‘King’ Kenny: MotoGP’s original and best independent-team champion

When Roberts rolled into Europe for the 1978 MotoGP world championship, not many people expected him to be crowned king of the world. He was still a bit of an asphalt novice, averaging about ten roadraces per year.

And but for an engineering decision by Yamaha, he might never have contested the world championships, because he wanted to stay in the US, trying to win back the Grand National crown he had won in 1973 and ’74.

“I never wanted to go to Europe. I thought Yamaha was going to build a dirt-track motor. I was young and naïve and I just thought everybody wanted to be a dirt tracker and be Grand National champion. I was floored when they said they were pulling out of dirt track. I actually cried.

“Then they totally dropped out of dirt track, end of 1977. That pissed me off big time. It just kept getting worse and worse because the Harleys kept getting better and better. Yamaha US wanted me to roadrace for them and ride a Harley in dirt track. I didn’t want to do that at all, I wanted to beat Harley. I wanted Yamaha to build a proper dirt-track bike, but they didn’t want to do it, so they said, ‘You can race the world championship’.”

On top of all that, Roberts had never even raced a 500 GP bike, he didn’t know most of the tracks (he had ridden a few in F750 events) and, hell, he hardly knew where Europe was.

“I didn’t know where any of these places were,” he says. “I remember somebody calls me in America and says I’ve got to be in Europe the next weekend. Kel says to me, ‘No, you’ve got to go to Japan’. I said, ‘What’s the difference?’. They were both ten hours from home, so they were the same to me.”

Roberts wasn’t even a full-factory Yamaha rider in 1978, he had a Yamaha USA contract. The company’s big hopes for title glory – against Suzuki’s RG500, which had won the 1976 and 1977 titles with Barry Sheene – were Johnny Cecotto and Takazumi Katayama.

The Venezuelan and Japanese aces each had two inline-four 0W35s plus full-factory support, while Roberts got one 0W35, some parts and $100,000 to run his show.

Cecotto and Katayama wore Yamaha factory colours – white and red – while Roberts wore Yamaha USA’s yellow, black and white. Why those colours? Because American fans said Yamaha two-strokes sounded like buzzing bees.

Roberts was also the only rider using Goodyear tyres, which had never even tried to chase a GP title. To further complicate matters, Yamaha US decided that he shouldn’t focus all his efforts on the 11-round 500 series – he should also contest 250 GPs at the same event and the ten-round F750 world championship, run at entirely different events.

This was like a 21st century racer going for the MotoGP, 250 and World Superbike titles all at once.

“We did the 750 because Yamaha liked doing 750s, I was used to the 750 and I could win 750 races, so that was a slam dunk. We took the 250 just to learn the racetracks because sometimes you only got 30 minutes practice per class.”

The start to Roberts’ historic 1978 season was manic: the Daytona 200, Venezuelan 500/250 GPs, Transatlantic series in Britain and Imola 200 F750 round on four consecutive weekends.

“I was used to that, because in America I raced 35 events a year. And back home it was dirt track bikes and half-mile bikes and short trackers and roadrace bikes, but over in Europe it was always pavement and usually clean, so for me it was easy.”

Roberts won Daytona on a TZ750 and won the Venezuelan 250 GP, but the race that really mattered was a disaster – his 0W35 seized in the tropical heat after he’d dragged his sweaty body from the 250 podium to the 500 grid. Reigning champ and title favourite Sheene won the opening round. Things weren’t looking good.

And they got worse when the GP circus arrived in Spain for round two at Jarama. In those days bike racing’s governors operated in mysterious ways, so when Roberts walked into the organisers’ office, he got a big shock.

“They didn’t want to give me a 500 start because I wasn’t on the grading list, because I didn’t have any points. Kel had to get me out of there because I was about ready to kill someone, I was ready to go home. I missed first practice, then they had a jury meeting and let me ride.”

In the race, Roberts left Sheene and the rest for dead.

“I was eight seconds in the lead and cruising, then the throttle stuck, so I ended up second, that really bummed me out.”

Fellow American Pat Hennen, Sheene’s Suzuki team-mate, won the race to lead the series, with Sheene second, Steve Baker third, Roberts some way back in fourth.

The next three races changed everything. Roberts blitzed Mugello, Nogaro and guardrail-lined Salzburgring to lead the points chase for the first time. Finally he was getting decent tyres from Goodyear. Until May he had been using over-the-counter rubber.

“When the boss of Goodyear heard that he went nuts and said, ‘If this kid loses the championship because of us I’m going to have somebody’s butt’. From then on experimental tyres started to happen.”

And as Roberts got up to speed, Sheene began to struggle.

“He was the guy I worried most about, but he was still using a treaded front tyre. In Venezuela he told me, ‘You’ve got to run a treaded front because racetracks are dirty sometimes, it’s just more comfortable’.

“I was thinking, this is bullshit, there’s no way he’s going to run a treaded front and keep up with me using a slick front. The first thing that came flying off his bike was the front tyre, he had to go to a slick, but he wasn’t used to it which put him at a disadvantage.”

Roberts got beaten into second by Cecotto at Assen, the championship halfway point, but still led on points. The following weekend he was in for another shock, his first-ever street circuit: Spa-Francorchamps.

The old, 14-mile Spa was probably the world’s most terrifying circuit – an insanely fast blast through sleepy little Ardennes villages: stone houses, stone walls, and rusting guardrail, averaging close to 140mph. So many riders had died at Spa over the decades that riders joked they could’ve used the numerous memorials around the circuit to make a fence.

Dutchman Wil Hartog won the race. The fastest lap was recorded by Swiss rider Michel Rougerie – an average of 136.3mph, on a damp track.

“Spa scared the shit out of me – the guardrails were real close, it was raining and there were puddles,” remembers Roberts, who suffered so many problems during practice that he didn’t even know his way around the deadly streets when the race started.

“On the first lap Hartog came past, hit a puddle, his feet flew off the ’pegs and he was gone. I was like, ‘Jesus, that guy’s going to kill himself!’. I was scared to death, didn’t know where I was going, couldn’t see nothing.

“I was racing with Sheene, thinking, this is so stupid! The only reason I beat him was because he was more scared than I was. One time I was off the racetrack and sideways up against a wall, doing 130. I got it straight, looked behind and Sheene’s eyes were that big.”

Remarkably Roberts finished second, just ahead of his great rival. The weekend also told him that Yamaha were starting to take his title challenge seriously. In practice they had allowed him to qualify on Cecotto’s spare 0W.

“My bike just wouldn’t run, so in last practice I still wasn’t qualified. I came into the pits and Yamaha’s racing manager ‘Mike’ Maekawa ripped the numbers off Johnny’s spare bike and stuck my numbers on it. I remember them pushing me off and I looked back to see Johnny pulling in. I thought, ‘Oh boy, this is going to be good’.

“After practice, Yamaha asked Johnny which of his bikes he wanted to race, then when everyone was in bed, my truck and the official Yamaha truck pulled out of the paddock and into the woods, took the engine out of Johnny’s spare and put it in my bike.”

Another good thing happened at Spa: Yamaha told Roberts he didn’t have to race the 250 anymore, so he could focus 100% on the 500.

Before the GPs headed north for their traditional Scandinavian tour of Sweden and Finland, Roberts headed southeast to the Hockenheim F750 race. He was still getting used to Europe and this was his first time in Germany.

“Wherever Kel went, I was in his draft, driving my motorhome with Patty, Chrissie and Kenny (his wife, daughter and son). When we arrived at Hockenheim it was dark and the only thing I knew about Germany was the war.

“At seven the next morning there was this screaming noise, ‘Achtung fahrerlager! Achtung fahrerlager!’. I said, ‘Oh fuck, we’re in the wrong goddam place and they’re going to shoot us’. I ran out the motorhome and I was beating on Kel’s door and he said, ‘That means attention paddock – now go back to bed’.”

Sweden next and Roberts very nearly threw it all away. Running short of practice time, he was in too much of a hurry testing a new Goodyear tyre and crashed, knocking himself out. He raced through a fog of concussion to seventh place, while Sheene won, reducing Roberts’ series lead to three points. Next time out at Imatra, another scary street circuit, both men DNFed. Only Silverstone and Nürburgring to go.

Roberts was delighted to be at Silverstone, a proper racetrack, and was a second faster than local hero Sheene in practice. He led the race too, until a downpour flooded the track. The event organisers, Britain’s ACU, refused to stop the race. Many riders crashed and eventually others rode into the pits to change tyres, although most GP bikes weren’t designed with rapid tyre changes in mind.

Sheene’s crew took seven and a half minutes to change wheels, Carruthers took just two and a half minutes.

“We had a quick-change front, because I had new tyres to test at every race and I only had one bike. I would pull into the pits every practice and it was wheels out – that’s what Kel and my mechanics Nobby [Clarke] and Trevor [Tilbury] did, they changed wheels.”

Silverstone was a shambles, the lap scorers lost count in the rainy confusion and took ages to announce the result: Roberts first, British privateer Steve Manship (who had started and stayed out on intermediates) second, Sheene third.

One race to go, Roberts eight points in front.

The Nürburgring was another 14-mile racetrack which would take some learning, so the American rookie put in the miles on open track days.

“I had an RD350 and an XS400. I didn’t like the two-stroke, the front end was real light, so I rode the four-stroke. I didn’t think the Nürburgring was dangerous, nothing like Spa. There were a few places where you could die, but there was so much to it you could never remember it good enough to push it 100%.”

All Roberts had to do was beat Sheene and he did just that, riding a detuned, over-jetted 0W into third place behind Suzuki’s Virginio Ferrari and Cecotto and two seconds ahead of the Briton. Roberts had made history, though it took a while to sink in.

“I was just a racer – took my helmet, took my kids, went racing. What I had done only started settling in when I got home – I got a ten-minute standing ovation at the Yamaha dealer convention, it was a big deal. I was the first American 500 world champion – that was special to me.

“Everyone said it couldn’t be done, even Sheene said, ‘He’s a good rider but the first year he’s not going to be a threat, he’s got to learn all the racetracks and all that stuff’, so it was a big achievement for me to do all the tracks, take Goodyear, who’d never been there, and win it.”

Roberts also finished second in the 1978 F750 series, despite several DNFs.

He returned to Europe in 1979 and 1980 – now a full-factory rider, but still wearing Yamaha USA colours – to retain the 500 title on Yamaha’s piston-ported inline fours. 

His 1979 success was just as remarkable as his ’78 victory, because he very nearly died during pre-season testing. He was testing the new 0W45 inline-four at Yamaha’s Fukuroi test track in Japan when he lost the front through a fast turn and slammed into the guardrail at 90mph. 

The accident broke his back, a foot and a collarbone and ruptured his spleen. “I remember laying there, going ‘I’m toast, I’m toast’. My back was numb and I knew I’d hurt something in my stomach.”  

Roberts was rushed to a shack of a hospital. 

“For three days I thought I was going to die. They wouldn’t give me pain shots because it’d slow down the healing. Then they said, ‘We’re going to operate’. I said, ‘No way, I’m going back to America’. They said, ‘You won’t make it’. Well then, I’m dead because from what I was looking at they didn’t have good medical facilities. 

“I remember them putting the gas mask on me to put me out and I thought this is it, I’m not waking up. I was very surprised when I did wake up.”  

Roberts got home a month later, missed the season-opening Venezuelan GP in March and returned at round two, April’s Austrian GP at Salzburgring. He won the race and went on to easily beat Ferrari and Sheene to the world title. 

In 1981, 1982 and 1983 he struggled with below-par disc-valve square fours and V4s, so he was beaten in turn by Marco Lucchinelli, Franco Uncini [both riding for the independent Gallina Suzuki outfit) and Honda’s first premier-class champion Freddie Spencer.  

Roberts retired at the end of 1983 and started his own 250 team the following year with up-and-coming youngsters Wayne Rainey and Alan Carter.