Cycle News

VOL. 55 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 5, 2018 P115 its entirety battling cancer, going through god knows how many rounds of chemotherapy and other fun stuff like monthly lum- bar punctures. Aside from the ob- vious, endless love of my family, my fondest memory of that shit time was getting package after package of signed posters, shirts and hats from family friend and Australian racing legend, the late Warren Willing, who, at the time, was working with Wayne during his first 500cc World Champion- ship-winning season for Kenny Roberts' team. My hospital room was lined with posters of the number 2 Marlboro Yamaha and the number 19 250 Yamaha of John Kocinski, each with a little message scribbled onto it. I know now neither Rainey nor Kocinski knew who I was, it was Warren doing all the work, but it didn't matter. My room looked better than the others'. The following year, while I was in remission, I met Wayne at the 1991 Australian Grand Prix at Eastern Creek. My mother was organizing a charity event to help children with cancer and Wayne kindly donated one of his Shoei helmets from the previous season. He and I were in the Sydney Morning Herald together (pictured) holding the lid. World Champion and kid with cancer. It made a great story. We didn't win the auction for the helmet. But in a strange twist of events, the man who did win it decided to give it to my family when he was on his death bed, some 18 years later. It now sits on a bookshelf in my dad's office in Sydney. In 1993, just before Wayne was critically injured at the San Marino Grand Prix, dad and I were at Warren's house during the sum- mer break. I was an energetic little bugger by that stage, charging around Warren's stately property and getting into areas I probably shouldn't. Either wanting to slow me down or wanting to move some stuff, Warren called me to the garage and handed me a heavy blue bag. What was in there was mine, he said. I unzipped it and pulled out Wayne's Lucky Strike Yamaha leathers from the 1989 Brazil- ian Grand Prix. I was absolutely stunned. I'm still amazed Warren gave those to me. Those leath- ers are now on display at the Australian Motor Racing Museum in Bathurst, in a shoddy-looking cabinet I made for my Year 11 (17-years-old) woodworking high school class. I crossed paths with Wayne just one more time until a couple of years ago, when I met him again at Eastern Creek. The year was 1996, and it marked the only time he won a race as a team owner, when Loris Capirossi picked up the pieces of the infa- mous Doohan/Criville collision. And so, we come to the pres- ent day, at Sonoma's recent round of the MotoAmerica Cham- pionship. I was there to compile a story on the MotoAmerica Ju- nior Cup series and how difficult it has been for MotoAmerica to keep the racing fair and the in- vested parties happy, and I got to sit down with Wayne for a 45-min- ute chat in his motorhome. I don't get nervous interviewing people. I've been doing it for years and, as I say, they are just people. But having Wayne's full atten- tion, some 29 years after I chased him down at Phillip Island as a six-year-old, was a highlight of my journalistic life. What stands out the most is not the quotes he gave me on how the Junior Cup balancing was working out, or the friendly nature he gave off to just another guy with a voice recorder, it was the fact that behind this all was still the Wayne Rainey I ad- mired as a kid. He may not have competed since that fateful day in 1993, but he's still a hardcore rac- er at heart. He still has that glint in his eye only true champions have—you can tell he truly cares for the future of the sport and isn't just doing this MotoAmerica thing to stay occupied. American racing is in good hands with Mr. Rainey, now we just need the next champion to please stand up on the world stage. We will have a feature in Cycle News soon on Wayne's favorite racebikes. Some on the list may surprise you. CN

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