A dirt-track star who learned to excel on asphalt, Kenny Roberts and his Yamaha YZR500 beamed down in Europe in 1978 and changed the face of grand prix racing. At the 2009 MotoGP finale in Valencia, Spain, Texan Tech 3 Yamaha rider Colin Edwards coined an enduring epithet when he...

The day after the memorial service held for Nicky Hayden in Owensboro, Kentucky, this writer tracked down three-time 500cc World Champion Kenny Roberts, the man who, for all intents and purposes, established America as a motorcycle racing a global superpower"Nicky Hayden was a racer," reflected Roberts of the 2006 MotoGP...