealer meeting where the New Blue was unveiled.
IN THEIR WORDS
OLD BLUE, REMEMBERED
Three men who knew Old Blue, in their own words.
You can quit worrying now, Phil. It's gonna last, he's gonna win.
RENO LEONIThe Ducati importer's tuner, to Schilling with eight minutes left at Daytona in 1977.Cycle World, September 1997 
I could hear enough to know that the essential part of Old Blue remained untouched by the years. It was the same, and ready.
PHIL SCHILLINGOld Blue's tuner, hearing it start again at Daytona twenty years on.Cycle World, September 1997 
Schilling and Neilson would put Ducati on the map in the US as Paul Smart did at Imola in 1972.
KEVIN CAMERONCycle World's technical editor, remembering Schilling.Cycle World, May 2015
THE NAME
WHERE NEW BLUE CAME FROM
The name came from Neilson himself, after he rode an NCR Millona in 2006.
"The bike Phil and I used to race was called Old Blue. This is New Blue."
THE TAIL
TWO SIGNATURES
Both men signed the titanium tail. Number twelve carries both signatures, and the photographs of them are on the No.12 page.
A signature is the shortest provenance there is. It says the two people the machine is about were standing next to it.
PHOTO PENDING
Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling together at Daytona in 2007
STILL OPEN
WHO LED IT AT NCR[PLACEHOLDER]
[PLACEHOLDER] The person who led the New Blue project inside NCR is not named on this site yet.
[PLACEHOLDER] Joe Ippoliti, NCR's chief designer, is being asked. Until he answers, this frame stays empty rather than picking a name that would have to be taken back.
PHOTO PENDING
A portrait frame waiting for the person who led the New Blue project at NCR