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Kenny Roberts Sr.

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For the past couple years at the Americas GP, Alpinestars has brought out a limited edition boot to celebrate the riders that are in the Italian brand’s family.

The first year was with Marc Marquez, and for the 2019 edition, we see Alpinestars paying tribute to Kenny Roberts Sr.

The Godfather of American road racing, Roberts sees his famous yellow, black, and white livery recreated for the racing  boot, complete with the silhouette of an eagle. A replica signature is also featured on the boot.

Come to Carmel, they said. It’ll be warm, they said. Well, maybe not so much. Last weekend’s Quail Motorcycle Gathering was a chilly affair with cloudy skies, blustery winds, and temperatures in the 50s.

The lines for ice cream were non-existent, while the line for the Espresso cart was 50 people deep. Though the weather wasn’t perfect, the event itself was awfully close.

As always, the Quail offered a great collection of vintage and custom motorcycles. This year’s show celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Norton Commando.

The marque was well represented with a large variety of Nortons on hand and also included a replica of the Norton display at the 1967 Earls Court Motorcycle Show in London.

Aside from on-track action that comes during your typical Goodwood Festival of Speed (FoS), it might be worth stopping by the world’s most famous driveway to see Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi on the same piece of tarmac once again.

That’s right, Lord March has invited both Rossi and Stoner to his mansion to ride a few bikes and to drive a few cars. Rossi will be participating on behalf of Yamaha Motor, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary of business; meanwhile Casey Stoner will ride a prototype Honda MotoGP bike, likely the Honda RC213V-S consumer halo bike.

The MotoGP rivals are part of a larger group of GP Champions who will be attending the FoS, the list including John Surtees, Giacomo Agostini, Kenny Roberts, and Freddie Spencer.

The 2006 Yamaha YZF-R1 LE livery, which was a yellow, black, and white homage to Kenny Roberts Sr., is perhaps the greatest livery ever to adorn an R1, straight from the Yamaha factory.

Whether you are a loyal subject of King Kenny, or you just enjoy the fetching, yet simple, racing design, the Roberts livery is a treasure to see in any form — but especially so at speed.

Giving us a glimpse as to what the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 would look like with such a limited edition paint scheme, Oberdan Bezzi has once again whet our appetite ahead of a weekend full of riding.

And for you Giacomo Agostini fans, there is something special waiting for you after the jump as well. Enjoy!

When AMA dirt tracker Kenny Roberts arrived on the European 500 Grand Prix scene in 1978, road racing would never be the same. Not only did Roberts win the 500 GP title in his rookie year, as Marc Marquez did in 2013, but he also brought with him a radically new style derived from dirt track in the USA.

Robert’s style was of course, immediately copied by his rivals, much like Marquez’s dynamic style is being imitated today. KR, and the Americans that followed him, embraced dirt track lines, sacrificing entry speed, picking the bike up early and launching out of the corner, rear wheel spinning and handlebars crossed up.

Putting the bike sideways with the rear wheel 100mm out of line, steering with the rear wheel was the new way to ride. Dirt trackers then pretty much dominated 500 Grand Prix for nearly two decades between Americans: Roberts, Spencer, Lawson, Rainey, Schwantz and the Aussies: Gardner and Doohan.

Talking to MotoGP.com this weekend at the Indianapolis GP, Kenny Roberts Sr. admitted to the website that he is working on putting together a new GP program for the 2014 or 2015 season — though was quick to caution against the project’s full-fruition.

“We’re working on it. And we’re working on something quite big – it’s going to happen or it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to be almost there. When we come back we’ll come back in a big way! And if you don’t see me, you’ll know we didn’t get it done,” said King Kenny.

There’s something about America. Especially if you’re name is Marc Marquez. The Repsol Honda Rookie led both sessions on the opening day of the Indianapolis Grand Prix (the last one? Too early to say) going quickest both in the tricky morning, when there was very little grip, and in the afternoon, once the bikes had laid down some rubber. Marquez has won both US rounds so far, dominating at Austin and winning comfortably at Laguna Seca, and he has picked up at Indy where he left off before the summer break.

Unsurprisingly, the parallels with Kenny Roberts are starting to be made, the only other rider to become world champion as a rookie. Those parallels are unfair yet perfectly valid: both men exceeded expectations and raised the bar, shaking up the established order with a radical new riding style. Yet Roberts and Marquez also came from totally different backgrounds: Kenny Roberts had grown up racing dirt track, switched to road racing and then came to Europe to win his the championship at the first attempt, on tracks he had never seen before.

It’s hard to out-do King Kenny, the godfather of Ameircan road racing, but Valentino Rossi is certainly making a go at it. For those that haven’t been to Roberts’ ranch out in Modesto, California, the three-time GP Champion and AMA Grand Slam winner has a very lovely flat-track course in his backyard, where he teaches the rich, and coaches the fast.

Well, the idea must have struck a chord with nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi, as The Doctor has built his own race course outside of his home town of Tavullia, Italy. Rossi’s proving ground isn’t just some ordinary oval though, and instead is an undulating circuit that can be configured a multitude of ways.

Playing host to fellow Dainese-sponsored riders Guy Martin (of Isle of Man TT road racing fame) and Thomas Chareyre (the current Supermoto World Champion), Rossi and friends spent a day riding together while the cameras were rolling. This is how the super-rich and super-fast spend their weekends. It’s a good life.

Cycle News is reporting that Kenny Roberts Sr., the Godfather of American Road Racing, is leaving the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, after getting wind that Dave Despain and Dick Mann had made similar gestures regarding their status with the Hall of Fame. The blowout comes after Derek “Nobby” Clark was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame, only to have his name withdrawn from the organization’s list of distinguished members. The reason given by the AMA was that there was an error in the balloting process for submitting Clark’s name to the voting ballot, though some outside the AMA say the reason Clark was removed was because of his criminal record, or for other reasons.

Working on the race bikes of motorcycling greats like Kenny Roberts Sr., Giacomo Agostini, and Mike Hailwood, the support for Clark has been resounding in the old-guard of American motorcycling, which is where the resignations from Despain and Mann come into play. This of course has created a cascade effect, where now King Kenny has also voiced his desire to leave the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Others are sure to follow suit with King Kenny after the delicious quote he gave Cycle News: “I just emailed Chris Carter and asked him where I send my shit back. I don’t get it. If Dick Mann is resigning from the Hall of Fame, I don’t need to be in it. It’s bad that it has to come to this, but what are you going to do. If Nobby doesn’t deserve to be in there, nobody does.”

Like everything with the AMA, the issue with inducting Clark into the Hall of Fame is a convoluted one at best, as it shows an interesting dynamic to the old-boy network that is alive and well within the American motorcycle community. On the issue at hand, Roadracing World published an interesting play-by-play of what happened behind the scenes regarding Nobby’s induction, balloting, and removal, which included some quotes from Superbikeplanet‘s Dean Adams.

Adams, who sits on the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame’s Roadrace Committee, has his own interesting dissection of what transpired, which includes his own analysis of the movings and shakings inside the AMA and the AMA Hall of Fame. It paints a disturbing picture of either wanton or willful negligence as to how the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame operates, as well as how the inner-cliques of the industry work with and against each other.

If you haven’t already read David Emmett’s excellent analysis of Valentino Rossi’s options in MotoGP, you owe it to your MotoGP-loving self to sit down and digest David’s thorough game theory walk-through on the nine-time World Champion’s prospects in the premier class.

David’s analysis is spot-on, and approaches the impending 2012 mega silly season from a logical point-of-view (for those who aren’t keeping track, virtually every contract in MotoGP is up for renewal this year). I don’t disagree with any point David has penned, but I wanted to add one line-item to his analysis: some discussion about Rossi’s post-motorcycle racing career, and how it influences The Doctor’s choices this coming contract renewal period.

Never say never, but few are expecting Valentino Rossi to hang up his spurs at the end of the 2012 MotoGP Championship. Going out on a career low-point is certainly not the Italian’s style, especially as it casts a particularly dark shadow on a career that has enjoyed the bright-light superlative of “Greatest of All Time” from some of motorcycling’s most knowledgeable sources.

Hoping to cast that phrase with an underlined typeface, and not with an interrogatory question mark, there is sufficient evidence to believe that Rossi will want to end his career in a way that will leave no doubt about the nine-time World Champion’s abilities. The question of course is how those final seasons will play out, and who they will be with.