Kenny Roberts
Kenny Roberts became the first American to win the 500cc world championship in 1978, then defended the title in 1979 and 1980, bringing a dirt-track riding style from the United States that permanently changed how the rest of the world's riders approached cornering a Grand Prix motorcycle.
Kenny Roberts won three consecutive AMA Grand National dirt-track championships in the United States before moving to Europe to contest the 500cc world championship in 1978, arriving as a near-unknown outsider to a paddock that had never seen an American seriously compete for the title.
He won that first European season outright, then defended the championship in 1979 and 1980, becoming the first rider — American or otherwise — to win three straight 500cc world titles since Giacomo Agostini's run in the previous decade. His riding style, developed on dirt ovals rather than European road circuits, introduced a more aggressive, slide-controlled cornering technique that reshaped how the rest of the field rode.
After retiring from racing in 1983, Roberts built and ran his own Grand Prix team for close to twenty years, at one stage fielding a fully in-house chassis design, and remained one of the sport's most influential and outspoken figures well into the MotoGP era.
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Roberts arrived in Europe having built his reputation racing on the American Motorcyclist Association's dirt-track circuit, where sliding the rear wheel through corners was standard technique. He adapted that style — including dragging a knee on the tarmac for feel and balance — to road racing, and within a few seasons it had become the default technique across the entire paddock.
Roberts didn't leave the sport after his riding career ended — he set up Team Roberts, which ran its own chassis (including a self-built three-cylinder machine, the Proton KR) in the 500cc and MotoGP world championships for close to two decades, one of the few genuinely independent constructor efforts of the era.
Kenny Roberts Jr. won the 500cc title in 2000, riding for Suzuki, making the Robertses one of the few father-son pairs in Grand Prix motorcycle racing history to both win the premier-class world championship.
Roberts was known as much for his outspoken, confrontational relationship with race organisers — he threatened to help set up a breakaway series in the early 1980s over rider pay and safety concerns — as for his riding, a combination that earned him the nickname and a reputation as one of the sport's genuine power players.
Roberts moved to Hana, on Maui's remote eastern coast, a striking contrast to both his working-class Californian upbringing and the European Grand Prix paddock where he spent most of his career.