At one point in the eighties, it was more like the Pilgrim Fathers but in reverse. All you had do was click your fingers and World Champions would arrive by the boat load across the Atlantic in Europe. Kenny Roberts started the migration in 1978 when he shook Grand Prix racing to its very core on and off the track. Three successive 500cc World title and an outspoken campaigner for riders’ safety and recognition made him the unmistakable President of the American Dream. Soon the likes of Freddie Spencer, the only rider to win both 250 and 500cc World titles in one season, four times 500cc World Champion Eddie Lawson for both Yamaha and Honda, three times World 500cc Champion Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz followed their President. At the start of the new decade Kenny Roberts Junior emulated his father by winning the 2000 500cc World title and six years later Nick Hayden’s success in the 2006 MotoGP™ World Championship was as popular throughout the World as it was back home in Kentucky, but that was that. Despite the considerable efforts of Ben Spies the World titles and then the Grand Prix wins dried up like summer in the Arizona desert.

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