We caught up with Kenny Roberts at FoS 2013 to talk bikes, modern racing and what he really thought about Barry Sheen SUBSCRIBE to Goodwood right here - bit.ly/GoodwoodTV
Being a Brit I used to follow Sheene around back in the 70’s his races were always epic to watch. His two world championships wins were fantastic and he should’ve had a couple more. Great to hear King Kenny talk so affectionately about him, even though they didn’t get on it shows real class and respect for a fellow racer and world champion. RIP Barry Sheene.
I stopped Barry in Geelong, Vic and asked him if he'd sign his autograph for me, problem was he was shopping with his family and I had no pen or paper. I asked him would he wait while I ran into the shopping center to buy a note book and pen, he said 'of course but be quick' as he was with his family. So I ran in & out as fast as I could, he signed it for me and it's sitting on my mantle to this very day. What a legend he was.
was working at earls court with bt on press day at motor show. he was on the Suzuki stand. stepped aside as he thought i wanted a pic of the vitara. had to tell him it was him i wanted photo of. solid guy.
Met Barry at Oulton Park as I was support crew for a rider. Years later when I moved to Gatwick, I was living near his home where he would take off in his helicopter. Great guy, as is Kenny, true giants of the sport!
Driving home from work last year in rush hour traffic at slow speeds, a BMW R1100 passed me. On the back of his helmet was Barry Sheene’s name which I thought was very cool. When I caught back up to him, I gave him the 🤙 sign just to affirm his tribute. Sheene is a legend!
Given what they were fighting for on the track they couldn't really be the best of friends, just like Lauda and Hunt, Senna and Mansell and now, Hamilton and Verstappen. When the races are done and the cars or bikes rolled away for the last time though, there will always be the respect you have for a formidable opponent. Just as Ali and Frasier put their differences aside in later years, I'm sure if Sheene was still with us he'd be sharing a drink and a joke about the old days with Roberts.
What a wonderful statement about the difference between today and yesterdays bikes "We looked out of control when we fell off today they don't look out of control and they fall off "
I had the great good fortune to share a paddock and a couple of beers with Barry at Croft Autodrome in 1971. Couple of mates were racing a 1000 Vincent outfit, I used to spanner it and drove the van, we were parked next to Barry and his dad Franko in their old battered transit van. Barry was racing his ex works 125 twin Suzuki, it was a national meeting-he won of course.
Never heard Kenny say so much in one chat. He was a bit like Randy used to be. They were both very understated in their racing days. In fact Randy would sit in the corner so you wouldn't know he was there. Not any more! I totally agree with what Kenny said in that fabulous interview.
me and my brother grew up at race tracks in the 70's, we met all the greats from the transatlantic trophy races, kenny was always so nice and gave us autographs, barry as well, when he wasn't smoking or giving his crazy cute wife a snog, yep good memories!
I raced some TT & flatt rack and watched Kenny's Flat track racing in Calif and the Midwest...what a racer !..He is telling us something here that is very foretelling of future racing and bike development. "Today's riders look in control..when they fall off." That means that the bikes themselves, are going to be, if not now, the controlling factor in how close to the edge a rider can come and not go off .Edge here, means cornering and acceleration.
They had a TZR750 Kenny Roberts flat track replica this year at Goodwood.....I think so many Europeans are unaware of this aspect of Kenny's career & flat track racing in general...amazing to watch & is a whole lot ffaster than European speedway...
I used to travel around Mallory Park and Oulton Park to watch these two in my early biking days. I remember the two of them slagging each other over the tannoy before the start, Kenny finishing with "when the green flag drops, the bullshit stops". Loved it all, what great days.
Good job Kenny!! Tell 'em where it's at! All my bikes were 2 strokes!! Yamahas,Kawi's ,Suzuki's,and the like! There's nothing like a RG 500 comin' on the pipe and SCREAMIN' down the straightaway at Laguna Seca!! Lots of FUN!
Ditto...first bike a RD400, raced a RZ350, still have it, engine is still full tilt race, but the rest of it has been restored to near original....looking. It's quite fun to smoke guys on modern bikes who have no idea whats under the hood...so to speak.
Yes Barry was a sad loss to motorsport. He made quite the name for himself when he moved to Australia and started commentating motor racing, both two and four wheeled, he bought such knowledge and wit to it. The relationship between Barry and Kenny always reminded me of that between Peter Brock and Dick Johnson in Australia. Fierce rivals but with an undercurrent of mutual respect.
Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene 2 icons. I used to think i was Barry Sheene when I was 16 with my little yellow Fizzy but i wasn't quite as handsome :-(
Roberts clearly still respects Sheene. There is some other material out there concerning Sheene's attempt to get start money raised and Roberts supporting him.
Of Course Ken Roberts loves Barry Sheene . Greatest Rival . Two of the Greatest Riders of all time . Didn't just Ride the things . Active in development .
what a true british champion the famous NO 7 AND WITHOUT kenny roberts we would,nt have had those spectacular finishes i have been a despatch rider since 1979( first rode 1976) as a young bike i went all over the country not for the racing just to watch barry sheene and the racing BARRY INSPIRED ME SO MUCH that i ended up completing 2 MILLION MILES ON A MOTORCYCLE MY RIDER NUMBER was always 27 as there was only ever one NO 7 r i p barry sheene from stevethebreeze MANCHESTER,S 2 MILLION MILE MOTORCYCLE COURIER BARRY SHEENE NO 7
Brings back the memories your story! My first bike was a KH250 in 1979, in six months I was an in house courier for a London warehousing and storage company. They sponsored me into 250 production racing on an LC. I just bought a new YPVS350 and they sent me to the John Smiths Brewery in Tadcaster, on an urgent job! Lucky it had 600 miles on the clock and i did it in just under 4 hours! Don't know if i clocked quite as many miles as yourself, but i got a lot of memories from the rides! in those days I earned my money riding, tinkered in the evening in the garage and went to ride outs, and weekends were spent racing or same as before! Great days, ride safe and keep the wind in your face mate!
Saw Kenny first at Mallory ...track dried during the race wearing a white strip on his intermediate rear. He won by a mile and we knew he was special. Barry was too and a great lad.Great days I miss it all .
Awe, they were mate's, on the track fierce rivals, behind the seen good buds. Barry was just the most likable guy in racing. I always wonder if the Americans that raced 500cc Gp ever "enjoyed" the perks of fame over there that Sheen and Hunt did. I hope so for their sake, otherwise that would be an opportunity lost.
@@sharpsdoublerifle1439 No, Roberts was always a stick in the mud, being a kid in America during the 70's I can say this, Kenny Roberts was like the kid next door racing a motorcycle, but Barry Sheene was like James Bond racing a motorcycle.
@Todd M Todd your village called. They want their idiot back. Yank. Not so good when resorting to childish comments eh? The honest truth was that Roberts was the better rider, in terms of technical ability. However, Sheene had a big heart, bigger balls and occupied a level of hero status that Roberts could never hope to aspire to...James Bond. Celebrate both Todd - without each other neither would have been as good.
I read an anecdote about Barry : Olivers Mount (Scarborough) it was raining heavy and a miserable day, but they said every time Sheen past them he popped the front wheel up.
@@darrenjpeters That's funny, I definitely noticed the blond with the jigglers😁 But not Alain Prost, and I am an F1 fan of that era👍 But lets be honest, he isn't a pretty man😁
We saw Kenny at Ontario motor speedway in the 70s Kenny won by half a mile. We still have a set of drinking glasses with king kenny on them.what a race
Prefer the 4 strokes myself, both the original 4 stroke era and motogp era over the 2 strokes. Heard old honda and nortons ect. sound incredible and when i got to meet caparossi and they fired up bayliss Ducati, was incredible, mini earthquake machine. The 2 strokes I've heard sound good but nowhere near as brutal as some 4 strokes or as much of an orchestra almost like the old 6 pot hondas. Impressive machines but i side on 4 strokes.
He's an asshole, but only if you piss him off or he's in a bad mood. He's completely fearless so he didn't care if you were ten times his size, he'd come at you. His brother Ricky was pretty much monster size so he had something to back up whatever he did.
Roberts is a pretty nice guy. Met him in the paddock at Laguna Seca in 1983 when he and Eddie were riding the 680cc two-strokers. Was able to both chat for a bit and he signed a photo of he and I that I still keep from the previous year. Class act.
@ Harvey Mushman - It depends how you tune them! After all a LOT of good trials bikes were 2 strokes. I had a tuned 350LC that came in REALLY strong @ 7.5K rpm. I could live with that but even in 1st gear as soon as the revs dropped to 3K rpm it stalled like the ignition had been switched off ! I changed the stainless reed valve petals to glass fibre ones for long term engine protection & then fitted a "boost bottle"/ Helmholtz resonator (which cleaned up the carburation & gave 10% better fuel consumption ). But more importantly the 2 mods stopped the low speed stall ( I could run top gear down to 1.8K rpm holding it down on the brakes - the engine didn't like it but I was curious - I then had to drop 4 gears to get it to respond to the throttle ! ) As for coming on the pipe viciously that was gone. I could hear the gases resonate @ 5.6K & the power curve was then a LOT smoother & more user friendly :)
@@jimlyon7276 True enough but if you wanted every last drop of power then they tended to be a bit binary, they were either "on" or "off", certainly before the likes of the power valve system. I liked that about them, it made smaller bikes exciting but it wouldn't work for big ones ... can you imagine a modern 750 two stroke tuned that way???!!!! OMG
@@tonyb9735 - It's not so bad on a tuned road bike if you know when it comes on the pipe, but as I said when the cost on my tuned Yam 350LC was it stalled @ 3k as if the ignition was switched off that just became a pain, Coincidentally my 2 mods ( glass fibre reed petals & boost bottle ) solved that & also gave me a MUCH more user friendly power curve, once I got used to it I preferred it FAR much more ! :)
Those 2 were gladiators , their riralry was like Ali and Fraziers , so intense and captivating ! I wonder how they'd compare to riders like Marquez and Rossi . I kbow its often pointles to compare the best f r om different eras but i can t help but wonder , like Kenny Roberts said the bikes of his era were nowhere near as refined as the bikes of today . Its stands to reason , like comparing the fastest few cars at Bathurst in the from the late 70s to cars o f today , chalk and cheese
Oh god, you don't even know. I knew Kenny's brother and occasionally we'd go to Kenny's home in Oakdale ca. I remember being in the kitchen one evening when Kenny was making pizza from scratch. We were watching Star Wars on pirate VHS tape and Kenny said something or another about that tape costing him over 1,000 bucks. We thought he was kidding, turned out he wasn't. o_0
Carl Skaggs I always grow up trying to watch is races one of the best motorcycle riders in the world I think he crashed twice in MotoGP ! This guys really good on those bikes amazing racing and amazing man and not a dry personality . I’ll bet he’s got some wild ass stories to tell.
That was a nice piece of of honestly from Kenny ,great video. Just a small observation towards the end of the video, a beautiful girl walks by with four guys in tow! 😋😜
Really couldn’t stand Kenny Roberts back in the day. I was a Sheene fan and it was tribal, my friend had the Kenny leathers, helmet and matching RD400 and for him it was Roberts all the way. My mates and I went to see the utterly fantastic Transatlantic races. Those two boys always gave world-class performances. We were so lucky to witness it. I’m glad Roberts defied the odds and lived through it all. Barry didn’t and I think the motorsport world is the poorer for it. Between them they got the sport to pay decently rather than as a circus side-show. They knew it is an entertainment industry as well as a competitive sport, they brought in the paying public and the whole World on TV. As for the intense rivalry, well I reckon Sheene is up there with the tyre warmers on that RG500 waiting.
