F
ormer World Champion
Kenny Roberts is known for
many things—being America's
first 500cc Grand Prix road-
racing champion, an AMA Grand
National Champion, three-time
Daytona 200 winner and owner
of the rare Grand Slam in AMA
racing. One thing Roberts is
considerably less known for is for
being the man who brought on
the ruination of Keith Mashburn's
racing career.
Mashburn was Yamaha's up-
and-coming young AMA Grand
National rider in the early 1970s.
As a full-time Yamaha employee,
Mashburn tested prototype street
bikes by day and competed
on prototype race bikes on the
weekends. It was a good life for
the fast kid from Simi Valley, Cali-
fornia, but it all ended abruptly
when an even younger and inar-
guably faster kid from Modesto,
California—named Kenny Rob-
erts—came on the scene.
When Roberts moved to
the expert ranks in 1972, and
started winning right off the bat,
CN
III ARCHIVES
P122
Roberts Ruined This
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
