Kenny Roberts at Assen in June 1978, halfway through his first 500cc season.. Photo: Koen Suyk / Anefo, Nationaal Archief (CC0)
Kenny Roberts cried when Yamaha told him the news. At the end of 1977 the company pulled out of American dirt track racing, the sport he loved and the one he had been champion of in 1973 and 1974. Yamaha's American arm offered him something else instead: a season in the 500cc World Championship.
Roberts did not want to go. He had never raced a 500cc Grand Prix bike, he knew few of the circuits, and by his own account he barely knew where Europe was. He went anyway. Twelve months later he was world champion, the first American to win the 500cc title and the first rider to do it in his rookie season.
Who Kenny Roberts was
Kenneth Leroy Roberts was born on 31 December 1951 in Modesto, California. He grew up a dirt tracker, racing on ovals of packed clay where riders slide the rear tyre through every turn. Yamaha's American team signed him at 19 and put him in the hands of Kel Carruthers, the former 250cc world champion, who became his mentor and crew chief.
Road racing was a sideline at first. Roberts raced on tarmac mainly to score points for the American Grand National Championship, which mixed dirt and road events. But he was quick to learn. In 1972, at Ontario Motor Speedway, he watched the Finnish world champion Jarno Saarinen hang off the side of his Yamaha with his knee out, and copied him.
The next year, at Dallas, his knees were touching the track, so he wrapped them in duct tape, the same trick dirt trackers used on their boots for indoor races on concrete. It was the start of the knee slider, now standard kit for every road racer. He made his Grand Prix debut in the 250cc Dutch TT in June 1974, then went back to dirt track for three more seasons.
1978: Kenny Roberts, the rookie world champion
Kenny Roberts arrived in Europe in 1978 as an outsider, even inside Yamaha. The factory's title hopes rested on Johnny Cecotto and Takazumi Katayama, who had two works YZR500s each. Roberts had a Yamaha USA contract, one bike, some spare parts and $100,000 to run his team, according to Motor Sport. He wore Yamaha USA's yellow and black instead of the factory's red and white, and he was the only rider in the class on Goodyear tyres.
Yamaha also entered him in the 250cc class and the Formula 750 championship, partly so he could learn the circuits. His start was rough: his 500 seized in the tropical heat of Venezuela, while Barry Sheene, the reigning champion, won.
Then Roberts won three races in a row at the Salzburgring, Mugello and Nogaro. His first win in Austria came by 16 seconds. Spa, the old 14-mile street circuit lined with stone walls, scared him badly, but he still finished ahead of Sheene, after Yamaha quietly fitted the engine from Cecotto's spare bike into his.
A concussion in Sweden cut his lead to three points, but he won a flooded, chaotic British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Carruthers's crew changed his wheels in two and a half minutes, against seven and a half for Sheene's. At the Nürburgring finale, Roberts finished third, two seconds ahead of Sheene, and took the title 110 points to 100.
His dirt-track style changed the class. Europeans had always steered with the front wheel, both wheels in line. Roberts slid the rear tyre on the throttle, the way he had on the ovals at home, and a generation copied him.
A broken back, a rebellion and three titles in a row
Kenny Roberts nearly did not make the 1979 season. Testing Yamaha's new 0W45 at the Fukuroi test track in Japan, he lost the front at around 90 mph and hit the guardrail. He broke his back, a foot and a collarbone, and ruptured his spleen. He missed the first round, came back at the Salzburgring in April, and won. He took the 1979 title by 24 points from Virginio Ferrari.
That summer he also took on the people who ran the sport. Riders were fed up with dangerous circuits, low prize money and organisers who ignored their complaints. At Spa in 1979, Roberts was one of the riders who refused to race on a freshly laid, slippery track. At Silverstone a month later, he and the journalist Barry Coleman announced a breakaway World Series with 40 of the top riders.
The World Series never ran a race. But it worked. The FIM raised Grand Prix prize money sharply for 1980, by 500% according to MotoGP.com, and safety began to be taken seriously. Roberts won his third straight title in 1980.
What Kenny Roberts left behind
Kenny Roberts never won a fourth title. From 1981 to 1983 Yamaha's new 500s struggled, and he lost the title to Marco Lucchinelli, Franco Uncini and finally Freddie Spencer. In 1983 he and Spencer won six races each, and Spencer took the title by two points. Roberts won the last race of his career, the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, then retired.
He then became a team owner. He started a 250cc team in 1984 with Wayne Rainey and Alan Carter, and later ran Rainey to three 500cc world titles with Yamaha. In 2000 his son, Kenny Roberts Jr, won the 500cc title for Suzuki, the only father and son to have both won the premier class. The FIM named Roberts a Grand Prix Legend the same year.
His real legacy is on every corner of every racetrack. The rear-wheel slide, the knee on the ground, riders who will speak up when a circuit is too dangerous: all of it goes back to a kid from Modesto who never wanted to leave home.
Not bad for a man who only went road racing for the points.
Quick answers
Who was the first American to win the 500cc world championship?
Kenny Roberts was the first American 500cc world champion. He won the title in 1978 on a Yamaha in his first full Grand Prix season, beating Barry Sheene by ten points, then won again in 1979 and 1980.
How many world titles did Kenny Roberts win?
Kenny Roberts won three 500cc world titles, in 1978, 1979 and 1980, all with Yamaha. He won 24 Grands Prix in total, plus three Daytona 200s and two AMA Grand National titles in 1973 and 1974.
Did Kenny Roberts invent knee sliders?
Kenny Roberts is credited with starting the knee slider. In 1973 he wrapped his knees in duct tape after they began touching the track at Dallas, a trick borrowed from indoor dirt track racing. Knee sliders are now standard on every road racing suit.
What was the World Series in motorcycle racing?
The World Series was a breakaway championship announced by Kenny Roberts and about 40 top riders in 1979, in protest at poor safety and low prize money. It never ran a race, but it pushed the FIM to raise prize money sharply for 1980.
