Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

ing about myself, about my own performance, and being consistent throughout the whole year." Continuing the reminiscences, he recalls the French GP of last year, when he crashed trying to win the race, seriously hampering if not even completely crippling his title challenge. "This year, there may be times when I'll think about collecting points rather than trying to win every race. It's all to do with making the best possible performance every weekend." Roberts' background hardly needs repeating in detail. Eldest son of triple World Champion Kenny Roberts, his earliest memories involve motorcycles and racetracks. He grew up in Modesto, California, with his mother, after his parents divorced, but spent plenty of time with Kenny, too. And that meant plenty of riding. He'd join such legends as Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey and Randy Mamola as they enjoyed oval-track practice runs at the ranch in Hickman, just outside Modesto, and last year he told me: "I'd work on preparing my bike to perfection - getting the bearings running free, and everything just right. And I'd really try to beat those guys. In myself I always believed that one day I'd be better than them." He chose the life of a professional racer in spite of, rather than because of, his father. "If people think I'm just doing it to try to live up to him - well, that's okay," he said. "They can have that opinion. It's true that if he hadn't road raced, then I probably wouldn't either. It was a good reason to get started." But while Roberts Sr. tried to discourage him, once he saw the kid's mind was made up, he did everything in his power to help his son, and to ensure that he went racing the right way - thinking about how to do it right rather than just charging in gung-ho. It's an approach that won Kenny his own three crowns, and which his son continues faithfully. The apprenticeship was a fast track, all the same, including a year of learning at the AMA 250cc Championship level followed by a secure place in GP racing, in a Marlboro-backed 250cc Yamaha team, run (as events transpired) by the newly injured and newly retired Wayne Rainey. Roberts ran into his own injury problems, missing most of the first season, but was back the next year, 1995, for another 250cc run, scoring a best of fourth place in Germany before moving up to the 500cc class, again with his father's team on Marlboro Yamahas, in 1996. He, once again, managed to ignore the jibes of those who scoffed at his outwardly easy route into GP racing, without having won a national race, let alone any championships. Instead he applied himself to riding, qualifying on the front row at Brno, where he also finished fourth. Then followed two years on his father's Modenas, where it was a great deal harder to get results, but where conversely he was able to hone and polish his skill and consistency somewhat out of the limelight. At the same time, he built up a close relationship with technical guru Warren Willing, the Australian former rider who moved with him to Suzuki last year, and who has been so important both to the rider and to the Suzuki team. Willing brought to both rider and motorcycle a relentless logic, giving Kenny the tools to make steady progress, and making sense of a Suzuki that had somehow lost its way. Roberts looks back at his three years in the 500cc class before joining Suzuki as a time when he rode well and consistently throughout, but for a number of other reasons not many people noticed. "I'm not doing anything different now than I did then," he says. He looks back on his first year with Suzuki as a sort of finishing school when, back in the limelight, he put all his previous lessons together and gained maturity to suit the fact that he'd dropped the "Junior" tag from his name. Winning the opening two rounds took him aback somewhat, however. "You could say we were surprised - but the amount of work we'd done in the winter, and on through the season - we deserved it." He pauses, thinking also about the year to come. "The trouble is, you never know when you've done enough." Thus when former mentor and team boss Rainey opines that the young Roberts is still perhaps not ready to win the title, because he doesn't have enough experience of being up at the front, he is happy to contradict him. "Wayne's probably right - at the beginning of last year," Roberts said. "But that changed. By the last third of the year, though we had a bit of bad luck in Australia and South Africa, I was a lot stronger." So much stronger that in fact he was challenging the by-now injured Criville again for the title, and might have run him a lot closer had his rear Michelin not failed catastrophically while miles in the lead of the Australian GP. Roberts is diplomatic, still declining to blame Michelin for that explosive moment when the tire shed a slab of rear tread, and for the fact that in South Africa Michelin's recommended dual-compound tire had unexpectedly left him so short of grip that he had to pit for a change. "We were trying to change so much at that time, with the switch to Ohlins suspension, that we were in an unknown area of how the tires would work over race distance. We learned a lot, and at this point we're a lot further forward with the bike than at the start of the season last year." He's confident that the Suzuki is on balance good enough to win the title, though he and Willing are still keen to find more horsepower. "There's places where we struggle on the track especially under hard braking or acceleration. That's where the Honda is much better. That's the way it is, and that's what we're working on right now, with different ignition and stuff to try and make the most of what we've got. The bike has improved a lot, and while you're never happy with it, because you're always looking for more improvement, and planning for the next thing, you can be content with it and with the progress. That's how I feel." Roberts remains unstinting in his praise of Suzuki, for - as he said last year - they found each other at a time when each was able to fill a need for the other. They needed a rider who could focus their efforts as well as attract sponsorship, while he needed a bike that was capable of winning races. "They are just fantastic people, and I expect to have a long relationship with them," he said. In fact, during the winter, he extended his contract with them. "They have an option to renew until the end of 2002," was the way he put it. Surely, I said, that also means you have an option to stay with them? "I guess so, but I don't need the contract," he said. "It's kind of like a pre-nuptial agreement in that way. It's only putting on paper what we all want to do anyway." In Doohan's absence, Roberts stepped straight into a senior role in racing last year, not only in terms of race performances (with the most front row qualifying positions and leading the most laps of anybody) but also in terms of leading a safety crusade, with particular reference to the slippery white lines that cost Doohan his career, and later caused a spate of crashes at the closing round in Argentina. Roberts bypassed riders' representative Franco Uncini to lead a delegation directly to see Dorna boss Ezpeleta, with the result of a new initiative to set standards for tracks ide paint. But he doesn't see himself as a crusader. "Safety is something I can think about while I'm racing - it doesn't distract me," he said. '"It's just stupid not to make it as safe as possible, and I have the view: Why not fix it so it's right." But nothing detracts from the single goal of lifting the title in 2000, and for a few years after that. Last year, Roberts had long-term girlfriend Rochelle Beery - a slight, pretty blonde from Modesto - with him for most of the season; but this year she is staying home to complete her studies. "That'll mean I want to get home when I can, but it doesn't make any difference. She stayed in the U.S. in 1997 and 1998, so I'm used to flying solo in the season." The racing is what matters, and Roberts is more than comfortable with being one of the favorites for the title. CN eye' e n e _ S • MARCH 15. 2000 29

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