Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127407
eINTERVIEW ~ W C orld hampion WayneRainey ~ By Michael Scott Photos by Paul Carruthers 16 ayne Rainey is preparing a place Cor himself among th e greats. With quiet but intense dedication, he has claimed a second successive World Championship title against th e fiercest of opposition. For a second successive year, he did so with a nearperfect race record . . . tying it up with one race to spare, after fini shing just once off the rostrum (tire trouble), no crashes, no non-finishes, and only one mistake. . That came at Assen , when p lagued by the memory of being ou tbraked for the fl a g b y Kevin Schwantz in Germa ny - he ran too Cast into the final ch ica ne , lett in g Schwantz through to win. Even then, he recovered to fin ish second , dropp ing only th ree points. H is tireless p rofessionalism and well-rounded approach gave him th e lion 's share of winning - six of the first 14 races, from such formida ble riders as old riva l Schwantz (five wins) and early ti tie leader Michael Doohan (the other thr ee). And in th e process he not only broke the eig ht-year cha in wh ereby Yamaha and Honda alternate the world title, but al so co nfou nded those know-ails who suggested his hunger m ight hav e been assuaged by victory in 1990. " Indeed, the notion that made som e sen se at the sta rt of th e year now seems laughable. Ra in ey's si ngle-minded dedication did not waver, and th e effor ts of his tomato-red-clad Team Marlboro Roberts backing squad (the largest and most professional team in racing) ha ve been as steadfast as ever. Rainey's image is that of Mr. Nice Guy, or (in really cliche- bo und circl es) even Mr. Perfect. The 30-year-o ld Californian, born of a racing family, does have a Jive-and- let-live philosophy. One of racing's top earners, he lives in a mid-range motorho rne at the track and this year bought (with Kenny Roberts ) a house in Sitges, Spain, to use between races . He an d his blonde wife Shae ar e the ep itom e of decent manners, and a lifes tyle with n o os tenta tious disp lay of wealth. He doesn't brag, he doesn't complain, he doesn 't th ro w public temper tantrums, and he has a q uiet sense of humor that clearl y helps to keep his feet o n the grou nd. In fact, especially during the season, wh en hi s focus is acute, he comes across as somewha t bland - hi s only quirk being a total inability to see second place as an ything but a humiliating failure. " It 's all to do with focus. The inten sity and po wer of his personality only becom e plain to see on a bike, or in the deep-seated fire in hi s eyes when he has just climbed off it. For on the YZR Yamaha he is magnificent balancing risk-taking and caution to produce a style that is simultaneously aggressive and safe. In practical term s, it mad e him fast enough in 1991 to resist the dogged consistency of Doohan , and consistent enough to outrank the erratic brilliance of Schwan tz. A matter of balancing the ingredients, of coming up wi th the combinatio n. T his is no accident - but a racin g philosophy that pervad es th e whole Marlboro-Roberts team, and indeed the Yamaha racing department. The basic YZR is acknow ledged as being the most well-rounded of GP bikes excelli ng in no on e area, but cornpe- . ten t in all. T he bike makes an idea l for " Rain ey' s m et h odical foil brinkmanship. I recall listen in g to Rainey wh en W On top of the world, still he'd first started 500cc G P racing in 1988, fresh from winning th e AMA Nationa l Superbike Championship. His a p proac h was rigo ro u s. H e'd identified the most crucia l element of ri di ng style was learnin g to slide and scrub the Iront, He kn ew how to do it from the big and clumsy superbikes, a lways loose a t both ends - but delib erately pushin g the front of a low, ligh t, purpose-built GP bi ke with mor e power and much better brakes a n d hand ling m eant runnin g far deeper and harder into the corners, into a zone where co urage and com mitment must be ma tched by skill. H e acco m p lis he d the ta sk w ith cha rac teristic determ in at ion , and just kept on finding new th in gs to learn. Rain ey won a GP that first yearoC1988, challe ng ed for the titl e in 1989, won it in 1990, won it again in 1991. Some kind of a pa ttern here, perhaps. In raci ng , ho wever, there are always other influe nces. Some peo ple call them gre mli ns. Usually these are mechanical. Bu t T eam Roberts has a formidable technical bulwa"rk: two top tech nica l men - Warren Will ing and Mik e Sinclair - 'in permanent attendance; dyno man Bud Aksla nd on hand or o n call; plu s th e cons tan t wired-in attendance of com p uter engineer Tom O'Kane. Few gr emlins have the audacity to poke th eir heads into thei r pi t. They hav e to be in trod uced - and the greatest source of th em this year was the Dunlop tires, which th e team had switched back to after a sing le victor ious year on Mich elin s. At the start ofthe year, with th e tires flying to pieces and otherwise misbehaving, Rainey said: " I'm still having the same Dunlop p roblems I had in 1989." Then the Ang lo-Japa nese ti re firm pulled themselves together, put on a most im pressive spurt in design and quali ty co ntrol, and turn ed the equation upside down. And at Le Mans, Rainey ackno wledged the crucial ro le pl ayed "by Dunlop's turnaro und.iwithout which th e cha mp io nship would have been lost. The tir es had outstripped Mich elin. It hadn 't seemed possible. " T he yea r's go ne as good as I expected it to go," he said - as fin etuned a com ment as you might like. " I kn ew it wou ld be tough. My o n ly doubt was abou t tires. " In the first th ree races, everyone was just sorting every thing out to see wh at