Eddie Lawson (born March 11, 1958) is an American former four-time Grand Prix motorcycle racing World Champion. His record of not crashing and consistently finishing in the points earned him the nickname "Steady Eddie". Biography Born in Upland, California, 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' teammate 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. In 1985, he won the prestigious Imola 200 pre-season race. 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 Rothmans Honda as teammate to his own archrival, Australia's 1987 World Champion Wayne Gardner. By switching teams, Lawson also fulfilled his desire to work with Erv Kanemoto. After Gardner crashed and broke his leg during the third round at Laguna Seca, Lawson went on to win the 1989 title for Honda, becoming the first rider to win back-to-back championships on machines from different manufacturers before Valentino Rossi did so in 2004 (moved from Honda to Yamaha). Furthermore, he was the fourth satellite rider to win the premier class world title before Valentino Rossi did so in 2001, 12 years later. Lawson then switched to Cagiva in 1991 and the following year he achieved his last victory (that was also the first win for Cagiva after 10 years of racing). In so doing, he joined a very restricted number of great riders who managed to win races in top class with three different manufacturers, the others being Mike Hailwood (British Norton, MV Agusta, Honda), Randy Mamola (Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha) and Loris Capirossi (Yamaha, Honda,