King Kenny’s first sponsor

Abrams recalls, “Kenny started off racing for me originally. A guy named Jim Doyle, a Pan-am pilot, and Kenny went toyamaha and said, ‘Would you sponsor Kenny Roberts?’the first thing they said was ‘Who is going to build the bike?’ And they drew a blank. Jim Doyle was from around my area, and I was a Yamaha dealer, soyamaha said, ‘Go talk to Ray Abrams, if he’ll build the bike we’ll sponsor him.’ Because we were already well into racing.” Abrams still has the original Doyle & Roberts Montessa fuel tank from Kenny Roberts’ first flat tracker. “So that is how I got Kenny, when he was a novice still. He rode for me in a Junior year and the first part of his Expert year, and thenyamaha decided they were going to have their own factory team, and that’s when Kel Carruthers got involved.”