By Dean Adams
Three-time world champion and the man behind Team Roberts, Kenny Roberts Sr, has sold his California ranch and closed his world renown training facility.
Roberts and his family lived on the ranch property since the early 1970s. Roberts has lived all over the world but always called the ranch his home. Until their deaths his parents, Buster and Alice, also lived on the property.
What began as an informal way for his riders to tune their racing skills grew into The Kenny Roberts Training Ranch. In busier days it had two locations, the ranch in California and also a facility in Spain. Roberts was still training GP riders as of last winter, and local riders used the facility on a near daily basis.
Amazing riders from the likes of Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson, Rich Oliver, Kenny Roberts Junior, Jorge Lorenzo and others trained at the facility. Now in his mid 60s Roberts remains very fast on a motorcycle and his advice is still sought after from the highest levels.
Roberts also built a beautiful Team Roberts/Kenny Roberts museum on the property. To show his appreciation for America’s military he held the True American Heroes dinner every year inside the museum which thru an auction donated large amounts of money to the Welcome Home Heroes and the Cpl. Michael D. Anderson Jr. Memorial Foundation.
Roberts has not spent much of 2017 in California. The property has been sold, a building will be built on the former track and Roberts is moving the museum to a new location out of state.
