Some smooth-talking bankers and politicians get Phillip Island in a car where they quickly garrote a big chunk of the soul of the sport of Grand Prix racing and there's not a peep from the current riders in MotoGP other than a gutless "hmmm ... let's wait and see".

MotoGP has never needed another King Kenny Roberts more than it does now — someone who would hand the trophies back, shoot down the corporate balloons, form his own world championship if necessary, and refuse to let bankers, nepotism babies and politicians define what Grand Prix racing is supposed to be.

Would King Kenny Roberts have stood on the podium yesterday in Adelaide like Jack Miller did? Yes, he would have. Only Roberts would have waited until every television camera was locked on him and the bankers, Adelaide politicians and their starched-collar entourage were basking in their moment. And then he would have said, plainly and without apology, that this was the most misguided idea he had heard in years — and he would have then announced that he would not race a street circuit in Australia, and that any rider willing to trade the integrity of the sport for an oil-stained racing surface ought to look hard at who he was really racing for and why. Then he would have pushed his way through the starched collars and suits and walked off to find a bar — leaving the microphones behind and the sport to decide whether it still remembered what it was supposed to be.

MotoGP needs a hero right now. Does it have one? We are going to find out.

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