Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126405
that way. I've jumped off worse than that before, excep t l'd always escaped the hospital treatment. I really don't feel at this time that t here'll be any problems. How did your family adapt to traveling all over Europe last yea r in a motorhome, and are you going to do the same thing this year? Well, it depends on . how fast the back is going to heal. 1t was fa irly easy last yea r because we're all used to traveling around in t he motorhome. The stores are sim ilar to he re - you pick ou t what you want and you buy it. So, it wasn 't really a big problem. Well. a lot of times we bought things we could n't eat, or things we didn't rea lly want. But that's th e way it goes. W e had a lot of help from the privateers' wives and girlfriends. Also from Carruthers and others who had been over there before. I still hav e the motorhome there. It 's in Amsterdam waiting for us . If I go back for Austria and feel I'm ready to race, I'll take everybody and we'll sta y a month". If not . I'll just go over myself. Our youngest child is fou r months old , but the one that would go is almost three years old. Did you think Dale Singleton would, as he puts it, "slop all the hogs in the 200" this year? I thought he'd be in contention this year. Skip had such a good bike that I thought he'd have control of the race because of the horsepower difference. Skip is such a good rider , but I think all three of the Americans (Aksla nd , Baldwin and Singleton) were capable of winning it . But Skip had the advantage. But when a guy has that much going for him the only thing that can get in the way is a failure . And you keep thinking about failures at tha t time. 'Cause that's the only thing that can keep you from winning. And when you think about it that-much - you think, 'who's going to be there?' I figured Dale would be there. A conversation with King Kenny Kenny Roberts talks about his injuries, racing in Europe, Barry Sheene, Superbikes, 'an d the future of road racing in America By Jack Mangus Kenneth Lee Roberts. King Kenny. 'OOcc World Champion road racer. Two-t ime AMA Grand National Champion. 1978 Daytona .200 winner. Kenny Roberts is beyond any shadow of a doubt the racer of the Seventies . All the greats of motorcycle racing can be compared to KR , but only the living legend , Carroll R estoeber, and the late Joe Petrali are talked about in the same way King Kenny is. Class C (flat track, TT, and road racing) fans tallt about Jo e Leonard, Dick Mann, Bart Mark el, Gary Nixon, and Jay Springsteen in a near reverent manner. Moto cross fans do likewise WI~hJoel Robert, Roger Detloster and Bob Hannah. You'll constantly hear praise heaped on th e likes of Mike Hailwood, England's Lampkin family,John Swnees, Barry Briggs, Giacomo Agostinl~ Earl Bowlby, etc., but in the Seventies the magic name is Kenny Roberts. Roberts is recuperatingfrom his recent practice session get -offinJapan. We called him at his northern CalrJomia home last . week and discussed several different subjects. We thought you 'd W,e to listen in. Be our guest. How is your recuperation from your accident in Japan coming along? 18 The only thing I'm waiting on is the compression of the twelfth vertebra to .correct itself. When I had the accident the only thing that was wrong was 1 paralyzed my insides on impact and ruptured my spleen. I also had com- pression of the eleventh and twelfth vertebrae and severely sprained my left ankle. They thought the ankle was fractured .and they put it in a cast, not because of the fracture , but because of . the severe sprain . I don't have any pain and I'm walking around, shooting pool, and I have a baclt brace on, There's no pain as long as I wear the brace. As soon as the veterbra heals itself I'll be ready to start exer cising and get in shape for racing. You were testing the new Yamaha 500 when you jumped off. Was Johnny Cccotto riding a new 500 in the recent V~czuclan GP? Yes he was, but with not too good results. Johnny's blew an oil sea l and he had to d rop ou t . He wasn 't in contention for the lea d , but he was running in the top five when the seal blew . It'll get sorted out. Does sitting around drive you up a wall? Yeah. Of course the three weeks in th e hosp ital , well, 1 d idn't eat for two and a half weeks and I lost about twelve pounds of muscle. I got tired of talking on the phone. But now I'm starting to get up and around a lot , and I'm getting , impatient to start working. It won 't be too long before I'm out doing something. . Do you feci the accident will de-tune you when you return to racing, hopefully at the April ZZ Austrian GP? I don't think ' there'll be· any probiem Barry Sheene says that the bad words between you and him started when you "bad mouthed" Steve Baker. Care to co~ent? That was one of those things where '1 said I real1y didn't understand what was wrong with Stevie's bike, because I thought Stevie could have been doing , a lot better than he d id against Sheene. Sheene took it that I meant that he was a lot better than Sheene. And of course the guy who wrote it pu t it that way also . Do you think that the relationship between you and Shccne this year will be the normal one between two guys trying to beat each other at the track? Yes. I thi nk they (the British press ) really came down hard on him . They were looking for something to come down hard on him with. Of course, 'when they print everything you say as gospel - well, then you tend to think they're down on you . They sort of print what they see. and a lot of times unjust was.said and printed. and it's son of taught everyone a lesson . If you're going to flash your mouth off like that - and they write it - that's what is go ing to come out. I think this year it's going to be much tighter to get him to spring off like that, and say something stupid he'll regret. Deep inside, how do you react .to the lack of attention given you by the non-motorcycling p r ess here in America? Things like Sports Illustra ted and TV failing to even mention that you were a World Champion. Do things like that get you down inside? Yes, a little. But I think it stems from the motorcycle prell also. I don't think "thci 'a ie"doing the -job they should be