Cycle News Staff | November 22, 2020
Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
This Cycle News Archives edition is reprinted from issue #46, November 24, 2004. CN has hundreds of past Archives columns in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road -Editor.
Doing The Family Proud
By Scott Rousseau
April 18, 1999 did not exactly mark a coronation ceremony but rather a rite of passage on the way to that coronation for a member of American motorcycle racing’s royal family. That’s when, at 25 years old and in his debut ride aboard his new factory Suzuki, Kenny Roberts Jr. scored a dominating victory at the World Championship Road Racing Series-opening Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Until that time, Roberts had been, at best, an unknown quantity in Europe, having slogged around in the 250cc class before accepting a ride aboard his legendary father’s Modenas KR3 racers and making the move to the 500cc class in 1997. Right then, there were some who argued that he could not have gotten a 500 ride any other way. But after two years of growth in the class, “Junior” must have showed well enough that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree because Suzuki hired him as its man to go up against the dominant duo of Mick Doohan and Honda for the 1999 season.
Right from the start of the weekend, Doohan and Honda appeared to be on the ropes, struggling with traction, while another American, John Kocinski—whose promising return to the GP wars after winning the factory a World Superbike title now seemed to be in great peril due to lack of finances—proved he had the stuff by taking the pole. Roberts Jr. also showed that he was a player, posting the third-fastest time, just behind former 250cc World Champion Max Biaggi. Doohan’s seventh-fastest time meant that he would start on the second row for the GP, but the tough Australian could never be counted out.
Kocinski jumped into the lead as the field zipped off the grid for the start of the 21-lap race, with Honda’s Alex Criville and Roberts Jr. giving chase, while Doohan was mired in 11th place. Criville took the lead from Kocinski, but it was short-lived as Roberts Jr. wasted no time in making his bid for the lead. He moved past Kocinski and then Criville on lap three, and he immediately started to pull clear of the field.
“When I saw the gap was opening, I just concentrated on being smooth and doing what I knew I could do,” Roberts Jr. told Cycle News then. “I knew I could pull away from Criville, but thought somebody else, like Mick, might get past him and close up, so I wanted to get a cushion.”
Doohan never really came. Instead, Yamaha rider Carlos Checa came from seventh place to pick his way past the Hondas after Biaggi’s Yamaha gave up under his own intense riding and forced him out of the race. Checa moved into second on lap eight, and he stayed there until the finish.
But there was no catching Roberts Jr. On the last lap, he peered over his shoulder, only to find that there was no one in sight. Shaking his head in disbelief, as he crossed the finish line, he claimed his first career Grand Prix win, not his first 500cc win, but first win, period, by a whopping 4.279 seconds. It was the first for Suzuki since the German Grand Prix of 1995. It was the first time since that same race in Germany that a Honda had not finished first or second. It was the first win by a rider whose father had also won a 500cc GP since Alberto and Nello Paganani, and the first win by an American since Kevin Schwantz at Donington Park in 1994. It was a dream come true.
“I can still hardly believe it now,” Roberts Jr. told Cycle News after the event. “It has always been my ambition to be the best motorcycle racer in the world—and today I was.”
That dream repeated at round two of the series just a fortnight later, when Roberts claimed the pole and won again in a driving rain at the Twin-Ring Motegi Circuit in Motegi, Japan. He would go on to win two more times en route to a runner-up finish to Criville in the championship chase. A year later, though, he would fulfill the ultimate dream of winning the 500cc World Road Racing Championship, making for the first father/son pairing ever to accomplish such a feat.
Kenny Roberts, the 2000 World Champion, though the “Jr.” attached to his name is long gone. Instead, people refer to his father as “Senior,” proof enough that Little Kenny has earned his place. CN