World Elite Speedway.

[David]

A further follow - up article from Helen Charlesworth (additional researcher) with her kind permission will be posted here on Monday morning as part of the article above, and as you have read it is still on going with another full article in next weeks Speedway Star.

[David]

This Article below is from Helen Charlesworth with her kind permission. And in next week’s Speedway Star, the mind – boggling World Elite Speedway budget for 2018…the tracks and riders…the strange case of Toto`s disappearing yachts…more revelations about the story that will be the talk of Speedway.

Official Statement:
‘World Elite Speedway is being set up to take Speedway to new audiences worldwide. The concept is the brainchild of Ducati Moto GP supremo Toni Franchitti. Broadly speaking the series will be staged at locations close to the Moto GP circuits worldwide. Toni who is a very successful Italian businessman has appointed his daughter BIANCA and former Scottish Speedway legend NEIL MACFARLANE as joint Chief Executive Officers.
Neil said that Toni has always had a passion for two wheeled motor sports and when he approached me to help run the project I had no hesitation in accepting the challenge. The riders will come from the top echelon of world speedway whom are available to sign lucrative contracts before the end of this year.
Planning is at an advanced stage with top Speedway personnel from Hungary, Poland, America as well as the United Kingdom already on board. All officials already committed to the project have a wealth of experience from riding at the top level, through team management and promoting, including FIM events.
WES executives have already had meetings with the FIM to discuss the project and more meetings are planned in the near future.’

It emerged that riders including Kenneth Bjerre, Andzejs Lebedevs, Krzysztof Kasprzak and the Laguta brothers (Artem and Gregori) had all agreed to ride in the ‘WES’ series planned for 2018. Talks were still underway with Greg Hancock, Neils Krisitian Iversen and a number of Polish riders. Tomasz Gollob was so impressed with the venture that he apparently enquired about becoming an ambassador.
The plan is to stage meetings across the globe, taking speedway to a much wider audience; Asia, North and South America, Australasia and Europe. Everything will be paid for, including airfares, hotels, transportation, insurance etc. No rider will have to pay a pound, a euro or a dollar. Their reward for taking part in the series of 24 meetings over a season is to be €1 million.
On 27th-28th October this year there is a ‘meet the riders’ event at San Marino race circuit in Italy when the names of all 30 riders who are taking part in the event will be revealed. The showcase event will be shown live on Moto GP TV (is there such a channel?)
There is also to be an ‘Elite Speedway’ magazine to complement the series, which will also be launched at the event. The plan is to print it on twelve languages. Wow! Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?
In June, I began receiving messages from someone calling himself "Toto Franchitti". Toto told me he had been a promoter at Edinburgh and how his baby ‘WES’ was coming soon, how the SGP series would be no more as he would have signed most of its riders. The messages came rolling in. I sat back and watched, bemused. I asked around to check his validity and was told yes, he had been a promoter at Edinburgh at one time, but then known as Toni Frankitti.
I was very tempted to press the ‘block’ button on a number of occasions, but I was intrigued, especially by a mention from him of having been in touch with the Speedway Star. He said Peter Oakes had said ‘WES’ was the talk of Britten [sic].
I’d certainly not heard or read anything about it, so decided to do a little detective work myself. I ran a number of checks on things he had said in his meandering stream of messages. Nothing added up. I was sure he was a fantasist and decided to get in touch with Speedway Star and ask if they had actually had any contact with this man. I was quite shocked when speaking to Andrew Skeels (deputy editor) who said they were aware of Toto Franchitti, and as crazy as the man and his story sounded, he did appear to be genuine. They had also been contacted by Neil McFarlane (ex-Glasgow promoter and CEO of ‘WES’) who assured them that the series was definitely going ahead.
Andrew then put Peter Oakes in touch with me, and it was at this point ‘Charlesworth & Oakes - speedway detectives’ went to work. Our investigation discovered that Toto (or through Neil McFarlane) had made contact with a number of people involved in Speedway - Eric Boocock, Colin Meredith, Robert Nagy and Scott Autrey, Steve Luxton and Scott Nicholls to name just a few, hoping they would be taken in by his phoney venture.
Why was I contacted? No idea! Maybe he thought if the Speedway Star didn’t run his story then the Newcastle raceday magazine would!
A few gullible individuals appeared to have faith in his story, the promise of easy wealth and recognition. Some believed his tales of the inherited acres of vineyards in Tuscany where he bottled ‘Canti Prosecco’ (Canti is actually a brand name owned by the company Fratelli Martini). Some believed the tales about his mansion in Rimini, a nice beachside pad with marble floors and stairwells and with thirty-two bedrooms. Attached to it was a stable for his horses. He proclaimed to own a whisky distillery on the island of Benbecula, where he also had a holiday retreat, Borve Castle, which is actually a 14th century ruin.
Toto apparently heads 38 Ducati MotoGP teams. He has 18 airfreight planes, 6 private jets, a Black Hawk helicopter, vino bars all over Italy as well as 52 cars and 154 motorbikes (a number of them gold plated). His wealth was unimaginable.
Maybe the gullible were so taken with the fact he was offering them a handsome sum of cash that they chose to ignore his love of sharing his peccadilloes.
By the way – none of the riders mentioned as participating or being interested in the event had heard of Franchitti, or had any contact with ‘WES.’
Next week, the investigation steps up a level...

[helenc]

Can I just add, the above article appeared in the Newcastle Match day magazine (who I write a weekly page for) on Sunday 20th August. There are two more weekly articles to follow in the magazine, on the story; as well as in this weeks' Speedway Star.
Peter Oakes and I were the 'media people' he chose to break the story of World Elite Speedway to the public. I wasn't buying the story from day one !

[David]

Great article and work by Peter and yourself, can`t wait till Thursday and next Monday for part 2.  

[mike]

Read it unless part two is very different what a Walter Mitty character this bloke is.

[David]

Helen`s follow up will be posted in the morning. The article appeared in the Newcastle Match day magazine tonight 27/8/2017.

David.

[David]

Toto declared he was the second richest man in Italy, with a wealth of €112 billion. He hadn’t done his homework. The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, only has a wealth of $86 billion (which equates to €56.34 billion). So Toto Franchitti, who no-one has heard of, is actually richer than Bill Gates! He is, in fact, the richest man EVER! Incidentally, the richest man in Italy (according to Italy’s rich list) is Leonardo Del Vecchiohe, and he only has €22.3 billion - mere chicken feed!
Things suddenly took a nosedive when Toto was rushed to hospital in a coma. He had to have half a lung removed. From this point on, family members took over messaging me and others on his behalf. For the sake of the story and the truth, let’s just call all these family members ’Toto.’
Everything was now thrown into upheaval. The plan to pick up speedway folk from various airports across the UK on 15th July in his private jet and head off to a MotoGP on the continent had to be cancelled. Toto was unwell, but his ‘family’ would keep us updated… and they did.
Apparently, his son Carlito is head of the Vatican Ducati Team – yes, the Pope has his own MotoGP Ducati team! Toto sent us a picture of his son with the ‘Ducati’ boys and another photo of his brother Rico presenting the Pope with a painting of a 1936 Harley Davidson motorcycle. The photograph was real enough – only the guy in picture was David Uhl, the artist who painted the picture.
In January, he stated on Facebook that Tia - we presume he meant Tai (Woffinden) - had ridden at his San Marino speedway circuit twice last year. Why didn’t Tai tweet about that I wonder? Probably because he has NEVER rode there.
In February, Toto wrote: “Our new track at circuit Isabella, Thortonhall, Scotland. First meeting June 16th, Friday 2017. Under the FIM. Come along and see top GP riders.” (I have edited to correct his bad spelling).
Apparently on April 8th 2017, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, officially opened ‘Circuit Isabella.’ The riders who tested the track said it was the best surface they had ever ridden. Later the same day, Toto’s son married his Swedish fiancée Sammi at the track. Sadly, there appears to have been no photographs taken of either the track opening or the wedding. Where is Steve Brock when you need him?
June 16th arrived. Did the ‘WES’ event at Circuit Isabella take place? If you know anyone who attended, could you please let Peter Oakes or myself know, or just scan and send the racecard from the programme. I very much doubt it did – the FIM have never heard of Toto Franchitti.
We were much intrigued by the photos of his super yacht. Peter was able to trace the boat – it being a one off called ‘Lionheart’ and owned by ex BHS boss Sir Philip Green. It was not and never had been ‘Marina of the ocean’ as Toto proclaimed. Named after his imaginary wife Marina, mother of his two youngest children and who is soon to give birth to twins. Marina is a cancer doctor and runs a clinic next to their mansion, where she apparently treats the poor for free. Odd, considering Italy has its own NHS system, just like the UK.
I was able to track the yacht on the AIS marine traffic site, and it certainly wasn’t where Toto was telling us it was.
Over time it became very easy for Peter and myself to denounce all of what was reported to us by the clan Franchitti. It’s like when Valentino Rossi dropped by and was photographed next to his helicopter. I used an internet site that was able to trace the origin of the tiny pixelated photograph. It actually turned out not to be a grainy image of Rossi landing at the Franchitti pad, but of SMP Ruth Davidson!
Toto was quite bitter about speedway media people, clearly forgetting it was he who initiated the contact in the first place! He didn’t have anything good at all to say about Speedway in the UK to be honest.
Whenever he got angry he wrote in CAPITALS and there were a lot of messages in CAPITALS re: BSPA, FIM, CORRUPTION, MOSSAD... Yes, Mossad, otherwise known as 'the world's most efficient killing machine'. Apparently sources close to him in Italy had warned him that British journalists (meaning Peter and myself) were trying to find out about him via the internet. He apparently has eight Mossad-trained fighters on his staff and they were only two hours away from London by plane. Well, I had better put the chain on the door when I go to bed at night.
Toto is very charitable though – on the 9th July he allegedly held a charity event at the San Marino race circuit. I say 'allegedly' because when I contacted the circuit they said there had been no charity event. The only event was a free test drive for cars, after the main 24-hour racing event. I tried to extradite the name of his charity from him, even a link, but being the introvert that he is, he declined to send one, though I was informed that €22 million was raised, most of it from the auction of four of his Ferraris. They had been purchased by two footballers and MotoGP riders; Max Biaggi and Andrea ‘Dovi’ Doviziso, who he claims is married to his daughter Bianca. (Dovi in real life is single). The money was being handed over to the nuns of Santa Maria’s holy order and to be used to build homes for the poor.
Did you know he is also a cousin of Dario Franchitti, the famous Scottish racing driver? I contacted Dario to check this out. I asked him to confirm a) whether he was related to Toto Frankitti/Franchitti and b) was he in Rimini the previous weekend, as alleged by Toto.
I received a prompt reply: "Hi Helen. Never heard of him and I was in Iowa over the weekend! Cheers, Dario."
That settled that then! As well as Dario and Marino Franchitti being cousins, another is allegedly Paul Di Resta (Williams F1 racing driver). I didn’t even bother contacting him.
The stories began to get more fantastical – he sent us a YouTube clip of the singer Gabby Taylor, claiming it was his daughter ‘Gabbzy’. I presume her father will have a few questions to ask about that! He said the band Black Mamba’s song ’Toto’ was a tribute to him. Peter messaged them via Facebook and they replied saying the song was a tribute to the ‘80’s band Toto. His stories were just getting silly.
So folks – do you still believe ‘World Elite Speedway’ is coming any time soon?
Next week - the investigation continues, and Toto doesn't like it.

[David]

Final article from Helen will be posted tomorrow Monday 4th September.

[David]

Toto and his clan continued to message me. There were quite a few 'family members' who sent communications from his messenger log in, so it was often difficult to tell who was who. Even ‘Auntie Rita’ in Rhode Island had access to it.
Peter Oakes and I didn’t receive the same messages all of the time, though I think it was mainly us two who received the constant daily updates, random messages, airplane pictures, claims about his many visitors including Keanu Reeves, the bodyguards with their guns, holidays, grandchildren kissing ponies etc.
My contact with Toto was minimal. As I mentioned last week when I queried about the charity function at San Marino I was told I would be given information after the event. It never came. When I asked again, I was ignored. In fact, it appeared the ‘WES’ clan didn’t like being asked anything, even though they were constantly sending us messages and updates.
My relationship with the clan Franchitti sadly broke down before we could break the story. It had actually been going downhill for some time. I was getting utterly fed up of the stolen images from various websites that he kept sending me (we have mountains of evidence of this), the messages from his family telling me what a wonderful man he was, how rich he was and how everyone loved him etc.
On 16th July, after a mention of all tracks being confirmed and paid for, I politely asked “Which tracks have been confirmed please?” My request was ignored and even when Neil MacFarlane asked them which Aussie tracks had been booked (as the CEO I would have assumed he would have already known?!) we were told: ‘WES will be racing at Phillip Island and so on around world MotoGP circuits. Already booked and paid for.’
Things really took a downturn when Toto and family decided to go to the snowy mountains of Cortina a few days later. Bianca - his alleged daughter who is apparently CEO of all his companies, hotels, aircraft and MotoGP - sent us a picture of a couple cavorting on a bed and said it was "Mom and Dad in family Lodge la Cortina, last Xmas. We didn’t see them much. See why. Don’t let Mom know or Dad. Photo, it came from in house CCTV. Just having fun xxxx"
Toto’s face was not visible, but he certainly looked no older than thirty, and quite surprising was that he had two legs! What happened to the wooden leg he loved telling people he had in the 1980s?
Did I really need to be reading this drivel every day? Wanting to get back on track of the whole purpose of why I was reading the banal stream of rubbish, I messaged back. “Do we really need to know?! I thought this thread was about WES?”
For my cheek to question his fantasy, I had a 24-hour ban slapped on me and I had a blissful day of a non-pinging phone. In the meantime, Toto/Bianca messaged Neil MacFarlane about my ‘behaviour’.
“British media they are scum of media. Not racing in UK anyway so no need to speak to them. I’m getting pestered from a female in UK wanting to know very private things in my life. She won’t get hold of me again. Things will happen to this female in way of police. She be brought to by our and European laws, and if you go to jail here you can be in jail for up to 18 months before standing trial.”
Really? I can be jailed for querying why someone is sending me pictures I haven't requested, particularly after the sender has admitted to having acquired them from private CCTV of their parents in bed?! I think the police would see it the other way around, Bianca dear.
Crikey, it wasn’t that long ago that I was being referred to as a lovely female journalist, who was going to write about ‘WES’ in the speedway press. Bianca even hinted I might land a job with World Elite Speedway.
Toto couldn’t feel angry with me for long though, and he was soon sending me messages again. I think he was getting worried as to why the British press had not yet announced ‘WES’ to the world.
Snippets from further messages received:
‘When I put my phone on this morning I had 68 messages from Polish, Swedish and Danish speedway’
‘personally, I will F**** BSPA SGB AND ALL THE REST’
‘This is for all speedway media in UK. Since last Thursday (British GP weekend) we ‘WES’ have had one of our own speaking to riders, even in pit lane. Speaking with riders at Cardiff airport this morning, before flying home. This morning, our man is now at a speedway meeting back home in his own country. Sharpen your pencils you’re about to write one of your last stories, you piece of lying scum. You were told few weeks ago never F*** with a multi-billionaire. Be in UK Wednesday. See you scum then. Bianca Franchitti (Morelli)’
Our relationship soon ended for good. On 26th July, I awoke to a stream of 12 messages and pictures of his make-believe family – ‘Gabbzy with €2000 bottle vino', 'Gizzi in her Ferrari', 'Bianca having a drink with Dovi', a plane, ' wine cellar.
I’d had enough - I messaged back, calling him a lunatic. Toto appeared to take the hint and has since left me alone. But I suspect it's not the end of the story, nor the last we'll hear about the 'World Elite Speedway' fantasy. Toto will find someone who hasn’t read our findings in the Speedway Star and start his story all over again.
Midway through the daily musings I was receiving, I got in touch with Australian Brett Saunders, who many of you may recall riding for Edinburgh from the early ‘80’s until the early 90’s; including the period when Toni Frankitti was promoter. He straight away told me that you couldn’t believe anything Toni said: “If it came out of his mouth, then it was most likely a lie. Where do I start? He told that much bullsh*t, it was funny! I was the first to encounter ‘Toni Plenty,’ as we all called him. It was really hard to have any conversation with him without some sort of sh*t coming out of his mouth. We all got used to it. I did have some times with him when he was good, no bull, like a mate. But then.... he just couldn't help himself.”