caption birth_place nationality birth_date image article_title name
kel carruthers on a 1969 stamp sydney , australia australian yes 3 january 1938 kel carruthers 1969 yemen stamp.jpg kel carruthers
 kel carruthers
kel carruthers

kelvin `` kel '' carruthers -lrb- born 3 january 1938 -rrb- is an australian former world champion grand prix motorcycle road racer .
he went on to become a successful race team manager , particularly in the us and europe with kenny roberts .
carruthers , as the son of a motorcycle shop owner , learned how to work on bikes from a young age , started riding at 10 , and entered his first race at 12 .
by the early 1960s he had won the australian 125 cc , 250 cc , 350 cc and 500 cc national championships .
in early 1966 , he moved to europe with his family to compete in uk and international short-circuit races , including grand prix world championship series riding a `` drixton aermacchi '' , and for early 1969 season riding bikes for the aermacchi factory .
halfway through the 1969 season , he was offered a ride with the benelli factory and won the isle of man 250 cc tt race , after which aermacchi released him from their contract to continue as a factory rider with benelli , winning the fim 250cc road racing world championship after a tight points battle with santiago herrero and kent andersson .
after the 1970 grand prix season , he accepted an offer from yamaha to race in america .
yamaha asked him to tutor a young american dirt track racer named kenny roberts .
in 1973 , carruthers became the manager of yamaha 's american racing team .
under carruther 's guidance , roberts would win the 1973 and 1974 grand national championship for yamaha .
when it became apparent that yamaha did n't have a bike able to compete with the dominant harley davidson dirt track team , they decided to send carruthers and roberts to europe to compete in the road racing world championships .
with carruthers tuning the bikes and offering guidance , roberts went on to win three consecutive world championships .
carruthers also managed eddie lawson to a 500cc world championship .
carruthers went on to work for several grand prix teams through to the 1995 season .
in 1996 , he took a job with the sea-doo watercraft factory racing team , helping them win several national and world titles .
he returned to motorcycling in 1998 running a yamaha satellite motocross team .
in 1985 , carruthers was inducted into the sport australia hall of fame .
he was inducted into the ama motorcycle hall of fame in 1999 .
