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/128206
The Re-Education Of Kurtis Roberts Kur'~ b • Hayden, Roberts was smoking his rear tire like a Cohiba, the accumulated abuse causing the tread of the tire to come off the carcass on the back straight. He paddle-wheeled back to the pits for a tire change and went on to finish sixth. When the race finished this year, all three of the rear tires he'd used looked fine, better than they had after his extended run during the December Dunlop Daytona tire test. That was three months ago. Not long after that his father gave him an ultimatum: Dedicate yourself to racing, change your riding style, or prepare for a life of frustration. Kurtis took the talk to heart, seeking an unlikely ally in Freddie Spencer, his dad's nemesis from 1983. The transformation has been startling. "He's just a different rider," his proud father said at Daytona. "He er"C's The youngest of the Roberts clan is on a roll has, throttle on, rear wheel sliding, hell bent on the finish line. "If you see Kenny [Roberts], tell him he has to slow Kurtis down. He's going to hurt himself." The warning came from the late Randy Renfrow at Mid-Ohio back in 1998, when Kurtis and his Erion Honda RS250 were bouncing off the curbs in the 250cc GP class. When it was mentioned to Kenny a few weeks later, he replied, "I've told him a thousand times. He doesn't listen." It would take five years, but he's finally listening. And not just to his father, who painted a stark future, but also to his father's last great rival. Kurtis Roberts won a thrilling Pro Honda Oils Supers port race against the deepest field of 600cc riders ever to race in Daytona. Part of it was gearing - he and crew chief Dave McGrath outsmarted the others - but most of it was pure Kurtis, knowing where and when to be on the final lap, and having the confidence to do it. The win was in great contrast to last year's last-lap chicane bumble which many feel cost him, or any other Honda rider, a shot at the win. More impressive was his run to third in the Daytona 200 this year. Last year Roberts took himself out of the 200 with injudicious throttle application. At times chasing and leading eventual race winner Nicky STORY AND PHOTO BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS 7""'here will always be the name, first '---' and foremost, the last name Roberts, the one associated with greatness, the one usually preceded by three-time 500cc World Champion Kenny or 2000 500cc World Champion Kenny. Along with the name comes expectations that go beyond racing a motorcycle, let alone a Superbike and not very successfully, in America. It means there must be another step, another level, a greater ambition. Ambition without direction leads you nowhere, and that's where Kurtis Roberts was headed. Kurtis Roberts has never been short on talent. It comes with the lineage; it comes with the hours and days and years of riding with the best riders in the world on the famous spread in Hickman. The son of the King and brother of Junior, 24-yearold Kurtis is a 600cc Supersport and Formula Xtreme Champion in his own right. But the move to Superbike has proved daunting: an impressive debut and rookie year in 2001, followed by a wholesale collapse in 2002. Consistency and discipline have been in short supply. There has always been a wild streak in Kurtis Roberts; that too comes with the family name. The Kennys have tamed it, but Kurtis never truly did, riding like he always 40 MARCH 26, 2003' cue I .. nevws rides the minibike now dIfferent than he has in his whole life. That's just because he woke up one day and said, 'I've got to ride differently.' I told him that all along, but until you wake up and go, 'Shit, why am I doing that?' nothing changes." "Basically I want to win on a motorcycle, and whatever allows me or helps me to do that I'm going to take advantage of," Kurtis said after winning the Supersport race. "And so I was not against it at all. I was completely open and excited about the whole opportunity." Unlike his father and brother, Kenny Junior, Kurtis' career has never successfully gone beyond the borders of the U.S.A. In 1997, he had a disastrous run in the 250cc World Championship aboard an uncompeti· tive Aprilia RS250. He desperately wants out of the AMA series to head overseas, and soon. The stumbling block is results. The 2002 season was forgettable, start to finish - a full-scale regression that caused Honda to reconsider how much he was worth to the team. It began with the rear tire failure at Daytona. Roberts said that neither he nor Dunlop can say exactly why the tire failed. "It was just the loads I put on the tire are different than the loads other guys put on a tire," he said. Honda was so upset over the failure that it demanded an explanation, going so far as to do its own independent analysis of the tire. "Dunlop and Honda did an exhaustive study of that tire," Dunlop's road race manager Jim Allen said. "Honda Japan ultimately told us the tire was as designed." The next race, at California Speedway, would end Roberts' title hopes. A highside during a qualifying session on a cold day caused tissue and muscle damage in his left knee. Roberts put the blame on a bad qualifying tire. "Dunlop makes great qualifying tires, but unfortunately, like any tire, you get a bad one, and the thing is, when you get a bad one on a qualifier, you don't have a chance because you're going for it," Roberts said. Again, Dunlop's Allen disputes Roberts' explanation. "On that day, the qualifiers weren't working that well," he said. "He's the only one who had that problem. It didn't have very good grip, but none of them did. It [the qualifier] didn't have an impact on lap times that other ones did." The Fontana injuries put Roberts out for nine races, five meetings. He returned, still injured, at Brainerd International Raceway where he carded a fifth. Then came another strange crash, this one into Yamaha's Jamie Hacking in turn 10 at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca. Of the Laguna crash, Roberts said, "Obviously something I was doing at that point wasn't exactly correct or at all. We overlaid it with telemetry with Nicky's stuff, and there was no difference in speed or throttle opening, but yeah, I got caught out. Obviously, I was doing something wrong." The season ended in flames, literally - Roberts' RC-51 catching fire after a front-end washout in the season finale at Virginia International Raceway. His best finish on the season was a pair of fourths, at VIR and Mid-Ohio; his final resting place, 21st in the championship. "The reason I'm doing this is because there's never been a day when I haven't wanted to go faster on a motorcycle," Roberts said. "There's not a day that I go, 'I've reached my potential.' I will look at anything in this world that anyone will show me that will make me a better motorcycle racer, and I'm not against any· thing like what I did with Freddie, and I look forward to things like that." Given his father's rivalry with Spencer, Honda was initially reluctant to suggest a collaboration. That hurdle cleared, Roberts was ready to work. He'd seen the good Spencer had done with Nicky Hayden and wanted in. "I'm not Freddie Spencer and never will be. I'm not Kenny Roberts," Kurtis said with humility. "What makes me go around a track is a little