It's all in black and white now, and only becomes more permanently ingrained in racing history as the years pass: John Kocinski won both WSBK races at Misano in 1996. There will come a time—or perhaps that time is already here—when no one will remember that the first bike across the stripe in the second race at Misano wasn’t Kocinski. It was Anthony Gobert’s Muzzy Kawasaki.

And no one remembers the story of that trophy.

Gobert was handed the trophy on the podium at Misano, posed for photos in the victory celebration, and walked back to the Muzzy garage. Ducati immediately challenged the race results, citing inside information that Gobert’s carburetors were not exactly as the bike had been homologated. Muzzy and his crew had installed a sleeve on the inlet side of the carbs to improve mid-range acceleration. The bike had passed WSBK technical inspection three times that weekend, and each time the FIM had told them that an external modification to make the carburetors smaller was legal.

Misano is in Italy.

Ducati is an Italian manufacturer.

So it wasn’t long before the FIM let Rob Muzzy know that the results of the second leg had been protested—and that the FIM had decided the carbs as raced—doesn’t matter what we told you before—were illegal. Gobert’s win was erased.

Eventually, Ducati representatives came to the Muzzy truck and requested the trophy. They were met with a dare-and-glare from Muzzy mechanic Gary Medley: Come and try to take it. Ducati shrugged it off, likely just happy with the win being forever recorded in the official results.

For years, the Misano trophy sat in a corner of Muzzy team manager Steve Johnson’s office in Bend, Oregon. When he eventually left Muzzy’s to teach at a technical school in North Carolina, he said he still had the trophy.