Ben Spies ( /ˈbɛn ˈspiːz/; born July 11, 1984 in Memphis, Tennessee), also known as "Elbowz" due to his riding style where his elbows protrude outward, is a professional motorcycle road racer who turned pro in 2000. He won the AMA Superbike Championship for Yoshimura Suzuki in 2006, and successfully defended it in 2007 and 2008.

For 2009 he raced in the Superbike World Championship series for the Yamaha Italia team; winning the championship in his rookie year by six points over rival Noriyuki Haga. He started racing on Yamaha YSR50cc bikes with the Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association in Texas when he was 8 years old. Spies currently lives in Italy.

Spies started riding motorcycles at the age of five and racing with CMRA at the age of eight in 1993. In 1994, he won a YSR championship followed by an 80cc championship the following season. At age 12, he started riding 125 Grand Prix bikes, traveling to WERA races outside of Texas. At age 14, Spies started riding 600s, winning more championships. He signed with Suzuki in 2000 at the age of 15, and began his AMA career.

Eddie Lawson (born (1958-03-11)March 11, 1958 in Upland, California) is a former four-time Grand Prix motorcycle racing World Champion. His penchant for not crashing & consistently finishing in the points earned him the nickname "Steady Eddie".

Lawson began his motorcycle racing career in the Southern California dirt track circuit. When it became increasingly difficult to find machinery able to compete with the dominant Harley Davidsons, he switched his attention to road racing. In 1979, Lawson finished the season second behind Freddie Spencer in the AMA 250cc road racing National Championship. Afterwards, he was offered a ride with the Kawasaki Superbike team and won the AMA Superbike Series in 1981 and 1982. He also won the AMA 250cc road racing National Championship in 1980 and 1981 for Kawasaki.

Lawson accepted an offer from Yamaha to contest the 500cc World Championship as Kenny Roberts' team-mate for the 1983 season. Lawson spent the 1983 season learning the ropes of the Grand Prix circuit. In 1984, Lawson began winning regularly and won the 1984 world championship. It would mark the first of four world titles Lawson would go on to win. After winning two more titles for Yamaha in 1986 and 1988, Lawson shocked the racing world by announcing he would be leaving Yamaha to sign with their arch-rivals Honda fulfilling his desire to work with Erv Kanemoto. He went on to win the 1989 title for Honda, becoming the first rider to win back-to-back championships on machines from different manufacturers.

Colin Edwards II (born February 27, 1974 in Houston, Texas) nicknamed the Texas Tornado is an American professional motorcycle racer. He is a two time World Superbike champion and has competed in MotoGP since 2003, now riding for the NGM Mobile Forward Racing team in the 2012 season.

At the age of three, his Australian father, Colin Edwards Sr. (an amateur motorcycle racer himself), introduced him to a minibike, and Edwards entered his first motocross race at the age of four. Over the next ten years, Edwards became one of the top-ranked junior motocross competitors in the USA, winning dozens of races in the 50cc to 80cc categories in local, regional and national events.

In 1988 at the age of 14, Edwards stopped competing in motocross races, having become distracted by the normal demands of being a teenager. However in 1990, Edwards and his father attended a motorcycle road race event in north Texas, and this inspired him to attempt road racing.

In 1991 Edwards began competing in amateur road-racing events locally, but rapidly progressed to national events. He was undefeated in every amateur event he entered that year, and won numerous national amateur titles. His performance was sufficiently impressive for him to be offered a sponsored ride with South West Motorsports, and Edwards turned professional just before the commencement of the 1992 season.

Nicholas "Nicky" Patrick Hayden (born July 30, 1981 in Owensboro, Kentucky), nicknamed The Kentucky Kid, is an American professional motorcycle racer, who won the MotoGP World Championship in 2006.

As a youth, racing others twice his age in CMRA, Hayden would often start the race from the back of the starting grid while a family or crew member held his bike upright because he could not touch the ground. Later, at age 17, he was racing factory Honda RC45 superbikes while still in high school. In 1999, he won the AMA Supersport championship on board a privateer Honda. In 2001, his first full season as an AMA superbike racer, he came within 40 points of winning the championship, finishing behind only champion Mat Mladin and runner-up Eric Bostrom. The 2002 season, however, would see Hayden answering the bell: he won the Daytona 200 on a Honda Superbike en route to becoming the youngest ever AMA Superbike Champion, defeating reigning treble champion Mat Mladin, among others. He also entered the World Superbike round at Laguna Seca, making a solid 4th in the first race before colliding with Noriyuki Haga in race two.

Mathew "Mat" Mladin (born 10 March 1972, in Camden, New South Wales) is a retired Australian professional motorcycle racer who last raced for Yoshimura Suzuki in the AMA Superbike series. He won the title seven times (no other rider has won more than three), and holds series records for wins (75, breaking Miguel Duhamel's previous record of 27), poles (50), wins in a season (11) and poles in a season (10).

Born in Camden, a suburb of Sydney, Mladin began his professional racing career in 1992. He won the Australian Superbike Championship that year, and made his debut in the 500cc class the following year. A plane crash in 1995 nearly cost him his foot, but he returned in time to finish second in the Australian Superbike championship.

Mladin joined the AMA Superbike series in 1996, riding for Yoshimura Suzuki, and finished fourth overall. He switched to Fast By Ferracci Ducati the following year and finished third in the championship before returning to Suzuki for 1998 where he again finished third. He finally broke through to win the 1999 championship. Remaining with Suzuki as of 2007, he went on to take the title in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2005, with a second-place finish behind Ben Spies in 2006 (despite winning the final 5 races, after making some riding style changes to cope with his young team-mate ). Mladin also finished runner up in the Championship to Spies again in 2007, losing by one point.