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where we raced five laps and the winner won $10,000. I won a few of those that year. I also remember that was the year that we went to the Trans-Atlantic Match Races in England, and Kevin [Schwantz] and I won ev- erything. That was kind of where our rivalry started, too. We were banging into each other pretty good over there, and we really woke the Europeans up as to who Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz were. We were on the American team, but we were rac- ing each other like we weren't." Recall that Rainey had already done a stint in Europe back in 1984, and now he admits that at that time he didn't feel he was ready to be there. "Kenny Roberts had put a 250 team together just before the sea- son started that year, and we ba- sically got the bikes at Daytona, raced there and won, and then went straight to South Africa," Rainey says. "I had never been out of the States before that, and I went to Europe and had to drive my own motorhome and live in it by myself. I remember that was when they had push starts, and I wasn't very good at those either. I had some good races, but I came home at the end of the year. I knew that I still had a lot of work to do before I could race in the World Championships." By contrast, after '87 Rainey knew he was ready to take on the world. "What Honda did for me really was prepare me to go back to Europe," Rainey says. "When we won the championship in '87, I was ready to go back. I felt like I had done all that I could do in America." Unfortunately, Honda didn't feel the same way. "We had worked really hard to win the championship in 1987, and it was important for me to win that championship because I knew that 1988 was going to be a turning point for me," Rainey says. "My goal was to go to Europe, but Honda only offered me the chance to keep racing Superbikes in the States." It was a big letdown, but look- ing back on it now, Rainey feels that the decision had more to do with the upper brass at Honda never being a Rainey fan. "I never really felt like Honda was totally behind me," Rainey says. "The team that Honda had put together was basically from Kawasaki. Gary Mathers and Rob Muzzy were from Kawasaki, and Sparky Edmonston was from Kawasaki. We were Kawasaki guys racing Hondas, and we just never really fit into Honda's scene even though we won the championship for them." In stepped Yamaha and Ken- ny Roberts, who offered Rainey a 500cc GP deal that would pay the same amount of money that Honda was offering—in other words, chicken feed by GP standards. Hmmm. What to do? "I said yes to Kenny and cut my ties with Honda, who also provided me added incen- tive to go beat them in Europe," Rainey says. "It's funny because in '89, when we were racing against Eddie and he was on the Honda, different people from Honda would come and tell me that they were pushing to get me back to Honda, like there was another door open for me over there." But Rainey never stepped through that door. Instead, he stayed with Roberts for 1990, and the rest is Yamaha history. CN This Archives edition is reprinted from the April 20, 2005, issue of Cycle News. CN has hundreds of past Archives editions in our files, too many destined to be archives themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, in the future, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road. -Editor CN III ARCHIVES P126 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives "WE WERE KAWASAKI GUYS RACING HONDAS, AND WE JUST NEVER REALLY FIT INTO HONDA'S SCENE EVEN THOUGH WE WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP FOR THEM."

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