Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

. . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - : - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ";IN. . V W Wayne Rainey IE ';" : . TER .. ~ . - '. ' .. : ' Photo by Gold & Goose ayne Rainey has made the difficult transition from being the most dominant road racer of his era to a team owner all in the span of six months. The thr eetime World Champion didn't pl an on returning to the race track so quickly after his career-ending accident last September. In fact, he planned on us in g 1995 as a year to fully ad just to life in a wheelchair. Then came Team Marlboro Rainey. So far th is team-owner thing hasn't been easy for the likeable Californian . With his rid er, Kenny Roberts [r. , still s tr ug glin g to recover from a broken arm, Rainey has been adjusting to life as a team owner w ith fill-in riders Jimmy Filice and Toshihiko Honma. " We received the follow ing interview wi th Rainey from Marlboro's press services. What are your fi rs t imp re ssions o f team ownership and management? It's interesting, but I'm still a racer. It's like I still put my helmet on every time everybody goes out on the race trac k and I still think like a rider more th an anything else, because that 's what I am . I d id n ' t plan on coming back this year. I was going to take over in '95, bu t I needed some thing to d o, so I stepped " in to run the team with assistance from Ma rlboro Team Roberts. I work pretty close with the riders, and as far as runni ng the team go es , we work closely with Team Roberts. Being a rid er I've got a certain way I approach racing - I p rett y much finetuned everything I did to go GP racing. Now I'm seeing how other riders do it, and it's a lot differe nt, so I can say little things to these guys whic h can make a big difference. I can say things to help them out, beca use I've alr eady experienced it all. As far as being a team manager goes, I'm not busting in there shouting orders, I'm jus t watching an d suggesting things " when I think they need to be suggested. Oth er w ise I p retty much let them do their own thing. I want to get the team to work like the team I used to ride for. You nee d a team tha t gels, and my team didn't gel right aw ay. You have to find people and put them in the right spots, and tha t's my job. Since your return to racing, you must have been through some very frustrating times. As far as frustration goes, I'm no t that frustrated because I can watch (Mick) Doohan and (Kevin) Schwantz and I can see what I used to look like. In fact, I don't pay much attention to what's go ing on"in the 500 class, or what's going on in my team at the moment, because it' s still all new to me. I'm stil l trying to see exactly what I have to do, b ecause I've never had to do this before. As far as missing racing goes, sure I miss riding bikes tremendously; I miss a 0\ lot of the things I 'used to do, but I still ..... know I did everything the way I wanted cor) and I accomplished everything I want..... ed . I have no regrets, other than that I ~ wanted to win too bad, but that was jus t ;:i how focused I had to be. Those guys out - . there know I'd be racing with them, and I know I'd be racing with them. What are your plans for Kenny Roberts 1Q ~ ~ -g, 18 .' ,: ," . Jr. when he finally starts his first full Grand Prix season? I'm not really sure where Junior is a t w ith his riding, because I haven't"seen him ride this year. When he was doing all his pre-season testing I was just getting out of rehab, so I ha ven't worked with him at all. First of all, from what I can see now, we're going to let him do things his own way and just fine-tu ne his approach to racing. How he prepares for a race is where I can really help . He's obviously going to need a bike tha t runs good and is set up well - I want him to think a lot about the balance of the bike. We've had pl enty eno ugh problem s so far, but hopefully the team and the bike have bottomed out now, so we can make a d va nc es . My strong p o int is going to be being pa tient. Juni or's jumping into the middle of a hotly contested Gr and Prix ch ampi onsh ip , riding against riders who are used to ra cing ea ch o ther. They're used to the feeling of being in a Grand Prix; Junior's yet to really experience this . You've got to remember - this is a 20-year-old ki d who's reall y im patient, he wa nts to be over here racing, but he can't because his arm is broken. We've ju st got to make sure he uses his head, remembers who he 's racing against, and try to " help hi m u nderstand w hat it' s all about. Ho w does Ma rlboro Team Ra iney's link ' w ith Marlboro Team Rob erts wo rk? If there's a nything that needs to be ma de for ou r b ikes , I ta lk to Kenny (Roberts) about it: Kenny's overseeing the 250 tea m like his 500 thing; it's kind a all the sa me deal now . As for the team, the mechani cs a nd th e ri ders a nd m e, we're all Marlboro Team Rain ey guys, b ut as far as getting stuff made, tha t' s all Team Roberts . It's all un der Kenny's u mbr ell a. N ext year it will all be separated. Is yo ur plan to run a 500 " team eventually? Most certainly, bu t I thin k the 250 dea l is a perfect way for me to come back. Going through all the adjustm en ts I've had to make in my per sonal life, from the personal stu ff, to coming back to the circuits and experiencing all those emotions, toputting my nam e on the side of the bike and fine-tuning the team has been perfect for me. Obviously our rider was hurt before we started, a nd through th e te s ti ng we've done with Jimbo (Iimmy Filice) we found a lot of problems with the bike, so there's been no pressure on us to go out there and win a World Championship. But those problems were going to happen no matter what - (no matter) who was riding the bike , (or) whose name was on the side. You've also been helping the Marlboro Team Roberts 500 team, giving advice to Luca Cadalora and team newcomer Daryl Beattie. It' s fru str ating because those guys are having a hard time wi th the equipment. Dar yl made a huge change th is yea r, sw itching from Honda to Yamaha and Michelin to Dunlop. We didn't think it was going to be easy and obviously it' s not, but in Austria he had his h ead down, I think he rode a really good race co ns ideri ng th e problems th e team's having. At Jerez I told Mike Sinclair (Beattie's chi ef engineer), 'Man, just stick in that real soft front tire: Mike said there's no way it would last the race, but I kn ew it'd be good for Daryl 's confidence, and he wen t out there and went two seconds quicker . It wasn' t a ra ce tire, but as a rid er I could feel w hat Daryl was feeling, and someti mes you use something to get the confide nce back and let hi m know : 'Hey, it's no t your riding, it's an adj us tment p r obl em' , I can do li t tle things like that because I'm still thinking as a rider , whereas Kenny (Roberts) hasn't ridden since the end of time! I think we were real fortunate with the 500 over the last couple of years - we went as good as we could on that bike. I was used to the problems; they wer e just something I had to deal with. Now " w ith me not being there, it's real frustrating, I can see the other teams keep refin ing their 500s and we've got the same old ones . Your recovery has been remarkable. Are you glad you came back to racing a year earlier than planned? I'm back, but I'm still doing a lot of adjustments, because I still feel like a racer and I get frustrated when our 500 and 250 teams aren't doing good. I'm a team player, so I wan t Luca and Daryl; Yamaha and Team Roberts and my own team on top . I think if I were home, I'd be wondering what was really going on . Frank Williams told me to get back in the re as soon as possible, and it was the right decision to come back; it keep s my mind occupied. I' ve go t a lot of stuff going on so I've not got much time to think about nothing else but racing. Does team ownership seem more difficult now you're not looking at it from a rider's po int of view? I never conside red it when I was riding, but racing a m otorcycle is by fa r the hardest thing to do, because on Sunday it' s all up to you. This other stuff is a lot more time-consuming because th ere's always somebody that need s to talk to yo u, or you've always go t to ta lk to someb od y else, o r so m ebod y needs a n ans w e r r ight a wa y. This par t is new to me because I didn't have to do this stuff befo re - as a ri der you can sh u t th e d o o r and say ' Do n ' t talk to me ', but as a team owner you have to talk to everybody. I want to be successful so I'm working ha r d a t that, but you can't be successful right off - brandnew tea ms don't come in and wi n World Championships in their first year. I just want to make sure that next year all the p layers are in place and the team gels right. Were you surprised by the warmth of th e rec eptio n you r ec ei ve d from fans and the paddock on your return? I didn 't know what to expect, but for su re it's helped me a lot.' It's n ice that people see m e and don't care about the wheelchair; at least from w hat I can tell. They seem to say: ' Hey, he 's o kay, he just can't move them legs: For su re that's h elped " e a m bunch , bec a use I d idn't w ant to co me b ack and u pset a b unch of p eople, and so far I ha ven 't se en that. I think people need to know that being in a wh eelchair is oka y; it 's jus t th e way it ended up for me, but they can see I can still be productive and I still want to do things. I've now got a much broader focus. I'm not only in tere sted in motorcycle racing like whenI was a racer, now I'm into in all aspects of the industry. I think I can have a much bigger impact now because I can touch things in a lot of ways I couldn't when I was a racer. When you're a racer, you 'have to be focused gn yourself and winning, Now, I can focus on what we can do for safety in the future, what w e can do for the image of motorcycling, and how we can raise awareness. You don't have time for all that stuff when you're a racer, so it's a whole new world of interesting possibilities for me. (:N

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