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/128361
Roberts Back to Erion Kurtis Roberts will return to Erion Racing for 2005. V urtis Roberts will give up the MotoGP !'battles after one dismal year to re-join the Erion Honda team, which he left at the end of 2003 to race in the AMA Superbike Championship and the Daytona 200 Formula Xtreme race. "I'm back where I was before I tried to help the Proton team," Roberts said from Colorado last week, naming his father's MotoGP team. "The bike's better now, the new bike, and hopefully I'll have my whole crew back from when I won the double championship. That was the good part of the deal because we're all really comfortable with each other. It's all back in Kevin's [Erion] shop and it's going to be good." Roberts had his greatest success with the Erion team. He won the 2000 Supersport and Formula Xtreme Championships and the 1999 Xtreme title. The 2003 season ended with Roberts winning two of the final three Superbike races. Roberts plans to ride the Honda CBR IOOORR Superbike for the first time during tests next month at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California. The Erion team will have to play catch up to be ready. American Honda no longer receives works bikes from Honda Racing Corporation in Japan, and neither will Erion. Instead, he'll have to develop and build his own superbike in a relatively short amount of time. Erion had been in discussions with Roberts for some time, though he wasn't his first choice. That would be Ben Bostrom, but Bostrom turned down the same deal offered to Roberts in order race for the UK-based Renegade Honda team in the World Superbike Championship. Bostrom was to travel to Italy early this week to look for an apartment in Italy where the Renegade team is going to relocate to. line to make up his mind. He made the call when crashes and a design fiaw caused the Roberts had an acrimonious parting with his with five minutes to spare. Ben Bostrom was gas tank to catch fire twice. Once the season in the mix to the end, cailing 45 minutes beyond Kurtis' deadline to confirm that he was moving to World Superbike. The signing came too late for Roberts to ride during the Daytona tire test. His first seat time on the new bike will be at a Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca test. February IS-16. started, the results were dismal. Part of the problem was tires. The Dunlops had neither management company, Racers, late in the season. The deal represents a reversal of fortune for both Erion and Roberts. For Erion, it keeps the team in the Superbike, class where they've had success with both Roberts, in 2003, and Jake Zemke, last year. Both finished their seasons third in points. For Roberts. it's a return to competitiveness after the most dismal year of his professional career. Roberts had his best season in running short, Roberts was given a drop 2003, winning two of the final three races. In 2004, it all went south. Roberts scored a single point - at the French GP in Le Mans - while campaigning his father's Proton KR990 V-five in the MotoGP World Championship. The season started off well in dead 5 p.m. PST Tuesday, January 4, dead- preseason testing, then quickly turned sour Erion expected an answer from Roberts by New Year's Eve, and said as late as Sunday afternoon, January 2, that Roberts had yet to give him an answer. With time "I haven't been in the most honest of sit- the traction, nor longevity for the demands uations I feel with my management compa- of the Roberts V-five. "Running last and next to last probably isn't going to turn anybody on," Roberts Sr. said at the season-ending Valencia GP when asked about the prospects of securing a 200S sponsor for the team. ':o\nd when you ask what the problems are with the bike, they just say 'no grip, no grip, no grip.' So we're in a very difficult position." Roberts' rookie MotoGP season effec- ny," Roberts said at Valencia. "As far as I knew, we signed a two-year [deal], but all tively ended with a wrist injury in round nine at Brno in the Czech Republic. A comeback at the final race at Valencia was thwarted by the wrist problems. His final finish of the year, a 19th, came in Brazil. That was followed by DNF's in Germany and Great Britain, then the crash in Brno that kept him out the rest of the year. In the end, he missed the final nine races of the season. On top of his on-track problems, Kurtis I've seen is my contracts in handwriting." Kenny Roberts Sr. recently told Cycle News that he was having difficulty securing sponsorship for the 2005 season. Without a ride on his father's team, Kurtis' options were becoming increasingly limited. "We're looking for money," Roberts Sr. said recently. "We're looking for sponsorship. It's just too difficult to guess right now [if they will be racing in 200S]. At this moment, we're not there. When Proton bought MV and Cagiva, that took all the money. That certainly didn't help us. The KTM is a very good engine. We finally have a combination to put out there that works and we don't have a sponsor." XII R Ice Speedway Kicks Off testimony to our and the racers' commitment to the series. The European racers arrived Sweden's Kenny Olsson, the defending XIIR Ice Speedway Champion, cruised to victory in the first round of the 200S AMNFIM XIIR Olsson led from the start, with Barlow breathing down his neck. Little, Meldrum and Fafard battled it out for the remaining podium ulous night's action." series at Mid America Center in Council position in the six-lap main event. Bluffs, Iowa, on December 30. Olsson came from the inside of the front row to head England's Anthony Barlow and Scotland's Kevin Little for the top spot on the podium. Scotland's David Meldrum finished fourth. Canada's Nick Fafard suffered mechanical trouble on the line that ultimately dropped him to fifth place. Barlow, who is also the XIIR promoter, said that he was pleased with his night's racing. "It's great to have the series under way for 2005," Barlow said. "There have been many hours of preparation this year to improve on last year. With the full backing from the AMA and also FIM, the world governing body, we are pushing forward for the future. Tonight is 10 JANUARY 19, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS International just 36 hours before tonight and put on a fabXIIR moved onto the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio, January 7-8, where Barlow went on to score his first win of the season in front of 3000 fans. Riding through the pain of three broken bones in his left foot, Barlow pushed himself to the limit to defeat Olsson and Fafard in the main Final. (left to right) little, Olsson and Barlow. Henny Ray Abrams/Paul Carruthers